Latest / The Craig Way Show / Sark Previews Season Opener, NFL Off-The-Field Stories, MLB Division Races

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Sark Previews Season Opener, NFL Off-The-Field Stories, MLB Division Races · The Craig Way Show

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Thursday has arrived, and with it, we are just a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: tiny bit over 48 hours to kick off of the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: 2026 Texas Longhorn football season.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Good afternoon, everybody.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the program on Sports Radio AM 13 Under
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the Zone, and where you can always listen to us
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for free on the iHeartRadio app. My name is Craig White.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us. The producer is Jay
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Carman alongside. I mention that because... the 2026 football season
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: kicks off for the Texas Longhorns at 2.30, I think
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: it's to be exact.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: 2.35, Saturday afternoon.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: So since we're just past the start of the two
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: o'clock hour, we are just a tiny bit, just a
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: skosh above 48 hours to kick off for the season
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: opener for the Longhorns as they get ready to take
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: on the Texas State Bobcats. Now here's what we have
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: for you on the program. We're gonna hear from Longhorns
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: head coach Steve Sarkisian, throughout the course of the program,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: he had his Thursday weekly Zoom meeting with the media.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And we'll hear his comments from that.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Then we'll keep it talking Longhorns, but also high school football,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Roger Wallace, my broadcast partner. on Longhorn Football broadcasts will
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: join us. They've got high school football tonight that they'll
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: be bringing you on KBVO as well as tomorrow night
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: on KXAN +. So they have that matchup. They have
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Stony Point and Hendrickson tonight. And then tomorrow night will
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: be Georgetown and Rouse. But we'll talk about those, but
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: obviously we'll talk about the Longhorns as well. We do
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: have Inconceivable this hour, so we'll bring that to you
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: as well. In the 3 o'clock hour, more from Sark,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and also we'll have our weekly conversation with Gene Watson.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the front office man of the Chicago White Sox, our
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: MLB insider, because even though this is going headlong in
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: what big football weekend, starting tonight with some college games,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: this is the first full weekend, obviously, of college football.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: They have the week zero games and the final ever
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: week zero. Everybody's going to be eligible to start on
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: that last weekend, that final weekend in August starting next year.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: But they had a handful of games last week.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: But this is the first full, big, full-on, expansive week
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: in a college football. So that'll be going on. But
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: even though that's going on, we are in the September now,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and that means that the pennant races are starting to
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: ramp up a little bit. It's still, you know, here
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: we are on the 3rd of September, so we're still
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: three weeks away from the end of the regular season.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And We'll visit with Gino to talk about that. The
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Astros and Rangers duking it out in the American League
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: West and some other thoughts as well. He's been in
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Houston this week with the Chicago White Sox playing the Astros.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: A couple of division leaders going head-to-head. Could wind up
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: being a postseason preview.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Who knows?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: The Astros have taken the first two in the game,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: in the series, from the White Sox. And they're just
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: underway early on in their final game. But anyway, we'll...
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: We'll visit with Gene Watson to talk about that. In
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the four o'clock hour, we're going to have more from
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: SART from that media value.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: But the other thing we're going to bring a little
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: sneak preview. We do this every week.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And that is to bring you an excerpt from Longhorn
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Weekly with Coach SART when he discusses the opponent. And
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: we'll have it for you where he's talking about Texas State.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And so that's coming up. The program itself, which will
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: air on Thursdays, as we know, will actually be at 5.30
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: this afternoon. Instead of normally, it's going to run at
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: 7 o'clock. But because the Round Rock Express have a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: 7 o'clock game or the 7.05 first pitch with a 6.50
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: pregame start time, it necessitates us moving Longhorn Weekly with
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Coach Sark up into the program.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And we will on the clock to 5.30.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So 30 minutes after we leave air, you'll have a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: 30-minute edition of Bucky and BK. And then at 530,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Longhorn Weekly with Coach Sark. And we recorded the program
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: last night. Our special guest was none other than Chris
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Del Conte. And you'll want to hear this to hear
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the conversations that Sark and CDC were having in addition
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: to the three of us. Really good stuff. But we're
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: going to hear Sark talk about this matchup with Texas State.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and as well in the show. But we're also going
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: to bring you an excerpt as we do each week
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: from the show so that you'll have a little bit
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of a sneak preview.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So we'll do that.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: We're going to jump right in and we'll start off
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: with the Zoom conversation that Sark had with the media
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: this morning.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So here it is starting off with his opening comments.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: It feels like we're finally here. It's been a long
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: journey since leaving Orlando last season. And you navigate your
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: way through the offseason, whether it's retaining players. signing high
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: school kids, you know, signing transfers, and then trying to
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: get them to become a really good football team.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: And it's been a heck of a journey.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: And I want to commend our players for their commitment
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: to the journey and their commitment to buying into our
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: process of what we do and the things that are
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: important to us.
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: I've said all along, I.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: Think this team has grown very close together and you
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: could feel it again today in practice. They're obviously very
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: excited for the game. You can feel that. I think
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: one thing in this game that's important for us is
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: to minimize the performance anxiety, take a deep breath, take
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: in and enjoy the experience and then go cut it
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: loose and play the brand and style of football that
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: they've been practicing. And I think they're more than capable
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: of doing that. And my goal is that were able
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: to do that earlier in the game rather than later.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Next, it went into the Q & A portion with
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the media, and Sark was asked for an update on
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Trevor Goosby, and would Andre Kojo, who had to step
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: in and take a lot of snaps at that left
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: tackle spot when Goosby was out with a bone bruise,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: how that might set up for Kojo to get some snaps,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: but mainly, how was Goosby?
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Trevor's good to go.
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: But to your point, yes, I would like to see
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: Andre play in this game as well. He's been practicing
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: extremely well. So I think it would be an opportunity
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: for both those guys, Trevor, to get back going. He
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: didn't have some of those scrimmage reps that the other
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: guys got.
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: I don't know. We've got to.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Monitor his conditioning with the heat. So Andre's going to play,
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: and we'll figure out how much and what that looks
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: like as the game goes on.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Next, Sark was.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Asked about the positioning of his assistant coaches. And what
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I mean by that is some are on the sideline,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: some are up in the press box. Some have preferred,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: depending on which college coach you're talking to, and I'm
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: not talking necessarily about the head coach. If you're just
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: talking to assistants, uh, some prefer to be upstairs. Some
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: prefer to be right down on the field. Some, uh,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: by what the head coach's preference is, uh, wind up
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: being upstairs or downstairs based on where the head coach
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: wants them as well. So Sark was asked, what are
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the benefits of having some coaches downstairs, upstairs in the boot,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: depending on what area of concentration those coaches handle?
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: I think there are benefits to both. And I think
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: you're right, Eric.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: I think when you're up top, clearly your vision and
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: what you can see of things unfolding on the field
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: is better than what it is on the field. I
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: think there's disadvantages to both too when you're up top
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: you don't feel the game right it's almost like watching
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: it on tv it's almost like playing a video game
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: and so you don't feel the emotion you don't get
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: to see look in the quarterback's eyes of maybe when
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: you know he's maybe a little rattled or look in
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: the quarterback's eyes when he's on and you can feel
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: it or when that corner on your sidelines is a
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: little skittish you know he's maybe he's not as confident
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: as he needs to be You know, so.
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: There's things that come with both.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: I think being on the field allows me to get
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: a feel for our players.
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: I've been doing it my whole career.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: So, you know, my sense and my feel and my
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: vision of being on the field is pretty good. But
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: I will tell you this, you got to have great
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: eyes up top. And we're very fortunate. I thought we
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: made a really good shift last year, midway through the
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: year when we moved A.J. Millwee up top. and brought
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: Mike Bamonte down on the field. And I think AJ
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: and I have just working in unison for so many years.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: It thinks a lot like me, and it allows us
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: to communicate at a high level, and I think that helps.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: But also, I think bringing Mike Bamonte down, his relationship
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: and his rapport with Arch and all of the players
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: on offense, I think is helpful as well. So I
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: thought that was a win for us last year. We
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: will continue to do that this year.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: And one more from.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the morning media availability. And again, we'll hear more from
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Sark throughout the course of the day. Um, he was
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: asked about Ryan Wingo. Now there's been so much conversation
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: about Cam Coleman. And then of course, I haven't mostly
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: being healthy again. Uh, but he was asked how excited
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: is he to see Wingo get out there with an
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: opportunity to make some big plays.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: I'll say this about Ryan Wingo.
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: Like this guy works his tail off And, and if
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: we ask him to try to get better at something,
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: if we ask him to do anything of the dirty work,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: this guy doesn't blink.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: He does it.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: Now he's an explosive player with the ball in his hands.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: And I think we learned that about him, you know,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: even as true freshman year, but last year he's a,
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: he's a bonafide weapon for us, but I think he's
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: really evolving as a receiver and, I don't know. You know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: I know I praised Emmett a few weeks back about
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: how hard he practices today. I might say Ryan Wingo
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: surpassed him with how hard he's practicing right now.
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: And so I am excited for Ryan.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: You know, I said it months ago, but I think
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: people forget he was a second team all SEC receiver
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: last year. So the idea that we do have Ryan,
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: we do have Cam, we do have Emmett to go
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: along with the other guys on offense, that's a nice
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: three-headed monster that can come off the sideline and.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Go play for you.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Now, again, we'll hear more from Longhorn's head coach, Steve Sarkisian,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: coming up throughout the course of the program this afternoon.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: We'll hear more from this.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Media availability next hour, and we'll hear more in the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: four o'clock hour, as well as, as I mentioned, an
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: excerpt from Longhorn Weekly, where he's talking in a lot
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of specifics about Texas State.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: So we'll have that coming up as well.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Up next, we'll visit with Roger Wallace, my broadcast partner
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: at Longhorn Football, to talk high school football and college
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: football with him here on a Thursday afternoon on Sports
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Radio AM 13 Under the Zone and the iHeartRadio app.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: We continue here on this Thursday afternoon here on Sports
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Radio AM 1300, The Zone. And on Thursday, he's going
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: into the football weekend. We take the opportunity to visit
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: with my broadcast partner on Longhorn Football and, of course,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: gearing up for his own, not one but two, high
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: school telecast, Roger Wallace, sports director. KXAN. Last week, Jake
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: bumped back with your favorite Jimmy Buffett song, One Particular Harbor.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I had him bump back with mine. That's a great call. Well,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I know it's a much more mainstream tune.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I realize that.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: It's the title cut of an album and And a
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: lot of people, but for whatever reason, that's always kind
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: of drawn me to, do.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: You have any stories there?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Did he ever say anything about that particular tune, Son
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: of a Son of a Sailor?
• 12:23
  Speaker 6: Well, I mean, you know, his grandfather was the sailor
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: and he's the one that introduced him to the sea.
• 12:29
  Speaker 6: You know, he's got another song, The Captain and the Kid.
• 12:34
  Speaker 6: which is about his grandfather and all that. But, you know,
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: you dropped it right before one of my favorite lines,
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: southeast of disorder.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: Isn't that great?
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Followed what?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: You can shake the hand of the mango man as
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: he greets you at the border?
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Classic.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Great call there. Yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: You've got a couple of high school games and we
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: always like to start off with those. And and I
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: wanted to give you a chance to talk a little
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: bit about them because it's two different two different orders,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: so to speak, two different kinds of telecast you have
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: this week.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 13:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah, no doubt.
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: And, you know, three of the four teams have first-year
• 13:16
  Speaker 6: head coaches. So that's another thing we've been, you know,
• 13:19
  Speaker 6: dealing with either first-year coaches. Last week we had a
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: couple of second-year coaches. But we'll be at the field tonight.
• 13:24
  Speaker 6: We got Hendrickson against Stony Point. Stony Point didn't even
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: get to the half last week against Glenn. So their
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: first-year guy, Dustin Pleasant, we visit with him. And he's
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: obviously anxious to see his guys and see what they
• 13:39
  Speaker 6: can do in full. And then Hendrickson had a tough
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: opener at Belton under their first year head coach, Adam Naren,
• 13:46
  Speaker 6: who came here from way on.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: West Texas in Hereford.
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: So Pleasant's got a lot of history in Central Texas. Uh,
• 13:54
  Speaker 6: Marin's got a lot of family here. In fact, his
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: dad's a theater teacher at Hendrickson high school. So that
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: was part of the draw here, but, uh, uh, yeah,
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: that one.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: And then tomorrow we'll be out.
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: At Georgetown for our KXM plus game. And that one
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: will be Rouse, uh, first year head coach and then, uh,
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: Georgetown and their veteran head coach, Chuck Griffin.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: You bring up there's, there's kind of a, uh, you
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: might call it connective tissue there between your two games, uh,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: And the connective tissue is the guy who is.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: No longer there.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And when you're talking about first-year head coaches, it's interesting
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: where guys have to step in and take over a
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: program and And here's Josh Mann, who did a great
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: job at Rouse. And then he leaves for Belton, who
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: does their number. And then you have a first-year head
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: coach at Rouse. And I guess that's what we've talked about, Roger,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: on many occasions, what the non-district portion of the season
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: is all about. They're trying to find out what you have.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Even though you've had them in practice for a month,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: now you're going up against teams. You find out how
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: they respond and what you've got to do to fix it.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: And for Rouse, you know, Craig, they're in that big district.
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: So they got to get after right after this one.
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: And that 24-6 day, Mark Hopkins, he was a longtime
• 15:16
  Speaker 6: assistant at Katie Tompkins. You know, there's always a story
• 15:20
  Speaker 6: behind a coach that makes a move. And I'm always interested,
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: especially when it's from a different part of the state.
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: And Mark Hopkins was at Katie Tompkins for nine years.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: He coached Jalen Milbro.
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: He was the offensive coordinator, but he told me he's
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: got four daughters and he said he'd get his daughters
• 15:35
  Speaker 6: to high school and then look to advance his career
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: as a head coach. So that was the move he made.
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: And so we'll see. He's got a lot of young guys.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: He's playing a lot of sophomores.
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: So, you know, he's confident in what they can do.
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: They've got a junior named Auburn Davis who put up
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: big numbers last year as a sophomore. He's kind of a,
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: they call him a fastback. He caught 79 passes, but
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: they'll run him out of the backfield. But, you know,
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: he's excited. Now he's got a tough test tomorrow against Georgetown,
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: and we know what they built up there, even though
• 16:10
  Speaker 6: they lost obviously a lot last season with two guys
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: on the 40 acres and Jet Walker and Caleb Shearer.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: A couple other things that come to mind about this
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: in review of week one. And I was watching your telecast.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I was also watching there on KXM Plus and I
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: was also keeping tabs on the Westlake-Inglewood-California game also on
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: KXM Plus. You guys had that going, and it was interesting.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: You know, Westlake was in a dogfight, and they won
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the game. I don't know that we know that much
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: more about the Chaparrals right now, and then another team
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: that we really don't know anything about other than names
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: is Lake Travis, who, of course, after the tragic loss
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: of Odin Hensley and had canceled out that non-district game
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: that they had scheduled to get Dripping Spring. But they
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: go to work, and boy, what a tough opener for
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: them to take on a really good Weiss team that, Roger,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: you know, I hear coaches say this a lot, that,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: you know, they have the unsettling feeling when you go
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: into a season opener. I would imagine that the unsettling
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: feeling only becomes a little more unsettled when you haven't
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: played yet, and you're playing a team that's good and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: that has already played and won a game.
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and you're right, and Weiss is really explosive, put
• 17:28
  Speaker 6: up 42 on Round Rock. We know if you follow
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: high school football, they've got some of the best skill
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: guys in Central Texas led by their quarterback, Jackson Shad.
• 17:37
  Speaker 6: So it'll be interesting to see. Hank Carter's got his
• 17:40
  Speaker 6: son playing quarterback. That's going to be, I'm sure, a
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: little bit different for him, a defensive guy, but nevertheless,
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: and I'll be fascinated to see how that goes. kind
• 17:51
  Speaker 6: of in all transparency, we were going to have Lake
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: Travis and Dripping Springs last week on KXAM +.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: So the obvious thing is, okay, we want to spread
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: it around.
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: So even though Weiss-Lake Travis was a really attractive game,
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: that would have meant Lake Travis two weeks in a
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: row didn't.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Quite work out that way.
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: We always have a great reception out of Georgetown, so excited.
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: But yeah, I think that's the game of the weekend
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: in the area, don't you?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I want to ask you about a couple
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: other matchups.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Last week, You had Leander against Pflugerville and Leander did
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: everything but win the football game. They were in watching.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: They were really there. And then obviously another program of
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the first year head coach or second year head coach
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: when you're losing. really struggling to get the program over
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the hump. It only takes little things sometimes to derail you.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: But I saw some really hopeful signs out of that team.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And the computer actually kind of likes them going down
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: to play Lockhart in this week's game. So maybe some
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: building progress for them.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And I know that, you know, that.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Pflugerville is looking for the same thing and that Eastview
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: is looking for the same thing and that they've got
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: a tough assignment. They have to deal with Brenham, who's
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a really good ball club. So, I mean, again, these
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: are these fact-finding things, I think, that we're seeing in
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the first two, three weeks of the season.
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think we saw some things, especially with Leander.
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: As you said, they did everything, went toe-to-toe with Pflugerville.
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: Of course, both of these teams are breaking in new quarterbacks.
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: And I thought Connor Worley did a nice job. as
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: did Caleb Gaston for Pflugerville, had to replace Cole Taylor.
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: He's got some weapons. Isaac Montgomery is a dangerous receiver.
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: Braxton Hernandez is a lightning quick receiver out on the edge.
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: So I think there's hope. I just think it's a
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: numbers game, Uh, Craig, a lot of times you have the,
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: these schools that just have to build up the numbers.
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: And then we're seeing that with Rouse, uh, as well,
• 19:53
  Speaker 6: especially as they, you know, start to play a six
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: day schedule, but I'm, I'm sure they had to be
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: pleased at Leander.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: With, with, you know, the effort they put out.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Among the, uh, the five, a games I'm kind of
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: intrigued by is Anderson and Pflugerville. And we saw what, uh,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Coach Hatcher did last year in getting Anderson through and
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: getting them into the playoffs and won a playoff game.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: And again, Pflugerville did come out with the win, although
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: probably it's going to be a deal where Charles Taylor's
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: looking for some improvement. But I think that's a good
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: week two matchup.
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think Anderson's, they built a nice program there.
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: And I think that's kind of what Donald Hatcher has
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: been talking about. You don't want, you know, the one
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: hit wonders or things like that. And they've got, uh,
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: Cove Darby Shire back at quarterback and, and some other weapons.
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: So I think that's gonna be tough. Uh, honestly, it's
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: gonna be tough one for, for Pflugerville. You got the, uh,
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: you got the renovated house park. Uh, if you haven't
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: been down, uh, down Lamar and looked up, you might,
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: you might want to be careful cause you won't believe
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: your eyes when you look at, uh, that beautiful press
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: box on the other side there. But, uh, But yeah,
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: I think that's also one of the better games of
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: the weekend. We'll see if Pflugerville can hang with them.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about it. Roger Wallace.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, I want to turn our attention to the Longhorns
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: since the season opener is coming up here on Saturday.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And you had your sit down this morning with Sark.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Of course, I had the coaches show that we recorded
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: yesterday that will air this afternoon at 530 Longhorn Weekly.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: The vibe that I'm getting from Sark is, and when
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I opened the show, I said, hard to believe it.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Now you're sixth season. And he pointed out that he's
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: been at Texas longer than he has been at any
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: other job with this. He was five years at Washington.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And so this will be a sixth season. So he
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was talking about how he's been there longer than any
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: other job and how He said, remember when I was
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: coming in here after we lost to Kansas 57-56? The
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: program has clearly come a long way since then. And
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I know he's grateful for that and all the other
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: people in that. But clearly, obviously, they have their goals
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: in mind. But I also got this vibe that he
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: is not only kind of loose and confident and relaxed,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: but also he's pretty eager.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: He's pretty anxious to see this group on the field
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: on Saturday.
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I would think when you bring in 22 portal
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: guys and then you got to figure that most of
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: those were brought in to produce right away. And with
• 22:24
  Speaker 6: what they have coming back, obviously with Arch and some
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: of the skill guys and the guy named Colin Simmons
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: on the other side of the ball, Jelani McDonald.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's anxious.
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: Plus, the other thing is they don't get to see
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: anything that replicates what the NFL or high school gets,
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: even though NFL doesn't. They don't play their starters. But still,
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: they get to see them against another team in preseason games,
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: in the workouts. High school gets the scrimmages.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: They get none of that.
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: So I think he's anxious. He's interested. He's excited. And
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: you throw in a Will Muschamp defense. And I think
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: fans pick out what you're most interested in. There's a
• 22:58
  Speaker 6: lot to choose from Saturday.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I had somebody ask me on another program that I
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: was a guest on, you know, what one player– am
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I most, other than the most obvious of players like
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Arch or a couple of the others, or Colin Simmons,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you know, what player am I most interested in seeing
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: how they do and how they perform? And the question
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: also went, if there's a dark horse or somebody that's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: not getting much mention, and I said, well, When you're
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas, I mean, every player in some way, shape,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: or form is getting mentioned one way or another.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: How is so-and-so coming along? How's this guy?
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: How you feel about your backup offensive guards?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: And, you know, all those kinds of things.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: But one of the areas that I talked about was
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the running back spot. I am curious to see. I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: know they want to get back to running the ball better.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And certainly the high-profile names of Hollywood Smothers and Raleigh
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Brown come to mind. but Sark has not been reluctant
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: to talk about Derek Cooper. And he, I think he
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: feels confident he's going to have Cooper on the field
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and uh, on Saturday, you know, this morning on, uh,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Sarge media zoom, somebody asked him about the backup quarterbacks
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and said, would they be on the field?
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Uh, even at regardless of score.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And he said, no, it's going to depend on how
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the game is going. I don't think that's going to
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: be the case with Derek Cooper. I think they're going
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: to have him out there on the field in addition
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to smothers and Browns.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: How about your thoughts, uh, Brown, how about your thoughts
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: on the running back spot? Yeah, for sure.
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: I think, I think, Sark said early that he's just
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: a pretty natural football player.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: And he brings a different element.
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: He's bigger than those guys, not only taller, but probably
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: about 2'12, 2'15. But, you know, when we had some
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: chances to watch them in practice, the viewing windows they
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: gave us, the one thing that stuck out to me
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: is he catches the ball. I'll quote our old buddy,
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: Greg Davis. He looks like a natural pass catcher, which
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: you don't always get from a running back. Um, so yes,
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: he would be one. If you ask, if you asked
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: me without even qualifying it on offense, that would have
• 25:11
  Speaker 6: been one of the guys. And then I'll flip it
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: to defense and probably a lot of it's because of
• 25:16
  Speaker 6: what's happened. But Justin Cryer, uh, now the green dot
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: at middle linebacker, a guy that, you know, came in
• 25:22
  Speaker 6: from Florida state, but they thought to Anthony Smith was
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: going to be that guy.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm, I'm anxious to.
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: See Cryer and how he, and he and Biles compliment
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: each other at, uh, at linebacker.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good, good call as well. Now I
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: ask you this.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Every year, there is a player that quickly becomes.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Kind of a media darling, and the reason the player
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: becomes a media darling is twofold. First of all, he's
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: very popular with his teammates, and then second, he's very
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: glib and relaxed in the media availability, so that helps
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: out the media asking the questions. Obviously, I'm talking about
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Hiro Kanu, and he just seems like a natural end
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of the role, and everybody seems to like hearing from him.
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: And I think he's anxious to be the fun loving
• 26:11
  Speaker 6: guy off the field and then, you know, wreak some
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: havoc on the field.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: That's why he came back.
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: He didn't come back to tell us that once you
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: get to before eight slices of pizza, it's only a
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: snack when you're eating pizza, like.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: He did on Monday.
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: But, but yeah, he, and you know, he came on
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: last year, but he's, he's going to have to accept
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: a bigger role. He's going to have to be a leader.
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: He talked about that as well, but, but yeah, I
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: think he can be the best of both worlds for
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: Texas and, I'm sure he's really anxious to next weekend
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: as well, obviously, with Ohio State, but I agree 100%
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: about that.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And then one other thing I want to ask you about,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: because there hasn't been that much talked about. The question
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: finally came up on Monday with regard to special teams
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and in specific the kicking game. Now, we know obviously
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Ryan Niblett's going to be dangerous back there as a kicker,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: punt returner, and Sark mentioned this morning that Smothers could
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: be back there as well, depending on the situations. But
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: we've heard Almost nothing throughout camp on Giannis Spedic, or
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Gio as they call him, and Max Shemento, the punter.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Those guys are veteran guys coming in. And yet Sarkis
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: just went asked. He just said, yeah, they've been very consistent,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: a model of consistency, but it's been kind of quiet.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people like it that way. There
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: was a football coach here one time that refused to
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: name his punter, even though he was all world conference.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: But point being is that those guys kind of quietly
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: under the radar have done their job in fall camp.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Now we get to see him when it matters in
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: a game.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: And you know how important that is.
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: And it's going to come down to something at some
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: point where there's going to be a huge moment for,
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: you know, Plunter's a little different, Shementu, the Florida State transfer,
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: but Spedic comes in with a lot of accolades from Memphis.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I mean, you're right.
• 28:03
  Speaker 6: It has been all quiet and it'll be noisy if
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: something doesn't go, you know, the way they want it.
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: But it seems like He went out and he targeted
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: two guys. He's got a freshman as well, a freshman punter. So,
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: but yeah, you hope special teams is that component where
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: you're talking about the either not talking at all about
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: it because it was good or fine or in a
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: case like Niblet where it's spectacular.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: No doubt about it. He's Roger Wallace.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: You can watch on KBVO with tonight's KBVO Big Game
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: of the Week and then on KXAN Plus tomorrow up
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: in Georgetown for the matchup between Georgetown and Rouse.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Hey, appreciate it. And I guess I'll see you at
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: the stadium on Saturday, right?
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: See you Saturday.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: Next week, Jake, you got to see if you can
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: stump me with, you know, Buffett's got an album called
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: Songs You Don't Know by Heart. It's a play on
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: songs you know by heart, so we'll see what you
• 28:59
  Speaker 6: can come up with next week.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Hey, we'll look forward to that. Challenge accepted, Roger.
• 29:03
  Speaker 7: Thanks.
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: Right on.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: That's Roger Wallace.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Coming up, we have Inconceivable here on a Thursday afternoon
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: on Sports Radio AM 13 Under the Zone and the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. Second hour of the program here on Sports
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Radio AM 1300 The Zone. A Thursday afternoon getting you
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: ready for full-on football. High school season began last week.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: There was a handful of college games on the zero week,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: but now college football gets full tilt into it.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Think of it this way.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Less than 48 hours from now, we'll be looking at
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the Longhorns on the football field. I'll be describing Texas
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: in action against Texas State. Toward that end, our coverage
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: is We'll begin on Saturday morning at 10.30 with the
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Third and Longhorn podcast, guys, their pregame presentation.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: That's at 10.30.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Our Longhorn game day program begins at 11.30 with Mike
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Hardball-Harge and Mark Henry and Jake Herman.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: They'll bring you that.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: That's at 11.30 from Bevo Boulevard. So they'll be right
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: in the thick of the fight. Do you guys have, like,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: A little bit of shade or some cover or anything
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: like that when you do that out there?
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's usually a tent.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: An awning or something?
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Up above us.
• 30:35
  Speaker 8: And if not, then we hope the sun's behind us
• 30:38
  Speaker 8: and our big backdrop can do some of that work.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Of course, at 2.30, it's still, you know, it isn't
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: quite there yet. But for the evening contests of the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: following two weeks, the Ohio State game and the UTSA game,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: it'll certainly be so. But that's at 11.30. So go
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: by and say hi to the guys and... They have
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: special guests with them as well. And I think you
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: guys are appropriately positioned not far from Big Beertha, right?
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: The big beer truck, right? I think you're going to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: be pretty close to Big Beertha.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe.
• 31:13
  Speaker 8: Remember social distancing? It kind of qualifies for that. We'll
• 31:17
  Speaker 8: be socially distant from it, but we'll be close to it.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think philosophically and geographically you'll be close.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: a stride, Big Bertha, as well. I say philosophically as
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I think about Mike Hardball-Harge. And, you know, Mike can
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: put down an ice-cold Bud Light, you know, or something
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: like that. Actually, he wouldn't do that on the air.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Not during the program. But he'd probably go right afterwards
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and have one before going in for the football game itself. Anyway,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: that's at 11.30. Our network pregame's at 1.30 in the kickoff.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I think I'm told it'll be actually 2.35. for Texas
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: and Texas State. First meeting of these schools with the
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: school from San Marcos named Texas State University. They played
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: one other time, 96 years ago, 1930, when they were
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Southwest Texas State Teachers College. And they had a young
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: teaching candidate come out the prior spring and graduate by
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the name of Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJ. had just graduated
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the semester prior. That tells you how long it's been
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: since Texas has played Texas State in football. But there's
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of excitement about it, certainly. People are pretty
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: fired up about it. I mean, school's just down the road.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: You're going to hear Longhorn's head coach, Steve Sarkeesian, talk
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: about that excitement level. And we have Longhorn Weekly coming
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: your way at a special time today for the season
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: opening week. It'll be at 5.30, 30 minutes after we
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: leave air this afternoon. A long-going weekly with Coach Sark.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Comes your way at 5.30. You really want to give
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: that a listen. Not only do you hear Sark talk
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: about his team and getting ready for the season, but
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: our special guest is the athletics director, Chris Del Conte.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: And he will join us to talk about the business
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of college athletics. And it's quite a business these days,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: but that'll be coming up. But we're going to bring
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: you an excerpt From the program, give you a little
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: sneak preview. That's coming up next hour where Sark talks
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: in specifics about the matchup at Texas State.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: We do that every week.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: We give you a little sneak preview with an excerpt
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: from the show talking about that week's opponent. And we'll
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: have that for you coming up next hour from Longhorn Weekly.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Coming up here in a few minutes, we'll talk baseball.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Gene Watson, our MLB insider from the Chicago White Sox
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: front office.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Big series between the White Sox and the Astros. going on.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: It runs to its conclusion this afternoon in Houston, but
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about a lot more than just that matchup
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: with Gino, as we do every week, talk about Major
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: League Baseball as a whole, the American League West race
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: with Astros and Rangers, and the rest of Major League Baseball.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: So we've got that coming up in a little bit,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: but let's hear from Steve Sarkis. Now, this is from
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: this morning's media availability. This is the final opportunity that
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: media have to visit with him before kickoff. I get
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the opportunity with a pregame interview with Sark on the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: field about an hour 45 prior to kick. And that's
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the last word that he has before the team takes
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the field. And I'll do that, obviously, on Saturday, and
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: that'll be part of our network pregame coverage, which begins
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: at 1.30 from DKR Texas Memorial Stadium. We'll also hear
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: from G.J. Kinney involved in that as well in our
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: opposing coach feature. But let's hear from Sark. This is
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: from this morning, and it is from the Zoom media
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: availability that he had. And he was asked if he's
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: willing to, Sark has been saying they're not going to
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: be perfect. And so he kind of takes that all
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: into account when he is coaching, teaching, correcting, even chastising, whatever,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: players for their performances today.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: On the field. What about him as a play caller?
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Does he kind of give himself a little bit of
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: grace as well into this brand new season as an
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: unfinished product?
• 35:24
  Speaker 7: I do.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: I'm, I am a realist.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: I think we are going to have some growing pains and, and, um,
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: and those growing pains are okay.
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: As long as we can fix them in the moment.
• 35:35
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Um, whether it's communication on defense, whether it's handling the
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: tempo from Texas State on defense, it's the special situations
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: on the offense and certain situations as they come up.
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: It's the situational football on.
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: Special teams, whether it's punt, punt return, kickoff, kickoff return,
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: field goal, field goal block, swinging gate on a PAT
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: or realigning properly. We may have some growing pains, but
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: we've got to be able to fix those things in
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: real time and then fix them going into week number two.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: But I am a realist that way. But again, I'm
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: going to push these guys to play to our standard.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: And that is playing clean football. That is, you know,
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: being smart in those situations as they come up, having
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: great poise and composure. And that's what I was saying
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: early on in my opening statement, like, like, what do
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: I want from our guys? I want them to take
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: a deep breath, you know, because I think when, you know,
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: anxiety is going to kick in for some guys, you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: some guys are going to be really excited.
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: Some guys might be a little nervous. Some guys might be.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: A little anxious.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: All of that is totally normal. Like everybody feels it.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: I feel it. Now, shoot, I've been doing this for
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: 20 something years now. The sooner you can take a
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: deep breath, kind of just take in the moment and
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: then focus in on the game and start playing a
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: little more clear-minded, I think that'll minimize maybe some of
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: the stuff I'm talking about. But realistically, yes, there's going
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: to be some of that. And it might not be
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: with our ones. It might be when the twos get
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: in there. I don't know, you know, because we're going
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: to have to play everybody in the first half. There
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: is no, like, 22 guys are playing. Like, a lot
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: of guys are going to have to play under the
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: conditions that we're playing in.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Next, Sark was asked about the younger guys. who have
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: to kind of make a name for themselves on special teams.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: You always hear that about, you know, certainly in the NFL,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: but you also hear it, I think, with regard to
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: college football programs where players have a chance to earn
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: more playing time, to draw the attention of the head
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: coaches by what they can do on special teams. And
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: with specific regard to freshmen and or redshirt freshmen, guys
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: who didn't play much last year, or all the newcomers
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: coming in via the transfer portal. Sark was asked about
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: how much is he looking forward to seeing what guys
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: can contribute and how much they can contribute on special teams.
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think they all are going to
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: have roles.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: I think what we've tried to do is kind of
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: disperse our personnel groups on multiple teams rather than just
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: having this one little small core group of guys that
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: play on all four teams. And so whether it's Mike
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: Masunis on kickoff return and field goal protection, right? whether
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: it's Hollywood Smothers on kickoff return with Ryan Niblett, whether
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: it's Bo Masco on a unit, different guys, Raheem Biles
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: playing on punt in kickoff. And so different guys are
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: at different spots. Again, but I'm hopeful that some of
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: these young guys are going to step into those roles
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: even quicker to minimize some of those reps on some
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: of our frontline starters. But that remains to be seen
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: because we got to see how they handle the moment.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: And we have to do what's best for our team
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: in this first game to put ourselves in position to
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: be successful.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Max Sark was asked about the defensive mindset that he
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: wants his team to have, especially given the fact that
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Will Muschamp is now the defensive coordinator and what has
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: been generally described as more aggressive defensively. harder hitting defense,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing, is Sark looking forward to that mindset?
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And can they take that mindset against a very mobile
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: and dangerous quarterback that Texas State has in Brad Jackson?
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: I think there's two parts to, there's really three parts
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: to Brad Jackson to me. One, he's a very good passer.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: He's very accurate. He has a quick release. He gets
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: the ball to his playmakers. So you have to manage
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: out here where the ball can go. The second is
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: the design quarterback runs. You know, they get, you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: plus one runs all over the place where they're running
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: counter with them.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: They're running power. They're running, zone read things. They're arcing tackles.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: They're doing a lot of stuff where you have to
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: be very disciplined on the edge of how you're playing
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: those things. And then the third part, which I think
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: is what you're talking to, is when they do call passes,
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: things break down and he tucks it and runs. And
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: so You don't get over 700 yards rushing on accident, right?
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: There's designed runs and scrambles.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: And so we've got to be really disciplined in our
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: pass rush lanes. But at the same time, we've got
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: to try to make them uncomfortable. We can't just stand
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: at the line of scrimmage and look back there. But
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: we have to work in unison. And that has got
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: to start with the communication up front.
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: If we're running games, how we're running the games, if.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: We're straight rushing, how we're straight rushing to maintain the
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: pocket to where we don't create those voids that he
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: can dart through and create explosive plays.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: One more thing with regard to the offensive line. In
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: addition to being asked about Trevor Goosby, also Sark had
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: been asked, about Lawrence Seymour and his availability and might
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: he be able to go. And he said, yeah, he's practiced.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: He should be good to go. And Goosby, of course,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: just came through a bone bruise situation. Now he's the
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: anchor along with Connor Robertson of that offensive front. So
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: is there a risk reward element that goes into as
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: they were getting him ready for play?
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: We were just basing it off of his health. You know,
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: it wasn't about who we were playing, when we were
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: playing them. It was about him getting back out to practice.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: I thought he had a really good practice on Monday.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: We increased his workload on Tuesday. He had a really
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: good practice Tuesday. He came back good. We increased his
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: workload Wednesday. He looked good again. We increased his workload
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: even more today. He looked good again. So he's kind
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: of been building um throughout the week i thought he's
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: been playing with really good pad level good physicality um
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: i think that he needs to play football you know
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: and and you know when any linemen are really the
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: most important ones that they need that physicality again we
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: have to monitor probably the conditioning more than anything um
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: under the conditions that we're going to be playing in
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: saturday with the heat and so that's something that we'll
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: be watching just so that he's not getting fatigued and
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: not playing to his capability. Because I do think Andre's
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: had a great camp, and Andre deserves his opportunities to
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: play as well.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: So there's some sound from Longhorn's head coach, Steve Sarkeesian.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Now, coming up, like I said, a little later on,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: we're going to hear more from Sarke, not only from
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the media availability, but also the excerpt from Longhorn Weekly,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: the season premiere episode.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: With Coach Sark.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: And that comes your way again at 5.30 this afternoon.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Normally it'll air at 7 o'clock, but because of the
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: 7 o'clock start for the Round Rock Express and their 6.50 p.m.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: pregame start time, because of that, we're bringing the program
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: to you earlier.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: So it'll be on at 5.30.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: So after we're done at 5 o'clock, Bucky and BK
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: will have it for 30 minutes. And then you'll have
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Longhorn Weekly with Coach Sark, the season premiere of that.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: And again, our special guest, will be Chris Del Conte.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: But we'll have an excerpt from that program coming up
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: in the 4 o'clock hour with some specific thoughts that
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Sark has about this season opening matchup with Texas State.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: All right, up next, we talk baseball. Our weekly conversation
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: with our MLB insider and front office man from the
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Chicago White Sox.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: That's Gene Watson.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: And that's up next when we continue on this Thursday
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: afternoon on Sports Radio AM 13 Under the.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Zone and the IR Radio app. Okay, yeah, we continue
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: here on a Thursday afternoon.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is obviously the advent of the college football season.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: We've had a lot of conversation. We've heard from Longhorn's
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: head coach, Steve Sarkis. You won't hear more from Sark.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Coming up, a lot of football talk, high school football,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: college football, all that sort of stuff. But we are
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: now into September, which means the home stretch, just 20-some-odd
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: games remaining for each of the major league clubs. And
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: that includes the Chicago White Sox. They have a big
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: series going on in Houston. They're going for a split
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: of the four-game set playing this afternoon. And our good friend,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: our MLB insider from the White Sox front office, Gene Watson,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: joins us. right now for our MLB segment. Do you
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: get the feeling, I know what a big football fan
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: you are, and you played football, and I know what
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: it means to you, and I also know what a
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: big fan you are of Texas and of Notre Dame, obviously,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: but do you get the September pennant race feeling right now,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: especially since your ball club's right in the thick of
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the fight?
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: You kind of do.
• 44:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah, Craig, thanks for having me. You kind of do
• 44:47
  Speaker 7: because right now we're in a battle with a first
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: place club and you last night absolutely felt like an
• 44:54
  Speaker 7: October playoff game.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 44:56
  Speaker 7: High intensity, little things on the base paths, key pitching,
• 45:00
  Speaker 7: great defensive plays. So yeah, it feels a little bit
• 45:03
  Speaker 7: more when it cools off. But yes, you can definitely
• 45:07
  Speaker 7: feel it. And every game is so important right now.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I've been asking you at different mileposts along the way
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: for your thoughts on your ball club, which is clearly,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: in terms of team baseball, the story of the year
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: in Major League Baseball, where you've two years removed from
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: 121 losses, turning it around. and still leading the division
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: by three games over the Guardians going into today's contests.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: And I've asked you for different, your thoughts as it
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: has evolved. Do you have the feeling now, here you
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: are in September, with the White Sox up three games
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: going into today's action, that you have a legitimate reason
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: post-season team.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: That might be able to do some damage?
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Because when I've asked you this earlier and you said,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I think we can get there, we're going to find
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: out as it goes forward. Well, here we are now
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: on September 3rd. How about your updated feeling on your
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: ball club?
• 46:05
  Speaker 7: You know, the unique thing about what I do is
• 46:07
  Speaker 7: I'll be with the club probably once a month, either
• 46:10
  Speaker 7: in Chicago or on the road. And You come out
• 46:13
  Speaker 7: in April and you get a feel for, hey, this team,
• 46:16
  Speaker 7: they play well together.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: They like each other. They enjoy playing the game together.
• 46:20
  Speaker 7: And then you leave and you come back in three
• 46:22
  Speaker 7: weeks and, hey, we've kind of had a surprising result.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: And this thing that might be something.
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: And then you leave and you come back in five
• 46:30
  Speaker 7: weeks and it's like, hey, this thing's really good.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: If we can inject some energy into it, we got
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: a chance.
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: And so because I'm in such a unique situation of
• 46:38
  Speaker 7: not always being with the team, And then coming back,
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: you kind of get a gauge and a temperature of,
• 46:44
  Speaker 7: do we really think we can do this?
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: And without question, this is a team that believes they
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: can do it.
• 46:49
  Speaker 7: This team and the attitude that they have right now
• 46:52
  Speaker 7: and the focus that they're showing.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: And really, your job as a front office is to
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: not interrupt that focus.
• 46:57
  Speaker 7: Kind of stay out of the way and let them
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: do their thing and go play and be natural on
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: the field. And so, yes, without question, through all the
• 47:05
  Speaker 7: checkpoints of the season, this is certainly a team that's
• 47:07
  Speaker 7: capable of playing in October.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I want to keep it in the American League.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Like you said, you've had a good look clearly at
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: the Astros who are leading the American League West. But
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: having said that, this is a team that is leading
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: a race that you said is probably going to go
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: down to the final week, if not the final day.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: They're up two on the Rangers. They're up five on
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: the Mariners right now. And they won six of their
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: last ten going into today. The Rangers five and five
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: and the Mariners four and six. I get the feeling
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: that this thing is going to go to the wire.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: And I asked you a week ago if it was
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: possible that a sub-500 team could win the division. You
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: said possible, but you were expecting a team to have
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: a winning record to win this division. So clearly the
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Astros have done nothing to change your mind on that.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: How about your thoughts overall on the AL West?
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Well, Carlos Correa is close.
• 48:00
  Speaker 7: And when he gets back, that's going to be a
• 48:02
  Speaker 7: huge lift to the team, not only from a presence standpoint,
• 48:05
  Speaker 7: but the experience he's got in October. And, you know,
• 48:08
  Speaker 7: Jordan Alvarez and Jeremy Pena are two of the best
• 48:10
  Speaker 7: players in baseball. And they've got really good pitching. Hayden
• 48:14
  Speaker 7: Wisniewski's gone seven innings. He went seven innings last night.
• 48:17
  Speaker 7: He's the only one that's gone seven innings since late July.
• 48:20
  Speaker 7: So the rotation could use a little stability. But Amai
• 48:24
  Speaker 7: came in and threw very well out of the bullpen
• 48:26
  Speaker 7: the other night. But they've got a really solid bullpen
• 48:30
  Speaker 7: when you talk about A.J. Blueball and Josh Hader. So
• 48:33
  Speaker 7: this is a team that is coming together. They've got
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: a really difficult schedule coming up when you talk about
• 48:39
  Speaker 7: playing Tampa Bay and the Phillies and others. So they're
• 48:42
  Speaker 7: going to have a real grind. And this is definitely
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: going down to the final weekend of the season.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: With regard to the Rangers, and they were right there,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: they had a chance to tie, and they were one back.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: They're two back right now.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Jacob deGrom is certainly pitching well, but some of the
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: other guys have not pitched quite as well for the Rangers,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: at least in the starting rotation.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Is that one of the things you see?
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: They went through a bad hitting slump for a while,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: but they seem to be swinging the bat a little
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: bit better now.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: How about your thoughts on the Rangers?
• 49:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and when you have that, when you have the
• 49:10
  Speaker 7: Belcal starter like they do, and then everybody else is
• 49:13
  Speaker 7: kind of just getting by. You've got to manage that,
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: especially down the stretch to where you may have some
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: of your rotation guys instead of pitching on their side
• 49:23
  Speaker 7: days they may come in a leverage situation in the
• 49:25
  Speaker 7: middle of the game and you got to really as
• 49:27
  Speaker 7: this becomes more critical if you're not getting the length
• 49:31
  Speaker 7: or the impact that you want from the back of
• 49:33
  Speaker 7: the rotation you know it's really becomes all hands on
• 49:36
  Speaker 7: deck at any time because the most important thing is
• 49:39
  Speaker 7: that you get in. And so if you don't have
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: it from your system calling it up to help, you've
• 49:45
  Speaker 7: got to really be creative in the way you manage it.
• 49:47
  Speaker 7: Using openers early in the game, on your pin days,
• 49:50
  Speaker 7: your guys coming out and throwing that inning out of
• 49:53
  Speaker 7: the bullpen and really hopeful for the best results to
• 49:56
  Speaker 7: get you to October.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Cal Raleigh's starting to swing the bat better now after
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: having that long slump and being injured and all of
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: those things. The Mariners are trying to mount this late
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: charge here, and in the wild card picture, they're only
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: a total of four and a half back of Cleveland
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: right now for that third wild card spot. You have
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the Rangers, the Orioles, the Blue Jays, And the Twins,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: and you said keep an eye on the Blue Jays,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: are starting to get it turned around here. And then
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: the Twins are just kind of hanging around and hanging
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: around there as well. How about that wild card setup?
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: You know, you can start with the Mariners, but also
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: the Orioles, Jays, Twins, and even the Tigers to a
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: lesser extent, still with a shot along with the Rangers
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: to try to grab that third wild card spot.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: I think your.
• 50:44
  Speaker 7: Mindset is you want to every series saying let's win
• 50:47
  Speaker 7: the series.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: If it's a four game, let's split the series.
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: And the team that gets hot and wins five, six,
• 50:55
  Speaker 7: seven or oh, I mean, even look at the Royals
• 50:57
  Speaker 7: did right now, but, but the team that can win
• 51:00
  Speaker 7: five or six or seven in a row has a
• 51:03
  Speaker 7: chance to create a little separation. What you really want
• 51:05
  Speaker 7: to avoid is, this time of year is the five
• 51:08
  Speaker 7: game losing streak. And then that's the one that could be,
• 51:11
  Speaker 7: that can really push you back because it's not, it
• 51:13
  Speaker 7: doesn't become in about a week. It doesn't become the
• 51:16
  Speaker 7: number of games out. It becomes the number of teams
• 51:19
  Speaker 7: in front of you because somebody is going to win
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: every night. And so it's going to be really difficult
• 51:23
  Speaker 7: if you fall three or four games back to catch up,
• 51:26
  Speaker 7: because if you have three or four teams in front
• 51:28
  Speaker 7: of you, two of them are going to win every night.
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: And so that's where you, if you want to try
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: to win every series, You want to try to split
• 51:36
  Speaker 7: the four-game series. But if you could just go on
• 51:38
  Speaker 7: that six, seven-game win streak, that would be the best-case
• 51:42
  Speaker 7: scenario for any one of these teams that are pushing
• 51:44
  Speaker 7: here at the end.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Talking baseball with Gene Watson, our MLB insider from the
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Chicago White Sox front office here on 1300 The Zone.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Let me shift to the National League.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: You've been talking about these two teams when I've asked
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: you about the team's That could be dangerous. And you've
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: mentioned two teams, and they happen to be from the
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: same division, Braves and Phillies. And they're both hot right now.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Atlanta's won 8 of 10. Phillies have won 7 of 10.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: I think they're coming up on a stretch where they're
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: going to face each other, what, seven times over a
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: 10-day or 12-day span, that sort of thing. And then,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: of course, the Phillies right there, even though they're four
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: back of Atlanta in terms of the National League East standings.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the Phillies obviously would be leading the wildcard chase right now.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: How about your thoughts on that National League East as
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: they start to head to those crucial series in Atlanta
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: and Philadelphia?
• 52:35
  Speaker 7: Well, if you love the game of baseball, I would
• 52:38
  Speaker 7: recommend watching all seven of those games because it is
• 52:40
  Speaker 7: going to be high drama and probably a preview of
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: what it's going to look like in October. I don't
• 52:47
  Speaker 7: think there's a chance they don't meet again in October
• 52:49
  Speaker 7: because So there's going to be some great storylines going
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: into the season. You know, the Phillies have super high
• 52:55
  Speaker 7: expectations based on their last few years and Atlanta really
• 52:58
  Speaker 7: has high expectations because, you know, this is the first
• 53:01
  Speaker 7: time they've been really healthy and playing on all cylinders
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: in a very long time. And this is a team
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: that's not very far removed from a world championship and
• 53:09
  Speaker 7: they've got a super talented roster. So that seven game
• 53:12
  Speaker 7: series is going to be high drama, probably a preview
• 53:16
  Speaker 7: of what we're going to see in October and, where
• 53:18
  Speaker 7: I felt like it was probably lock, stock, and barrel
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: that the Dodgers.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Were the lockdown favorite.
• 53:25
  Speaker 7: I think one of these teams that can come out
• 53:27
  Speaker 7: of that race battle-tested is just going to have a
• 53:30
  Speaker 7: little more edge, and that's something the.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Dodgers are going to have to pay attention to in October.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: And one would imagine the Brewers as well, since they
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: have the best record overall in baseball right now. And
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: as I transition into the National League Central, here's where
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going with this. The Cubs have dropped six of
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: their last ten, and they're nine back of Milwaukee. However,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: they're in firm position for the second wild card spot.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: Here's where I'm going with this, Gino.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Because of the slump and lingering injuries, I think, and
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: more on that in a moment on Shohei Ohtani, and
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: because of the tear that Pete Crow Armstrong has been on,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: is it safe to say now PCA is going to
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: be the National League MVP?
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: I think you have a strong case for it.
• 54:14
  Speaker 7: And I think if anybody's ever going to try to
• 54:17
  Speaker 7: dethrone Shohei, I think this.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Is the year.
• 54:19
  Speaker 7: And just the attention that he has brought to the
• 54:24
  Speaker 7: National League and just the big moments that he's had
• 54:27
  Speaker 7: throughout the season, I think that you have to give
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: him strong consideration for it.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: And with regard to Shohei, I thought this was a
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: pretty interesting thing. Dave Roberts, after the game last night,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: and I watched the game, and Otani went 0 for 4,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: and he struck out all four times, and of late since,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's since July 3rd, or since the All-Star break,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: he's batting just 237 right now, and is really struggling
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: at the plate. But Dave Roberts noted that you can
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: tell he's ailing, that maybe the elbow's bothering him, the
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: knee is definitely bothering him. It was two months ago today,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: the last time he pitched, and there's a decent chance
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: maybe we don't see him again on the mound at
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: all this season, or at least not until October. Maybe
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: it's affecting his hitting as well. As a manager, If
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: you were thinking about this, and Roberts says it's one
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: thing they have to consider about giving him a day
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: off or so, especially now that they've got Will Smith
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: back in the lineup. How difficult a decision is that
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: as a manager when you have, obviously, a bona fide
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: superstar and a three-time MVP who you can clearly tell
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: is not 100% even though he wants to be out
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: there every night?
• 55:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and this is where the wear and tear of
• 55:39
  Speaker 7: October over a number of years can take its toll.
• 55:42
  Speaker 7: We've talked about 22 extra games. over the last two years.
• 55:46
  Speaker 7: And that may not seem like a big number, but
• 55:48
  Speaker 7: that's a significant number.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, you're talking about that wear and tear.
• 55:52
  Speaker 7: And I think that what you really want to do
• 55:55
  Speaker 7: is keep the mental, the positivity to the mental side
• 55:59
  Speaker 7: of it and just let him know, look, we're going
• 56:01
  Speaker 7: to manage this down the stretch. You know, you may
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: not play a day game after a night game. You
• 56:05
  Speaker 7: may get an off day into an off day or
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: you get two days fully off. But, you know, teams
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: like the Dodgers, and I say this all the time,
• 56:13
  Speaker 7: I mean, the Phillies and the Braves and the Brewers,
• 56:16
  Speaker 7: they're hungry and they've got things that they want to
• 56:19
  Speaker 7: accomplish and they all believe that they can win the
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: National League. The teams like the Dodgers, they know they're in,
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: they know who they are as an organization, they know
• 56:27
  Speaker 7: what's on the line as far as being the next
• 56:29
  Speaker 7: team beyond the Yankees from 98-01 to win a World Series.
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: And they know that when it cools down and October
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: gets here, that they're going to be ready to go.
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: It's just getting him healthy, and they'll certainly have something
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: to manage to do that for him.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Whether it's the Braves or even the Phillies or the Dodgers,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: how crucial is it to get that first round by,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: to be the number two seed. It looks like Milwaukee's
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: clearly gonna be the one seed with the way the
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Brewers are going right now. But how important is it
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: to get that first round by? Because I've seen it
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: work both ways for the Dodgers. When they got the
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: bye and won the World Series, when they had to
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: come through as the three seed last year and play
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: in that wild card round as well, some teams get
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: hotter going through that. Obviously, when you were with the Marlins,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: being a wild card made a difference. The Rangers coming
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: through the wild card, wind up winning.
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: The World Series.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: How crucial is it, especially for veteran ball clubs, to
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: have that first-round buy?
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: I don't think it is at all, and you know
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: what I'm going to say. I hate it. There's two
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: things that I hate.
• 57:30
  Speaker 7: I hate clinching September 20th and cruising into the end
• 57:34
  Speaker 7: of the season, and I hate having to buy because
• 57:38
  Speaker 7: you can't turn this off and turn it back on,
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: and I would rather have to grind every day and
• 57:43
  Speaker 7: give guys— you know, easy starts and easy relief innings
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: and give guys that bats and use your bench and
• 57:49
  Speaker 7: get guys comfortable and get set up to play rather
• 57:53
  Speaker 7: than for instance, the, uh, the, the Phillies and Braves
• 57:57
  Speaker 7: in a mental dog fight for seven games. And now
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: they have the edge and you've been sitting around for
• 58:02
  Speaker 7: five days.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: I don't love it at all.
• 58:04
  Speaker 7: I think you got it with this game. There's a
• 58:06
  Speaker 7: rhythm to it and you got to play every day. And,
• 58:08
  Speaker 7: and I'm for fighting through and grinding through playing every
• 58:11
  Speaker 7: day and sitting and resting any day of the week.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: He's Gene Watson, our MLB insider from the Chicago White
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: Sox front office. Gino, I appreciate the time, and we'll
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: talk again next week as we get closer and closer
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: to pennant race time.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us. All right, Craig, appreciate you. Thanks
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: so much.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: All right, that is Gene Watson, our MLB insider. We
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: have more coming up here on this Thursday afternoon on
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Sports Radio AM 13 under the zone of the iHeartRadio app.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: All right, we continue on a Thursday afternoon. Here on
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Sports Radio AM 1300 Zone. I know a lot of you.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Are waiting on this. I say it almost tongue-in-cheek.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: And a lot of you probably could not care the
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: south end of a rat about it. But there is
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: an update on the SEC versus the world on this
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: college football eligibility issue. that we are expecting to hear
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: a judge's ruling on the TROs that have come down.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Supposed to come down this afternoon.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: What we can tell you is that the SEC, in
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: advance of perhaps expecting not good news, has filed a
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: lawsuit in federal court against LSU, as well as against
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: head football coach Lane Kiffin and other school administrators today.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: as the two sides are still at odds over the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: eligibility status of multiple potential LSU football players who spent
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: time on NFL training camp rosters, the SEC is seeking
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting LSU from violating the
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: conference's First Amendment rights by forcing the conference to associate
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: with actions that violate the conference's rule. A similar legal argument,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: this is important to note here, a similar legal argument
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: was made by the big 12 against Texas tech and
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: its federal filing earlier this summer. That was the Brendan
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Sorsby case. And that case has yet to move forward.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Although in all practicality, it's kind of gone away because
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: the big 12 argument impacted Sorsby's decision to leave Texas
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: tech and to accept permanent ineligibility status from the NCA.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: So that's what they're trying to get done right now.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Say that they're going to, uh, they're trying to get
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: this thing, um, you might say, get the federal courts
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: to intervene right now and shut this down before you
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: have other judges say, oh, no, no, they're perfectly within
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: their rights to add these guys to the roster. And
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: more is the point, and here's the other thing that
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: we've heard about, that they are wanting LSU, wanting the
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: SEC to be barred from punishing them if the injunctions
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: are then overturned or the TROs are ultimately overturned, that
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: you can't be punished if we play these guys and
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: then down the road we're told they're ineligible.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: Here's an idea.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Wait.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: Don't play them.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: It's not in a conference game.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: You also wonder how much they're going to, you know,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: factor and be able to help. factor in on that
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: uh lsu does have a pretty big game on saturday
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: night they play.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Clemson i'm pretty sure pibert will help them yeah.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Uh so we'll uh we'll see where that goes all
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: right uh we're gonna be back to wrap up our
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: number two and get you ready to try to win
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: a pair of longhorn football tickets here on sports radio
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: am 1300 the zone and right here on the iheart
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: radio app third and final hour of the program here
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: on a thursday afternoon on Sports Radio AM 1300. Craig
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Way with you alongside the producer, Jake Herman. We're with
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: you up until 5 o'clock. And then a reminder, following
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: a 30-minute edition of Bucky and BK from 5 to 5.30,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: we will bring you the season premiere of Longhorn Weekly
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: with Coach Sark from the 40 Acres. That will be
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: at 5.30. And again, we recorded the program last night.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: It'll be on at 5.30 this afternoon. Normally, the program
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: will air at 7 o'clock on Thursday night. But because
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: we have a Round Rock Express broadcast that we'll be
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: bringing you, and Rylan Cobre will be bringing it to
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: you with the Express in action, that is a 6.50
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: pregame start time and a 7.05 first pitch for the
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Round Rock Express. So this week, it'll be a 5.30
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: pregame start time. Excuse me, a 5.30 airtime for Longhorn
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Weekly with Coach Sark. And a good listen for you
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: if you're driving home or in the office working or
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: even at home, whatever. Because we'll talk, you know, obviously
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: all things Longhorn football. But Chris Tocanti will join us
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: for about a good half of the program. And we'll
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: get his thoughts on the football program, on the athletic
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: scene overall at Texas, and... the changing nature and face
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: of collegiate athletics.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: We know what's going on.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: We mentioned the story earlier with the SEC filing suit
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: against LSU, trying to make sure that they, the SEC's
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: collective conference feet, are not held to the fire.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: To enable LSU to.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: To play players who were on NFL rosters. And so
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: that's going to continue, and we'll see if the judge,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: there was supposed to be a judge ruling on the
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: temporary restraining order that allowed.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: LSU and other schools to have these players on the roster.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: That is coming up.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: I should point out, too, the team that Texas is
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: playing on Saturday, Texas State, has a player who would
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: factor in on this. And he would be the starting
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: defensive end, Tymier Jackson. Jackson, a big kind of anchor
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: on their defensive front.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: But G.J.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Kinney had said in his news conference this week, they're
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: moving forward because of that earlier TRO. That's the same
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: one that has Cole Hudson available and eligible, according to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: the judge.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: And again, the.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: The big argument there on the Texas side is that
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Cole Hudson was never under contract, was never actually in
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: an NFL training camp, was never paid for that. He
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: was in a couple of mini camps while still remaining
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: enrolled at Texas. He had not withdrawn from the University
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: of Texas. We'll see if and how this judge's decision
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: affects not only the key players who have been mentioned
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: who would be suiting up for LSU. But all the players,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of players who would be affected
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: by this.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 8: Yeah, and then you've got Traylon Payne, a linebacker coming
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 8: back to Texas State as well, who did not attend
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 8: any of the NFL minicamps, but is playing as a
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 8: result of the same type of TRO.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see how this goes. And
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: the interesting thing is that Traylon Payne is not listed
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: on their 2D.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: Time here.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: Jackson is, I don't know if he's injured or something,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: but he is.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: I saw that story from a few weeks ago.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: Um, but, um, but time here, Jackson is listed as
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: the starting defensive end. So we'll, we'll see how that
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: is going forward on that. In the meantime, as I mentioned,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: we're going to bring you a segment of Longhorn weekly
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: with coach Sark.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: That's coming up in a few moments.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: The, the full show will air at five 30, but
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: coming up in a few minutes, we'll let you hear
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: Sark's a segment where Sark is looking specifically at the
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: matchup with Texas State. So we'll have that in just
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: a few moments. However, what we do also want to
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: bring you is some of the comments that Sark had
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: from his media Zoom this morning, the last full-on media
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: availability for the media. And this is what he had
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: to say about.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: His backup quarterback position.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Now, you know, again, I joked about this yesterday, you know,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: the old line from the one time, uh, Texas backup
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: quarterback in the late eighties, Donovan Forbes, who said the
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: most popular guy on campus is the backup quarterback at Texas. Um,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: that will not be the case in this case, Arch Manning,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the starting quarterback might be the most popular guy, but
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: not the backups, but the backups have been getting ready.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Whether you're talking, uh, about KJ Lacey, um, who's a
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: redshirt freshman, or D'Abel, who's the freshman in, the true
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: freshman in.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: And Sark was asked.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: In the media Zoom, would KJ Lacy and D'Abel get
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to play in the game, regardless of where
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: the game was in terms of how it was going,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: whether Texas was leading, leading by a lot, not leading
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: at all, or close, would KJ Lacy and D'Abel get,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: thrown into the action regardless of what was going on
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: in the game at the moment?
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 7: No, no.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's all going to be predicated on the
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: game and how the game goes. I love those guys
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: and they've worked really hard.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: I think KJ has really come a long, long way.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: I'm excited for him.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: The goal is when we put him in the game,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: that means we're doing pretty good as a team. But no,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: we're not going to try to inject him at any
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: point just to put him out there. So At some
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: point as the season goes on, hopefully he can get
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: some meaningful reps for us.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Next, Sark was asked about the development of Zina Mosalu,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: who has been coming on and coming on as an
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: edge rusher and a guy who might be able to contribute.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: And Sark was asked about Zina's development and what he
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: might be able to do for this defense.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: I think the one thing about Zena that has always
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: been true is how hard he plays the game, right?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: He's always been a guy, you know, when he was
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: even down with us early in his career on scout team,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: he would play hard and he was, you know, he,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: I've always appreciated that about him. I think where he's
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: grown is that a, he's physically grown and developed, but
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: to like him understanding how to play and, and when
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: it's time to cut it loose, when it's time to
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: anchor in a gap, um, And that's maturity. I think
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: that he's grown and become a very mature leader on
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: the team. He's still got a nasty streak to him,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: which we love, right? You want that when you're a defense. end,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: defensive lineman type. But he plays the game hard, and
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: he plays relentless. And I think that combination of he
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: and Lance, both those guys play the same way. And
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: so to have those two guys at that spot, man,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: that's phenomenal depth for us at that end position.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Next up in– You really can't go through a press conference,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: a post-game press conference, or a media Zoom, or for
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: that matter, virtually any Texas Longhorn football media availability with
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Steve Sarkeesian without a question about the quarterback, the starting quarterback.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of interesting to hear when the media
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: ask a lot of the questions that that are asked
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: during the course of a week, started on Monday, yesterday's
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: SEC teleconference, they.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: Call it teleconference, not even on a telephone anymore, they're
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: on a Zoom, but anyway.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: The teleconference and then this Thursday availability, quite often when
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: it comes to Arch Manning, the question is very, very similar.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: It might be worded a little bit differently, just slightly.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: And this was a case of that where Sark was
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: asked about what kind of vibe is Arch Manning having
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: this week?
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: I think his vibe's been he's been Arch. I don't
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: think he's changed. I do think there's a sense of confidence.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: I think he's had a sense of confidence throughout training camp.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: But I felt like he's got a really good understanding
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: of the game plan. He obviously is tireless in his
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: work and film study. I think he understands the audibles,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: the checks, the protection checks that he might have to make.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: the situational football as it might come up and how
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: we're trying to operate that. And I think that that
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: gives him a real sense of confidence. And I think
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: his confidence then permeates through the other guys, right? If
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: Arch is confident and practices really well, I think that
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: gives everybody else a sense of confidence.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: Next, Sark was asked about this pace of play thing.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot discussed about it, the whole pace
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: of play thing, because of the way Texas State runs
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: its up-tempo style uh and of course texas likes to
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: play with some rapidity as well depending on what the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: situation is so he was asked about his philosophy on
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: offensive pace of play.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: We just try to do what we need to do
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: to try to be the best we can be and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: and try to win games and so um That really
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: varies from game to game as much as it varies
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: from year to year.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: You know, when you operate.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: Up-tempo stuff well, sometimes it lends yourself to want to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: do more. if you're not as good at it, or
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: maybe you don't have quite as much depth on offense
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: and or defense and you, and you try to reduce
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: the number of plays in the game, you manage that.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: And again, that could be game to game because of
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: injuries on, on one side of the ball or the other.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: It could be the conditions that you're playing in. It
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: could be year to year, how much depth do you
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: have that you feel very good about the players you have.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: And so, um, I do think that that's something that we've, um,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: you know, way back in the day, I don't know
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: if you guys know this, when I was at Washington
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: and then my second stint at SC, that's what we did.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: You know, we were an up-tempo team and we lived
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: by it. We died by it. That was the way
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: we went after it. And when we've gotten here, it's
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: been part of what we do. And it allows us
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: to change speeds, to change tempos, to kind of shift
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: gears on people. You know, maybe we've run three or
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: four plays and, they, you know, they, their D line
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: is still out there and we don't want them to sub.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: We may start going fast to keep some of their
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: bigger people on the field. And so there's strategy involved. Um,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: there's your own roster involved. There's flow of the game
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: that matters. Um, and so I think that, like I said,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: it varies from week to week. And some of that
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: is it varies from year to year.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: And one more from this media availability this morning, the
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: zoom that, uh, Sark had, uh, We know the quarterback,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: of course, is calling out the signals in the offensive huddle.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: He has that green dot on that little sticker so
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: the officials know who is the one that they can
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: communicate with or whatever and can receive that.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: So we know that. And Sark is on the offensive side.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of discussion about who was going
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: to be doing it on the defensive side. In fact,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: here O'Connor was asked about it.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: He said, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: I'm too close to the line of scrimmage. And it
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: makes sense from a defensive play calling. Some folks may
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: not understand that, and it's better to have someone in
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: the back seven, be it a linebacker or a man
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: in the secondary, who has a better look at how
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: the offensive setup is overall to make the defensive call.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: So in Hirokazu's case, he said, it'll be maybe it's
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Juice or maybe it's somebody in the secondary.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: Well, it is Juice. It's Justin Cryer, whose nickname is Juice.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: And Sark was asked, is he the guy who, And
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: he alone who is fit for the green dot.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: Well, I think one thing that, that, that I call
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: him juice, sorry, that Justin's done. He's immersed himself to
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: the process and the schemes, whether it's on defense or
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: on special teams.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 5: I mean, this guy is very, very smart.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: He's a really good communicator and it's not just communicating
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: with the players. He's a really good communicator with the
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 4: coaches and, And so he can talk and say exactly
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: what he sees. He can, you know, and half of
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: communicating is listening, right? So his ability to listen to
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: a call from Coach Muschamp, maybe a reminder, and then
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: relay that communication to the defensive front or the other
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: backers or the DBs. I think all that's really important,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: but he's earned that because he's immersed himself in the scheme.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: I think he knows it as good or better than anybody.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: He understands situational football and And he really, it's the
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: same on special teams.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, he's that dialed into the whole thing.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: So there is Longhorn's head coach, Steve Sarkeesian, from the
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: weekly Thursday media Zoom.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: That's his final meeting of the week with the media.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: Coming up, we're going to have part of Longhorn Weekly
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: as a sneak preview. But before we get to that,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: we've got some NFL notes to get to.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: As well.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: After all, the National Football League is inside of a
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: week to kick off. Remember, next Wednesday is the season opener.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: Super Bowl rematch? Is that right? Patriots-Broncos?
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: No, it's the Rams in the 49ers in Melbourne.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's Wednesday their time. It's going to be Thursday.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 7: You're right.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: This is what threw me off last time. I'd remembered
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: that wrong.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Thursday they're playing. Trust me, as a Rams fan,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: I know that.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, you know that. For some reason, I.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 8: You know, the whole like Australia being one day ahead thing.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right. It's that rematch, Super Bowl.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: So we're inside of a week to that. That's next Wednesday.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: The Rams 49ers game in Melbourne will be on Thursday.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: There's still some question as to whether Aaron Donald's even
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: going to make the trip. The Rams, by the way,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: are approaching it a lot different than a lot of
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: teams do. For example, the 49ers have already left. to
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: try to acclimate themselves.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: Not to get away from the substation?
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just to, yeah, right, and get over there
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: and get ready in Melbourne.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: The Rams are going to practice at home all the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: way up to, I think it's two days out or
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: a day out.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: They'll fly over.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: They'll have one, I think, on-site practice there. They'll play
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: the game, and then when the game's over, they're going,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: they're showering, changing, and they're getting on the plane and
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: going back home. So they're going to spend as little
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: time as possible down under. That's a Sean McVay thing.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: You know, they went to England, I guess it was
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: a year or so ago, to play the Jaguars. And
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: they did it very similarly. They left late in the week,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: went up there, played the game. I think they beat
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: the Jags on like 34 to 7. Yeah, they killed them.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: I remember that was Travis Hunter had a good game.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: Nothing else went well for the Jags.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: And then they turned around and flew home. Rams went
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: over there and did their business and came back home.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: I think they're planning to do it in a similar style,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: although it's a 15, 16-hour flight to get down there
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: to Melbourne.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: So it's a little bit longer on that.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: Let's listen to a stand-up comedian do a bit on Australia.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: He goes, actually, it's two flights.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: It pretty much is. All right.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: Coming up, we've got some NFL notes for you, and
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: then we'll hear that segment with Sark.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: Coming up as well.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: When we continue here on this Thursday afternoon on Sports
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Radio AM 13 Under the Zone and the IR Radio app.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: When I went to see Guess Who.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: Three weeks ago, Randy Bachman, of course, was a founding
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: member along with Burton Cummings, the Guess Who. So they
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: were both there. But they also did three songs that
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: Bachman Turner overdrive. did one was let it ride they
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: actually closed the show with taking care of business but
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: they also did this one you ain't seen nothing yet
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: and folks let me tell you he's 82 years old
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: And Randy Bachman still got it. He still has his fastball.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: Hadn't lost much off of that. He was excellent on
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: this tune.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: So it was a great show. One of the best.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: I think I got to ask on a podcast, what
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: was the best concert?
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: Because they noticed on Facebook. Linda and I went to
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: quite a few shows so far in this calendar.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: Year.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 8: They don't have the t-shirt, my hypothetical t-shirt, Craig and
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 8: Linda Way Summer Concert Tour.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: That's it, our summer concert tour.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: And it went all the way back to May when
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: we saw Little River Band back in May. But they said,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: what was the best band you saw? And I said,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: it's hard to say, you know, it was my first
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: time to see Chicago. And I really like Chicago, although they,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: by those who had seen Chicago a lot, including Linda,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: including my wife, and also Keith Moreland, they'd seen Chicago
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: They said, it wasn't quite the same. The vocalist doing.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: The Peter Cetera vocal-led songs wasn't quite up to that level,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: but it was still good.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: The horn section was incredible.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: And see, and Lee Lockman, of course, a founding member
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: there still blowing that trumpet and doing some vocals.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: That was really good.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: But if I were to, if you were to ask me,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: who were the two best bands that you saw over
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: the summer?
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: One of them might be Styx.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: They were really good, even with all the change out
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: they've had in their group, but they still have Tommy
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: Shaw in there. And then the other was this band,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: was the Guess Who? Because they still had the core
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: of they're key guys and included in that being Burton Cummings.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: I mentioned the other day that I doubted whether a
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: 78 year old Burton Cummings could still belt out American woman,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: but he did, did it really well.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: And Randy Bachman did as well.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: So anyway, coming to mind here on a Thursday, I
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: want to get to a couple of NFL notes before
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: we hear the segment from Longhorn's head coach, Steve Sarkeesian
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: coming up in the next segment.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: NFL notes. First of all, Some roster stuff.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: We didn't mention it yesterday, but Kirk Cousins has been
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: named the starting quarterback for the Raiders. That came down
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: yesterday afternoon. It's not Fernando Mendoza. I'm one of the
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: people who thinks it's probably a good move because we've
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: heard too many cautionary tales about guys who were kind
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: of rushed into service too soon, weren't ready, weren't protected enough,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: and then wound up doing a lot of damage to
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: their career.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: See McCarthy, JJ.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 8: And look, Craig, if there's anyone in the brain trust
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 8: of a front office who will give their coaching staff
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 8: and give their GM the leash to do this, because
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 8: that's the problem sometimes with these quarterbacks. The coaches that
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 8: draft these quarterbacks on struggling teams because they had a
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 8: high pick don't always get to see it through. They
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 8: feel the need to put their guy on the field
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 8: for proof of concept so that they can stick around
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 8: if things don't improve right away in this instant gratification league.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: But Tom Brady's in the building.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 8: He understands this, and I think he's going to give
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 8: him the leash to let Fernando wait until he's ready.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and an example of this, of a quarterback, I think,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: being rushed into service too early, and a lot of
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: it was affected by his own injury, was Anthony Richardson
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: with the Colts coming straight in from Florida. And most
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: folks said he was not ready, and he proceeded to
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: prove that, and he got hurt as well. And six
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: months ago, he requested a trade because he knew he
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to beat out Daniel Jones. And he requested
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: a trade.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: But now... Not going to happen.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: Because he signed a two-year $ 88 million.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: Contract to, you know.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: They gave him $ 88 million?
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: Uh, it says they're resigning. Oh, no, no, no.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: That's the Daniel Jones deal. I was like, Whoa, no, no, no, no, no. Uh, uh,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: he was named QB two though.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. And so there'll be doing it. No, no.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: Daniel Jones is getting 88 minutes. Oh, now that gives
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of other folks pause.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 3: That gives Anthony Richardson more reason for a trade.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: But, uh, he said he's grateful that he's going to
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: be the number two and he's okay with that.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: He'll go on.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: Um, uh, also, uh, Michael Wilson got a three-year extension
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: from the Arizona Cardinals, 75 million with a maximum value
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: of 78 million.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 8: The Cardinals, man, they, they are paying up for these
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 8: skill players in both draft capital and real money. And
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 8: I just keep thinking back to what Cameron Parker told us.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 8: It's like the, the sports car outside of the rundown shack.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: Uh, okay. Uh, some off field stuff. Um, first of all, um,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody heard about this. You know,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: one of the guys that's looked at as being, you know,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: one of the good guys in all his years.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: In the NFL.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: Then he goes and he wins Dancing with the Stars.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: And you see him in a lot of commercials. I
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: just saw him on the field at the Hall of
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: Fame game. I'm talking about Emmitt Smith. Well, Emmitt and
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: his company are being cited in a $ 2. 5 million fraud claim.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: It's a Native American development company that is suing Emmett
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: and his company, alleging they were defrauded out of $ 2. 5
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: million as part of a deal to purchase a solar farm. Now,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: this filing was posted on Courthouse News and filed in
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: the Delaware Court of Chancery, alleges that Smith, the chairman
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: of 413 Solutions, and company CEO David Mosley committed fraudulent
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: inducement and breach of fiduciary duty by promising to use
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: a $ 2. 5 million loan from Kitawa LLC to obtain an
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: interest in Project Exodus, which is a solar farm project
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: in Texas. Instead, the lawsuit claims that Smith, Mosley, and
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: 413 Solutions used the money to pay a third company,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: Wilson Holdings, as, quote, compensation for prior unsuccessful loans and
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: investments that it made with 413 Solutions, end quote. The
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: contract between 413 and Kittawa said that Wilson Holdings would
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: be paid only if the project received long-term financing from
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: the Department of Energy for acquiring and operating Project Exodus.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: So they're basically saying this is like a Ponzi scheme,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: what they're saying. And according to the suit, Wilson told
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: the Kittawa attorneys he did not know what triggered his
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: company to receive this two and a half million payment
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: to his company, but that he did not believe permanent financing.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: Had been secured. So that's kind of messy there.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 8: And it's a little bit like Brett Favre with the
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 8: volleyball gym situation.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: It's making you wonder how centrally involved was Emmett in this?
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: What did he know? All of that.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing that's off the field.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: There's another thing, although this looks like This is going
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: to be good news for the defending Super Bowl champions.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: The Seattle Seahawks, officially under new ownership, the Seahawks announced
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: this morning that the sale of the franchise from Paul
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: Allen's estate, he passed away a few years ago, his
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: estate has sold it to a group led by the
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: Khosla family, K-H-O-S-L-A.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: And they closed the deal.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: Vinod, that's V-I-N-O-D, Vinod Khosla, his wife Niru Khosla, And
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: their son, Neil Khosla, are now the controlling owners of this.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: Vinod Khosla is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and founder
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: of the venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: He'll have the title of chair.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: Nehru Khosla, she's mentioned and listed as the controlling owner
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: and president of the Seahawks Charitable Foundation.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: And the son, Neil Khosla, is listed as vice chair.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: The family's gonna be formally introduced at a news conference
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: next Wednesday at Lumen Field when the Seahawks open their
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: season against the Patriots in the rematch of last year's
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: Super Bowl.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: So.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 8: One of the first investors in open AI, by the way,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 8: if you're wondering how he was able to buy the Seahawks.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: So there you go. So take note of that. And
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: then there's one other thing. And this is kind of
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: a weird deal. We became aware last year of the...
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: shall we call it, developing, sip of water here, burgeoning, romantic,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: daring do of Mike Vrabel and Diana Rossini. Now, Vrabel,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: of course, the head coach of the New England Patriots.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: Diana Rossini, longtime reporter, first at ESPN and then of
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: late at The Athletic. And she had to resign from
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: The Athletic when it was discovered the two were having
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: A relationship. The Athletic today released what they called findings. Yeah,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: nice timing there.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: On all of this.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: Right before college football.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: We got it done before the season, but missed the
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: quiet window.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. So the.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: Investigation that they had, because it raises all kinds of questions.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: What kind of bias might she have had?
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: For the Patriots or against other teams or against the NFL,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: the impropriety of that kind of relationship, so on and
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: so forth. And of course, both are married going into it,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: but that's of a different issue.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: But of the legal.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: And impractical in terms of what's happening in terms of
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: the relationship, according to The Athletic, the findings showed that
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: Rossini's relationship with Vrabel violated newsroom standards, but showed no
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: clear bias toward the Patriots or DeVrabel. This was the
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: findings of an internal investigation into her work that was
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: published today on the company's website. Mike Simmel, who's the
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: outlet's editorial director for Standard and editorial quality, wrote in
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: this report, quote, Rossini's relationship with Rabel was in clear
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: violation of the athletic standards. Regardless of whether the relationship
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: was romantic, it was a breach and should have been
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: disclosed because they were kind of keeping that on the sly,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: on the download. They were seen in Sedona, Arizona and
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: some other places. Well, not just seen, I mean, seen
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: holding hands and cuddling.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: As for Rossini's coverage of Vrabel, Sommel wrote, I quote,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: I've not found a clear link to conclude that Rossini
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: used her platform to help promote Vrabel or help his
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: teams during her time at the athletic. That said, There
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: are examples of Rossini writing glowingly of Vrabel that in
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: hindsight are awkward or even uncomfortable. This is a five-month
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: investigation that's turned that up. So Vrabel today, Rossini declined
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: comment on those findings.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: Vrabel today at a media availability. He was asked about it.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: He said, quote, I moved on and I'm excited about
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: this new opportunity here as we start this season, end quote.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 8: Reviewed 903 stories, 204 podcasts, and 77 videos.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 3: This guy knows a lot more about the NFL than
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: he ever wanted to.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, now, and clearly, Diana Rossini spent a lot
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: of time and a lot of ink, so to speak,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: and podcasting with.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: Vrabel, whatever else happened.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no inaccuracies.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: Very interesting.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So there you go. All right. There's some off
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: the field stuff up next. We get back to football,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: real football.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: We'll hear from SART next on 13 under the zone.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: I know why Jake is bringing us back, because we're
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: going to hear this on Saturday.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: That's why you're saying it, right?
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 8: And it's our last segment together with a music bump
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 8: like this before Saturday.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: It's time to run out on the field on this
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: new season.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's understruck.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: You know, there are some fans, and I think you
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: can probably separate it.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: Along age lines.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: There's some people that don't like this or think that it's,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: unnecessary or whatever that kind of thing whereas a lot
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: of younger sect like it they want more that's the
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: group also the younger group that's wanting black alternate uniforms
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: and things like.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 8: That as well yeah sometimes there's wanting your program to
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 8: be young adapted get with the times and sometimes there's
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 8: just being a contrarian craig there is nothing wrong with
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 8: this song and.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with uh the burnt orange uniforms and
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: the white uniforms either.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: You know what? I'm not standing with my generation on
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: that one.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, you know, and that's something that Chris
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Del Conte, and again, coming up, he'll be on with
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: us with Longhorn Weekly coming up at the bottom of
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: the next hour at 5.30, that he has to deal
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: with people tweeting at him all the time about, ah, listen,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: they have like some uniform concept with a black helmet,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: black jersey.
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: Can't we do it just once?
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: And he's like, no, you don't mess with the right
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: thing there on that. So, He's not pleasing that group.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: And then the group that's against, like, say, Thunderstruck or
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: Loud PA Music or whatever, some of them don't even
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: care for drone shows and.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: Things like that. Well, those people are wrong, too.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's where he straddles the fence.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: Where he's like, hey, we can't please everybody for the
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: entire game day experience.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 7: Nope.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: They acknowledge that. They understand that. We can't.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: But what we can do is give you some of
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: what you want. We're not going to give you black uniforms.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: But we'll give you Thunderstruck. And the volume may be
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: a little loud for you, but you're going to see
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: your team in your classic uniform. And you've talked about this.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: You've talked to Drew Martin about this.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 8: The experience being in the stadium from when I was
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 8: a student in 2018 through 2022 to being back in
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 8: there as a fan for the Texas A & M
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 8: game night and day.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot different. It's a lot of fun
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: as well. All right.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: Let's hear from Longhorn's head coach, Steve Sarkeesian. Again, this
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: is an excerpt, a segment. from Longhorn Weekly. You're going
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: to hear the show in its entirety coming up at 5.30,
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: but this in specific is our conversation about Texas State.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: So here it is, time for a season opener, and
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: it was amazing to some when I was telling them
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: that this will be the second all-time meeting between these
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: two institutions. At the time, the first one, they were
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: Southwest Texas State Teachers College.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: It was 1930. Longhorn's won 36-0.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: And they're just having graduated class, including the young, tall Texan.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: Named Lyndon Baines Johnson. How about that? LBJ had just graduated.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: That's how long it's been, 96 years since Texas has
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: played by whatever name, Southwest Texas State, Southwest Texas State
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: Teachers College, Southwest Texas State University, Texas State University, just
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: 28 miles down the road.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 5: I actually think it's pretty awesome that we're playing.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 4: I love that the idea that, you know, we've, you know, historically, right,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 4: we've played, you know, UTSA, we've played UTEP, we've played Rice,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 4: we've we've played those teams. But the fact now that
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 4: that Texas State has grown into a division one program.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 4: to where we get to play them because we have never,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 4: you know, we haven't played the FCS and we never will.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 4: I don't, the CDC changes his tune on that. So
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 4: the fact that we get to play them now, back
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 4: in the day when coach Brown was here in the summertime,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 4: the guys would go do seven on seven with the
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 4: Texas state players on, you know, once or twice a week.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: And that was kind of, they worked against them to get,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 4: to get ready for the season. And now we get
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 4: to play them and G.J. Kenney's done a great job,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: and I know that name's not new to people around
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: here in his time. He's done a fantastic job, and
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 4: he's got a very talented team. That program's gotten better
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 4: and better and better, and they're probably better than most
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 4: people think. They're a pretty good team walking in here.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: It's a team that's kind of grown to the point
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: where it did get the attention of the reconstituted Pac-12
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: to have them go in with Washington State and Oregon
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: State and the other teams that came in that had
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: been in Mountain West or a couple other conferences.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: That sort of thing.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: So clearly they're valued as being a program on the rise, uh,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: under Kenny, they've won three straight bowl games too.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 5: They really have.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: And, and I think this is probably his best team. Um,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: you know, I, I don't, I don't think, I don't
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 4: think GJ would, would tell you any different, you know,
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 4: and you look at the quarterback, it's a high level player,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: Brad Jackson. He's got 2000 yard receivers on the outside and,
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 4: and Don and sparks. He's got a really veteran defense.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 4: He's got a veteran football team. And, They've won big games,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 4: and they know how to win to get ready for
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 4: when they have extended time, to your point. They've won
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 4: three straight bowl games. And so I said this on
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 4: the SEC teleconference call, and I'm sure there are probably
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 4: some people thinking, what the heck am I talking about?
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 4: In late November, I would not be surprised if this
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 4: team is in discussion for the college football playoff. Remember,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 4: they're a Power Six program. And if you're a conference champion... right,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 4: in the Pac-12, then you're going to be considered to
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 4: be one of the 12, just like Tulane was last year,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 4: James Madison was last year. There's opportunities for those teams
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 4: if they have good seasons. And so I won't be surprised.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 4: This is a good football team.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you bring up an interesting point because the changes
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: in the college football playoffs, they weren't radical changes, but
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: there were changes enough to where all power four conference
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: champions receive.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: An automatic bid. We know that.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: Uh, in the SEC, the big 10, the ACC and
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: the big 12, but these G6 conferences.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: All have a shot.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: And like I said, the first time we had two, uh,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: they were G5. Now it's G6 with, with the PAC 12, uh,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: returning as well. And it kind of gives a moment and, and,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: and some incentive. And I would imagine there's the incentive
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: of just hopping on the bus and coming up 28
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: miles to play this game.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 4: You get to stay in their own team hotel, you know? Um,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure they'll have great turnout, their fans, and
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 4: so on and so forth. So, like I said, I
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 4: think this is really cool that we're able to get
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 4: this game put together and play this ball game.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 5: It should be a tremendous atmosphere. I mean, let's just
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 5: talk about that.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 4: I think everybody's been starving for college football. There's never
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 4: been an off-season where we've talked more about college football.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 4: And probably we haven't talked more about Texas football.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 4: Being on the forefront, not only in our own media...
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 4: but from a national media landscape. And I just think
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 4: you can feel the excitement in the air on a
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 4: lot of levels. And so Saturday's going to be fun.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 4: You know, I think about our players a lot and
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 4: I think about them Friday night in the team hotel,
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 4: you know, and I'm getting some goosebumps now, but just,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 4: you know, Saturday morning when they get up and there's
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 4: going to be some butterflies, there's going to be that
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 4: nervous energy. And that's a good thing. I mean, if
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 4: you don't have that, I mean, what kind of pulse
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 4: do you have? walking down Bevo, Bevo walk and seeing
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 4: all the fans and pregame warmups.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 5: And then ultimately coming out of that tunnel.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 4: You know, hell's bells is banging and there's 105,000 people
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 4: in the stands.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 5: Like that's it.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 4: You know, I mean, we work all year for 12
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 4: games that were guaranteed. And so, uh, I just look
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 4: forward to them and I'm sure it's going to be
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 4: a special moment for their players to, you know, coming
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 4: out into DKR and playing in front of that crowd.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: All right, you'll be able to hear the show in
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: its entirety coming up at 5.30, Longhorn Weekly with Coach Stark,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: the season premiere. We'll be back to wrap up today's program,
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: this program right here on 13 Under the Zone.