Speaker 1: All right, what's going on Drive time on a Wednesday afternoon,
Speaker 1: about fourteen minutes past the hour, two o'clock. Chili Cold Gray.
Speaker 1: It's called January on a Wednesday afternoon, But as is
Speaker 1: every single day, it's good to have you along for
Speaker 1: the ride.
Speaker 2: Spence check. It's behind the mic.
Speaker 1: That's Portal Arson behind the glass producing the program today
Speaker 1: on a jam packed Wednesday show. We will get you
Speaker 1: halfway through your work week. We will get you one
Speaker 1: day closer to the weekend. It's your one day closer
Speaker 1: to football. The CFP semi final is tomorrow, and then
Speaker 1: obviously throughout the course of the rest of the week.
Speaker 1: Second game will be on Friday, and then we launch
Speaker 1: into the wild card weekend in.
Speaker 2: The world of pro football, in the world of the NFL.
Speaker 1: So we'll get to the latest college football storylines on
Speaker 1: the show today to get you ready for what are hopefully,
Speaker 1: least on paper, I believe will be good games. We've
Speaker 1: seen some random blowouts, We've seen some games we thought
Speaker 1: would be blowouts actually end up being pretty close. But
Speaker 1: this expanded twelve team CFP that we're all kind of
Speaker 1: experiencing for the first time continues, and we'll see how
Speaker 1: it plays out.
Speaker 2: We'll get you ready for these games.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame Penn State coming up in the Orange Bowl,
Speaker 1: Ohio State Texas on Friday, and the Cotton Bowl. The
Speaker 1: lines have been pretty steady, which is always interesting. Ohio
Speaker 1: State remains a five point five point favorite. That over
Speaker 1: under is a healthy fifty three point five not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: That line feels small.
Speaker 1: Not telling you what to do with your money, nor
Speaker 1: would I ever outside of saying just don't bet on sports.
Speaker 1: You work too hard for your money. Keep it in
Speaker 1: your pocket, keep it in your bank account. It feels
Speaker 1: like it's only that close because the game will be
Speaker 1: in the great State of Texas. Of course, a little
Speaker 1: bit of a home field advantage for the University of Texas,
Speaker 1: but Ohio State kind of feels like the side there.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame Penn State more of like a piccome as
Speaker 1: the line would indicate one point five points is the
Speaker 1: spread there. So one day closer to what should be
Speaker 1: some fun college football as we'll get a little football
Speaker 1: back in our lives coming up tomorrow, and then the
Speaker 1: NFL takes center stage on Saturday with the Chargers and
Speaker 1: the Texans Steelers and the Ravens. Sunday's Tilt Broncos Bills, Packers, Eagles, Commanders,
Speaker 1: Bucks Monday night game will be the Vikings in the Rams.
Speaker 1: Don't forget we are your home of the best and
Speaker 1: biggest live football events in this market. We'll let you
Speaker 1: know what the schedule is coming up throughout the course
Speaker 1: of the week and over the weekend as well. It's
Speaker 1: not too often that we get an NBA game in
Speaker 1: early to mid January that elicits the excitement that Thunder
Speaker 1: Calves seems to be generating today. Both these teams are
Speaker 1: on pace for over seventy wins in the regular season.
Speaker 1: Calves are thirty one and four, the Thunder thirty and five.
Speaker 1: That game is at Rocket Mortgage field House in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: The Caves are a slight favorite, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people going to be watching this one tonight. Was looking
Speaker 1: forward to Little Celtics Nuggets last night. But Yokic didn't
Speaker 1: play the Utah Jazz. You know, in a way that's
Speaker 1: like the perfect in my opinion. You know, I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people that have a bunch
Speaker 1: of different opinions on what the Jazz are doing right now.
Speaker 1: If you can play a close game against a pretty
Speaker 1: good team. The Hawks are good, not great, and end
Speaker 1: up losing like that.
Speaker 2: It's almost like best case scenario.
Speaker 1: But I'll say this, the Jazz have been a lot
Speaker 1: more competitive even in losses as of late, and you're
Speaker 1: starting to see some things that indicate Will really is
Speaker 1: a very bright offensive coach and some of these players
Speaker 1: are starting to pop it away that I think is
Speaker 1: good news.
Speaker 2: We'll talk some jazz basketball.
Speaker 1: But Trey Young with a half court heave at the
Speaker 1: buzzer to send Atlanta to a one to twenty four
Speaker 1: to one to twenty one win.
Speaker 2: Quinn Snyder in town texted him.
Speaker 1: I told him I was a big fan of that
Speaker 1: last play call, and he said it's better to be
Speaker 1: lucky than good. But good to have Quinn back in
Speaker 1: town and some jazz basketball on the show today. Utah
Speaker 1: men hoops, Oh man, you know, it started off so well,
Speaker 1: started off so well, and Gabe was making some shots
Speaker 1: early and it was actually a pretty close game early
Speaker 1: on last night in Ames, Iowa, a place where Iowa
Speaker 1: State does not lose basketball games. That makes it twenty
Speaker 1: seven straight games Iowa State has one at home, and
Speaker 1: after that decent start for the Utes. It escalated very quickly,
Speaker 1: eighty two to fifty nine. You're a final score there,
Speaker 1: and the Utes are still looking for their first big
Speaker 1: twelve win. Will it come at the Huntsman Center against
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State coming up? So get to some Utah men's basketball.
Speaker 1: The women are having an excellent year. They've got a
Speaker 1: big game tonight against k State that's going to be
Speaker 1: at seven o'clock. You can see it on ESPN Plus.
Speaker 1: Of course you can hear it on this radio station,
Speaker 1: so we'll get you ready for that game as well.
Speaker 2: So a lot to do on the program today.
Speaker 1: Of course, still a lot of football to talk about,
Speaker 1: both college and pro. Lean into a little Utah Jazz
Speaker 1: and NBA today. Some college hoops on the Utah men's
Speaker 1: and women's side BYU lost again last night at home
Speaker 1: to Texas Tech.
Speaker 2: They could not make a shot, could not hit the
Speaker 2: broadside of the barn.
Speaker 1: So a couple of losses last night for our local
Speaker 1: college basketball teams. Good S lists on this Wednesday to
Speaker 1: get you halfway through that work week and one day
Speaker 1: closer to the weekend. We'll start things off with the
Speaker 1: voice himself, Bill Riley, Voice of the Utes, Roules will
Speaker 1: stop by Neil Smith behind the glass tack a little
Speaker 1: Utah Hockey Club from NHL our guy Ck, Chris Comerannie
Speaker 1: will be live.
Speaker 2: In studio coming up at three point thirty, and.
Speaker 1: Then Sarah Todd stops by as well, the Utah Sports
Speaker 1: Writer of the Year for the second time. So we'll
Speaker 1: bring in Sarah Todd today, Bill Riley, Neil Smith, Chris Comaradnie,
Speaker 1: Sarah Todd, Me, Spence Checkings, all of you, the great listeners,
Speaker 1: and that guy Porter Larson on a Wednesday afternoon, Were
Speaker 1: you watching in real time when Trey hit that half
Speaker 1: court shot?
Speaker 3: I was not, but I was.
Speaker 4: This is the funny part about about covering sports and
Speaker 4: having to keep up with him. I was like twelve
Speaker 4: minutes behind, right, and I got the notification right as
Speaker 4: he hit the shot, so it spoiled the ending. But
Speaker 4: that's uh, that's kind of par for the course. That
Speaker 4: seems to happen to me a lot. Because when you're
Speaker 4: trying to catch up and watch all of the games,
Speaker 4: you gotta you gotta pause, you gotta gotta go in
Speaker 4: and rewind record, and that's that was the case yesterday.
Speaker 4: But I did did catch the majority of the second
Speaker 4: half and man, a really fun game. And yeah, I
Speaker 4: was in here producing the Utes game and watching that
Speaker 4: kind of the result you want if you're a jasmin
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 1: If in my opinion, yes, I mean, people can think differently.
Speaker 1: The Ute started out so well, man, there's so much promise.
Speaker 1: Gabe was hitting some shots, they were guarding, getting some
Speaker 1: offensive boards, and then boom, well you bottom fell off.
Speaker 3: You heard what Sean Mooney.
Speaker 4: Had to say on the show yesterday, which was if
Speaker 4: you talk can shoot the lights out, which they're capable
Speaker 4: of doing, they can stick in this game. That's what
Speaker 4: happened early on. And then, like you and I talked
Speaker 4: about Spence, I just thought, if they could keep it
Speaker 4: around that spread, right, I think it was sixteen seventeen,
Speaker 4: eighteen points or something last night, that's that would be
Speaker 4: a positive result for Utah. Now, they lost by twenty three,
Speaker 4: but the game was within that fifteen to twenty points
Speaker 4: spread for the majority of it. And man Iowa State
Speaker 4: when we get into February and March, keep an eye
Speaker 4: on that team because they are really, really good. And
Speaker 4: I think that even though Utah lost by twenty three,
Speaker 4: it's the best they've looked so far in conference play,
Speaker 4: think that, think of that which you will.
Speaker 1: God bless you. Good job. What No, that's as positive
Speaker 1: as you can make Last night, I can't do any better.
Speaker 3: Is that better?
Speaker 4: Is that not the best they've looked in conference play?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: Sure, Utah basketball don't lose by seventeen our new mantra.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll bring in Ryles right out of the
Speaker 1: gates today before we get to Bill on a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Courtesy of our friends at Standard Restaurants Supply your tailgate
Speaker 1: headquarters get everything you need to make your tailgate epics.
Speaker 1: Stop by their location thirty five hundred Southwest Temple or
Speaker 1: online at Standard restaurant dot com.
Speaker 2: It's time now for your opening tip.
Speaker 5: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check. It's on Utah's
Speaker 5: number one sports talk Now into the studio of ESPN
Speaker 5: seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The
Speaker 5: opening tip of the Drive is brought to you by
Speaker 5: Standard Restaurant Supply, your one stop shop to build the
Speaker 5: best tailgate in town. Standard Restaurant Supply thirty five hundred
Speaker 5: Southwest Temple.
Speaker 1: So I'll just say I was caught a little bit
Speaker 1: off guard last night after the show when I was
Speaker 1: sent a link to an article by Joe Coles of
Speaker 1: the Deseret News. Shout out to Joe Coles forgetting the
Speaker 1: exclusive with Mark Carlin. Mark Carlin decided to give his
Speaker 1: exclusive to the Deseret News. And you know, so Mark
Speaker 1: will be on the program tomorrow with Sean O'Connell. So
Speaker 1: Sean's show in the midday, Mark's going to stop by
Speaker 1: to chat with Sean. We tried to get Mark on
Speaker 1: a couple of different times and it has not necessarily
Speaker 1: come to fruition. Maybe at some point he'll hop back
Speaker 1: on the show. But Joe sat down with Mark and
Speaker 1: it's a two part conversation. Part one is out right
Speaker 1: now if you want to go check out the Deseret
Speaker 1: News portion. And Joe is on social media. Joe Coles
Speaker 1: is on social media. You can get the link up
Speaker 1: on his page. And they talked about a lot of
Speaker 1: the things, and maybe throughout the show we'll sprinkle in
Speaker 1: a couple of different elements.
Speaker 2: Of this piece that Joe wrote.
Speaker 1: But really a couple of months after Mark decided to
Speaker 1: take the podium following the BYU Utah game and that game,
Speaker 1: you know, when we look back on that game in
Speaker 1: ten years, I do think it's going to be the
Speaker 1: Mark Harland game.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just taking the podium.
Speaker 1: Mark ran out on the field while the game was
Speaker 1: still in action at the end and had some very
Speaker 1: colorful things to say to the officials. At least that's
Speaker 1: what it looked like from my vantage point. I was
Speaker 1: down there on the sideline, and we know what he
Speaker 1: said after the game. That does not be that does
Speaker 1: not need to be rehashed. We've talked about it quite
Speaker 1: a bit. Mark was publicly reprimanded by the Big Twelve.
Speaker 1: They find him forty thousand dollars. But in his sit
Speaker 1: down with Joe, he was a little bit more reflective,
Speaker 1: and I think probably this was the approach he should
Speaker 1: have taken right right after the the.
Speaker 2: Incident went down.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, here we are, so here, here's a couple
Speaker 1: of the highlights before we catch a break.
Speaker 2: To bring in Bill quote.
Speaker 1: I think, as we talked about last season, just like
Speaker 1: I would say there are things that need to improve
Speaker 1: as we head into the next year, and I would
Speaker 1: say the same of myself. I think that night, obviously
Speaker 1: I reacted emotionally and my frustrations were expressed in a
Speaker 1: way that was not worthy of a true leader of
Speaker 1: a program of this stature, and certainly, as any leader should,
Speaker 1: you learn and you grow from the experiences. Reflecting, I
Speaker 1: felt I could take away from their victory and the
Speaker 1: hard earned victory of those student athletes and that program.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: He reached out to Brett Yormark to apologize.
Speaker 1: He said, he reached out to Tom Holmo and Colonie
Speaker 1: said TAKEI to apologize. He continues, quote bringing the Big
Speaker 1: Twelve and diminishing our participation of the Big Twelve was,
Speaker 1: in my view, inappropriate. As my statement said immediately after
Speaker 1: the game, I don't want at all anyone to think
Speaker 1: that Utah's participation of the Big Twelve isn't something that
Speaker 1: we're proud of and frankly were honored to be competing. So,
Speaker 1: as I said, you learn and you grow, as I
Speaker 1: asked our student athletes and staff to do in these situations,
Speaker 1: I was not a great example of that, but certainly
Speaker 1: I feel I have learned from it and look forward
Speaker 1: to continuing this great rivalry the right way. He goes
Speaker 1: on to talk about Kyle Whittingham coming back to the program.
Speaker 1: He actually goes on to talk about a number of
Speaker 1: different things that are worth your time, including nil endeavors
Speaker 1: and what should be perceived as good news as far
Speaker 1: as fundraising for the University of Utah saying they've been
Speaker 1: able to double their output to pay student athletes. You know,
Speaker 1: we are high speed ahead to that reality coming up
Speaker 1: this year of the twenty point five million dollar I
Speaker 1: guess I'll call it a soft cap that each school
Speaker 1: will be allowed to play, you know, pay their players,
Speaker 1: and we'll see how each school goes about this because
Speaker 1: there are still so many things that need to be
Speaker 1: put in place, guardrails, rules, quite frankly, stipulations as far
Speaker 1: as what you can and cannot do. But the main
Speaker 1: piece I thought was really feeling like he has been
Speaker 1: more retrospective about this situation where he took the podium
Speaker 1: after the BYU game and those comments made national news
Speaker 1: really really quickly. So it's worth your time. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about it throughout the course of the show with some guests,
Speaker 1: but Mark Carlin sitting down with Joe Coles the Desert
Speaker 1: News and March's going to be in studio coming up
Speaker 1: tomorrow with Sean one day away from the college football
Speaker 1: playoff semi final, and do some college football on the
Speaker 1: show today. Then it's signed for the wild card weekend
Speaker 1: in pro football.
Speaker 2: But let's welcome in our first guest on a.
Speaker 1: Wednesday batting leadoff because of his blazing speed, he can
Speaker 1: lay a bunt down and get to first. The voice himself,
Speaker 1: Bill Riley on a Wednesday afternoon. Rile's happy Wednesday, Sir.
Speaker 1: How are we doing, Spence?
Speaker 6: I'm good And just so you know, as I listened
Speaker 6: in to the end of the Drive yesterday, I respect
Speaker 6: the sanctity of the Sportscaster and Broadcaster of the Year award,
Speaker 6: So I was very happy for Craig Bowler Jack because
Speaker 6: it's very important as a former winner myself to respect
Speaker 6: the sanctity of the Sports Broadcaster of the aarward.
Speaker 1: See, I'm very grateful to that's your attitude, because I
Speaker 1: have my questions written down and right out of the gates.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you about the beef because now
Speaker 1: you've got company. You got so here's what we could do. Okay,
Speaker 1: you could be a little upset that now next to
Speaker 1: you is Craig who has also won this award three times.
Speaker 1: Or do we get robes and treat it like the
Speaker 1: Five timers? Club at SNL where you and Craig can
Speaker 1: just wear robes and brag about your awards.
Speaker 6: We were gonna get brandy, sniffs and cigars to go
Speaker 6: with the robes and just kind of sit back and
Speaker 6: enjoy ourselves.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 2: I think that's the play.
Speaker 1: I think we could create like a YouTube series, the
Speaker 1: Three Timers Club, which is you and Bowler.
Speaker 2: But I'm relieved.
Speaker 1: That there's not anger. I was just afraid there was
Speaker 1: gonna be a beef, you know, no beef.
Speaker 6: No beef again, much like Hot or Not Wednesday, since
Speaker 6: it is a Wednesday and peace. Indeed, I respect and
Speaker 6: preserve the sanctity of the sports broadcaster of the award.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness. That's such a relief, and it is an
Speaker 1: appropriate day. And if the kids don't know what how
Speaker 1: or Not Wednesday is, it's probably good. So we can
Speaker 1: just move on from it, all right, Bill Man. It
Speaker 1: started off last night and it looked okay. You know,
Speaker 1: Utah basketball. Gabe was able to get loose a couple
Speaker 1: of times, Early made a couple of shots. Sharav Jams
Speaker 1: hit that opening three, and they were getting offensive boards,
Speaker 1: they were getting stops, and then the bottom just completely
Speaker 1: fell off so give me your thoughts and look, Iowa
Speaker 1: State is awesome. They might be a Final four team.
Speaker 1: That's their twenty seventh straight home win. That's the fourth
Speaker 1: longest streak in the country, I believe, so nobody wins there.
Speaker 1: But what happened after that strong start that allowed Iowa
Speaker 1: State to just run away from Utah last night.
Speaker 6: Too many turnover spence. They ended up I think first
Speaker 6: half twelve eighteen for the game. And the thing about
Speaker 6: a team like Iowa State, especially when you've got great guards,
Speaker 6: is you know, they punish you when you turn it over.
Speaker 6: They turned those eighteen turnovers into twenty five points and
Speaker 6: to twelve in the first half. Eighteen points. You just
Speaker 6: the game plan was sound. They played hard in those
Speaker 6: first few minutes. But you can't coach against turnovers. And
Speaker 6: when a team can punish you by going to you
Speaker 6: know what do they call it? Turnovers equal touchdowns? That's
Speaker 6: that's what it was. Those two guards just got out,
Speaker 6: applied the pressure, and they made them pay on the
Speaker 6: other end. I honestly, and I know the final score
Speaker 6: doesn't show it. I'm not trying to shine a light
Speaker 6: where there shouldn't be light, but I thought of the
Speaker 6: three Big Twelve games they played. I thought their effort
Speaker 6: from start to finish was good. I thought there were
Speaker 6: some bright spots, Gabe finally getting going again he had
Speaker 6: been in single digits since the Eastern Washington game, and
Speaker 6: some of that stuff. But again, when you're playing in
Speaker 6: the Big Twelve and you're playing teams like Iowa State
Speaker 6: and Baylor and Texas Tech and Kansas, and you know,
Speaker 6: you just you got to be strong with the basketball.
Speaker 6: You cannot have live ball turnovers because those teams turn
Speaker 6: live ball turnovers into points.
Speaker 1: And in a way, Bill this team lacks what I
Speaker 1: think Craig's team has lacked for the most part. There
Speaker 1: have been some exceptions here or there, but there just
Speaker 1: continues to be no ball in hand playmaking initiator who
Speaker 1: can get his own or get it for his teammates. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not a mandate, right, So like, for instance, Will
Speaker 1: Hardy and the Utah Jazz, they play a free flowing
Speaker 1: San Antonio Spur type system because they don't have a Shay,
Speaker 1: they don't have a Luca, they don't have a Jalen Bronson.
Speaker 1: So everybody shares the ball and everybody eats, and ironically
Speaker 1: enough where Utah ranks well in conference play is both
Speaker 1: assist per game and assist of turnover ratio. So you know,
Speaker 1: they share the ball, they play as a team. But
Speaker 1: I think in college basketball specifically, you just have to
Speaker 1: have one of those initiators. Iowa State has like three.
Speaker 1: Are are there any candidates that you've seen that maybe
Speaker 1: can grow into that role.
Speaker 6: I think the hope is Miro Little can become that guy.
Speaker 6: Obviously a highly to guy, four star kid. He just
Speaker 6: didn't play very much at Baylor last year. He had
Speaker 6: a lot of veteran guards in front of him. Plays
Speaker 6: internationally point guard for Finland. You know, he's growing into that,
Speaker 6: and I think the hope is because he's a pretty
Speaker 6: sturdy kid at the point that he can grow into it.
Speaker 6: He's not there yet, he's not, but I think the
Speaker 6: hope is with a little bit more seasoning that maybe
Speaker 6: Miro Little can be that guy. When you talked it
Speaker 6: their best and you saw it a little bit last night,
Speaker 6: and you hadn't seen it in the last couple of games.
Speaker 6: As you were saying, they share the ball, but they
Speaker 6: move it, they move it, they move it, and they
Speaker 6: did that a few times last night and Gabe actually
Speaker 6: had some open looks, which he hasn't had in recent
Speaker 6: weeks because what teams are doing is they're blitzing him.
Speaker 6: They're just running two guys at him. Every time he
Speaker 6: gets it. He's at the top of the scatting import
Speaker 6: they're saying, this guy's not gonna be this You talked
Speaker 6: did a pretty good job early against Iowa State moving
Speaker 6: the ball, making that extra pass. But to your point,
Speaker 6: and you're right about it, they need to find that
Speaker 6: ball and hand guy, and I think they hope that
Speaker 6: Miro Little might become that guy as this season wears on.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm just looking at the Big Twelve standings.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the schedule.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State's going to be here in Sault Lake, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to be overly dramatic to
Speaker 1: wonder whether or not they're going to win a Big
Speaker 1: Twelve conference game because it's college basketball. Game will get
Speaker 1: hot one night, you know, the other team will show
Speaker 1: up and not necessarily be into it. Oklahoma State might
Speaker 1: be a good shot for them to get a win
Speaker 1: coming up here in Saul Lake. So give me your
Speaker 1: thoughts before we move on from this on what we
Speaker 1: all should hope to see as Oklahoma State rolls into
Speaker 1: Salt Lake.
Speaker 6: Well, I think you hope to see the fight and
Speaker 6: the effort that you saw last night. You're right. Oklahoma
Speaker 6: State hadn't won a game in Big Twelve play till
Speaker 6: last night, and they beat Kansas State, I think, by
Speaker 6: fifteen in Stillwater. And Kansas State's not been quite the
Speaker 6: team we thought, but that's a fifteen point win, any
Speaker 6: kind of win in the Big Twelve in conference play,
Speaker 6: you beat somebody by fifteen, that's a good win. So
Speaker 6: what you're gonna have to see is the kind of
Speaker 6: effort they showed for most of the game last night
Speaker 6: against Iowa State, minus the turnovers. And you're right, nobody
Speaker 6: goes undefeated in the Big Twelve. There's gonna be nights
Speaker 6: where you get hot. But Utah's margin for error isn't
Speaker 6: as big as an Iowa State or at Texas Tech
Speaker 6: or at Kansas Tech. Arizona's coming on right now, and
Speaker 6: they've got a lot of talent. Utah has to play
Speaker 6: again because they don't have superstars. They've got to play well,
Speaker 6: collectively together and play hard, and they're gonna have to
Speaker 6: do that Saturday against Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: State actually had one more question because on the broadcast
Speaker 1: last night, you know, we used to have this saying
Speaker 1: for Quinn it was February Quinn. When the camera would
Speaker 1: catch Quinn Snyder, he looked like he hadn't slept for
Speaker 1: like five weeks, looked like he's not eating any like
Speaker 1: real food, and it just got a little loose for
Speaker 1: our guy. And typically I don't see that on Craig's face,
Speaker 1: but I did last night. Under the eyes are big.
Speaker 1: You can tell he's wearing this, you know, on his shoulder.
Speaker 1: You can tell, you know, this is affecting him. You
Speaker 1: can just see it on his face in a way
Speaker 1: that I'm not sure that I've seen it on Craig's face.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Look, as you know, he is a prince of a man.
Speaker 1: He's the best guy, and he's one wherever he's been.
Speaker 1: It's not like he forgot how to coach. I just
Speaker 1: don't think they have the horses night in and night out.
Speaker 1: And hopefully that can change. But you do the Coaches
Speaker 1: Show with him, you travel with the team. How do
Speaker 1: you think this is wearing on their head? Coach?
Speaker 2: How do you think Craig's holding up?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 6: He has joked about it on the Coaches Show and
Speaker 6: even with me on some pre games. Yeah, he is.
Speaker 6: He is a guy that wears it because he is
Speaker 6: so driven to win. And he said, you know, I've
Speaker 6: spent a lot of late nights watching tape, breaking down tape.
Speaker 6: And it's not just that, it's you know, when your
Speaker 6: team's not doing what you want them to do, you
Speaker 6: start being introspective. Craig talks about this all the time.
Speaker 6: It's one of two things. Are they not getting it
Speaker 6: or are we not teaching it right way? Do we
Speaker 6: need to simplify things a little bit more for these
Speaker 6: for these guys? And I think Craig's kind of looking
Speaker 6: at all these different aspects saying, Okay, we know what
Speaker 6: we need to do, but are we conveying it the
Speaker 6: right way? And I think in addition to you know,
Speaker 6: hours of tape breakdown the Coaches do, I think that
Speaker 6: he and his staff are trying to figure out the
Speaker 6: best way to get that message through to teach what
Speaker 6: they're trying to teach to his guys too.
Speaker 1: Let me just follow up and ask you how it
Speaker 1: seems to be affecting these young men, these players you know, who,
Speaker 1: of course, are trying to put in the work to
Speaker 1: get better. But as you travel with the team, do
Speaker 1: they feel like they're connected, motivated, in good headspace or
Speaker 1: is it do you think it's getting to them as well?
Speaker 6: Well, I think losing probably frustrates anybody. But I'll say this,
Speaker 6: this is a really good bunch of kids and really
Speaker 6: well connected. And I've not seen any you know, in
Speaker 6: fighting or anything like that. They are still a group
Speaker 6: that likes each other a lot. You're not seeing anybody,
Speaker 6: you know, pout at the end of the bench or
Speaker 6: walk off or be by themselves. It's a good group.
Speaker 6: So I think if you're a coach, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 6: you know, these guys are connected, they like each other,
Speaker 6: they're playing together. Now let's figure out how we can
Speaker 6: get them into the best position possible.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do a little college football before I
Speaker 1: set you loose for a Wednesday and before we land
Speaker 1: on Utah, specifically on Monday morning. I just sat down.
Speaker 1: I thought this would be a fun little thing to
Speaker 1: do for the show, and I'm like, all right, just
Speaker 1: do the best you can to try to see where
Speaker 1: you're at for Big twelve football next year. Just like I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, Man, I have no clue.
Speaker 1: I keep talking about I keep using this line where
Speaker 1: I've kind of leaned into diagnosing instead of prognosticating. Because
Speaker 1: college football is this new, like living organism that we're
Speaker 1: all witnessing for the first time, with a new playoff format,
Speaker 1: new rules to add talents, the ability to pay players
Speaker 1: and unlimited transfers and all those things. But if I
Speaker 1: asked you in January, like where's your head at as
Speaker 1: far as how the Big Twelve will look in the fall,
Speaker 1: like what's you're in, it's sure reaction.
Speaker 6: I have no idea because Arizona State was picked dead
Speaker 6: last and they finished first this year. I mean, there's
Speaker 6: reasons why Utah struggled this year. It's namely injuries at
Speaker 6: the quarterback spot. But this league's it's a good league, Spence,
Speaker 6: there's not I know, as bad as badly as people
Speaker 6: want the Big Twelve to have a powerhouse, they don't
Speaker 6: have anybody that's on par with Notre Dame or Texas
Speaker 6: or Ohio State. But the league overall, it's good. And
Speaker 6: I don't have a clue, right, I think we almost
Speaker 6: have to wait until spring football because there's gonna be
Speaker 6: another portal window to try and figure out what rosters
Speaker 6: look like. But here's what I will say. I think
Speaker 6: there's probably I thought last year there were five teams
Speaker 6: that might have a chance to win the league. Maybe
Speaker 6: we expand that to seven or eight next year that
Speaker 6: might have a chance to win the league based on
Speaker 6: the competitive nature of what we saw this year. But
Speaker 6: to be fair, I don't have a feel. I just
Speaker 6: know the league is is competitive. But for me to
Speaker 6: sit here today and say, noh, yeah, Arizona State's going
Speaker 6: to be the favorite next year, well it's January eighth.
Speaker 6: What's their roster going to look like August eighth, that's
Speaker 6: seven or eight months away. Guys could leave programs today
Speaker 6: that are seemingly happy. So I don't know. But what
Speaker 6: I do know is I think the league zuber competitive.
Speaker 1: It was such an exercise and futility. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: move on to something else, like focus on there's no
Speaker 1: content here for the show. Move on to something else.
Speaker 1: But I will ask you this. So I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this tough the prism of K State because K
Speaker 1: State and Utah are kind of built in a similar way.
Speaker 2: They're a recruit and develop program.
Speaker 1: Both of them are and Most of the success for
Speaker 1: k State in the past and Utah in the past
Speaker 1: has been from second year, third year, fourth year. You know,
Speaker 1: guys that have been in the program for a long
Speaker 1: time and understand what they're asked to do. As Kyle says,
Speaker 1: are you physically capable of doing what we're asked in
Speaker 1: you to do?
Speaker 2: And do you mentally understand the task?
Speaker 1: Is it still possible to be successful in college football
Speaker 1: with that mode of operation, with that being your ethos,
Speaker 1: recruit and develop and then rely on your players that
Speaker 1: have been there two, three, four years, like both case
Speaker 1: State and Utah have in the past.
Speaker 6: I think you can to a point spence, but I
Speaker 6: don't think that that can be the only thing you
Speaker 6: rely on anymore. I think that's got to be part.
Speaker 6: I don't think that there's a one way. This is
Speaker 6: how we do it, this is how we've always done it.
Speaker 6: I think you have to have multiple paths to that. Yes,
Speaker 6: I still think you have to recruit. It's eighty five guys.
Speaker 6: You can't roll your roster every year. You've got to
Speaker 6: develop some guys in your program. But you've also got
Speaker 6: to be wide open to the portal and the transfers.
Speaker 6: And identify those right guys that can come into your program,
Speaker 6: knowing that you're going to lose some guys from your
Speaker 6: program that you don't expect to and you're going to
Speaker 6: bring some guys in as well. But to say that
Speaker 6: we're going to recruit and we're going to develop, and
Speaker 6: that's how we're going to do it, that can't be
Speaker 6: the only way anymore. It could be part of the way.
Speaker 6: It's got to be that way, but it can't be
Speaker 6: the only way. The way it was, and I think
Speaker 6: Kyle Whittingham said as much in some of his postseason comments.
Speaker 6: You know, he said, you know, we can't expect to
Speaker 6: have guys in our program for three or four years anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you'll have some that are but a lot of guys
Speaker 6: might just be here for a year or two. And
Speaker 6: so we've got to develop an offense that guys can
Speaker 6: assimilate quickly into. And you've got to identify the right
Speaker 6: guys in the portal to fit with what you want
Speaker 6: to do, and then you you know, and then you
Speaker 6: mix those in with the guys that have been in
Speaker 6: your program already. I think I don't know that you
Speaker 6: can have all new guys. I think you have to
Speaker 6: have a base of guys that have been there because
Speaker 6: they're the guys that know the culture of the program.
Speaker 6: But I think what you were saying is that being
Speaker 6: the only Monstra I think that has to be part
Speaker 6: of the plan. It can't be the only plan.
Speaker 1: And it does change the way that you have to coach.
Speaker 1: I mean there's more urgency now right like when you
Speaker 1: get your hands on these kids, when you're able to
Speaker 1: get them on campus, when you're able to hold workouts,
Speaker 1: when you're able to start to show them what you do.
Speaker 1: You cannot rely on the knowledge they're absorbing now to
Speaker 1: pay off in two or three years, like as soon
Speaker 1: as they're on the ground.
Speaker 2: It's like go. And it's always urgent. But for you know.
Speaker 1: For coach with and Utah football to continue, and it
Speaker 1: would to continue what is still the golden era.
Speaker 2: We're two years removed from Rose Bowls.
Speaker 1: To get the team two years ago to eight wins
Speaker 1: wasnts I mean last year sucked, we all know that.
Speaker 1: But for Kyle and Morgan and that staff to continue
Speaker 1: what I perceived to be the golden era of college football,
Speaker 1: the urgency to try to acclimate right away when the
Speaker 1: kids get on the ground, it's like heightened. You know,
Speaker 1: that's got to be a tough task to try to
Speaker 1: get these Now, the good news is, I guess everybody
Speaker 1: else is doing it as well. But how would you
Speaker 1: articulate how the process has to be expedited with this
Speaker 1: new reality of maybe only having players for a year
Speaker 1: or two at the most.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it goes back to what I was
Speaker 6: saying a minute ago. I think you have to simplify
Speaker 6: your philosophy just a little bit. So guys that are
Speaker 6: coming in that have played football other places, you know,
Speaker 6: again it's you're still speaking the same football language. It's
Speaker 6: just kind of different dialects. So I think you have
Speaker 6: to simplify it down a little bit to what they
Speaker 6: are and who they are. But you know, you have
Speaker 6: to find the right football players for you that fit
Speaker 6: you and you think are going to be able to
Speaker 6: You're not going to overhaul completely who you are, but
Speaker 6: maybe you just have to tweak that a little bit.
Speaker 6: And to the point you were just making a second ago,
Speaker 6: I know that Utah fans were disappointed by this year,
Speaker 6: and you know, the standard is high. It's the first
Speaker 6: losing season in eleven years. But it is just one
Speaker 6: losing season, and we all know average quarterback play would
Speaker 6: have had you right there in the mix for a
Speaker 6: big twelfth title game, you know, appearance. So I don't
Speaker 6: think the sky has fallen. I don't think Kyle Whittingham
Speaker 6: and more scally and those guys up there have forgotten
Speaker 6: how to coach football. I think they, like everybody else,
Speaker 6: are adapting in a new era. But I also think
Speaker 6: that a healthy quarterback and a good offensive system this
Speaker 6: year as you right back in the mix again.
Speaker 1: And you know, to the point of continuity, I suppose
Speaker 1: if that's kind of the deal. When it comes to
Speaker 1: familiarity right out of the gates, it can only be
Speaker 1: good news that Devin Dampier played last year for Jason, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would probably be different if Jason wasn't
Speaker 1: bringing his quarterback with him. But because Devin is familiar
Speaker 1: with what he's being asked to do, that continuity is
Speaker 1: not something you have to build from the ground up.
Speaker 2: I guess that's one way to look at it.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Absolutely, And your most important position on the field
Speaker 6: is in lockstep with your offensive coordinator. You've also brought
Speaker 6: a couple of other new Mexico players to the program
Speaker 6: as well, and that's not going to hurt. You bring
Speaker 6: a wide receiver to the program that now can help
Speaker 6: the wide receiver room. You bring a running back to
Speaker 6: the program that can now help the running back room.
Speaker 6: So I I think all of that certainly helps. On
Speaker 6: the defensive side of the football. You don't have to
Speaker 6: worry about that because Scally and that defense and the
Speaker 6: majority of those guys are back, and so I think,
Speaker 6: but you're absolutely right. The assimilation of the offense certainly
Speaker 6: helps when the quarterback and a couple of new pieces
Speaker 6: know that offense inside. Now.
Speaker 1: So it's been a few weeks since we've been able
Speaker 1: to catch up with you, and since we last spoke,
Speaker 1: Keanutanavasa has decided to head down and play for Kilane
Speaker 1: and head down to Provo. And you know, he took
Speaker 1: some heat and you understand why. I mean, he took
Speaker 1: to social media to kind of chastise players who claimed
Speaker 1: they were all in and then left. Like Cameron Calhoun,
Speaker 1: I always I continue to give a little PSA every
Speaker 1: day on the show. You always have the option to
Speaker 1: not tweet. You always have the option to you know,
Speaker 1: maybe even type it out put it in the draft.
Speaker 1: You don't have to send it. And that's players, that's parents,
Speaker 1: that's fans, that's all of us. So this has been
Speaker 1: a hot button topic over the past couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: And look, in a way, Keanu should take some of
Speaker 1: the pushback as a compliment because he's awesome. It's hard
Speaker 1: to lose a good player to your rival. But how
Speaker 1: have you digested this and what do you think the
Speaker 1: loss means for about BYU and Utah.
Speaker 6: Well, here's the thing. I've always said that kids need
Speaker 6: to go where they're happy and where they're going to thrive.
Speaker 6: You know, we don't tell a kid that's a that's
Speaker 6: an engineering major that he can't leave. These kids are
Speaker 6: football majors. Let's just say that right now. Counta Tatabasa.
Speaker 6: He is a guy that's going to play on Sundays.
Speaker 6: He's a professional football player. He's going to be that
Speaker 6: at some point in time. And if he's going to
Speaker 6: be happier someplace else, more power to him. I think
Speaker 6: fans just have to get used to that's the era
Speaker 6: we live in now. You know, it's not what it
Speaker 6: was five or ten years ago, and it's not going
Speaker 6: to be the norm, but there are going to be
Speaker 6: some outliers like this. But Utah football was not going
Speaker 6: to rise and fall on a defensive It just simply wasn't.
Speaker 6: He's a very good football player, and go play where
Speaker 6: you're happy. Utah will be able to find a replacement
Speaker 6: for him. But I just think we have to reconfigure
Speaker 6: our minds just a little bit to what this new
Speaker 6: reality is, Spence, And this new reality is guys aren't
Speaker 6: going to stay. A lot of guys, not all, but
Speaker 6: a lot of guys aren't going to stay in the
Speaker 6: same place for three or four years anymore. And even
Speaker 6: if they seem happy in one spot, people have different
Speaker 6: reasons for wanting to go. Whether it's financial, whether it's emotional,
Speaker 6: whether it's religious, whatever it might happen to be, people
Speaker 6: are going to go for those reasons. And if the
Speaker 6: rules are there that allows it to happen, we just
Speaker 6: have to get used to the fact that it's going
Speaker 6: to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, well said, well said, real quick. One more
Speaker 1: football thing. Now, Look, as you reference, there's another transfer
Speaker 1: portal window that opens up in the spring. But it
Speaker 1: feels like for now this is the group right feels
Speaker 1: like for now it's twenty five incoming freshmen, sixteen transfers,
Speaker 1: forty one new players. So is that your understanding, like,
Speaker 1: for right now, this is the group we're kind of expecting.
Speaker 1: Maybe for springball, Yeah.
Speaker 6: That would be my guess. There might be maybe an
Speaker 6: addition here and there, but I think most for most,
Speaker 6: for the most part, where Utah is right now and
Speaker 6: where most of these teams are right now is pretty
Speaker 6: much what you what your spring window is going to
Speaker 6: look like. Now. The post spring portal has generally always
Speaker 6: been guys that went through spring football and then figured
Speaker 6: out where they were on the depth chart and they
Speaker 6: didn't get a lot of playing time in the spring,
Speaker 6: so they wanted to go someplace where they felt like
Speaker 6: they could play in the fall. I'm not sure what
Speaker 6: the portal is going to look like in the spring anymore.
Speaker 6: Is this just going to be a new round of
Speaker 6: guys deciding, hey, I'm on the market, come for me now.
Speaker 6: Or is it going to be guys that are, you know,
Speaker 6: looking for more playing time that maybe they didn't get
Speaker 6: in spring football. That's that's going to be the interesting
Speaker 6: thing I keep an eye on on the portal later
Speaker 6: this spring, all.
Speaker 1: Right before I say you lose. I want to circle
Speaker 1: back to a topic that we've discussed. You and I
Speaker 1: have discussed it, and everybody has discussed it for years.
Speaker 1: But every time basketball season rolls around, we talk about
Speaker 1: and debate and try to maybe find solutions, be solutions
Speaker 1: orientated as to why that building is empty and has
Speaker 1: been for look a long time, if we're being real,
Speaker 1: there has not been consistent attendance outside of a year
Speaker 1: or two spike since probably the late nineties when I
Speaker 1: was in school up there and Rick was the coach. Now,
Speaker 1: I'd never want to be the guy that's like, hey,
Speaker 1: can we get it back to what it was like
Speaker 1: when Majeris was here. That's unfair. And Bill, this really
Speaker 1: is a chicken or the egg conversation, because the fact
Speaker 1: of the matter is, if you are a Utah fan
Speaker 1: that cares about the basketball program, the best thing you
Speaker 1: can do is to pack that building. Because kids who
Speaker 1: Craig are trying to recruit, they want to play in
Speaker 1: front of fans. Now, they want money, they want opportunities
Speaker 1: to go professional.
Speaker 2: It's not the only thing they want.
Speaker 1: But if Kyle has a recruit in town for a
Speaker 1: Saturday night game at Riceycle Stadium. He can just point
Speaker 1: up to the stands and say, look, do you want
Speaker 1: to play in front of this? Now, on the other side,
Speaker 1: if I'm a Utah basketball fan, I'm saying, give me
Speaker 1: something to cheer for consistently. So I'm not blaming anybody
Speaker 1: one way or the other. But what's the Bill Riley take, Like,
Speaker 1: how do we fix this thing to get people back
Speaker 1: in that building and therefore maybe give Craig a better
Speaker 1: chance to recruit better players.
Speaker 6: Well, I think it's you know, some sustained success probably
Speaker 6: brings more people back to the games. I know there's
Speaker 6: a lot I talk to a lot of people and
Speaker 6: they're like, yeah, I like Utah basketball, but I want
Speaker 6: to see them win a little bit more. And I said,
Speaker 6: you know, like you said, it's kind of a chicken
Speaker 6: in the egg. Well maybe if you show up, you
Speaker 6: know that that helps the winning, That creates a little
Speaker 6: bit more of an atmosphere. I don't have an answer.
Speaker 6: I just know where teams win, generally fans come. And
Speaker 6: I think just a little bit more success on the floor. Well,
Speaker 6: I mean you've seen it with women's basketball, what Lynn
Speaker 6: Roberts built. Nowvian Peterson is continuing on. I mean, I
Speaker 6: remember days where they'd be lucky to have a fifteen
Speaker 6: hundred people in a women's basketball game. Now they're drawing
Speaker 6: five thousand plus routinely six thousand fans. Well, the product
Speaker 6: is good, they're winning. They play an exciting brand of basketball.
Speaker 6: I think a little bit more success would certainly bring
Speaker 6: more people out.
Speaker 2: Chiefs win the Super Bowl. And if not, who keeps
Speaker 2: you up at night? Who you're most scared of?
Speaker 6: Probably the Bills. They they're just Josh Allen and hey,
Speaker 6: Lamar is fantastic. The funny thing is the Chiefs have
Speaker 6: beaten both Josh Allen and Lamar in the playoffs in
Speaker 6: recent years. But I think one of those teams are
Speaker 6: probably going to knock each other off. But there's something
Speaker 6: about Allen when he just seems he seems to put
Speaker 6: that tape on and go nuclear. They make me probably
Speaker 6: most nervous. However, the games are at Arrowheads, so I
Speaker 6: feel pretty good about it. Maybe somebody in the NFE.
Speaker 6: I think maybe the Lions might be that team too,
Speaker 6: but I don't know about you, Spens. I don't completely
Speaker 6: trust Jared Goff yet. Now, maybe if they win the
Speaker 6: NFC and get to the super Bowl. That changes my mind.
Speaker 6: But I still don't completely trust Goth. What about you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think with fifteen hunderd Center, you're gonna win.
Speaker 1: I just think you're gonna figure it out. And yeah
Speaker 1: that look, there's there's something about Jared Goth that still
Speaker 1: gives you the you know, just just makes you a
Speaker 1: little bit nervous about what it's going to look like
Speaker 1: in the biggest of moments because he's never been able
Speaker 1: to break through. But that that offense right now, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems incredibly potent with a bunch of different dudes
Speaker 1: who can beat you in Detroit. That's why Ben Johnson
Speaker 1: is such a hot commodity. But I just I think
Speaker 1: your boys have it again. Man, I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: be celebrating three straight.
Speaker 6: I hope. So, uh do you want Rex Ryan back?
Speaker 2: As the head goes, No, absolutely not, of course not.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 1: Mike hire Mike for Abel, hire a coach. That makes sense,
Speaker 1: And you got to break it down. You got to
Speaker 1: get like, go take some ayahuasca, talk to a caterpillar,
Speaker 1: enjoy your remaining years. Aaron like, you have to move
Speaker 1: on from the entire mess. But no, I do not
Speaker 1: want Rex Ryan back in charge.
Speaker 6: Is there a candidate you love?
Speaker 3: Rabel?
Speaker 2: I want Mike Grabel. It makes it makes sense. But
Speaker 2: he might go to the Pats.
Speaker 6: If I were I don't know where i'd want to
Speaker 6: go if I were Vrabel. I mean, the Pats are
Speaker 6: certainly there. There's been the buffer coach with Grod Mayos.
Speaker 6: You're not following Belichick directly, but yeah, they also have
Speaker 6: a quarterback, and the Jets are a little little wonky
Speaker 6: at quarterback right now. So I'd probably lean toward the Pats,
Speaker 6: but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see. Well. Enjoy uh once again cheering for
Speaker 1: the team that's probably gonna win the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: It's good to be a chief sand Bill. Thanks for
Speaker 2: the time, buddy.
Speaker 6: Okay, Uh, Bowler and I we've you know, we would
Speaker 6: be glad to wear the robes, the snifters and the
Speaker 6: cigars and come in studio together.
Speaker 1: Wait a second, porter, did you hear that I got
Speaker 1: that recorded? Okay, Bill Bowler robes, sifters, whiskey, three times
Speaker 1: Sports of the Year, the Three Timers Club rows.
Speaker 2: We're gonna make this happen.
Speaker 6: Thanks Ben, all.
Speaker 1: Right, voice of the You, It's Bill Riley. One hour down,
Speaker 1: three hours to go. We've got Neil Smith coming up,
Speaker 1: Chris Camroanian Studio, and another trophy holder, Sarah Todd. Utah
Speaker 1: Sports Ride of the Year. Busy show on a Wednesday,
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. Utah Hockey Club is about to start
Speaker 1: a seven game home stands. So a bunch of home
Speaker 1: games now for the hockey club, who as of late
Speaker 1: they have not been playing well at all, but coming
Speaker 1: up tonight, one of the best teams in all of
Speaker 1: pro hockey, Florida, is in town. According to the current
Speaker 1: odds for Florida Panthers are that they have the second
Speaker 1: shortest odds to win the Stanley Cup. Only the Edmonton
Speaker 1: Oilers have shorter odds than both Carolina and Florida, who
Speaker 1: are at plus eight eight hundred. So let's bring in
Speaker 1: our guy, Neil Smith to talk a little puck little
Speaker 1: hockey on Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Neil, Happy Wednesday, sir, how.
Speaker 1: Are we doing?
Speaker 7: Happy Wednesday? I'm good. I missed you last week. I
Speaker 7: was stuck with a little bit of COVID there and
Speaker 7: miss Christmas and miss Star time together.
Speaker 1: Well you miss Christmas? How do you miss? Like Christmas
Speaker 1: still happened? Neil, you just couldn't be a part of it.
Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 7: I just couldn't be a part of it. I didn't
Speaker 7: want Santa getting COVID.
Speaker 1: Oh do you know what you are? A prince of
Speaker 1: a man, because if Santa got COVID at your house,
Speaker 1: he cannot deliver gifts.
Speaker 2: So I appreciate you being selfless that way.
Speaker 7: And that's what I was thinking about when I when
Speaker 7: I said to Santa, had put out a sign don't
Speaker 7: come here.
Speaker 1: I love I love it, I love it, sir, Thanks
Speaker 1: for the time. So let me start with the Florida Panthers,
Speaker 1: as I just reference, only the Edmonton Oilers have shorter
Speaker 1: odds in Vegas to win the Stanley Cup. What do
Speaker 1: we know about this team who's in Salt Lake to
Speaker 1: play the hockey Club tonight.
Speaker 7: Well, what you should know about them currently is it,
Speaker 7: believe it or not. As good as they are, they're
Speaker 7: in a gold drought. They can't score goals. They're having
Speaker 7: real trouble scoring goals, which I know sounds ridiculous for
Speaker 7: that team, but it's true. They've had real problems in
Speaker 7: their last couple of games. Said their goaltending has been
Speaker 7: has been pretty good. But Bobrovski, who you're going to
Speaker 7: see tonight, he's got you know, he's the guy that
Speaker 7: back stopped him to the Stanley Cup, and you're going
Speaker 7: to get him right there in Salt Lake City for
Speaker 7: the first for the first time ever that the Florida
Speaker 7: Panthers ever play in Salt Lake City, Utah. So you
Speaker 7: see a good goal kinner. But at the chance for
Speaker 7: the hockey club will be if the Milka naturally has
Speaker 7: to come through for them and then they can get
Speaker 7: some goal support and hopefully the guns are dry still
Speaker 7: for the Florida Panthers tonight.
Speaker 1: So the recent form for the hockey club has not
Speaker 1: been good, and this Neil has been a theme of
Speaker 1: the season. After a red hot starts, they got all
Speaker 1: of our expectations probably out of whack. It simply has
Speaker 1: been up and down, up and down. From mid December
Speaker 1: to nearly Christmas. They had a streak where they won
Speaker 1: six of seven, and over the past seven games they
Speaker 1: lost six of seven, two of those overtime losses. So
Speaker 1: what gives as of late is this the nature of
Speaker 1: a young team? Do you think this is what we're
Speaker 1: going to see all year long.
Speaker 7: I think you're going to see mountains and valleys all year.
Speaker 7: But remember that they played really well against Dallas and
Speaker 7: Dallas as a contender for the Cup as well, and
Speaker 7: it took over time to beat Utah in Dallas, so
Speaker 7: I thought they were playing really well. And usually what
Speaker 7: happens in a losing streak is that you play really
Speaker 7: well in the last couple of games before you break
Speaker 7: out of it, and that's what I'm hoping. Because they
Speaker 7: did play well in Dallas, they did play well in Calgary.
Speaker 7: They've got as you mentioned before, they got a seven
Speaker 7: game homestand here's the problem with the home stand. They've
Speaker 7: only won five games of their sixteen that they've played
Speaker 7: in Salt Lake, they've only won five in regulation. So
Speaker 7: they got to get more comfortable and get better on
Speaker 7: their home ice. You know, for example, if you when
Speaker 7: you talk about the team that they're going to play tonight,
Speaker 7: the Florida Panthers, they're twelve and eight at home, and
Speaker 7: you go to Utah and as I said, they're five,
Speaker 7: seven and four at home, and that's not good enough.
Speaker 7: You've got to take advantage of your home lice.
Speaker 1: Now, having said that, there's still only four points behind
Speaker 1: the Vancouver Canucks. As far as the wildcard race, you know,
Speaker 1: the Avalanche would be the first wildcard team with fifty one.
Speaker 1: Vancouver has forty five points, and it's Calgary. It's the Blues,
Speaker 1: only one point a head of the hockey club, and
Speaker 1: the hockey club's at forty one points, so they're not
Speaker 1: far out. Neil, I mean, in coach Tourney to your point,
Speaker 1: often talks about even during these roughs patches that he
Speaker 1: likes the way they're playing. Sometimes you can do the
Speaker 1: right things and the results just don't go your way.
Speaker 1: So even though they've lost six of seven with a
Speaker 1: couple of overtime losses in there, they're still right where
Speaker 1: you said that they would be this point in January,
Speaker 1: knocking on the wildcard door.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and they've got three games in hand on a
Speaker 7: couple of teams they've only played thirty nine. They've got
Speaker 7: three games in hand on the same Lewis. So when
Speaker 7: you see s Lewis is one point ahead, well they're
Speaker 7: really not, because if the games were even, you'd have
Speaker 7: to give Utah at least four points out of those
Speaker 7: the points that would be available in those games that
Speaker 7: would be you know, three games would be six available
Speaker 7: points max and then and you'd have to think they
Speaker 7: get let's say three. So they got three. They're now
Speaker 7: at forty four. They're one point behind Vancouver, but Vancouver's
Speaker 7: played less games as well. So what it's going to
Speaker 7: take is it's going to put They got to put
Speaker 7: some games together, wins together. They're plus minus isn't bad.
Speaker 7: They're only a minus five, which is of the teams
Speaker 7: that are a minus in the in the conference. Uh,
Speaker 7: you know they have the least. They're just a minus five.
Speaker 7: You can get over that, and they can they can
Speaker 7: turn this run. But they got to put some wins together.
Speaker 7: And my thing is, Fence, is that they got to
Speaker 7: do it in Salt Lake City, where they're home, where
Speaker 7: they're comfortable, where they have their fans. They got to
Speaker 7: put some wins together at home during these seven games
Speaker 7: right now is when they need to jump on this.
Speaker 7: And hopefully the Dallas game is an inspiration to these
Speaker 7: games coming up. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting with this home record as you reference,
Speaker 1: you know right now five seven and four, and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's anything here, Neil, but I
Speaker 1: wonder and look home ice advantage in the NHL oftentimes
Speaker 1: is not as prevalent as home court advantage in pro basketball.
Speaker 1: I mean, for whatever reason, teams can go on the
Speaker 1: road in the NHL and certainly Stanley Cup playoffs and
Speaker 1: get wins, and that's not a rare thing. But I
Speaker 1: wonder if the Utah Hockey Club's lack of home success
Speaker 1: has anything to do with this has been their home
Speaker 1: for a matter of months.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense? Like this is not a spot.
Speaker 1: Where these players have lived for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's one of the reasons they don't seem
Speaker 1: to be as comfortable at home. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking out loud, what do you think about?
Speaker 6: You know what?
Speaker 7: We can't read into the psychology of it. I don't
Speaker 7: know either, But I do know that when they were
Speaker 7: playing in that little bandbox in Arizona and in Phoenix,
Speaker 7: in that Mullet Arena, which was a college arena, they
Speaker 7: had a great home record. Teams would come in there
Speaker 7: and you know, they weren't used to it, they weren't
Speaker 7: used to playing in a college rink, and they would
Speaker 7: throw them off, I guess, but Arizona had a great
Speaker 7: home record now you turn around and they're in a
Speaker 7: beautiful building in Salt Lake City and they can't get
Speaker 7: it going at home, and they will, they will get
Speaker 7: it going at home. But you know, it's they just
Speaker 7: got it. They just got to get used to the
Speaker 7: fact that they're there now and that their fans are there,
Speaker 7: and that they got to be more confident at home
Speaker 7: and not be worried sometimes, Spence, don't you think that teams,
Speaker 7: when they're performing in front of their own fans squeeze
Speaker 7: a stick a little bit harder because they want so
Speaker 7: badly to do well in front of their fans. But
Speaker 7: when you're on the road, you sort of, you know,
Speaker 7: you're a little bit more at ease because everybody in
Speaker 7: the building wants you to lose. So what the heck,
Speaker 7: you know, I'm I'm going to play this as hard
Speaker 7: as they can. I just think this can happen, and
Speaker 7: especial with a younger team. So let's hope tonight when
Speaker 7: the Panthers come in, who are not been scoring goals,
Speaker 7: they can get a couple by Bobrovski and Florida can't
Speaker 7: get any by the Milica.
Speaker 1: On the other side, Neil, they have twelve road wins,
Speaker 1: which is good for fourth in the conference. Only Minnesota, Winnipeg,
Speaker 1: and Colorado have more road wins than the Utackey Club.
Speaker 1: They have more road wins in Vegas, they have more
Speaker 1: road wins in Edmonton, Vancouver.
Speaker 2: I could keep going.
Speaker 1: What does that say to you that this young team
Speaker 1: seems to be able to go away from home and
Speaker 1: get good results.
Speaker 7: Well, what it says to me, in my intuition, is
Speaker 7: that they're a group that's very close together, and they're
Speaker 7: bond well together because when you're on the road. I
Speaker 7: can't emphasize this enough. There's twenty five or thirty in
Speaker 7: your traveling party, whatever it is. There's twenty players and whatever,
Speaker 7: trainers and coaches and all that stuff. The only ones
Speaker 7: in those building, in that building on the road that want.
Speaker 6: You to win, just you guys.
Speaker 7: The rest of the eighteen thousand all want you to lose.
Speaker 7: So there's sort of a thing there. It's us against
Speaker 7: the world, and sometimes when you're on the road you
Speaker 7: can use that, and if you like each other, it's
Speaker 7: even better. And it seems to me that you can't
Speaker 7: do well on the road if you're not a team
Speaker 7: that's close. I just don't see how it's possible. And so,
Speaker 7: you know what, they'll figure this home thing out and
Speaker 7: get it going at home and continue doing whatever they're
Speaker 7: doing on the road that's made them so good.
Speaker 1: You know. I was, as we referenced earlier, I was
Speaker 1: looking at the Vegas Ods as far as who they
Speaker 1: like to win the Stanley cub Utah Hockey Club plus
Speaker 1: seven five hundred.
Speaker 2: Nobody thinks the hockey club is winning the Stanley Cup.
Speaker 1: But right in front of the Utah Hockey Club is
Speaker 1: the New York Rangers at plus five thousand. What's going
Speaker 1: on back there, Neil, what's going on with my Rangers?
Speaker 6: Well, it's create.
Speaker 7: You know, the team imploded. We talked a little bit
Speaker 7: about this two weeks ago, and since you and I
Speaker 7: have talked, it's it's not gotten any better. They played
Speaker 7: Dallas last night in Madison Square. Garden got a three
Speaker 7: nothing lead on them early in the game. Dallas scored
Speaker 7: it near the end of the first period to make
Speaker 7: it three to one Rangers going into the locker room.
Speaker 7: The game ended on an overtime goal by Dallas to
Speaker 7: win four to three. So or five to four, sorry,
Speaker 7: five to four. So the Rangers had a lead of
Speaker 7: three nothing, three to one, and then four to three,
Speaker 7: and couldn't hold any of those leads. So Chris Cryder's
Speaker 7: out on on ir injured reserve, and the captain's gone,
Speaker 7: troupe is gone. They're just they're in They're in a mess.
Speaker 7: They're a mess. I don't think they're going to make
Speaker 7: the playoffs. And I would never have said that, you know,
Speaker 7: a month or two ago, but they have just spun
Speaker 7: out of control.
Speaker 1: What and you know, I'm putting you on the spot here,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna expand our imagination in the New year deal.
Speaker 1: We're going to get really weird. And I know there's
Speaker 1: like the Carolina Hurricanes, I think in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: you know, the Mighty Ducks, who are no longer than
Speaker 1: Mighty Ducks. I know there have been long shots that
Speaker 1: have won the Stanley Cup. I don't know that that's
Speaker 1: ever been there's ever been a plus seven thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred team to win the Stanley Cup. But when you
Speaker 1: look at where the Utah Hockey Club are, despite their
Speaker 1: recent run of play, despite the fact they're not even
Speaker 1: in the playoffs right now, they're really mid table. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not near the bottom where Anaheim is and San
Speaker 1: Jose and Chicago and Columbus. So is there an example
Speaker 1: off the top of your head of like the biggest
Speaker 1: Cinderella run to a Stanley Cup in the history of
Speaker 1: the NHL, And are we allowed to expand our horizons
Speaker 1: to believe that could be us year one?
Speaker 7: Know, if you should really be smoking whatever that would
Speaker 7: be that would make you think you could win the
Speaker 7: Stanley Cup. But I will tell you that the biggest
Speaker 7: long shot win had every series. They were the road
Speaker 7: team on every series, meaning that the other club played
Speaker 7: four at home and only three in this team I'm
Speaker 7: going to say's building was the La Kings when they
Speaker 7: won their first Stanley Cup. They were an eighth seed
Speaker 7: in the West and ended up winning the Cup, and
Speaker 7: that was mind boggling to me. You never see that happen.
Speaker 7: But that's the one I can say truly was a
Speaker 7: Cinderella team.
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is, maybe don't put money down
Speaker 1: on the Utah Hockey Club to hoist the cup this.
Speaker 6: Year, not this year.
Speaker 7: If you want to put money on them to hoist
Speaker 7: the cup, just wait at least till the summertime.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough. Let me fill up with this because
Speaker 1: according to the Vegas ods, they're essentially saying there are
Speaker 1: three teams that have a legitimate chance. And look, I'm
Speaker 1: just talking about the odds because crazy things that could happen.
Speaker 1: As you said, eight seeds going on to win. But Edmonton,
Speaker 1: Carolina and Florida are the only teams that have short
Speaker 1: I'll call them short odds in Vegas. Everybody else has
Speaker 1: at least plus one thousand, including Dallas, New Jersey, Toronto, Colorado.
Speaker 2: I could keep going.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that the Stanley Cup winner will come
Speaker 1: from that group of three Edmonton, Carolina or Florida.
Speaker 7: You know, Vegas likes they love Edmonton. I don't know
Speaker 7: why when I mean, I know they went to Game seven,
Speaker 7: but they've never really to me, shown that they've got
Speaker 7: that Stanley Cup pedigree. They've got two of the best
Speaker 7: players in the league, for sure, but I think and Carolina,
Speaker 7: I don't know that they have the goaltending to win.
Speaker 7: They you know, they're going to have a goaltender to
Speaker 7: prove that he can win, has to do it. In
Speaker 7: other words, you never like Bobrovski. Nobody ever thought that
Speaker 7: he would win and now that he's won the Stanley Cup,
Speaker 7: you know he's capable of it. Darcy Kemper, who won
Speaker 7: it for Colorado a few years ago, now you know
Speaker 7: he's capable of it. I think that Florida and Edmonton
Speaker 7: are probably the favorites. But I you know, Colorado is
Speaker 7: really good if they get their goaltending straightened around. Dallas
Speaker 7: is really good and so and you know, the Devils
Speaker 7: are surprising in the East. I don't think they're there yet,
Speaker 7: but I think my thing right now, if and I
Speaker 7: hope nobody takes my advice, I would call it between
Speaker 7: again Edmonton and the Panthers.
Speaker 1: Why does in Vegas like Winnipeg who just won't slow down.
Speaker 1: They're plus sixteen hundred, I mean, they're smoking everybody, and
Speaker 1: I ask you about them every week, but they're not
Speaker 1: even close as far as the betting outs go to
Speaker 1: even making the Stanley Cup or hoisting the thing.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 7: I don't know unless the guys in Vegas don't have
Speaker 7: a clue where Winnipeg even is on the map, you know,
Speaker 7: I mean, it's it's probably antithesis of Las Vegas is Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Speaker 7: where my mother was born and raised one of the
Speaker 7: coldest places on earth. But you know that Winnipeg's even
Speaker 7: behind Toronto, and Toronto has not had the year that
Speaker 7: Winnipeg is having and enjoying. They and Winnipeg has Connor
Speaker 7: Hellibuck who won the Visita last year, and I will
Speaker 7: tell you is in my mind is the odds on
Speaker 7: favorite to win it again this year. So I can't
Speaker 7: answer that why they're not, why they're not there? I
Speaker 7: think that you know what, why is Edmonton there and
Speaker 7: this team not? I don't know unless everybody's just in
Speaker 7: love with Connor McDavid and Leon dry Sidle of the
Speaker 7: Oilers and and they're not in love with the guys
Speaker 7: on Winnipeg.
Speaker 1: So we already saw Chicago move on from their coach,
Speaker 1: Luke Richardson.
Speaker 6: Is there?
Speaker 1: I think, are there any other coaches out there you
Speaker 1: think are in danger based off of a poor I
Speaker 1: guess I'll say halfway home almost start to the season, Well.
Speaker 7: I thought Derek Lalan was in trouble for a long
Speaker 7: time in Detroit, and then he did get let go
Speaker 7: and and they brought in Tom McClellan to coach the
Speaker 7: Red Wings, and so then they have actually gone on
Speaker 7: to win, gone on to a winning streak right now.
Speaker 7: Who knows why, but Derek Lalande was gone to I
Speaker 7: don't know if in the other situations we saw three
Speaker 7: coaches fired so far, Drew Banister of course, Jim Montcomery four.
Speaker 7: I think Jim Montgomery in Boston, as I said, Derek
Speaker 7: Lalande in Detroit. And was there one other you just
Speaker 7: mentioned or is that it?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: I was just asking you because I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1: I'll just kind of that time of year, I.
Speaker 7: Think those three have been, those three are have changed,
Speaker 7: and I don't think any others will. I hope none do.
Speaker 7: I hate firings. I just hate them, but we'll see.
Speaker 7: I mean, the problem in pro sports, as you well know,
Speaker 7: is there's so few moves that an owner has or
Speaker 7: a general manager has, that he can do to try
Speaker 7: to get his team, you know, jump started. The coaches
Speaker 7: are the first thing that always goes well.
Speaker 1: And as you know, organizations that usually find the most
Speaker 1: success have ownership, front office and the coaching staff really
Speaker 1: all on the same page, pushing in the same direction.
Speaker 1: And when you have a meddling owner, which I think
Speaker 1: you experienced, that thinks he knows better than anybody else
Speaker 1: or someone else, you.
Speaker 2: Know, not pulling in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes, these things never really are fully baked because you
Speaker 1: have to have everybody on the same page, which is
Speaker 1: pretty rare. But it seems like the most successful teams
Speaker 1: have kind of that trinity.
Speaker 7: They absolutely you hit the nail right on the head.
Speaker 7: You sound like the offspring of a sports executive, because
Speaker 7: that's absolutely true. If you don't, if it starts at ownership,
Speaker 7: and if the ownership doesn't hire and trust the people
Speaker 7: they hire and let them do their job just the
Speaker 7: same as they would want to do their job in
Speaker 7: whatever made them all their money that they could afford
Speaker 7: a pro sports team, they are not going to win.
Speaker 6: And when you look.
Speaker 7: Around the league and look at teams that have been successful,
Speaker 7: and what we say successful, we just mean a contender.
Speaker 7: You don't have to win the Cup every year, but
Speaker 7: they're not meddling teams. And the ones that are meddling
Speaker 7: all the time, I think they've got a better way
Speaker 7: of doing things. They rarely get anywhere because you just
Speaker 7: can't operate in those conditions. If you're a sports guy,
Speaker 7: you know there's certain things you've got to do and
Speaker 7: you know it. You've been trained to do it, and
Speaker 7: if the owners don't let you do it, well, then
Speaker 7: you're not going to get anywhere.
Speaker 2: From your advantage point. Before I say you, Louise, I
Speaker 2: will ask you.
Speaker 1: And I know you don't know this ownership group well,
Speaker 1: and it's their first go around trying to own a
Speaker 1: hockey team, so I'm sure they're going to learn as
Speaker 1: they go. But what would you say to our community
Speaker 1: about your knowledge of Bill Armstrong and his staff and
Speaker 1: coach Tourney and his staff and kind of the synergies
Speaker 1: that exist between the two and the right people to
Speaker 1: kind of build this thing moving forward.
Speaker 7: Well, well, they've been together for quite a while now,
Speaker 7: this group, and I mean they were completely handcuffed in
Speaker 7: Arizona financially, and now that Ryan Smith has bought the
Speaker 7: team and moved into Salt Lake City and has I
Speaker 7: think Ryan Smith has shown some great patients by bringing
Speaker 7: everybody from Arizona and keeping the same crew and letting
Speaker 7: them prove whether they belong there or prove that they
Speaker 7: don't belong there. So you know, I think it's the
Speaker 7: right group. I like what they've done, and I believe.
Speaker 1: In them all right, Neil, Where can our listeners, our
Speaker 1: new hockey fan listeners in the community find podcast to yours.
Speaker 7: On any platform that you can find podcast, Spotify, Apple,
Speaker 7: YouTube and everything else. And it's called NHL Wrap Around.
Speaker 7: We do it four times a week now, Spence, we're
Speaker 7: doing it. So we have NHL wrap Around, We have
Speaker 7: New York Centric, which is just about the three New
Speaker 7: York teams, and then we do two updates a week
Speaker 7: called short Shifts on Wednesdays and Fridays, just to bring
Speaker 7: the listeners up to what's been happening in between. So
Speaker 7: you know, I'm not up to your level yet, but
Speaker 7: I'm trying to get there.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you far sur pass my level on the
Speaker 1: hockey side, Neil. I'm just doing the best I can
Speaker 1: and bring you on and ask you questions. It don't
Speaker 1: sound dumb, but I appreciate use.
Speaker 6: You sound great.
Speaker 7: You sound, as I said, you sound like you're from
Speaker 7: a sports family, and I don't know if I'm right
Speaker 7: about that or.
Speaker 1: Yeah there's something to that. I should look into it.
Speaker 1: I should look into it. But look, I really appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. We'll get you back on soon and keep
Speaker 1: up the great work on the pod.
Speaker 7: Okay, thanks so much for having me, all right.
Speaker 1: The great Neil Smith, former general manager of the New
Speaker 1: York Rangers and the New York Islanders, won a Stanley
Speaker 1: Cup with the Rangers in ninety four, spent some time
Speaker 1: as the chief scout for the Red Wings back in
Speaker 1: the eighties. He is a hockey encyclopedia, a historian, and
Speaker 1: it's great to have him on every week to help
Speaker 1: us learn about this new sport, pro hockey in our market.
Speaker 1: If you haven't been to a Utah Hockey Club game,
Speaker 1: the Florida Panthers are really good. The third shortest odds
Speaker 1: actually tied for the second shortest side to win the
Speaker 1: Stanley Cup. At games at eight o'clock to night at
Speaker 1: Delta Center. You can watch it on Turner Sports. All right,
Speaker 1: coming up on the other side, it is time for
Speaker 1: one hour of intellectual conversation with Chris Camaradi. Big Dave
Speaker 1: loves himself, Little Neil Young good. It is good, but
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where it was overplayed, Like
Speaker 1: you're your old man was into the metal stuff, right,
Speaker 1: the nineties, metal stuff, yeah, little hair metal yeah. And
Speaker 1: if he gets overplayed, then you become an adult. You
Speaker 1: don't love it as much as you because you heard
Speaker 1: it a ton It's fair.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Nil's a little timeless, in my opinion, not fair enough.
Speaker 1: Chris Camaradnie live in studio Hot Neil Neil young Tek,
Speaker 1: Let's get it there. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think for me, the Eagles are kind of the
Speaker 3: quintessential overplayed band, and I always think of the Lebowski
Speaker 3: scene He's just getting out of my cab. I love
Speaker 3: that he had to take a cab from Malibu all
Speaker 3: the way back to the city. That's an expensive cab,
Speaker 3: right it is.
Speaker 1: Then he throws him out of the cab because he
Speaker 1: doesn't like the Eagles. But Big Dave also overplayed the Eagles,
Speaker 1: so I can't absolutely, I can't do it. It was
Speaker 1: there a band that was overplayed in your house when
Speaker 1: you were younger.
Speaker 3: No, my mom has really really good taste in music.
Speaker 3: She like went with the times, so we never overplayed anything.
Speaker 3: It would it would, you know, evolve sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties,
Speaker 3: I mean like we had we had a pretty good
Speaker 3: repertoire going. I mean we would we would go from
Speaker 3: like you know, Jefferson Airplane to the Eagles A lot
Speaker 3: of you know, almost famousy stuff. And then as the
Speaker 3: eighties and nineties came around. I was born in the eighties,
Speaker 3: like you know, she started getting hit with it, Whitney
Speaker 3: Houston Voice to Man.
Speaker 7: Nice.
Speaker 3: We had a pretty good catalog of music in our house.
Speaker 1: See, I kind of nobody cares about this, but I care,
Speaker 1: do you think so?
Speaker 3: I think so?
Speaker 1: Frank Layton has advice to me, was who cares? Nobody's
Speaker 1: listening when I first took the job. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of how I do the job. Nobody's listening. I was
Speaker 1: lucky that deb My mom Motown. Oh yeah, loved it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so learned about all that as a kid dreams. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, for sure. Dana Ross, no doubt anyway, Chris, Happy,
Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday. Why are we getting you on a Wednesday
Speaker 1: this week?
Speaker 3: Because my kid's a taken?
Speaker 1: Oh I see, you know usually you're on our Friday staple.
Speaker 3: Yeah, free days. The kid is not in daycare on Fridays.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough. How's your January going? Things going?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Was I in here last week?
Speaker 7: You were?
Speaker 3: And it was after Yeah, yeah it was I got
Speaker 3: back from Rosebwell, yeah, so I've seen you sin since
Speaker 3: the New Year. But yeah, January's good man, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: everything's cool.
Speaker 1: Just the first Monday in January, as I talked to
Speaker 1: you about it, just kind of it's where.
Speaker 3: You're like, it's like a Seinfeld episode.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I tore my rotator cough. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I told you this, No you did. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a partial tear. Shout out Dave Petron, my guy imaging
Speaker 1: imaging imaging, Yes, imaging X ray as well as the ultrasound.
Speaker 1: And I saw it's a partial tear, not a full tear.
Speaker 1: No surgery.
Speaker 3: But do you want to tell the people how you
Speaker 3: tore it?
Speaker 1: Shoulder presses, how many moving weight around? M oh Man,
Speaker 1: I don't know what RepA was. All I know is
Speaker 1: I dropped the dumbell because I heard so bad.
Speaker 3: So what described the pain? As soon as like?
Speaker 1: Was it a meaning stinging shooting pain? It felt like
Speaker 1: somebody shot me in the arm.
Speaker 3: Not like so I mean, first people, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of people who have been shot.
Speaker 1: So is it like I also have never been shot.
Speaker 3: Let's be like a like a when you get a
Speaker 3: shot at the doctor.
Speaker 1: A little bit big needle tar, yeah, a little bit
Speaker 1: just like it wasn't like a dull pain.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel pop.
Speaker 1: It was just like a stinging pain right away.
Speaker 3: And as soon as you put the weight down, did
Speaker 3: it alleviate or no? Continue?
Speaker 1: No? Continued. So I went home, called my guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the bummer is that it happened on a Friday,
Speaker 1: and so I had to wait until the ortho was
Speaker 1: open on a Monday.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm just ibuprofen.
Speaker 3: I scene, you know, did you get the sling?
Speaker 1: No sling, because again, partial terror. I can do this, right,
Speaker 1: I just I can't do the side. Okay, how's your.
Speaker 3: Health, by the way, it's great, man.
Speaker 1: What's the worst. What's the worst injury you've ever had?
Speaker 3: Oh? I I've had like lots of minor ones. It
Speaker 3: tore my MCL when I was like nineteen, didn't get surgery.
Speaker 3: To me, the most debilitating injury I've had was like
Speaker 3: a I don't know what the official diagnosis was, was
Speaker 3: like a lower back issue. Right before COVID. My friends
Speaker 3: and I were playing spike ball a lot, okay, when
Speaker 3: we were younger. This was like, you know, in my
Speaker 3: early thirties, and it requires a lot of diving and
Speaker 3: just one one jump one dive. I just felt it
Speaker 3: and I was just in a very bad state, like
Speaker 3: I was on muscle relaxers, and it was not a
Speaker 3: good thing.
Speaker 1: And that was a back issue. Back issue. Back issues
Speaker 1: are the worst. Anyway, there you go, enough enough conversation
Speaker 1: about aging and hurting yourself all the time. Let's see
Speaker 1: where do you want to start today?
Speaker 3: C K or not Wednesday? I'll tell you probably not.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what's not hot? Back injuries?
Speaker 1: What is okay? Not hot? Well, okay, back injuries not hot?
Speaker 6: Hot?
Speaker 1: What's hot on a Wednesday?
Speaker 6: Right now?
Speaker 3: Going to the gym? Apparently?
Speaker 1: No, I'm not hot, not hot at all? What do
Speaker 1: how many listeners have any frame of reference for what
Speaker 1: we're talking about? As far as we.
Speaker 3: Can talk about traggers if you want.
Speaker 1: An old feature back in the day, now we can
Speaker 1: move on from it, all right? The uh uh the
Speaker 1: you know what, here's what I'll ask you, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm quite sure if we could find an answer,
Speaker 1: we do people uh big time favor.
Speaker 6: I am.
Speaker 1: I am still stunned, even though it's been a number
Speaker 1: of years that the Utah basketball program cannot consistently find
Speaker 1: their way back to even semi relevance, And I feel
Speaker 1: bad being overly critical because I like Craig and he's
Speaker 1: one wherever he's been prior to this stop, and I
Speaker 1: watch every game I watched last night. I don't view
Speaker 1: this as a coaching issue. Craig enters the gym every
Speaker 1: night with a talent discrepancy and a talent gap that
Speaker 1: in the Big twelve is undeniable. But it's hard to
Speaker 1: recruit to a basketball program that does not have fans
Speaker 1: to show up to watch the games. And I'm not
Speaker 1: blaming the fans, because you have to have a product
Speaker 1: that's engaging, that's entertaining. And so there's this chicken or
Speaker 1: the egg thing that I've been talking about this week.
Speaker 1: I do think if that building was full, it would
Speaker 1: help Craig recruit because players want to play in front,
Speaker 1: in front of fans. But I also understand a fan base.
Speaker 1: It's like, dude, they they get housed every Big twelve
Speaker 1: game they play. So I'm just wondering where your thoughts
Speaker 1: are you You were around the back in the day
Speaker 1: when Utah basketball, I mean, you remember when Utah basketball
Speaker 1: was at its Hey, Dan, And I'm never going to
Speaker 1: be the guy that says, how do we get it
Speaker 1: back to the Jerish years? Yeah, but your thoughts on
Speaker 1: this program the year in and year out just can't
Speaker 1: find its way back.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll go back in time. My junior year of
Speaker 3: college was Jim Boylan's best year.
Speaker 1: Jim Boylan, Luca Dertca, a little five seed.
Speaker 3: I believe Tyler Kepke, Carlon Brown, Kim Tilley was that
Speaker 3: Luke Neville. Yeah, yeah, they made They were a five
Speaker 3: seed that year and then they got they drew Arizona's
Speaker 3: twelve and they lost. But I know Larry had a
Speaker 3: couple of good teams. He had some pros, Kyle and
Speaker 3: Delon and yakob Ah. I don't even think you need
Speaker 3: pros in college basketball. You just need to have an
Speaker 3: engaging style of play. Look at what Utah State's been
Speaker 3: able to do in the last decade with five different
Speaker 3: head coaches. And I know there is a cultural difference
Speaker 3: where Utah State is more of a basketball school historically
Speaker 3: than Utah is, but we off for forty fifty years,
Speaker 3: Utah was primarily a basketball school. Now it's become a
Speaker 3: football school. So how does Utah I don't know, find
Speaker 3: somewhat of an even footing on that point. I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: Like I think it's just getting good players playing engaging basketball,
Speaker 3: and like there was a talent discrepancy for many years,
Speaker 3: even in the Pac twelve. I don't even think this
Speaker 3: is a Big twelve thing. This is a this is
Speaker 3: an issue that stems beyond Craig, beyond Larry. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is something that the Utah basketball program hasn't been
Speaker 3: able to figure out for I mean, what twenty years now.
Speaker 3: I mean Jim had one good year, Larry had a few.
Speaker 3: So you're talking about like four or five out of
Speaker 3: twenty ish, I mean Ray, Jack Lady had a good year.
Speaker 3: But like I'm just saying, like that is a very
Speaker 3: low clip.
Speaker 2: Well and jack a.
Speaker 1: Larry's good year was with Bogut who rick recruitre Right
Speaker 1: And all due respect to Ray, you always seem like
Speaker 1: a nice guy or whatever, but you bring up an
Speaker 1: interesting point, and I don't think this is mutually exclusive, Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, Alabama has an all basketball team and an
Speaker 1: awesome football team. But it does seem that the Utah
Speaker 1: basketball program kind of started its slide into somewhat irrelevance
Speaker 1: as the football program started to evolve. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: think there's anything where our fans are kind of like.
Speaker 3: Well, they're probably spread thin. They probably don't want to
Speaker 3: necessarily shell out shell out money bus season tickets for
Speaker 3: both and I know that, you know, college basketball season
Speaker 3: tickets are much cheaper than college football tickets, even though
Speaker 3: there's more home games. But I think it's I just
Speaker 3: don't know if we're in a market where people are
Speaker 3: going to be locked in from August all the way
Speaker 3: to April, I just think that's asking a lot. And
Speaker 3: I mean, frankly, if you're somebody who wants to invest
Speaker 3: in a good product, as we've seen the last couple
Speaker 3: of years, it makes way more sense at the moment
Speaker 3: to invest in going to watch Utah women's basketball because
Speaker 3: they're very good. They play a very entertaining style of basketball,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, it's just more fun and it's
Speaker 3: more fun when you win, and it's more fun when
Speaker 3: you play, like I say, when you play a style
Speaker 3: that's engaging the fans.
Speaker 1: So it could be something as simple as consistent performance
Speaker 1: and showing that you have the ability like because to
Speaker 1: your point, there's always been this one year spike where
Speaker 1: it's okay, we're back in the tournament and then then boom.
Speaker 1: So maybe I don't know, three four five years of consistent, winning,
Speaker 1: entertaining basketball and I don't know how you do it
Speaker 1: these days. But players that stay here used to be
Speaker 1: kind of the thing. And again I'm doing the Majeri's thing.
Speaker 1: But all those guys van Horn and Britain and Andre
Speaker 1: and Dolea, like they were three four year guys, so
Speaker 1: the community got to know them. But maybe that's not
Speaker 1: a reality of how to do. And he brought up
Speaker 1: something else like really the emotional, economic whatever you want
Speaker 1: to reframe the investment as for that long the of
Speaker 1: the calendar. When it comes to college basketball, that's Yukon,
Speaker 1: it's Hockey, it's Duke, it's Caroll. Like seven or eight
Speaker 1: programs get that type of year long support, if for
Speaker 1: honest agreed.
Speaker 3: But and you're also talking about schools that get that
Speaker 3: from a single sport, not necessarily the two big revenue
Speaker 3: earning sports. Yeah, I'm trying to think, like off the
Speaker 3: top of my head, like you mentioned Alabama, but Alabama
Speaker 3: really hasn't really come on from a men's basketball standpoint
Speaker 3: until like the last four or five years. Traditionally they were.
Speaker 3: They were pretty bad, fair even you know, before Nick
Speaker 3: Saban got there and changed their fortunes. I guess Auburn,
Speaker 3: like Auburn was good, but now it's kind of like
Speaker 3: the football team's not good, right, basketball team's very good.
Speaker 3: It's hard to find one athletic program where they're always
Speaker 3: really really good at football and always really really good
Speaker 3: at men's basketball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, consistently. Yeah, there's always Texas As Spurts here there
Speaker 1: on the basketball side. But no, it's a fair point.
Speaker 1: Just curious to get your thoughts because again, I feel
Speaker 1: bad saying this. I'm watching them play these Big twelve
Speaker 1: games and it doesn't even feel like it's a fair fight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, going back to your point about guys who stay
Speaker 3: like it is hard to recruit in this current landscape
Speaker 3: of college athletics, I get it. But you're also if
Speaker 3: I'm and it might be unfair to compare to other
Speaker 3: programs in the state. You look at a place like
Speaker 3: Utah State. Yes, they lost their head coach, they lost
Speaker 3: great Olsibor, who's a great player, no pun intended, But like,
Speaker 3: you have lots of guys that are still in that program.
Speaker 3: One of these guys who used to be a Utah
Speaker 3: you Ian Martinez who's been there for several years now
Speaker 3: bouts around. But like, if you get players who find
Speaker 3: their niche and have a role and can help you
Speaker 3: build a winning culture, odds are you'll be able to
Speaker 3: get them to stay, especially in college basketball. I mean,
Speaker 3: I I don't think the poaching is at a level
Speaker 3: and I could be totally wrong. I just I think,
Speaker 3: considering the size of rosters, I don't think the poaching
Speaker 3: is at the same level of football in that like
Speaker 3: you're fifteen players compared to one hundred and five, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. And there's and it's proven and
Speaker 3: college basketball that you can be good no matter your
Speaker 3: size and you can make a run if you're good. Again,
Speaker 3: I'll use Utah State as an example, Like, how many
Speaker 3: players on that team are Utah players? A few? Quite
Speaker 3: a few?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, most. I believe how many.
Speaker 3: Utah players are on Utah's roster currently, I honestly don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know the Hunter Erickson kid is a
Speaker 3: bench player, he's a Utah kid. Yeah, But the Mats
Speaker 3: and brothers are not from Utah. They have the Finnish player,
Speaker 3: the big guys, the tall guys on the team. I
Speaker 3: don't know their names. I don't think they're from Utah.
Speaker 3: So it's like, I don't think you necessarily have to
Speaker 3: recruit local players to be good. But I don't know
Speaker 3: if you're talking about at least within the last decade,
Speaker 3: the best college basketball programs to come out of the state.
Speaker 3: Between our three big schools generally have been able to
Speaker 3: lock up local talent, especially Utah State and BYU.
Speaker 1: Jake Wahleeen is from Provo, but you already do that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Wallen Hunter Erickson is from Provo as you referenced, and
Speaker 1: our guy Brady Smith is Logan.
Speaker 3: Wait, Brady Smith didn't he used to produce this program.
Speaker 1: No, that was Brady Clark. Okay, shout out to our
Speaker 1: guy Brady Hope. He's hanging in. He's a Utah State
Speaker 1: and so he's probably having a good year.
Speaker 3: But like, I don't understand you. You're a basketball guy,
Speaker 3: so you can tell me how this works, Like how
Speaker 3: is UTAs State able to do this? And I know
Speaker 3: they're playing at a conference level that is way different
Speaker 3: compared to the Big Twelve, which you can argue is
Speaker 3: the best in the country. But like UTASA was doing
Speaker 3: this when Utah was in the PAC twelve two, and
Speaker 3: they were doing it when the PAC twelve wasn't that good.
Speaker 3: So how is it that it works at Uta State,
Speaker 3: which Craig had a direct hand in before.
Speaker 1: Yes he did, Yes he did.
Speaker 3: So how are they able to spin it forward?
Speaker 1: All due respect to our friends about forty miles down
Speaker 1: south watching a college basketball game of the Spectrum, it's
Speaker 1: the best, is second level. I mean, it's one of
Speaker 1: the best college basketball environments in the whole country. And
Speaker 1: I've been to a grip of college basketball menus, and
Speaker 1: I do think there's something there. If you're a high
Speaker 1: school kid, and let's say you're a top shelf high
Speaker 1: school recruit and you go out to Provo and watch
Speaker 1: a game of the Marriott Center, You're like, this is dope.
Speaker 1: It's rolled out the game ops. They do a good job.
Speaker 1: The kids are having a grand time, smashing cougartails and
Speaker 1: milk and just enjoy life. And then you roll up
Speaker 1: to Salt Lake and you're like, oh, do people know
Speaker 1: that there's a game tonight? And then you go up
Speaker 1: to Logan You're like, this is awesome.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Yeah, it's true. I mean like the spectrum will
Speaker 3: be full for like San Jose State, and it's cool
Speaker 3: and it's cool. Yeah, I agree, Yeah, the ambiance matters.
Speaker 1: All right, We'll save our football for the next segment.
Speaker 1: And also our guy Joe Cole's got the exclusive with
Speaker 1: Mark Carlin today, We'll save that from the next segment.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: We got a couple of minutes with this this segment.
Speaker 1: Let's do a little basketball, a little more basketball. And
Speaker 1: here's what I want to ask you, because you and
Speaker 1: our guy TJ. Tony Jones, a few years back, you
Speaker 1: did a really good piece on Donovan, so you know,
Speaker 1: chattered with him. My guest has got to know him
Speaker 1: a little bit here or there. And tonight we've got
Speaker 1: the Calves and we've got Okac. And it's the first
Speaker 1: time in NBA history that at this point of the
Speaker 1: season there are two teams on pace for more than
Speaker 1: seventy wins. The Cavs are thirty one and four. Oh
Speaker 1: case is thirty and five. And Donovan has started to
Speaker 1: figure it out. He started to figure out like if
Speaker 1: you look at his numbers, they don't jump out. They're
Speaker 1: the same as they were here. But he's not taking
Speaker 1: as many shots. He's admitted this year that he's tried
Speaker 1: to play defense, and all of us in Salak are like, thanks, dude,
Speaker 1: all right, glad you're trying to play defense. Now. I
Speaker 1: still think Boston's the best team in the East, and
Speaker 1: I don't know that Cleveland can beat them four times
Speaker 1: in seven tries. But it's undeniable that what they're doing
Speaker 1: is real coaching change, different system, and Donovan is really
Speaker 1: starting to evolve or I think he's going to have
Speaker 1: a no questions answer.
Speaker 2: Comes spring, right, but I think he's gonna answer them.
Speaker 2: I don't think they can.
Speaker 1: Win it, but in pro basketball, there's a saying if
Speaker 1: you got a shy, you've done a good job. I
Speaker 1: was never on board to believe that, and Quinn was
Speaker 1: here last night, and I never thought that group was
Speaker 1: going to win an NBA championship, But there were a
Speaker 1: couple of postseasons where I thought they've got a shot.
Speaker 1: So as we sit here watching Donovan potentially evolve into
Speaker 1: the space as a first team All NBA guy for
Speaker 1: one of the best teams in pro basketball, and maybe
Speaker 1: they go and win something special this year, I still
Speaker 1: maintain I'll always maintain that there was meat left on
Speaker 1: that bone when this front office decided to trade everybody,
Speaker 1: And for the most part, all of the players have
Speaker 1: gone on to play well elsewhere. Royce O'Neill has had
Speaker 1: a much better stretch elsewhere. Our guy Bucket O'Neill one
Speaker 1: Bucket O'Neill played well in Brooklyn. He's got a good
Speaker 1: role in Phoenix the Minivan. George solid role player in Philly.
Speaker 1: Ingles is just old now, but he went elsewhere and
Speaker 1: played well, and he he can't walk anymore, but he's
Speaker 1: still on a rosh. He does one time the other night.
Speaker 1: And Rudy still Rudy. Like the front office made a
Speaker 1: calculated move to trade star players in their prime to
Speaker 1: start this rebuild that in three years has not bread
Speaker 1: anything very exciting.
Speaker 2: Just I wanted your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's I don't think it's hyperbolic to
Speaker 3: just say that the team didn't gel, they didn't like
Speaker 3: each other, like they played well together. And it's I'm
Speaker 3: not saying every team that you know me, I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I'm a results over a vibes.
Speaker 2: Guy, John Paul, hope you're listening.
Speaker 7: But like.
Speaker 3: The they came to the end of the road. Spence like,
Speaker 3: I just don't really think there's really any other way
Speaker 3: to put it, because Quinn left before they traded those guys.
Speaker 1: Wrong, wrong, Okay, Yes, and that's what I I'll always wonder,
Speaker 1: See I got my timelines off, yeah, and I'll always wonder.
Speaker 1: Now I'll have to look at the exact timing. They
Speaker 1: may have started, as Rudy was first correct, and they
Speaker 1: may have alluded to like, hey, we're going to break
Speaker 1: this down and Quinn, we want you to leave this
Speaker 1: next rebuild. So I'm not completely dismissing your point, because
Speaker 1: as as soon as Quinn decided but he did not
Speaker 1: want to work for this ownership group for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: maybe at some point he will say out loud what
Speaker 1: it is. I've got guesses. And when Dennis Lindsay had
Speaker 1: a meeting with the new ownership group and he's like nope,
Speaker 1: I viewed that as a really bad sign because I
Speaker 1: have a lot of respect for both of those two
Speaker 1: and this is revisionist history for sure. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I even believe like you trade Mitchell, you bring in
Speaker 1: market In, you put market in next to go Beert,
Speaker 1: you keep Conley and Royce and Yang and all those guys.
Speaker 3: But you're still in the middle, man, But.
Speaker 1: Could you have found your like if if Larry was
Speaker 1: what he was two years ago? Next to go bear
Speaker 1: with the rest of those pieces. Is that a championship team? No,
Speaker 1: but it's not breaking down to the studs and really
Speaker 1: show at this point no clear direction in a rebuild,
Speaker 1: which I think is frustrating a lot of Jazz fan
Speaker 1: But you are.
Speaker 3: The first guy to point out that you can't tie
Speaker 3: forty percent of your cap whatever. It's no offensive big yeah,
Speaker 3: and like it might make more sense in Minnesota where
Speaker 3: you have a superstar player, like a Truce star player.
Speaker 3: But clearly, I mean, I don't know what Minnesota's record
Speaker 3: is right now, but I know it's somewhere around five hundred. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so there are I'm of two minds of this. I've
Speaker 3: always told you that the worst place to be is
Speaker 3: in the middle, where the Jazz have existed for a
Speaker 3: very very long time, albeit for a couple of years.
Speaker 3: I ultimately think they made the right move trading those
Speaker 3: guys because Donovan wasn't gonna stay here. We know that.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's obvious and for as awesome as Rudy is.
Speaker 3: I think you kind of saw the height of his
Speaker 3: potential impact on the roster. I don't think you were
Speaker 3: going to see him reach another level with other different
Speaker 3: players around him.
Speaker 1: I agree with that second point. I wonder do you
Speaker 1: think there's anything because Donovan had two years left on
Speaker 1: his deal.
Speaker 3: I mean you could have waited another year.
Speaker 1: Well, and you also chatted with Donovan, and if my
Speaker 1: memory is serving correctly about you know it was COVID.
Speaker 1: It was this summer of Black Lives Matter and the
Speaker 1: murder of George Floyd, and Donovan started thinking differently as
Speaker 1: a black man, right, and he admitted it, like he
Speaker 1: learned things about his history that he didn't know about
Speaker 1: and leaned into being more of a voice, which there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that at all. How much of that
Speaker 1: do you think led Donovan too deciding he simply did
Speaker 1: not want to live in Salt Lake because prior to
Speaker 1: that time, my man was at fourth July barbecues, my
Speaker 1: man was Spider Man. When there was a car accident.
Speaker 1: I mean I always thought it was interesting there was
Speaker 1: a camera cia like, oh wait, Donald was at a
Speaker 1: party and people know about.
Speaker 3: It, being like super handsome with his cool sig but.
Speaker 1: Rudy is donating millions to Pete and no one knows
Speaker 1: about that, so that was always a little odd. But
Speaker 1: the first few years here Donovan and I look, obviously,
Speaker 1: was it Stuart Adams who was like, go learn about
Speaker 1: your own history? Obviously dumb ass thing to say, period,
Speaker 1: end of story. And I don't begrudge Donovan for not
Speaker 1: necessarily feeling as welcome here. I don't know what it's
Speaker 1: like to be a black man in saw Lake where
Speaker 1: there's two point three percent of the city that looks
Speaker 1: like you. I'm sure that's difficult. But how much of
Speaker 1: that do you think led to him souring on a
Speaker 1: place that for the first few years he seemed to
Speaker 1: really love and people seem to really love him.
Speaker 3: I think it played a role in it, for sure,
Speaker 3: but I don't think it was a major part. I
Speaker 3: think he is a guy that realized that whether it
Speaker 3: was the ownership group or the front office or the roster,
Speaker 3: he just feel like he felt like he couldn't reach
Speaker 3: his apex here. His apex mountain was not here, And
Speaker 3: I guess he was right in a sense. But to
Speaker 3: your point, he isn't a markedly different player right now.
Speaker 3: His stat line is pretty much the same. He's on
Speaker 3: a team that has more talent, more versatile talent, and like,
Speaker 3: I know that you could compare like the go Beart
Speaker 3: with the Allen and the Garland with the Connley, but
Speaker 3: the Jazz never had an Evan Mobley, you know, I
Speaker 3: mean not even close.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go Beart is more like more like a Jared Allen.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, I feel like you would know.
Speaker 3: I feel like people thought at one point that Evan
Speaker 3: Mobley could be like an MVP caliber player. In this second,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's proven to be very good this year. Again,
Speaker 3: I think it worked out for the Jazz because he
Speaker 3: wasn't going to stay here. They got a really good
Speaker 3: player in return, which is something that we should never
Speaker 3: like underscore, because I think you could have traded him
Speaker 3: to the Knicks and got a bunch of Obi Toppins
Speaker 3: and the one kid that doesn't even play for him anymore,
Speaker 3: Winching Grimes or Miles McBride. We had lots of guys
Speaker 3: around here doing Miles McBride team cool, a six to
Speaker 3: one guy that can shoot when they have one down.
Speaker 3: Penny Mills breakups are ugly, man. That's how I would
Speaker 3: put it, and there are layers to them and for
Speaker 3: the jazz they were. They have been lucky for several years,
Speaker 3: decades even to avoid where they are now. And now
Speaker 3: they're here. Sure, And it's just the reality of the NBA,
Speaker 3: which I think, and I've said this on your show
Speaker 3: a billion times, I think it's why viewership is down.
Speaker 3: I think it's why in is down. It is so
Speaker 3: impossibly hard to get involved and throw your heart into
Speaker 3: a league where you know, like two or three people
Speaker 3: have a true shot at winning it every year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, one hundred percent. And when you don't have
Speaker 1: the ability to retain the talent you drafted and developed.
Speaker 2: Like there's no chance. It's hard.
Speaker 1: All right, there's there's a little basketball on a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: But coming up next we'll react to what Mark Carlin
Speaker 1: had to say with today's desrat news piece. The CFP
Speaker 1: semi Finals get rolling tomorrow. Chris Camaradi Live in studio
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday right here on ESPN seven hundred, Chris
Speaker 1: Tom Ronnie Live in studio for one more big segment.
Speaker 1: Wait a second about this? Diego, Luna, oh A, Mecca
Speaker 1: and Nelly shout out in a bench called into US
Speaker 1: Men's national team camp in January.
Speaker 3: Huge, pretty exciting. Yeah, I mean it's it's the camp
Speaker 3: where all of the fringe guys get a shot. Okay,
Speaker 3: but it's cool that your guy, Mariso Pochettino's giving some marsl.
Speaker 1: Guys some looks.
Speaker 3: Is one of the great great Spurs managers in club history.
Speaker 1: Indeed, the Spurs are playing right now, aren't they.
Speaker 3: They were playing in the Carabell Cup, which against Liverpool,
Speaker 3: which I know you know a bunch about.
Speaker 1: Tell me they won?
Speaker 3: They did they it's the first leg.
Speaker 1: Come on you, Spurs, big Spurs man over here. That's
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to say. That's that's like the fan thing,
Speaker 1: Come on.
Speaker 3: You, Spurs. Impressive for Mecca for a number of reasons,
Speaker 3: like the most prototypical like MLS development story guy smart
Speaker 3: ivy league dude who got drafted to be a right
Speaker 3: back in Salt Lakes or Sandy let's be honest, Harriman
Speaker 3: and has now developed into a guy who's made the
Speaker 3: national team camp. Luna I think is a bigger deal
Speaker 3: because I do think Mexico at one point wanted to
Speaker 3: see if he would be willing to switch switch to
Speaker 3: play for the Mexican national team. But we'll see. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think anytime you can be an attacking player and
Speaker 3: play for a guy like Pacha, I think that's interesting.
Speaker 3: So I'm fascinated to see how he does.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's any shot either those two playing
Speaker 1: a World cid M you think the team is kind
Speaker 1: of set?
Speaker 3: I mean, they're so good right now. I mean, all
Speaker 3: their best players, if they can stay healthy, they're just
Speaker 3: their players are starting now at these big clubs. I
Speaker 3: mean Milan has like two starters, Juventus has two starters,
Speaker 3: Peppi is finally coming on in the Dutch League, Luna
Speaker 3: and Nelly maybe, but Tyler Adams has been hurt a lot.
Speaker 3: But McKinney Adams musa. It's hard. But I guess said,
Speaker 3: I'm just fascinated to see how they look playing in
Speaker 3: a national team Jersey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll be fun. So is this like the Gold
Speaker 1: Cup cycle?
Speaker 3: Kind of? This is kind of like the first look
Speaker 3: of the potential Gold Cup roster, because.
Speaker 1: Kyle essentially parlayed a really strong Gold Cup into a
Speaker 1: World Cup.
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Correct, Yeah, So I just think unfortunately for both those guys,
Speaker 3: they play positions where the US is currently pretty stacked. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean Luna as you know, more of a central ten.
Speaker 2: Obviously we don't I call the moon, but that's me.
Speaker 3: We don't. We as the US don't really employ a
Speaker 3: prototypical number ten. And but you know, Potch moves things around.
Speaker 3: We're no longer under the casting spell of Greg Berhalter,
Speaker 3: so who knows.
Speaker 1: So this is this is a little bit like when
Speaker 1: Tony Beltrom got a call up and you're like, sweet,
Speaker 1: but you'll be back here soon.
Speaker 3: I think, like Tony played against Mexico at one point.
Speaker 3: If I'm not miss you're in like a pretty like
Speaker 3: big game. I think it was one of his very
Speaker 3: limited caps. I think I just remember because he got
Speaker 3: to wear the really dope lollipop jersey. But it was
Speaker 3: like the red, white and blue stack.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that was the coolest one.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I remember that, good, good memory, all right.
Speaker 1: Shout out to our guy, Joe Coles exclusive with Mark Carlin,
Speaker 1: University of View to Athletic Director and you and I
Speaker 1: spoke about the situation following the BYU game the week
Speaker 1: that it happened, and we don't need to go back there.
Speaker 1: But of course, as the story goes, I was walking
Speaker 1: home from the stadium. You were typing away with your piece.
Speaker 1: Lovely photo we got that day with you, me and Aaron.
Speaker 1: Good good picture, look good.
Speaker 3: We did show my wife and she's like, dang, you
Speaker 3: look good.
Speaker 1: Nice. Okay, yeah, we'll take that from shout out Amanda,
Speaker 1: And suddenly fun blows up.
Speaker 2: Are you listening to Harlan? No, here's the link? Oh
Speaker 2: my gosh.
Speaker 1: And I thought his statement after the fact was something
Speaker 1: I missed the Mark, and I said that on airon
Speaker 1: My guess is Mark probably wanted that moment back, and
Speaker 1: what he expressed to Joe I think was probably a
Speaker 1: little bit more on lockstep what I thought he should
Speaker 1: have expressed in the moment. But hey, we all make mistakes,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes time can give us perspective. And we
Speaker 1: now know that he called Kilani, and he called Tom Holm,
Speaker 1: he called Bret Yormark to apologize for the comments he
Speaker 1: made after that game. So I won't read everything he
Speaker 1: had to say to Joe. And then he went on
Speaker 1: to talk about some other things. But let's just stay
Speaker 1: in that space as far as your thoughts on what
Speaker 1: appeared to be a little bit more of a contrite
Speaker 1: approach a couple of months after the fact.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Reading part one of the two part series, to me,
Speaker 3: what stood out the most was Mark pushing back a
Speaker 3: little bit on the notion that Utah wasn't able to
Speaker 3: retain its best players. I think he found a let
Speaker 3: me find this quote, something along the lines of, I
Speaker 3: look at this last year and buy and large, we've
Speaker 3: been able to retain all the key players that we
Speaker 3: believe will lift us back to success in twenty five
Speaker 3: and beyond. You also lost two of your best defensive
Speaker 3: players to the portal, which is absolutely you know, part
Speaker 3: for the course for pretty much any team in college football.
Speaker 3: I get it, but I think I think this is
Speaker 3: kind of what maybe frustrates fans a little bit. It's
Speaker 3: like acknowledge that there have been some tough times, acknowledge
Speaker 3: that there have been some losses, and don't necessarily try
Speaker 3: to not puff out your chest, but just make it
Speaker 3: seem like everything is honky dory all the time, like
Speaker 3: it's not. It's and that's the case for every program
Speaker 3: in the country. I mean, you know, we talked to
Speaker 3: Joe about the revenue sharing bit, which was interesting, you know,
Speaker 3: Mark talking about you know how they're planning on delineating
Speaker 3: the twenty point six million that most schools will get,
Speaker 3: which is going to be a fascinating component to this
Speaker 3: next you know, college sports cycle. I would imagine most
Speaker 3: of it for most schools goes to football and basketball,
Speaker 3: but I understand there will still be some nil components
Speaker 3: to this as well. But yeah, I mean, it's been
Speaker 3: two months since you know, Mark took the took the mic.
Speaker 3: I was surprised that it's taken this long, and you know,
Speaker 3: hopefully he talks to some other local media outlets and
Speaker 3: gives people a chance to ask him some questions because
Speaker 3: I think right now, for somebody like Mark, you're in
Speaker 3: such a unique position where everything is moving so fast
Speaker 3: around you in real time. He also has the luxury
Speaker 3: of having, you know, a stalwart like Kyle come back.
Speaker 3: And obviously he's based on his comments to Joe, he's
Speaker 3: very optimistic about what the immediate future holds for Utah.
Speaker 3: But we'll have to see how they look starting next year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, obviously, if you're the ad, you're
Speaker 1: going to try to spend the most positive you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, storyline and narrative surrounding your program.
Speaker 1: But I think to your point, and this is what's
Speaker 1: kind of bled over into the political discourse in our
Speaker 1: country and pretty much discourse across the board, like just
Speaker 1: don't tell me I'm not seeing what I'm seeing, please,
Speaker 1: And from a fan perspective, like, don't tell me everything
Speaker 1: is incredible when it's clear right now that things are
Speaker 1: not as good as we're used to them being. And
Speaker 1: that's Kyle being a victim of his own success and
Speaker 1: changing standards here in the market. But you know, since
Speaker 1: Mark took over, he's the one that fired Larry and
Speaker 1: hired Craig, and that wasn't met with a lot of
Speaker 1: enthusiasm from certain people in the market that actually thought
Speaker 1: Larry was making some headway. That's that's to be debated, right,
Speaker 1: But that was Mark's choice to move on from Larry
Speaker 1: and bringing Craig. He inherited a football program where he
Speaker 1: didn't have to touch it, and don't think he has
Speaker 1: to touch it now. I wonder if part of the
Speaker 1: messaging is just trying to forward this situation to make
Speaker 1: it a little bit rosier than it actually is because
Speaker 1: he's the ad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in this culture, we have to do our
Speaker 3: best of not overreacting to one thing, and by one thing,
Speaker 3: I mean just one calendar year. And I've said this
Speaker 3: often on the show recently. It's like, seventeen out of
Speaker 3: twenty is a pretty good clip for winning, winning programs
Speaker 3: in Utah football, you know, men's basketball, we've talked about.
Speaker 3: The women's team is really turning the corner and becoming,
Speaker 3: you know, a.
Speaker 1: One of the best products locally to watch consistently.
Speaker 7: Too.
Speaker 3: It's the Larry thing, to me is interesting. I mean,
Speaker 3: Chris made Larry a top ten paid coach in college basketball,
Speaker 3: which is which is impressive if you consider some of
Speaker 3: some of the programs that were way ahead of Utah
Speaker 3: for a long time. And I think the last time
Speaker 3: Utah made the tournament was like twenty sixteen. It had
Speaker 3: been a while, and I don't think that necessarily was
Speaker 3: the wrong move. I mean, I didn't know Larry that well,
Speaker 3: but I knew him well enough. I don't know how
Speaker 3: Larry would have really enjoyed the nil E A very
Speaker 3: old school type of yeah. But I think ultimately, if
Speaker 3: you know, based on what part one was able to show,
Speaker 3: you know, Mark is bullish on how Utah is going
Speaker 3: to attack this new fangled you know, world of NIL
Speaker 3: and revenue sharing and all that stuff, because it's going
Speaker 3: to be way more in your face, you know, like
Speaker 3: in the past it was, you know, everyone assumed that,
Speaker 3: you know, teams in the SEC were quote unquote cheating
Speaker 3: or you know, paying players or whatever. Now, especially if
Speaker 3: you're at a public institution, a lot of the stuff
Speaker 3: will be able to like be like Grammar foy, it
Speaker 3: be public public record, So you have to figure out
Speaker 3: where you're going to put your money and how you
Speaker 3: want to invest it. The stakes are higher now than
Speaker 3: they ever were before. To your point, like Kyle is
Speaker 3: a victim of his own success locally and nationally, which
Speaker 3: is why programs come for a players. So we'll see
Speaker 3: what happens. I'm fascinated to see what part two brings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's worth your time. He talks about nil,
Speaker 1: he talks about, you know, raising money at this point,
Speaker 1: which is probably as important as anything else you're doing
Speaker 1: on the fundraising side of things. He said they've been
Speaker 1: able to double their output to their athletes. And the
Speaker 1: problem without really any data is you just kind of
Speaker 1: have to take people at their word, and that's hard
Speaker 1: to do. And there I don't think there's any proof
Speaker 1: or any data one way or the other.
Speaker 3: The Utah is.
Speaker 1: Having a problem keeping talent because everybody loses talent every
Speaker 1: single year. The national champ will and some of the
Speaker 1: best teams in college football already have. So it makes
Speaker 1: it hard to understand what real and what's real and
Speaker 1: what is And the nice thing about sports is there's
Speaker 1: a scoreboard, as we say, So, if what Mark is
Speaker 1: seeing is true, next year should be better for the
Speaker 1: football program, then this year.
Speaker 3: Was, well, yeah, if you get average to above average
Speaker 3: quarterback play, Utah this year is probably in a much
Speaker 3: different place. As Bill said earlier on the show, next
Speaker 3: year is just going to be a question Mark man,
Speaker 3: And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. They're
Speaker 3: just going to have a bunch of players that nobody's
Speaker 3: ever watched, a lot of new players on offense, a
Speaker 3: lot of guys that you don't know how they'll be deployed.
Speaker 3: You know, an offensive philosophy that is markedly different than
Speaker 3: what Andy you know, deployed, which when it worked, when
Speaker 3: it was humming, it was awesome.
Speaker 1: When he got a healthy quarter exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, healthy quarterback, healthy weapons, healthy running back, deep running back.
Speaker 6: It worked.
Speaker 3: Jason Beck's offense is a little more tantalizing, a little
Speaker 3: more New Age by all accounts, less intricate, less difficult
Speaker 3: to pick up, and you're bringing in the quarterback that
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say mastered. Because while everyone's freaking out
Speaker 3: about Devin Dampierre, he did get thirty one total touchdowns
Speaker 3: last year, but he through twelve picks, he threw twelve
Speaker 3: touchdowns and twelve interceptions. The hell of a player on
Speaker 3: the ground, he ran for like twenty touchdowns. So but again,
Speaker 3: like if Utah is going to contend for the Big
Speaker 3: twelve title next year, they're going to need him to
Speaker 3: be a much improved passer because this league isn't great,
Speaker 3: but you can get beat by anybody, and it's just
Speaker 3: it's pack twelve, back in the back twelve. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm I think next year we'll just bring so many
Speaker 3: new lessons for people to find out how Kyle's evolving
Speaker 3: as a head coach, who Jason Beck is, who these
Speaker 3: new players are, and like, just like last year, I
Speaker 3: would caution everybody to take a breather when state media
Speaker 3: is telling you that, you know, all these guys are
Speaker 3: going to be Heisman Trophy finalists and Utah's going to
Speaker 3: run the table. We have to see how it looks,
Speaker 3: and we won't see for a very long time.
Speaker 1: You've covered Utah football for a long time. For a while,
Speaker 1: you were the Utah guy for the athletic You have
Speaker 1: moved on from that beat and you do more macro
Speaker 1: level things and you have freedom to do other things,
Speaker 1: which is good for us that are a fan of
Speaker 1: your work. But you know as well as anybody. And
Speaker 1: I drew the parallel to ky State because I was
Speaker 1: listening to this Big twelve podcast. There they were going
Speaker 1: through the exercise of how this conference will look next year.
Speaker 2: I'm like, dude, all right, good luck.
Speaker 1: I tried to do it myself. I've a zero clue.
Speaker 1: You can pull up the rosters, you can see who's returning,
Speaker 1: and you can kind of see who's already the transfer portal.
Speaker 2: But it's such an exercise and futility.
Speaker 1: But the way they were talking about k State is
Speaker 1: exactly the way Utah football has been built under Kyle,
Speaker 1: which is recruit and develop, And the most successful Utah
Speaker 1: football season is just like k State have been. When
Speaker 1: these programs have players in their third fourth fifth years.
Speaker 1: Is that still a way you can build a contending
Speaker 1: winning football team in college football in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: I think you could look at the Big Twelve title
Speaker 3: game as a dichotomy of how you can do it.
Speaker 3: I think Arizona State a lot of transfers, a lot
Speaker 3: of new guys, young head coach was able to galvanize
Speaker 3: that group to a surprising season. Iowa States in the
Speaker 3: same boat as the Utahs in the Kansas States. You
Speaker 3: know a lot of guys that have been there in
Speaker 3: that program for a long time, longtime head coach. There
Speaker 3: are a lot of recruit and developed programs in the Big.
Speaker 1: Twelve, is BYU or recruiting developed and that obviously worked
Speaker 1: for them this year.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, like if you're trying to think out
Speaker 3: of their kind of quote unquote breakout players this year,
Speaker 3: Like I said, nobody took a flyer on Jake. J
Speaker 3: didn't have an offer, he had to go to a
Speaker 3: community college, and nobody does anymore. David running back.
Speaker 6: L. J.
Speaker 3: Martin recruit and developed elst the offensive line outside of
Speaker 3: the kid who went to Oklahoma State, receivers Aaron and
Speaker 3: those guys did a good job BESSI they went got
Speaker 3: guys like Lassiter, Marion, transfer guys, Chase, local guy defensively,
Speaker 3: defensive line, mostly local guys, linebacker, room, very very good,
Speaker 3: all local guys, secondary, some some some transfers, but some
Speaker 3: local guys. I'm just saying, like that conference is a
Speaker 3: recruit and developed conference really if you think about it,
Speaker 3: maybe outside of Colorado, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, But ultimately it is. I agree, it's an
Speaker 3: exercise and futility to try to pontificate where people will
Speaker 3: be come August. But I don't think there's going to
Speaker 3: be that much more movement because coaches want to have
Speaker 3: quarterbacks in place. I think you can look at who
Speaker 3: the odds on starters will be for like each quarterback
Speaker 3: in the Big twelve right now and kind of get
Speaker 3: a sense of who could be waere. But again, at
Speaker 3: the same time, like we thought that last year, I mean,
Speaker 3: we thought Cam Rising and Alan Bowman were going to
Speaker 3: be two of the studs in the Big twelve, and
Speaker 3: those guys got hurt and weren't really playing at the end,
Speaker 3: Like Bowman got benched off and on and Cam got hurt.
Speaker 3: So like this conference is kind of wacky man.
Speaker 1: It is since you referenced Colorado, every time an NFL
Speaker 1: job comes open, and a lot of people think the
Speaker 1: Cowboys job could come open pretty quickly, although they didn't
Speaker 1: let Mike McCarthy interview with the Bears, which is weird.
Speaker 1: Raider's job is open, Giants' job is not. Thought it
Speaker 1: might be, but maybe it's just the media trying to
Speaker 1: create a story, because Dion is a story no matter
Speaker 1: what he does. But if the right team that has
Speaker 1: the right pick comes along and says, hey, we'll hire you,
Speaker 1: We'll drop your.
Speaker 3: Son Dion in Vegas, is that.
Speaker 1: Enough to make Deon jump and Lee boulder?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. Like I think one thing people
Speaker 3: overestimate is people overestimate Dion's Like I don't want to
Speaker 3: say ego because I know Dion believes in himself to
Speaker 3: a level that a lot of people don't, and for
Speaker 3: good reason. He's an NFL Hall of Famer and is
Speaker 3: clearly has proven people wrong in the in the coaching realm,
Speaker 3: but the NFL, man, it is unforgiving. You've seen so
Speaker 3: many coaches in the last few years get their first job,
Speaker 3: get their first taste, finally made it fired after one
Speaker 3: year fired after two years. It is not a place
Speaker 3: for job security. It's not, which is why I don't
Speaker 3: think Dion will leave Colorado. Now he might, but like
Speaker 3: you can, you can beat Colorado. You can do it
Speaker 3: your way. You walk on water there, you made the
Speaker 3: most irrelevant power power for conference team in the country. Relevant,
Speaker 3: You're gonna get paid more because of the success that
Speaker 3: you've had. You can do things your way. I just
Speaker 3: don't see it unders and he said it himself, like
Speaker 3: Dion's kind of bravado. I don't think that goes over
Speaker 3: all that well with you know, veteran professional players, like
Speaker 3: I'm sure a lot of those guys, I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess we're old, I don't. I doubt a lot of
Speaker 3: those guys watched him growing up for more past that
Speaker 3: that's that's our era. But I just don't think that
Speaker 3: would go over the same in a professional locker room
Speaker 3: compared to, you know, trying to convince a bunch of
Speaker 3: young players to come give Boulder Colorado a chance.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's fair. Then you've done stories on him, so
Speaker 1: I knew you'd have good perspective. All right, let's end
Speaker 1: on this. I can ask you a philosophical question Orange Bowl? No,
Speaker 1: who do you like in the Orange Bowl? Who'd you
Speaker 1: like to win it?
Speaker 3: Who's playing in the Orange Bowl?
Speaker 1: That's the cotton is Ohio State, Texas. So the Orange
Speaker 1: is Notre Dame, Penn State.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go to Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: Who do you got in the cotton Ohio State? Does
Speaker 1: anyone getting in Ohio State's way?
Speaker 7: Not?
Speaker 3: If they can make life hell for Will Howard that's
Speaker 3: the only way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll have to.
Speaker 3: Say ak to philosophy.
Speaker 1: So I have a philosophical question for you, because topically
Speaker 1: on the show, we've discussed because we're a basketball market,
Speaker 1: you know, we're a jazz market, We're a pro basketball market.
Speaker 1: We do not have an NFL team. If college football
Speaker 1: transitions into a pro model and BYU and Utah and
Speaker 1: involved in that, it will be as close to an
Speaker 1: NFL team that we've ever had here, and it will
Speaker 1: have that field because we'll have blue bloods in town
Speaker 1: every week. Let's just hope that if that happens, Utah
Speaker 1: VYU get that invite. But it's pretty clear now for
Speaker 1: about a generation. The last time the NBA was even
Speaker 1: in the same stratosphere as the NFL, as it pertains
Speaker 1: to interest or ratings. Was the nineties? Was the late nineties.
Speaker 1: We have the highest watched basketball game in the history
Speaker 1: of the world played here in Salt Lake.
Speaker 2: It was Michael Jordan's last game.
Speaker 1: So crazy, yep, but it has not been And to
Speaker 1: be frank, it wasn't close then, but the NBA was experiencing.
Speaker 2: Growth while the NFL was kind of flatlined.
Speaker 1: Then they never closed the gap and they never will.
Speaker 1: But why do you think it is? I mean, concussions,
Speaker 1: domestic of violence, everything that pretty smart people have predicted
Speaker 1: would put a dent in the world of football consumption
Speaker 1: in this country has not come close to it.
Speaker 2: In fact, it's only ground.
Speaker 1: Why do you think our appetite for football in America
Speaker 1: is what it is to the point where it's the
Speaker 1: number one sport and no one else even lives in
Speaker 1: that cold desact.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is not a hot take, but this
Speaker 3: is my opinion. The savior of the sport was fantasy football.
Speaker 2: M h yeah, like it.
Speaker 3: It revolutionized the approach to fandom. It got even fringe
Speaker 3: people involved. It's one game a week for not very long.
Speaker 3: It's September to January. It's during generally the harder months
Speaker 3: of the year where you want to be inside because
Speaker 3: it's cold. If you live in a cold weather place.
Speaker 3: A lot of these places that our NFL markets are
Speaker 3: cold weather places. I think the demand of basketball is
Speaker 3: just a lot. I think it's asking a lot for
Speaker 3: people my age, you know, young parents. I can't imagine
Speaker 3: a world where I'm like, hey, I know it's bedtime,
Speaker 3: but I got to see Johnny Jusing.
Speaker 6: I gotta.
Speaker 3: I know it's bedtime, but I gotta se Johnny jusaying
Speaker 3: in the corner. I'm just being honest, like, just it's
Speaker 3: asking a lot. And I understand that every back and
Speaker 3: what's really cool and something we don't eat. We complain
Speaker 3: a lot about everything. It's insane that you can basically
Speaker 3: watch whatever team you want to watch on any level
Speaker 3: of any pro college model. These days, you can find
Speaker 3: a way to watch. Back in the day, we were
Speaker 3: pouring through the box scores on the paper or trying
Speaker 3: to listen on the radio to hear the scores. Now
Speaker 3: you can find anybody that you want to watch. It's
Speaker 3: just asking a lot. Man and football, I think there
Speaker 3: is this very unfortunate part of the American subconscious that
Speaker 3: really really loves to pride itself on this idea of
Speaker 3: glorifying the gladiator component of this thing. I recently watched
Speaker 3: one of my favorite movies, Friday Night Lights, which is
Speaker 3: a great book. It is great show and I hadn't
Speaker 3: seen the movie in a very long time, and it's
Speaker 3: really good. Man, I should have head Portodo Explosions.
Speaker 1: Tim mcgride and where he had the big chew as
Speaker 1: the dad.
Speaker 3: The dad was great. It did a good Jobsane like
Speaker 3: one of his first acting jobs. But we're on the
Speaker 3: West coast, man, like we are. I talk about this
Speaker 3: with my colleagues at the Athletic all the time. It's
Speaker 3: like some of my friends cover Ohio State or Texas
Speaker 3: or Penn State. Like there are places in this country, man,
Speaker 3: that are twenty four to seven, three sixty five, no
Speaker 3: matter what day of the year, no matter who's in
Speaker 3: the hospital, you are going to go to the message
Speaker 3: boards to see did we get the four star? And
Speaker 3: that is part of the DNA of this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know I have homework, but sphe Makai Luke
Speaker 1: is starting tonight. Who's at no it's your take on
Speaker 1: I know it's bedtime, but Johnny Jews AG's gonna shoot
Speaker 1: corner threes, all right, c K. Great to see my friend.
Speaker 1: Best to Amanda and lit Leo and now will Chattoo.
Speaker 3: Thanks man.
Speaker 1: That big NBA game tonight, really big NBA game tonight
Speaker 1: in just about twenty minutes from right now. Actually it
Speaker 1: is the Cavs and the Thunder the first. It's the
Speaker 1: third time in NBA history two teams on fifteen game
Speaker 1: winning streaks have played each other. Both teams are on
Speaker 1: base for over seventy wins. So little NBA action. The
Speaker 1: Jazz were in action last night with the chaotic ending.
Speaker 1: And I got to say the first time Sarah Todd
Speaker 1: won the Utah Sports Writer of the Year award, I
Speaker 1: had to call her my queen for an entire year.
Speaker 1: So Sarah joins us now after your second win, Sarah,
Speaker 1: First of all, congratulations.
Speaker 2: Second of all, how do I refer to you moving forward?
Speaker 8: Thank you so much? Since I mean I think that
Speaker 8: now that I've taken once again my rightful place atop
Speaker 8: the throne, let's just say you refer to me as
Speaker 8: you see fit and we'll see how it works out.
Speaker 1: My extreme queen, Sarah Todd joins us on the program
Speaker 1: today I mean I.
Speaker 8: Should say jokes aside, like I'm proud of the work
Speaker 8: that I do, but I just, you know, when I
Speaker 8: got the news that I'd been given the award again,
Speaker 8: it just it feels like on a daily basis that
Speaker 8: I'm this isn't a job, right, Like I get to
Speaker 8: watch basketball every day and I get paid to do it,
Speaker 8: and I think that basketball is the greatest sport in
Speaker 8: the world, and so I'm just really really lucky and
Speaker 8: I'm proud to be.
Speaker 1: Doing But how good does it feel every time you win?
Speaker 1: It that Andy lost again, I mean, that has to
Speaker 1: feel so good.
Speaker 8: I mean, I sometimes I don't even think that like
Speaker 8: I'm getting an award. I just think, like Tony and
Speaker 8: Andy are not getting an award.
Speaker 1: That was my reaction was that was my reaction, But
Speaker 1: obviously we could. We love our guys, but very happy
Speaker 1: for you, very well deserved Sarah. So congrats Sarah Todd
Speaker 1: Utah sports Right of the Year for the second straight time.
Speaker 1: I got to know what the reaction was last night
Speaker 1: over where you guys sit after that chaotic ending.
Speaker 8: It was so funny because usually on press row, you know,
Speaker 8: we're pretty stoic. I think that you know, during a
Speaker 8: during a tanking season, we have to find smaller ways
Speaker 8: to keep engaged throughout the season kind of, you know,
Speaker 8: as the beat writers and so so at the beginning
Speaker 8: of the game yesterday, right, Patty Mills comes in and
Speaker 8: he takes nine shots in the first six minutes on
Speaker 8: the floor, and so then at that point it became
Speaker 8: a game for all of us, like, yeah, let's let's
Speaker 8: see can Patty take twenty four shots tonight? And you know,
Speaker 8: it's something to laugh at, but also something kind of
Speaker 8: like to root for and and and just funny things
Speaker 8: to add levity. But then by the end of the game,
Speaker 8: when Colin Sexton hits a shot with four seconds to
Speaker 8: tie the game, it looks like it's going into overtime.
Speaker 8: You know, we nearly raised out of our seat, not
Speaker 8: because of the timing, but because it was on a
Speaker 8: broken plate. The Hawks almost stole that inbound pass, and
Speaker 8: Colin came in from the side, swiped the ball, barely
Speaker 8: got control of it, dribbled a couple times for a
Speaker 8: step back, and it was a good look, but it
Speaker 8: was such a chaotic moment. And then when it went through,
Speaker 8: we all kind of like raised a foot or so
Speaker 8: out of our seats. And then obviously a couple seconds
Speaker 8: later when Trey Young pulled up from you know, fifty
Speaker 8: feet out and that ball went through, we completely stood.
Speaker 6: Out out of our seats.
Speaker 8: It was it was just an insane moment. I'm frankly
Speaker 8: like it looked good is the second that it left in.
Speaker 2: Hand, you know, that was the thing.
Speaker 1: As I was watching it, watching a real time when
Speaker 1: it left his hands, I said, that's got a shot,
Speaker 1: because Trey's one of those that practices those shots, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, we see certain players in the league and
Speaker 1: I always say to people, and it's not always possible,
Speaker 1: but if you go into a Jazz game, try to
Speaker 1: get there early to see Dirk warm up back in
Speaker 1: the day, which was amazing to watch to see Steph
Speaker 1: warm up or Dame. And Trey's one of those players,
Speaker 1: Sarah that I believe pregame, you see him practicing these
Speaker 1: half court heaves.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a number of players that
Speaker 8: are practicing him. And I think that a lot of
Speaker 8: people will see players practicing these types of shots or
Speaker 8: putting up a few of these shots pregame, or maybe
Speaker 8: they see some clips on social media of them doing
Speaker 8: a couple of them during practice, and they think that it's,
Speaker 8: you know, for fun, and sure there is an element
Speaker 8: of fun to it, but as you said, like a
Speaker 8: player like Trey, he's actually practicing like it's not just
Speaker 8: for fun. There's a chance that he expects that he'll
Speaker 8: have to take that. I mean, even just this season alone,
Speaker 8: he's already taken and making a thirty nine foot shot,
Speaker 8: a thirty seven foot shot, thirty four Like it's not
Speaker 8: out of his it's not out of his bag, right,
Speaker 8: Like that's in his bag to hit those long shots,
Speaker 8: to do it under pressure. And so yeah, get getting
Speaker 8: there early to see those.
Speaker 6: Guys do that.
Speaker 8: I keep in mind also when you're seeing it that
Speaker 8: that's not always just you know, for the fans, they're
Speaker 8: getting a couple of reps in.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this before we move on to
Speaker 1: just more Jazz exclusive stuff. You know, it's been an
Speaker 1: interesting few weeks where the Jazz have either welcomed in
Speaker 1: old friends or they played old friends on the road.
Speaker 1: How should Jazz fans remember Quinn Quinn Snyder his eight
Speaker 1: year stint here as the head coach.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I think that you know, Quinn came here,
Speaker 8: and I don't think that he necessarily had an easy
Speaker 8: job of it at the beginning, right, Like, there was
Speaker 8: nothing certain at all about the team or the players
Speaker 8: that he was getting. And to have the kind of
Speaker 8: sustained success, albeit not the success anyone would have wanted,
Speaker 8: but the rise to that success and that sustained success
Speaker 8: for the amount of time that he was here, I mean,
Speaker 8: I don't think if you asked Jazz fans, think you'd
Speaker 8: be hard pressed to find anyone that didn't enjoy that
Speaker 8: era of jazz basketball. And you know, you think about
Speaker 8: the what ifs, and you know, what if they would
Speaker 8: have moved away from Quinn before. What if that Donovan
Speaker 8: and Rudy Jazz team had had someone else at the Helm.
Speaker 8: What if they'd been given one more year, all of
Speaker 8: them to run it back one more time and see
Speaker 8: if it would have worked. Like, there's always going to
Speaker 8: be those what if But no matter how you feel
Speaker 8: about how it ended, while it was happening, Quinn Snyder
Speaker 8: was great for Utah and for the Jazz.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up because I want to
Speaker 1: move over into that space next tonight.
Speaker 2: It's a massive, massive, NBA game.
Speaker 1: We don't get a lot of these regular season Like,
Speaker 1: holy smokes, is this historic start real?
Speaker 2: And on one side, we'll be the thirty one and
Speaker 2: four Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Cavaliers with Donovan Mitchell really playing a different brand of basketball.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this is Kenny Atkinson.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this is Donovan aging
Speaker 1: a bit. The numbers are about the same as they
Speaker 1: always have been and they were here, but he's taking
Speaker 1: less shots, and he's admitted on a few occasions that
Speaker 1: he's actually trying on defense, which I'm sure Jazz fans
Speaker 1: just love to hear. But I do think there is
Speaker 1: a world where and Donovan on a couple of occasions
Speaker 1: has said that he thought there was more.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm paraphrasing meat on the bone here
Speaker 2: in Salt Lake.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 1: I tend to roll my eyes at that, because really,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, it was Donovan who was kind of
Speaker 1: blowing the whole thing up. Everybody knows that. I've talked
Speaker 1: to people in the front office, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was odd Sarah, you covered him for the first like
Speaker 1: three years here. He walked on water and seemed to
Speaker 1: really love it here, and he was awesome, which helped,
Speaker 1: and it was so fun because like, Okay, see for
Speaker 1: instance right now, you know, they had a playoff experience
Speaker 1: last year and Shay's awesome, but the role players around
Speaker 1: Shay kind of let him down. So like his Jalen
Speaker 1: william is going to be better this time around in
Speaker 1: a playoff run. And one of the reasons I was
Speaker 1: so excited about that group is that with Donovan's early
Speaker 1: evolution and with the team that was around him, he
Speaker 1: got a deep ish playoff run experience as a young
Speaker 1: player and a primary scorer on a team that beat
Speaker 1: an OKC team that was thought to be a super
Speaker 1: team put together. I'm like, Okay, if he can get
Speaker 1: this experience, now we fast forward four, five, six years
Speaker 1: and that's where we're at.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: He's going to learn how to do this and at
Speaker 1: some point we'll have some playoffs success. But as you
Speaker 1: watch Donovan evolve into the stratosphere as maybe a first
Speaker 1: team NBA guy and a team that is legitimately a
Speaker 1: contender to win the thing, do you think it stings
Speaker 1: Jazz fans a little bit to hear him say that
Speaker 1: he thinks there was meat left on that bone? Did
Speaker 1: you think it was as untenable as most and do
Speaker 1: you think the Jazz should have tried to maybe squeeze
Speaker 1: a little bit more juice out of that roster.
Speaker 8: I think both things can be true. I think that
Speaker 8: you can think and it's hard to say it. I
Speaker 8: think that there's probably different perspective and it's hard to
Speaker 8: look at it and say it from like me saying
Speaker 8: it versus Donovan saying it, like we're going to feel
Speaker 8: different things. He's in it, I'm not right. And so
Speaker 8: like I think when you're in the trenches and you're
Speaker 8: you're battling, and if someone were to walk up and say,
Speaker 8: like you can't do it right, like it's over, you're
Speaker 8: not going to be able to achieve the success you
Speaker 8: want to achieve. I think it's really natural actually to
Speaker 8: be like no, like no, we could have done it.
Speaker 8: There was a little bit more meat on the bone,
Speaker 8: like there's there's something here. And for those that were
Speaker 8: in it, I think that that's probably true. I think
Speaker 8: there's probably a lot of people on those teams that
Speaker 8: believed that they could have done something more. And I
Speaker 8: also think that it's a lot easier for those of
Speaker 8: us on the outside that thought to say, I think
Speaker 8: that you've reached your peak here, but I think that
Speaker 8: you know, even if you tried, you probably only get
Speaker 8: to the same spot. And I think that that's that's
Speaker 8: where the Jazz were at that point, is that team
Speaker 8: had run its course. There were problems, and I don't
Speaker 8: think that like that kind of that phrase, there's a
Speaker 8: little bit more meat left on the bone. I don't
Speaker 8: think that that necessarily means that that team could have
Speaker 8: done it. I think that everybody felt like they could
Speaker 8: have tried, that they had they had more to give,
Speaker 8: But I still don't think that that team would have
Speaker 8: been able to do any better.
Speaker 6: And so I think that it.
Speaker 8: Can be true that like it was time to move on,
Speaker 8: blowing the team up was the right thing to do
Speaker 8: for the future of the team. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 8: that Donovan doesn't have more to give elsewhere and that
Speaker 8: that can't be placed somewhere and we and we see
Speaker 8: that with the Cavaliers right now. As you said, I mean,
Speaker 8: I think it strange him having sort of the same
Speaker 8: numbers and and saying you know that he there's more
Speaker 8: effort on defense at times. But I think Donovan is
Speaker 8: also someone that winning cures everything is a true thing
Speaker 8: for athletes throughout sports, and I think that it's particularly
Speaker 8: true for Donovan that you know, he is a person
Speaker 8: who's whose level is raised, and you can see his
Speaker 8: confidence change, and you can really see like a tangible
Speaker 8: difference when there's winning, when there's something to fight for,
Speaker 8: when you know he can see the light at the
Speaker 8: end of the tunnel. And so I think that those
Speaker 8: things go hand in hand. It's kind of cyclical, like, yes,
Speaker 8: the calves are great and it's working out right now.
Speaker 8: You probably wouldn't be hearing the same things out of
Speaker 8: Donovan if maybe the record was a little bit different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now that's very fair. All right, Let's move over
Speaker 1: to the Jazz specifically, and this iteration of the Jazz specifically,
Speaker 1: as you referenced earlier in a tank season, sometimes from
Speaker 1: a fan perspective, it's hard to see the forest through
Speaker 1: the trees.
Speaker 2: I'll ask you this just from a.
Speaker 1: Macro standpoint, What are the positives that you're seeing that
Speaker 1: you can share with Jazz fan. This is such a
Speaker 1: tough ask of a basketball community, and the Jazz certainly
Speaker 1: aren't the only ones to do it. Philly ask their
Speaker 1: fans to do it for like six years and then
Speaker 1: they got embid. And I'm always sympathetic to a fan
Speaker 1: base that is accustomed to winning basketball, that's asked to
Speaker 1: invest in the team that's unseerious about winning in the
Speaker 1: name of hopefully getting back there at some point if
Speaker 1: things kind of fall their way. But what are the
Speaker 1: positive things you're seeing from the Jazz team this year?
Speaker 8: The positives are, I think, first and foremost, the improvement
Speaker 8: that we've seen out of Walker Kestler, the kind of
Speaker 8: glimmers of potential and slashes here and there that you
Speaker 8: see out of some of the young players. That all
Speaker 8: comes with a caveat that like they're going to need
Speaker 8: a lot more time than people think they are going
Speaker 8: to need to. You know, I'm not ready to call
Speaker 8: anybody a bust after a year and a half. I
Speaker 8: think that that requires a little bit more time, and
Speaker 8: that's a good thing, because that's what the Jazz have
Speaker 8: right now is time. And then I think kind of
Speaker 8: maybe secondary to seeing like Walker break out and know
Speaker 8: that he could be a part of the future and
Speaker 8: the continued success of Larry Markinen and those things, is
Speaker 8: that these guys have haven't won ten games this season
Speaker 8: and they're still happy, they still fight for each other.
Speaker 8: There's so much buy in in this locker room, and
Speaker 8: that is kind of at a strange level, how how
Speaker 8: much buy in there is. And you have to attribute
Speaker 8: most of that, I think to Will Hardy. And so
Speaker 8: if you've got a coach that you are hoping to
Speaker 8: lead you through what are probably going to be the
Speaker 8: darkest years of this rebuild, and he's got guys feeling
Speaker 8: in the way that they feel and buying in the
Speaker 8: way that they buy in. Like, Will Hardy has done
Speaker 8: an incredible job you working this locker room and dealing
Speaker 8: with personalities and making sure that guys believe in him,
Speaker 8: they believe in the future, and that they believe in
Speaker 8: the plan, and that he's made every player feel like
Speaker 8: you can when we're ready to go and when we
Speaker 8: have the talent. I'm trying to build you up to
Speaker 8: have the skills and the experience to be ready to
Speaker 8: go and you can be.
Speaker 7: A part of this.
Speaker 8: Now, that's not true for every guy on this on
Speaker 8: this team, like certainly many of them will probably not
Speaker 8: be a part of that future, but they believe they
Speaker 8: can be. And I think that you know, we don't
Speaker 8: know a lot about how Will Will will hardy will
Speaker 8: coach and if he's going to be successful once the
Speaker 8: team is actually trying to be successful and so there's
Speaker 8: you know, coaching question marks there. But so far, what
Speaker 8: we've seen is like he has done an incredible job
Speaker 8: with this.
Speaker 1: Team, and he does a really masterful job because I
Speaker 1: listen to I've always been a sucker for coach's post game,
Speaker 1: So whatever game i'm watching, I want to listen to
Speaker 1: the coach after the game. And you know, he and
Speaker 1: Quinn have much different approaches. Quinn could get how shall
Speaker 1: we say, a little agitated, and then he would look
Speaker 1: at Andy Larson like he was to behead him if
Speaker 1: Andy asked a bad question. And Will can be sarcastic
Speaker 1: and pithy and dismissive, but when he gets into the
Speaker 1: coach speak in the realm of like speaking of his team,
Speaker 1: he does give you a lot if you listen, and
Speaker 1: he's done a really good job of acknowledging. And I
Speaker 1: think lately they've been more competitive. And look, I'm not
Speaker 1: a moral victory guy. I'm just not. But when we
Speaker 1: all know what time it is and we all know
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do. We have to analyze something
Speaker 1: beyond winning or losing, because if you do the whole
Speaker 1: like your record says you know you are what your
Speaker 1: record says you are, then you're embarrassing, empathetic and the
Speaker 1: Jazz are not serious.
Speaker 2: But if you hone in.
Speaker 1: On more of the trends that seem to be encouraging
Speaker 1: with some of the young players, Will talks a lot
Speaker 1: about the process and how things actually went really well tonight,
Speaker 1: and yes, Trey Jung hits a fifty footer, but what
Speaker 1: can we do? So I'll ask you what have you
Speaker 1: seen as of late that's allowed them to be more competitive,
Speaker 1: even more often than not leading to losses.
Speaker 8: Yeah again, I'll say Walker Kessler has been incredible. I mean,
Speaker 8: he had ten rebounds last night against the Hawks, eight
Speaker 8: of them were offensive rebounds. Like his strength, his body
Speaker 8: position and kind of just like the force that he's
Speaker 8: playing with, it has been raised to a different level.
Speaker 8: It makes me think so much more about his potential
Speaker 8: than I did even in his rookie season. The fact
Speaker 8: that he had such a down year and I'm not
Speaker 8: just you know, by the numbers, but man like it
Speaker 8: took a toll on him emotionally last year and to
Speaker 8: have kind of this rebound year knowing that they're not
Speaker 8: gonna win anything. Also like that in the back of
Speaker 8: his mind, I think that it's just been so impressive
Speaker 8: and it's really really great and it's allowed them to
Speaker 8: be competitive and it's hugely important for the future. I
Speaker 8: think that in addition to that, like i've i mean
Speaker 8: more defense and kind of better awareness out of Larry Markinen.
Speaker 6: You know, like we know a lot.
Speaker 8: About his offensive game, but kind of when you're thinking
Speaker 8: about the future, it's like you need a guy like
Speaker 8: Larry Markin to actually not be a negative on.
Speaker 6: The defensive end too. And so that's been.
Speaker 8: Great for a lot of the a lot of the
Speaker 8: young players. You know, there's there's good and bad, and
Speaker 8: like I said before, like a lot of them probably
Speaker 8: won't be here, but the little things that we've seen,
Speaker 8: like Cody Williams needs thirty pounds, right, Like, he just
Speaker 8: needs to be stronger. No one's asking him to like
Speaker 8: buke up like a player that he's not. You know,
Speaker 8: he doesn't have his brother's body type, but he's also
Speaker 8: just like he's got a kid's body still, right he
Speaker 8: I think he literally just recently didn't like came out of.
Speaker 6: His teenage years.
Speaker 8: So that's what we're dealing with, and the Jazz understand that,
Speaker 8: and he's going to be given to time to like
Speaker 8: grow into his body. But he's in the right spots.
Speaker 8: He's making good decisions. It's not like he uh is
Speaker 8: completely out of position or he is making mistakes a
Speaker 8: lot on the court. That's not it's not perfect all
Speaker 8: the time. He's still a rookie and there's there are mistakes,
Speaker 8: but like, for the most part, he makes really good decisions.
Speaker 8: He gets bumped off a spot. He can't keep up
Speaker 8: with guys right now, but I think with time it's
Speaker 8: gonna look a lot better because there's slashes with him.
Speaker 8: That's like, he's a really smart decision maker. He thinks
Speaker 8: the game really well. And you could say the same
Speaker 8: thing about Kyle Philipowski. You could say the same thing
Speaker 8: about Isaiah Collier, Bryce Sensiba, Taylor Hendrix. You know, you're
Speaker 8: thinking about what could could have been this season with that,
Speaker 8: and I think they're you know, obviously a lot more
Speaker 8: play from kyat George out of that like larger young
Speaker 8: group than some of the other players, and so there's
Speaker 8: more of a sample to look at and more to
Speaker 8: critique because there's more of a sam But there's been
Speaker 8: improvements with Kyante too, and I'm looking forward to kind
Speaker 8: of seeing how the rest of the season plays out
Speaker 8: with him once he does come back. But you know,
Speaker 8: like you said, moral victories are what they are, and
Speaker 8: people can appreciate them if they want to, and you know,
Speaker 8: toss them to the side if they want to. But
Speaker 8: for this team, you've got to find something. You've got
Speaker 8: to find something to at least motivate you. And right now,
Speaker 8: like moral victories is the thing that has to motivate
Speaker 8: these players. I have to be able to see that
Speaker 8: there are things that are going right.
Speaker 1: Yes, no, well said, and it is important for the process.
Speaker 1: But before we say you lose saracence, it's been a
Speaker 1: little while. Every time I pull up like a trade guide,
Speaker 1: primer or somebody rights that you know, this could potentially
Speaker 1: go down prior to that February trade deadline. The Jazz
Speaker 1: are involved in every single, every single trade and you
Speaker 1: know it's every single preview and it's easy to understand
Speaker 1: why because they have some bets. John Collins has been
Speaker 1: better this year than I ever thought he could be
Speaker 1: quite frankly, and maybe there's a GM out there that
Speaker 1: thinks John can help them down the stretch, or it's
Speaker 1: Clarkson or it's Sexton or whatever. What are you hearing
Speaker 1: prior to the trade deadline? You think we'll see an
Speaker 1: active Jazz team?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's it's interesting that I think generally what I'm
Speaker 8: hearing is that there's more of a chance that they're
Speaker 8: not active than there is that they are. I don't
Speaker 8: think that this is going to be like a big,
Speaker 8: flashy trade deadline or even one that we've seen over
Speaker 8: the last couple of seasons where you see a lot
Speaker 8: of moves. They're obviously not flashy, but the Jazz kind
Speaker 8: of getting rid of as many guys as they can.
Speaker 8: You know, I don't anticipate that being the case this
Speaker 8: season because the Jazz are having the quote unquote success
Speaker 8: or lack of success that they would like to so far,
Speaker 8: and so there's no real reason to kind of pull
Speaker 8: the rug out. They can still sit guys, they can
Speaker 8: still you know, extend injuries, be as cautious as they
Speaker 8: want to be with injuries, and massage the injury report
Speaker 8: if they need to. As the season comes into the
Speaker 8: second half. If I was a Jazz, I would certainly
Speaker 8: be looking at options to maybe get off the contracts
Speaker 8: with Jordan Clarkson, John Collins, considerating, considering maybe Colin Sexton.
Speaker 8: But at the same time, those are all guys that
Speaker 8: have been really great in the locker room and could
Speaker 8: be great in the locker room still moving forward, and
Speaker 8: if you're looking at maybe having them as an expiring contract,
Speaker 8: you have to weigh that against what you could get
Speaker 8: for them. And so I think that's going to be
Speaker 8: where the Jazz are at the trade deadline, is weighing
Speaker 8: whether or not what they're going to get in return
Speaker 8: is actually worth making the move, because I think this
Speaker 8: season they don't really have to pull the trigger as
Speaker 8: much as they would have had to the last couple
Speaker 8: of years.
Speaker 1: Well, Sarah, what do I say about it back that
Speaker 1: we're at two time Utah Sports Rider of the Year
Speaker 1: Other than thank you for gracing us with your presence.
Speaker 2: The honor is all on this side of the table.
Speaker 8: Okay, oh oh, the honors all mine?
Speaker 6: Please all right?
Speaker 1: The Great Sarah Todd covers Utah Jazz for the des
Speaker 1: Red News. The Utah Sports writer of the year, appreciate
Speaker 1: her time on this Wednesday. All right, wrapping up the
Speaker 1: program for this Wednesday afternoon, don't forget K State Utah
Speaker 1: women's hoops tonight. K State fifteen and one. They're the
Speaker 1: number twelve team in the country and the Lady Utes
Speaker 1: are twelve and two. They're the number twenty two team
Speaker 1: in the country. So it should be some fun basketball
Speaker 1: tonight up at the Huntsman Center at seven o'clock. Big
Speaker 1: night NBA hoops highlighted by a historic game in Cleveland
Speaker 1: with the Cavs and the thunder Jazz are off tonight.
Speaker 1: They're back in action tomorrow against Miami. So some fun
Speaker 1: basketball tonight. By the way, the NFL has announced and man,
Speaker 1: these fires, these scenes from the Pacific Palisades in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles are just horrifying. So this is not the most
Speaker 1: important thing at all. But the NFL has announced and
Speaker 1: stiff they cannot play Monday night's game between the Rams
Speaker 1: and the Vikings in Los Angeles. It will be moved
Speaker 1: to Phoenix for a backup venue. But I don't know
Speaker 1: how big we are in Los Angeles. But if anybody's listening, man,
Speaker 1: stay safe. That looks like some horrifying scenes there in
Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades and the surrounding areas of Los Angeles. All right,
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Speaker 1: game all season long, all right, before we get out
Speaker 1: of here, do you do you believe in UFOs?
Speaker 3: Good question, based on the definition, yes.
Speaker 1: Like literally an unidentified flying object.
Speaker 4: Yes, but I don't know that that's necessarily an alien.
Speaker 4: I think it's probably our government if that is fair.
Speaker 2: Look at you.
Speaker 1: Are you a conspiracy theorist guy.
Speaker 4: Uh, it's a dangerous question in the mind of I
Speaker 4: don't know, because it depends on you know, what is
Speaker 4: a conspiracy? No, not really, Like I'm not one that
Speaker 4: thinks everything's a conspiracy, because if that is the case,
Speaker 4: then nothing is. I like to have some reason and
Speaker 4: you know, semblance of science or something behind it.
Speaker 3: But I don't know.
Speaker 4: I I think there's probably things in the sky that
Speaker 4: folks have seen that they don't know what.
Speaker 3: It is, and that unidentified.
Speaker 1: But you're not saying it's some extra terrestrial from a
Speaker 1: far away galaxy that's here to steal our soul.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily think so.
Speaker 4: But I also do you have a deep belief that
Speaker 4: believing that we are the only things out here, like
Speaker 4: with this conscious thought and you know, modern way of
Speaker 4: living in the entire universe, knowing how small we are.
Speaker 3: I think that's a little selfish.
Speaker 4: I think a little egotistical for our our human race
Speaker 4: to think that way. There's something out there somewhere. I
Speaker 4: don't know if it's close enough to like be in
Speaker 4: our galaxy. But I'm not a I'm not a astro.
Speaker 6: What are they?
Speaker 1: What are they called physicist.
Speaker 3: I'm not a I'm not an astronaut.
Speaker 1: We are we are just in a simulation, spinning around
Speaker 1: on this blue marble. We're essentially a speck of dust
Speaker 1: bro right in the in the galaxies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we're monkeys on a spinning rock, a speck
Speaker 4: of dust in a much larger thing. But does that
Speaker 4: mean that there's like green guys flying around and spying
Speaker 4: on us?
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah. For me, like, if it's it's a real thing,
Speaker 1: I'll deal with it when it comes. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: like I'm busy, I can't story myself with things like this.
Speaker 4: How long are we going to do this where it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: maybe we kind of have some evidence, but not really
Speaker 4: like seventy years plus that we've been doing this. If
Speaker 4: you go back into like petrol glyphs and stuff, they
Speaker 4: were drawing UFO, So we've been doing this for like
Speaker 4: two thousand years and they haven't said hello yet.
Speaker 3: So, like you said, I'll wait until they do.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Well, in the meantime, maybe that gives you some perspective
Speaker 1: to not worry so much about mundane things.
Speaker 2: How about that exactly brought it back around. We're a
Speaker 2: good message.
Speaker 1: On a Wednesday, all right, port before we get out
Speaker 1: of here, what comes our way?
Speaker 2: On a Thursday edition of the show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in a Thursday edition of the show, we'll welcome
Speaker 4: back our friend Tony Jones, a little NBA chat with TJ.
Speaker 4: We'll have a big hour both Craig Bowlerjack and Gordon
Speaker 4: Monson in studio with us. Of course, as we do
Speaker 4: each Thursday, little sports court action, catching up the legal
Speaker 4: story in sports. And I think still TBD on this one,
Speaker 4: but I think Ted Robinson will join us. Of course,
Speaker 4: I don't really know what Ted's January looks like. I
Speaker 4: don't think he's doing much on the broadcast beat. But
Speaker 4: that's our Notre Dame guy, that's our our resident Notre
Speaker 4: Dame insider slash fan. So we're gonna we're gonna check
Speaker 4: with Ted Robinson. If he can't join us, still TBD
Speaker 4: on that, We'll still talk college football in that second.
Speaker 1: Also keep in mind Mark Harlan will be live in
Speaker 1: studio to catch up with Sean O'Connell, So tune into
Speaker 1: The Sean O'Connell Show from eleven to two and then
Speaker 1: spend your afternoon with us on a Thursday Well say
Speaker 1: good Night special. Thank you the voice himself, Bill Riley,
Speaker 1: Neil Smith, Chris Comroddie, as well as Sarah Todd for
Speaker 1: the sound he made. Miss from the show. Website is
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Speaker 1: I'm Spence saying tonight, joy some Utah women's hoops tonight
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you on a Thursday Drive as always.
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