Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dicka Abrielle with you Friday,
Speaker 1: the eve of game day, and it's kind of a
Speaker 1: Saggi Friday. Maybe a Sagi Saturday as well might not
Speaker 1: be a bad thing for the Wildcats. We all remember
Speaker 1: what happened last time Kentucky played Georgia in the rain
Speaker 1: that was down there in Athens. That was the Lynn
Speaker 1: Boden season, as has come to be called, when he
Speaker 1: was pressed into service as a QB. And it seemed
Speaker 1: maybe not that South Carolina game where he took over
Speaker 1: late and showed what he was about to do, but
Speaker 1: seemed like every game after that was rain. And it
Speaker 1: certainly helped the Wildcats because any team that was inclined
Speaker 1: to throw the ball had to think twice about it
Speaker 1: because remember, it wasn't just rain, it was a lot
Speaker 1: of rain, and for whatever reason, it didn't slow the
Speaker 1: Kentucky running attack, not just Lynn Bowden but anybody else
Speaker 1: who ran the football. So now the Belk ball, gorgeous day,
Speaker 1: bright sunshine, crisp weather, and what happened, Well, Bowden got
Speaker 1: his yards on the ground, but then he wins the
Speaker 1: game with a touchdown pass. But I don't think that
Speaker 1: happens on Saturday. I think that Georgia is going to
Speaker 1: come in ready to go, no matter what the weather.
Speaker 1: I think Kentucky will be more ready than it was
Speaker 1: last week. But it might not matter. George is just
Speaker 1: really really good, as you know. So coming up tonight
Speaker 1: we'll hear from Mark Stoops that comes up after our
Speaker 1: first break justin Rowland, Have Cats Illustrated? Will join us.
Speaker 1: We'll get his take not just on Kentucky football, but
Speaker 1: on recruiting as well. For basketball. Things have gone well
Speaker 1: for Mark Pope and company. Hallie DeVore from WTVQ to
Speaker 1: new home for SEC football will join us as well.
Speaker 1: She is often at practice conducting interviews with not just
Speaker 1: Stoops but players, and she also was an athlete at
Speaker 1: Northwestern ran track and cross country and in the Pac
Speaker 1: twelve I'm sorry, in the Pac ten which is now
Speaker 1: the Pac twe well as well as the Back ten.
Speaker 1: Some of those Pac twelve teams umed up in the
Speaker 1: Big ten. She did not have to travel the way
Speaker 1: these kids now will have to travel in the Pac ten,
Speaker 1: So I will ask her about that. We'll look back
Speaker 1: on the week and Heroes, fools and Flakes a little
Speaker 1: bit later on. But I want to start with football,
Speaker 1: not college football today, but the pro game, because two
Speaker 1: at Toungue Boloa last night took another wicked shot and
Speaker 1: has been sidelined with a concussion. By coincidence, I was
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati the night that he went down against the Bengals,
Speaker 1: and another odd coincidence, some weeks later, we all know
Speaker 1: what happened Damar Hamlin, who nearly lost his life on
Speaker 1: the Bengals playing field. But you know that story. He's
Speaker 1: come all the way back to play football. And not
Speaker 1: only that, he was the guy who tackled tu when
Speaker 1: Tungue of Olio went down with a concussion. It looked
Speaker 1: like a routine tackle, but when you look at the
Speaker 1: slow and it was not Hamlin delivering a helmet to
Speaker 1: helmet blow. It was Tongue of Aloa hitting Hamlin as
Speaker 1: they went down, kind of banged his helmet off Hamlin's chest.
Speaker 1: So he goes down with another concussion, and now the
Speaker 1: discussion is should he keep playing football? Because remember now
Speaker 1: that concussion at Cincinnati last year that had him down
Speaker 1: on the field for quite a while and sideline for
Speaker 1: a while was not his first, but they kind of
Speaker 1: overlooked the first one that year. He had gone down
Speaker 1: in a game earlier, and when he got up, was wobbly,
Speaker 1: didn't know where he was, started to walk to the
Speaker 1: wrong huddle, and yet he was cleared by doctors on
Speaker 1: the sideline and they sent him back in. I am
Speaker 1: not an expert, but I've talked to several medical people
Speaker 1: through the years and read things and heard things. This
Speaker 1: much I know about concussions. If you have won one,
Speaker 1: the next one comes just a little easier, and the
Speaker 1: one after that, and God help you the one after that.
Speaker 1: And it's been described to me as a bruise to
Speaker 1: your brain, and in some corners they say you never
Speaker 1: fully recover. And now, of course all the research about
Speaker 1: CTE players taking their own lives, and just recently, the
Speaker 1: widow of Guy Morris, Jackie Morris, posted about the fact
Speaker 1: that Guimo donated his brain to research. And of course
Speaker 1: Guimo late had Alzheimer's late in his life and they
Speaker 1: examined his brain and he had quite a bit of
Speaker 1: evidence of CTE. So this is just a terrible development
Speaker 1: in pro football through the years. I think some of
Speaker 1: it is the fact that they're better at diagnosing it.
Speaker 1: Back in the day they would laugh it off and
Speaker 1: a guy got his belt wrung. Also, the helmets are
Speaker 1: so much better now, so guys can turn them the
Speaker 1: missiles and not think twice about it. But something's got
Speaker 1: to give, and far too often it's the brain. And
Speaker 1: on ESPN this morning, Bart Scott, who was an NFL linebacker,
Speaker 1: played for eleven years but hunging up a little bit
Speaker 1: early because of symptoms he experienced after yet another concussion.
Speaker 1: He said, finally the worries just took over and he
Speaker 1: had to step down for the good of his health.
Speaker 1: But he said, it's just not easy.
Speaker 2: Everybody think I retired because my toe right, I had
Speaker 2: reconstructuring surgery on my toe and I left, But really
Speaker 2: it was because, like I started seeing spots and lights,
Speaker 2: I had light sensitivity. I never really shared this with anybody,
Speaker 2: but I feel inclined to do this in this intimate,
Speaker 2: you know, setting that we have, and I didn't know
Speaker 2: what to do, and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 2: it's time to fold it up. And you know, it's
Speaker 2: about the people that's around tool, right, because it's hard
Speaker 2: for him not to make an emotional decision. That's why
Speaker 2: you put people around you, your team that you trust
Speaker 2: with your life and to make lifelong decisions, and you
Speaker 2: give them the information and then you come together and
Speaker 2: you make a collective decision because it can't be a decision.
Speaker 2: And sometimes you know, I regret that I walked away,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you know because.
Speaker 3: You have to live with that.
Speaker 2: Like you know, leaving a game that you've dedicated your
Speaker 2: entire life to is like a death. I tell people
Speaker 2: all the top mornings have two dogs, right, and you
Speaker 2: don't know what to do. You wake up the next
Speaker 2: day and you're thirty years old, you're twenty years old,
Speaker 2: and you don't know what you want to do with
Speaker 2: the rest of your life. And everything that you have
Speaker 2: done has been defined by being a football player. And
Speaker 2: it's not who you are, it's what you do. But
Speaker 2: all the laws and everything that we've learned and all
Speaker 2: the best qualities of us will learn on the football field,
Speaker 2: how to work with others, how to be accountable, and
Speaker 2: now you're not a part of that. And it's the
Speaker 2: loneliest feeling in the world. That's why we see guys
Speaker 2: and we don't know why guys commit suicide, but it's
Speaker 2: that lonely feeling of being not around anybody and feel
Speaker 2: like you have no worth.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine after you make a decision like that
Speaker 1: and you leave football. Now, I'm retired from the daily
Speaker 1: life of WKYT. But when I retired, I was able
Speaker 1: to move into or keep doing other things like this
Speaker 1: radio show and the SEC network and the UK network.
Speaker 1: But I never had to just stop Cold Turkey, so
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine what it's like, as Bart Scott said,
Speaker 1: to wake up the next day and feel like you
Speaker 1: have no worth. I don't think I would have even
Speaker 1: if I had none of these other projects going, simply
Speaker 1: because I was in television for thirty five years. I
Speaker 1: had had my pill and I don't care who you are.
Speaker 1: As a pro athlete, your career is very likely never
Speaker 1: as long as you hope it would be, because you're
Speaker 1: living a dream. Not saying I wasn't in TV, but
Speaker 1: everything has its ups and downs. But when you're a
Speaker 1: pro football player, you are one of the best in
Speaker 1: the world and you're making great money. You're living the
Speaker 1: life something you dreamed of your entire life, and boom,
Speaker 1: you give it up. And not only do you give
Speaker 1: it up, and I'm sure Bart Scott felt like it
Speaker 1: was taken away from him, and if Tua has to
Speaker 1: hang it up, which you know what, he probably should.
Speaker 1: It's easy for me to say he's set for life financially,
Speaker 1: but still he's got to feel like the game is
Speaker 1: going to be taken away from him, but for the
Speaker 1: sake of himself his family. I don't know what his
Speaker 1: family situation's like, but I guarantee he's not alone in
Speaker 1: life right now. It's just too dangerous. And you know what,
Speaker 1: if you know anything about him, and I've read about him,
Speaker 1: I've never met the man, but he is incredibly well liked.
Speaker 1: In fact, after last night's game the Bills beat the Dolphins,
Speaker 1: this is what Josh Allen said on Amazon Primes broadcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think if you know too outside of football,
Speaker 4: like you do, like I do, you can't help but
Speaker 4: feel for him. He is in a great football player,
Speaker 4: but he's an even greater human being. He's one of
Speaker 4: the best humans on the planet. You know, I got
Speaker 4: a lot of love for him, and I'm just praying
Speaker 4: for him and his family and hoping everything's okay. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it's tough, man. This is this game of football that
Speaker 4: we play. It's got it ties and it's got its lows,
Speaker 4: and that's definitely one of the lows.
Speaker 1: So that's Bill's quarterback. Josh Allen on Amazon Prime Sticking
Speaker 1: with a TV. We talked a little bit this week
Speaker 1: about Tom Brady's debut, and again it was you know,
Speaker 1: and everybody said the same thing about it. Paul fine
Speaker 1: Baum destroyed him by praising when he was praising Nick Saban,
Speaker 1: And of course fine Bomb'm a huge fan of Saban
Speaker 1: in Alabama, so you expect him to be a complimentary
Speaker 1: of Saban, and he did so at the expense of Brady.
Speaker 1: He talked about Saban, called him analytical and precise on
Speaker 1: ESPN's College Game Day show, and he talked about Tom
Speaker 1: Brady and said he had to watch him stumble, fumble
Speaker 1: and waste the audience's time, but Hackney cliches and tempered
Speaker 1: comments when good, well founded experience and opinion would suffice
Speaker 1: has been fascinating. He said, I don't think Nick Saban
Speaker 1: could be off to a better start, and that's true,
Speaker 1: but it's not fair. And I don't know fine Bomb
Speaker 1: at all. I mean, I respect his work, I don't
Speaker 1: always agree with him, and I don't agree with him here.
Speaker 1: I mean he's right, Sabin was better than Brady. But
Speaker 1: it's apples and pineapples. What was Sabin doing and he
Speaker 1: was really good? What was he doing? I'm watching him
Speaker 1: and I realized, he's breaking down film. He's coaching us,
Speaker 1: he's coaching the guys on the set, he's coaching the audience.
Speaker 1: Why because that's what he's good at. That's what he's
Speaker 1: done his entire career. He was, as they say, breaking
Speaker 1: down film. It's video, I know, but he was breaking
Speaker 1: down film. And he's a good talker. He's been interviewed
Speaker 1: a thousand times, a million times, as says Brady. But
Speaker 1: what was Brady doing. Brady was generating original thought and
Speaker 1: reacting and responding live on the air. If Brady had
Speaker 1: been standing up in front of a whiteboard or had
Speaker 1: been preparing, you know, since Friday to talk about certain
Speaker 1: plays on VITI, you don't think Saban rehearsed. Of course
Speaker 1: he did. He prepared, so did Brady, but he prepared
Speaker 1: by doing practice games. But what he was doing was
Speaker 1: live on the air and responding in real time, which
Speaker 1: ain't easy, folks, trust me on that. I've done it.
Speaker 1: I've done color a little bit. I'm not good at it.
Speaker 1: Obviously I was not a college or pro athlete, of course,
Speaker 1: But also if you're a playbook play guy, when you
Speaker 1: get started, it's easier than color because you're reacting and
Speaker 1: describing to what you see instantly, you know so and
Speaker 1: so takes the snap drops back, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But now if you're the person breaking it down and
Speaker 1: you have fifteen seconds and maybe a producer in your
Speaker 1: ear or you're referring to replay, yeah, you might fall
Speaker 1: back on a a what do you call it, a
Speaker 1: hackneyed cliche, which no one should ever do. But that's
Speaker 1: a security blanket, and too many people fall back on
Speaker 1: that way too many times. Brady's gonna get better. Will
Speaker 1: he be great? I don't know. John Madden wasn't great
Speaker 1: when he started. He's considered one of the all time best.
Speaker 1: Nobody is great when they started. Romo was very good.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call him great. Romo was popular because he
Speaker 1: predicted play. If he hadn't been predicting plays, would he
Speaker 1: have been considered great? I don't think so, simply because
Speaker 1: the reviews of Romo after he started centered on and
Speaker 1: they should have him predicting plays. Why because, first of all,
Speaker 1: he was good at it. Secondly, nobody else was doing that.
Speaker 1: He was unique, So really unfair, I think a fine
Speaker 1: baumb because Brady and Saban were doing two entirely different jobs. Now,
Speaker 1: Saban maybe he could sit down in a booth and
Speaker 1: blow again, blow Brady out of the water. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, because again it's just a different mission. But
Speaker 1: give Brady time. I'll be curious to hear what he's
Speaker 1: like at the end of the year by playoff time
Speaker 1: compared to where he is now. Up next, Mark Stoops
Speaker 1: trying to get his team ready for those Georgia Bulldogs.
Speaker 1: A little bit later, justin Roland here on six thirty WLAP.
Speaker 1: Welcome back coming up in just a few minutes, justin
Speaker 1: Rowland of Cats Illustrated. We'll talk Kentucky football and basketball recruiting,
Speaker 1: and of course it's Kentucky Georgia coming up tomorrow night,
Speaker 1: a game you will hear right here on six thirty WLAP.
Speaker 1: It'll open with our celebrity broadcaster, let's call him that,
Speaker 1: Rich Brooks will open the broadcast, as we have had
Speaker 1: a couple of other former Wildcats open things up this week,
Speaker 1: Bill Ransdell in week number one, Jojo Kemp opened up
Speaker 1: last week's broadcast and Rich Brooks, who we heard from
Speaker 1: last night on the show. Two of his teams beat
Speaker 1: those Georgia Bulldogs, including twenty oh six when the Wildcats
Speaker 1: needed one more win to become Bowl eligible. They got
Speaker 1: it against Georgia went on to beat Vandy as well
Speaker 1: and then Clemson in the Music City bull So Rich
Speaker 1: will open the broadcast tomorrow night, Yours truly along with
Speaker 1: Tom Leach and Jeff Bicoro calling the action. Christy Thomas,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Jarman, and Logan Stenberg with our pregame coverage as
Speaker 1: Mark stoop sends his team out after another really good
Speaker 1: Georgia ball club and Stoops was talking in practice after
Speaker 1: practice just yesterday about the fact that they went back
Speaker 1: to work this week. They just tried to clean things
Speaker 1: up and go through the things they actually went through
Speaker 1: against South Carolina, just trying to do a better job
Speaker 1: and really hone in on some things that the Wildcats
Speaker 1: let get away last week. They got to nail it
Speaker 1: down this week.
Speaker 5: Practice is practice. We have to be able to carry
Speaker 5: that over to the field. Therefore, you have to watch
Speaker 5: what you do, what you install, make sure you know
Speaker 5: that we can handle what we're bringing to the game plan,
Speaker 5: and the players have that focus, you know, throughout the
Speaker 5: week to understand what we're trying to get accomplished and why,
Speaker 5: and you know, hopefully we'll make some growth in that area.
Speaker 1: You might recall an opening night a two quarters plus
Speaker 1: Kentucky scored thirty one, held USM scoreless, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: perfect by any means. Well, the problems that Kentucky might
Speaker 1: have had obviously reared their ugly heads against South Carolina,
Speaker 1: and according to Stoops, a lot of it was pre
Speaker 1: snap stuff, which is mental and you've got to have
Speaker 1: that nailed down before you take on a team like Georgia.
Speaker 5: We can't make growth if we're just worrying about, you
Speaker 5: know what the pre snap you know, I mean we
Speaker 5: have a we do a lot pre snap. We can't
Speaker 5: be you know, too consumed with that to not be
Speaker 5: able to execute. And I thought that was, you know,
Speaker 5: that was an issue last week. And we'll improve as
Speaker 5: year goes on and as they get more comfortable, because
Speaker 5: you know, you go through a spring, you go through
Speaker 5: camp and there's a lot of the face, a lot
Speaker 5: of things that are used to and then you throw
Speaker 5: in rakefules and you've got to be able to put
Speaker 5: that on top of it. You got to have the
Speaker 5: capacity to be able to handle all that, and we'll
Speaker 5: get better.
Speaker 1: And again, they may be a lot better this week,
Speaker 1: but it may not show on the scoreboard. We heard
Speaker 1: from Brock Vandergrift, the former Georgia Bulldog yesterday and of
Speaker 1: course on the defensive side, Jamon Johnson, a former Georgia Bulldog,
Speaker 1: a former Georgia All American playing linebacker now for the Wildcats,
Speaker 1: and naturally the media gravitated to him as well as Brock.
Speaker 1: Talking about going up against his former teammates, he said
Speaker 1: he still communicates with him. He said a lot of
Speaker 1: times he goes back to Georgia, back to Athens when
Speaker 1: he asks free time to be with his guys. But
Speaker 1: his guys now are the Wildcats, and he said he
Speaker 1: doesn't really feel like he has to go out and
Speaker 1: prove anything to his former teammates. He just wants to
Speaker 1: go out and play, play hard and win. And Stoops
Speaker 1: chimed in as.
Speaker 6: Well, I already deal didn't prove myself ready, but I
Speaker 6: don't think of it like that. It's just another game
Speaker 6: to get better. Another game. Try to win the ball
Speaker 6: game another game while they didn't play, man, just playball,
Speaker 6: do your job and play as hard as you can.
Speaker 6: Pay it to one hundred percent and at the game,
Speaker 6: be the game.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 6: It ain't nothing you can do. Last week was last week,
Speaker 6: onto a new week. Pay the game.
Speaker 5: He's just a ballplayer, you know. I've said that his
Speaker 5: demeanor since he'd been here. He's a guy that just
Speaker 5: puts his head down and plays football. You know, he
Speaker 5: just you know, I love his attitude and the way
Speaker 5: he plays, and you never have to worry about him
Speaker 5: bringing it to the field and playing.
Speaker 1: Ball, basic football. But you gotta think there'll be a
Speaker 1: little bit extra when both Vandergriff and Pops they didn't
Speaker 1: really like to be called Pops anymore, but Johnson come
Speaker 1: out and to see those Georgia Bulldogs and the Silver
Speaker 1: Bridges warming up and then coming out of the tunnel
Speaker 1: before kickoff. So you'll see it tomorrow. You're here tomorrow
Speaker 1: off seven thirty five thirty broadcast time here on the
Speaker 1: UK Sports Network. Belated Happy Birthday to Mark Pope, the
Speaker 1: UK basketball coach. His birthday was actually a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago. A happy birthday today to my brother Charlie.
Speaker 1: Yesterday was my sister Peggy's birthday, so big week for birthdays.
Speaker 1: I got one coming up soon, but we thought we
Speaker 1: would go back and revisit a moment from when Stoops
Speaker 1: was hired because one of the Twitter accounts I think
Speaker 1: it was catch classic put up video of Mark Pope
Speaker 1: hitting the free throws that basically locked down the win
Speaker 1: over Syracuse. This is the CBS Sports audio as Jim
Speaker 1: Nance called it. First you hear Billy Packer, then you
Speaker 1: hear Jim Nance from nineteen ninety six as Mark Pope
Speaker 1: hit the two biggest free throws of his life to
Speaker 1: help the Wildcats nail down and win over Syracuse in
Speaker 1: the championship game.
Speaker 8: Now those people in Kentucky and really starts to feel it,
Speaker 8: the great support they have for their basketball team and
Speaker 8: have had.
Speaker 1: For so many years.
Speaker 8: Pope first though seventeen fouls in Syracuse as a critical
Speaker 8: one on one. The problem is who will Syracuse have
Speaker 8: as it's got to guy at the other end, Hope,
Speaker 8: who was a Rhodes Scholar candidate and the former Pac
Speaker 8: ten Freshman of the Year the University.
Speaker 9: Of Washington.
Speaker 8: SPATA don with a salute and Kentucky up seven with
Speaker 8: a minute four women.
Speaker 1: And I asked Mark Pope about that. You might recall
Speaker 1: from the news conference that it happened right after he
Speaker 1: was introduced a big pip route in the media. We
Speaker 1: the media got a chance to talk to him, and
Speaker 1: I asked him about that moment during the interviews that
Speaker 1: we produce on the ninety six Championship, and Pope told
Speaker 1: the story about what was going through his mind when
Speaker 1: he hit those shots. And you told me, I knew
Speaker 1: if I didn't hit those free throws, I could never
Speaker 1: come back to Kentucky again. Here you are, But how
Speaker 1: much is being a part of that championship team going
Speaker 1: to help you recruiting and building a program.
Speaker 10: So we have time, can I tell this story? So, so, guys,
Speaker 10: we're playing Syracuse to the National Championship, right and there's
Speaker 10: give or take a minute left.
Speaker 3: And really, the.
Speaker 10: Only meaningful play that I made in my entire I
Speaker 10: was a bad player.
Speaker 3: The only meaningful player made my.
Speaker 10: Entire career Syracuse pushing the ball down the floor and
Speaker 10: I kind of trip and fall into a pass and
Speaker 10: deflected and they give me a foul. And so that's
Speaker 10: how good I was so so it happened right down
Speaker 10: there in the meadowlands. But that's why on the court,
Speaker 10: and I started walking from there to the free throw line.
Speaker 10: I don't know, it's fifty seconds. Someone looking up, there's
Speaker 10: fifty seconds left. I think we were maybe up three,
Speaker 10: maybe up five. And there was only one thought.
Speaker 3: This is, honestly the truth.
Speaker 10: I wasn't thinking about form or team or celebration or score.
Speaker 5: I literally was walking and.
Speaker 10: I promised, this is your shoe. The only thought that
Speaker 10: came into my mind was if I don't make this,
Speaker 10: they are going to kill me. And who won't want that.
Speaker 10: That's why we're here, guys, That's what we do, So
Speaker 10: that's that's important.
Speaker 1: And of course he was referring to the guys as
Speaker 1: former teammates and former wild Cats in general. They were
Speaker 1: standing over up to the side. Remember they all would
Speaker 1: have killed him if you had missed those freed nine.
Speaker 1: Not really, but that's what kind of pressure you put
Speaker 1: on himself and his teammates later told us that Stoops,
Speaker 1: after practice every day would shoot free throws, telling himself,
Speaker 1: this is it, the game's on the line, this is
Speaker 1: for the big trophy. Things like that, and when he
Speaker 1: finally got his chance, he came through. So belated happy
Speaker 1: birthday to Mark Pope, who turned fifty two on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: So young, Still just a kid, all right? When we
Speaker 1: come back, Justin Roland new Cat illustrated here on six thirty,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the Big Moonsider joining us now in
Speaker 1: a celebrity hotline. Justin Rowland of Cat Illustrated Between work
Speaker 1: and kids and all. We having a chance to chat
Speaker 1: with Justin for a while. How are you, sir?
Speaker 7: I'm great, Dick always a player here to come on, man,
Speaker 7: talk about.
Speaker 1: Today we do, indeed, both football and basketball, because recruiting
Speaker 1: has been a source of joy for the Big Moon Nation.
Speaker 1: But let us first talk about the tough one Kentucky
Speaker 1: Georgia tomorrow. Georgia is really good, Kentucky is struggling. I mean,
Speaker 1: what has to happen tomorrow for Mark Stoops to at
Speaker 1: least call Saturday something of a success because it's gonna
Speaker 1: be tough.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean, I think what fans should do is
Speaker 7: to separate last week from this week. You know, you
Speaker 7: hope that performance you saw last week against South Carolina
Speaker 7: was a one off, but you might not know because
Speaker 7: Georgia can do terrible things to just about anybody, and
Speaker 7: they have so many ways to attack you. So I
Speaker 7: would say, if Kentucky can make Georgia sweat, if they
Speaker 7: can make it somewhat respectable going into the second half,
Speaker 7: if they could maybe put a touchdown drive together. I mean,
Speaker 7: these are things that not everybody does. And Clinston had
Speaker 7: three points, and Clinston could turn off to be a
Speaker 7: really good team. So you got to look for success
Speaker 7: on different levels against a team like this.
Speaker 1: Well, what has to happen if you're Kentucky to make
Speaker 1: that happen.
Speaker 7: But they got a block better upfront. That's that's a
Speaker 7: big part of it. Here's a hard thing I think
Speaker 7: when when you're bush Handen and you're looking at how
Speaker 7: do I attack this Georgia defense. Even if you had
Speaker 7: a great offensive line, it's still going to be an
Speaker 7: extremely difficult team to move the ball again, And when
Speaker 7: you look at how those tackles and those guards didn't
Speaker 7: hold up in pass protection last week, you've got to
Speaker 7: figure they're going to be holding back a lot of
Speaker 7: tight ends, a lot of back to block and to
Speaker 7: protect van Neigrifts. Because that went off the rails and
Speaker 7: so it's going to be hard to get open. I think, fuck,
Speaker 7: he's going to have to run the ball, Run the ball,
Speaker 7: run the ball. A couple of these old fashioned Scoots
Speaker 7: Kirby games where it was just kind of a slug fest,
Speaker 7: it seemed to fit fourteen to three, twenty one to nothing.
Speaker 7: That's kind of probably what you're hoping as opposed to
Speaker 7: Carson Beck, you know, throwing for three hundred and fifty
Speaker 7: yards in five touchdowns, what he can do against anybodys.
Speaker 7: So maybe it'll be a game that's played closer to
Speaker 7: the des by by both teams. I think a lot
Speaker 7: of Georgia few people are expecting Kirby to play this
Speaker 7: and closer to the fest, so that in of itself
Speaker 7: would make it a little more respectful.
Speaker 1: Leason, why do you think they expect Kirby just to
Speaker 1: kind of hide things from people?
Speaker 7: Well, the weather, the weather's been up in the air.
Speaker 7: You're going on the road in your first SEC road game,
Speaker 7: and you just look at how Georgia has played in
Speaker 7: Lexington in the past. It's not a game where they
Speaker 7: go in and they try to sling the ball around
Speaker 7: the yard. Kirby has always had a lot of respect
Speaker 7: for Kentucky's physicality under Mark Stoops, and I think he
Speaker 7: just knows he doesn't have to show a lot. That's
Speaker 7: not knock on Kentucky, but Kentucky Understoops has tried to
Speaker 7: basically beat Georgia light. And you don't beat Georgia by
Speaker 7: being Georgia light. And that's kind of the opposite situation
Speaker 7: that George has had against Alabama. Georgia has tried to
Speaker 7: do Alabama better than Alabama's done Alabama if they haven't
Speaker 7: often had success doing that. But you know it both
Speaker 7: seems to commit to running the ball. It could be
Speaker 7: a more interesting game.
Speaker 1: Can I assume you sat with Dismay watching last week?
Speaker 1: I mean, that was a total shock to I got
Speaker 1: to think justin it was a surprise to South Carolina
Speaker 1: people because I know some folks who on the South
Speaker 1: Carolina side, fans and media included, who expected Kentucky to win,
Speaker 1: maybe not in a blowout, but win handily. And it
Speaker 1: was exact opposite.
Speaker 7: Sownth Carolina has some real dudes on that front. So
Speaker 7: I mean, here's a hard thing. They might get to
Speaker 7: the end the season only have five or six wins.
Speaker 7: We don't know, but we know they have a lot
Speaker 7: of athletes on their front seven. And knowing what we
Speaker 7: know about Kentucky's offensive line, now the questions that we
Speaker 7: now have, you can see how that matchup would dip
Speaker 7: it in that direction, but they can really get after it.
Speaker 7: And you see how Beamer has recruited and how you
Speaker 7: recruit the qortal not just Dylan Stewart the freshman, but
Speaker 7: also Kyle Kinnard and those defensive tackles that came back.
Speaker 7: It was a bad matchup for Kentucky and there's probably
Speaker 7: some things they could have done differently as well. They
Speaker 7: could have got to the run that the one quarter
Speaker 7: they ran nineteen times and passed once. The second quarter
Speaker 7: they won sixty three. So be interesting to see if
Speaker 7: the offensive line continues to regguling pass protection and SUPs
Speaker 7: has to think about maybe going back to the old
Speaker 7: Lady Grant proach.
Speaker 1: Well, you are right and that South Caroline has got dues,
Speaker 1: But buddy, in the SEC, everybody's got dues. Right, What
Speaker 1: did we learn about the old line Saturday that maybe
Speaker 1: we didn't know going in?
Speaker 7: I mean, the problem is like you could see South
Speaker 7: Carolina identify weaknesses in real time and attack those weaknesses,
Speaker 7: and Kentucky did not have the number of answers to
Speaker 7: counter that. So when Infty Crease is in the game,
Speaker 7: it tackle Dylan Ray in the game, they overloaded that side.
Speaker 7: Prese struggled in pass protection, and then they had three
Speaker 7: guys blocking to protect Vandergris right side, and Dylan Stewart,
Speaker 7: the freshman, still chases him down out of the pocket
Speaker 7: court to the solway. So they've got to roll the pocket.
Speaker 7: They have to identify the one or two real trouble
Speaker 7: spots and just compensate for that. The problem is against Georgia,
Speaker 7: when you start leaving extra guys back to block, it
Speaker 7: was almost impossible to find open field to throw to.
Speaker 1: You know, we keep looking back on the Big Blue Wall,
Speaker 1: and that was in three out of five spots NFL ready,
Speaker 1: and the other two guys at least were in NFL camps.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, Justin, is an unfair of us to expect
Speaker 1: Kentucky to play back to that level because that was
Speaker 1: almost unpreceded. Unprecedented when it comes to a Kentucky offensive line,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the state hasn't produced the number of offensive linemen
Speaker 7: that you wanted it to capitalize on that success, because
Speaker 7: then Ohio State gets Ryan Day and they start recruiting
Speaker 7: Ohio more, taking more Ohio linemen. This is the same
Speaker 7: time Jim Harbaugh is that Michigan taken more Ohio linemen
Speaker 7: and Tennessee is on the come up, and so recruiting
Speaker 7: there gets harder. It's just a convergence of circumstances. And
Speaker 7: also so many offensive line coaches in a short period
Speaker 7: of time, so much offensive coordinator turnover. It's the nil
Speaker 7: Portal era, so continuity development has just been lacking. My
Speaker 7: opinion is the line should have been better than it
Speaker 7: was last week. For sure, no question that can't happen.
Speaker 7: But I wonder if they went into this season resting
Speaker 7: on their laurels a little bit. I'm not singling guys out,
Speaker 7: but thinking that they were good in certain when they
Speaker 7: were really just kind of mad. I mean, Jagger has
Speaker 7: had bright moments, but he has struggled. I think Jalen Farmer,
Speaker 7: they expected to come in and be a great sec
Speaker 7: starting guard, but he had never been that before. And
Speaker 7: Gerald Mincy had starting experience, but he wasn't going to
Speaker 7: be a starter at Tennessee. Or Florida, where he had
Speaker 7: previously been. So you see, it's really hard to rebuild
Speaker 7: an offensive line if you get bad on the offensive one,
Speaker 7: it's really hard to do. And so they're trying trying
Speaker 7: to dig out of that hole.
Speaker 1: Well, you go back to where I think it all started,
Speaker 1: when they moved Bunchie over to guard. They put Drake
Speaker 1: into starting job at center. He's local, Bunchie was a
Speaker 1: nice player. I don't know that anybody expected him to
Speaker 1: be an All American And Drake became an SEC center
Speaker 1: as good as anybody in the league. So, yeah, they've
Speaker 1: just got to dig those guys up. And it's easier
Speaker 1: said than done, isn't it. You know about recruiting as
Speaker 1: well as anybody.
Speaker 7: Let's say a lot of this you just don't know
Speaker 7: how it's going to play out until you see it.
Speaker 7: Like who knew Luke Luke Cortner is going to be
Speaker 7: a second round pick? Yeah, yes, moving over and Eric
Speaker 7: Wolford moved in there. That was Eric Wolford who took
Speaker 7: kind of the guy who was lesser Nolim than Drake
Speaker 7: Jackson and Landon Young and turned him into a second
Speaker 7: round pick after one season at center, so Wolford has
Speaker 7: the track record of building an offensive line. But I
Speaker 7: guess the promising thing is there are some younger guys
Speaker 7: they seem excited about. They seem to think that if
Speaker 7: Amfony Creast can stop leaning in pass protection, then he
Speaker 7: can be a really nice big body for him. And
Speaker 7: Malachi Woods looks a lot more ready than he was
Speaker 7: when he got to Kentucky and have a Selm and
Speaker 7: somebody who could provide depth on the interior. But it's
Speaker 7: just like you're moving at a glacial page when you're
Speaker 7: developing offensive lineman. You're talking about guys that need to
Speaker 7: need to develop for like one, two, even three years
Speaker 7: sometimes before they're ready.
Speaker 1: Justin Rowland, as my guess, we'll come back and talk
Speaker 1: about Kentucky recruiting on the basketball side. On the other
Speaker 1: side of the break here we're talking with Justin Rowland
Speaker 1: of Cats Illustrated and the basketball Wildcats. That season's coming
Speaker 1: out as fast, but recruiting season has been good to
Speaker 1: the Wildcats. How a huge It's kind of an obvious question,
Speaker 1: but getting Jasper Johnson getting the local not just that,
Speaker 1: Justin but turning him around apparently was heading for either
Speaker 1: Alabama or North Carolina, depending on who you're talking to.
Speaker 1: But that makes it even bigger, doesn't it.
Speaker 7: It does, And you know, somebody could look at this
Speaker 7: and say, well, he's a kid from the state, and
Speaker 7: so of course he should go to Kentucky right on
Speaker 7: the heels of Keller. But if you think about it
Speaker 7: another way, kind of what Pope is selling at Kentucky
Speaker 7: is what like Nate Oaks is kind of already doing
Speaker 7: at Alabama. Yeah, so there is kind of a leap
Speaker 7: of faith on Jasper's part to say, yeah, I think
Speaker 7: I believe in what Mark Pope is saying, and I'm
Speaker 7: entrusted in my future to him when I've got one
Speaker 7: or two years to springboard where i want to be.
Speaker 7: And so I obviously locked him down. That was big time.
Speaker 7: I don't know if he's a guy you want to
Speaker 7: like hand the keys to and be the guy right away,
Speaker 7: but I don't think that's the era we're in at
Speaker 7: Kentucky right now. So you can keep him in the
Speaker 7: program for a couple of years. He could be a
Speaker 7: great offensive peace one.
Speaker 1: I don't think we've talked about Malachai Moreno, since you
Speaker 1: and I chatted last and again, another great get local
Speaker 1: and a big who's going to take a little more time.
Speaker 1: But he's he's probably more skilled than people think, isn't he.
Speaker 7: I think so? I think he's skilled. You can make
Speaker 7: the case he's one of the best centers in the
Speaker 7: class and he's got length and his skill set. When
Speaker 7: you when you think about how he could develop, seems
Speaker 7: like he could be a great fit for what Pope
Speaker 7: wants to do with the passing and whatnot. So Pope
Speaker 7: came in talking about a new approach, a new era,
Speaker 7: and it seems like with his class, that's exactly what
Speaker 7: he's doing. Maybe not the top five, top ten players,
Speaker 7: but those guys aren't going to final fours. It's the
Speaker 7: high four star low five stars that stick around and
Speaker 7: stick around and developed and maybe don't hit right away,
Speaker 7: but you get the payoff later on. That's that's kind
Speaker 7: of what Pope is loading up on right now.
Speaker 1: Timing is everything in sports. We all know that Pope
Speaker 1: comes in pledges to build the program a certain way,
Speaker 1: and right out of the shoot justin he's able to
Speaker 1: snag two locals. I don't know how long they'll be here,
Speaker 1: but there's a chance that they can help him with
Speaker 1: a foundation at his program. I mean, he worked his
Speaker 1: tail off to get both of them because it looked
Speaker 1: like Malachi was going to go to Indiana for a
Speaker 1: while and then that changed and we all we just
Speaker 1: talked about Jasper Johnson. But they can just throw some
Speaker 1: wins together on the court. So far, so good.
Speaker 7: He's pressing the right buttons so far. Like I think
Speaker 7: the most encouraging thing is when you would hear Mark
Speaker 7: Pope particulate his vision for the program to plan and
Speaker 7: how he would want it to come together. I think
Speaker 7: it's pretty much come together like that, just in terms
Speaker 7: of I mean, he was able to put together a
Speaker 7: full roster in one off season, and we don't know
Speaker 7: if they're going to be good enough to make a run,
Speaker 7: but on the surface, ostensibly it looks like a really interesting, tough,
Speaker 7: extremely experienced team. So you got you're going to be
Speaker 7: extremely experienced. You're going to be getting back to that
Speaker 7: defensive greatness. You would imagine they should be able to
Speaker 7: bank that. They're getting local kids. They're talking about Saris
Speaker 7: really the inverse of the Caliperi era. So far, so far,
Speaker 7: so it'll be interesting to see year one. We'll have
Speaker 7: more to talk about. But I think this team is interesting.
Speaker 7: You know, we've seen college basketball teams make deep runs
Speaker 7: that you never would have pegged before that. And if
Speaker 7: you can play great defense, and if you can knock
Speaker 7: down outside shots, you're going to be a dangerous team.
Speaker 7: In March a.
Speaker 1: Couple more minutes with Justin Rowland of the Rivals Network,
Speaker 1: I have not seen one nano second of practice. I
Speaker 1: have no idea what's going on over there. I have
Speaker 1: talked to somebody who said that the question is, how's
Speaker 1: this team going to score? Other than Jackson Robinson, where
Speaker 1: will the point production come from? Do you think that's
Speaker 1: going to be a source of concern.
Speaker 7: Yes, that's my concern. When I just looked at the
Speaker 7: roster myself, the first thing that jumps out is how
Speaker 7: great of an offensive back court is Frista and Lamathaller.
Speaker 7: I'm not saying it's a bad offense at that court,
Speaker 7: but is that the kind of offensive punch, scoring punch
Speaker 7: in the back court that is going to power a
Speaker 7: team to the Final four? Well, Butler has done it.
Speaker 7: Butler has already done it, so we know that it's possible.
Speaker 7: But that's the only question. I mean, defense isn't a question.
Speaker 7: Shooting is not a question. Passing is not a question.
Speaker 7: For me, It's how much punch are they going to
Speaker 7: get from that back court?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because Butler is not known as an offensive guy, right,
Speaker 1: I mean it was more about defense.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you can score on the double figures, but he's
Speaker 7: not going to be somebody you rely on to get
Speaker 7: twenty five.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I'm sure you've been the same
Speaker 1: way talking to people about their expectations for this basketball season.
Speaker 1: Of course, you cover Kentucky basketball, so you know that
Speaker 1: that's a word that flies out the window, or at
Speaker 1: least blows up as a season draws near. At first,
Speaker 1: I talk with people about if we could just get
Speaker 1: to the tournament or just win a tournament game, and
Speaker 1: you know how that's going to morph into we got
Speaker 1: to make a run at the final four. But that's
Speaker 1: Kentucky basketball, right that is.
Speaker 7: I do think it's it's set up to be a
Speaker 7: little more reasonable in Pope's early tenure because they have
Speaker 7: gone a few years without having real tournament success. Because
Speaker 7: I think people understood he had to build an entire
Speaker 7: team in one offseason. But also, you know, in the
Speaker 7: past when Kentucky wouldn't be like the top dog in
Speaker 7: the SEC. There'd be a lot of side eye in
Speaker 7: that direction. I feel like people know Alabama is the
Speaker 7: team to be on paper in the SEC.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: People, they're just kind of going in. There's no there's
Speaker 7: no delusion that Kentucky is who everybody expects to dominate.
Speaker 7: They're not. This is a different setup in the SEC now.
Speaker 7: So fans are still going to get mad with losses,
Speaker 7: but I think they understand that this is not your
Speaker 7: grandfather's SEC basketball now.
Speaker 1: And I keep reminding people as well who have question
Speaker 1: marks about Pope and his postseason record, which is legit.
Speaker 1: But what is also legit is what he did at
Speaker 1: other programs at Utah Valley State. Brought them, you know,
Speaker 1: beyond where they had been and a'd brig him young
Speaker 1: same thing. I mean, he built good programs there without
Speaker 1: the resources. Clearly he has a Kentucky.
Speaker 7: Right, true, very true. I mean, what was Roy Williams's
Speaker 7: resume before he got the head coaching job at Kansas. Yeah,
Speaker 7: And I mean and Mark Pope has more head coaching
Speaker 7: experience than him going to Kentucky. And the flip side
Speaker 7: of not having the tournament success, although I don't think
Speaker 7: you really could have expected too much at the stops
Speaker 7: that he was at previously. The flip side is he
Speaker 7: hasn't proven that he has any kind of bad track
Speaker 7: record in Mark. I mean, you know that's true, he hasn't.
Speaker 7: But you really think about it, how many coaches out
Speaker 7: there have the kind of tournament resume that Kentucky fans
Speaker 7: aren't going to poke hold if they hired Bill self.
Speaker 7: You could talk about the two titles, or you could
Speaker 7: talk about the twenty twenty five years and how many
Speaker 7: early Extasy had and he's splitting the cares there, but
Speaker 7: the tournament is just such a crap shoot. It's really
Speaker 7: just about getting the right coach in the right players.
Speaker 1: You never want to see your two c lose to
Speaker 1: a fifteen, But even Mike Krzyzewski had a two seed
Speaker 1: lose to a fifteen. For the longest time, it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Then it only happened four times, and believe it or not,
Speaker 1: I was at two of those games, and then there
Speaker 1: was that lull, and then it seems like every other year.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you're right about that. Justin Roland, of course,
Speaker 1: we're a long time coverage of Kentucky. You can find
Speaker 1: him on Twitter or x whatever you'd like to call
Speaker 1: it at Roland Rivals. Thank you, sir, and stay dry,
Speaker 1: stay safe, and we'll talk to you down the road.
Speaker 7: Much appreciated it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Up next to Hallie DeVore and our number two. She
Speaker 1: is a reporter anchor for WTVQ channel thirty six, which
Speaker 1: is as odd as it sounds, the new home ABC
Speaker 1: for SEC football. So we'll talk to Halle. We'll also
Speaker 1: look back at some of the other odd balls to
Speaker 1: from the week in a preview of the Wildcat Whip
Speaker 1: if you haven't heard it already with Tom Leech McCarrel.
Speaker 1: That's next on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Big Blue Sider joining us now. You see your work
Speaker 1: on WTVQ reporter anchor Hallie DeVore. Hallie, you were anchoring
Speaker 1: last week, and I know that when you arrived at
Speaker 1: work on Saturday, I'm thinking you weren't prepared to type
Speaker 1: out scripts a out of South Carolina blowout. I mean,
Speaker 1: and you've you've interviewed players, You've been to the Stoops
Speaker 1: press conferences. I know you were about a surprise as
Speaker 1: the rest of us weren't you.
Speaker 11: Yeah, that's one of those games where you're putting in
Speaker 11: the rundown times for highlights and you're putting about a minute,
Speaker 11: thirty minute, forty long highlights and then you've got to
Speaker 11: readjust everything down to forty five seconds because there's just
Speaker 11: not many Kentucky highlights the show, and you know, you
Speaker 11: don't want to show field goals. That's just not not
Speaker 11: very exciting. So definitely a really disappointing week for Kentucky
Speaker 11: and unfortunately it just does not get easier this week
Speaker 11: with Georgia.
Speaker 1: No, and again you've you've talked to some people this
Speaker 1: week that that's the toughest part of all of this,
Speaker 1: I think is you know, in Stoop's talk yesterday about
Speaker 1: they knew what they had to work on, he felt
Speaker 1: like they had a good week of practice. Hollie, they
Speaker 1: might play twice as well as they played last week
Speaker 1: and it might not show up on the scoreboard. Right.
Speaker 11: No, Georgia is just I mean, they're the number one
Speaker 11: team in the country and for better for worse, UK
Speaker 11: gets to play them really early on. Something that you
Speaker 11: know Stoops and Bush have been talking about this whole
Speaker 11: week is executing and This is kind of the last
Speaker 11: week that I think they get to use that word.
Speaker 11: They've been saying the first two weeks. You know, we
Speaker 11: just need to work on executing better, executing better. This
Speaker 11: is when you have to actually start following through with
Speaker 11: that or find another reason that things need to get better.
Speaker 11: But Georgia really strong defense, really strong offense last week.
Speaker 11: Kentucky really struggled in the past game. And maybe Georgia's
Speaker 11: pass defense or George's run defense is a little better
Speaker 11: than their pass defense. Excuse me. So I think that
Speaker 11: this week, as hard as it's going to be, Kentucky
Speaker 11: and Stoops has been saying that they have to make
Speaker 11: explosive plays or else, this is going to be somehow
Speaker 11: worse than last week, and fans are going to start
Speaker 11: leaving you halftime.
Speaker 1: I was going to bring that up. Not only do
Speaker 1: they have to make explosive plays, they got to stop
Speaker 1: them as well. And that was something Brad White talked about.
Speaker 1: The first thing he talked about on media day was
Speaker 1: getting off the field on third down and not giving
Speaker 1: up explosive plays, especially on third down. And boy, Georgia
Speaker 1: is quite capable, isn't it.
Speaker 11: Georgia is quite capable. I mean, they have Carson Beck,
Speaker 11: who's arguably the best quarterback. One thing that Kentucky's defense
Speaker 11: does have, which is not much, but this is Georgia's
Speaker 11: first SEC matchup, so Kentucky might have a little bit
Speaker 11: of the upperhand there, having just played South Carolina, who's
Speaker 11: arguably a better team than Tennessee Tech, and so UK
Speaker 11: defense is also probably the best that Georgia will have
Speaker 11: seen so far. Kentucky doesn't have a bad defense. They're
Speaker 11: number eight in the country according to NCAA and Georgia's
Speaker 11: number five. So Kentucky's defense has to get stopped. But that,
Speaker 11: like I was just saying, the offense has to help
Speaker 11: them out because last week the defense, the defense didn't
Speaker 11: play bad. They just had a couple blown coverages that
Speaker 11: unfortunately resulted in big plays or but the defense overall
Speaker 11: plays you know pretty well. It's the offense just has
Speaker 11: to match that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they've got so many great athletes Georgia does.
Speaker 1: Kentucky has its share as well. But you know, having
Speaker 1: as you know, I've covered this program for a long time,
Speaker 1: and what Mark Stoops and Vince Maryland staff have done
Speaker 1: is bring in more talented players than they've had in
Speaker 1: the past. In other words, depth. But even if they
Speaker 1: have a four star, the next man up might be
Speaker 1: a three or a two, whereas Georgia just runs four
Speaker 1: and five after four and five. That's why Pop Johnson's here,
Speaker 1: That's why Brock vandergriff is here. But it's tough to
Speaker 1: it's tough to challenge that, isn't it exactly?
Speaker 11: And I think that against really strong players like that,
Speaker 11: that can't be the focus. You just have to look
Speaker 11: at as an overall offense, as an overall defense. Someone
Speaker 11: that stood out to me last week for Georgia was
Speaker 11: Nate Frazier. Uh. He had one hundred and ten hundred
Speaker 11: and eleven yards seventeen carries. So that's something that you know,
Speaker 11: Kentucky's run defenses is really rush defense is really going
Speaker 11: to have to look out for because he had a
Speaker 11: really strong performance last week and he's just a true freshman.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, how did you think Kentucky fared against South
Speaker 1: Carolina's true freshman quarterback?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 11: He That is the hard question because he is just talented.
Speaker 11: You watch him, he understands, you know, how to scramble.
Speaker 11: He looked really strong and he like you said it
Speaker 11: was he took advantage of blown coverage. So this week
Speaker 11: Kentucky's deep that has to be the focus is you know,
Speaker 11: you don't want to walk out of that game being like, man,
Speaker 11: we've played really trying defense, but just a couple of
Speaker 11: blown coverages. You have to tighten up, you know, in
Speaker 11: your secondary or else it could. You kind of proved
Speaker 11: it last week. Even someone that freshman quarterback can see
Speaker 11: and take advantage of that. In the SEC. It's not
Speaker 11: something that you know, this is the SEC. Your quarterbacks
Speaker 11: are going to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Halle Devor of WTVQ, which of course
Speaker 1: now as SEC football thanks to ABC. You know, it
Speaker 1: was unfortunate as well as you know that College Game
Speaker 1: Day this is ESPN part of the ABC family. But
Speaker 1: College Game Day would have been here if the Wildcats
Speaker 1: had beaten South Carolina. That would have been a great
Speaker 1: hit for Kentucky football. Now the SEC show here one
Speaker 1: week and then College Game Day the next. Boy, that
Speaker 1: what it might have done for Kentucky recruiting. It's going
Speaker 1: to take a while to recover from that, isn't it.
Speaker 11: Yeah, And the fact that they're heading down to South
Speaker 11: Carolina too, which is just kind of a slap in
Speaker 11: the face another it does hurt recruiting, But at the
Speaker 11: same time, I do believe that there are bigger issues
Speaker 11: than you know, billion College Game Day or cc Nations
Speaker 11: stuff like that. That's just an added bonus and a
Speaker 11: time to show off. But I don't think that. Something
Speaker 11: that did stand out to me though, was I read
Speaker 11: somewhere that Kentucky was being filmed as part of maybe
Speaker 11: an sec Netflix show or something like that, and I
Speaker 11: read that there were crews in town last week. And
Speaker 11: that's a killer because Netflix and those kind of documentaries
Speaker 11: are really really popular right now, especially with you know,
Speaker 11: documentaries like Quarterback Receiver. The football fans are really into
Speaker 11: and this might kind of be the first college football
Speaker 11: one of those documentaries on Netflix, and that's a killer
Speaker 11: because that's so permanent. I mean, College Game Day changes
Speaker 11: every week, at sc Nation changes every week. A documentary
Speaker 11: on Netflix is something that sticks around for a while
Speaker 11: and that people talk about, people watch. So I actually
Speaker 11: think that that probably was a little more of a
Speaker 11: killer if crews were in town for that last week
Speaker 11: and that was the unfortunate game they captured.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right about that, and you're right
Speaker 1: it is forever. Although with the SEC is in charge
Speaker 1: of the production, they're not going to show one of
Speaker 1: their teams in a particularly harsh light. But if the
Speaker 1: production company has the green light, you know, they may
Speaker 1: not hold back. I mean, it was, as Rich Brooks said,
Speaker 1: the former coach, complete all systems shut down. And you know,
Speaker 1: boy Mark Stoops, you saw the video of him postgame,
Speaker 1: and of course he was up with us in the
Speaker 1: interview room on his radio show. You talk about bewildered, confused, dejected.
Speaker 1: You kind of run out of adjectives for him, don't you.
Speaker 11: Yeah, he he used the word embarrassed, which really tough.
Speaker 11: And if you're honest, you look at that just on
Speaker 11: all cylinders and you can see where the staff is
Speaker 11: coming from. And he took a lot of accountability, which
Speaker 11: he always does that it was kind of a group effort. Obviously,
Speaker 11: he took a lot of responsibility for you know, the
Speaker 11: fourth and one call and that decision. So he does
Speaker 11: jainly believe that it is an all around staff offense
Speaker 11: and defense collective efforts that needs to get better. But yeah,
Speaker 11: and that was just a really tough game and I
Speaker 11: think as harsh as the word embarrassing is that that
Speaker 11: is probably accurate. I think a lot of the fans
Speaker 11: walked out of that game. You know, even though your
Speaker 11: first opponent, Southern Myth, not one of the strongest teams,
Speaker 11: you looked at that performance and it gave you a
Speaker 11: lot more hope and you would think even with another
Speaker 11: loss for the third year in a road to South Carolina,
Speaker 11: it wouldn't have been that bad. It would have been
Speaker 11: just a more competitive game where fans would have walked
Speaker 11: out being like, dang, you know, a one possession game,
Speaker 11: like we're so close, we have a lot to look
Speaker 11: forward to, And instead fans are walking out being like,
Speaker 11: what on earth? This team looked terrible? And that's not
Speaker 11: what you want your team saying. They when they say
Speaker 11: the biggest improvement is from week one to week two,
Speaker 11: that's not what you want your fans saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hallie Devor, my guest reporter Rancor from WTVQ Home
Speaker 1: Now of SEC Football. We'll come back with more just
Speaker 1: a minute here on the Big Blue and Sider six
Speaker 1: thirty WLAP. Welcome back. We're talking with Hallie DeVore of WTVQ,
Speaker 1: a reporter anchor covers the Wildcats, and I want to
Speaker 1: ask you though about your college career in that you
Speaker 1: came from Northwestern and I think you graduated what twenty
Speaker 1: two to twenty three something like that.
Speaker 11: Yes, I graduated in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I don't think you were there when Northwestern played Kentucky
Speaker 1: in the Music City Bowl. Did that predate you in college?
Speaker 11: No, I did not know too much about that game.
Speaker 11: It did predate my time at Northwestern, but I do
Speaker 11: know about the matchup and the two teams based off.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me because I always held up Northwestern
Speaker 1: when Kentucky was struggling so much in football, and people
Speaker 1: would look at this team or that, and I would say, no,
Speaker 1: I think the team to look at as a team,
Speaker 1: the closest one to me was Northwestern and maybe Vandy.
Speaker 1: But I said, you know what, Northwestern. I guess I
Speaker 1: talked about Northwestern because at times they were having success,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, with their academic standards, if
Speaker 1: they can have success with football, why can't Kentucky. You know,
Speaker 1: it comes back to recruiting getting athletes there. I don't
Speaker 1: remember how football was when you were at Northwestern. Was
Speaker 1: did you have much success when when you were a
Speaker 1: student athlete there.
Speaker 11: Oh, that was just so heartbreaking for me because I'm
Speaker 11: a huge football fan, so it was a bummer. Art
Speaker 11: The year before I started at Northwestern, so I believe
Speaker 11: twenty nineteen, Northwestern was in the Big Ten Championship versus
Speaker 11: Ohio State, and I had so much hope. I was like,
Speaker 11: this is so exciting. We lost to Ohio State. We
Speaker 11: did two years in a row my time or two
Speaker 11: years in my time there, but I was like, wow, like,
Speaker 11: we're in the Big Ten Championship, Like what an accomplishment
Speaker 11: and obviously different with you know, Big and West and that,
Speaker 11: how that's being alleged who's playing who? And then sophomore
Speaker 11: year was COVID or no. Sorry, my freshman year, I
Speaker 11: don't know what happened, but if they were terrible, terrible year.
Speaker 11: And then my sophomore year they were really good again
Speaker 11: and they were in the Big Ten Championship versus Ohio
Speaker 11: Speed again and we lost again, but it was COVID,
Speaker 11: so nobody could go to the games. And then my
Speaker 11: junior and senior year were extremely rough. And then obviously
Speaker 11: last year, everything with Pa Fitzgerald and amazing allegations, and
Speaker 11: now there's a new head coach and this year there's
Speaker 11: a new stadium on the Lake Front with kind of
Speaker 11: random seating because they're redoing Ryan Field. So they they're
Speaker 11: a weird program because they've had a lot of success,
Speaker 11: but it hasn't been consistent success. And that's kind of
Speaker 11: where that Northwestern Kentucky differ a little bit because you
Speaker 11: could say that, you know, Kentucky, well, they haven't had
Speaker 11: you know, SEC champion after actually Chet, neither of Northwestern.
Speaker 11: But you can look at Kentucky, you know, wow, they've
Speaker 11: been to eight fool games in a row. That's consistency
Speaker 11: and that's something that that Northwestern is lacking and hopefully
Speaker 11: throw on the up and up as far as making
Speaker 11: things a little more year to year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that Music City Bowl was a really
Speaker 1: entertaining game. Northwestern wins at twenty four to twenty three.
Speaker 1: Kentucky throwing into the end zone for a two point
Speaker 1: conversion with no time left on the clock basically and
Speaker 1: you know, and missed it by you know, if the
Speaker 1: ball was on the left side of the receiver instead
Speaker 1: of the right side, that kind of thing. Northwestern made
Speaker 1: a defensive play but Stephen Johnson was just had become
Speaker 1: just this mythical figure for Kentucky at quarterback and somehow
Speaker 1: got the Wildcats to that ball game. But Northwestern net
Speaker 1: year finished ten to three and just looked like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it was going to remain a credible, credible program. But
Speaker 1: as you said, here comes COVID, then the hazing allegations
Speaker 1: and all that, so it had to be just really,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it's like to see your your team,
Speaker 1: like you said, a year or two later, get to
Speaker 1: the conference championship game, which Kentucky is still waiting to do.
Speaker 1: And now don't you think it's I keep saying, Hallie,
Speaker 1: it's going to be more challenging to get to Atlanta
Speaker 1: than it will be to get to the College Football Playoff,
Speaker 1: don't you think?
Speaker 11: Yes, yes, oh yeah, the SEC is just the best
Speaker 11: conference in college football almost not even arguably. If you
Speaker 11: look at who's just who Kentucky has to play this year,
Speaker 11: it's it's daunting. So and you kind of look at
Speaker 11: it for better or for worse, because it's gonna force
Speaker 11: a lot of improvement on Kentucky's behalf. But you know,
Speaker 11: you also want to be a contender for your fans,
Speaker 11: for your fan base to want to come out and
Speaker 11: watch games, and if you're just getting be over and
Speaker 11: over in the SEC, that's not, you know, a very
Speaker 11: docing thing to come and watch. So they have a
Speaker 11: lot of challenges.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 11: And it starts this week with number one Georgia. And
Speaker 11: I think that honestly, you know, that's the goal is
Speaker 11: to get to SEC champions just win se championships, make
Speaker 11: it to the college football playoffs. But I've noticed a
Speaker 11: trend where it's almost if the game is competitive, like
Speaker 11: you know, Northwestern Kentucky for example. Obviously I know that
Speaker 11: was a heartbreaking loss by one point for Kentucky, but
Speaker 11: you look back at that game and at least you're
Speaker 11: not saying, oh my goodness, we got killed, like that
Speaker 11: was an entertaining game. Fans were there until the fourth
Speaker 11: quarter on their toes. They put up a fight. It
Speaker 11: was a matter of points. And I think if you can,
Speaker 11: even in the SEC, get to a point where that's
Speaker 11: the case, it's it's a matter of you know, it's
Speaker 11: a one possession game or something like that, that just
Speaker 11: leads a lot more hope and a lot more confidence
Speaker 11: versus you know, getting killed every single week.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well I mentioned you were a student athlete.
Speaker 1: You ran track, right and cross country? Yeah, what was
Speaker 1: your what was your event in track?
Speaker 11: For track? I ran the fifteen hundred, which is like
Speaker 11: just one hundred yards short.
Speaker 4: Of a mile.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so distance. I bring it up because you were
Speaker 1: an athlete in the Big Ten and as we all
Speaker 1: know now, the Big Ten has expanded to ridiculous proportions.
Speaker 1: Really the SEC probably has as well, but more ridiculous geographically.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine and that you didn't have to deal
Speaker 1: with this, but can you imagine what it would have
Speaker 1: been like. And you guys were just basically traveling from
Speaker 1: Chicago in the middle of the country, but now you're
Speaker 1: going to have teams going coast to coast to compete.
Speaker 1: You would have had to run against an at Southern
Speaker 1: col UCLA, Washington up in Seattle, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And it's almost as though allley that the powers would
Speaker 1: be couldn't care less about athletes and anything with football,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 11: Yeah, this is don't even get me started on this topic. Actually,
Speaker 11: because I'm from Oregon, so you know, my family grew
Speaker 11: up Big Duck fans as well, so this is like
Speaker 11: so weird to see Oregon not be in the Pact
Speaker 11: twelve Like that just is so like tattooed into my brain,
Speaker 11: and especially joining the conference that I competed in collegiately,
Speaker 11: like I would I'd actually would love to have raced
Speaker 11: against Oregon. I'd running wise. They have a really strong program,
Speaker 11: and I'm I'm a big fan of their athletic programs.
Speaker 11: But do I think that's the best idea? Literally not
Speaker 11: at all. I don't understand the logic behind that whatsoever.
Speaker 11: Obviously for sports like football, you know, it's a business.
Speaker 11: I do understand that, But I was in the athletic community.
Speaker 11: I have a lot of friends that were on the
Speaker 11: women's soccer team, on the women's field hockey team, on
Speaker 11: the women's basketball teams that travel a lot more than
Speaker 11: just once a week to play these games. Who's you know,
Speaker 11: just with the travel schedule in previous years in the
Speaker 11: Big Ten, you know, going to Iowa, it was a hassle.
Speaker 11: To go to Penn State or go to Maryland or
Speaker 11: Rutgers or somewhere. You had to get on a flight
Speaker 11: for like two hours. That was a hassle in the
Speaker 11: middle of the week as far as exams, and you
Speaker 11: know you're leaving on Wednesday, coming back Thursday, leaving Saturday,
Speaker 11: coming back month like that already is a hassle. So
Speaker 11: I can truly not imagine for teams like that, how
Speaker 11: getting out to like Oregon is a flight And I
Speaker 11: made that plight once every Christmas, you know, and it is.
Speaker 11: It's not an easy place to go. It's about a
Speaker 11: five and a half hour flight, and to have to
Speaker 11: do that and come back and then maybe two days
Speaker 11: later fly out to Maryland on the other side of
Speaker 11: the country is just ridiculous for any other sport other
Speaker 11: than football or maybe even running, for example, you don't
Speaker 11: for cross country. You compete like five times in a season.
Speaker 11: It's not much. Yeah, so that's not a big deal,
Speaker 11: but it is difficult because I don't think they took
Speaker 11: into account how that would affect a lot of other sports.
Speaker 11: And while it's going to be great to watch on
Speaker 11: the TV, you know, mental health and stuff like that
Speaker 11: is so huge right now, especially in student athletes, and
Speaker 11: we're seeing a lot of movement behind that, and I
Speaker 11: just hope that this doesn't cause bigger issues because that's
Speaker 11: just us A lot of travel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know what's interesting as well. I'm not
Speaker 1: one of the media people who kind of rolls his
Speaker 1: eyes about student athletes. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: who do. But I also know that too many people
Speaker 1: in our line of work think of the kids who
Speaker 1: are only of the kids that are going to go
Speaker 1: pro and that's like less than two percent when you
Speaker 1: break it all down, so most of you all you
Speaker 1: got to go to class, especially a place like Northwestern,
Speaker 1: and the people who are making these decisions, they're fond
Speaker 1: of and stubborn about using the term student athlete. And
Speaker 1: that's fine, but make it stand up, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Nobody used that term when they were talking about, Yes,
Speaker 1: Rutgers will play against Southern Cal in whatever sport. However
Speaker 1: many times a year. You know, they never use the
Speaker 1: term student athlete, do they?
Speaker 11: No, they don't, And that is hard because that is
Speaker 11: truly what they are. I mean, if you anyone thinks
Speaker 11: back to their time at college, you know most people
Speaker 11: and how much energy and time they put into studying it,
Speaker 11: and not at all to say that a student athlete's
Speaker 11: life is more difficult. I genuinely do believe that everyone
Speaker 11: has a bunch of stuff going on that you balance,
Speaker 11: whether it's extracurriculars, studying athletics, club athletics. But for student athletes,
Speaker 11: there is a huge emphasis on time management and depending
Speaker 11: on your load, like they're at some point, some things
Speaker 11: have to give, and sometimes with the pressure of being
Speaker 11: a student athlete, unfortunately what gives usually first is school
Speaker 11: because you're, you know, under all this pressure, you know
Speaker 11: from the SEC or something to go and win this
Speaker 11: football game and this you know, week matters so much
Speaker 11: ball lah that you know maybe you're not going to
Speaker 11: go pro, but you're like, all right, we got to
Speaker 11: win this game, and your focus this isn't as much
Speaker 11: on school that week. But again for football, probably not
Speaker 11: as big of a difference because you're traveling once a week.
Speaker 11: Some weeks you're home. Well, really, I think is going
Speaker 11: to be a big issue is something like baseball, because
Speaker 11: a lot of baseball players don't go pro and have
Speaker 11: that same kind of mindset or softball, and they travel
Speaker 11: so much for days in a row. And so this
Speaker 11: will be kind of the first year that I would
Speaker 11: be actually really curious to have some sort of like
Speaker 11: study this year to just see how their academics compare
Speaker 11: to last year. Not saying it can't be done, but
Speaker 11: I've been there. Like studying on the road and on
Speaker 11: a bus and in a hotel is just so different.
Speaker 11: You're so distracted if you're at the same time you
Speaker 11: are out there with all of your friends and your teammates.
Speaker 11: It doesn't feel like a studious environment. You're any test,
Speaker 11: you're taking our procters by your coach. It's just a
Speaker 11: different environment. So for something like baseball or softball for
Speaker 11: days on end, I would be really interested to see
Speaker 11: how that affects academics long term, and then maybe how
Speaker 11: that might reaffect conference alignment later on.
Speaker 1: Yep, Hallie Devora is a reporter anchored WDTVQ and she'll
Speaker 1: be covering all kinds of stuff this weekend, including the
Speaker 1: cats in the Georgia Bulldox. Thanks so much, see you
Speaker 1: next time.
Speaker 11: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Well, come back and take a look at a busy
Speaker 1: week a little bit later on Heroes, Fools and Flakes
Speaker 1: on The Big Blue Sider six thirty WLAP Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Big Blue Insider. Happy birthday. As I mentioned
Speaker 1: to my brother today, my sister yesterday, mine Sunday, I
Speaker 1: share a birthday with Dan Marino former Dolphins QB and
Speaker 1: my sister shared a birthday with Sydney Sweeney yesterday. My
Speaker 1: brother shares a birthday today with, among other people, John Shelby.
Speaker 1: That's right, t Bone Shelby of Lexington, who played for
Speaker 1: three different teams in the Big Leagues. He played for
Speaker 1: the Orioles, the Tigers, and the Dodgers, and not a
Speaker 1: superstar player, but he played in more than a thousand games,
Speaker 1: had more than three thousand at bats seventy home runs.
Speaker 1: But most importantly he won two World Series, one of
Speaker 1: the Orioles, one with the Dodgers. So t Bone Shelby,
Speaker 1: whose sons all played at Kentucky. Happy birthday to t Bone,
Speaker 1: the Shelby family. Great family, and of course we always
Speaker 1: called them the first family of baseball here in Lexington.
Speaker 1: So happiest to Happy birthdays to John Shelby. Also on
Speaker 1: this date, it's a big date. Nineteen seventy three, ABC
Speaker 1: announced it obtained TV rights for the nineteen seventy six Olympics,
Speaker 1: putting Rune Arledge in charge of the coverage and television
Speaker 1: change forever. That's where up Close and Personal was born.
Speaker 1: And I don't care who's had the game since then, ABC, NBC, CBS,
Speaker 1: I forgive me, I don't know if Fox has ever
Speaker 1: had it. ESPN's got a lot of stuff. But they
Speaker 1: set the standard because it used to be, of course,
Speaker 1: just showing the competition. ABC turned the camera around away
Speaker 1: from the playing surface and began to concentrate more as
Speaker 1: much on the athletes and their personalities themselves, and again
Speaker 1: set the new standard. And they still live by that standard.
Speaker 1: Any network that has the games now. They started at
Speaker 1: ABC back in seventy three when they got the rights
Speaker 1: for the seventy six Olympics and immediately began working on
Speaker 1: those games. Here's a huge one also in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: US Congress passes and sends a bill to Nixon and
Speaker 1: he signs it. Big football fan lifting NFL Football's television
Speaker 1: blackout of sold out games. Can you imagine back in
Speaker 1: the day. And people still deal with blackouts now and then,
Speaker 1: but back then, even if your game, local game was
Speaker 1: sold out, it was blacked out in your area. Not
Speaker 1: a popular rule, but they had the right president in
Speaker 1: office all right. Earlier this week, in fact, it was yesterday,
Speaker 1: Tom Lee, chip cor and I got together south of
Speaker 1: Wrigley over on Southland Drive. If you like ballpark style
Speaker 1: hot dogs, chili dogs, Italian sausage, they got a great
Speaker 1: chicken palm sandwich. Try south of Wrigley. Go look for
Speaker 1: Kentucky ol Kentucky Chocolates, and then just slide on down
Speaker 1: in the parking lot and they're South Wriggley right there.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: We tape the Wildcat whip at South the Wrigley and
Speaker 1: Tom and Jeff and I got to get her to
Speaker 1: talk first of all about food, but then about the
Speaker 1: football Wildcats.
Speaker 3: I got to remember getting at Wriggley Field one time
Speaker 3: an Italian sausage peppers and on your and you can
Speaker 3: get that here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 12: Look, the key the key to any great sandwich wherever,
Speaker 12: you don't care where you is the bread. Yeah, if
Speaker 12: you got good bread, that's half the battle.
Speaker 1: They got it here at South there Wriggley. It's not
Speaker 1: gonna be easy for the Wildcats Saturday. But we all
Speaker 1: know that it's a bit of an understatement. Yes, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Well, I have covered football for a while,
Speaker 1: but and I've said it a week on my show.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we have to. And Jeff, you or you've
Speaker 1: been there players are resilient, and on top of that,
Speaker 1: they don't have any choice. They got to look at
Speaker 1: They can't dwell on what happened last week.
Speaker 3: And you can get embarrassed when you're playing a team
Speaker 3: like this if you go you know, if you're kind
Speaker 3: of licking your wounds, so to speak. I always point
Speaker 3: this out when it's when it's a situation like this,
Speaker 3: it's the craziest set of scores. I don't know if
Speaker 3: the three of us have talked about this before. You
Speaker 3: go back to and Kentucky had guys like Joe Fettersfield,
Speaker 3: Frankle Master of the team, Houston Hog, I think maybe
Speaker 3: Wilver Hackett. I think it was nineteen sixty nine. They
Speaker 3: opened the season on regional TV against Indiana, being on
Speaker 3: TV big deal, hadn't been on the TV for years.
Speaker 3: Lose fifty eight to thirty to Indiana in the first game.
Speaker 3: Next week, Archie Manning and Ole Miss come to town,
Speaker 3: an Ole Miss team that would go on to win
Speaker 3: the Sugar Bowl, and Kentucky beat some ten to nine.
Speaker 3: That makes no sense fifty eight to Indiana, nine to
Speaker 3: Archie Manning and Old Miss. So if those two sets
Speaker 3: of scores could once have happened in the history of
Speaker 3: the world. Then you hang your hat on.
Speaker 12: Hope with a Phil Grier interception.
Speaker 3: Oh really off a batting you know what.
Speaker 1: I remember delivering newspapers listening to that Indiana game, and
Speaker 1: it was so exciting, but I kept thinking, when is
Speaker 1: it going to stay? When are they gonna stop Indiana
Speaker 1: from scoring? Because Kentucky was scaring all right, and then
Speaker 1: here come the Hoosiers. I'm like, God, come on.
Speaker 3: And Indiana was good in those days. Yeah, they were
Speaker 3: about two years removed from one of the Rose Bowl.
Speaker 1: But then I read about I was I didn't come
Speaker 1: to a Kentucky football game till I was in college,
Speaker 1: but then read about what happened next week. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: But let's start with what happened last week. Obviously, Uh, Jeff,
Speaker 1: you always mentioned you talk about it in the post
Speaker 1: game set the edge South Carolina owned, the edge, didn't.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and you know, Tom and I were just talking
Speaker 12: a little bit about it. And there were plays where
Speaker 12: Kentucky used a tight end and a back to chip.
Speaker 12: What what a chip is is so the tight end
Speaker 12: is gonna go out, but before he does, he slams
Speaker 12: into that defensive end. And then the back steps up
Speaker 12: like you know, and like he's gonna buck slams into
Speaker 12: him and then he takes off. So the tackle is
Speaker 12: engaged with him and the other guy's come up on
Speaker 12: whack him a couple of times, and it's supposed to
Speaker 12: slow him down, and you know, but there were times
Speaker 12: when that, especially the fresh.
Speaker 3: Ball, went right through three guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can hear the entire Wildcat Whip on my
Speaker 1: Facebook page. I believe Tom has shared it on his.
Speaker 1: Also you can go to x or Twitter and hear
Speaker 1: it via the UK Sports Network. But it's just basically
Speaker 1: an extended version of the conversation that Tom and Jeff
Speaker 1: and I have pregame that's only a couple of minutes long.
Speaker 1: So we thought we would get together each week before
Speaker 1: the game, before the broadcast and share with you an
Speaker 1: extended version of our thoughts. We call it, of course,
Speaker 1: the Wildcat Whip. I mentioned earlier that Paul Finebaum did
Speaker 1: not have a lot of use for Tom Brady's debut.
Speaker 1: He compared it to Nick Saban's and again, they were
Speaker 1: doing totally different jobs. And Saban, who has spoken to
Speaker 1: hundreds and thousands of football players breaking down video it's
Speaker 1: exactly what he did for ESPN, and as you might expect,
Speaker 1: he did a great job. What impressed me the most, though,
Speaker 1: was he seemed very comfortable doing it, very at ease
Speaker 1: for a guy who at times has sparred with him media.
Speaker 1: But he's a team player, clearly. I mean that's why
Speaker 1: quick coaching, because players have become anything but team players.
Speaker 1: Some guys in this day of nil When players came
Speaker 1: to him at the end of his last season with
Speaker 1: their hands out looking for even more money, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm out and became a broadcaster. And he's a good one,
Speaker 1: and Brady probably will become a good one. He's got
Speaker 1: a good sense of humor. That's a good start, and
Speaker 1: obviously knows the game. But somebody else who weighed in
Speaker 1: on it, Jim Nance, one of the deans of sportscasting
Speaker 1: and of course has done games for CBS forever, did
Speaker 1: not see Brady's game because he was working at the
Speaker 1: same time. But he is. He knows Brady well. He's
Speaker 1: been in countless pregame meetings with him, regular season, playoffs,
Speaker 1: super Bowl. He knows how smart the guy is. And
Speaker 1: Brady said he believed, or rather Nance said he believes
Speaker 1: Brady will be fine. Just give him time.
Speaker 9: I would have liked to have heard it, but I'm
Speaker 9: gonna forward to hearing him down the road. I'll hear
Speaker 9: him this week, in fact, because I've got the late game,
Speaker 9: he's going to be up early. I've talked to Tom
Speaker 9: a lot leading into this season, and he has called
Speaker 9: on many broadcasters to get their insights into what it's
Speaker 9: like in the booth, how to prepare, how fast the
Speaker 9: game moves. So I know he's going to be really
Speaker 9: good at this. I don't have any doubt, and I'm
Speaker 9: certainly not going to make any judgments without having seen him.
Speaker 9: And even if I did see him, which I didn't,
Speaker 9: I wouldn't draw any conclusions after one game. Tom Brady
Speaker 9: will will be very good at this.
Speaker 1: I think so. But he will remain a lightning rod.
Speaker 1: He will remain a target. He will be the subject
Speaker 1: of critics every week, and unfortunately, I think it won't
Speaker 1: be a situation where we check out and then come
Speaker 1: back and check on him later. I think that there
Speaker 1: are going to be people posting every week why because
Speaker 1: he's Tom Brady and because they paid him in an
Speaker 1: insane amount of money, but just if you're not interested
Speaker 1: in this or he look away, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: harp on it, but I'll come back later in the
Speaker 1: year and try to figure out if the guy has
Speaker 1: gotten any better. But as I said the other day,
Speaker 1: none of us in this line of work we'll put
Speaker 1: the first time we're on the air. I'm sure Saban's
Speaker 1: critical of himself, but he had a great debut, as
Speaker 1: did Tony Romo. But ninety nine percent of us, we'll
Speaker 1: tell you that the first time we tried whatever it
Speaker 1: is we're doing as broadcasters, we stunk. But that's how
Speaker 1: you get better. I mean, when I was doing scripted sportscast,
Speaker 1: I knew I wasn't any good at it, and so
Speaker 1: a guy in the business recognized something in me and said,
Speaker 1: bring me some scripts, and he tore them to shreds
Speaker 1: and went over them with me. Made me feel like
Speaker 1: I was about eight inches high. But he told me
Speaker 1: specifically what to do and how to get better, and
Speaker 1: I know I did. I don't know how good I got,
Speaker 1: but I know I got better. Same thing with play
Speaker 1: by play. Van Vance was a great mentor to me
Speaker 1: over in Louisville and growing up listening to and then
Speaker 1: working with Kayle Lefford, you can't help but get better.
Speaker 1: I don't know if Brady, with all the ball he
Speaker 1: has played, has ever spent much time paying attention to
Speaker 1: people that he admires doing the gay job he's trying
Speaker 1: to do now, I hope in preparing for this, I
Speaker 1: know he's talked to a lot of guys, but the
Speaker 1: best thing he could do is go back and listen
Speaker 1: to different analysts and figure out why he likes them.
Speaker 1: What did they do, how do they say it? Don't
Speaker 1: steal from them, but use them as an example, and
Speaker 1: if he's as smart as I think he is, I
Speaker 1: believe he will indeed do that. Up next, Heroes Fools
Speaker 1: and Flakes on the Big Blue Insiders six thirty WLAP
Speaker 1: Welcome back, final segment of our program, and a reminder
Speaker 1: Kentucky Football Kickoff seven thirty five thirty pregame Christy and
Speaker 1: Jeremy and Logan and Jeff and Tom and I will
Speaker 1: have the call for youa Kentucky taking on those Georgia Bulldogs.
Speaker 1: A couple other notes for it before we get the
Speaker 1: Heroes Fools in Flakes. Aja Wilson breaking the WNBA single
Speaker 1: season scoring record and there are more records in front
Speaker 1: of her. But it is quite the conundrum if you're
Speaker 1: voting for MVP Caitlin Clark and Asia Wilson. They both
Speaker 1: keep breaking records and setting new marks and new standards.
Speaker 1: You could make the argument that Wilson's been a little
Speaker 1: more consistent, but Caitlin Clark Man, the thing she has
Speaker 1: done since that snub by the Olympic team has torn
Speaker 1: that league up. And if you're talking about the MVP
Speaker 1: in the league, who's more important to her team? Well,
Speaker 1: who's more important than Asia Wilson to her team? Again,
Speaker 1: I could see them sharing the award. I really could
Speaker 1: the MVP. I don't know if they'll do that. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they're allowed to do that, but I
Speaker 1: could see it happening. Couple of other NBA are NFL notes. Rather,
Speaker 1: the Bengals are looking at a rough start because they
Speaker 1: play at Kansas City on Sunday and they may be
Speaker 1: looking at another zero to two start. And I say
Speaker 1: another because the Bengals in the first two weeks of
Speaker 1: the season under Zach Taylor are one in ten. Joe
Speaker 1: Burrow himself is one in three, and Burrow, of course
Speaker 1: had the wrist surgery in the off season, ligament damage,
Speaker 1: and people who watch such things say that they thought
Speaker 1: he was flexing his wrist in a kind of a
Speaker 1: weird way. Maybe he's still hurting. Burrow has said, no,
Speaker 1: that's because of the surgery and I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: keep it mobile and that's what you do. So keep
Speaker 1: an eye on them Bengals out in Kansas City. I
Speaker 1: know you will. My Packers probably without Jordan Love for
Speaker 1: the next few weeks. But then made Lafloor, the coach
Speaker 1: says the door is open for him playing. You talk
Speaker 1: about a mixed message. No, it's gonna be Malik Willis
Speaker 1: and it's not gonna to be good with all due
Speaker 1: respect in my opinion. All right, our hero tonight, as
Speaker 1: we go to heroes, fools and flakes, I'm going old school.
Speaker 1: I'm going back to twenty oh six. Trevard Linley got
Speaker 1: the interception. Now wasn't the only play. It wasn't the
Speaker 1: only big play. I heard Rich Brooks talk about that
Speaker 1: last night on the show. They made so many big
Speaker 1: plays in that game. Roger Williams with an interception at
Speaker 1: the end of the first half, tipped by Trevard Lindley
Speaker 1: Tony Dixon with a huge effort that ended up with
Speaker 1: the game winning touchdown. He carried the ball in almost
Speaker 1: every play, including a touchdown they put the Lolcats ahead.
Speaker 1: Were good, but Trevard Lindley had the signature play at
Speaker 1: the end, the interception that locked up the win off
Speaker 1: a freshman quarterback named Matthew Stafford. Victory number six sent
Speaker 1: Kentucky to a bowl game and brought the goalpost down.
Speaker 13: Stafford retreats plenty of time out the protections breaking down,
Speaker 13: he slides right, he throws.
Speaker 1: And that was fun, And so was going to the
Speaker 1: bowl game and covering Kentucky's upset of Clemson. It all
Speaker 1: kind of ran together in twenty oh six. Our Full Tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure the guy's name Our Full Tonight. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of them. One of them is a suspect
Speaker 1: that hit and run crash arrest of Thursday night. He
Speaker 1: drove his truck onto the playing field at Fulsom Field
Speaker 1: at the University of Colorado running away from police. Carl
Speaker 1: Haglund from Massachusetts found his way somehow in his truck
Speaker 1: onto the playing field. So maybe the fool also is
Speaker 1: a guy who's supposed to lock the gate there. I
Speaker 1: don't know. But also really the bigger fool is Derek Bender,
Speaker 1: a minor league catcher with the Minnesota Twins, released Thursday
Speaker 1: after according to sources, he told opposing hitters the types
Speaker 1: of pitches that were coming to the plate during bats
Speaker 1: in the game last week, which eliminated his team from
Speaker 1: playoff contention. This is reported by ESPN six round draft
Speaker 1: pick out of Coastal Carolina. He supposedly wanted the season
Speaker 1: over and so he was telling opposing batters the specific
Speaker 1: pitches being thrown by the starter, Ross Dunn. They found
Speaker 1: out about it after the facts, so they cut the guy,
Speaker 1: and why not. He's done, he won't play professional baseball again.
Speaker 1: And our flake, well, this is just playing weird ray Gun,
Speaker 1: the viral Australian Olympic breakdancer. She was ranked number one
Speaker 1: in the world by the sport and I used that loosely,
Speaker 1: the sports governing body. They said that she earned the
Speaker 1: top spot after she came in first at the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three Oceania Continental Championships. I don't really have a
Speaker 1: dog in this fight, but I got to tell you
Speaker 1: after saying what she did at the I think that
Speaker 1: they probably haven't ranked anybody since those Oceania Continental championships
Speaker 1: because man, what she did in the Olympics was pretty flaky.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it. Thanks to my guest justin Rowland,
Speaker 1: Hallie DeVore that said good night from the garage and
Speaker 1: Alexi Dion.
Speaker 10: I wasn't thinking about form or team, or celebration or score.
Speaker 5: I literally was walking.
Speaker 10: And I promise this is your true The only thought
Speaker 10: that came in my mind was if I don't make this,
Speaker 10: they are going.
Speaker 12: To kill me.
Speaker 3: Sand