Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Averwell with you
Speaker 1: Tuesday edition of our program. Tonight, of course, we will
Speaker 1: talk a lot of Kentucky football wild Cats picking up
Speaker 1: the pieces after an embarrassing loss to South Carolina. Frankly,
Speaker 1: a game that Kentucky was favored to win. I don't
Speaker 1: put any stock in the points spread. In fact, I
Speaker 1: thought the points spread was way too big. I thought
Speaker 1: it would be a close game, but it went off
Speaker 1: at nine and a half. I think after opening at
Speaker 1: like ten or ten and a half, I didn't think
Speaker 1: Kentucky would swamp South Carolina. I thought the game Cocks
Speaker 1: would be better after they almost lost that opener, but
Speaker 1: I didn't think I would see what I saw. So
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that tonight with Jeff Bicorol. We're also
Speaker 1: gonna air from Tim Couch, the Hall of famer who's
Speaker 1: being inducted this weekend into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: He was on for a couple minutes last night with
Speaker 1: Mark Soups, so we have a chance to chat with
Speaker 1: him a little while longer tonight. Also coming up, myle
Speaker 1: buddy John Wynn Miller, who went to UK with me,
Speaker 1: worked on the Kentucky colonel, we will tell some old
Speaker 1: stories about UK basketball back in the day compared to now.
Speaker 1: John also, though is an accomplished author after a long
Speaker 1: career and a good one in journalism, wrote a tremendous
Speaker 1: book and now has a couple of sequels on the way.
Speaker 1: So shameless plugs for John Wynn's book, but will tell
Speaker 1: some stories about what basketball was like back in the
Speaker 1: day at UK because his dad was Adolph Ruff's lawyer,
Speaker 1: so John and his siblings literally grew up with Ruff's runts.
Speaker 1: But we start a course on campus at UK with
Speaker 1: Kentucky soccer because last night the men lost to Louisville,
Speaker 1: second consecutive home pitch loss for the UK men, but
Speaker 1: they did draw crowd and I mentioned this going on
Speaker 1: the air the other night about how great the atmosphere
Speaker 1: is at the Bell. They had more than fourteen hundred
Speaker 1: people show up and go crazy over there, so they
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun and did not see what
Speaker 1: they wanted to see as the Wildcats dropped a one
Speaker 1: to two and one on the men's side. Women had
Speaker 1: two straight shutouts this past week and goalkeeper Mars Josephson,
Speaker 1: a grad student, has been named the SEC Defensive Player
Speaker 1: of the Week, a grad transfer from North Carolina. A
Speaker 1: second time Kentucky has won the Defensive Player of the
Speaker 1: Week award. After wins over Murray State and that upset
Speaker 1: win over UCLA on Sunday, the Bruins ranked ninth. A
Speaker 1: lot of chatter, of course, about Tom Brady and his
Speaker 1: performance as a rookie broadcaster. A buddy of mine texted
Speaker 1: me and said, it was mashed potatoes on white bread.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was, but look, it was his first game,
Speaker 1: and there's a little bit of a controversy if you
Speaker 1: want to call it that that. You know, some people
Speaker 1: try to make it controversy. But Scott Hansen, the guy
Speaker 1: who so capably anchors the red zone, he was kind
Speaker 1: of teasing Brady a little bit. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you saw the game, but the Cowboys Browns game, right beforetime,
Speaker 1: they tried a sixty six yard field goal that the
Speaker 1: Cowboys would have made it, but there was a flag
Speaker 1: on the play, so they were about to try a
Speaker 1: seventy one yarder and Brady just kind of worked his
Speaker 1: way through it. Scott Hansen, though, basically poked a little
Speaker 1: fun at Brady and said he's got to get more
Speaker 1: excited than that, and suddenly there was this apology by
Speaker 1: Scott Hansen on Twitter. He said it was unfair and inconsiderate.
Speaker 1: I was saying a tongue in cheek, but it didn't
Speaker 1: calculate it how it may come across. I apologize. I
Speaker 1: promise I'm rooting you on in this new venture. I
Speaker 1: guarantee if somebody said, hey man, you need to apologize
Speaker 1: somebody upstairs because it wasn't that bad. And Brady, to
Speaker 1: his credit, came back and tweeted this rookie appreciates you,
Speaker 1: Scott Hanson. No apology necessary, my man, life is too
Speaker 1: short to not have fun or officially on seventy yarder
Speaker 1: watch and I'm gonna spike my headset when it happens.
Speaker 1: I appreciate somebody looking out for Tom Brady. Remember this
Speaker 1: was the guy who played in Boston and not every
Speaker 1: year was a super Bowl year, so he knows how
Speaker 1: to take it. And as I said, if you go
Speaker 1: back and listen to Scott Hanson, it wasn't that big
Speaker 1: a deal what he said. But I'm thinking somebody up
Speaker 1: the network chain said something to Scott Hanson. Across the country,
Speaker 1: people who talked about and wrote about Brady pretty much
Speaker 1: all said the same thing, and it all had up
Speaker 1: to mah, you know. And we talked about it on
Speaker 1: the Statewide Show last night as Billy Rutlans brought up
Speaker 1: the price tag total of about three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five million dollars. But it's his first game, and I
Speaker 1: will promise you this, There isn't anybody in my line
Speaker 1: of work, TV or radio who would want to go
Speaker 1: back and watch or listen to their first effort on
Speaker 1: air and present it as what they are capable of
Speaker 1: doing now after a long career. And chief among them
Speaker 1: is my man Tom Leechs, who every once in a
Speaker 1: while will pull out a clip. It's not even his
Speaker 1: first performance on a Paris radio station when he was sixteen,
Speaker 1: but he plays it on the air and just kind
Speaker 1: of laughs about it. And if I could find my
Speaker 1: first efforts, I would too, because I was terrible. Most
Speaker 1: of us were very few of us hit the ground
Speaker 1: like Tony Romo did and take off running. I heard
Speaker 1: him described as the Unicorn, and he really was because
Speaker 1: he just has that outgoing personality and he started in
Speaker 1: with the play calling and everything, and you know, I
Speaker 1: promise you. I know for a fact because I read
Speaker 1: some account of Fox's game prep with Tom Brady. They did.
Speaker 1: He and Burkhart did multiple practice games. But it's not
Speaker 1: the same. There's not the same energy, there's not the
Speaker 1: same adrenaline. So he'll get better. Is he going to
Speaker 1: be better than Greg Olsen? I don't know. Is he
Speaker 1: gonna be worth three hundred and seventy five million. I
Speaker 1: don't know that either. I will not tune in just
Speaker 1: to watch him. Maybe some people will. That's not a
Speaker 1: knock on him. I watch the games I want to watch.
Speaker 1: I don't care who's calling the game. If he's annoying me,
Speaker 1: I will turn it off. College football numbers NBC Sports
Speaker 1: is turning back handsprings because of the Nebraska Colorado game.
Speaker 1: NBC said an average of six point three million viewers
Speaker 1: watched the Husker twenty eight to ten win over Coach Prime,
Speaker 1: most watched Big Ten Saturday night game since the series
Speaker 1: debuted last year. So obviously happy about that. Nebraska's second
Speaker 1: broadcast on NBC in prime time. They were featured last
Speaker 1: season against Wisconsin two point four to five million, so
Speaker 1: that's quite the jump. Before we hit the break, and
Speaker 1: hear from Mark Stoops. He had his news conference yesterday
Speaker 1: and of course spoke on the radio last night. We
Speaker 1: need to acknowledge the passing of the great James Earl Jones,
Speaker 1: and yeah, there's a baseball link here and you know
Speaker 1: what it is, Field of Dreams. But of course he
Speaker 1: is the voice of Darth Vader and always will be.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting about that is he was not the
Speaker 1: physical embodiment of Darth Vader. The role was actually played
Speaker 1: on camera within the costume by a British actor by
Speaker 1: the name of David Charles Prausse. And he was a
Speaker 1: member of the MB which is it's not exactly the
Speaker 1: same as being knighted, but it's in that class. There
Speaker 1: are five classes of appointment of the Order, and the
Speaker 1: top rank, if you will, is Knight Grand Cross or
Speaker 1: Dame Grand Cross. Number five is member of the Most
Speaker 1: Excellent Order of the British Empire MB. So when you
Speaker 1: see his name, and he since passed in print anywhere,
Speaker 1: it's officially David Charles Prowse MBE. And he was an
Speaker 1: actor and a fine actor, a bodybuilder and a strong man,
Speaker 1: and they needed somebody big in that costume. But they
Speaker 1: needed a different voice, and it's not that he has
Speaker 1: a bad voice. But here are a couple of clips
Speaker 1: from the movie where you hear his lines. Then you
Speaker 1: hear the same lines dubbed in by James Earl Jones,
Speaker 1: and I should.
Speaker 2: Started tearing the ship of peas people too.
Speaker 3: You finding those tastes tiny, the passages.
Speaker 4: In a sess, I want them alive.
Speaker 1: Come on, not tear that ship of pot So you
Speaker 1: found those lines.
Speaker 5: And make me the passengers.
Speaker 1: I want them alive.
Speaker 4: I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic
Speaker 4: You are part.
Speaker 1: Of the Ripper Ali, I'm a trait.
Speaker 5: Take her away.
Speaker 3: On you are pod of a rebel of lions, and
Speaker 3: take it away.
Speaker 1: I had read his name Prouds, but it never heard
Speaker 1: him speak. But that raw footage right there tells you
Speaker 1: what it sounded like on set. And then, of course
Speaker 1: when they laid in James Earl Jones, who had never
Speaker 1: met Carrie Fisher until they both appeared on the Big
Speaker 1: Bang Theory, one of my all time favorite shows. The
Speaker 1: lead character Sheldon Cooper goes to James Earl Jones to
Speaker 1: ask him to come to build a comic cond event
Speaker 1: with him, and instead they go out that night and
Speaker 1: have all kinds of fun and pull kinds of pranks,
Speaker 1: and one of them was to ring her doorbell, Carrie
Speaker 1: Fisher's doorbell and run away. Here they are getting ready
Speaker 1: to ring the bell.
Speaker 3: Gary Fisher, and she's a little crazy, so he'll get
Speaker 3: ready to run.
Speaker 1: And then Fisher opens the door and comes out with
Speaker 1: a baseball bat, and she yells her only line, it's
Speaker 1: not funny anymore, James, why.
Speaker 4: Am i alve.
Speaker 1: And as I said, they had never met until the
Speaker 1: filming of that show, because she was, of course on
Speaker 1: the set with Star he was in a sound booth
Speaker 1: doing all his lines, and so they finally got a
Speaker 1: chance to meet. And one of the producers said, when
Speaker 1: they finally did, Carrie Fisher put her arms out and
Speaker 1: yelled dad. Because, of course, in the movie, Darth Vader
Speaker 1: is the father of not just Luke Luke, I am
Speaker 1: your father, but obviously also Princess Leia Luke's sisters, So
Speaker 1: you're gonna miss James. Earl Jonesy popped up on The
Speaker 1: Simpsons and Sesame Street doing the alphabet and of course
Speaker 1: the great speech from Field of Dreams.
Speaker 3: The one constant through all the years Ray has been
Speaker 3: Baseball America is ruled by like an army of steam rulers.
Speaker 3: It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again.
Speaker 3: But baseball doesn't marked the time. This field, this game,
Speaker 3: it's a part of our past. Ray. It reminds us
Speaker 3: of all that once was good.
Speaker 5: The cookie again.
Speaker 3: Oh, people will come, Ray, People will most definitely come. Ray.
Speaker 5: You will lose everything, You will be evicted.
Speaker 1: And that's when Costner, listening to his brother in law,
Speaker 1: does not sign and get rid of the farm. He
Speaker 1: looks out and sees his dad in the outfield because
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sign the papers, and they keep
Speaker 1: and you know the rest, everything is a success. But
Speaker 1: you know, the one thing that we all did for years,
Speaker 1: we made the mistake of saying, when we refer to
Speaker 1: that scene, if you build it, they will come, Because
Speaker 1: we think about at the end of the movie, all
Speaker 1: the locals pouring in to pay five bucks to see
Speaker 1: this field carved out of a cornfield, which of course
Speaker 1: saves the family farm. But that's not what the voice said.
Speaker 1: The voice said, if you build that, he will come.
Speaker 1: The voice was talking about Kevin Costner's character Ray Ray
Speaker 1: Cancella his father and of course at the end chokes
Speaker 1: me up every time he has a catch with his dad.
Speaker 1: So James Earl Jones so vital in that movie playing
Speaker 1: the author Terrence Man, Ray goes all the way to
Speaker 1: Boston to kidnap him and bring him to Iowa. Just
Speaker 1: a fantastic film, one of the all time great baseball movies.
Speaker 1: And because of that movie, now they play a game
Speaker 1: each year on that field out there among the years
Speaker 1: of corn. Up next, Mark Stoops and a little bit
Speaker 1: later on Jeff mccaorrel plus the Hall of Famer Tim
Speaker 1: Couch Hearing the Big Moonsider six thirty wlap. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Big moon Sider, Dick Gabriel with you coming
Speaker 1: up Saturday. Of course it is Kentucky and Georgia seven
Speaker 1: thirty kickoff. You're hear it right here starting at five
Speaker 1: thirty on six thirty wlap for the record, playing hurt today.
Speaker 1: That's right, walking the dog this morning, as I do
Speaker 1: every morning and every afternoon. Stung by a bee on
Speaker 1: my left ring finger. I mean that was the I
Speaker 1: had the leash in that hand and suddenly I'm feeling
Speaker 1: something sharp and hot and painful. I look down, there's
Speaker 1: a small but effective bee stinging the crap out of
Speaker 1: me right above my wedding ring. So yeah, playing hurt,
Speaker 1: we're sucking it up. Speaking of playing hurt, there may
Speaker 1: be some Wildcats playing hurt, if not physically mentally against
Speaker 1: Georgia this weekend because of what happened against South Carolina.
Speaker 1: And you've maybe heard and read comments from Mark Stoops
Speaker 1: if not, I'm here for you. Of course what came
Speaker 1: out of the news conference yesterday, and he reiterated it
Speaker 1: on his radio show, but it kind of surprised me early.
Speaker 1: I mean it was in his opening remarks after he
Speaker 1: congratulated Tim Couch, who was coming up at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the hour, he talked about the fact that I
Speaker 1: was not, of course, in the media scrum afterwards. We
Speaker 1: were upstairs and had Mark on the postgame radio show.
Speaker 1: He did not say to Tom Leach at least I
Speaker 1: don't recall wondering or asserting his team didn't play very hard,
Speaker 1: but evidently he did in the media because he walked
Speaker 1: that back on Monday afternoon.
Speaker 6: You know, much of what I said after the game
Speaker 6: holds true with one exception, and it's a good thing
Speaker 6: after watching the film, I actually do think our guys
Speaker 6: played really hard.
Speaker 4: We just didn't play very smart.
Speaker 6: I said that, you know, in the post game as well,
Speaker 6: and it holds true. We didn't play very we didn't
Speaker 6: execute very good, and we didn't play very disciplined. We
Speaker 6: didn't play very we didn't play winning football at all.
Speaker 6: We played hard at times, guys were physically up for
Speaker 6: the challenge, just mentally we got to do a better job.
Speaker 4: And you know, you have to put a.
Speaker 6: Lot of that and give credit to South Carolina for
Speaker 6: that as well.
Speaker 4: They affected us.
Speaker 6: They played very good, They played better than us, and
Speaker 6: that's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they played hard, but at times they played dumb,
Speaker 1: and that was for everybody to see. The defense breaking
Speaker 1: down in the secondary, the offense falling apart, with old
Speaker 1: linemen missing assignments and lining up wrong and things like that.
Speaker 1: That's what surprised me the most is that mentally it
Speaker 1: just didn't seem like Kentucky was in the game. They
Speaker 1: just weren't mentally prepared. And that goes back to coaching, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it also goes back to players who maybe thought, well,
Speaker 1: we're better than we think we are. After that walkover
Speaker 1: against Southern miss and so many people, and you know,
Speaker 1: they hear it telling them how they're going to blow
Speaker 1: out South Carolina, which I never thought what happened, but
Speaker 1: I thought they'd win. I did think it would be
Speaker 1: a grind him out game with maybe the last possession
Speaker 1: coming into play, either a team needing to score or
Speaker 1: needing to keep the ball away from the other guys.
Speaker 1: And it looked like it was going to be that way,
Speaker 1: didn't it. At halftime it was ten to six, And
Speaker 1: of course Stoop's still kicking himself and always will for
Speaker 1: going forward early on fourth and one when his team
Speaker 1: was having trouble moving to football. But of course at
Speaker 1: the time he thought we may not get a better
Speaker 1: chance to get a first down this deep and enemy territory.
Speaker 1: So he goes for it and it fails, and almost
Speaker 1: immediately he regretted it, said it as much to me
Speaker 1: at halftime. But here's what he said Monday.
Speaker 4: Somebody asked me the question that postgame.
Speaker 6: I think it was John, you know about you know,
Speaker 6: going forward, and that's that's clearly a mistake on me.
Speaker 6: The game was very tight at that point. Both teams
Speaker 6: were struggling to move above football.
Speaker 4: You know, heck the game, didn't you know.
Speaker 6: I think they went up seventeen on like the eighth
Speaker 6: or ninth possession of the game, and that was on
Speaker 6: the fourth and one.
Speaker 4: I think we had them stopped.
Speaker 6: I think they're going to punk the ball, and you know,
Speaker 6: it's ten to sixth game at that point, and would
Speaker 6: have been even closer, you know, you know, you know,
Speaker 6: possibly if i'd have punched the ball there.
Speaker 1: I always talk about second guessing. I say it's only
Speaker 1: fair if you second gays, or if you have an
Speaker 1: opinion prior to the play and it goes the other
Speaker 1: way and it doesn't work. It's not fair to second
Speaker 1: guess after the play. Anybody can do that. But I
Speaker 1: have to admit at that point I was really surprised
Speaker 1: by what I thought was quite the gamble. But then
Speaker 1: again I thought, well, it is early, but that game
Speaker 1: at that point had all the trappings, as I said,
Speaker 1: of the kind of game I thought it was going
Speaker 1: to be, which was grind them out, maybe not a
Speaker 1: lot of points scored. Over and under was forty two
Speaker 1: and a half, so that means it could have been
Speaker 1: twenty three to twenty. You know, if you go over
Speaker 1: That is not a huge score in an SEC game,
Speaker 1: as you know. But things went downhill after that. They
Speaker 1: still had their opportunities, and when South Carolina had it
Speaker 1: fourth and short at a near midfield spot and a
Speaker 1: fifth year senior jumps off sides. And again keep in mind, now,
Speaker 1: when you're on defense, you don't listen. You're not supposed
Speaker 1: to listen to the quarterback. You watch the ball. That's
Speaker 1: how you react. On offense. You obviously listen for the
Speaker 1: snapcount defense. You're taught from pewee football on watch the football.
Speaker 1: But people fall for the hard count, don't they. We
Speaker 1: saw Aaron Rodgers in action last night and he is
Speaker 1: the master of the hardcount, and a lot of quarterbacks
Speaker 1: have become so good at it. And here was a
Speaker 1: freshman for South Carolina drown Kentucky offside. So it all
Speaker 1: turned on that and it went from bad to worse.
Speaker 1: So they've got these days to clean things up. And
Speaker 1: remember they don't practice on Monday, not a hard physical practice, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: a little bit on Thursday, walk through Friday. That's what
Speaker 1: you do to get ready for Georgia. Georgia does the same.
Speaker 1: But Georgia is going to come in here basically with
Speaker 1: better players at virtually every position. I think Kentucky's got
Speaker 1: a cornerback and Maxwell Hairston who could measure up obviously
Speaker 1: Dion Walker. I think in all fairness, the two insidelnebackers
Speaker 1: d Eric Jackson and Jamon Johnson could measure up with
Speaker 1: SEC teams. But anybody in the offense right now, well
Speaker 1: in Theory Key and Barrion Brown. But Dane made a
Speaker 1: great catch on Saturday. Barrion was just kind of out
Speaker 1: of it Saturday, So it's not impossible, but it's really improbable.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: Kentucky has beaten Georgia a couple of times. It's been
Speaker 1: a while. Rich Brooks was the head coach when they
Speaker 1: beat the Bulldogs twice. We'll hear from him on Thursday
Speaker 1: show kind of a special presentation about Kentucky Georgia under
Speaker 1: Rich Brooks. Carson Beck, the leader naturally for Georgia, the
Speaker 1: quarterback who is among the top quarterbacks listed in the
Speaker 1: QB rankings by Bleacher Report. He is in the top five,
Speaker 1: he didn't quite make the top five. Number seven is
Speaker 1: my man, Dylan Gabriel. Never met him, but got to
Speaker 1: love the name. Of course at Oregon Carson Beck is
Speaker 1: sixth right now according to Bleacher Report, cam Ward of Miami,
Speaker 1: number four, Kyle McCord of Syracuse, number three, Jalen Milroll
Speaker 1: of Alabama, two is quinn Ewers of Texas, and number
Speaker 1: one Jackson Dart of Ole, miss So Kentucky will see Dart,
Speaker 1: they'll see yours, they'll see the kid from Missouri. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Carson Beck's coming in. It's just a rough worksheet for
Speaker 1: the Wildcats. In fact, Georgia is first in the apeop
Speaker 1: plele Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, Ole, miss So there's three
Speaker 1: the top five on the UK schedule, Missouri, Tennessee, let's
Speaker 1: see Penn State is eighth, Oregon ninth, Miami tenth, and
Speaker 1: Southern cal is eleventh. Made a big jump for them
Speaker 1: Louisville nineteenth this week. So yeah, it is going to
Speaker 1: be one rough season. I want to tip my cap
Speaker 1: to my broadcast partner on Kentucky Volleyball, Leah Edmund. She
Speaker 1: started her broadcast career with US on SEC Plus and
Speaker 1: she now is moving up a little bit. She'll still
Speaker 1: work some SEC plus broadcasts, but will work some other
Speaker 1: matches on the mothership on the SEC network. I think
Speaker 1: she's got three assignments coming up, and we'll keep you
Speaker 1: posting on that. But of course she is a great
Speaker 1: volleyball player, maybe the best in UK history. Four time
Speaker 1: All Conference, four time All American, and she graduated right
Speaker 1: before they won the national title. But they were standing
Speaker 1: on her shoulders, hers and many others. And she is
Speaker 1: now playing for the Atlanta Vibe, playing professionally for the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Vibe in the Pro Volleyball Federation. She's in her
Speaker 1: fifth year as a professional. That just blows my mind.
Speaker 1: But does a nice job as a broadcaster. Great volleyball
Speaker 1: player and now moving up like a lot of folks
Speaker 1: who got your starter with your old dad here, So
Speaker 1: good luck to her. I'm so proud when they're ready
Speaker 1: to leave the nest and make the big leap. Tim
Speaker 1: couches next year on The Big Bluon Sider six thirty
Speaker 1: Wlap Welcome back to the Big Bluon Sider. We don't
Speaker 1: get to say this often enough on the show. We're
Speaker 1: joined now by a Hall of Famer. That would be
Speaker 1: mister Tim Couch. Of course, you know I'm Kentucky quarterback
Speaker 1: legendary and now going in to the College Football Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, Tim, welcome back. We've edge on the show before,
Speaker 1: but this is the first year right on the eve
Speaker 1: of induction. How excited are you?
Speaker 5: I'm super excited, Dick. I mean, you know, it's a
Speaker 5: tremendous honor, very humbled by you being recognized in this
Speaker 5: year's twenty twenty four Hall of Fame class, going in
Speaker 5: with a great group of guys, and you know, just
Speaker 5: very thankful for my time at Kentucky and for the
Speaker 5: coaches teammates that I had an opportunity to play with,
Speaker 5: and you know, just just a great thanks fell in
Speaker 5: the place for me, you know, with coach Mommy coming
Speaker 5: in and putting in the air rate offense and uh,
Speaker 5: you know, very it suited my skill set perfectly and
Speaker 5: was able to have a great run by my time
Speaker 5: at Kentucky. So I'm very, very thankful and grateful for it.
Speaker 1: You were talking last night briefly on the show with
Speaker 1: Mark Stoops and Tom leg and I could tell what
Speaker 1: you really wanted to say is you would love to
Speaker 1: take all your teammates in there with you, wouldn't you? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, you know, you know this is you know, we
Speaker 5: played the ultimate team sport and you know so to
Speaker 5: to get an individual recognition is you know, just something
Speaker 5: that I'm kind of kind of uncomfortable with, to be honest,
Speaker 5: because there were so many people that helped me get there,
Speaker 5: and you know, I wish I could take all those
Speaker 5: guys with me, and I certainly, you know, when I'm
Speaker 5: on that stage, I'll be thinking about my teammates and
Speaker 5: and very appreciative of, you know, having them, you know,
Speaker 5: to play with in my time at Kentucky, and you know,
Speaker 5: hopefully they feel part of this as well.
Speaker 1: You know what was part of how Mummy's genius with
Speaker 1: the passing game? And obviously he had the right man
Speaker 1: pulling the trick, but you also had the right guys
Speaker 1: catching the footballs and Craig Yeast and Anthony White and
Speaker 1: Michelson and all these guys. You guys made it look
Speaker 1: so easy on offense. Why is that? With the air
Speaker 1: raid when it's run right, you can't have a bunch
Speaker 1: of rum dumbs out there. But when you've got the
Speaker 1: right people running it, why does it look so simple?
Speaker 5: You know, I think the offense in itself is very simple.
Speaker 5: You know, the concepts are simple. It's not a very
Speaker 5: complicated system to learn it doesn't take very long to install.
Speaker 5: But like you said, Nick, it's you know, you can
Speaker 5: have the greatest, you know, scheme in the world, but
Speaker 5: if you don't have a quarterback who's who's accurate with
Speaker 5: the football make quick decisions, you know, can can get
Speaker 5: your process information quickly. And then you have receivers who
Speaker 5: were great with run after the catch, you know, because
Speaker 5: a lot of the air raid is the shorts intermediate
Speaker 5: passing game. So you're relying on those guys to break tackles,
Speaker 5: the quarterback to be accurate, to put the ball in
Speaker 5: the spot where receivers can catch and run. And you know,
Speaker 5: so we had all those guys, like you said, we
Speaker 5: had Craig Yeast, who was, you know, one of the
Speaker 5: best receivers in the history of the SEC. You know,
Speaker 5: Lance Micholson, Quinn mccoor, James Whalen, Uh, Jimmy Robinson, you know,
Speaker 5: so many guys, Kevin Coleman. Uh. You know, obviously Anthony
Speaker 5: White was unbelievable out of the backfield. It's uh, we
Speaker 5: we just had a perfect, perfect set of guys for
Speaker 5: to run that scheme. It was uh, it was just
Speaker 5: a match mad and heaven with with coach, mommy coming
Speaker 5: in and the guys we had there on campus.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've got you on the phone. So I got
Speaker 1: to ask you this because I have Anthony White on
Speaker 1: He's on every Sunday morning. But I always bring up
Speaker 1: the fact that his nickname was aunt B and you
Speaker 1: hung that on him. Why did you call him? Uh?
Speaker 5: You know, I can't remember exactly. It seems it seems
Speaker 5: like somebody in practice said that, you know, we called
Speaker 5: him aunt and then somebody said aunt be ballin or
Speaker 5: something because you know, they couldn't stop him. You know,
Speaker 5: he was uh he was, you know, running for one
Speaker 5: hundred catching for one hundred some games, and he was
Speaker 5: just he was just a you know, all around kind
Speaker 5: of guy. So we just started calling him aunt Bee
Speaker 5: for short, and it just kind of stuck. But uh,
Speaker 5: what what what a commnutal football player?
Speaker 1: Well, oh, now that helps me because I had the
Speaker 1: mental image of an B from Andy Griffith, So now
Speaker 1: a short for Anthony. Okay, that helps me so much.
Speaker 1: But I also bring up the fact Tim and you
Speaker 1: may embarrass him a little, I don't think it does that.
Speaker 1: When he left UK, he was a top five all
Speaker 1: time combo back wasn't he. I mean, he was a
Speaker 1: perfect guy for that offense.
Speaker 5: He really was. I mean, if you're going to run
Speaker 5: that type of system, you know, you need a running back.
Speaker 5: You know, Anthony had wide receiver skills. You know, he
Speaker 5: could have been a wide receiver, but he also had
Speaker 5: great running back skills as well. And he could and
Speaker 5: he could block. You know, he could pick up flitzes.
Speaker 5: You know, he was unbelievable catching the ball out of
Speaker 5: the backfield, you know, third and third and medium, third
Speaker 5: and short. When we were in a passing game and
Speaker 5: I saw man coverage, you know, it was either you know,
Speaker 5: Craig or one on one on the outside. If Craig
Speaker 5: didn't win, I was coming underneath to to Anthony because
Speaker 5: I knew he was going to be matched up with
Speaker 5: a linebacker or potentially a safety maybe, and he was
Speaker 5: going to win that match up every time. You know,
Speaker 5: with the option routes and the angle routes we were running,
Speaker 5: uh some of those things. He was just literally a
Speaker 5: perfect fit for this game. Yep.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned Craig and his speed and of course
Speaker 1: he not only caught passes but return kicks in the NFL.
Speaker 1: But people, somebody said this to me the other day.
Speaker 1: You know, Tim Kasch didn't throw deep berry off and
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, because they dropped two safeties back because
Speaker 1: they knew Yeast could kill it back there. But Craig
Speaker 1: could still, as you said, catch and run. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was just the greatest.
Speaker 5: He was. He was, you know, in my opinion. I
Speaker 5: know there's been a lot of great players at Kentucky,
Speaker 5: and no disrespect to any of those other guys, but
Speaker 5: obviously I'm biased to Craig. I think he's the best
Speaker 5: receiver ever played at Kentucky. You know, he was just
Speaker 5: the guy. Was incredible man. And you know, like you said, teams,
Speaker 5: that was how they tried to defend us with keeping
Speaker 5: two safeties back because they couldn't leave one on one
Speaker 5: on the outside with Craig. And when they did, that's
Speaker 5: when we took our deep shots. And but you know,
Speaker 5: as much as we were throwing the ball as kind
Speaker 5: of a ball controlled passing attack, so a lot of
Speaker 5: those screens and things we considered those runs, to be
Speaker 5: honest with you know, those were just tall sweeps us
Speaker 5: get on the outside, you know, get the ball in
Speaker 5: Craig East in space, or you know, throw a screen
Speaker 5: to Anthony or something like that. Those were extension of
Speaker 5: the run game for us, and if teams wanted to
Speaker 5: sit back and play cover two, cover four, and we
Speaker 5: just had to kind of, you know, take our you know,
Speaker 5: you pick and choos underneath and just take what the
Speaker 5: defense is given us.
Speaker 1: You're one of three quarterbacks going in with the class
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four. It also includes Alex Smith, who
Speaker 1: helped you talk to the top of the polls under
Speaker 1: Urban Meyer and I was really pleased to see as well.
Speaker 1: The kid from Appalachian State going in. Gosh, Harmani Edwards. Right,
Speaker 1: when you get together with guys like that, Tim, do
Speaker 1: they ask do you guys talk about the systems you're in.
Speaker 1: Do they ask you what it was like to run
Speaker 1: the air raid?
Speaker 5: Yeah? We always talk about, you know, schemes that we
Speaker 5: were involved in, players we played with, you know, things
Speaker 5: like that. And you know, it's a great class. Like
Speaker 5: you said, we've got Randy Moss going in, Larry Fitzgerald,
Speaker 5: Warwick Dunn, Julius Peppers who just went into the NFL
Speaker 5: Hall of Fame as well, So that's a very strong class.
Speaker 5: Loop you know, it's just you know, a list goes
Speaker 5: on and on, and you know, we just just you know,
Speaker 5: got to take a look at that list. It's very
Speaker 5: humbling to go in with those guys. And you know,
Speaker 5: I think Hall of Fame sent me some information on
Speaker 5: the Hall and I think they said there's been something
Speaker 5: like five point five million people play college football and
Speaker 5: there's a little over a thousand guys that have been
Speaker 5: selected to the Hall of Fame. So obviously a very
Speaker 5: selective group of guys. And you know, completely honored to
Speaker 5: be going in.
Speaker 1: Talking to Tim Kuch of course, UK Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: quarterback and now the College Football Hall of Fame going
Speaker 1: to be honored at the game on Saturday. But yeah,
Speaker 1: what a class. And I love seeing Danny woodhead. It
Speaker 1: was a running back at Chaddin State, you know, a
Speaker 1: small college player, but man, what a great player. And
Speaker 1: then it kind of makes me feel a little bit
Speaker 1: old because I grew up watching the Nebraska Oklahoma series
Speaker 1: and Dewey Selman part of the Salmon family going in.
Speaker 1: He played at Oklahoma back in the early seventies. The
Speaker 1: game has changed so much though, Tim, through the years
Speaker 1: and now it's much more about offense, isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's changed, you know, so much. You know, I think,
Speaker 5: you know, when I was coming into the SEC, the
Speaker 5: SEC was really, you know, very much a running conference.
Speaker 5: You know, it was known for having great running backs.
Speaker 5: Really the only team at that time that was kind
Speaker 5: of throwing the ball quite a bit was Coach Spurrier
Speaker 5: down down in Florida. And then you know, Coach Mummy
Speaker 5: and Leach came in and just completely you know, kind
Speaker 5: of revolutionized the game, and you know it. You know,
Speaker 5: I was doing broadcasting for several years after I was
Speaker 5: done playing, and it was it was always amazing to
Speaker 5: me to go to all these campuses and meet with
Speaker 5: these coaches that had different spots, and how all of
Speaker 5: them you know, would come to me and say, hey,
Speaker 5: we we came to Kentucky in ninety seven or ninety
Speaker 5: eight and saw what you guys are doing, and we're
Speaker 5: still running a version of that even today, you know,
Speaker 5: twenty years later. So you know, it was pretty cool
Speaker 5: to be on the ground floor that thing, the air raid,
Speaker 5: and to make it popular and to see that it's
Speaker 5: still very prevalent across the country today.
Speaker 1: You didn't get to spend as much time, i know,
Speaker 1: as you like with Mike Leach because he just went
Speaker 1: on to great and greater things in college football, helped
Speaker 1: Oklahoma win a national thailand and then made a name
Speaker 1: for himself. But what was it like, Tim? I mean,
Speaker 1: he was such a free spirit and a unique kind
Speaker 1: of guy, wasn't he.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was, you know, the most unique coach I
Speaker 5: think I ever played for. And he was Mike was
Speaker 5: one of those guys that you know, you go in
Speaker 5: his office and talk to him, and you know, he
Speaker 5: would talk to you about anything except football. You know,
Speaker 5: he wanted to talk about pirates and and you know,
Speaker 5: wars and every and history and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: And he was just a very different, very different guy.
Speaker 5: But he was also extremely intelligent. He was ahead of
Speaker 5: his time as far as the passing game goes, and
Speaker 5: he had a very clear vision for what he wanted
Speaker 5: an offense to look like and how he wanted to
Speaker 5: install it. And he was very precise. You know, he
Speaker 5: coached our wide receivers and was the offensive coordinator when
Speaker 5: I was there, and what he was all those wide
Speaker 5: receivers every single day about you know, just doing the
Speaker 5: little things right where you know, if you're split is
Speaker 5: supposed to be you know, inside the numbers, and that's
Speaker 5: where you better line up. If you're supposed to run
Speaker 5: at twelve yards, I don't want you at thirteen, don't
Speaker 5: want you at eleven. You need to be precise. And
Speaker 5: you know that's what made our offense so successful. We
Speaker 5: were all so dialed in and locked into the to
Speaker 5: the little details which which made everything work.
Speaker 1: It was all so shocking when he left us way
Speaker 1: too soon that that had to be a punch and
Speaker 1: a gut for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I really hated to see that. And
Speaker 5: you know, Mike and I have we kept in touch
Speaker 5: over the years and would and would talk, and you know,
Speaker 5: I just talked to him a few months before that
Speaker 5: and was completely shocked by the news and saddened by it.
Speaker 5: And you know, I really wish it, you know, that
Speaker 5: he was around. I know he would be, you know,
Speaker 5: in Las Vegas in December celebrating with me going into
Speaker 5: the Hall of Fame, and you know, really really just
Speaker 5: take that for his family, and he was such a
Speaker 5: great guy and surely he's very missed.
Speaker 1: We're talking with UK legendary quarterback Tim Kachi is being
Speaker 1: inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame at the
Speaker 1: end of the year, and he will be honored at
Speaker 1: the game coming up Saturday at Kroger Field. Back with
Speaker 1: more in just a minute on the Big Blue Sider
Speaker 1: here on six thirty w LAP. We're talking with Tim Kash,
Speaker 1: Kentucky Hall of Fame quarterback, and this December he'll be
Speaker 1: inducted into the Football College Football Hall of Fame. Honored
Speaker 1: this weekend at the stadium that some people say is
Speaker 1: the stadium just couch build at least the expansion, Tim,
Speaker 1: you had a lot to do with that. People people
Speaker 1: trying to get tickets. But when you set foot, you
Speaker 1: come back quite often, when you set foot on that field,
Speaker 1: inside that stadium. How does that make you feel?
Speaker 5: You know, I think the very the first thing I
Speaker 5: feel is a sense of pride, you know what we
Speaker 5: were able to accomplish, and and just how fun that
Speaker 5: the game was when we were there, and you know
Speaker 5: how how into it the fans were. And you know,
Speaker 5: because Kentucky football was kind of a rough point there
Speaker 5: when I first got to UK and and they weren't
Speaker 5: winning many games, they were running the option, it was
Speaker 5: wasn't a very exciting style of football. And then we
Speaker 5: came in and you know, we were going spread offense,
Speaker 5: four or five wide receivers and throwing the ball all
Speaker 5: over the field, and uh, you know, it's just just
Speaker 5: you know, a great time to be playing at Kentucky.
Speaker 5: And and you know that coaching staff we had, you know,
Speaker 5: you talk about coach Mummy and Leish and Hatcher and
Speaker 5: Sonny Dykes and Tony Franklin and all those guys. We
Speaker 5: had so many creative minds on the offensive side of
Speaker 5: the ball. And you know, like we talked about earlier,
Speaker 5: we had a great fit of players who run that
Speaker 5: system as well. So, yeah, just to set the pride
Speaker 5: when I'll walk into the stadium about what we were
Speaker 5: able to accomplish while while I was playing there.
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned Mummy and it You're right. He
Speaker 1: was such an interesting individual as well. You could see
Speaker 1: why he and Leech were so tight. But it was
Speaker 1: interesting to me tim when things went went south for
Speaker 1: how here and of course the fans were all over him.
Speaker 1: And then when Kentucky was looking for a new coach
Speaker 1: a dozen years ago, people were lobbying like crazy for
Speaker 1: how Mummy, Disciple somebody to be the next town Mummy.
Speaker 1: So you know, as long as you win, that's what
Speaker 1: it's all about. But that people want to be entertained too,
Speaker 1: don't they.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so. And you know, it's just a
Speaker 5: you know, I think people see, you know how teams
Speaker 5: have been very successful with that system across the country
Speaker 5: and other places. And you know, it was a fun
Speaker 5: style of football to watch. I think it was very
Speaker 5: popular obviously with our fan base here a Kentucky and
Speaker 5: and people didn't want to see that come back, you know,
Speaker 5: and coach Shuts did bring bring it back for a
Speaker 5: little bit. He brought Neil Brown back here for a
Speaker 5: couple of years, and see Neils went on to do
Speaker 5: great things as a head coach at West Virginia, and
Speaker 5: uh so it's you know, it's ah. It was a great, great,
Speaker 5: great offense to play in, and it's very popular, like
Speaker 5: I said, with the fans and obviously with cornerbacks and
Speaker 5: receivers love it. And you know, it's just it's just
Speaker 5: a lot of fun to play in that type of system.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I got to ask you, being a father, do
Speaker 1: you have to queue up video to show your son
Speaker 1: what you do? Because I remember Jamal Mashburn when he
Speaker 1: wanted to the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame. He said
Speaker 1: his kids didn't really believe that he was a great
Speaker 1: player at the NBA. He had to show them video.
Speaker 1: Do you have to do that?
Speaker 5: I've done it before. Yeah, yeah, when they when they
Speaker 5: were smaller, I had to do that. And you know,
Speaker 5: they used to love to watch those videos when they
Speaker 5: when they were little. And you know, now I've got
Speaker 5: a I've got a freshman in college and a freshman
Speaker 5: in high school. My oldest son is he signed a
Speaker 5: scholarship to play for Holy Cross up in Boston, so he's, uh,
Speaker 5: he's playing defensive end up there. And then my youngest
Speaker 5: son is a freshman at Lectern Christian Academy. So you know,
Speaker 5: they're they're both good athletes and good students and you know,
Speaker 5: certainly very proud of them defensive ends.
Speaker 1: So you got to You've got to talk to him
Speaker 1: about what it's like to go attack a quarterback.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I told him. You know, he was playing quarterback
Speaker 5: up until like eighth grade and then he switched over
Speaker 5: to the defensive end. And I was like, I can't
Speaker 5: tell you anything about playing defensive end other than I
Speaker 5: don't like those guys. That's that's all I know about.
Speaker 1: He's going to relish the licks he puts on quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: You mentioned broadcasting and you stepped away from that, and
Speaker 1: you and your brother now very successful businessman, and uh,
Speaker 1: a tip of the cap to your brother. I always
Speaker 1: love what he did at EK. I keep reminding people
Speaker 1: the Greg Couch was the last QB to lead e
Speaker 1: K you to an undefeated OVC record and an OVC title.
Speaker 1: So and it always will be now that they're out
Speaker 1: of the league. But anyhow, you were on your way
Speaker 1: to a pretty good broadcasting career when you stepped away.
Speaker 1: Now Tom Brady, a guy you know, a little bit
Speaker 1: has started and it kind of got lukewarm reviews. But
Speaker 1: for crying out loud, he's a rookie. But if you
Speaker 1: could give him some advice, you giving Tom Brady advice
Speaker 1: on broadcasting, what would it be?
Speaker 5: You know? I think the biggest thing that I had
Speaker 5: to learn is, you know, you do have to prepare
Speaker 5: like you're playing, you know, I mean it is so
Speaker 5: much prep work as far as you know, watching film,
Speaker 5: understanding schemes and systems and game plans, and talking to
Speaker 5: coaches and players throughout the week to get a feel
Speaker 5: from what they're going to try to do that week,
Speaker 5: so you can go on TV and explain that. And
Speaker 5: you know, for me, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 5: say dumb it down, that's not the right word. But
Speaker 5: I wanted to talk like I was talking to like
Speaker 5: maybe like my mother at home, who, yeah, who knows
Speaker 5: who watches football, but she doesn't understand like the you know,
Speaker 5: really inside of x's and O. So you can get
Speaker 5: on there and you know, obviously Tom could talk about
Speaker 5: you know, the game as in depth as anyone who's
Speaker 5: ever played it. But you know, you have to make
Speaker 5: it simple for the people watching on TV so they
Speaker 5: you know, you can say, oh, it's cover too, but
Speaker 5: you know, no one, no one really knows what Cover
Speaker 5: two is unless you you know, you've studied the game,
Speaker 5: played the game, so so you make it you know,
Speaker 5: you make it simple for the fans watching at home
Speaker 5: so they can follow along with you and understand what
Speaker 5: you're talking about. But you know, Tom, you know he's
Speaker 5: going to be great in whatever he does. You know,
Speaker 5: it's it's very difficult to walk in that booth and
Speaker 5: call a game that if you've never done it before.
Speaker 5: He's just going to get better and better with with
Speaker 5: with rests in each game he does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they keep comparing comparing him to Greg Olsen, who
Speaker 1: was not great when he started. None of us was
Speaker 1: not that I know.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, before I let you go, I got to ask you.
Speaker 1: I'm sure your heart went out to what your Wildcats
Speaker 1: and a rock Vandergriff. He had a rough day at
Speaker 1: the office against South Carolina. But that's life in sec
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the way it goes, you know, I mean this, Uh,
Speaker 5: in this league, anyone can embarrass you quickly if you're
Speaker 5: not not on top of your game. And obviously we
Speaker 5: didn't play well. You know, I'm not going to make
Speaker 5: any excuses. We didn't play well up front, quarterback didn't
Speaker 5: really have many opportunities to play well. And you know
Speaker 5: we just in South Carolina played great. Give them credit.
Speaker 5: That's a good defense they got after us. And you know,
Speaker 5: things can go go go south on you pretty quickly
Speaker 5: in this league if you're not playing well. And you know,
Speaker 5: I think we'll bounce back. I think we've got a
Speaker 5: very talented football team. I love our coaching staff. Obviously,
Speaker 5: you know coach Tups is the winning his coach we've
Speaker 5: ever had here, So I have all the faith in
Speaker 5: the world that he's going to get this, get these
Speaker 5: guys to rally rallied up, and get them going back
Speaker 5: in the right direction. And obviously we've got a tough
Speaker 5: one this week with Georgia. But you know, it doesn't
Speaker 5: get any it done get easier, you know, I think
Speaker 5: I saw we played five of the top seven teams
Speaker 5: in the country coming up over the next several weeks.
Speaker 5: So those schedules just brutal. But you know, we've got
Speaker 5: the guys that can go turn it around, and you know,
Speaker 5: I'm still confident in those guys.
Speaker 1: People knocking the offense, of course, that's what fans do,
Speaker 1: but it's too soon that I have no idea what
Speaker 1: to make it this offense yet. And I'm sure you
Speaker 1: know more about this stuff than I do. But uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's going to be tough after this week, isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know you said it didn't get any easier,
Speaker 5: you know, with with Georgia and that defense coming into town,
Speaker 5: so you know, it is it is kind of hard
Speaker 5: to see what we have yet offensively, you know, because
Speaker 5: you know we got to you know a little over
Speaker 5: half a game in week one with the weather and
Speaker 5: then you know, so didn't play well at all, you know,
Speaker 5: only thirty yards passing or so in week two. So
Speaker 5: you know, these guys, you know, just have to get
Speaker 5: it gone, get it to you know, get everyone on
Speaker 5: the same page and executing a game plan. And you know,
Speaker 5: and it takes everyone. You know, it takes the you know,
Speaker 5: the offensive line given protection and Brock making quick decisions receivers,
Speaker 5: you know, getting that out of brace catching football is
Speaker 5: getting separation from the defenders. And you know, it takes
Speaker 5: all eleven guys on that side of the ball to
Speaker 5: make it, make it work and make it look good. So,
Speaker 5: you know, hopeing they can bounce back a little this
Speaker 5: week and get a little momentum build on that.
Speaker 1: Tim Cash will be honored this weekend for his induction
Speaker 1: into the College Football Hall of Fame ceremonies actually in
Speaker 1: December in Las Vegas. Uh, you got some time to
Speaker 1: put a nice speech together. I know you're probably in
Speaker 1: your mind already thinking about that. I know your dad
Speaker 1: would be so proud of you. He is looking down
Speaker 1: on you right now. But I do appreciate the time
Speaker 1: and looking forward to seeing you Saturday.
Speaker 5: I appreciate that. Thanks so much for having me on
Speaker 5: the show.
Speaker 1: Jeff of Coral is up next in hour number two
Speaker 1: here on the Big Boone Sider six thirty wlap. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: We did not get a chance to hear from Jeff,
Speaker 1: picaorl last night except for the closing minutes of the
Speaker 1: state wide show. He ducked us, ladies and gentlemen. But
Speaker 1: you can run, you cannot hide a champion. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Big Boone Sider. He playing god to come
Speaker 1: on laught night. Yeah, just at a senior moment, but
Speaker 1: we will obviously toss and turn this game in our
Speaker 1: minds up until Saturday. But you also got a Jeff,
Speaker 1: as much as you can put it out of your mind,
Speaker 1: get ready for Georgia. But if you're a Kentucky player,
Speaker 1: I got to wonder, is their confidence shaken after that game,
Speaker 1: especially with the huge task coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're You're confidence is shattered because I
Speaker 2: think you probably went into that game a little bit
Speaker 2: of we're a double digit favorite where Kentucky were playing
Speaker 2: at home. You know, that kind of attitude, and they
Speaker 2: got to hand it to him. Look, it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if you're Vanderbilt or you're Georgia, you have got to
Speaker 2: strap it on every single week. Now. I know coach
Speaker 2: said yesterday that he watched the tape and uh, you
Speaker 2: know he he he said, the one thing they played
Speaker 2: they played hard, they just didn't play smart. Well, to me,
Speaker 2: that was the worst game of his entire tenure. Here,
Speaker 2: I don't I can't think of another game other than
Speaker 2: maybe the Tennessee game when you know, a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago when they had Josh and Denny Snow when
Speaker 2: they just laid.
Speaker 1: An egg a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: Probably, I mean it's but I mean, I mean, at
Speaker 2: least at Vandy they moved the ball of but they
Speaker 2: just had you know, stupid penalties and they had the
Speaker 2: dumb plays. Here, they couldn't do anything. I mean here,
Speaker 2: starting quarterback three for ten. His quarterback rating for the
Speaker 2: game was I've never even seen this one point two. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: You had PFF grading the old lineman Marcus Cox had
Speaker 1: a five out of one hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh. And obviously South Carolina's got tremendous edge rushers. And
Speaker 1: every time we do keys of the game, one of
Speaker 1: the first words out of your mouth. Is edge set
Speaker 1: the edge?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: They never came close to that, did they.
Speaker 2: But no, But here's the problem, Dick. You don't think
Speaker 2: George's got great they're all five stars. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 2: think that. You know, all these teams in the league.
Speaker 2: Kentucky's got great edge rushers, you know. So it's every week.
Speaker 2: So you've got to figure now. To me, the biggest
Speaker 2: problem is this because you tried a bunch of different
Speaker 2: things and then you know, basically for the last ten
Speaker 2: minutes of the game, Gavin was in their quarterback. You've
Speaker 2: got to figure out what you can do to move
Speaker 2: the football?
Speaker 5: Uh? You know?
Speaker 2: And and again I made this analogy with you the
Speaker 2: other night, and Tom and I were talking about this
Speaker 2: the other day.
Speaker 5: Is you know, when you're a.
Speaker 2: Baseball pitcher and you're getting rocked all over the way,
Speaker 2: she go, Okay, what can I gow to get a strike?
Speaker 2: Is it my change up? Is it a fastball? Is
Speaker 2: it a sliders? What can I do to just get
Speaker 2: out of this with minimal you know, minimal damage. Well,
Speaker 2: that's what you have to figure out. What can we
Speaker 2: do to move the football?
Speaker 7: Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it a short passing game? They threw one screen
Speaker 2: in the game, and you know that I can remember,
Speaker 2: and I kind of went through the plays and at
Speaker 2: one screen. They didn't do that because they're not a
Speaker 2: screen team. You know, they are teams that love screens.
Speaker 2: They are teams that don't. Kentucky does it for whatever reason.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: Then if you watched Aaron, your guy, Aaron Rodgers on
Speaker 2: Monday Night football is a great example. Samansus has had
Speaker 2: an unbelievable pass rush.
Speaker 5: So what do you do?
Speaker 2: He went to a short passing game, you know, just
Speaker 2: to quick outs, quick in things like that. What do
Speaker 2: you do to move the football? That's what they first
Speaker 2: have to figure out.
Speaker 1: Well, for a while there they ran between the tackles
Speaker 1: and yeah, you guys upstairs were marveling at how effective
Speaker 1: it was late first half, trying to win the last
Speaker 1: four minutes, which I thought they did by controlling the ball.
Speaker 1: And I have to admit, Jeff, I was very skeptical
Speaker 1: about Demi Simo Karnbay and his ability to play power over.
Speaker 1: But he did it running between the tackles because look,
Speaker 1: with all his speed, he still couldn't get to the
Speaker 1: edge against South Carolina. Correct, But they did something else
Speaker 1: and they moved the football. Now it's stall. They settled
Speaker 1: for a field goal, but I guess circumstances dictated they
Speaker 1: just never quite went back to that or or did
Speaker 1: South Carolina do something to take that away.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I just think that as you start to fall farther
Speaker 2: and further behind, you've got to, you know, you've got
Speaker 2: to try to get the ball down the field somehow,
Speaker 2: you know, because that you know the drives are taking
Speaker 2: six seven minutes. When you just sit there and hand
Speaker 2: the ball off feel straight ahead, you're already behind. I thought,
Speaker 2: you know what, you're probably going to lose this game.
Speaker 2: At that point it was twenty one to six or
Speaker 2: whatever it was. And to me, it's just like, let's
Speaker 2: get something out of this game. You ran to Jets
Speaker 2: sweep what three, four or five times? It didn't work once,
Speaker 2: you know, not one time. To me, when you've got
Speaker 2: a fast athletic player at any position, the way to
Speaker 2: negate his speed, his quickness is what run right at
Speaker 2: it right because now if he chooses the side, if
Speaker 2: he steps to the outside, then the blocker just gets
Speaker 2: in the way and the running back runs inside. If
Speaker 2: he tries to rush towards the inside. You just get
Speaker 2: on his outside shoulder. The running back sees that he
Speaker 2: you know, he goes to the outside, or if he
Speaker 2: tries to bullet rush you, and you are obviously much
Speaker 2: bigger and much stronger, can just bull him out of
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it all starts, of course, with the guys
Speaker 1: up front. And we just mentioned the O line some
Speaker 1: of the grades. College Football Report as Kentucky a top
Speaker 1: one of its lists of worst offenses for the weekend.
Speaker 5: We know that.
Speaker 1: But I was talking to Tim Koutch on the show earlier,
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about this offense to say people
Speaker 1: are already complaining about the OC, which they do. I
Speaker 1: get that. Sure, I don't know enough. We haven't seen
Speaker 1: enough yet of this offense.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: No, remember you only get two quarters in the first game.
Speaker 2: Yeah that that doesn't really hurt because you lost guys
Speaker 2: starting to get tired and having to play through you
Speaker 2: know that. And then you jump right into the second
Speaker 2: game and you're all excited and stuff, and then you
Speaker 2: get you know, punched in the mouth and now you're
Speaker 2: you know, now you're going up against Mike Tyson basically,
Speaker 2: and so you know, what do you do to defend yourself.
Speaker 2: What can they do? I think, yes, the jury is
Speaker 2: still out. Look, this is an offense. It's worked, it's
Speaker 2: a proven offense. It's worked all over the country. It
Speaker 2: can work here. But again, they just have to It's
Speaker 2: all credicated on running the football, so that that's that's
Speaker 2: the key. And this team just simply couldn't move the
Speaker 2: ball at all until they did that one series when
Speaker 2: they when they ran it up the gut. And I
Speaker 2: just think you got to get back to that because
Speaker 2: the deep passing game against that team just didn't work.
Speaker 2: He just didn't have time and I don't think he'll
Speaker 2: probably have time this week either.
Speaker 1: What did you think of the comments that Stoops made
Speaker 1: at his news conference yesterday? What they were quite telling.
Speaker 1: He was very blunt about our PO situations. You know,
Speaker 1: he was saying, look, hand it off or pass it.
Speaker 1: I guess he was saying this, this this particular offensive
Speaker 1: group isn't built for our PO. I don't know what
Speaker 1: did you make of that?
Speaker 2: You know, that's interesting because I've never played in that
Speaker 2: style before, so I don't know. You know, I do
Speaker 2: know as an option quarterback in high school and then
Speaker 2: when we got to Kentucky with Perry Moss. We ran,
Speaker 2: you know, a version of the option called the veer,
Speaker 2: and you have to make a decision. I think that's
Speaker 2: what Mark was saying is a decision has to be
Speaker 2: made almost immediately. You can't dwaddle with it because if
Speaker 2: you do that gives them time. Look, you have keys,
Speaker 2: you know you hear this all the time. You're running
Speaker 2: an option. My keys at defensive end, he's unblocked. If
Speaker 2: he comes down, you pitch it. If he stays out,
Speaker 2: run it. Okay. The same with the RPO. You have
Speaker 2: a key. If that guy comes up, you throw it.
Speaker 2: If that guy stays back, you run it. But you
Speaker 2: can't dawdle.
Speaker 5: You can't.
Speaker 2: You've got to go. It's almost say. You always hear
Speaker 2: a say guy's running east and west. Can't run east
Speaker 2: and west on kickoff. Can't do that, I'll pot You
Speaker 2: got to run north south, you know. And that's the
Speaker 2: same way with this. It's a read, but it's a
Speaker 2: quick breath. And again we're talking about a guy who
Speaker 2: hasn't played really in a football game in over three years,
Speaker 2: and now he's he's got now what four or five
Speaker 2: quarters under his belt, and I'm gonna give him a
Speaker 2: little more slack.
Speaker 1: I don't recall them doing that much. Maybe they do
Speaker 1: at Georgia, so you know, whatever skills he developed down there, right,
Speaker 1: and whatever reps he got at practice, maybe they did.
Speaker 1: Maybe they didn't include the RPO, but I don't know
Speaker 1: what anything where you've got to hesitate at all against
Speaker 1: those edge guys from South Carolina. That's a recipe for disaster,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Well, I yes, and it's a recipe for disaster. And
Speaker 2: most of the SEC team is because the one thing
Speaker 2: the SEC is built upon, and this is what And
Speaker 2: I always go back to the story with Tom Brenneman
Speaker 2: when he was doing the National Championship Game, Florida was
Speaker 2: getting ready to play Ohio State and he said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: they've got kicks offensive, Lindman, they're going to be in
Speaker 2: the NFL next year. You know, they've got you know,
Speaker 2: great running backs, like they're a machine. And I said, Tom,
Speaker 2: they've never seen the SEC before. Remember the SEC had
Speaker 2: to Florida had two defensive ends too, were happened to
Speaker 2: be first round draft picks that year, and they just
Speaker 2: they just their speed just killed Ohio State and Florida
Speaker 2: won the National championship, and that's what the SEC has
Speaker 2: to speed and every team has it.
Speaker 1: Jeff of Coral is the color analyst for ARE the
Speaker 1: Kentucky Sports Network and we will also the sports director
Speaker 1: w TTV. Can you come back and talk more football
Speaker 1: with Jeff in just a minute hearing a big Moonsider
Speaker 1: six thirty wlap Welcome back on our celebrity highline. Jeffiicorrel's
Speaker 1: color analyst on the UK Sports Network and you also
Speaker 1: hear him and Tom Leach and yours truly where a
Speaker 1: Wildcat whip every Thursday as we go a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper to prepare Wildcat fans for the upcoming game. It's
Speaker 1: those Georgia Bulldogs, of course, coming in this week. And Jeff,
Speaker 1: you and I have covered this program for a long time.
Speaker 1: You played against Georgia, played against the good Georgia teams,
Speaker 1: but it's that program has never been as good, even
Speaker 1: the herschel Walker years as it is now. How and
Speaker 1: it's even tougher now because everybody's pouring millions into their programs,
Speaker 1: their facilities, their coaching staffs. Why has Georgia risen above
Speaker 1: the rest at least among you know, three or four schools.
Speaker 2: Kirby's just done a fantastic job. A great coach.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, he has a great lineage behind him who
Speaker 2: you know, the coaches he's learned from in the past.
Speaker 2: And then once you start rolling, you know, once that
Speaker 2: ball starts rolling, it rolls. Man, it's downhill. I mean Alabama, look,
Speaker 2: Nick's gone. They're still recruiting five star players. But for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, Georgia, I thought they had a really nice
Speaker 2: single with Mark Rick, and he was a really good
Speaker 2: guy too, and a good coach. But boy, Kirby Smart
Speaker 2: is just taken it to the next level and they
Speaker 2: have become the team not just in the Southeastern Conference
Speaker 2: but in the country.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 2: I mean, Ohio State's got a machine there, Michigan's got
Speaker 2: a machine, but it ain't anything like what Georgia had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right about Rick, good Man, good coach, a
Speaker 1: great recruiter. They got so much talent at Georgia, but
Speaker 1: just couldn't quite close the deal.
Speaker 2: Could he, now, you know, And that's that's too bad.
Speaker 2: Like I said, he was a really just a good person,
Speaker 2: a good football coach, but you know, there was just
Speaker 2: something there that he just couldn't get past that Alabama,
Speaker 2: you know when he was there, and and even Florida
Speaker 2: for a couple of years had had a good thing going.
Speaker 2: But again you have to look at you know who
Speaker 2: they who these teams take as the next coach. Can
Speaker 2: they continue that line you know that that they made
Speaker 2: and Kirby did, and like I said, and he even
Speaker 2: took it up another not. It's gonna be interesting to
Speaker 2: see how Caitlin de Boor does in the next year
Speaker 2: or two. It looks like he's done a great job.
Speaker 2: He's still getting the five star recruits and they look
Speaker 2: pretty good, you know, the two Saturdays we've seen them.
Speaker 1: What do you think as a media member of the
Speaker 1: backlash now, it's it's about as acute as it's ever
Speaker 1: been with Stoops because this is probably the most difficult
Speaker 1: situation since his first couple of years, and expectations are
Speaker 1: so high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the media and you've got to
Speaker 2: go back three years and you're seven and five. You said, okay,
Speaker 2: you had any injury here and there, and you lost
Speaker 2: the game you shouldn't have lost. And then you go
Speaker 2: to last year and I thought there were some expectations,
Speaker 2: you know, you had a.
Speaker 5: New quarterback coming in.
Speaker 2: They was throwing a you know, a boatload of touchdown passes.
Speaker 2: It was a real good touchdown interception ratio, and it
Speaker 2: just didn't work out last year and you finished seven
Speaker 2: and five. So now paper going okay. And then you
Speaker 2: had the FIASCA with Texas A and M to add
Speaker 2: in with coach and I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: kind of soured on that and they haven't gotten over it.
Speaker 2: And now I think everything is under a microscope, and
Speaker 2: now it's even more so. Look, South Carolina, for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: and we talk about this a lot sick on the show,
Speaker 2: is some teams have your number, you know, they just
Speaker 2: it's like Missisi used to be Mississippi State. Mississippi State
Speaker 2: could be three and five when they met Kentucky. But
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, it was going to be a battle.
Speaker 2: Right now, it just seems like South Carolina said it
Speaker 2: was an ugly game on both sides. South Carolina didn't
Speaker 2: do anything. Their quarter was supposed to be runner. He didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, he got hurt. They didn't do anything offensively
Speaker 2: that was outstanding.
Speaker 5: He had.
Speaker 2: They scored thirty one points somehow.
Speaker 1: Well, and you know, you chopped up the numbers of
Speaker 1: the week prior and pointing out that Dean Walker was
Speaker 1: an over but everyone else got to eat. And when
Speaker 1: you really look closely, and I'm not making any excuses
Speaker 1: or trying to put a blanket or a bow on this,
Speaker 1: but you really can't point too many fingers. You have
Speaker 1: to point a few because of the breakdowns in the secondary.
Speaker 1: But otherwise I thought defensively, Jeff, they were pretty sound.
Speaker 1: And as you said, I braced myself and we talked
Speaker 1: about this in the pregame. I braced myself for that
Speaker 1: quarterback getting loose running, yes, chucking the ball, and he
Speaker 1: really he made a couple of plays He's going to
Speaker 1: do that, But that didn't really happen, did it.
Speaker 2: No, Kentucky, I believe it is the number eight defense
Speaker 2: in the country right now. They still yet to give
Speaker 2: up one hundred yards running the football in two games combined. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, they've done a pretty good job. Now. They
Speaker 2: had a couple of bonehead plays where they left the
Speaker 2: guy wide open, you know, and that's I think that
Speaker 2: was schematic. The way Kentucky's defense was. If ty Bryant
Speaker 2: goes outside, they throw to the inside guy. If Tiger's inside,
Speaker 2: they throw to the outside guy. They had three guys
Speaker 2: on a ass route and two defenders. The cornerback got
Speaker 2: one guy on the edge, and two guys are running
Speaker 2: basically about ten yards apart.
Speaker 1: Ty.
Speaker 2: You know, Ty goes and it's not his fault. He's
Speaker 2: got to pick one. Can't just stay in the middle,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, the other guy's wide open and
Speaker 2: it's a touchdown. It's that was just a great schematic
Speaker 2: call by the offensive coordinator, you know over there ligings
Speaker 2: for uh for South Carolina. But yeah, they're they're they're
Speaker 2: pretty good. They're the defense looks good. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: not great, but it looks pretty dark good, pretty stout
Speaker 2: against the run, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, and if you can control that up front,
Speaker 1: you know. So now the question is can you avoid
Speaker 1: First of all, can you avoid beating yourself against Georgia.
Speaker 1: But you know, you go back to that game. I
Speaker 1: was talking, uh, I think it was last night about
Speaker 1: the game when Kentucky went down there for the first time.
Speaker 1: Will Levis facing Georgia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and he.
Speaker 1: Quote unquote manages the game pretty well. That kind of
Speaker 1: put him on everybody's radar. And you got to do
Speaker 1: that with Georgia, don't you. I mean, you can't go
Speaker 1: in there slinging it down the field and running trick plays.
Speaker 1: You got to first of all, keep from beating yourself.
Speaker 1: Can they do that?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you talk about that game with Lewis.
Speaker 2: They're they're that ball sitting on the ground. If they
Speaker 2: just put their hand on it, it's Kentucky ball. Georgia
Speaker 2: doesn't score. If he picks it up and runs the
Speaker 2: other way, it's an easy touchdown.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: You Yes, you've got to get lucky because look, let's
Speaker 2: face it, they don't have the talent that Georgia does it.
Speaker 2: That's the fact.
Speaker 5: Nobody does.
Speaker 2: But I think the defense can't blow up like they
Speaker 2: did last year where everyone's doing their own thing. You know,
Speaker 2: coach talks about this all the time. Just do your job,
Speaker 2: you know, don't try to be a superhuman person. You're
Speaker 2: you're not going to be against this team. Then they're
Speaker 2: gonna have to get some breaks. They're gonna have to
Speaker 2: get a fumble, they're gonna have to get an interception,
Speaker 2: they're gonna have to run the football, control the clock.
Speaker 2: You cannot there's no way you're going to get in
Speaker 2: the you know, a scoreboard contest with them where you're
Speaker 2: you know, trying to play pinball and score forty points,
Speaker 2: because it's just not going to happen. So it's got
Speaker 2: to be a game like that was a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, a low scoring, defensive minded type of football game.
Speaker 2: But to do that, you got to move to football.
Speaker 1: Uh. You know, we were talking about how Kentucky has
Speaker 1: beaten Georgia a couple of times in the last eighteen years,
Speaker 1: one of them in six here in Lexon and the
Speaker 1: other one at nine, both of them under Rich Brooks,
Speaker 1: who will be our celebrity. I don't know what we
Speaker 1: want to call it, but he'll open the broadcast with
Speaker 1: with our celebrity monologue. I guess we can say, as
Speaker 1: Jojo Kimp did last week and Bill Ransdale the week before,
Speaker 1: and I chatted with him, We're going to hear the
Speaker 1: conversation on the show on Thursday, Jeff. But he talked
Speaker 1: about that six game when the goalpost came down. I
Speaker 1: know you worked that game, and he said, and I
Speaker 1: mentioned there was an interception right before halftime, which was huge. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then of course Trevar Linley's of Matthew Stafford essentially
Speaker 1: end of the game. But he said, we had so
Speaker 1: many guys make plays, so many guys who came to
Speaker 1: Kentucky kind of unheralded, you know, like a Wesley Woodyard
Speaker 1: or like a Roger Williams and just made plays and
Speaker 1: got it done. And that's what it's going to take,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like I said, look, it doesn't matter if you're a
Speaker 2: two star, three star, four star, five star. Just go
Speaker 2: out there and play the game.
Speaker 7: Have some fun.
Speaker 2: I think that's a lot of times we forget that
Speaker 2: this is this is still a sport. And I say
Speaker 2: this all the time. I said this about the last
Speaker 2: couple of Caliperi teams. Didn't look like they were having
Speaker 2: fun out there on the basketball court. You know, this
Speaker 2: is a job. Well, if you're going at it that way,
Speaker 2: it's the wrong attitude and you're not going to win.
Speaker 2: And I think this football team has to enjoy themselves.
Speaker 2: Good out there, have fun. Look, you're playing against the
Speaker 2: number one team in the country. Hey, they put their
Speaker 2: pants on just like you. Let's prove that. Hey, op
Speaker 2: along on the field with you. You know, I could
Speaker 2: play for you, and we're going to beat you.
Speaker 7: To prove it.
Speaker 2: That's what you have to go into the game.
Speaker 1: As Jeff Acoro is the color analyst for the UK
Speaker 1: Sports Network, he'll be beside Tom Leach on the Wildcats
Speaker 1: take on Georgia. Listen for the two of those guys
Speaker 1: on the Wildcat Whip, which should hit your social media
Speaker 1: on Friday, and watch for Jeff on WTVQ. Thank you
Speaker 1: brother for you at the ballgame.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll see you first at South of Wrigley. Get
Speaker 2: a free signs.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's where we take the Wildcat Whip. Thank
Speaker 1: you sir. Up Next lexing is John Wynn Miller. We
Speaker 1: talk about his new book and we go back in
Speaker 1: time with Kentucky basketball here on six point thirty Wlap
Speaker 1: welcome back to the Big Blue and sider joining us
Speaker 1: now our celebrity hotline is a longtime friend and colleague
Speaker 1: from just a few years ago we worked together on
Speaker 1: the Kentucky Colonel. Now John win Miller a retired journalist
Speaker 1: but an author, and we will talk sports because as
Speaker 1: we had John on before, he and his siblings literally
Speaker 1: grew up with RUPs runs. But we're going to talk
Speaker 1: first about the fact John, welcome back when I when
Speaker 1: I first had you on your your novel accent adventure book,
Speaker 1: The Hunt for the peggyc was doing well and you
Speaker 1: just keep racking up accolades. Don't you now you're you're
Speaker 1: in the running or are you still in the running
Speaker 1: for a Hemingway Book Award or tell me about that?
Speaker 7: I know that was actually two years ago when it
Speaker 7: first came out, and it did win or ended up
Speaker 7: being a finalist and a bunch of awards, including the
Speaker 7: Military Writers Society of America, the Hemingway Award, I was
Speaker 7: a semi finalist, and the Clive Cussler Adventure Writers Contest,
Speaker 7: I was a semifinalist. So I'm crossing the finish line
Speaker 7: close to the lead, but I'm not winning.
Speaker 1: Well you're in a race, though, man, that's what's important.
Speaker 1: And this was your first book.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's crazy. You know.
Speaker 7: I'd been a journalist for more than forty years, and
Speaker 7: I became a journalist when I walked into the Kentucky
Speaker 7: Colonel almost fifty years ago, because I wanted to be
Speaker 7: a novelist. But I realized I didn't know how to
Speaker 7: write and I had nothing interesting to write about.
Speaker 5: So I figured.
Speaker 7: Well, journalism will teach me how to write, and then
Speaker 7: I eventually became a foreign correspondent and editor and publishers,
Speaker 7: so I had some pretty interesting things to write about.
Speaker 7: And during COVID, I decided I'm gonna sit down and
Speaker 7: write that novel I've been thinking about for decades, and
Speaker 7: lo and bhold, I got it out. I got a
Speaker 7: publisher and got it out, which to me was amazing.
Speaker 7: I mean, my age to be able to sit and
Speaker 7: write like that for as long as I did, and
Speaker 7: to do all the research, because they say, right, what
Speaker 7: you know? Well, I wrote about stuff I knew absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1: Right, Right. This was a chase. This was two boats
Speaker 1: chasing each other during World War Two. And the last
Speaker 1: time you're on you were talking to me about all
Speaker 1: the research you had to do about just in great detail.
Speaker 1: You didn't exactly go Tom Clancy. Do you thank God?
Speaker 1: Because I skim that when I read Clancy. But but
Speaker 1: you were able to explain why things work how they work.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was enjoyable, and I'm sure you had
Speaker 1: a good editor who could tell you if you're getting
Speaker 1: bogged down too much in that. But now you've got
Speaker 1: a sequel, right.
Speaker 7: Yep, yep, I've got a sequel. It's called Rescue Run,
Speaker 7: and it takes up a lot of the same characters,
Speaker 7: the ones who actually survived the first book. And that
Speaker 7: our hero is the same Captain Jake Rogers, who was
Speaker 7: the captain of the Peggy c that escaped the U
Speaker 7: boat in volume one. So Rogers leads his crew on
Speaker 7: another daring mission UH to rescue his beloved father from
Speaker 7: the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam, but there's a shocking betrayal
Speaker 7: forces them to flee across occupied Europe with the S
Speaker 7: of course, with the SS, the French gangsters, a ruthless
Speaker 7: bounty hunter in hot pursuit, and even a real serial killer.
Speaker 7: So I threw in a bunch of stuff, and it's
Speaker 7: almost all real people and actual history.
Speaker 5: The only.
Speaker 7: Fiction is my characters and the plot, although again it
Speaker 7: involves a lot of things that really happened, and a
Speaker 7: lot of famous people like Audrey Hepburn or Marcel Marceau.
Speaker 7: They all show up at one point or another.
Speaker 1: You know, I actually met Marcel Marceau. He came through town. No,
Speaker 1: he came through town in the early eighties. I was
Speaker 1: working at WVLK and he came over and was interviewed
Speaker 1: by Jack Patty and he had done a show at
Speaker 1: the Opera House, was doing a series of shows and
Speaker 1: I had gone to see him the night before, and
Speaker 1: I remember I went into him and a lot and John,
Speaker 1: by the way, is also a veteran of our karate
Speaker 1: club here in Lexingon and his study tai chi back
Speaker 1: in the day as I did. And I asked Marceau,
Speaker 1: I said, have you ever studied tai chi because some
Speaker 1: of your movements are very similar, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was something similar to tai chi, but you know,
Speaker 1: just incorporated all of it. So that's a rare brush
Speaker 1: with greatness for me.
Speaker 7: Wow, that's great. He was pretty amazing. During the war,
Speaker 7: he was an actor, was starting his training to become
Speaker 7: a mind based on because he had seen some movies
Speaker 7: when he was a kid of Charlie Chaplin, so he
Speaker 7: wanted to be Charlie Chaplin. So he would borrow his
Speaker 7: father's pants and hat and walk around the house like
Speaker 7: Charlie Chaplins Chaptain, and out of that then he started developing.
Speaker 7: He was an artist during the war.
Speaker 5: He was young.
Speaker 7: He was a forger. He would forge documents. He was
Speaker 7: Jewish and he forged the document that said he was
Speaker 7: only seventeen, which meant too young for military service, and
Speaker 7: he was Protestant, and so he and his brother worked
Speaker 7: with a group to smuggle Jewish kids out of friends
Speaker 7: into Switzerland. Yeah, he was actually made a movie about it,
Speaker 7: but uh, it's a little known thing about him. And
Speaker 7: one of the things he would do he would dress
Speaker 7: up as a boy scout, a Scout leader, and then
Speaker 7: dress the Jewish kids up in Scout uniforms and take
Speaker 7: them on trains as if they were going on a
Speaker 7: day trip to the mountains, and then he would walk
Speaker 7: them across the mountain into Switzerland. Yeah, and uh, he
Speaker 7: he did that quite a bit during the war and
Speaker 7: he never he never got caught. So I use a
Speaker 7: little bit of that in my novel just because I
Speaker 7: just couldn't believe it. Yeah, and then after later on
Speaker 7: he became a translator for patent he because he could
Speaker 7: speak three languages. He spoke German, he spoke for she
Speaker 7: spoke English. So you know, even before he became world famous,
Speaker 7: he was an amazing human being.
Speaker 1: So you had to work him into the book.
Speaker 7: Oh absolutely, And a lot of the funny things were
Speaker 7: that I would be doing research and I would stumble
Speaker 7: across somebody or something.
Speaker 5: I got to get that in the book. I got
Speaker 5: it here.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's crazy, but I even worked in There
Speaker 7: was a serial killer operating in Paris, a doctor who
Speaker 7: the Nazis Guestapo sort of knew about and French gangsters
Speaker 7: sort of knew about, and it kind of used him
Speaker 7: to eliminate some of the resistance members that they wanted
Speaker 7: to get rid of. So I worked him into the story.
Speaker 7: And again it's completely unbelievable. A serial killer operating down
Speaker 7: the street from Guestapo headquarters for years and finally got caught.
Speaker 7: They convicted him of twenty nine murders that they suspect
Speaker 7: him of several hundred. You know, he would trick resistance
Speaker 7: members and people he wanted to escape to Spain. He
Speaker 7: would say he was going to help him, but then
Speaker 7: he would say, okay, before you leave, you have to
Speaker 7: be inoculated for various diseases before you can get into Argentina.
Speaker 7: And he gave him not poison, but numbing. Yeah, he
Speaker 7: would kind of just knock him out and then take
Speaker 7: them down in the basement and torture them to death.
Speaker 7: So it was pleasant. Yeah, really nice. So that's that's
Speaker 7: how I've been spending my time.
Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, we will we will
Speaker 1: cleanse your mind of all that. We'll talk some basketball
Speaker 1: with John Wynn Miller. He is an author. He's an
Speaker 1: award winning author in fact, and if you read his
Speaker 1: first book, you enjoyed it. I know The Hunt for
Speaker 1: the peggyc And the sequel is coming out soon. Rescue Run.
Speaker 1: We're back in a minute, around six thirty WLAP. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: We're talking with my longtime friend John Wynn Miller, author
Speaker 1: of The Hunt for the PEGGYC and Rescue Run the sequel.
Speaker 1: Terrific book, the first one, and I'm sure I'll enjoy
Speaker 1: the second one. But as I said, it's a sports show, John,
Speaker 1: so I've got to justify having you on. But no, seriously,
Speaker 1: you know it's hard to believe you walked into the
Speaker 1: Colonel wanting to be a novelist. I knew I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a sports writer, and we both end up
Speaker 1: in the same place. And when you think about college
Speaker 1: sports now compared to them, it's crazy. And again it's
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, but it's almost like a time warp
Speaker 1: because what we walked into. It remained that way for
Speaker 1: so long, with you know, student athletes getting laundry money,
Speaker 1: and now they're being paid, you know, to sign on
Speaker 1: the dotted line. But it's funny how so many people
Speaker 1: journalists included, you know, rude the fact that athletes aren't
Speaker 1: getting anything and now they're complaining that they're getting too much.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how much sports you follow anymore,
Speaker 1: because you're an average sportsman. As I said, your dad
Speaker 1: was Adolph Rupps lawyer, so RUPs runs partied at your house,
Speaker 1: they were your friends. Yeah, you know. Yeah, it's so
Speaker 1: different now, isn't it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Oh, it's completely different.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: Back then they were truly amateur athletes and they if
Speaker 7: they got paid anything. It was like my father and
Speaker 7: mother would have them over and let him use the
Speaker 7: basement for parties with their girlfriends. And Larry Connelly actually
Speaker 7: taught me how to shoot a junk shot, so as
Speaker 7: we had a basketball goal out back, and that just
Speaker 7: seemed like a normal thing to me, you know, I
Speaker 7: had him and pat Riley and Tommy Crime at the
Speaker 7: half and when they lost the national championship to Texas Western,
Speaker 7: because Larry Conley had a fever of one hundred and
Speaker 7: four and they were beaten by a better team. Actually
Speaker 7: that's a better coach team, so you can't make any
Speaker 7: excuses for him. But I still had a picture of
Speaker 7: Tom Krin and Larry Conley in my parents' bedroom watching
Speaker 7: TV with all of us after the day after they
Speaker 7: had lost, and my father got a friend who owned
Speaker 7: the liquor store to get some beer and brought a
Speaker 7: bunch of beer over for him. So they watched that,
Speaker 7: and then Tommy Crime decided he was going to teach
Speaker 7: me how.
Speaker 5: To drive a car.
Speaker 7: I don't know if I told you this one before,
Speaker 7: but so we car.
Speaker 5: He was in the.
Speaker 7: Driveway, uh, and my parents had kind of a wide driveway,
Speaker 7: so their cars would park on the side and then
Speaker 7: up next to the house. And so I got into
Speaker 7: his car. He had a big old cigar in his mouth.
Speaker 7: I don't know if he'd ever smoked one before, and
Speaker 7: his dad had been drinking lots.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, my father smoked him all the time. And so
Speaker 7: he let me get behind the wheel and he said, okay,
Speaker 7: turn it on. I turned away and said, okay, put
Speaker 7: it in reverse. I did, said, okay, back up. I
Speaker 7: had never been in a car before I was maybe fourteen,
Speaker 7: well I don't remember. Could barely reach the pedals, and
Speaker 7: of course I floor it right into the front of
Speaker 7: my mother's car. Park it. He doesn't blank, he doesn't
Speaker 7: say a thing. He said, well, why.
Speaker 5: Don't we park it for now?
Speaker 1: Why don't we want it for now?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, because I pulled it up and got it off
Speaker 7: of my mother's car. Uh. And so that was some
Speaker 7: of my experiences with the ballplayers. That was like like
Speaker 7: all of my involvement with sports.
Speaker 1: And your dad was was tight with John Ray, wasn't he.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: He ended up being really good friends with John Ray.
Speaker 7: And who was the UK football coach uh in the
Speaker 7: long string of unsuccessful football coaches that you, uh, except
Speaker 7: the great ones who we fired like Bear Bryant and
Speaker 7: Blanton Collier, Don Shula.
Speaker 5: We know how to pick him.
Speaker 7: We were real talent scounts back then. Uh So yeah,
Speaker 7: uh they became good friends. And when John Ray uh
Speaker 7: left to go to the Buffalo Bills as an assistant coach,
Speaker 7: my parents would go visit him every so often, and
Speaker 7: in one of them they took him down to the
Speaker 7: locker room to meet O. J. Simpson, the father got
Speaker 7: to meet him before he was also a serial killer,
Speaker 7: and as a result they you know, they ran into
Speaker 7: all sorts of athletes, mainly because my father represented Rupp
Speaker 7: and then the health John Ray, and then helped others
Speaker 7: which led to different things.
Speaker 1: Well, and you know what, and one of my favorite
Speaker 1: stories about your dad was the fact that people don't
Speaker 1: realize I've told the story before on the show, but
Speaker 1: when Joby Hall was the head coach at Saint Louis
Speaker 1: you for five days, he was upset that Rupp would
Speaker 1: not anoint him as the future head coach, and so
Speaker 1: he left. And then and after Joe died, you know
Speaker 1: the in his obituaries, and Joe told the story every
Speaker 1: now and then, but what never came out really was
Speaker 1: how your dad did the legal work to get him
Speaker 1: out of the contract. And full disclosure, your folks put
Speaker 1: me up after I got my first job. I got
Speaker 1: a job on a Thursday, had to report on a Monday,
Speaker 1: had zero money, no place to live, so I stayed
Speaker 1: in your brother Harry's room for about four months, as
Speaker 1: you will know. But your dad we were eating dinner
Speaker 1: when he told me the story about how Joe b
Speaker 1: came in the kitchen and hung his head and said, Harry,
Speaker 1: I made a terrible mistake. And your dad did the
Speaker 1: legal work to get him out of his contract, didn't he.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, he did. In fact, he drove to Saint
Speaker 7: Louis with the contract and met with the university officials
Speaker 7: and got Joe out of it, and so he could
Speaker 7: come back and be assistant coach for a little while longer, right,
Speaker 7: and then head coach, which reminds me of a story
Speaker 7: about Joe's predecessor, Frank Lancaster, wasn't Harry Lancaster, And Harry
Speaker 7: would tell a story that back in the day when
Speaker 7: you played places like Alabama, I mean you were in
Speaker 7: small gyms where the.
Speaker 5: Audience was right on top of you.
Speaker 7: There was you know, a few thousand and they were
Speaker 7: boisterous and they would throw things. It was really nasty.
Speaker 7: And so in one game, Joe and are Adolph and
Speaker 7: Harry were on the bench in the middle of the
Speaker 7: game and the fans are throwing stuff at him, and
Speaker 7: some of.
Speaker 5: Them threw money, the coins.
Speaker 7: At him, and there was a fifty cent piece on
Speaker 7: the floor and Harry Lancaster reached over and picked it up,
Speaker 7: put it in his pocket, and ruff turned to him said, well,
Speaker 7: I guess they met your price. You know, that was
Speaker 7: one of the great things about Adolf Rupp if you
Speaker 7: don't really get that sense now, But he was very clever,
Speaker 7: very funny, and you know, and although you know he
Speaker 7: was a tough, mean guy when he was a coach,
Speaker 7: but he was also hysterically funny and self depreciating in
Speaker 7: some cases. There's a story he told about when he
Speaker 7: would go recruiting back in eastern Kentucky with his driver
Speaker 7: and he always liked to get stopped into the local
Speaker 7: barber shop and get his haircut so he could find
Speaker 7: out what was going on in one of these small towns.
Speaker 7: He went in and got his hair cut, and then
Speaker 7: when he was done, he wrote out a check to
Speaker 7: the to the barber for a dollar or two dollars,
Speaker 7: whatever it was. He handed the check to him and
Speaker 7: pointed at his name, and he said, you know who
Speaker 7: that is, don't you? Appointment aid offer up And the
Speaker 7: barber looked at the check and then looked at him.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna looked at the check again and looked at
Speaker 7: him and said it had better be you.
Speaker 1: I had heard that before. I never knew if it
Speaker 1: was true or not. But yeah, that's that's one of
Speaker 1: the I guarantee that sounds exactly like it could be true. John,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. My best to you and the
Speaker 1: wife and your your wonderful daughter and we will talk
Speaker 1: talk again soon.
Speaker 7: Thanks Dave, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: John's first book is on Amazon. Watch for the second
Speaker 1: one soon. Thanks to all my guests, Jim Koutch and
Speaker 1: Jeff Pcorrel and John Miller. That's it, good night from
Speaker 1: the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 2: A fart in your gender direction.
Speaker 4: Your mother was a hamster and your father Smete of
Speaker 4: Alaberry
Speaker 5: Sang