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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 9-29-26 · The Sean O'Connell Show

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday, everybody!
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: On ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM. Fun one lined up
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: for you today. Gordy Chiesa makes his long-awaited return.
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: We will talk a little basketball with Gordy as the
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: Utah Jazz had media day yesterday. NBA season is right
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: around the corner. LeBron in the Philadelphia 76ers uniform. Lots
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: to discuss. Also, LeBron's new haircut. He's gone finally. Just
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: fully bicked. Shaved the top. Should have done it years ago.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: Jerem Jordan's going to join us, check in on BYU
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: returning from their bye week.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: So all of you anti-BYU folks.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: That's when you can take a bathroom break from listening
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: to the Sean O'Connell Show. Jerem Jordan will be with
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: us for about 20 minutes. UFC fighter Court McGee, there's
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: a pay-per-view, or what used to be a pay-per-view. I've
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: got to get used to not calling them that. There's
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: a numbered event happening in Salt Lake City this weekend.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: It's kind of a weird card, if we're being honest.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: They tried to get an interim title fight or a
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: big-time title fight at the top. A lot of things
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: fell through. You ended up with an interim title fight
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: where it's not exactly star-studded main event. However, the early
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: card has some really good fights on it, including the
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: first fight of the night with one of our favorite
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: local Suns. Court McGee will join us on the show
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: today to talk about what I believe is going to
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: be his retirement fight.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: He's 40 years old now.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: He's been in the UFC for like 15 years, and
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: I think he's going to go out the way that
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: he came in here in Salt Lake City. So I
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: very much look forward to having that conversation with Court McGee,
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: UFC in town on Saturday night at the Delta Center. Obviously,
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: The Delta Center are going to be hosting big-time events
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: again Thursday night.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Mammoth season opens against the Chicago Blackhawks.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Saturday night, the UFC's in town, concerts, jazz basketball sooner
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: than later, and we look forward to every single bit
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: of it. Unpacking some things in the Utah bye week,
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: doing some comparatives on what is still to come for
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: the youths. And of course, looking back at what we
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: have seen and it's, I want to make sure we
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: preface whatever I have to say with the statement that
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: it is deliberately nitpicky going through any of these things
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: we're going to go through today because Utah is a
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: good football team.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: They might be a great football team.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: They have the makings of both a good football team
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: and potentially a great football team. I have not seen
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: anything excessively alarming as of yet.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: 877-353-0700.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: If there's something that really is bothering you, people have
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: been bringing in things like, you know, the offense bogging
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: down at certain points, the defense allowing sustained drives to
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: teams like Idaho. That can be problematic moving forward. I
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: don't expect this team to be perfect. I do expect
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: them to chase perfection. I know that's what they're doing.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: But we're seeing some really good things. There are some
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: top individual performers. Defensively, we have yet to really see
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: someone jump out as, like, the guy. I think Jackson
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Benny deserves to be mentioned in a conversation like that.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: I think Trey Reynolds had one quiet game against Arkansas
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: and otherwise has looked really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: really good. So we'll get to all of that on
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: the show today. I wanted to address something that was
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: of concern for people on the text line at 877-353-0700.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: As long as you want to weigh in, we'd love
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: to hear from you. You can call, you could text, whatever.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: The third quarter in particular for the University of Utah
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: football team has been.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: A bit of a.
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: Problem.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Might even be too strong of a word. It's been
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: a bit of an annoyance.
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: A bit of an issue. A bit of an itch
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: that Utah football is having a hard time coming out
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: of the halftime break firing on all cylinders. Now, the
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: adage in college football is, well, halftime adjustments, halftime adjustments,
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: halftime adjustments. If you remember, I don't recall exactly which
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: week it was. We had Morgan Scali when he was
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: still the defensive coordinator on last year. And I asked
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: him a couple of questions about defensive adjustments. And he
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: kind of gave me the, hold on a second. And
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: he was laughing a little bit. He said, I don't
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: know if I've ever made significant halftime adjustments in a
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: football game ever. And I was like, what are you
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: talking about? He said, look, dude, we go in the
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: locker room. We talk about a couple of things. Everybody
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: gets a drink. You have the little like electrolyte gummies
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: or you have a snack, eat a protein bar, whatever.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: You take a pee and then you get back out
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: there and you play. Halftime goes like this. unless it's
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: a super bowl halftime show or there's some kind of
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: special presentation, halftime is short and the coordinators are running
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: down from the booth and then they're leaving to run
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: back up to the booth and they're there in talking.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: To the team for like seven minutes.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: And he, he gave me like a gentle correction on the,
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: even on the idea of halftime adjustments being what I
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: think a lot of us consider halftime adjustments to be.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: They're not playing Madden. They're not playing NCAA football. It's not,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: you have every single play in your playbook, offensive and
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: defensively available to you to call at all moments of
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: a game with the same level of execution. And why
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: I say that is because the same level of execution
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: is dependent on how many times you.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: You've practiced it. You've discussed it. You've walked through it.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: The comfort that your players have in that particular defensive
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: set that they have in that blitz package.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: How many times have they run that stunt? Have these
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: guys run that stunt together?
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: You go about the offensive playbook and it's like Kevin
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: McGibbon has told us Devin Dampier has told us you
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: got 200 plus plays available to you in the playbook.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: You're not practicing all 200 plays. in preparation for the
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: next game. You're indexing towards the one you think are
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: going to work best. You're pushing the ones and you're
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: repping the ones that you think maximize your potential against Kansas,
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: against Houston, against BYU, against West Virginia, against whoever it
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: is that you're rolling out there to play.
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: So it's, somewhat analogous to the video games that we
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: play where you just scroll over to your menu and
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: you go by formation and then you pick whatever pass
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: play you want the avatars the the players in your
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: video game are not human beings that have had to
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: practice and internalize and communicate they run the routes that
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: the route map shows because that's how the video game
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: works that's you fall short of that as a real
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: football player as executing on that same level when we're
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: talking about a game day experience. So I want to
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: shy away from, I want to, I want to steer
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: away from saying, all right, well, you just need better
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: halftime adjustments because I don't think that's it. I don't
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: think when we look at the lack of offensive production
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: in the third quarter and the lack of, of defensive performance, discipline,
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: explosiveness in the third quarter of these football games.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's an adjustment problem.
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's a, well, you're supposed to go
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: in and you're supposed to remake your playbook and you're
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: supposed to tweak everything that you did, or you're supposed
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: to roll out the thing that your second half game
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: plan that you didn't show in the first half.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: And I say that because the.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: Head coach of the football team right now is the
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: guy that came on these airwaves last year and said,
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: and basically said, don't, don't say that. Like, don't expect
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: us to make significant halftime adjustments. Now I think there
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: needs to be some variation in the looks you give.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: I think there needs to be some variation in your
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: response to the looks that an offense gives.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: At halftime, but it's not something.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: That you're adjusting with the team at halftime.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: Does that make sense? It's not something that you're installing
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: at halftime.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: You're not walking down and going to the whiteboard and saying,
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: all right, I know we've never practiced this, but here's
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: a new play This is what it's called. And this
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: is what we're going to run. This is how it
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: goes in the second half. If you do that, you
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: are failing as a coach. If you need to do that,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: you have already failed as a coach. If cold Swan
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: runs down and says, Hey guys, sorry, I totally screwed
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: up our preparation this week.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: Here's what we're going to do with this casino blitz.
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: And he starts drawing something up on the whiteboard and
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: the players are just like, wait, we haven't done that before. Yeah,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: I know we haven't done it and we're not going
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: to be able to practice it. We're going to practice
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: it here in the game. That doesn't happen. So when
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: we talk about halftime adjustments, it's not that okay. It's
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: not an alteration of a system that you may or
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: may not have already practiced. 877-353-0700. Mike from Harriman is
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: on the line and wants to talk about it.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Mike, what's up? Mike, are you still there? James is
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Mike still holding. Yeah, he is. We got, you got me, Mike.
• 11:09
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I got you. Do you have me now?
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I have you. How are you? Good.
• 11:14
  Speaker 7: I'm doing good. Um, quick one for you. I understand
• 11:19
  Speaker 7: you're saying about halftime adjustments, but it seems like we
• 11:22
  Speaker 7: come out flat. Is that different? And then secondly, it
• 11:27
  Speaker 7: seemed like they were picking on seven running. He's a
• 11:30
  Speaker 7: great run defender, but I, I don't know about they're
• 11:35
  Speaker 7: picking on seven in the past game until they adjusted
• 11:39
  Speaker 7: to it. Anyway, your comments on that.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you for the phone call, Mike.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: And yes.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: So, um, Coming out flat is different than halftime adjustments.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: Coming out flat is a problem that I think this
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: team is having a little bit. And when I say problem,
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: I mean it's not a curse. It's not a killer.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: It's not something that is keeping you from winning these games, obviously.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: But either it's less enthusiasm, less excitement. You're just not
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: quite as hyped. Maybe there's a fatigue factor. Maybe you're
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: not hydrating enough in the first half. Uh, maybe there's
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: guys who need a five hour energy or something. Maybe
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: there's a cramp at half. I have no idea. I
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: think that there is a visible difference between the intensity
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: of those first eight minutes of the second half and
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: what you're seeing from this team in the first half.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: And that goes through the first and the second quarter.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: And I'm not saying everything is perfect and great. When
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: you start these games, obviously we've had some big time errors,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: but from several different players in the first half. And
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: you've had great plays from players, you know, even in
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: those first few minutes of the second half, but I'm
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: just talking about the overall, the overarching team performance in
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: the third quarter in particular has been something that has
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: me scratching my head a little bit.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: And I don't, I'm not going to pretend here that
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I have the solution.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to pretend here that I'm the coach
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: and knows exactly how to fix this. If I did,
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't be sitting here. doing daytime radio. I'd be
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: on a staff somewhere making a lot more money.
• 13:13
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: But I think a lot of us are.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: Recognizing this to the other point Mike made where Iowa
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: state started to pick on John who hall that, that
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: is a halftime adjustment that a team can start to
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: look at.
• 13:30
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: Because what that is, is that they don't have to
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: practice a They don't have to install something new to say,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: all right, identify where seven is at and throw the
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: ball to who he is guarding. That's not an adjustment
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: that requires a week of practice. That's not an installation
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: of a new play. That is a potential acknowledgement from
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: an offensive staff that thinks, hey, we might have identified
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: a weak link here. You see this all the time
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: when a guy goes out, when like a starter limps
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: off the field or something. A veteran quarterback doesn't even
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: need to be told, but non-veteran quarterbacks just get, now
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: they have the microphones in their ears, right? Their helmets,
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: the quarterback earpieces, they don't have the ear hole in
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: their helmet anymore, right?
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: You've got the communicator. You've got the radio in there.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: So like a.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Tom Brady type, and hopefully a Devin Dampier type at
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: this point in his career, they see, oh, Injury timeout,
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: starting corner from the opposition goes out. They're bringing in
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: some guy whose uniform's all clean. He doesn't have a
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: sweat stain on him yet.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: What do you do? You attack that guy.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: You recognize a potential weakness, or you're at least going
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: to test it. If Iowa State saw something from John Uhal,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: who is a much better run defender than he is
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: a pass defender, if they identified something in John Uhal
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: and they told their quarterback that hey, look, I want
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: you to throw at seven.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: The routes are not changing significantly. His reads are.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: Probably just saying, hey, skip the first read and go
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: to that as your primary. Those are halftime adjustments that
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: make sense. When we talk about halftime adjustments for this
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: university of Utah football team. I think a lot of
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: us are saying, well, it's a mentality adjustment. Potentially it's
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: an intensity adjustment. Potentially Derek texted this in. This has
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: been the mindset of each quarter. First game plan.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Second. Oh good.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: Let's extend the lead a little third. We don't want
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: to humiliate them. So take the foot off the gas fourth.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Oh crap. They made a run. Let's put up some
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: more points to close the game out. It's a dangerous game.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: They're playing.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Derek, I don't believe that is the case at all.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: I don't believe that Morgan Scali one time this year
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: has said to himself or his assistant coaches, I don't
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: want to embarrass him.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: I don't believe it.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Not in the third quarter, not in the second quarter,
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: maybe in the final possession of the fourth. saying like,
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: we're not going to throw anymore against Utah state. It's
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: 33 to zero. Let's just finish this game out. Let's
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: get everyone out of here.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Healthy.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: Maybe a situation like that. They're not having that conversation
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: in the third quarter. I promise you that they are
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: not saying we don't want to embarrass anybody in the
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: third quarter.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: That is malpractice.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: That is malfeasance from a coaching staff, from a head coach,
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: especially because the unfortunate reality in college football now is
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: you can be undefeated with a bunch of three point
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: victories in the big 12 conference. You have zero style points.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: And there is a member of the committee. Who's going
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: to punish you for that. All of these people know it, right?
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: This is a BYU conversation. Kalani Satake against Arizona decided
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: not to score at the end of the game. They,
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: they were in the red zone. They were like inside
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: the five, if I'm not mistaken, and they're kneeling it down.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: There's like a minute and, 40 seconds left on the
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: clock and they're kneeling it down. And there's plenty of
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: people wearing Cougar blue who are just like, no man,
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: you got to punch that in Brent Brennan and Kalani
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Satake on the Oregon state staff lived in the same neighborhood.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Their kids played together.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: They are friends. They like spent time together, cookout barbecue.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: I'll shovel your walk. You shovel mine, whatever kind of situation.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: The game was in hand. He wasn't going to rub
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: it in and he decided to kneel it down. And
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: there's a bunch of people who are just like, no,
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: you got it. You got to keep the foot on
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: the gas pedal.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: That's a different point. That's a, we could have scored.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: We're right there to score.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: And we decided not to, I promise you, there is
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: nobody in the building at the university of Utah that
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: when you're up 17 coming out of the half, they're
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: saying like, all right, guys, we're cool. Everyone just chill
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: a little bit. Don't try so hard. Now, if there's
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: a subconscious conveyance of that mentality, that's also a problem,
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: but I don't believe it.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Is there my, my question is, is it possible that
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: we're talking about Utah state game and the Iowa state
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: game in particular, where they just couldn't score as much
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: in the second half, right? They got seven points. I
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: think in both those halves, the 14 points total between
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: the two games. Is it possible, particularly Iowa State, that
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Iowa State just did better in that third quarter to
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: almost shut them out? Utah State did that in the
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: second half to only give up seven points. Is that
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: not possible, especially a Big 12 team who's at home?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: They're not a great Big 12 team, but they're still...
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Power 14 when it comes to Iowa State. That's how
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I read the game is that Iowa State just did
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: a lot better in the second half to give Utah's
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: offense fits.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: There is the element that we don't talk about here
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: on the Home of the Utes of like, if you're
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: Iowa State and it's your first conference game and it's
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: a home game, right?
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: And you're down 27 and you're just like, oh crap.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: Guys, their conversation they're having at halftime is, if you
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: don't play better now, not in the fourth quarter, if
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: you don't play better right now, you're losing this game.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: These guys are on scholarship, too. They've got NIL deals, too.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: There are some really good players over there. That Sullivan
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Slim Jim kid that made it sound like they kept
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: saying Slim Jim. They have some good players for Iowa State, right?
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: They're not as good. They're not as talented. They don't
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: have as many across the board. They're not ready to
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: beat Utah right now. They brought in 83 new players.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: They don't have the same team chemistry. That's probably why
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: they had the big deficit in the first place. But
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: you do have to give some credit where it's due
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: to the opposition, where it's just like, guys, there's a
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: recognition there. We have to play better. We have to
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: execute better. We might have to simplify things a little better.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: I need you running to the ball more. We know
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: this now. Our halftime adjustment, since we're going to abuse
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: that term today, our halftime adjustment is that number one
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: in red for the University of Utah.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: The first guy is not getting him down. Assume that.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: When you're on your pursuit angle, when you're running to
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: the ball, when you recognize what the play is, know
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: that the first contact is not getting that dude down.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: So you better be sprinting full speed, even.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: If you think, oh, there's three guys there, I'm just
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: going to do the thing where I jog my way
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: to the pile. No, you better be sprinting your behind
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: off because he's not going down. Maybe it took them
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: a half to realize that, and they come out after
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: halftime and they realize, okay, we're going to do a
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: better job here. Look, it's a hard thing to put
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: your finger on. The reason I don't have an answer
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: for you is because.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: The University of Utah's playbook is not dramatically different in
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: the third quarter than it is in the first, offensively
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: or defensively.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I think there's an intensity issue here.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: I think that there's an urgency issue here because you're
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: coming out of the half with leads. If the shoe
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: were on the other foot and Morgan Scali has to
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: blister the paint on the walls at halftime, You guys
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: probably come out of the tunnel in the second half
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: a little bit differently. There's human nature to this, but
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: it's a dangerous game to play. And Derek put that
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: in the end of his tweet. It's a dangerous game
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: to play to be like, I don't know.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: And I think it's totally possible if the coaching staff
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: is still Morgan and company are still coaching and speaking
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: with the same intensity as if it was a tie
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: game or they're down at the half as if they're
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: up by a couple of scores to half like they
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: have been so far this season. But also there could
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: just be the guys on the field not coming out
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: with that same urgency.
• 21:59
  Speaker 9: Right?
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: That, that could be what's happening too. And that's something
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: that needs to be addressed. If that's the case, Speaker 2, here's.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: The scoring breakdown for the university of Utah so far
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: through four games. And, and here's another thing that when
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: I read these numbers for you, I want you to
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: put yourself in a realistic scenario, go back to whatever
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: sport you played and tell me if your foot is
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: on the gas pedal, the same way as a player,
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: when I give you these breakdowns, okay. So far this year,
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: the University of Utah football team, through four games, has
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: scored 54 points in the first quarter.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: They've given up three. They've given up three first quarter
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: points so far. Yeah, that was Arkansas, right? They came
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: out with the lead. Seven-minute drive, seven-and-a-half-minute drive. Ended in
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: a field goal.
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: That's it.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: That's wild that that's the only first quarter points, yeah.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: In the second quarter so far through four games, Utah
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: has scored 56 points and given up 10. So we
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: are at 110 points scored by the Utes in the
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: first half and 13 points given up by the Utes
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: in the first half so far.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Which is an average of four games. You're giving up
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: four points a half about.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Now third quarter. And this is why the third quarter
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: has been bugging me, right? third quarter offense. And, and
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: maybe I appreciate the suggestion here on the text line
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: from 49 54. I think they just got a little
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: cute coming out of the half. Maybe stick to the basics.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: Start that drive.
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: We, by the way, we saw that when Utah, after the,
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: after the over B stretch, stretch out and get the
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: first down, get within a score, get within a score
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: kind of a thing.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Crowds in it. What did you talk? Get back to
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: and the ball, the way.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: They're just like, here's what we're going to do. We're
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: going to abuse you now, Iowa state. And I, I,
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: that mentality, by the way, means a heck of a
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: lot more and is a lot more indicative of what
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: this team is going to be than any concern you
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: might have about coming out of the, out of the half, right?
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: The fact that Morgan Scali and Kevin McGiven and everyone
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: else on that staff and the players themselves, they say,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: all right, guys, this is as close to in trouble
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: as we are going to be in this game.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: No desperation.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: I I'm projecting here, but I imagine Morgan walking into
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: the offensive huddles. They're about to break and get back
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: on the field and going, okay, just.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Go, just go impose your will. Just go, go win
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: the game, kick their asses.
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: Just go. Yeah.
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: And the, the fact that you go to that or
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: that you can go to that is very meaningful, especially
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: given five new starters on the offensive line.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: So again, I want us to make sure, cause we're
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: being nitpicky today.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: We're being complainers today about the stuff we don't like
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: about this team. I want to make sure that you
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: remember that when Iowa state, maybe you got a little
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: cute in the third quarter when Iowa state started to
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: make a push and they rallied your offense goes back
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: out there, gets possession back. And it's just like, uh,
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: our guys averaging 10 yards of carry. So we're just
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: going to let him do that. And then you marched
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: down the field and you score and you're, you're fine.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: 28 points scored in the third quarter for Utah's offense.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: That's half of their production in each of the first
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: two quarters on average this season. 28 points scored by
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Utah in the third quarter of games so far. They've
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: also given up 14 points in third quarters. Production offensively
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: goes back up a little bit in the fourth quarter.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: You've scored 35 points in the fourth quarter. You've given
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: up 14 points in the fourth quarter. So right now, defensively,
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: especially this is a first half football team. You've given
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: up 13 points in the first half. You've given up
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: 28 points in the second half. Take everything here with
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: a grain of salt because you've given up.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: What is that? 41 points on the season and you've
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: scored 173. Yeah.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: You're, you're averaging about 10 points allowed a game.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: You're quadrupling up on your opposition right now. And that is,
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: as important a part of this conversation as anything else.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: But as we're drilling down on the details here, the
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: third quarter is the quarter that you're looking at the
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: numbers and you're saying that becomes problematic against better competition.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: If we're not staying steady with our execution, staying steady
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: with our production in the third quarter. And the numbers
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: say you are not time of possession also says you
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: are not. If we are, if we're letting other people
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: seize momentum back in the third quarter against better teams,
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: that is going to matter. You also have to ask
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: the question, what do we look like if we ever
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: have to play from behind? Because you haven't had to
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: play from behind in a meaningful way so far this year,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: because you're starting the game so strong.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: Let's keep doing the stuff we're doing in the first half.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: Let's keep approaching things the exact same way out of
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: the tunnel. When this game kicks off, when this game starts,
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: whether it's a night game or it's a day game,
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: it's at home, it's on the road, whether it's sunshine,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: whether it's rain, our first half stuff has looked really,
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: really good.
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: I want.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Third quarter improvement.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: If I'm Morgan Scali, I am catering practice to that.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: I am catering game planning to that. I'm catering everything
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: to that. Not because I feel there's a need to
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: panic right now. Not because I think that this is
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: something that indicates you have a deep issue with this team.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: only because you're striving for perfection here. And perfection looks
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: like 54 in the first quarter, 56 points in the
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: second quarters, 48 points in the third quarters, and 47
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: points in the fourth quarters. You're slowing down in the
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: second half, both offensively and defensively. You're allowing teams to
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: score more in the second half, and you are scoring
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: less in the second half, and especially in that third quarter.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: Maybe that means.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Condition, condition, condition, condition, condition, wear this team out and
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: then practice. I want good practice when you're tired. I
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: want intensity when you're tired. Maybe that's it. It doesn't
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: strike me as that being the case because I haven't
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: looked at this team or anyone on this team and
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: been like, oh man, he's way more gas than he
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: should be, even in.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: The third and fourth quarter.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: But this is the science. or this is where the
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: science meets the tactics of football. You look at the
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: numbers and you say, why is this happening? Why are
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: we slower? Why are we not executing as well? Why
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: are whatever, whatever realistic halftime adjustments other teams are making,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: why are they better than our halftime adjustments? You got
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: to be able to answer those questions before you get
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: to the tougher teams on the schedule. And by the way,
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: because of how the big 12 is this year, I
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: don't even know who the tougher teams on the schedule
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: actually are yet.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Right now, it looks like there might only be two
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: with Houston and BYU, but there probably is going to
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: be one or two more.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Cincinnati is a road game. They're 4-0. Yeah, that's one.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: TCU might end up being that, but they don't look
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: like that so far.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: TCU kind of looks like a stinker Arizona, who I
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: thought was going to be really good.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: I don't think that they're as good as I thought
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: they were going to be. However, yet they're three in one.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: Guess what? Guess what?
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: Arizona did last, last week, Arizona started the game. Slow
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: looked kind of bad.
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: Came rolling.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Back late.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: Do you believe that your Utah team based on what
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: we've seen so far is capable of the same thing?
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: And West Virginia at the end of the year is
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: suddenly a game you have to pay closer attention to.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: I think what we saw on film against Oklahoma state
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: from them, it's like, just make the quarterback throw and
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: you're going to be fine. but they've got a crazy
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: formidable rushing attack. And if you're giving up too much running,
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: like that's when the run game and the run defense
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: that's in the second half of games, that's when things
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: start to break down.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: So how do you solve this problem? I don't know.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: I am not the coach. However, we've identified the problem.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: Now go solve it.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: I know. And by the way, they've identified this problem.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: I I've talked to people before we did. They did.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: They did it.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: They did it in week one when they were just like, hey,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: what's going on here? Why didn't we score any in
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: the third quarter? Why did we slow down here? Why
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: did we allow that sustained drive from an Idaho offense
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: in the third quarter where our guys were standing with
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: their hands on their hips against an FCS team?
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: They're figuring it out.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: But the third quarter, man, that's 28 points scored by
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: your Utes, 14 points given up by your Utes. You're
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: still 4-0 for obvious reasons. But that has been the
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: weak link production-wise, that third quarter.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's reminiscent of, we're going to get Gordie
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: on here to switch to some NBA and jazz talk
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: in a couple minutes. It's reminiscent of those dominant Warriors
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: teams with Steph and KD, right? And most of the
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: really good NBA teams over the last decade plus, they
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: are great in the third quarter. That's where the games
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: are won. It might be tight at the half. They
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: might play even with you in the fourth quarter, but
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: the third quarter is where they separate themselves. I don't
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: think it's that different in football, and Utah's just got
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: it differently. They're separating themselves in the first half, and
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: they're able to survive bad third quarters.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: They're not going to be able to do that all
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: season long like you're saying.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: And a great text coming in, and a couple of
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: people have made this point, and it's the reason I–
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: I read the scores for you and I asked you
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: to put.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Yourself in a realistic scenario here.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: If you are up by three or four scores in
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: the first half, every game, are you as a player
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: legitimately as a coach, even are you as legitimately amped
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: up crazy about the second half where you're just saying
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: like to yourself, okay, let's go.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: You're convincing yourself. All right, let's go. All right.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: Go out and stay clean. All right, go out and
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: stay intense. Urgency matters. And urgency is hard to manufacture.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: There's no button in the human psyche that you can
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: magically create desperation when the situation doesn't call for it. Also,
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: you're playing a lot of backups in these fourth quarters.
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: Third quarter, not so much. That's why the third quarter
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: is the point of focus for me.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: The fourth quarters, though, you're playing a lot of backups
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: in at least three of these four games. All right,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: we've got to take a break. Gordy Chiesa is going
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: to swing by.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: We'll talk, you guessed it, a little Utah jazz in
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: the NBA ahead of a new season beginning right around
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: the corner. Sean O'Connell's show on Utah's number one sports talk,
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: Peace out.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Peace out.
• 33:19
  Speaker 10: Peace out.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: Welcome in Gordy Chiesa, NBA guru, Utah Jazz insider, longtime
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: assistant coach in the association, friend of the program, and
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: a staple here for all things basketball coverage on the
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: Sean O'Connell Show.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Gordy, welcome back. How are you, sir?
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Sean, I'm doing well. This is our third year together,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: you and I, and this is my 10th year with
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the ESPN Radio 700, so I'm ecstatic.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: Well, we're ecstatic to have you. And, you know, the
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: NBA season right around the corner, jazz will tip off
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: the regular season on the road against Memphis on October 21st.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: So we're roughly three weeks away from this.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: And, you know, this is a team now that had
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: their media day and you got to hear from some
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: of the young cats and you got to hear from
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: will Hardy. And I, I want to start with the
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: coach because I, We've been talking about it for a
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: couple of years now, a couple of off-seasons especially. You've
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: got to find a way to flip this switch. Now
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: it's time to compete. Now you're not tanking. Now you're
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: not maximizing draft position. Now you're not manipulating your lineup
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: to make sure that you're getting young players to develop,
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: but also not actually trying to win games. And you
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: get to put the foot on the gas pedal and
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: actually go. What kind of relief is this coaching staff
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: feeling right now that they don't have to do any
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: of that tomfoolery and they just get to coach what
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: we hope is winning basketball.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much. Right now they're very happy about now
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: this is a direction that there's no more rebuilding, that
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the Jazz have a bunch of young guys that have
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: some experience and then some veterans led by Larry Markin
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and Jaron Jackson and Yusef Nurkic and Keontae George. So
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: they're going to try to blend both of them. So
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the coaching staff is ready to go. As always with
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the Jazz, they can score the ball. And they have
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: a multi-talented group of people that are offensive-minded. Now, as always,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the Jazz, the last two years, they've struggled defensively. So
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: they've got to correct that. And I'm sure starting today
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: at 10 o'clock this morning local time, the Jazz are
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: working on defensive drills and, more importantly, accountability. So if
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: the Jazz go forward this season, it's all based on– Offensively,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: can they keep scoring the ball at a high percentage?
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: But defensively, can they guard the ball initially and also
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: guard the basket? Just quickly, last year, reference point, the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Jazz are 30 in the NBA last year. as far
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: as most of the points allowed, to get the most
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: three-point shots up in the NBA and with at least
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: shots as far as blocked at the rim in the NBA.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: So they've got to correct it. And I know that
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: they're talking about it all the time, and now it
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: starts right now today.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: Who are the players you expect to spearhead that defensive effort, Gordy?
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: You don't have Walker Kessler anymore, who when healthy you
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: thought could be kind of an elite rim protector, but
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: he's not going to solve your problems out on the
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: perimeter with allowing too many three-point shots.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: So it's not just a one-man job.
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: Who are the players that you expect maybe this coaching
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: staff will focus on or maybe they personally will take
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: it under their, you know, I guess their own responsibility
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: to improve this team defensively?
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: Who are going to be the leaders there?
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: He's got to get better. He's number one. Also, Larry Markkinen,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: who can score the ball offensively. He's a tremendous talent player.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: he's got to be able to guard his position. That's
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: both at small forward, and I'll call him stretch forward,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: and maybe a quasi-five man. When they go ultra-small, they
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: play him at five. So those two guys, Ace Bailey,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: who's got innate athletic talent, he has to get better
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: as far as forward, and also Yusuf Nurkic. He can't foul.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: He starts fouling sometimes on layup lines. That's how crazy
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: it is. So he's got to be able to just...
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: As always, just like in the NFL, how can I
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: be physical with technique? That's the question for Yusuf Nurkic
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: and all the other big guys. And the big guys
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: are Jackson Hayes and Mo Bamba. and Kyle Filipowski, and
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: then Jaron Jackson. All five of those guys, can they
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: play interior defense without dramatically fouling? And so that's what's
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: going to– those are the main guys have to do it. Quickly,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: the Jazz added two guys, though, defensive-minded from newcomers, Josh
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Okoji and Josh Green. And both those guys, their M.O.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: is defense. It's defensive as far as on-off ball. So
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: they should improve the Jazz defense, especially in the second unit.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Gordy Chiesa is our guest talking a little Utah Jazz
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: about three weeks ahead of the season tipping off here
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: in the NBA NHL season puck drops this week. Thursday night,
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: Delta Center, Utah Mammoth versus Chicago Blackhawks.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: And then the Jazz will be right behind them.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: We had, you know, we've seen kind of a breakout
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: year from Keontae George and he got paid for it.
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: And there was some question about whether or not this
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: deal was going to get done before the season, whether
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: it was going to be something that we had to
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: wait for. How does it change the dynamic between players, coaches, teammates,
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: et cetera, now that everyone knows, all right, Keontae, you
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: earned this and you got paid. What does it do
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: to change, I guess, his relationship in the room?
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: He's a top dog. He has the ball in the
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: game as far as a point guard. It's his fourth season,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: and the Jazz, they developed him, and now it's time
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: for him to to help the franchise as far as winning,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and he can. He's been a tremendous metaphor for us
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: in his personality as far as him really being team-orientated.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: So it's fascinating how it's his development, and he's a
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: very talented offensive player. I mentioned it's defensive is going
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: to be a concern. as quickly as contract for all
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: the listeners. It makes this year still $ 6. 5 million. That's
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the old contract. Next year, 27, 28, that's when it
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: kicks in. 27.1 million, 28, 29, 29.3 million, 29, 30, 31.5 million, 30, 31, 33.6 million,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and then 31, 32, 35.8 million. So I say that
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: purposely because he's their guy now. So there's no gray area.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: As they go forward, he's going to be the main
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: guy along with his trusted sidekick, young fella, Darren Peterson
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: and Ace Bailey. So when the players should look at
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: him as them being their team leader, both on the court,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: but also his contract in place. So there's no like,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: you know, you're not respecting me.
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: Yes, we are.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: We paid you. Now it's time for you to play well,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: especially as the Jets try to attempt to make the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: playoffs this year.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: Take me inside what a film session is like, what
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: a coaching conversation is like when you have somebody like
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: Darren Peterson in on the roster because, you know, this
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: is a guy that people say his ceiling is Kobe Bryant.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: His floor is also pretty darn high. And you want
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: to make sure you develop them the right way. You
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: don't want to hold him back, but you don't want
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: to push him too hard. How are the coaches handling
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: that as you get training camp started?
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: They are going to be on him in a good
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: way because he wants to be coached up. And so
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: he's a major talent. You're talking like Kobe Bryant-type talent.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: So he has the ability to score the ball on
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: his own. He's like a rocket ship himself. He's almost
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: a combination, Sean, of potentially like Kobe Bryant and like
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Dwayne Wade. He's a guard. He's not a point guard.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: So when we say point guard, we mean somebody that
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: tries to get everybody involved initiate the offense. He's a
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: scoring talent with passing skills, and that's good. That's who
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: he is, and do not change him. And so during
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: film sessions and during team practices, they're going to accelerate
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: his progress, where they're going to let him be who
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: he is, but also have accountability of moving the ball.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Like all young players, they over-dribble. So in practice, I'm
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: sure they're emphasizing moving the ball, and on the second
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: side of the floor... that's a great chance for you
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: to go organize one-on-one. And that's the catch word, being
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: organized as a group. So, Sean, he should start, you know,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: there'll be ups and downs like all rookies, whether it's
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: the NBA or the NFL, because the game is so
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: fast now. And suddenly you're guarding people that also have
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: major talent. But he's part of the future. Jaron Jackson
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: also is part of the future. And he's a veteran.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: And in film chefs, he's a new player. I knew
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: he was there last year. He only played three games.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: but also they're going to focus in on him because
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: he has to help them both offensively and defensively. So
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the Jazz basketball, it's really a bright future. So the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: question is always this, it's who you play against. So
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: out here in the West, you know, there's a thing
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: called the San Antonio Spurs, OKC Thunder, the Denver Nuggets,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the Houston Rockets. The Timberwolves, with now Anthony Edwards and
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: LaMelo Ball as a group right now, the Jazz will
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: be challenged to try to catch those guys in the standings.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: For several years now, Lowry Marketing has been your best
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: player with the Utah Jazz. Does this organization want that
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: to remain true in the 2026-2027 season?
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: No.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: They want Darren Peterson eventually and Ace Bailey because they
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: have more talent. The NBA is a talent league. Larry
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Malkin does have talent. That's not my issue saying that.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: But these other guys have just more innate talent, athleticism, bounciness.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: They can create their own shots. Larry Malkin is a
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: mismatch offensive because of his skill set. But the other
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: guys have talent. Now, Larry Malkin, if I was counseling him,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: he has the ability to score with this group, score
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: between 21 to 23 points a game, and that would
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: be wonderful. And then Darren Peterson and Keontae George and
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Jaron Jackson and Yusuf Nurkic and an ace barely off
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the bench, probably. I was asked this question shortly earlier
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: today by a colleague of mine back east in the NBA.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: I'm saying the Jets are probably going to start Keontae
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: George at one, Darren Peterson at two, Larry Marketing at,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: I'll call him a small forward at three. Stretch forward,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Jaron Jackson. And five, the Bosnian bully, Yusuf Nurkic. And
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: off the bench, Isaiah Kalia, Ace Bailey, Bryce Sensabaugh, Kyle Filipowski,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and probably Jackson Hayes. That's the Jazz 10 guys as
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: far as in the rotation as of today, first day
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: of practice.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: It's easy to get so focused on Darren Peterson that
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: you kind of let Ace Bailey, at least as a fan,
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: become more of an afterthought. But he's obviously going to
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: be massive for this franchise in the future. What does
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: he need to develop? What is the next step for
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: him heading into this year?
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Defensively, when you're a two-guard or a small foot in
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: the NBA, you're guarding some of the best players in
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: the world on a weekly situation. Every night. And so, again, offensively,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: as I always talk about it, do not try to
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: outscore the opposition. Try to outplay them. And within that,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: you're going to score points. So Ace Bailey has the
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: ability to, again, the average would say as a six-man starter.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I'll call him a starter as a six-man. He has
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: the ability to score in the second season. And let's
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: not forget, he just turned 20 this past August 13th.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: So his development will be defensively. moving your feet, playing
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: aggressive defense without overly fouling, being able to win mismatch
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: rebounds against someone that outweighs you by 60 pounds, not
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: as far as height, but as far as strength in
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the lane. And so he's got to be able to
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: get leverage. In all sports, Sean, who has the leverage?
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Who has more leverage in the game as far as
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: using your legs and your hips to be able to
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: create balance versus mismatches where people have more sprint than you,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: but you have better leverage at that split second. That's Bailey.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Tremendous young talent, though.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: Gordon, she is there for another minute or two here
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: on the Sean O'Connell show. The last time we had
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: you on, we had not yet achieved full resolution of
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: the Kawhi Leonard situation. The trade hadn't gone all the
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: way through. The Steve Ballmer suspension and punishment was still
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: kind of up in the air. Did that that Clippers'
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: situation get resolved in a way that best serves all parties.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. The Clippers blatantly circumvented the salary cap rules.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Everybody knew it. The NBA did the right thing. They
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: were patient. They hired an outside counsel, and they investigated
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: it through and through. And so... Again, Sean, you can't
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: be doing that as far as giving, quote, side deals
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: like it's the JV. This is the NBA. Everybody knows
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: each other's business. You might interpret it differently, but this
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: is how it happened. And so, but listen quickly, that
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: they were– the owner was suspended for a whole year.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: They suspended the president for a whole year. They suspended
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Lawrence Frank for half a season. And worse than that, though,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: they forfeited five first-round draft picks each year from 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: and 2033. So it's one of the worst punishments of all,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: and hopefully that will just make everyone else pause if
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: they think they can pull one over on the rest
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: of the colleagues. Remember, the MBA owners are very smart people.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: They're all billionaires. They innately understand business, and when someone
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: does something that's really bad for the business model, They responded,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and the NBA league office, they absolutely did the right thing.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: They were patient, and now it's over.
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: We saw, we got the first glimpse of LeBron James
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: in that Philadelphia 76ers uniform with the fully shaved head,
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: you know, another season for one of the all-time greats,
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: another new franchise for LeBron James. Obviously, we'll adjust our
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: expectations as the season progresses and we see what health
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: looks like. for not only LeBron, but for Joel Embiid,
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: but your first blush prediction for Philadelphia with LeBron on
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: that roster.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: He'll be a major force. It's like Sean right now.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: He turns 42 on December 30th. This is 24th season
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: playing NBA basketball. So he's the most talented player ever
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to play this long with Michael Jordan. being number one,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: but played a much shorter lifespan. LeBron's 24th season. Let's
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: put it in context. John Stockton played 19 great years,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: and Karl Malone played 19 great years. This guy's playing 24,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: hopefully in his world, great years. All right, 76ers. They
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: lost in the second round last year, Sean, to Knickerbockers. Yikes,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: they lost four games to zero, got punched in the face.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: So now they added, the Sixers added LeBron, they added
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Jalen Brown from the Celtics, they added Dean Wade from
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the Cavs, who's the outside shooter, has a stretch, I'll
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: call him Stretch Big, and he added Inferno Simons, and
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: he added Katavius Cole-Pope. To go along with, Therese Maxey,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: who's a tremendous all-star, young VJ Edgecombe, and often injured,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Joel Embiid. That's the question mark. So the Sixers should
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: be right there in the East going against Knickerbockers, who
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: are defending world champions. Again, it should be fascinating. There's
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: so many in the NBA, incredible stories of what I
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: call the great unknown, where if so-and-so plays great or injured,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: what happens? That's the great unknown.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: A lot of guys, interesting guys in new spots or
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: guys coming off injuries like Like Tyrese Halliburton, is he
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: back to full health? And if he is, are the
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: Pacers suddenly a factor in the East again?
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: Yes, they are very much.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: They have a tremendous organization there. Those guys do a
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: great job for the last literally 40 years. Indiana Pacers,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: very similar to the Jets, and the Spurs, and the Thunder, quote,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: small market team. There's a whole bunch of guys for
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: the last decades that all play as a unit. So the...
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Indiana Pacers will be contending also. They'll be in the
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: top five or six. And again, in the playoffs, it's
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: who you play against that first, second round. And that's
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: what's really humbling. So they'll be a factor, the Pacers.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Speaking of a factor, Sean, today's our first list of
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: the year. And I thought about you for the last
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: two months, Sean. which is interesting, me thinking about you
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: to get my drift.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: All right, Sean, here we go. The all-time best left-handed
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: NBA players. If he listens right now, Sean is left-handed.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: So I want to have this first list, Sean, to
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: honor people like you. All these standouts are lefties living
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: in a right-handed world, just like you, Sean. So besides
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Sean O'Connell, other former people that we all know and
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: we all know that are left-handed is former presidents Barack Obama,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and NFL greats Steve Young
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and Kenny the Snake Stabler. These people are all left-handed.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: So here we go. My first list of the new
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: season all-time greatest lefty NBA players. Number 15, Billy Cunningham,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. Number 14, Jalen Brunson, future Hall of Famer,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: NBA champions, New York Knicks. Number 13, Chris Mullen, Hall
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: of Fame. Number 12, Gail Gurvich, Hall of Fame. Number 11,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Bob Lanier, Hall of Fame. Number 10, The A-Train, Artis Gilmore,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. Number nine, we all love this guy,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Manu Ginobili, Hall of Fame. Number eight, Chris Bosh, Hall
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: of Fame. Number seven, Lenny Wilkins, Hall of Fame. Number six,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Dave Cowens, Hall of Fame. Number five, Nate the Skate Archibald,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. Number four, Willis Reed, Hall of Fame.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Number three, he plays for the Cavaliers right now, future
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Hall of Famer James Harden, the second greatest ever left-handed player,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: David Robinson at the Hall of Fame. And the greatest
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: ever left-handed player in the history of basketball is Bill Russell,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. Quickly, Bill Russell, 11 NBA titles, five
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: times league MVP, the greatest ever Game 7 performer, 10-0 record.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: For his career, Bill Russell averaged 15.1 points per game, 22.5
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: rebounds per game, and 4.3 assists. So that's my list
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: of today honoring Sean O'Connell.
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: Oh, it feels good to have a list back. It
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: feels good to have Gordy Chiesa back. He will be
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: joining us throughout the NBA season. Gordy, thank you so
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: much for your time. I always appreciate you, my friend.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Sean. Peace out.
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: Tuesdays on the phone, Thursdays in studio. Gordy Chiesa is back.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Feels good. All right, we'll double up here. Red and
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: blue next.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: Jerem Jordan to talk about BYU coming off of their
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: bye week. It's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: and 92 on FM. My father.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: Taught me many things.
• 54:29
  Speaker 10: You know what they say.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: He taught me, keep your friends close.
• 54:34
  Speaker 7: But your enemy's close.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: Time to check in on the team down south. They
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: have done absolutely nothing wrong. But they're blue.
• 54:41
  Speaker 10: This is the Red and Blue on the Sean O'Connell
• 54:43
  Speaker 10: Show and Utah's number one sports talk.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM.
• 54:47
  Speaker 10: $ 8, 000.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: Off the 2026 Super Duties right now at Murdoch Ford
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: Santa Quinn.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: $ 10, 000.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: Off the 2026 F-150 Lariat. 985 West Summit Ridge Parkway
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: in Santa Quinn, Utah. Murdoch Ford Santa Quinn brings us
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: Red and Blue, where we welcome our BYU insider, friend
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: of the program, Jerem Jordan.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: Jerem, welcome back. How are you, sir?
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: It's good to have a game this week. You know,
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: it's fun as bi-weeks are.
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: They aren't fun.
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: I liked watching, you know, eight ranked teams go down
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: last week. We knew about six of them, but cause
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: there were six ranked matches, but Hey, you.
• 55:35
  Speaker 6: Always got a conference game this week.
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: Let's go baby.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: or BYU. I thought TCU had some athletes had some
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: potential here. I don't know if I still feel the
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: same way about a two and two horn frogs team
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: that didn't look particularly great against North Carolina. Didn't look
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: particularly great on the road against UCF, but you know,
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: it's early in the season. I could be under crediting
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: North Carolina and UCF for beating the horn frogs.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: Does, does this TCU team look.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: Like you thought the one that BYU might be facing
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: in this matchup?
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: .
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: .
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: if
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: I'm TCU, I'm going, Hey, everything we've got top 10
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: team in our house, we can kind of rectify this.
• 56:40
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: So there's a certain sense of urgency that BYU has
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: right now going, we're getting everybody's best shot to the
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: top 10 team here and in league and a certain desperation.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: The North Carolina loss was weird. You could chalk that
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: up to a singular event, but as we've seen, if
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: you go to Dublin, you come back and you lose
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: that game, you come back kind of mess things up.
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: If I was, I would not go to that game
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: ever because we've seen.
• 57:05
  Speaker 6: And then last week, yeah, UCF.
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: Not a world beater. And VCU's 0-2 against Power Forward teams.
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: They scored 23 points in those two games. They do
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: not look nearly as explosive as last year. They were
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: supposed to be a little more balanced with... Gordon Sam
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: is coming in the OC from UConn with Jim Moore.
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: Jim Moore goes to CSU. That was BYU's last game.
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: Now they're facing Sam with the new OC.
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: There, you know, a little more balanced on offense. Nope.
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: They were anything but last week. So not even close.
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: And this has been a TCU team that's They've been
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: pretty good. I know it's been four years since the
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: run to the national championship game, but yeah, there's some struggles,
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: but BYU has got to be just, everyone's going to say, Hey,
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: this could fix our season. And this could be the
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: highlight of our season. So BYU has got to show
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: up and I think they're prepared and ready.
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: When we talked last week, neither you or I liked
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: the timing of this bi-week for BYU, but you take
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: them as they come and you can't change it.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: And you know, they, I'm sure they did their best
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: to handle it.
• 58:03
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: What are you hearing?
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: How did practice go? Did the guys with the bumper
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: bruise get as healthy as they wanted to? I have
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: some insight on what Bear Bachmeier was up to. I'll
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: tell you about that here in just a second.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: But what are you hearing about BYU's bye week?
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: Speaker 3 0 Yeah, they, they got a little healthier,
• 58:20
  Speaker 6: which is good.
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: You know, there's a few guys that didn't play in
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: the Colorado state game that should be back, you know,
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: a tiger Bachmeier receiver Kyle. So far choke on that
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: offensive one, Roger Sully, a pocket tight end. So that's a,
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: that's good. Bad news is BYU starting my tackle. Andrew
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: Gentry had ankle surgery. He's going to be out for
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: probably the majority of the regular season. It sounds like
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: he didn't rule out, you know, and it's not an
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: end of season injury, but The guys behind him are talented,
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: but very inexperienced to combine eight games, played zero starts
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: with a bot. Muli Talo and COC while Latu Finau
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: bought us a really talented four-star guy at a lone
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: peak that could get some real run here. And then
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: COC while it was a red.
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: Shirt last year, although that doesn't exist anymore.
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: So that's, that's a loss. Andrew Gentry was literally the
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: most experienced player on the team with 43 games played.
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: you know, national championship of Michigan, like red shirt, senior
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: fifth year guys, that's, that's a tough blow. But this
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: BYU align, I think has a lot of real strength
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: with it.
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: TJ Woods does a nice job.
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: So that's kind of the, the big negative coming out
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: of the bi-week is shoot.
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: There was a, there was a, you know, extensive injury.
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: Other good news. Kyler Casper got engaged. So you know what,
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: off the field win for a wide receiver, Kyler Casper,
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: congrats to him.
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: Speaker 3 05,050 All right.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: Congrats to him on the Gentry injury. I think I saw,
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: he thought it was just kind of like a sprain,
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: like nothing serious.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: Is that, did I hear that correctly?
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: And then you wanted to get it checked out and
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: they're like, no, this needs to be surgically repaired. So
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: kind of a surprise even for him that it was
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: that bad.
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: Speaker 4 0 1. Yeah.
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: So it happened in the first quarter and he, it
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: kind of felt weird. You know, he, he got shot
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: up and happened and then do I dominate? And he
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: came out kind of midway through the third quarter. And
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: then after the game on the end on Sunday, you know,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: they looked at it and then unfortunately it was required surgery.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: So he had the surgery yesterday and no exact timeline
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: on it, but they, they have not said, Hey, it's,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: it's season ending. So hopefully for what could be a
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 5: very awesome, you know, kind of post season for BYU
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: potentially with hopefully a big 12 title appearance and or
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: college football playoffs and things go great that he could
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: be back at some point later on.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: I ended up at the Santa Ana airport flying back
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: home this weekend after a trip to the beach with
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: my wife and lovely children. And the Bachmeier brothers were there.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: same flight and delayed flight. And it was, it was
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: really interesting to observe how many people in Southern California,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: obviously people flying back to Utah. So most of them,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: Utah residents, but how many people, you know, are on
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: the Bachmeier train. He probably had to take like a
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: hundred or more photos with people just waiting at the
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: airport in California.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: I was like, man, this is, this is a wild
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: time in college football.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 6: They didn't want to take him with MMA legend Sean O'Connell?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: Like, what the freak? Come on, man.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 6: I'm surprised Tiger didn't actually fly the plane.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: He has his pilot's license. And he actually has an
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: NIL deal with some company in Provo that kind of
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: connected him to help him get his hours, which is
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: super cool. Did you see the video bear also.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: Over the weekend where he went to, he was.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: At BYU baseball stadium and Cosmo was over in the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: corner and a kid watched by bear and bears like.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I can sign it.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: And the kid like folds the ball away from him. Like,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: I don't know who you are. And then he runs
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: to Cosmo. Speaker 0 5. It was Barstool sports.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 6: Put it out there.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: It was very funny.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: I did not see that, but that's, that, that shows
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: you the power of Cosmo. That's why they're charging three
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: grand for him to come take a picture with you
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: at the Notre Dame game.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: Did we lose Jerem? We might've lost Jerem. Jerem, are
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: you still there? All right. A bad connection.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: I think we'll have to reconnect with Jerem Jordan. BYU
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: coming off a bye week. And look, I know that
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: people get bothered that we talk about them for 20
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: minutes every week, but this is a really good BYU
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: team that when healthier is a big time problem. Now,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: LJ Martin, the defending returning offensive player of the year
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: in this big 12 conference right now is averaging almost
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: eight yards of carry.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: He's only scored three touchdowns, three rushing touchdowns.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: I say only because I think that that's a guy that,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: you know, as the season progresses, they'll probably lean more
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: and more on. I think he's a guy that you're
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: going to see, you know, potentially get more touches and
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: more targets. He has zero pass catching touchdowns, by the way,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: but he's averaging 7.8 yards of carry. That's top 25
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: in the nation right now. And only he's only carried
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: the ball 42 times through three games, which is, is
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: not a heavy use of someone with his level of accomplishment, right?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: Hey, James, I think we got to reconnect with Jerem.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: He got to.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: Can you hear me okay?
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, there he is. What happened?
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: Oh, nothing.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: Literally nothing. I don't know what changed, but here we are. Okay.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: Weird. You're back. You disappeared for a second. We were
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: talking about... I can't remember. We were talking.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: We're talking about LJ. How much more do they use
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: LJ Martin now that they get into big 12 play?
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: Speaker 3 6, Aaron Roderick has said out loud, listen,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: this guy is one of our best players. If not
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: our best player, we need to get him the ball
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: 20 to 25 times. He said, he's keenly aware of
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 5: how many carries he has within it, within a game,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: you know, going into a game, kind of what probably
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: needs to happen for viewer to have success. when he's
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: had at least 80 yards or more rushing in a game,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: do I has not lost a game when he's worn
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: a BYU uniform, the past four years. And so that's
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: a big deal. Speaker 2, wait, that that's a real stat.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: If he, if LJ Martin goes 80 yards or better,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: they haven't lost in his four years.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: In a Cougar uniform.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: That's correct. So get him the fricking rock, right?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: Or, or somehow prevent him from getting the rock. If
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: you're anyone who's not BYU, that's a wild stat. He's
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: that integral to their success.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: And, and he's that good. Like early on when he
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 5: was a freshman, Aaron was saying, this isn't, this is
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: an NFL running back. Like it was a big deal
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: when he was, he was originally committed to Texas tech,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: by the way, as an El Paso kid in West Texas,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: and then switched over to Stanford and BYU beats Stanford
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: to end the 2022 regular season. And like hours after
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: that game or the next day, David Shaw resigns.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: And then LJD commits.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: And then he comes to Provo. So that, that whole
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: sequence was really important, but the, the 80 thing, I mean,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: it's 17 and Elshon. And then the other step going
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: into the TCU game, that's interesting is the, if BYU
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: holds TCU under 30, they're six and oh, If TCU
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: scores more than 30, 0-7. So basically, don't let Jaden
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: Craig just kind of get loose here with his guys,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: and you're probably in a good spot, historically.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: Speaking of that, for BYU, look, they scored 63 points
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: against Utah Tech. That's what you're supposed to do against
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: Utah Tech. They scored 28 against Arizona. I think Arizona's
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: a good team. I don't know if they're a great team.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: They put up 41 against Colorado State. It's not yet
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: the highest-powered offense that we've seen at BYU over the decades,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: but is this offense, you think, capable of making it
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: 42 points a game? Is this an offense that will
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: win games that way? Can this BYU team get into
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: the kind of like track meet, boat race sort of
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: games and come out successful or because, I mean, you
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: got a quarterback who can run, you've got LJ Martin.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: Is this a team that is going to be more
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: apt to like in big 12 play and potentially beyond,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: or are they trying to keep things a little bit tighter?
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: I think they are more explosive and more high powered
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: than you think. You know, they came out at halftime
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: of the Utah tech game. They came out about halfway
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: through the third quarter against TCU.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: Or Colorado state. Excuse me.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: If the starters had stayed in the game, Sean, they
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: would have 50 or 60 points, but they pulled them
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: to keep them healthy, to get back up some good,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: valuable reps, which is good now. Cause you're playing a
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: different right tackle. Some of those guys got some reps.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: I know some BYU fans complained about some of that,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: but guess what? Those guys have valuable snaps. Now they're
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: against starters this week. So according to pro football network,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: BYU's offense is number 22 in the country expected points
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: added per play eight yards per play fourth points per
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: drive eight. So I would argue they are really explosive.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: They are, they are very good. I think they can
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: go toe to toe in a game like that. And
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: BYU is more kind of adaptable. They but they're very chameleon.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: We saw that last year when LJ Martin got hurt
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: against Iowa state and he didn't play against Georgia tech.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: Then bear Bachmeier had to throw for 300 plus and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: not have LJ there. They can do what it. it,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: they need to do to win because bear Bachmeier is
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: 15 and two as a starter, he's not a young
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: pup anymore. And so, yeah, if they need to pass
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: the ball a ton to beat Arizona, you know, and
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: you get Kyler Casper with two touchdowns and legend glass,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: you're scoring on the ground and getting a 61 yard.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: And then so be it. If you need LJ Martin
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: score three touchdowns in the first quarter and establish the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 5: ground game, You can do that. I think BYU can
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: win a lot of different ways. And Oh, by the way,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 5: BYU against unranked teams has an interception in 12 straight games.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: That's the longest streak in the country. In that situation,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: BYU takes the ball away. They play winning football, whatever
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 5: that looks like on any given Saturday.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: Speaker 0 7, They're last in the conference in sacks.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: Now, I don't know how important this stat is right
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: now in college football, because you know how quickly Teams
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: are getting the ball out of the quarterback's hands by design.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: But typically, if you pressure an opposing quarterback, that's good
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: for your defense. Again, BYU hasn't had to get exotic
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: with blitzes and pressures and stunts and things like that.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: So I don't think this is a capability problem. But
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: is it something that has been talked about or addressed
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: at BYU that they're not pressuring the quarterback? and sacking
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: the quarterback in an ideal pace?
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: .
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 6: .
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: six
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: times in three games. So not overly concerned about it.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: Would love to have it, but honestly, there are certain
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: moments where BYU doesn't get a sack and that results
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: in an interception. And I would rather have that.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 6: And so, yes, you would.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: Love to, you would love to add more of those.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: No one's saying let's not get sacks, but I don't
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 5: know if it's as big a deal as, as perhaps
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: last in the conference makes it seem.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: Jerem Jordan for a couple more minutes here on the
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: Sean O'Connell show talking BYU football as they come off
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: a bye and they'll go on the road to play
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: against a TCU horn frog team that looks a little bit.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: Underwhelming, if we're being honest.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: And that brings us to the point of the conversation, Jerem,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: where we try to figure out the power structure of
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: the Big 12 Conference. We will do this every single
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: week until we actually know later in the year. Cincinnati
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: has decided that they've entered the chat again. West Virginia
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: looked good and Oklahoma State looked bad, but now Oklahoma
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: State looks better than West Virginia. We already talked about
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: the TCU thing. BYU looks like they're the best team
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: in the conference. Utah looks like they might be right
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: behind them in a conversation alongside Texas Tech.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: Help me figure out the tiers of power.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: I mean, metrically, yeah, it's, it's BYU and Utah. And
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: then Texas tech feels just a hair behind those two,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: given that they are undefeated. They do have a ranked win.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 5: I would argue that's the second best win of any
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: team in the league with the win over Houston, obviously
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: Oklahoma state over Oregon should be number one. So that
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: looks good.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 6: You know, BYU and Utah have looked great.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: Utah has looked great. BYU has looked really good. Like
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 5: that Arizona win was, was a big one or early
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: on in conference play. So yeah, it's kind of that group.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: And then You know, Oklahoma state or Houston, who do
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: you have it for? I personally have Oklahoma state at
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: four because of that Oregon win. I know Houston's right
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: there and they went toe to toe on the road
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: with Texas tech on a Friday. And then after that,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: it gets really interesting, right? The kind of Arizona states
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 5: and Cincinnati's like to mention, and I would throw Arizona
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: there as well. Like West Virginia versus.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 6: Oklahoma state was a big one for.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: The Which of you is really the number one dark
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: horse in the league kind of game over the weekend
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: and messed the maker and Hawkins and young kind of
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: showed how good they are. West Virginia is interesting, man.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: They just, they ran the ball 66 times in a game.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 5: They were down and they were still running, which I'm like, wait,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 5: you're not going to throw it. Michael Hawkins jr. Can
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: run really well. Hey, state surprised me negatively.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: Over the weekend.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 5: I thought, Oh, okay. If these guys beat Cincy and
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 5: they're four and Oh, like we need to look at
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 5: them a little more. They lost it since he, which
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 5: can be a tough place to play without Kansas stinks. Colorado,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 5: I know they beat Georgia Tech, but they stink.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: So, yeah, it's interesting.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 5: It's very.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 6: Rhys Davis said, I don't know.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 5: If it's deep as much as it is wide, which
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: is interesting to me. There's kind of a big three.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: Oklahoma State's teasing us. That Tulsa loss was weird. If
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 5: they hadn't lost that, we might be talking about them
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: as the best team in the league. But it's going
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: to be interesting. And unfortunately, not everybody plays each other
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 5: because the league's just.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: Simply too big.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 5: We're in the... Obviously, BYU benefited from this to get
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: in a league like this, which is awesome. But it's
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: just things that we don't have like, oh, we know
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 5: that everybody's playing each other. It's just not how it works.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it's actually, I had not put Oklahoma State
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: into this category. I talked about a lot in the
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: offseason how BYU and Utah missing Texas Tech in the
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 4: regular season was either going to be good for the
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: Big 12 Conference or was going to be problematic for
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: the Big 12 Conference. BYU and Utah don't play Oklahoma
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: State either. So it's like, they got to play each other.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: They got to play Houston, but Texas tech and Oklahoma state, if,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: if the Cowboys are for real, and I guess we'll
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: figure it out as the season progresses, Oklahoma state does
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: have to play Houston. They do have to play Texas tech.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: They don't have to play BYU or Utah. I could
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: see like a convoluted tiebreaker scenario getting involved in a
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: year like this. And I don't want that to be
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: what decides our big 12 championship.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: I know, right?
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 5: This is what happened with BYU two years ago. There
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 5: were seven and two and there was a four way
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 5: tie and BYU lost the tiebreaker. And it just stinks.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 5: I could see more than two eight and one teams
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 5: in the league because of what you were talking about.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: Not everyone's playing each other. There's kind of like one
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 5: and a half, maybe two big games for kind of
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 5: the top five teams in the league. We don't have
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: those head to heads. It's going to help us figure
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 5: this out. So nothing's more annoying than looking at tiebreakers
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: with two or three weeks to go. In fact, I
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: found a website where you can manipulate all the results. Okay,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: if this happens, this happens, who gets a tiebreaker and why?
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: Later in the year, if it comes to that, I'll
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 6: send it to you.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 5: But it's super annoying to look at, and it hurts
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 5: my head as a kid from Copper Hills High School.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: I was lucky to get into BYU, but thank goodness
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: for these websites. And November 7th.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 6: Let's be honest, as of now, things can change very quickly.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 5: It looks like that BYU-Utah game is going to be
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: massive for Big 12 standings, for who's getting to the
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 5: title game.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 6: Who knows?
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 5: Maybe it'll even be rematched there. College football playoff implications,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: auto bids, that large, all kinds of things.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: Man, that game was going to be huge.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: Already for the pace these two teams are on of potentially,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: if they're going great, like the first, both are in
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 5: the top 10 matchup in the history of BYU and Utah.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: That's never happened. They have had a top kind of
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: 15 Top 20 matchup in 08, if I recall. But, oh,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: my gosh, November 7th looks huge right now.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: I'm going to ask this question probably every week we
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: have you on because I think the answer and the
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: dynamics of the matchup could change. But given the conversation
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: we are just having right now, where maybe that's who's
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: in the driver's seat to go to a Big 12
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: championship game when they play each other on November 7th,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: If BYU fans could choose a win over Notre Dame
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: or a win over Utah, you can't have both.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: What are they choosing?
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 5: First off, we can't have both and we'll try, but.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: In this hypothetical scenario.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 5: When Utah was in the top 10. So we haven't
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: had a top 15 matchup even yet.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: Okay. It is Notre Dame by far because the cache
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: of that win would do more than win over Utah
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: to the committee. Well, hold on.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: Hold on. Yes, you're right.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 4: However, if you lose to Utah and that makes you
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: lose an opportunity to get into the big 12 championship game,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: and this is a one bid league, Then you have
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: this like foundational, incredible win over a top five team
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: in Notre Dame. It's a nationally relevant win. It launches
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: you potentially into the top five yourself. And then because
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: of all the stuff we just talked about, because of
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: the weird tiebreakers and whatnot, if Utah or anyone else
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: has that tiebreaker over BYU, so you have beat Notre Dame,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: but then you're not in the Big 12 championship game.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: I don't think anyone who's not in the Big 12
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: championship game is making a college football playoff.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: So like this question in a weird way.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 5: In this scenario though.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: Let's let's think about Miami last year. This is what
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 5: they did. They beat Notre Dame.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: They do not make, do you really believe they got in?
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: Do you really believe that BYU would be traded, treated
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: the same way as Miami?
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 6: If Notre Dame is as good as we think they
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 6: could be.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 5: Because if Notre Dame is sitting there and they are
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 5: top five, top 10 at the end, and they have
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 5: one blemish all year. That's going to carry a lot
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 5: of weight. And let's be honest, BYU got punished for
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 5: playing in the big 12 title game that last year,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 5: they got crushed. If they had not qualified and been
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 5: sitting there somehow at 11 and one, they probably would
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 5: have been, they could have maybe been in, right? Like
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 5: who knows, but I think that that wind would carry
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: a lot of weight. And if you're telling me in
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: this scenario, that may be the only regular season loss
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: is Utah. Let's say BYU is 11 and one, they'd
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 5: be Notre Dame. They lose at Utah.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 6: Let's say it's by 10.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 5: It's not a blowout. It's not a one score game.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 5: we are losing tiebreaker, I would feel really confident that
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 5: BYU would get into the playoff in that scenario. You
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 5: know why I would love me there 10 and two.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 5: Now it's a different story, but now you're talking about that.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 6: Seeing big 10 teams and the strength of conference metric
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 6: that they've introduced.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 5: Like, okay. I would hope that that just, I just
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 5: think that that win that potential win, which it would
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 5: be massive. Notre Dame is really good. BYU is a
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 5: double digit dog at home in that game. Like that
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 5: would mean a lot. I think.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: I hope that scenario plays out the way you just said,
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: because in that case, BYU fans would have to root
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 4: for Utah in a big 12 championship game to make
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: it look like a more quality loss for BYU.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: Listen, I'm, I'm here for BYU's aims and missions. Number one,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 5: of course that requires requires rooting for Utah in a
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: big 12 title game to get BYU into the college
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 5: football lab. I'm fine with that.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 6: Like I'm, it's all good. How, how awesome for.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: The beehive state would that be? If both made the.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 6: Playoff this year, it feels like it could, it could
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 6: happen this year.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 5: Like this is the best chance ever because of BYU
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 5: being in a power league, because, you Both teams are
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 5: looking great early in the season.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 6: Like, Hey, this is, this is fun.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 5: We got a fun ball going on in the state
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: right now.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: I want to make sure I put out a disclaimer
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: that I fully acknowledge that we are putting the cart way,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 4: way ahead of the horse on all these discussions because
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: you got to let it play out. But yeah, fun
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: stuff because that November 7th game does look massive and
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: there's a plenty of work to be done between now
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: and then TCU for BYU this week, Utah, of course,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: sitting on a buy and then they'll host Kansas and
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: it's at Colorado, Houston at Cincinnati, who may or may
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: not be ranked by then we'll see what Cincinnati looks like.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: So crazy stuff happening in the world of college football. Jeremy,
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: enjoy the game this weekend. I always appreciate you jumping
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: on with us.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 5: Hey, I appreciate it.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 6: And Hey, let's enjoy it while it goes.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 5: You can't just wait till the end to be happy
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 5: about stuff. Enjoy the journey here so far.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: So good.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: Exactly right. It's a lot of fun to watch.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 4: 985 West Summit Ridge Parkway in Santa Quinn. That is
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: how you find Murdoch Ford Santa Quinn. They've got great
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  Speaker 4: Give them a call at 385-521-1048 and tell them OC
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: sent you. All right, remember I told you about that
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: Cooper flag card that somebody paid like 500 bucks to
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: win it in an auction potentially?
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: That card has gone for auction again. Wait until I
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: tell you.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: What that, I think it was a $ 600 investment, actually
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: turned into for the guy who found the card. The
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: Sean O'Connell Show, Daily Dump next on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
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  Speaker 3: Feeling out of the loop?
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 10: Let's catch up on today's biggest headlines in the Daily
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 10: News Dump, where we flush out the biggest stories of
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 10: the day on the Sean O'Connell Show and Utah's number
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  Speaker 4: All right, maybe two weeks ago we had the conversation
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: about something I was fully unaware of until that show
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: where you can buy the rights to cards that exist
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: in collector boxes. trading cards by basically bidding on the
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: rights to your favorite team or your favorite player or
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: whatever and that is how a man named Jason Williams
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: of clover South Carolina landed the Cooper flag debut patch
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: collector's edition one-of-one card you you can see like Darren
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: Peterson will wear one of these and in his first
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: game for the Utah jazz, he will wear an NBA
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 4: Jersey that has a debut patch on it. And then
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: that debut patch, no matter what he wants to happen
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: with it, that debut patch will be taken off and
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: put onto a card, a trading card. And that trading
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: card will become part of one of these collector boxes.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: And that will be a huge deal. AJ Debon said,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: we'll do the same thing. Darren Peterson. It's like, it's
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: become a, A massive, massive industry within the industry.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: I imagine Cam Boozer has a debut patch as well.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: Everyone does.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: By the way, Darren Peterson versus Cam Boozer is Jazz's
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: opening night matchup. That's pretty spicy for rookie stars.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: Maybe.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: I think it's, who does it? Tops? I don't know. Panini?
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: Whoever does the debut patch cards, maybe they'll do debut
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 4: patch versus debut patch, and then Voltron.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: That'd be sweet. That'd be sweet.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 4: So we talked about this, right? This guy from South Carolina,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: and the number was $ 515. He paid $ 515 for the
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: rights to have this card. And it belongs to him
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: because they ripped it out of the pack.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: He's in South Carolina.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: The guys who opened the collector box and opened the
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: card pack are in Rhode Island. It's streamed on a website,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 4: and he sees he basically just won a little lottery.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 4: Like a lot of people do, he refused all of
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 4: the offers that came in from private collectors and from
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: the Dallas Mavericks because he thought that the price at
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 4: auction would be the highest price he could get, which
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: is not always the case, by the way. But in
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 4: this case, the auction took place, and not only did
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 4: the debut patch card for Cooper Flag get sold for
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 4: a record high, but also the Dylan Harper and the
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: Con Canipple debut patch cards were in the same auction. Previously,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 4: the debut patch cards, the card with the highest sale
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: was Paul skeins and major league baseball.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: His debut patch card sold for $ 1. 1 million.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: That tracks a former corner Canyon and Roy high school quarterback,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: Jackson dart. His debut patch card is sixth on the
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: all time sales list. $ 500, 000 for the Jackson dart card.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, that's gotta be New York.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: Market is inflating that some, cause he, he was good,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: but not that good.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: And he wasn't a top five pick or anything. So
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: that's interesting.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 4: So the, the top five, he's number six, the top
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: five are Nick Kurtz, major league baseball player, $ 516, 000. He's player, right? Paul,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: Paul skeins 1.1 million. He's at number four.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: Connick and nipples debut patch card sold for in this auction?
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 5: Hmm.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: He's number three, all time on this auction took place
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: like after he had a great rookie season, right?
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: So it just took place over the weekend.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: So that probably has an effect on it. Uh, is
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: he top 15? He's top three, top three.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: So the top three all happened in this auction and
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: their NBA Cooper flag, Dylan Harper, con canipple.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 9: Wow.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 3: Top three cards. I'm a little surprised.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: VJ edge come didn't, get, and maybe he wasn't in
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: this auction, his debut card, but if he was, he
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: was the fourth pick in that draft and he had
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: an incredible rookie.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 3: Maybe his card hasn't been pulled yet.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: Maybe it hasn't been pulled yet. And it's in, he's
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: in the Philadelphia market. That's a pretty big market too,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: but maybe it hasn't been pulled yet.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 4: Concrete pool is number three, overall $ 2.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: 34 million for his card.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 9: Wow.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: Dylan Harper, 2.88 million for his debut patch card.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: All right. I'm going to give you one shot, James.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 4: Concord, Apple 2.3, Dylan Harper, 2.88 Cooper flags. One of
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 4: one debut patch rookie super card at auction this weekend
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: sold for how much money?
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: 4.3, $ 8.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 5: 04 million.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: 4.3 and $ 1. Now that's crazy.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 4: So the guy who paid 515 bucks to get this card,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: He's not going to get all of it. The auction
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 4: will take off some. And I, I'm sure there's a
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: commission that's going.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 3: To go back to taxes and whatnot, but $ 8 million,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: 500 bucks turned into an $ 8 million card. auction bananas.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: However many million he comes back with, because it's going
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: to be in the millions.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: That's still, even if you get half, it doesn't matter.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 4: You turn 500 bucks into 4 million bucks. That is
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 4: why when he got the card, he, he said he
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: just started, he curled up in a fetal position and
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 4: started crying like a baby. That's he admitted that he
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 4: said that. And he was like, I don't know where
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 4: the emotions came from, but that's what happened.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 6: So, okay.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: I wonder, has he come out and said what the
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: best offer he got? He has not said the best off.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: That would be, he refused them all. Cause I don't
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: imagine he got an $ 8 million offer. Like I got
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: to think that that he was right, that that exceeded
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: the offers that he, yeah, there's no way.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: Some private collectors coming to you and saying like, I'll
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: give you 8 million bucks for that car.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: They're trying to give you a million or 2 million,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: which is by the way, would be so hard to
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: turn down.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: I feel like you, if you had the card, you'd
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: be like, first, one of the first offers would be like, yes, Dodden.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: What I would do if I do the Kramer thing,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: here's what I would do. Free coffee for life.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 6: Done.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: This is not even me being silly. This is exactly
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: what I would do.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 4: If I was looking, if I, if I had pulled
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 4: this card, I would go, there's this website I look
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: at for Hawaiian real estate.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: Okay. I don't go to Zillow.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: I go to the actual kind of like the Utah
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: real estate, but for Hawaii, the actual MLS number one,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: I would look at a house I wanted on there.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: I'd be like, how much does that house cost? And
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: then I would tell whoever the private bidders were, the
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: people calling me, they're like, Hey, I'll give you 2
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 4: million bucks for this card.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: I'd be like, no, I need $ 3. 3 million for the card.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: Like that's pretty specific.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 4: Like, well, because I want this house with a ocean
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 4: view and a hot tub. So give me 3.3 and
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 4: it's yours. I will trade you a house on the
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 4: beach in Hawaii for a small piece of cardboard.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: They're like, what if I just give you my house
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: on the beach in Hawaii? No cash at all. I'd
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: probably take it.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 4: The, the all time publicly known sports card sales, the
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: high 12.9 million for a Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, 2018.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 4: 2007-2008 Upper Deck Exquisite Dual NBA Logo Man Patch Autograph
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 4: 1 of 1 card.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: Wow. I understood every word you just said.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: A 1952 Mickey Mantle that was graded at 9.5, fetched $ 12.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: 6 million.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: Shohei Otani 2026 Tops Chrome Back-to-Back Dual Gold Logo Man
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 4: Patch Autograph 1 of 1.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: Ungraded. So all those things sound really cool by the way.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: So cool.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 4: So in order to make an expensive card, you just
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 4: throw as many descriptive words as.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: You can at it logo and make sure you put
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: logo man. Cause apparently those are really, that was $ 11
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: million for the show.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: Hey card. Wow.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 4: 10 million at number four, overall 10 million for the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 4: Michael Jordan, LeBron James upper deck, exquisite dual NBA logo, man,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 4: patch autograph, one of one graded.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 3: Another Logo Man. So Logo Man. One of one makes sense.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: I get that part. There's only one of these. Got it.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 9: Rare.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 4: So three of the top four are these Logo Mans.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: Upper Decks Logo Mans. And then number five is Cooper Flag.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 4: And then number six is the one you heard about
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 4: all through your childhood as a kid.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: Honus Wagner. Yeah. 1909. Right. Pretty cool. Good for that guy.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 3: Number five all time. That's yeah. I mean, it's really,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: really crazy.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 4: Uh, James, think back, close your eyes, things back to
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 4: what you were doing Christmas Eve of 2003, 1010 days ago.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: What were you doing?
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 6: I don't know.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 4: I was baking some cookies. It's probably really excited for Christmas. Look,
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 4: your life was very different back then. You were not
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 4: yet a dad. No, I was 11.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: Sorry, 2023.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 5: 23.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 3: I'm like, hold on.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 5: 2003. Sorry.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, 2023. I'm like, hold on.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: I should have known that that was way more than 1,000
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: days ago.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 5: 2023.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: Christmas in 2023. What are you doing? What was I doing?
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 5: 2023.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, getting ready for Christmas. I don't know. Not a dad.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: You didn't have a kid yet.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 6: Married.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: Not even a kid on the way yet.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 6: Nope.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 3: Not even a twinkle in the eye yet.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 4: And so you're just like a, you're a, you're a,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 4: you're a dink, dual income, no kid.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: And proud dink. And just waiting for Christmas. The dink dad,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: not dad yet. You're, you're writing your Santa Claus list.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: The reason I asked you what you were doing is
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 4: because that is the last time that case Keenum started
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 4: a football game in the NFL Christmas Eve of 2023
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 4: until of course, last night where case Keenum, not Tyson
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: Bajent case Keenum led the Chicago bears to a victory
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: on Monday night football, 1,009 days away.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That is awesome for the old man Keenum. It's
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: so cool.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: And if you stayed up late a little later after
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: the game, it wasn't that late. If you watch the
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: post game SVP sports center and just a really fun
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: interview with him, SVB starts it out and be like, Dude,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: I've known you since SVP and Rosillo when you were
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: still at Houston.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: SVP and Rosillo seems decades ago. I mean, in media years,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: that was centuries ago.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: So he starts out with that and Case kind of
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: chuckles and goes, yeah, he's got his little girl on
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: his lap. His girl's name is Cadence, I believe. She's
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: looking adorable. Cute little redheaded girl. She's smiling. SVP's asking
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: her some questions like, hey, Dad... dad just told the
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: post game reporter, you, if you, you're either going to
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: watch bluey or this game again tomorrow with that. And like,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: you tell me like, be honest, are you watching the
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: game or bluey?
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 3: And she goes to the game.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: Like it just incredibly adorable, amazing interview. And case just
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: seems like the most humble, great guy. And it could,
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: it seems like it couldn't happen to a better guy.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: Incredible performance.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 4: So could Miguel Cabrera come off the couch and, and
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 4: get a couple of hits at a major league baseball game.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 4: It's been since 2023 for him. That's good. Josh Donaldson
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 4: could Steven Strasburg come off, get a strikeout. Could he
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 4: come out of retirement and get a strikeout or retire?
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 4: A couple of batters could Andre Iguodala come out and
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 4: not make some plays.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: For you and not fall on his face. for the warriors.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 3: Carmelo Anthony come off the bench. That's a no. And
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 3: hit some, hit some three pointers for you. Sorry.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 4: These are all people that stopped playing in 2023.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: I could, I was a good dollar.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure it could give you good minutes either,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: but the only one I'm certain that could not do
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: what you're asking is Carmelo.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 4: Anthony Taylor, Taylor LeJuan retired in 2023. and has since
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 4: lost like 90 pounds. So there's no chance he could
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 4: come out and be a left tackle with the boys.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 9: Right?
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 3: Busted with the boys.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 4: JJ watt could JJ walk, come off the bench for
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 4: the first time since 2023. Could he get you a
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 4: sack or two? I mean, Aaron, Aaron Donald is back
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 4: in play and he didn't take a thousand and nine
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 4: days off.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 3: I could see JJ watt doing that.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 4: There's a bunch of guys that stopped playing in 2023
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 4: and in case Keenum was the one who hadn't played
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 4: at meaningful reps down starts since 2023 and got a
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: Monday night football win last night.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 3: And it was cool to see it's, I mean, it's
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 3: really neat. It was, it was awesome.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: One of the other things from that interview that was
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: cool is he was like, the vast majority of the
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: plays in their 15 play script. He told SVP, like
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: we were me and Ben, Ben Johnson, head coach play caller.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 2: We were on the same page. We agreed on, Just
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: about all of them. There was like a few where
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: he goes, I don't know about that. And then they
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: did them. And Ben convinced him, no, trust me, these
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: are going to be great on the play script. And
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: he's like, they all worked. So he was talking about
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: how incredible a play caller Ben Johnson is.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: By the way, we love you, Case Keenum. But can
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: you imagine?
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 4: If your coach is like, dude, you haven't played in
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 4: three years, we're letting you play. And he's just like,
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's going to work.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know. That's why starting quarterbacks, they're just wired.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 4: Very differently than everyone else because A normal human being
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 4: in a situation like.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: That, you're just grateful for the opportunity. You're just wide-eyed.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: You're out there. You're just like, oh, my gosh, I
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: can't believe this is happening.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 4: Case Keenum not only is just like, hey, in probably case,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 4: you're going to get the start for us with the
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 4: Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 3: I know it's been a long time. It's been 1,009 days.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 4: Since you started a game and then immediately he starts
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 4: questioning the play calling.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: He's like, I don't know about this, Ben. When we
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: sure you just be like, as a coach, you'd be like, Hey,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 3: shut the hell up and do what I tell you
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 3: to do. I know you're a veteran. I know you've
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 3: been around the league a lot, but you haven't done
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: this in three years. Ben Johnson's like, I know you're
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 3: older than me. Okay.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: Like, and not only are you questioning your head coach
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: and play callers, a couple of those plays, he had
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: to convince you that, yeah, these are going to work.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: it's Ben Johnson, arguably the best play caller in the
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: league right now. Like, but so of course they worked.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that was a funny anecdote too, for all those.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: Reasons, Speaker 0 1.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 4: Major league baseball playoffs start tonight. Yankees red socks. Is
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 4: that important? Is that good? Is that a fun rivalry
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 4: in sports? You know, red socks at Yankees game socks
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 4: coverage right here on your home of the MLB playoffs.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 4: That'll start at five 30 PM mountain time. Aaron judge
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 4: will not play in this wild card series for the
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 4: New York Yankees.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 3: John Carlos Stanton will.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 4: Even though he's like a few months, he's missed five months,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 4: five months. Judge is not even on the 26 man
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 4: roster for this, but John Carlos Stanton is.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: That's really, really interesting. Judge injured his calf two weeks ago.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: Apparently it's not, healthy enough for them to put him
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: on this roster. And since he's not on this roster,
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: just a reminder for people who getting back into baseball
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: is as a lot of people do is when the
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: playoffs start, you're not on this, they do series at
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: a time.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: So you're not on game one roster. You're not, you're
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: not on the other, you're not in games two or three.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: There's no like, Oh, well this game he can play
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: unless like that. They might not play if they're on
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: the roster game one and maybe play games two and three.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: But if you're not on the roster at all, you
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: have no, opportunity to. So the next time he might
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: be able to play is if the Yankees get through
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: this series and he can play in the division series, maybe,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: which we all know that's not happening.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 3: The Red Sox are winning this series. Let's go. I'm
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 3: not sure about that part.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 4: That is your daily dump. We're going to take a break.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: I put a poll question out today. Do you support
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 4: The Protect College Sports Act, as currently constructed, I put
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 4: some of the main bullet points on there as well.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 4: It is capping of conference realignment at 20 teams. It
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 4: is increasing the salary cap in revenue share from just
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 4: over $ 21 million to almost $ 50 million. I think that
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 4: your answer to this question, whether you support the Protect
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 4: College Sports Act, might be different from if you're an
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 4: Ohio State fan or if you're a Utah or BYU fan.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 4: So we'll talk about that next on the Sean O'Connell Show,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 4: ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 10: You're listening to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 10: Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 4: Do you support the Protect College Sports Act as currently constructed?
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 3: It's going before the House of Representatives. Passed last night.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 4: What, the 77 votes in favor of against 22 opposed.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 3: So it moves on.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 4: Right now, the poll question at Real OC Sports is
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 4: 55% in favor of Protect College Sports Act. 45% say no.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 4: Right now, the major bullet points are five years to
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 4: play five.
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 3: Okay, fine.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 4: The exceptions will still exist for military service or church
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 4: mission service, which affects some Utah players, a lot more
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 4: BYU players, but quite honestly, not as many as there
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 4: used to be for either of those schools. Protect College
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 4: Sports Act narrows transferring down. one penalty free transfer per player,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 4: per sport, per season, excuse me, per career. You only
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 4: get to transfer once before you have a penalty. And
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 4: that penalty would be similar to the old penalties where
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 4: you have to sit out a year. If you transfer
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 4: to a new school, this is where I think it
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 4: gets a little bit tougher to support. If you're a
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 4: Utah fan, Conference realignment capped at 20 teams. Is this
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 4: something that is good for the University of Utah?
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 3: No, it's not. What you want.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 4: Is conference realignment to either be stopped completely or you
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 4: want conference realignment to remain open-ended so that if and when,
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 4: and I think it's more when, the reshuffling.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 3: Of the deck happens.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 4: there are maybe 24 teams in whatever the Big Ten becomes,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 4: or there are 24 teams or 26 or 28 teams
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 4: in the AFC, NFC of college football. If you cap
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 4: it at 20, Utah, there's already 18 teams in the
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 4: Big Ten Conference. Utah is not the next one they're
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 4: going to add. It's not the second one. Spoiler alert.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 4: That they're going to add.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, BYU probably isn't either, by the way.
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 4: BYU's not either. The SEC is only at 16 teams.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 4: Is the SEC going to call Utah?
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 3: Probably not. Is the SEC going to call BYU? Probably not.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 4: They're looking at Clemson, North Carolina, Florida State, Duke.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 3: They're looking at teams. Miami.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 4: Probably one of those four I just mentioned is out.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 4: Probably Florida State is out and Miami is in. Or
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 4: Duke is out and Miami is in.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: Duke basketball and them being decent in football in recent
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: years probably puts their raises their profile, which.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 4: By the way, would make you feel like crazy desperation.
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 4: If you're Florida state to figure out the Mike Norvell situation.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 4: Because you don't want to be on the wrong side
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 4: of that line of demarcation. And Utah certainly doesn't either.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 4: BYU certainly doesn't either. So capping the conference realignment at
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 4: 20 teams, I think is a reason why maybe a
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 4: lot of people are in this 45% to say, no,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 4: I don't support that because Utah, Yes, you want to
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 4: protect college sports, but let's be honest with ourselves. What
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 4: we really want to protect is college sports for our
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 4: favorite teams and our favorite conferences and our favorite regions.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 4: And right now, all of this potentially serves the Big Ten,
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 4: the SEC. Now, would I be okay with capping it
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 4: at 20 teams if the current Big Ten and the
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 4: current SEC were allowed to, when this thing goes into practice,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 4: were allowed to say.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 3: we're going to eject four teams. We're going to get
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 3: rid of four.
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 4: Then I would feel like maybe Utah's got a better
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 4: shot of being like, if you subtract six of the
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 4: 18 teams that are already in the big 10, you're like, sorry, Illinois, sorry,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 4: Maryland Rutgers, Northwestern, have fun.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 3: You're an academic institution.
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 4: Like maybe then you're carving out space because you need
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 4: space because the big 10 is going to be like
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 4: Notre Dame. We would like to have you come with us.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 4: They're also going to say Miami and North Carolina. We
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 4: want to have you guys be part of this thing.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 4: I don't know if Stanford and Cal would factor into
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 4: anyone's conversations for like the big 10 or the sec.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 4: It doesn't make a ton of sense when it comes
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 4: to television viewership and interest in attendance and that kind
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 4: of stuff. But the big 10 still fancies themselves academic powerhouse.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 4: And they would love to have Stanford and Cal for
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 4: those reasons.
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: And maybe Oregon, USC, Washington, UCLA, maybe those ones are like, Hey,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: can you help our travel a little bit?
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 3: And maybe, maybe that would be a way to just
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 3: be like UCLA. Shut up. You don't get to say
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 3: anything here.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: You guys, they listened to Oregon and USC, $ 300 million
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 3: in debt. Get out of our face.
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 4: So, so look, the, the, The conference is being capped
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 4: at 20 teams, I think, is an obstacle. If you're
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 4: a Utah fan or you're a House of Representatives delegate
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 4: from the state of Utah being like, wait, this hurts
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 4: my local teams. I don't think I can pass this
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 4: when we vote on it in November or December. Also,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 4: the revenue share. This is something that did not get
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 4: talked about enough, right? ostensibly what's being stated as the
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 4: goal of this is like, we got to slow down
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 4: the arms race. We got to make sure that there's
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 4: a cap on these things. Okay, great. We would love
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 4: to have a cap on these things. The cap that
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 4: they have proposed is $ 49 million for Utah and BYU
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 4: for Utah, especially that is not a cap that they
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 4: can work with.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: Does that mean though that, They haven't proposed a minimum,
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: a salary floor.
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 3: There's no salary floor, but the results are the same. Yeah,
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 3: you're not going to compete. The results are the same.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 4: It says, all right, because this year the roster, we
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 4: did that thing with the athletic article, right? This year
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 4: the rosters are kind of like the top, top, top rosters,
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 4: the Oregons and the USCs. They're sitting at around 50
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 4: million Ohio state. They're sitting at right around $ 50 million, right?
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 4: So meaningfully they're already at the top. So all you're
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 4: telling is the top, top, top people. You can't go
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 4: higher than you're at right now. It doesn't do anything
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 4: to allow the middle.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 3: To catch up.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 4: It doesn't, it just keeps the top from extending their
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 4: arms race even further, which I guess is good for BYU,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 4: for Utah, for Colorado, for whoever, but it's not a
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 4: meaningful change. When it comes to parody, because if the
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 4: cap was brought down to like $ 30 million and then
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 4: maybe you could really, really stretch. I think if we,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 4: we had a conversation with university presidents, athletic directors around
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 4: the landscape of college football, and you said, can you
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 4: do 50 million?
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 3: Can you do 49 million?
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 4: 95% are going to be like, no, we're already losing
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 4: our shirts at 20 million. You're like, okay, but if
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 4: I make sure that you can be at the very top,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 4: you're right up there with everybody else, at 49 million.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: They're going to be like, no, cool, man, we can't.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 3: It's not possible for us.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 4: There are 10 universities in the country that can do
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 4: that with any level of comfort.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 3: We're talking Texas, Ohio State, USC, Oregon.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 4: You say, okay, okay, okay. We want to get more
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 4: people involved than just that. How about this? I bring
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 4: that number down to 40 million. I cap it at
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 4: 40 million. Most universities chancellors and athletic directors are still
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 4: going to say, no, heck no.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 3: I cannot keep up even at $ 40 million.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 4: And you're like, well, okay, what if I, what if
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 4: I promise you that your athletic department is bringing in
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 4: more because now you're not in the big 12 conference.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 3: Now you're in a big 10 conference. Well, all right.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 4: Can you promise me that? No, I can't promise you that,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 4: but I can say it's a possibility. Well, still know
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 4: that I still can't do 40.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 3: All right. What if I bring it to 30?
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 4: Now everyone's got to perk their ears up because they're
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 4: already sitting at 20 to 25 and they're like, can
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 4: I make some phone calls? Can I figure out a
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 4: way to free up some money? Could I get rid
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 4: of an Olympic program here or a non-revenue sport there?
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 3: How it's gotten dystopian. Well, that's just how it's going
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 3: to go. It's probably, yeah.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, we got to be realistic about this because
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 4: if you're, if you're asking a team, am I going
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 4: to support this? If you're asking a state, am I
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 4: going to support this? protect college sports act that puts
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 4: a salary cap of $ 30 million. That makes sense for
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 4: like Oklahoma state can probably meet that number.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 3: You're talking probably meet that number. Cal and Stanford. Well,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: they could, if they wanted to bad examples.
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 4: But like, There are, there are mid-level players in the
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 4: financial world, mid-level players that could look at that number
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 4: and say, yeah, maybe I could hit that.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 3: Everyone is going to look at this.
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 4: And say 49 million is the salary cap.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 3: I am struggling. My athletic department is struggling.
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 4: We are squeezing to reach 20 to 25.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 3: Just go look at the athletic article. it's like the
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: big tens fine.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 4: The sec is fine for the most part, but there
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 4: were plenty of teams in the sec, including Arkansas. We
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 4: were playing Arkansas when we did the comparison, right?
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 3: Arkansas is in that $ 25 million range.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 4: You're going to tell Arkansas, don't worry guys. We're capping
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 4: it at 49 million. You could, you can do double
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 4: what you're doing, right?
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 3: That's what you're asking.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 4: So if you're, if you're a BYU fan or a
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 4: Utah fan, a Utah state fan, you don't even get
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 4: to be part of the conversation. Sadly, Do you support
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 4: this protect college sports act that on its face is
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 4: trying to level the playing field, but is also with
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 4: the language in there is saying like the, the, the
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 4: playing field is going to stay the same. It's just
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 4: not going to get any crazier than it is now.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 3: I I'll say this.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 2: If it's 30, if they had said it was 30,
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: you're talking about the salary cap, Utah and these other teams,
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: you don't like they've proven some of these middle-of-the-teens, Utah's
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: a good example of this, have proven they can do
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: more with less, right? So there would be less pressure
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 2: to even get to 30. You'd go, let's try if
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: we can, but if you can only get to 27,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: you're like, well, we've always done more with less anyway,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: and the big guys are only a few million more.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 3: That's what I mean.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: We can knock off these guys that are only paying
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: a few million more than us. And so, yeah, that
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: would be a much better scenario. even if you can't
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 2: meet the top of the salary cap, like you said,
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: like you mentioned the five to 10 teams in the
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: country that can this 49, you're, you make a great point.
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 3: You're never going to meet that.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 2: I'll say this about the 20 team cap. I just wonder,
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: I wonder if this ends up protecting this power for
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: structure and then thus it end up being a not
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: a terrible thing for Utah and BYU to have to
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: be in the big 12.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe it won't. Maybe I'm not convinced.
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 3: All right. We got to take a break.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 4: Court McGee, who's fighting on the UFC card at the
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 4: Delta center this weekend is our very own local homegrown product.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 4: He is going to join us next on the Sean
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 4: O'Connell show ESPN, 792 on FM.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 3: This is the.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 10: Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the best inside of
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 10: your youth. Let's get back to OC from the Murdoch
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 10: Chevrolet studio of ESPN 792.1 FM.
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 3: All right, excited for this conversation. Our next guest, I'll
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 3: call him a friend of mine.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 4: We started our professional fighting careers around the same time.
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 4: He has extended his about eight years longer than I
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 4: was able to do with mine. Court McGee, the pride
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 4: of Layton High School and a longtime UFC veteran, will
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 4: open the card as UFC comes to Salt Lake City
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 4: at the Delta Center again this weekend. And I'm going
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 4: to let Court speak for himself, but I believe this
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 4: will be the last time he makes the walk to
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 4: the cage.
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 3: Court, welcome to the show again. How are you, my friend?
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 9: Fantastic. Thanks for having me on, Sean.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 4: So, you know, it's been a long, long road and
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 4: you're still at it on the wrong side of 40 now,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 4: 41 years of age in a young man's sport and
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 4: still competing at the very, very highest level.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 3: How have you done it, Court?
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 9: I just maintained a regular training schedule and making sure
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 9: I keep healthy, chasing my sons around.
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 4: And uh you got you got kind of like the
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 4: full spectrum of kids now right your son is a
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 4: college wrestler you got one in high school you got
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 4: one that's uh the caboose is a little bit behind
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 4: them right and three boys.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 9: Five he's five in his first year of kindergarten that's
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 9: amazing wild and then second year of college isaac and
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 9: then crew is a sophomore mountain high school.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 4: That's fantastic are you still are you coaching are you
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 4: helping the wrestling team again Yep, yep.
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 5: I'll coach.
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 9: I believe this is my seventh consecutive year.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 4: That's fantastic. So, Gord, is this the last one? Have
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 4: you decided you're going to retire in Salt Lake where
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 4: it all started?
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 9: Yeah, so when I renegotiated for these last four fights,
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 9: I knew I was going to finish my career with
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 9: the last fight after I had my neck surgery. I
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 9: wasn't sure if I was going to be able to
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 9: compete after or if I would have the willingness to
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 9: because I didn't know how the recovery was going to be, but...
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 9: I did. I recovered. I finished out my contract and
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 9: then I said, Hey, listen, I want four more and
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 9: then I'll be done. So two and a half years ago,
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 9: I knew that this would be my last fight. I
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 9: just didn't know it would fall in Salt Lake city,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 9: which is awesome.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, how cool is that?
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 4: Like this sport, nobody gets a storybook ending in a
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 4: sport like this in combat sports and contact sports. The
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 4: sport is usually done with you before you are done
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 4: with the sport. And the fact that you get to
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 4: do it, in your hometown. And this is the second time,
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 4: if I'm not mistaken, you fought in the UFC here
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 4: at the Delta center.
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 3: Is that right? The first time they came here, you
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 3: were on the card.
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 9: First time I was, I was, uh, 2016 on their
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 9: very first UFC fight card in Salt Lake city. And
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 9: then I fought at UFC three Oh seven against Tim means,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 9: and then this will be my third fight.
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 3: That's right. I forgot the three Oh seven was also
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 3: years ago.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 9: In December, I fought, well, it'll be 19 years in December,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 9: I fought Jeremy Horn on Worlds Collide.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 3: Dude, I was also on that card. You and Jeremy
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 3: were the main event.
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 4: Shout out to Lima Pule, wherever you're at now, my friend.
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 4: Lima Pule.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 6: That's right, dude.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 4: I fought Lima Pule for my first, that was a
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 4: heavyweight title fight, if.
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 3: I'm not mistaken.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 9: I think so.
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 9: And I was the light heavyweight. It wasn't for a title, though.
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 9: But I was light heavy. No, it was my first
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 9: fight at 185.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, was it? Okay.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 9: My first year of competition.
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 4: By the way, for people who were following, it was
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 4: called the Ultimate Combat Experience back then. So the prize,
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 4: the dubious prize that they offered at the end of
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 4: the year on this big event, this mastermind event, Jeremy
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 4: Horn had already fought for a UFC title.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 3: I think it was in. to like 2008, he had
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 3: fought for a UFC title or something.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 9: And yep, it was earlier that year.
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 4: And so they were like, all right, what we're going
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 4: to do is who we, whoever we decide is the
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 4: best fighter, uh, the fighter of the year in the state,
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 4: we're going to allow you to fight Jeremy horn in
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 4: the main event of our year end event.
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 3: And yes.
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 4: And like, it was, it was Ben Fumato. It was
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 4: me and it was you and you had the more
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 4: impressive wins. You were the guy who was most prepared
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 4: to do it. And so the prize you got was
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 4: to fight someone who already had a hundred pro fights
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 4: and you, that was what, like your, your 10th fight
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 4: or something like that.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 9: It was my, my sixth or seventh fight. And my
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 9: first fight was February 2nd, 2007. And this was December 1st, 2007.
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 9: He had just knocked out Forrest Griffin with a head kick.
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 9: And the fight before that, he submitted Chael Sonnen with
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 9: a triangle.
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 3: So wild. What a wild time.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 4: And now, I mean, full circle, you're going to finish
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 4: your career in at the Delta center, uh, in the
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 4: biggest organization in the world, in a career where you've
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 4: had an incredible amount of longevity. I mean, you gotta
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 4: be among the very top in terms of how many
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 4: times you've competed the years over which you competed. Uh,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 4: Jim Miller is, I think that is number one in
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 4: that and cowboy Cerrone did it a bunch, but I
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 4: already asked you how you did it court, but how
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 4: do you, how do you, how do you feel about it? Like,
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 4: how do you feel about knowing that you know, in a,
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 4: in a sport that is for young men and is
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 4: a sport that is about very, very much about like
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 4: you burn hot and then you fade away. You have
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 4: been a steady presence. Is this something that, you can
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 4: take pride in?
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 3: Like, tell me how it feels to be where you're at.
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 9: Oh yeah. I, I mean, number one, I, I am
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 9: so grateful that my body has held up cause I've
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 9: been through so many injuries, but I've allowed the time
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 9: for them to heal. Um, I've stayed consistent in my training.
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 9: I mean, part of it too, is I didn't let,
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 9: let myself deter too far. Um, I did experience some
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 9: burnout in that first year cause I had six or
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 9: seven fights and like, I was like, Oh my gosh,
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 9: I can't keep this up. Um, but I had a
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 9: bunch of injuries. I took a lot of time off, uh,
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 9: to get those injuries fixed. And so I've been through
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 9: these ups and downs and then just like, I mean,
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 9: I was on the card with the first female fight
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 9: in the UFC.
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 5: I was there.
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 9: I didn't fight the night that Connor had his debut,
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 9: but two guys or three of my teammates did. So
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 9: like I've been through the ups and downs. Um, I like,
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 9: I couldn't ask, um, For a better outcome or a
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 9: better career and they feel healthy, but I want to
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 9: continue to feel healthy. I don't want to write it
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 9: out too long. And knowing, you know, it's like I
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 9: had lots of conversations with my wife and then also
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 9: to like, I feel good. I feel healthy. The gym's
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 9: going good. Um, I'm not looking too far ahead. You know,
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 9: it's like, and you know, as well as most fighters
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 9: have competed at a high level, it's like every fight
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 9: could be your last fight. There's fight in the ending
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 9: injuries all the time. Um, And I just feel extremely
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 9: grateful for the opportunity to finish out my career in
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 9: Salt Lake City. And I'm going out on my terms.
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 9: And I'm so grateful for that.
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 4: Court McGee is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 4: Court is fighting on the UFC card this weekend. He
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 4: is the reason you should buy a ticket and you
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 4: should get out there and you should make this loud
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 4: for our guy. He is our guy. He is a
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 4: homegrown product. He is a Utah boy who has represented...
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 4: this state and this martial arts community within the state
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 4: very well for a very long time in the UFC.
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 4: So get out there and support court McGee at the
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 4: Delta center for his final career fight court. Do you
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 4: have a, do you have a favorite fight? Is there
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 4: a high watermark for you in your UFC career?
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 9: Um, my first fight against Seth to get in the
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 9: ultimate fighter house, still my toughest fight to memory. Um,
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 9: and then obviously winning the ultimate fighter and then, just
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 9: fighting like some, you know, like Carlos Condit, fighting Matt Brown,
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 9: fighting Robert Whitaker, you know, just some of those highlight
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 9: fights where these guys are just... Hold on, hold on.
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 4: Beating Robert Whitaker, who is very likely a future UFC
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 4: Hall of Famer, Robert Whitaker, who went on to become
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 4: middleweight champ of the UFC multiple times over.
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 3: Court McGee, you beat Robert Whitaker.
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 9: I'm just, you know, it's like....
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 9: It's, it's incredible. And I feel grateful and I'm so
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 9: grateful for all the coaches and the training partners and
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 9: all the people that, that, you know, have put time
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 9: in to, to help me. And I'm grateful that I
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 9: didn't give up on myself. It was a lot of
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 9: times it's got real tough, but I'm glad I didn't
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 9: give up five minutes to pour the miracle.
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 3: Well, you know what?
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 4: I want to, I want to give you a little
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 4: space to talk about the best part of your story.
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 4: And it's something that's well publicized, but, We have probably
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 4: a lot of listeners who, you know, are new. They
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 4: don't understand or care about MMA that much. And you
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 4: already talked about your injuries. And I want to make
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 4: sure people know that when Court McGee has a surgery
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 4: or Court McGee has an injury recovery process, as a
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 4: recovering addict, and I'll give you your space to talk
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 4: about what that means, Court does not get to pop
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 4: a bunch of pills or take a bunch of narcotics in.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 3: Order to null that pain. And, you know, you're 20
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 3: years sober now, Court. And that is even more impressive.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 3: than what you've done in the UFC.
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm, I do. I have, I have about 20
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 9: and a half years of sobriety, April 16th, 2006 is
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 9: my sobriety birthday. So I have over 20 years of
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 9: sobriety and 16 years of that have been in the
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 9: UFC in the high highs and the low lows. But
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 9: one thing I've done is I have woke up sober
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 9: and stayed sober throughout every one of those days. And,
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 9: you know, it's like, I always fight to carry the
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 9: message to people who struggle out there that there's a
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 9: way out. Um, and it might not be through fighting,
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 9: you know, fighting didn't keep me sober, having a program
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 9: of recovery, uh, being in 12 step program like that.
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 9: That's what, that's what has maintained my sobriety and then
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 9: giving that away. But I fight for those, uh, who
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 9: struggle with addiction. Um, and you know, it's like, if
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 9: I can have this long tenured career, I mean, I'm
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 9: nobody special. I'm a kid from latent. late in Utah,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 9: middle-class family. I just had a passion for something and
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 9: I followed it and I didn't, I didn't give up
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 9: even when they go and got tough.
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 4: I might push back on the idea that you're not special.
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 4: You are a, especially from a conditioning standpoint, you are
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 4: a freak. You're an alien when it comes to like
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 4: the pace and the conditioning. And that's something that's remained
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 4: constant throughout your career. And like, Give the people out
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 4: there a sense of what it takes to have that
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 4: kind of a gas tank.
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 9: The willingness to have seven to nine practices every week,
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 9: 52 weeks a year, every year that I've been in
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 9: the UFC with the exception of times that I can't
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 9: because I had surgery. And outside of that, I condition
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 9: every week on Thursday. I do my conditioning. I do
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 9: maintenance conditioning when I'm not training for a fight. And
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 9: then I ramp it up, you know, six to eight
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 9: weeks out. And yeah, I, you know, there's one thing,
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 9: you know, and part of the reason why I did
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 9: that is because early on I was like, oh my gosh,
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 9: there's world champion jiu-jitsu guys. There's world champion kickboxers. There's
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 9: these world-class boxers. There's these world-class wrestlers. I'm not any
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 9: of those. I had better be a world-class conditioned athlete.
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 9: So when those guys break, I can find a way
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 9: to beat them. And it's boded very well for me.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 4: All right, your opponent on the card this week is
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 4: a young cat, Eric Nolan, who's coming off a couple losses.
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, you've got an opportunity here, Court, to go
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 4: out on a big win and ride off into the
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 4: sunset victorious, which, again, is not all that common. What
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 4: they do with the old Lions, like Court McGee, is
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 4: they feed them to some young, hungry up-and-comer and say, yeah,
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 4: we're going to build your name by letting you beat
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 4: the guy who's on his way out. And that's, I mean,
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 4: presumably what the matchmakers are trying to do here But
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 4: I think you can beat this kid. I know you
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 4: believe it. How are you going to do it?
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 9: Here's the thing is I have confidence in my preparation
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 9: and I have confidence in my ability to find a
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 9: way to beat this guy. And, you know, like every fight,
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 9: I'm going to come out. I'm going to come out firing,
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 9: you know, business as usual, pressure, forward lateral movement, and
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 9: then find a way to get the finish.
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 4: Court, there's been a lot of conversation about the way
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 4: that the UFC pays its fighters, treats its fighters. You know,
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 4: there's controversy all over the place. Some people love Dana White.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 4: Some people hate Dana White. Correct me if I'm wrong,
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 4: but it feels like you've really carved out a way
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 4: and you've proved to people that you can make a
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 4: living in this sport. It doesn't have to be, you know,
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 4: like this feast or famine kind of a thing. It
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 4: seems like you have a good relationship with the organization,
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 4: which is not always the case.
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 3: Tell me how that's all come to shape for you.
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 9: Well, I have negotiated almost all of my contracts with
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 9: the exception of the ultimate fighter contract, which is like
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 9: eight or nine fights. And then I had a manager
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 9: for my first contract negotiation. And then after that, I
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 9: separated from that management and then negotiated all my contracts.
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 9: But my biggest thing is like I grew up with
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 9: the in a frugal family, um, that was, that was
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 9: like hardworking middle-class. And so what I did was I
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 9: was a commercial plumber before I stopped and started fighting
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 9: full time. And I, you know, I had a jobs
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 9: all the way up until I won the ultimate fighter.
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 9: And then after that, my primary source of income for
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 9: these last 16 or 17 years has been fighting. And
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 9: all I did was I maintained a you know, kind
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 9: of like pay, like as if I was a commercial plumber.
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 9: So I just budgeted and didn't live outside of my
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 9: means and forced myself to not overindulge and, you know, take,
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 9: take care of my family. Like first things first, take,
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 9: you know, have a mortgage, pay the mortgage, make sure
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 9: we have food, make sure that my family's taken care of.
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 9: And the money that I make is our money, not
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 9: my money. And so it, it, you know, it kept
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 9: me structured. It kept me, uh, focused on what I
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 9: needed to do to stay in the gym because I
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 9: watched a few fighters go out and blow their paycheck.
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 9: And then all of a sudden they didn't know how
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 9: they were going to prepare for their fight. So I
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 9: learned from that early, Hey, listen, you need to save
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 9: your money, just, just budget. And, uh, that way you
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 9: can always show up to the gym and prepare properly
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 9: for your fight and not having to get an extra
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 9: couple of side jobs. So, um, And I've maintained that
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 9: schedule my whole career. Whether I had real good years
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 9: or real tough years, I just maintained that. And it
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 9: has really preserved my career and gave me peace of mind.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 9: So I wasn't on the edge all the time.
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 4: I don't want to disrespect any coaches you've ever had,
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 4: but you're as self-made as a fighter can be out there.
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 3: You didn't go to one of these big camps regularly.
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 4: You didn't spend, you know, you didn't relocate to American
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 4: Top Team or move down to Vegas to do like
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 4: the extreme couture thing. And you've always had elite training partners,
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 4: but also like been in the room with guys that
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 4: are just coming up or guys that are never actually
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 4: going to fight.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 3: And how'd you do it?
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 9: Just consistency and then the willingness to give away what
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 9: I've learned because it helps them get better and then
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 9: be better training partners. You know, after I won the
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 9: Ultimate Fighter, I had Coach John Hackleman coach me and
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 9: corner me for a number of years. He just hated
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 9: seeing me get injured.
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 6: And.
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 9: I still use, and I feel like he's in my corner.
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 9: I still feel like Howard, the late Howard Davis is
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 9: still in my corner. I still, I, you know, I
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 9: still hear Chuck in the room. I still hear the
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 9: coaches that I grew up with, you know, Shane Stoneman.
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 9: And I, I hear, I hear the coaches, you Aldo.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 9: I hear those coaches and I, I've just, I've kept
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 9: all those. I'm pretty strenuous on, on taking notes. And
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 9: so I have all of that stuff. And so like,
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 9: I still hear those guys. I still use a lot
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 9: of those methods that I've learned from different gyms and
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 9: And then I just practically apply it with the people
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 9: around me who are preparing for fights. And I help
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 9: them dial it in. And inevitably, they get better. They
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 9: prepare better. And then I try to see what people
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 9: are good at. And then what they're really good at,
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 9: I try to match them. And so it's one of
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 9: those things. It's been a really, really cool experience to
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 9: bring people along and see them start from not fighting
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 9: to fighting for the first time and then fighting in
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 9: the UFC. And I've had about five of those guys,
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 9: you know, and it's just like it's pretty awesome.
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 3: Who's the next? Who's there?
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 4: There's a bit of a lull right now with our
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 4: local talent at the top levels. And, you know, Utah
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 4: at one point was per capita producing a lot of
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 4: guys that were making it big.
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 3: And we've we've slowed that for whatever reason. So who's
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 3: next court?
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 9: We, we slowed that, but we have between, well, not,
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 9: not that I would know, but I have identified like
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 9: five to six within the next two to three years.
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 9: I think that that period of growth, the other thing
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 9: is I don't want to throw you into early, right?
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 9: Cause even if you have a great record and you're
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 9: doing really well, but you're not, you're not mentally ready,
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 9: or maybe you and your wife are not on the
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 9: same page or, you know, it's like, I think there's
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 9: four to five guys, possibly six, within the next 18
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 9: months to two years that really have a shot. But
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 9: that depends on timing. It depends on whether or not
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 9: they're healthy or if they can continue to compete at
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 9: where they're competing right now. So pretty soon we have
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 9: a group that should be making their step into the octagons.
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 4: Have you allowed yourself to think about what comes next,
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 4: like what it's going to be like?
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 3: The day after your final professional fight?
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 9: No, I mean, I've tried to, I live my life
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 9: one day at a time and I obviously look into
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 9: the future. I knew coming out of the ultimate fighter,
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 9: like there was no guarantees, even though I had, you know, whatever,
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 9: 10 fights in my ultimate fighter contract. Dude, an injury
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 9: can take you out. So it's like I've prepared like
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 9: it's been.
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 5: My last fight.
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 9: Every fight I've had, all 29 fights I've had in
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 9: the UFC. And so it's our 28 fights, including the
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 9: ones in the house. So after I have... put in
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 9: the time I have a gym. It's, it's, it's, it's successful.
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 9: It's working, you know, and obviously I'm going to have
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 9: a little, a little more time, uh, that I'm not
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 9: staying within three to four, uh, weeks of peaking for
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 9: a UFC fight to where I can, I can, I
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 9: can put that time and that effort into, you know,
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 9: functionalities at the gym. Uh, I will spend a little
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 9: more time with the McGee project speaking and helping youth
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 9: and young adults struggle with addiction. Um, And so I
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 9: have an exit strategy, but I kind of had that
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 9: exit strategy, uh, since day one, since I made it
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 9: into the ultimate fighter and came off. Cause, cause I,
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 9: I watched guys come in and they're like, I'm guaranteed this.
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 9: And like, dude, you're never guaranteed anything. So I try
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 9: to show up one day at a time. I'm going
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 9: to focus on making weight on Friday. Once I make weight,
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 9: then we focus on the fight.
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 3: Well, court, uh, your career, uh, Is admirable. Your career
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 3: is special to me.
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 4: Cause like I said, at the top of this conversation,
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 4: we started at the right time and I'm proud to
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 4: know you and to know that you've overcome so much
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 4: and you've stayed in this game for so long. And
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 4: I'm really happy that you get to, to finish it
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 4: the right way here on a, you know, the home field, right?
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 3: Where, where, Right where it started. It's amazing, dude.
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 9: And I used to hate it. I used to hate
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 9: fighting at home. I didn't, you know, and now I'm like, dude,
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 9: I want to fight here. You know, it's like, it's
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 9: going to be cool. Feather in the cap.
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 4: Congratulations on an incredible career. I'll be seeing you around
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 4: of course. And I'm, I'm immensely proud of you, dude.
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 4: I love the way you've represented our state. Uh, I
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 4: think it's incredible who you are as a person, as
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 4: a dad, as a fighter, uh, There's just a lot
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 4: to look up.
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 3: To, and I appreciate you for that.
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 9: Thank you, Sean.
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 3: That is Court McGee. Good luck, dude.
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 4: Court McGee, the crusher, finishing out his career at this
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 4: UFC 332 that's happening Saturday night at the Delta Center.
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 3: He is the first fight on the card.
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 4: So 6 o'clock, doors are going to open, I believe,
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 4: at 5, 6 o'clock.
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 3: Be in your seat.
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 4: Get out of that seat and make some noise for
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 4: our guy.
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 3: Let me ask you this.
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 2: I know that the headline is the headline, right?
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 2: So you're not going to always put the home state
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 2: native as the headliner fight. But since he wasn't named
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 2: as the headline fight there, Is the, is opening it
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: the best place for that.
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 3: Sort of thing?
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, I would like to see him open the
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 4: main card instead so that, because here's the problem.
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 4: And this is something that we are notorious for in
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 4: the state of Utah.
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 3: All of you sports fans know this. We show up late, right?
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 4: We trickle into jazz games and mammoth games, local knowledge
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 4: by Utah games and everything. We come up, we come
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 4: in late, right? Like The stands aren't full until the
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 4: end of the first quarter in a lot of cases. Well,
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 4: UFC crowds are that times a million. For whatever reason,
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 4: and I've never understood this, because they're expensive tickets. There
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 4: are people that pay $ 1, 000 for a ticket and don't
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 4: show up until the final five fights. Always drove me crazy.
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 4: I was the first fight on a UFC card in
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 4: New Zealand. And I got a little bit better treatment
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 4: than that because it was the first UFC fight ever
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 4: in New Zealand. So they were super eager. They were
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 4: really excited to be there. I've been the second fight
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 4: on a card in, where was that? In Boston. I
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 4: was the second fight on a card in Boston. And
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 4: there were like 400 people watching.
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 3: At the TD garden?
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 3: It was crazy. I'm just like, what the hell? It
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 3: must have looked like just completely empty. I could hear it.
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 3: My coach didn't have to yell. He could just talk.
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 3: That sucks.
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 4: And it's so crazy because think of it like if
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 4: Court McGee is fighting on a regional show, on a
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 4: local show, he is for sure the main event. He
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 4: is like the top, top, top attraction. And he was
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 4: when he was fighting on the local. And then- you
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 4: make that jump into the UFC or for him, you know,
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 4: he's 16 years jumped into the UFC. You go out there,
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 4: you're he's among the best 50.
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 3: Or 75 welterweights on the planet. And there's 200 people
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 3: there to watch you. It's crazy. Yeah.
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 2: So this is like almost universally wherever it is, or
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 2: is this like UFC fights in the U S.
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 3: It's, it's usually the U S is much worse.
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 4: We're much more guilty of it in the U S
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 4: Vegas is like the worst because the That's when it's
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 4: an event. It's not just about being there because you're
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 4: a fan of the sport. It's like, oh, you're in
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 4: the casino and you have dinner and you roll in
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 4: whenever the popular fighters come on.
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 3: But court is our guy.
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 4: We have one in the UFC right now who's a Utahan,
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 4: and it's him. And this fight is happening in Salt
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 4: Lake City.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 3: It's on our home soil. Get there.
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 4: Dude, James, the most realistic thing that's going to happen
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 4: with me in this UFC card is I'm going to
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 4: be there to watch court. I'm going to watch a
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 4: couple more guys on the early card. I actually don't
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 4: really care about some of the fights on the main card.
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 4: It feels upside down. It feels backwards to me. Like
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 4: there are better fights on the early portion of the card.
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 4: So by the time this thing gets to paramount and
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 4: the big broadcast, I might still be there, but everything
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 4: I will have wanted to see desperately will have already happened.
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 4: And court is the headliner for me. I, we never
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 4: were training partners. Um, we, we always trained at different gyms.
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 4: He fought a couple of guys from my gym. He
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 4: beat those guys. Some of my best friends and training
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 4: partners were victimized by court. My coach fought him. That
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 4: was what we were talking about. Jeremy horn. He, he
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 4: ended up being my coach. That was, it was like
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 4: the sweepstakes where who's going to fight Jeremy at the
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 4: end of the year was either me or court or
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 4: this one guy named Ben Fumano was like, it's going
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 4: to be you three. And, The promoter at the time
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 4: made the decision like, Court, and he was correct, Court
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 4: has a better chance against Jeremy than you do. So
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 4: we're going to have him be the main event. And
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 4: I was like, great, awesome. And then Jeremy became my
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 4: coach right after that event. But he fought that guy.
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 4: He fought a guy with over 100 pro fights who
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 4: had fought Chuck Liddell for the belt. Court fought him
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 4: in his seventh pro fight. Just didn't say it went
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 4: to a decision. Didn't even get knocked out. Didn't get submitted.
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 4: So court is a, he is a special athlete.
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 3: He's going to go in the Utah sports hall of
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 3: fame at some point. Absolutely.
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 4: And even though he's not like my training partner, like
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 4: my best friend, like his career, he has represented Utah
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 4: incredibly well. And we should be proud of what he
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 4: has done in a very, very competitive and a very,
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 4: very difficult environment. His longevity is a true rarity and
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 4: handling it with class and, And I don't know his
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 4: kids very well, but, like, they seem like good boys,
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 4: and he's a dad raising three good boys.
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 3: In a world that needs good men.
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 4: Like I got a lot of love for court McGee,
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 4: even though, you know, we, he probably, he probably doesn't
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 4: feel the same way about me, but like show up
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 4: for our guy.
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 2: It's a long winded way of saying it. I echo that.
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 2: Don't it's a five o'clock start. You said, don't, don't
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 2: get there at five 30, get there. Get there in
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 2: time to root for. It's his last fight, too. So
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 2: this is a Utah native who's had a great UFC career.
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 2: Let's give him a good send-off.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 3: All right, I'll get off my high horse on that.
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 4: We'll get back into some Utah football discussion.
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 3: It's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 3: You're listening to.
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 10: The Sean O'Connell Show, your source for the best youth
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 10: football coverage.
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 3: Here's O.C.
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 10: From the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM.
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 4: All right, I was too busy raving about my desire
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 4: for all of you to go see Court McGee fight
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 4: live for the very last time at the Delta Center.
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 4: If you want to watch this thing but you can't
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 4: get into the Delta Center, head downtown, go to Dave
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 4: & Buster Salt Lake City. They've got raffles going on
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 4: and you can catch all the action at the gateway
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 4: at Dave and busters. When the fights actually start every
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 4: single punch, every kick, every submission going to be on
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 4: the mega screens, massive screens all over the place.
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 3: And actually this is a perfect scenario.
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 4: They've got a great food menu and there's always a
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 4: lull between fights, right? Sometimes you don't need to listen
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 4: to every interview and all that kind of thing. Well,
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 4: where better to be than at Dave and busters where
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 4: you can grab a snack and You can go have
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 4: a refill on your beverage.
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 3: And they've got games.
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 4: They've got 100 games around the place where you only
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 4: have to pay attention during the actual fights. It's a
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 4: pretty perfect place to watch this UFC card. UFC 332, Gateway,
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 4: downtown Salt Lake City, right near the arena. Dave and
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 4: Buster's at the Gateway. Tell them OC sent you. They're
• 2:19:51
  Speaker 4: going to have raffles in store. No purchase necessary. But
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 4: get down there and... If you go down Friday night,
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 4: they're actually going to raffle off some tickets to go
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 4: to the event on Saturday. So little pregame Friday night,
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 4: enter the raffle. If you win the tickets Saturday, you
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 4: can head down, grab a beverage, grab an appetizer, walk
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 4: over to the Delta center.
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 3: And watch the fights.
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 4: As long as you get there by six, because that's
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 4: when our guy court McGee is fighting UFC three 32
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 4: at Dave and busters at the gateway in downtown salt
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 4: Lake city.
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 2: Pretty sure Dave and busters won't give you the tickets.
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 2: If you can't make it for court McGee's fights.
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 4: That should, you know what I'm going to call Dave
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 4: and busters be like, Hey, whoever wins these tickets, tell
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 4: them they have to be there at 5.
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 5: PM.
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 2: I have to tell you that they can be there by, if.
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 4: They can't make it, they don't, they, that you're disqualified
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 4: from winning the tickets.
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 2: If you're going to show up late, pick it, pick
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 2: another raffle ticket. That'd be, that'd be hilarious.
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 3: I'd be amazing.
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure they're not having that stipulation but like
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 2: you said they ought to that's.
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 4: The sean o'connell show stipulation it's not the actual giveaway
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 4: at david buster's stipulation but we're gonna make it.
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 2: And and watching it at david buster's if you don't
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 2: win that raffle tickets if you weren't able to get
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 2: tickets any other way i mean you're gonna be as
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 2: close to the fight as you possibly can without being
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 2: in the arena so good spot to do it plus
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 2: like you said you could play some Games in between fights.
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 3: That's the only.
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, downside of being at the arena, there's no, like,
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 4: foosball to play between fights.
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 3: You can't have.
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 4: Last time I went to Dave & Buster's, I was
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 4: introduced to an air hockey machine that I didn't know
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 4: existed where it has, like.
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 3: a thousand little tiny pucks.
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, that after you score the first goal, they all
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 4: just like, and fall onto the playing surface.
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 3: And then it's like a mega shootout.
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 4: You have like miniature pucks all over the place and
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 4: the big pucks are still in play, dude.
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 3: It's amazing. That is amazing.
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 2: The clown game is one of my favorites where you
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 2: got to throw the ball, the knock down the clowns.
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 2: It's old school Carney style, but yeah, you got, you
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 2: got that there. You get the Papa shot basketball game.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 3: I am so bad at Papa shot. I've, I need
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 3: to watch like a YouTube tutorial on how to win
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 3: at Papa shot.
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 4: Eight, seven, seven, three, five, three, zero 700. Love to
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 4: hear from you on the show. Anytime we get a chance.
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 4: We talked earlier about the second half, particularly the third
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 4: quarter woes that Utah football has experienced where like, if
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 4: you have an issue with what you're seeing from Utah football, it's,
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 4: it's really in the third quarter. It's when Idaho is
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 4: putting together a nice drive. It's when your offensive production
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 4: is slowing down just a little bit. The Big 12 charted,
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 4: this is, I guess, me pushing back on our own conversation.
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 4: The Big 12 charted the expected points per drive on
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 4: offense and defense for the conference.
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 3: The top three defenses.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 4: In scoring defense, expected points per drive for your opposition, Utah, Baylor,
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 4: and TCU.
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 3: The top three offenses, Houston, BYU, and Utah.
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 4: An encouraging trend here that Utah is the only team
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 4: that appears in the top three in both categories that
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 4: delineates balance. It shows you that this is a team
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 4: that is good on both sides of the ball and something,
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 4: if there's a silver lining to be found in a
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 4: third quarter, slow down, it's not one or the other
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 4: unit that is really like bogging down in that third quarter.
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 4: And that's probably an overly aggressive term. Because, again, you're undefeated.
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 3: You're winning. Let's stay focused on that. However, if it
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 3: were just the defense.
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 4: Underperforming to the standard that they've set in the third
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 4: quarter for just the offense that wasn't putting up points
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 4: in the third.
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 3: Quarter, it might be harder to figure out.
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 4: I think the fact that everybody is a little bit
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 4: less productive in the third quarter actually means that it's
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 4: more addressable in practice and maybe more addressable from a
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 4: team standpoint, if that makes sense. So perhaps a silver
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 4: lining to be found there. Let me know what you
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 4: think at 877-353-0700. We'll take another break. We'll close out
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 4: the Sean O'Connell show next, a little crosstalk with Spence Checketts.
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 4: Final segment of the show in three minutes on Utah's
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 4: number one sports talk, ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 3: Oh, halfway there.
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 10: Oh, baby. You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 10: the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 8: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 4: Final segment of the show brought to you by our
• 2:24:57
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• 2:25:22
  Speaker 3: Phillies.
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 4: Oh, that is an unfortunate happenstance. A little playoff wildcard
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 4: baseball happening. Braves and Phillies right now. Al Fielder goes
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 4: up trying to rob one at the warning track, leaps up,
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 4: loses his glove, bouncing off the top of the wall.
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 4: Just unfortunate. You don't like to see it. Unless, of course,
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 4: you're anti-Phillies, in which case you'd be going go Braves here.
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 4: Some news coming out of Colorado that touches on the
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 4: Utah football sphere. Isaac Wilson has been receiving reps with
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 4: the Buffalo's number one offense in practice this week and
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 4: is expected to start against number 12, Texas tech this
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 4: coming Saturday.
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 3: Now perhaps a.
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 4: Dubious distinction, perhaps an ignominious honor here for Isaac Wilson,
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 4: because I think the buffs are a little bit overmatched
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 4: against Texas tech. However, You want good things to happen
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 4: for guys when they move on from the University of Utah.
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 4: At least I shouldn't speak for everyone, but I want
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 4: good things to happen for these guys. The situation was
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 4: far from ideal with him at the University of Utah
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 4: where he started seven games back in 2024. He did
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 4: throw for 156 yards and a touchdown, 12 with 25 passing,
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 4: and he came in this is for the Buffaloes last
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 4: week against, against Baylor. He came in late in the
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 4: game after Deon Sanders benched Juju, Juju Lewis, Julian Lewis
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 4: is a five-star recruit from the 2025 class. Uh, he
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 4: was a huge get, and he's a guy that just
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 4: unfortunately hasn't worked out the way that people needed him
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 4: to in Boulder. Interestingly enough, uh, Deion Sanders was asked
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 4: about the quarterback change, and he said he had not
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 4: talked to Julian, hadn't talked to Juju, which I don't
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 4: know how you don't have a conversation with the presumptive
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 4: starter if you're going to make a change and go
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 4: with Isaac Wilson.
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 3: But he gave some compliments to Isaac Wilson.
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 4: Said he stood up in the meeting, really talked to
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 4: the team about this and that and challenged them in
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 4: many ways.
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 2: I'm proud of the young man. I really am is
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 2: what Dion said. I mean, Dion always talking about how
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 2: he does things differently. He, one of those things he
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 2: does differently is not talking to the previous starting quarterback
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 2: about getting benched. So I guess, guess that's part of
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 2: the Dion brand.
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 4: Juju Lewis looked pretty bad in the Baylor game, but
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 4: he's thrown for 733 yards, 64% passing seven touchdowns. And
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 4: he's turned the ball over three times this season. So
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 4: it's not like he's been abysmally bad. He's just underperformed
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 4: to the expectation. And Colorado has basically nothing to lose
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 4: here in, in trying something different. I mean, you could
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 4: make an argument that this protects Julian Lewis. from having
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 4: to play against one of the top teams in the conference.
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 4: Dion is never going to state it out loud. I
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 4: don't know how many people, even in that building, think
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 4: that there's a good chance that they can beat this
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 4: Texas Tech team. Colorado has only scored 34 total points
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 4: against FBS opponents. They're 114th in the country right now
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 4: in scoring offense. And that's only because they scored 52
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 4: against Weber State, who's figuring some things out.
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 3: So, you know what?
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 4: Go Isaac Wilson. I hope he has a great day.
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 4: I hope he justifies the change. I hope he ends
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 4: up being the starter moving forward for the University of Colorado.
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 3: That'd be great.
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 2: An outstanding outcome for Isaac, obviously. And I hope that
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 2: there's not a ton of bad feelings. I know that
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 2: there's people that leave Utah and go to BYU, for example,
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 2: and that's understandable. You're not going to, you're not going
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 2: to hope good things for that because you want BYU
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 2: to lose if you're a Utes fan. But I don't,
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, Isaac, that, that shouldn't be the case with Isaac.
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 2: He did his best in, you know, not so great circumstances. He,
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 2: in a year we thought cam rising was going to
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 2: be the quarterback all year thrusted in to that moment
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 2: as a true freshman did his best.
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 3: It wasn't great. Hopefully he has a great outcome at Colorado.
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 4: And I've always been a believer that every position you
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 4: play in football, but especially the quarterback position, confidence is
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 4: such a massive, massive part of it. If you're not confident,
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 4: if you don't have a belief that you're going to
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 4: get the job done, you don't have a, like a
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 4: pretty sincere belief that you're prepared.
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you can be successful.
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 4: And Isaac Wilson was victimized partially by the timing of
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 4: that whole mess. He, like everyone else had been told
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 4: from the very get go. No, it's going to be
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 4: cam rising. It's going to be cam rising. It's going
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 4: to be cam rising.
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 3: He's not the future, but cams, the, the press, he
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 3: signed with Utah expecting that he was going to get
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 3: to understudy with cam rising. Right?
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 4: Like I have on pretty good authority for, that even
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 4: members of his family were just like, well, hold on
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 4: a minute. We didn't expect him to be thrown into
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 4: service without time to really kind of season himself. And
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 4: now he's a veteran in college sports.
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 3: He's been through the ringer.
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 4: He's faced the downside of not being a successful starting quarterback,
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 4: and hopefully this time it goes differently. You want redemption
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 4: for all these guys, even if they don't end up
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 4: doing it for the University of Utah. Utah's in a
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 4: really good situation quarterback-wise right now. I guess we could
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 4: have had Isaac bounce back like Brandon Rose did, but
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 4: he'll be starting for Colorado this weekend, and in what
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 4: for me was a relatively unexpected development, even after he
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 4: played fine, decently well, against Baylor, and it was ultimately
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 4: a loss for the Buffaloes. The drive with Spence Checketts
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 4: is next, and here he is in our Broadway studios.
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 4: Brought to you by our friends at Advanced Window Products.
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 6: Hi.
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 3: Hello, Sean. Good to see you again. You as well.
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 11: Recorded a podcast with a very handsome, dynamic, charismatic, accomplished
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 11: radio host, ex-fighter, ex-football player.
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 3: Sounds interesting. Father. Sounds cool. Husband. Sounds like a really
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 3: cool guy. Well, some would say renaissance man. Change your shirt. Yeah, dude,
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 3: I'm not wearing collared shirts all day if I don't
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 3: have to.
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 11: Had to go home real quick, get a little exercise,
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 11: and then had a couple more meetings. Got to pay
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 11: the bills, man. We all have bills to pay.
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 3: With meetings? Well, meetings hopefully lead to deals that lead
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 3: to paying the bills. Oh, got it. So, but thank
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 3: you for your time today.
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 11: Episode 26 of the new podcast features Sean O'Connell.
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 3: Are you talking about the reality check? Correct.
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 5: Oh.
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've also podcast these shows. I don't know if
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 3: you knew that.
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 3: But multiple responsibilities and duties these days. Let me ask
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 3: you this. Were you sweating in that room? No, I
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 3: was fine. It's so hot. It was warm, but I
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 3: wasn't sweating yet. I was actually going to give you
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 3: a heads up, and then you wore the big flannel.
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 3: Just wondered if you were going to sweat in there.
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 3: But you hung in there.
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 4: This is the magical synthetic flannel fabric that's not actually
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 4: overly hot.
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Well, good stuff today.
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 11: I find the story of you winning that fight, I
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 11: know you don't talk about it much on the show,
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 11: just really interesting.
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 3: It worked out. Oh, for sure.
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 11: But we talk about it on the pod today because,
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 11: as I said, when I kind of asked you the question,
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 11: you had to win that fight.
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess.
• 2:33:36
  Speaker 11: For so many different reasons, right? I mean, essentially, it
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 11: was going to be your last go around.
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 3: You had a Wife with child. Correct. Wanting to make
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 3: sure that she's taken care of the way that she deserves.
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 3: And you did say that your marriage would have survived
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 3: if you lost the fight. Yes. I was happy for you.
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 3: I hope so. Okay. Well, I guess we'll never know.
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 3: I guess you never know because like, you know, sometimes,
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 3: you know how women get the ick? You've heard about this?
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 3: Fully aware.
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 4: How they just, you do something and there's like, what happened?
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 4: And they're like, I just gave me the ick. Now
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 4: I'm done with you.
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 3: Seems like, getting beat up by another grown man on
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 3: national television might give her the ick. I'm sure she
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 3: was stress watching. Was she there? She was nice.
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 11: Well, we talk about Sean's background as a fighter, as
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 11: a football player, highly accomplished beat digger.
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, by the way, I stretch. I did. I did
• 2:34:30
  Speaker 3: a big stretch.
• 2:34:30
  Speaker 11: No, you're, you're a legend at that school. I told
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 11: you I played in a golf tournament and the two golf. Well,
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 11: it was one golfer. Then is like sidekick. which I
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 11: thought was pretty interesting.
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 3: That's great. Yeah, it sounds like a very Jordan High thing. Yeah,
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 3: he just brought along, like, his hype man. And by
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 3: the way, he was the nicest dude.
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 3: They were really good guys.
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 11: And, you know, you spend four and a half hours
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 11: with somebody, you're going to get to know them a
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 11: little bit.
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 3: And they were beat diggers.
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 9: Uh-huh.
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 3: And they're younger, a little younger than you. I think
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 3: they're in their mid-30s.
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 3: Like, you know Sean O'Connell? They're like, legend. That's right. Goat.
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 3: That's right. Of all time. That's what goat means. Now
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 3: all those guys... 20 bucks for saying that. Nice guys.
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, the Sean O'Connell legend lives on.
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 3: Do you support the Protect College Sports Act in its
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 3: current form?
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 6: No.
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 3: What don't you like about it?
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 11: Well, I mean, ultimately, the protections that they have in
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 11: there that most people will like about this sport moving
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 11: into the space that I believe it has to move
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 11: into to be saved. Honestly, I really believe it's the
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 11: only direction to go.
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 3: Collective bargaining?
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 11: Well, collective bargaining and also... I mean, I know people
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 11: hate the term super league. It's the NFL model. It's
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 11: the only way to go to save this sport as
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 11: we know it. Now, will some schools be left behind?
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 11: But it doesn't mean there isn't space left for those schools.
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 11: Like the PAC 12 is still a thing. It's just
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 11: different than it was. So I have, I talked about
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 11: this the week after NIL.
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 3: And transfer portal became a reality. I said, okay, here's
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 3: what's going to happen.
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 11: Until you have a salary cap of sorts in place,
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 11: certain schools will outspend other schools.
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 3: Has that always been the case? Yes, but now everything's
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 3: above board.
• 2:36:16
  Speaker 11: Until you can curtail movement, this sport is about to
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 11: have free agency every year, and initially multiple times in
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 11: the same calendar year. If only there was a model
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 11: to keep players with the same team, and if only
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 11: there was a model to make sure that certain schools
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 11: can't outspend certain schools.
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 3: There is. It's professional football. You can hate it as
• 2:36:39
  Speaker 3: much as you want.
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 11: But to me, that's the only solution to all the
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 11: things people bitch and moan about as it pertains to
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 11: where college football is at. Now, the good news is,
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 11: and this is why people shouldn't be scared about the
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 11: future of the sport. I think the sport is in
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 11: a great place. I actually think the freedom of movement
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 11: and the ability to pay these players has even the
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 11: playing field across the landscape of the sport In a
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 11: way that it's never been evened before. Indiana won the
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 11: national championship a year ago. The most pathetic football program
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 11: in the history of the sport for a number of
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 11: years is now a national champion.
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 5: It's true.
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 11: So it gives you hope that year in and year
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 11: out you could be that school. The issue is, and
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 11: you and I talked about this on the pod today,
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 11: because I asked you straight up, can you build a
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 11: national championship college football team? at the University of Utah
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 11: and if we expand it can you build a national
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 11: championship team in the Big 12 if we're honest the
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 11: answer is probably not with the way the sport is
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 11: right now if the sport moves into a pro model
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 11: And here's the other, and look, I'm being selfish here,
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 11: because the other reason I want this sport to kind
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 11: of settle into that reality is Utah would be a
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 11: part of it, and so would BYU.
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 3: They wouldn't have to be concerned about continuing.
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 11: To exist in whatever the Big 12 would look like
• 2:37:59
  Speaker 11: if the Big 12 takes tech or whatever. Utah and
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 11: BYU would be part of a 40-team new imagined college
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 11: football format.
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 3: And this Protect College Sports Act.
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think so. You know, the top 40 college football.
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 11: Programs in the country, you don't think Utah and.
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 3: BYU are two of the top 40? I think from
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 3: a football standpoint, they are. But when it comes to
• 2:38:23
  Speaker 3: television networks and that kind of thing, I don't think
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 3: that will be the decision made.
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I don't know that market size is as much
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 11: of a deal anymore as it pertains to the way
• 2:38:34
  Speaker 11: that social media and the Internet has made the world smaller.
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 11: And Salt Lake has an intriguing, you know, the surrounding
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 11: area has an intriguing story to tell about population growth,
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 11: economic stability, pro hockey, pro basketball, pro soccer, and hopefully
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 11: pro baseball.
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 3: So if you expand, like, how.
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 11: Far would you have to expand it for you to
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 11: feel comfortable that Utah and BYU would be part of
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 11: the new reality of college football?
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 3: 64. That far, huh?
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 3: Because I don't think it's going to be 64. It's
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 3: going to be four in Texas, four in California.
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 3: That, well, at least two in California. Two in California.
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 11: You know, there's... I mean, if we assume Texas Tech
• 2:39:16
  Speaker 11: is part of it, obviously Texas, Texas A & M,
• 2:39:20
  Speaker 11: I don't.
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 3: Think Houston's a part of it. SMU will buy their
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 3: way in like they already did to the ACC.
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 11: It's a bigger media market. I'm going to disagree with you.
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 11: I think if it's 40, Utah and BYU would be
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 11: a part of it.
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 3: You know what? I'm going to put this poll question up,
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 3: and we'll talk about it a lot on the show tomorrow.
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 3: Because I think it's a good.
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 4: Where is that number if it's top 40? Because I
• 2:39:41
  Speaker 4: think that's the number. I would be sweating it out.
• 2:39:45
  Speaker 11: I don't think you're wrong there, but I do think ultimately,
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 11: at the end of the day, they get in.
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 3: We'll finish it here.
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 4: The Protect College Sports Act right now says you can
• 2:39:55
  Speaker 4: cap the current conferences at 20.
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 3: And we know that it's the Big Ten and the SEC.
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 3: Hence the number. Big Ten's already at 18.
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 10: Right?
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 3: The next two.
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 3: That they would add to get to 20 are not
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 3: BYU or Utah. You don't think so? I don't. Who
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 3: would you put in before them?
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 4: Well, Notre Dame for sure would get into the Big
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 4: Ten before either of those schools.
• 2:40:20
  Speaker 3: And they would want Miami first. They would want North
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 3: Carolina first. How many in the SEC right now? There's
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 3: 16 in the SEC. So essentially there's six more spots.
• 2:40:29
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 3: Texas Tech wants one.
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 11: Florida State, Miami, Notre Dame. Then you get into the
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 11: Texas Tech-Utah-BYU deal. Here's the biggest question. If there's one
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 11: spot left, and it's Utah or BYU, put that poll
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 11: question out.
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 3: Well, our demographic is going to yield one result there.
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 3: We need to get someone with a national platform to
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 3: put that out there. Well, the reason that becomes interesting...
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 3: And look, who knows how.
• 2:41:03
  Speaker 11: Much truth there is to the whole, like, the Pac-12
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 11: didn't want to deal with the complications that comes with
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 11: dealing with a religious institution.
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 3: Therefore, they never even looked at BYU.
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 11: With the complications of what BYU brings to the table,
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 11: Sunday play, et cetera, would that lean the table towards Utah?
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 3: Well, no, because it's all based on football, right? And
• 2:41:24
  Speaker 3: college football is not played on Sundays, so that wouldn't.
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 3: But would it be? Could it be? No, they're not
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 3: going to compete with the NFL. No way.
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 11: Well, the NFL already plays some Saturday games.
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, but the NFL gets to pick whatever fight it wants.
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 3: That's correct.
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 4: College football is not going to say, yeah, we're going
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 4: to try to carve out space in your territory on Sundays.
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 3: It would be suicide. It would be dumb.
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 11: Yeah, no, I mean, look, going head-to-head against the NFL
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 11: obviously is a fool's errand. I just wonder what– because
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 11: none of us know what it would look like when
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 11: this sport moves into the model. Then again, let me reiterate,
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 11: I believe it needs to move into if you want
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 11: to solve the issues– of uneven spending and free agency
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 11: every year. Those are the two biggest issues most people
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 11: have with this sport. And again, I don't think it's
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 11: all been bad. As I referenced, the playing field has
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 11: been even a little bit because of it. So yeah,
• 2:42:15
  Speaker 11: when you do the math, I mean, are there teams
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 11: in the SEC or the Big Ten currently that you
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 11: would want to kick out?
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 3: That is where you have an opportunity.
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 4: Because if they're completely burning it all down and reassembling, Northwestern, sorry,
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 4: you're gone.
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 6: Rutgers.
• 2:42:34
  Speaker 4: Maryland and Rutgers, you're gone. Illinois, you're probably gone. There's
• 2:42:38
  Speaker 4: a bunch of teams. I mean, Wisconsin might not even
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 4: be safe anymore because they've been so irrelevant.
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 3: Purdue, bye.
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 2:42:47
  Speaker 4: So then, now we're talking about instead of six spots left,
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 4: we're talking about 12 versus 20.
• 2:42:52
  Speaker 3: And in that case, absolutely Utah and BYU.
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I try not to focus just on the bubble
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 11: here and be biased about it, but it does feel
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 11: like if... If you break it all down and say, okay,
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 11: we're going to this model. We want two conferences, and
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 11: it's 20 teams each.
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 3: It's AFC, NFC.
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 11: It does feel like BYU and Utah are two of
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 11: the top 40 football programs in the country, and I
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 11: don't even think that's how I take it.
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that competitively, 100% they are. I think
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 3: that spending-wise, we know Utah's not.
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 11: And I think that matters just as much or more
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 11: than anything else. And right now, I mean, according to
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 11: the numbers that were released, BYU isn't either.
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 3: That's right. At least not the level we thought it was. So,
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know, man. Interesting to see. We'll put the
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 3: poll question up. Listen to The Drive. And listen to
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 3: The Sean O'Connell Show again when we do it tomorrow
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 3: on ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.