Speaker 1: This is Cougar Sports on Kovo probo k u d
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ESPN No Fan. This is Cougar Sports with Ben Kretel,
and it's time for the Cougar Beat getting the dish
from the local reporters that cover Cougar athletics.
Speaker 2: Welcome back Cougar Sports one o three nine ninety eight
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Little Cougar be going to Welcome to Cougar Sports insider
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Speaker 3: Let's get out to the hotline. Welcome at double D
the Deadly.
Speaker 2: HERALEDI in Sound the Bugle, Ladies and gentlemen. We got
Darnell Dixon on the line Double D.
Speaker 4: Hey you living well right now, living like it's nineteen
eighty five. We have an outage in the internet in
our area. So it's very quiet and in Dixon household
right now with no good to the outside world. So
I don't know what's going on. Did you Todd join
the Big cann or something while I was out for
the last hour.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I will say this much.
Speaker 2: There is some drama brewing in Cougar Country, or rather
in Hollywood. We I just came across this, uh, and
I think we got it confirmed.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: Pooka Akua is uh not in the not in the
good line light right now.
Speaker 4: He is uh.
Speaker 2: He has checked himself into rehab after the alleged drunken
New Year's Eve bite attack report. So it looks like
he's in rehab.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: The RAMS Receivers attorney Levi mccatherine confirmed with The California
Post on Wednesday that his client has been at a
luxury treatment center in Malibu. While mccatherine said the move
was not a direct response to the lawsuit Nikua's bite accuser,
Madison A. Tiabi, filed against him last month, the lawyer
did say the combination of stories uh running right now
on him are certainly a contributing factor. He was there
a substantial period of time before any of these allegations
are broke with Madison, mccatherine said, and he's scheduled to
be there for a while longer. Mcatherine added that Nicoua's
goal with the stage to improve his overall behavior in
every aspect of his life that he can h and
he said he's really proud of him for doing it
and doing it this off season. So, you know, Puoka,
you probably covered him in high school. He's a great
He was a great kid, you know, I mean, obviously
a fun loving kid. He's he's super like just he's
a vibe man. Everyone loves being around Pooka. Everybody loves Pooka.
Anyone that's ever been around Pooka has really nothing ever
negative to say about Pooka.
Speaker 3: Nikua.
Speaker 2: It sounds like he's got into the limelight. He's in LA,
he's making money. He surrounded himself with the wrong mentors.
He doesn't have a father figure. His father, Lionel passed
away years ago at a very young age, and he's
maybe relying on the on poor mentorship and he's gotten
maybe a little repression, right. He maybe didn't do very
many bad things growing up and he's just in a
bad situation.
Speaker 3: Your thoughts, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: Too bad pooka. Uh is a kind of kid that
lights up the room when he comes in. He is
kind of the life of the room when he is there.
And it's kind of in terms of professionally, it's kind
of poor timing because he is up for signing a
pretty large contract. In fact, what I was reading was
perhaps the largest wide receiver contract in the league. But
certainly that's a secondary concern right now. Is we just
hope he gets his life right, gets himself feeling good,
and gets the help that he that he needs.
Speaker 2: Yep, Yes, indeed, we pray that he gets it rights
and Uh makes the changes that he needs to. But yeah,
some bad news to start us off, but.
Speaker 3: Some good news.
Speaker 2: Boa women's basketball is in the wbiit What do you
say about that? Darnw I know you keep tabs on
this Lady Koog's team.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. Earlier in the season, and I've told
Brandon Gurney this several times, they were kind of a
tough watch. I mean, they were kind of struggling to
hold onto the ball and some value possessions. Lee Kamard
wanted to play up tempo, and early in the season,
I didn't feel like they really had the skill level
to do that, and they were constantly turning the ball
over twenty plus times a game, and that's difficult to win.
They managed to do it, and then they got into
Big twelve and had some issues. But I feel like
they've kind of righted the ship a little bit, and
certainly they've played well. They won nine of their last
ten games heading into this championship game today of the
wbit against Columbia. By the way, who's athletics director is
Peter Pilling who was once at BYU And yeah, so
so maybe there's a little bit of a story in that.
But I think Lee Camartin's coaching staff done a great
job with this team in kind of getting things moving,
and he showed a lot of patience with this group
because you know, during that that tough part of the
season when they were turning the ball over a lot.
I don't know if I as a coach, I would
have said, yeah, we're sticking with this high tempo game
because they were turning it over so much. And they've
managed to figure some things out, so they're in a
it's a good place for them to be in the postseason,
winning some games and their young team and so they're
going to maybe hope, hopefully get some momentum heading into
next season. But I think, like again, Lee Martin and
his coaching staff deserves some accolades for sticking with this
team and getting them to this point.
Speaker 2: Let me ask it is maybe a controversial question here.
Lee's doing great things rookie season as head coach, sir
past seeing Jeff Judkins for the most wins in a
in a uh in that rookie season.
Speaker 3: How did League get passed up on the first go round?
Speaker 2: Was it just due to his inexperience as a head
coach or you know, how how did he get passed up?
Why did he get the job the first go round
a few years ago?
Speaker 4: That's a pretty good question. I think that perhaps there
was some not concern, but just the fact that he
only been a women's coach for a few years. He'd
been in the men's program before, and there is you know,
when you when you talk about hiring for women's basketball,
I think most ads look for a woman to be
the head coach. You know, it's good for them to
have role models, those those athletes that are playing and
and the connection and the being able to understand what's
going on. Sometimes they feel like maybe a woman coach
would handle that better. There were some intriguing things about
the previous coach, Amber Whiting when it came to her
connection to the AAU circuit. They took a chance, you know,
on her because she didn't have any college coaching experience,
and I personally would have liked to see her get
one more year to kind of get things going, because
it was tough to jump right in there after that
first year and then go right into Big twelve because
it's a pretty tough league. So maybe that was it.
But I do know that Lee Kamard has a great
ability to have rapport with the athletes. And I probably
told this story before, but when he was a men's assistant,
I traveled to Los Angeles for a game b what
you played against USC. It was just a one off,
one of those you know, preseason games, and they normally
didn't travel, you know, just on a regular airline, but
because that had been paid for by the group that
ran this tournament, they were coming home in the same
flight I was coming home on. So we're all sitting
in there waiting for the flight to get boarded. But
I noticed that a lot of players, like almost all
of them, at one point or another wandered over to
Lee Kamard and had a conversation with him, and I
was impressed with his ability to have that rapport and
the fact that the players really wanted to talk to him,
get his feelings on stuff, get his opinion, and confide
in him. So I thought that he would make a
good head coach at some point. And right now he's
doing a great job with the women's program.
Speaker 3: Doing fantastic. Hopefully they get the dub.
Speaker 2: Hopefully they get the victory there in Wichita, Kansas. It
looks like they're not favored per ESPN analytics. But if
I know Lee, he's going to get that dog. He's
going to bring out that dog in his squad and
they're going to come out with a victory.
Speaker 3: Dardell, what have you been working out over there at
the Daily Hero?
Speaker 2: What have you been writing about? Where have you been
casting your gays within Cougar Sports?
Speaker 4: Well, we just finished running our all valley teams or
we pick you know for the high school sports with basketball,
and we have Brian Priest, the wrestling Guru of Utah.
It helps it with with wrestling and It's always fun
to connect with, you know, the coaches and players. I'm
also working on a story right now on and this
this concerns kind of BYU ties at least. So Psy
Chrisman is a six foot five pound slugger baseball player,
and he played at Maple Mountain for the last couple
of years and set the state record and home runs
last season. And as I was preparing for this this
season this spring season for high school sports, I noticed
that he wasn't on the Maple Mountain roster. So I
started looking around some research and apparently he has decided
to play at IMG Academy in Florida to kind of
step up this game and have some opportunities to play
against some good pitching and increase his ability, uh to
you know, go on on the next level. So I
spoke to his dad, Jed Christman, who was a former
pro bo baseball player, and Jake's brother who played at BYU.
And so I'm working on that story now, trying to
get a touch with say and find out what it's
like to go from playing high school baseball in Utah
and heading out to Florida to play high level IMG
Academy And as I said, try to help his chances
of maybe playing at the next level.
Speaker 2: Darnell Dixon the Daily Herali and talking to Cougar Sports
here on your Utah ESPN Radio network.
Speaker 3: There was some recruiting news that dropped.
Speaker 2: I know you covered the prep sports realm pretty tightly,
pretty closely. Titan de Young at a mountain Ridge linebacker
tight end. We got the interview yesterday. Really impressive young man.
What do you know about this kid? And he's the
first commit of the twenty twenty seven class. He's already
recruiting the rest of the twenty twenty seven class. He
mentioned he's recruiting Body Sparrow, the four star out of Davis.
He's recruiting I believe the kid out of Salem, Peyton
Higginson is well. Try to get him sound sealed, delivered,
committed to the Koogs. What do you know about Titan
and these guys that he's trying to recruit now to b.
Speaker 4: YU becoming more and more in the last couple of years,
familiar with the teams in Region two, which mountain Ridge
is in there because west Lake who used to be
in the region with American Fork and Skyridge and those
teams has moved into that region and there are some
really good football being played. And you know, as we
look at how BYU handled its recruiting and that transfer
portal era, you still got to hit your local recruits
really well. You got to recruit Utah and get the
best players out of them. Titan seems to be one
of those guys who's going to be an athlete. You
can play in a lot of different positions once you
figure out where you want him to go. So he's
a good pickup for the local recruiting efforts and you
have to continue to mind those and you've got competition
there because Utah wants them and we were state in
Utah State and all these schools have things to offer.
So BYU have to pick their guys wisely, and they
have a process by which they, you know, see a
lot of these kids in camps during the summer, and
then they have the opportunity to go see them play
on Friday nights because that's part of the process. So
he seems like a pretty good pickup. And as you mentioned,
because he's starting to recruit some of these other kids
that are local, there's always a good pipeline there.
Speaker 2: As well, love it double d darn Al Dixon talking
to some Cougar football and recruiting here on your Utah
USPN radio network. I do like those two guys that
he's recruited right now, Body Sparrow and Peyton Higginson both
both really good skill guys with like four star type offers,
and they're getting recruited by just about everybody in the country.
Their hometown kids though, right you hope that you can
retain them here in the state of Utahn BYU now
is the premier school for college football play, and so
if anybody's going to get them, it's to be b YU, Right.
Speaker 4: Well, you have to balance it with with your recruiting
of the transfer portal and retaining the talent that you have,
you know from from your previous teams. And there there's
another guy that I like locally that is getting a
lot of talk right now, and I'm not sure where
his highs is college will take him, but Malik Ico
wide receiver out of West Lake, had a fantastic year
last year for the Thunder and he hasn't played a
ton of football, but he ended up with like twelve
or thirteen hundred yards receiving and eighteen touchdowns and then
he just recently led Westlake to the State six A
basketball championship. And so he's a really terrific guy, leads
very smooth, and so he's another local kid that BYU is.
I'm sure they've got their eye on and seeing where
he heads in. But yeah, BYU has to be the
place that and you want, you know, like I said,
there's competition, but you want to be the place where
those kids look to want to go. And those kids
are important to your program because you expect to be
able to retain those guys a little bit easier because
they're closer to home and because they've grown up knowing
the program in a lot of cases, so you hope
that that's the place where they're looking to go.
Speaker 2: And look, look a little competitive enmity here between the
brethren up on the hill is in talking to Titan
to Young, I mean he grew up a Utah fan group,
a Utah fan. I was like, wait to say, okay,
It was like, who were your top three? He's like
Michigan BYU and who else did he mention? He mentioned
somebody else. It wasn't even Utah. Utah wasn't even a
top three, top four, top five. It didn't even seem
like I was like, wait a second, how does that happen?
He's like, well, like a lot of uncertainty there. We
don't know what the future is. Kilanie's stability resigning this contract,
he's gonna be for another ten years. It's just you
know that the trajectory is it. You know when you
hear that you're taking kids that are grew up Utah
fans and you're getting them to commit to b YU.
What does that say about the rivalry where we're at
right now with the winning streak that B Way Football has.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we've talked about this a lot before, but
we know that Utah had a distinct advantage when they
joined the Pac twelve and BYU and an independent and
in recruiting and the amount of resources they could use.
And things have turned around in that area, and b
why you joined the Big twelve. And then now with
you know, Nil and b YU having very deep pockets
with their donors, they've been able to surpass what Utah
has in that area. So so I think that and
you know, kids are smart. They they it's not like
the old days where they grew up and you know
were the BYU uniform necessarily, you know, to go watch games,
and you know they're they're exposed to all kinds of
great programs through the Internet, through television Saturday is watching
ESPN Game Day and all those things, so they know
what's going on, but they also know where their best
opportunities lie. And right now it would appear that at
least you know in a lot of ways that the
local kids are saying, by use a place that has
everything that I want. Plus it's local, it's nearby, and
the family can watch me. I appreciate the way that
they set up their program. I'm comfortable among those people.
There are those situations that arise in and by using
a good place right now, with that, we all know
that that's not going to always be the case. There's
going to be downtimes and up times, but certainly I
think now you look at it, and by using a
really good place to recruit those local.
Speaker 2: Kids, DA using a great spot moving forward and recruiting
at a high level, a lot of positive momentum in
Cooker Country, no doubt about it. Double d Darnell Dixon
The Daily Herali and best way to support you what
you do how you do it? Appreciate you, but not
for a little cougar beat. Uh here on our Utah
Utah ESPN Radio network.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Herald Extra dot com is where you'll find my
work and you can follow me at Darnell Wrights on
X And I hope that that you have a very
great April Fool's Day, Ben, and don't get fool too often.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did anyone get you today? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did the Bonsa, did the agent Debonsa BA Sports Nation
News get you?
Speaker 3: We're like, wait a second, where's it? I got to
search for this well.
Speaker 4: I planned to really go old school and often if
you remember a movie from Disney many years back called
World's Greatest Athlete. Yeah, you remember that there was a
there was an athlete named Nanu from like Zombia that
that the school recruited. And I was going to make
up this whole story about this guy that Dyu was
recruiting is six five and two sixty and runs a
four two forty barefoot, you know, and that kind of thing.
But I didn't think I be able to convince you.
Speaker 3: So no, I mean I probably I would.
Speaker 2: I would have you know, I would have taken a
hook line hook line and sinker Man, I totally would have. Now,
I didn't believe the agent of the bonson news, but
I think the more you know, the more plausible news
would have been a big time football recruit like a
ziggyansa type that's coming to provo right to be the
next Ziggianza.
Speaker 4: So that's where I was at. But I don't know
if I could have fooled you been You're pretty you're
pretty smart.
Speaker 2: It depends on the day, Darnell, depends on how much
CTE is presenting itself.
Speaker 3: In your brains.
Speaker 4: Would agree with that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Definitely definitely, no doubt, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Hey man, love and appreciate you double d thanks for
hopping on all right, have a great day they go.
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