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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 9-2-26 · The Sean O'Connell Show

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Happy Hump Day, everybody! Welcome to the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Happy to have you with us here on ESPN 700
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: at 92.1 FM. Proud part of Utah's ESPN radio network,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: your home of the Utes.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: And we are one day away. Yes, we are almost there.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: We are right around the corner.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: From the time when we get to go up to
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Rice-Eccles Stadium, we get to put the speculation behind us,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: the prognostication, the prediction behind us, we get to watch,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: to observe, to react, to overreact, to laugh, to cry
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: about a.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Utah football season.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: That the football gods have gifted us seven home games
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: this year. First one, of course, Thursday night against the
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Big Sky Vandals of Idaho. who released their uniform today. Yesterday, actually,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I think. And they've got the old-school Vandal, like, throwback
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: logo on the helmet. Black helmet, white jersey, black pants.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: The Vandals are going with that look. So kind of cool,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: if we're being honest. We have Colton Swan joining us
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: today for Coordinator's Corner. Defensive coordinator at the University of Utah.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: We'll be at 1 o'clock here. on the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Dan Sorensen joining us in about 30 minutes for some
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Ute Zone Wednesday. And at 1230, Steve Rabel, the voice
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: of the Seattle Seahawks.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: He's the play-by-play man.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: He's actually a former professional player. Usually you go from
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: playing to the analyst chair, and he's done that. analyst
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: work and then became the play-by-play man, which I'm going
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: to pick his brain about that. That's what I did
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: in the fighting world. So I think it's really cool.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: He was able to do that at the NFL level.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I think he's the only one. There might be one more.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I think there's an offensive lineman for new Orleans. Perhaps
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: it did the same thing, but it's a rare path.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: So Steve Ray bull is going to join us. And
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: a little bird has told me that, uh, Paperwork still
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: to be done on the front, but it looks like
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM are going to be a
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: broadcast partner for the Seattle Seahawks games this coming season.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Much to my chagrin as a 49ers fan, but whatever's
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: good for the station is good for us.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: And they have some Utah connections up there.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Connor O'Toole made the roster, made the 53 man, which
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: is great to see after an injury played collegiate career.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: He is now Stuck on a roster a couple of
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: years in a row in the NFL.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: A lot of.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Special team stuff for him, mostly special team stuff for him. But, man,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: just playing in the NFL is an accomplishment by itself. Obviously,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Rashid Shahid, the wide receiver and return man from Weber State,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: has done great things in a Seattle uniform.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And they are the defending Super Bowl champs.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So I guess I should be excited that they're happy
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: to work with us on that front.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I kind of timed it poorly. I should have waited
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to do the.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Defensive point total over-under for the day that we had
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Colton Swan coming on, for the time that we had
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: the defensive coordinator coming on, but I didn't think it
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: out properly. So I'm going to throw the over-under out today, offensively.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I want to dive into it.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about what it means for Utah
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: to potentially end up in that the range that I've
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: set the over-under at as an offense. Of course, you
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: go back to last season, and whatever your prognostication was,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: whatever we thought Utah was going to do offensively from
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: a point standpoint, from a rushing yard standpoint, they exceeded
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: those expectations. Defying all expectation, defying all norms at the
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: University of Utah, The Utes last year had the number
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: four scoring offense in the country. Let me say that
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: one more time.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Fourth in the country in points per game. North Texas
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: was one.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Their coach and a lot of their players are now
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: at Oklahoma State, so expect Oklahoma State's totals to skyrocket.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Notre Dame was the second highest scoring offense in the
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: country last year.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: They scored 42 points a game on average.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Indiana 41.6 points per game. And the University of Utah, 41.3
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: points per game, followed by South Florida to round out
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the top five. So the third best power offense in
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the nation. Let me say that for you one more time.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: The third highest scoring power conference offense in the country
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: last year was in Salt Lake City.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: At the university of Utah.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: I am not setting the point total anywhere near 41.3.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: That is an outlier season. Although I think Kevin McGiven
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: is the right kind of play caller. I think his creativity,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: especially in the passing game is going to be something
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: that Utah fans love. I'm also not setting the point
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: totals anywhere near the 2024 or 2023.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Seasons, right?
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Those were outliers on the negative front. Those were places
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: where we never want to go again. Those are years
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: where you didn't have consistent quarterback play. You had a
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: difficulty finding reliable health really in every position room. When
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out what is the right
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: way to come up with this number, what is the
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: right way to find an over-under number that makes sense
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: for this season with a new offensive coordinator, but with
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: an experienced quarterback, second year as a starter. His dynamic
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: play style, I think, is going to be helped out
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: by the fact that he comes into the year healthy again,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: healthier even than he was in the 2025 preseason. I
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: think it's also helped by the depth of the quarterback
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: position because of Bird Ficklin's Versatility because of Bert Ficklin's explosiveness,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: because of the fact that if you do get to
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: a situation where you have to play a backup, the
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: backup is a starting caliber player. That matters a lot
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: when you're talking about points per game. Because it's actually
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: a rarity in college football, as we've become acutely aware,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: for your starting quarterback to To play every single game,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: all four quarters of every single game or all meaningful
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: downs of every single game is probably a better way
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: to say that.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I decided to go ahead and go with the five
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: year average of Utah offensively because you.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Had a positive outlier last year.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: You had a couple of down years and then you
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: had a couple of championship years in the Pac-12 conference.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: So two down years that were really down where you
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: were ranked in like the hundreds in scoring offense. One
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: last year where you were in the top five, the
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: top three in the power conference. And then the 2022
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: and 2021 seasons, obviously you had a really strong years.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: You were the 11th ranked scoring offense in 2022. You
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: were the 14th ranked scoring offense in 2021.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I took the five year average of those years.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: And the number on that, what it comes out to,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: as we try to predict what this year's offense is
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: going to look like under Kevin McGiven, 32.5 points per game.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Can this Utah football team score 32.5 points per game
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: or more?
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: If you think more, hit the over.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: If you think they're going to be a little bit
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: less than that, hit the under.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: 877-353-0700. Call in. Let us know what you think. Text in.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Let me know what you think. At RealOCSports on the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Twitter page. Let me know what you think there. The
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: other part about this assessment, this evaluation is I was like, okay, yes,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: we're talking about Utah and a carryover of Utah personnel.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Although basically you're running game returns production. You're passing game returns,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: hardly any production, right? And so you kind of have
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: to look at, well, wait, what about what Utah State
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: was able to do? Utah State under Kevin McGibbon, 30.9
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: points per game last year.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So they were 35th.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: They tied with Miami, who was your eventual runner-up nationally,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: with just under 31 points per game.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So I think, right, we're in the right neighborhood here.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: It also happens that if you go to 32.5 points
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: per game, and this surprised me when I came up
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: with the average. I'm like, okay, we'll do that. We'll
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: go with the average as the expectation. Where does that
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: put this team nationally? And it's not going to work
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: out this way every single year, but it just so
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: happens that that 32.5 points per game is exactly top 25.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: The 25th-ranked scoring offense in the land last year was Memphis,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: and Memphis scored 32.5 points per game. So it conveniently
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: works out for me, setting this total, that if.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You think they can hit the over.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: That is a top 25 offense, at least last year
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: it would have been. If you hit the under, you're
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: just outside the top 25. And that is an area
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: of predictive comfort that I think we can get into.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: That is a place where if you're a Utah football fan,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: if you're a hardcore Utah football supporter, but you try
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: to be realistic about these things, setting an expectation for
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: your defense to be kind of in the top 15,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: setting your offensive prediction to be somewhere in the top 25,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Of course, you get consistency with your special teams. And
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: now overall, we're talking about Morgan Scali in his first
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: year having an overall top 25 team. If you're in
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: that neighborhood offensively and defensively, that's an acceptable successful year
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: for me. If you're a top 25 style team, I
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: want this to be better than that. I want this
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: year to be a top 10 year. I want this
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: year to be a conference championship year. I'm trying to
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: be an optimistic realist as we look at the totals
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: that we can look for. We've gone through and we've
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: talked passing yards, we've talked rushing yards, but points are
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: really what matters. And this is a place where Utah
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: was very strange last year on the defensive side where
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: you were giving up way too many yards defensively, especially
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: in the run game, but it wasn't translating to opponent
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: points all that often. You still have great red zone defense.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: You turn some people over deep in your own territory.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, we're looking at
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: a situation where Utah outperformed their statistical reality in some
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: spots last year.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Can you do that this year? Well, you have to
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: do that this year.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: 877-353-0700.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Tell me what you think about Utah's Points per game
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: offensive output.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: We are a day ahead of Utah kicking off their
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: football season, and we're getting into the big picture numbers now.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: We went over the defense yesterday, and I set that
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: number in a spot where I thought you could probably
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: count on a top five type performance in the Big
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: 12 Conference. I don't think we're going to count on
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: a top five performance nationally from the Utah offense this year,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: but what about in the Big 12 Conference? Where would 32.5
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: points per game put you in the Big 12 Conference
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: back in 2025? Utah was the number one scoring offense
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: in the Big 12 last year. Texas Tech finished second.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: They were the eventual conference champs, as you all know.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: BYU finished fourth. If Utah could hit the over on 32.5,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: this year that would make them a top two offense.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Relative to the point totals put up last year. Last
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: year it was.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: 41.3 for Utah, 39.4 for Texas Tech, 31.5 for Arizona, 31.4
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: for BYU, and Baylor with 31.1 points per game. James
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Peterson is behind the glass today. James, I set it
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: at 32.5 points per game for this Utah offense this year.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Last year, that would have been a top 25 offense.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Most years, that is a top 25 scoring offense.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Is that a realistic, reasonable expectation for Utah football under
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Kevin McGiven with an experienced quarterback, experienced running back, but
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: not a ton of experience anywhere else on his offense?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Is 32.5 points a game asking too much? I think
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: that I would go slightly under 30-31. because it's a
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: new offense, because the uncertainty with the O-line, none of
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: these guys have started before, because of the new offensive
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: coaching staff. There's a lot of new offensive coaches, OC,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: and one of them, we think Jordan Gross will be great.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: He's never coached college before.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: So I think just with that uncertainty at this point
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: in the season where they haven't proved anything yet, I
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: would go under, but I don't expect this team to
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: be like the 2024, the ill-fated 2024 team where I
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: remember going into last season, we were like, if they
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: can just find a way to get to 30 points,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: there'll be an 11 win team. And they did that
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: in more last year and they won 11 games if
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: you include the bowl game, right?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: So we were right about that.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be like that, but
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I do think that it would be probably irresponsible and
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: you'd probably be claiming to know more than you actually
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: know if you're saying, yeah, they'll definitely get over 32
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: points a game. I'd be, I wouldn't be surprised if
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: they prove us wrong because Mac G has a great
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: record as an OC. He's got a great reputation as
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: an OC. That's why he was hired. You've got a
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: lot of, you've got the quarterbacks returning. You've got a
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: lot of skill position players returning. You know, Wayshon Parker
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: primarily being the one you have a lot of expectations of.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: The receivers that Mac G has coached in other places
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: have a lot of talent that have transferred in. For me,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I won't say, yeah, they're going to be better than
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that until I see it all come together. It's a
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: totally fair and reasonable mindset to have. When you say
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: you're taking the under of 32.5, you're not saying, I
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: think they're going to score 20 points a game or
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: 23 points a game like you saw in those down
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: years where you're trying to get a different starting quarterback
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: every single week. what you're saying is 32 and a
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: half that you're again, I'm setting it as it's kind
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: of a top 25 level offense. I think maybe they
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: won't be that this year and Kevin McGiven's first year.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: It's fine to say the reason I'm taking the over
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: and very slightly like 33, 34. If you scored 34
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: points a game this year, I think you're in a really,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: really good spot on average. Of course, part of the
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: reason I'm taking the over is because I think there's
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: a few games on the schedule this year. where this
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Utah team is going to score 50 points. I expect
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: them to score 50 points tomorrow night. Maybe that's unreasonable.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I'm going to eat crow and look really dumb here
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: on a Friday morning when we're doing this show if
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: they end up with kind of a lackluster performance or
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: things take a little bit more time to get going
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: or Idaho outperforms their ability or whatever else. The schedule
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: really does lay out in a friendly manner for the
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: University of Utah. If we adjust our expectations, like Texas
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Tech defensively pulled everybody's scoring average down last year. You
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: don't have to play Texas Tech in the regular season.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I think they're going to be good again. I think
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: missing them is good for you. BYU, they can pull
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: your scoring average down. You do have that game, but
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: it is a home game. I don't expect that to
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: be a high-scoring game. Iowa State was one of the top.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: They were top five defense in the conference last year
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: when it came to scoring defense. I think Iowa State
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: is going to have a hard time this season. I've
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: been wrong before, but they took everybody to Penn State.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I think Iowa State is one of those teams where
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: you're just like, okay, probably put up some points against
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Iowa state. I think your, your tough games against on
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: paper defenses that might cause you problems are BYU, Arizona
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: and Houston. There was only two, there were only two
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: offenses in the big 12 conference last year that gave
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: up more than the average I'm talking about on average.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: But I believe that this team, with its speed, its versatility,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: should be able to put up points. And I think, honestly,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: you're going to have to be able to put up
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: points because we do have questions about the defensive front
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: for the University of Utah. And I know that everyone's
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: out there listening and saying, we've got even more questions
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: about the offensive front. I feel like there are easier
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: ways to scheme defense around talent deficiencies on your offensive
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: line than there are to scheme around talent deficiencies on
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: your defensive line, if that makes sense. Like you can
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: go to quick passing packages. You can do, you know,
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: slip motions and slide protections and quick runs out on
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the edge and things like that that allow you to
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: disguise some deficiencies you have on the offensive line. It's
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: really difficult to disguise deficiencies in your defensive front seven
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: if you have them. No matter how good your coordinator is,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: there are going to be seven or eight scenarios in
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: a game where you just have to be able to
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: stop the run on short yardage. You just have to
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: be able to get knocked back and pass rush or
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: you're going to lose or you're going to underperform defensively.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: A great offensive coordinator. And this is what Kevin, I've
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: talked about this before. This is what Kevin McGiven has made.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately for him, fortunately for us, what he's had to
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: do for the bulk of his career is he's had
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: to find ways to to get around not having the
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: best offensive lines in his conference or the best offensive
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: lines in the country or the best. Like he, he
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: knows what this is like, if it's even something he
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: has to deal with. And we don't know if it's
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: something he has to deal with yet. We might need
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: to drink the Kool-Aid on Jordan gross and drink the
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Kool-Aid on this, this offensive line room that has a
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: lot of talent. Certainly has good size on it. Certainly
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: has according to, all reports internally and externally, a bunch
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of guys who are stronger, faster, more explosive than they've
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: been ever. Of course, you're playing against teams that also
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: have paid guys. You're playing against teams that also have
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: scholarship guys. You're playing against teams in these tough games
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about, Arizona, BYU, Houston, that have NFL guys.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: That's unavoidable. I'm taking the slight over on my own
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: prediction here, on my own target.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I should say.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: 877-353-0700, where do you stand on the over-unders? 32.5 points
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: per game. If you hit the over relative to last year,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: that would be a top 25 offense. If you hit
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: the under, you're just outside of that top 25 or
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: even lower. You go back to 2024 and actually it
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: took 33.5 points a game in order to be a
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: top 25 offense. For whatever reason, 2024... Everybody, both in
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: the Big 12 Conference and nationally, was scoring more points.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Our resident BYU fan, Darren says, if you're putting out
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: a prop on over or under, I am taking the over,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: even as your resident BYU fan listening in every day.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Darren, for jumping in.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: That makes me feel a little bit better about my
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: cautious optimism, because if even the BYU fan is like, yeah,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I could see them scoring 32.5 points per game, more
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: than that. That's not someone with crimson-colored goggles on. That's
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: not somebody who's invested in a positive Utah football outcome. 32.5,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: that's where I'm setting the over-under for Utah offensively in
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: the point total. We revisit it throughout the course of
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: the show today. We didn't touch on this at all yesterday.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I know this is something that some people don't like
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: about the modern era of pro sports and college sports
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: where you're getting more branding put on the actual uniforms themselves. Utah,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: as far as we know, the University of Utah so
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: far is going to have a jersey patch on one
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: shoulder that's got the Big 12 monster logo, okay? I've
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: seen what this looks like. I think most of you
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: on Twitter now have seen what this looks like. I
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: have to admit it's not as bad as I thought
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: it was going to be. It's bad because of that
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: neon green on red or that neon green on black
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: is better. But neon green on red looks ugly. The
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: neon green on white and red is going to look ugly.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: But it's unobtrusive enough. It's a small enough logo with
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: a small enough amount of green that I can just
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: get over it. They're also going to have the University
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: of Utah Health logo, which is kind of like if
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: you have to incorporate a corporate sponsor, one that is
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: named after your institution is about as good as it gets,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: about as low impact as it gets, in my opinion.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: And we got the announcement yesterday.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: That the helmet bumper, you know that little strip of
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: rubber at the back bottom of the helmet that I
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: guess protects from pinching and chafage if the helmet gets
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: knocked back onto your neck flesh?
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Alchemy Insurance. A-L-K-E-M-E.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Like the Utah spelling, the Utah County baby name spelling
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: of alchemy. Is the helmet bumper sponsor. James, we have
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: to find if there's any like real estate where we
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: can be like the helmet visor sponsor. Maybe the mouthpiece sponsor.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: It's a great one.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Just like really tiny ESPN 700. Anyone who wears those
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: binky style mouthpieces. Get the squint at your TV. Oh,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: that's a brand right there. It's just, does that say?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: The Sean O'Connell show. They should have found something smaller
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: to put on there. It's a lot of letters for the,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: or no, just your face. Whose face is that in,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: in way? Sean Parker's mouth. That would not be, can
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: we be the face mask sponsor?
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Ooh, yes. Oh, like the visor. Well, the visor would
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: be cool.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Like if you had the visor, you know that, you
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: know how you could like put where looking from the
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: outside and like the double-sided mirror, you look from the
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: outside and you can't tell, but, There's like a full
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: decal on the windshield.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Like a car wrap. Like they put on buses. Like
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: you see on the UCA buses or whatever.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Car wraps.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: How cool would that be if we had one of those? Or,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: you know, just go full Ricky Bobby, tell they goodnight.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: This sticker is dangerous and inconvenient, but I do love
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Fig Newtons. I do love the Sean O'Connell show. Like,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: let's do that. Let's get on a... Not everybody wears
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: a visor. Everyone does wear a face mask. If we
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: could get some real fine print on a face mask...
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: that no one can read.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: There's like, what is that?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: You only see it on the television replays when they're
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: zooming in in slow motion. Hey, at least they see
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: it though. There's a lot of zooming in and slow-mo
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: on television replays. So get a lot of play. It's
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: only hyper-focused on when it's a targeting penalty and there's
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: helmet to helmet. You can see here buzz that he
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: launched right into that. Looks like that text on the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: bottom of the face mask that says ESPN, 700 sports.com.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: And watch right here in the slow-mo. He's launching the
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: crown of his helmet, right?
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, dude. The crown of the helmet. This is the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: best idea we've had. Okay?
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: A smudgeable logo that goes exactly on the crown of
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: the helmet.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Then you know if they led with the crown of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the helmet or not. Yes, yes.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: It's the same way that, like, it's like paintball, right?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: You know you got hit because there's paint left over. Yeah,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: that's what they got to do. And then they got
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: to thank the Sean O'Connell show every time. We really
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: appreciate the Sean O'Connell show for helping us rule on
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: targeting there. The only downside is the smudgeable logo then
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: becomes obscured after one illegal hit. We've just come up
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: with a really good idea. We're going to do alchemy spelling, though.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: It's going to be not S-H-A-W-N, but it's going to
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: be just a funny way to spell Sean.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: No, I can't.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: There's already too many weird ways to spell it.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: S-H-A-W-N was the first one that I came across. So
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: when I saw the, I guess it's the Irish spelling
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: that you have. The scene spelling, yeah. Which is a
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: lot more common, I realize. But I think my first
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: friend that was Sean was S-H-A-W-N. So I thought, oh,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: that's how everyone spells Sean. Yeah, so the first time
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I saw scene, I'm like, and then. I'm like, how
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: do you say that? They're like, oh, that's Sean.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, it's not. It's seen. There's also the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: more rare S-H-A-U-N. That's true, yeah.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: The Sean Watson, I believe, the Sean part of his
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: name is that way. Sean Alexander, the former Alabama running
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: back and Seahawk, he was an S-H-A-U-N. Don't like that. Yeah,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: that one's my least favorite. The W-S-H-A-W-N is fine. I
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: think I've come around to the way you spell it, though.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Because at first, like I said, I'm like, I don't
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: know if I like the scene spelling. But I think
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I've come around like that's the best way to spell it.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: All right. Hit the text line.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Over-under is 32.5 points per game for the Utah offense
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: this year.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Also, text FOOTBALL.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: To 33986 for your chance to win espn 700 tailgate
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: passes obviously the season opener is tomorrow night the tailgate
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: is going to open at 4 p.m on guardsman rnr
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: barbecue sound warehouse budweiser making our tailgate party possible text
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: football to 33986 dan sorensen joins us next to talk
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: what else but utah football on a ute zone wednesday
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: we're rolling on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: This is my recital. I think it's very vital. That's right.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: 700 at 92.1 FM.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show here on ESPN.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: 700 at 92.1 FM.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: It is a Wagyu Wednesday today, by the way, at
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Southern Steer down in Saratoga Springs. 10% off all Wagyu
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: beef cuts and Wagyu hot dogs at Southern Steer.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Head down there.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Telemosi sent you at 1705 North Redwood Road. Dan and
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Aubrey are hooking us up. Maybe we'll grab some Wagyu
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: for our next guest, Dan Sorensen.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: From Saratoga. A Ute Zone Wednesday. Dan Sorensen, how are you?
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: I live in the dream, OC. Football here, like what,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: 24 hours? A little bit more than 24 hours? We
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: can stop speculating and see what's actually happening. Yes.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Although today we do have to continue speculating for this
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: one last conversation, Dan, because that's all we have.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: That's all we have for now.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, obviously the anticipation for a kickoff is,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: is ramping up. You've got tailgate parties, our ESPN 700
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: tailgate party. We'll start at four o'clock. Hope to see
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: you out there. It's going to be a really interesting night.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I think for Utah football fans to get their, their
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: eyes on the first version of of a true Morgan
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Scali program.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: This, I mean, we've, we've seen it in spring.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: We've seen a little bit of availability post-practice and things
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: like that. But the first real competition where it is
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: his product last year, he coached a bowl game that
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: was still kind of hold over stuff from the Kyle
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Whittingham era. And we've been talking about it a lot
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: over the last months and weeks, but now, like you said,
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: whatever it is, 24, 30 hours away from kicking this
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: thing off.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: What is it actually going to look like?
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Is it going to be, in your mind, more similar
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: to what we have experienced the last 21 years? Or
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: is there going to be some noticeable differences that jump
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: out even in game one?
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, if people are expecting... Mike Leach style run
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: and shoot kind of air raid or whatever it is
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: that the nomenclature for high velocity passing attack. I don't
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: expect that at all.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: I think that.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: We're going to see all of the hallmarks that made
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Utah football great for the last year.
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: 40 years.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: So an under Ron McBride, under urban Meyer, under Kyle Whittingham,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: that the toughness, you know, that, you know, Utah is
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: going to, going to hit you hard. And there's that
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: fish fight and a phone booth mentality, and they're going
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: to want to run the football and play. pass efficiently.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: I do think they're going to open up the passing
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: game more than what we saw last year, but I
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: don't think it's going to be a flat out air attack.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: I think that they're going to roll with what's working.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: They're going to give the ball to their playmakers and
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: their stars. The defense is going to be tough nosed.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: And it's going to look really familiar to Utah fans.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: And frankly, that's the recipe for winning. That's what you want.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: You want your opponent to be afraid to play you
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: because they're going to be sore into next Wednesday by
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: the time the game is done. You want your opponent
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: to know that they've got a tough task at hand.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: in terms of what's going to happen in the trenches.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: And yes, it's an unproven offensive line. Yes, it's an
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: unproven defensive line. But I do think that it's going
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: to look pretty familiar, especially against an opponent like Idaho. Look,
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: all due respect, They're an FCS program. I think that
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: they're on an upward trajectory. That quarterback is good. The
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: wide receiver that went off against Cal Poly in week
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: zero is really good. But this is a game that
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Utah should win handily, and they should really show that
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: all of those aspects are still here, still a critical
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: part of the program, and that you've got buy-in from
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: the players in terms of being that way.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, I've been playing over under totals on big picture stuff,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: on points surrendered by this Utah defense and on points
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: per game for.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: The Utah offense. I took five-year averages.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: I looked at what is top five in the conference,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: top 25-ish in the nation, and we'll start with the defense.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: We asked this question yesterday.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: 20.5 points per game surrendered. for Utah football's defense, over
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: or under for you on projecting what they should do
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: this year?
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I'm going to say slightly under. I think that they're
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: going to be a little bit better. During the offseason,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: I looked at those defensive numbers, especially the last few games,
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: the K-State game, the Kansas game, the Baylor game, where
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: they gave up a lot more points than they did
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: everywhere else. Yes, there were injuries, and there were some
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: schematic things that were happening that Utah feels like they've fixed. in,
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: in spring and in fall. But that defense, if you
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: took out the Baylor and the key state games, that
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: defense was phenomenal when it can't comes to scoring defense. And,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: and so I think that, uh, uh, my, I'm thinking
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: that if I were to guess, I think the defense
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: has got a chance to be a little bit better
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: overall across the board and across all of the position groups.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: And I'd say that number can dip slightly, especially given
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: the schedule. They're not really... other than maybe Houston, we'll
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: see what they do. Maybe Arizona. We'll see what they do,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: especially now that they've got their running back back, but
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: I don't see them going up against a lot of
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: big offensive juggernauts that, that should, should scare you. And
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: so I think that under on the defense is, is
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: not a bad bet. Of course, I'm happy to change
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: my answer depending on what we see tomorrow and, of course,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: next Saturday against Arkansas. But right now, the way things stand,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: that's what I pick.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of people felt mostly comfortable
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: coming in because, of course, what do we know about
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Utah football? What do we know about the identity of
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: this program that is still at least partially held over
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: with your former defensive coordinator and defensive player, now becoming
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: your head coach, you think, all right, there's not going
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: to be a ton of changes there. Now, a tougher
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: one for me is what do we expect from the offense?
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Because obviously Kevin McGinn was brought in to help keep
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: the momentum or try to replicate what you saw from
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Utah's offense last year, which was a supreme outlier from
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: what we have grown accustomed to in Utah football, right?
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: They were the number three power conference scoring offense in
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: all of college football last year. The death taxes in
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Utah football thing is built around defense, not death taxes
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: in Utah scoring a bunch of points. So I've lopped
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: a bunch off of what you scored last year. And
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: I came up with, it's actually a five-year average because
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: you had a couple of years that were really down
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: in 24 and 23. You had good years in 21
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: and 22, obviously. Those were Andy Ludwig offenses. The conveniently Dan,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: the five-year scoring average for Utah's offense is 32 and
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: a half points per game as the over under, I
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: said it right there. 32 and a half is exactly
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: top 25 last year. Memphis was the 25th ranked scoring
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: offense in 2025 and they scored 32.5 points per game.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: So over under 32.5 points per game for the Utah
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: offense in 2026.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to pick over just because of my
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: confidence in Devin Dampier and not only in what he
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: did last year, but also the improvements that we've seen
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: a little bit and heard a lot about that he's
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: made since last year. He's finally fully healthy. Look, I
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: don't see this Utah offense doing what they did last year. 41.3
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: points per game last year. That was fourth in the
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: nation in scoring offense last 482 and some change yards
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: per game and pretty balanced, right? It was like 260
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: some odd rushing yards, just under 220 passing yards per game.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: We might see those numbers flip, but I do think
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: that they're going to score fewer points, but the 35,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: 36 points per game, I don't think is unreasonable, especially
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: if you see a blowout this week and or a
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: blowout against Utah State or one of the earlier Big
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: 12 opponents that I don't think that that's an unreasonable expectation.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: I think the offensive line is going to be good
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: enough for this offense to move the ball. And, and
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: that's what I'm hearing across the board. And, and, and
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: I just, I just love the skill positions and I
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: have a high degree of confidence in the starting quarterback
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: and a high degree of confidence in the backup, which is,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I can't believe, I can't remember a time where I've
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: ever felt that way at Utah. So as at least
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: in the 20 plus years, I've been covering the program
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I think they're going to score points and
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: it's just, I don't think they're going to score at
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: the clip that they did last year. And if I'm wrong, look,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: if they score 41, 42 points per game, this is
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: a playoff team period.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: We haven't, I mean, we've talked about it a lot,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: but we, I don't think we've talked enough. about the
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: luxury that is bird Ficklin. And I almost don't feel
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: comfortable calling him a backup quarterback because backup quarterbacks are
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: invisible on game day, unless something terrible happens. That's not
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: going to be the case with bird Ficklin. I think
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: we see him early in the first quarter against Idaho
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: doing something, you know, in a package, or maybe we'll
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: see the two quarterbacks on the field at once kind
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: of a situation. Is there a way to properly title
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: somebody who has that role? Because he's not a traditional backup.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: He's not officially a QB2. He's like a 1B or something.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and look, you, as somebody who knows
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: the position well, like you know, right? Like, he's a quarterback,
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: and that's kind of all you can call him, right?
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: You're absolutely right. He's... This is an unprecedented situation for Utah,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: and we are going to see him. Look, barring injuries
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: and that sort of thing, we're going to see him
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: every game. We're going to see him early in every game.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: It's not going to be mop-up duty. We're going to
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: see him playing quarterback early. And doing some interesting things.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, I absolutely agree with you there. And
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: it's such a luxury. We saw spectacular play at times
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: last year. I think we're going to see more of that.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: We're going to see him do some creative things. It's
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: going to be a lot of fun. People have compared,
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: but there have been other teams in the past that
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: have done the two quarterback system and it's worked well
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: for them. I think the last big FBS one that
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: I can think of is, you know, the Chris league team,
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Tim Tebow days back in, in, in Florida back.
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: In the day.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: And, and, and that seemed to work out okay for
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: that team. And I think that we're going to see
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: similar things. They're different players, right there. And they're both dynamic.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: They both do different things. But I think we're going
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: to see that kind of thing. And it's a luxury,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: especially because Devin doesn't have to take the pounding that
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: a running quarterback would take. Neither does Bird. And it's
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: going to be a lot of fun to watch. And
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: the fact that they like each other so much, they're
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: close friends, they really play well off of him. off
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: of one another in terms of helping one another to
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: see things that maybe they didn't see. I think that
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Gundy has done some really interesting things with them in
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: terms of the development perspective in the off season. And
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: I'm really excited to see what they both bring to
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: the table. But yeah, we're going to see a lot
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: of bird and it's going to be a unique thing.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: And I can't wait to see What they do with it.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: I think the big critical thing is kind of like
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: what Morgan Scali said in the press conferences. You just
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: can't get too cute with it because that won't work.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: So as long as they can avoid the temptation to
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: do the ridiculous video games that I want to do with,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: you know, four quarter. four quarterbacks in there, you know,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: bird and Devin and, and, and Creed was a quarterback
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: in high school. And of course Nate Johnson was, and then,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: you know, throw it to semi-town long after a quadruple reverse.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: And that's the kind of demented thing that I would
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: do as long as they avoid the cute stuff. I
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: think they're going to be amazing. Yeah.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: You and I, I guess there's a good reason why
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: we are not coordinating offenses at this high level, because
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: That's where my mind goes also. How many QBs can
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: we get on there with the maximum number of rhinos
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: in order to make it just impossible to game plan for?
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Let's go.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's just it, right? You're absolutely right. It's
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: funny to me, the embarrassment of riches and of weird
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: talent that this team has. And it is weird talent.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: Semi Talanga is an outlier. Motua Puaka is an outlier.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: And the fact that you've got these two quarterbacks, you've
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: got these speed guys, you've got guys like Bray, you've
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: got guys like Weishan. There are so many... There are
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: so many options. It's almost like an embarrassment of choice.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: And even that, like, I don't even know how you
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: deal with that and share the ball with everybody that
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: deserves it. And this is going to have to be
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: a generous team to one another, I think, to keep
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: everybody happy. But look, winning is a lot of fun.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: And so if they can do that and they can
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: win football games in the process, I think that it'll
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: be easier for these guys to share the ball, even
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: when weird stuff is happening.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Dan Sorensen is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: It's a Ute Zone Wednesday. We check in with our
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: friends from Ute Zone every single Wednesday. All right, so
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: some people say when you have two quarterbacks, you don't
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: have one. We're not worried about that with Utah this
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: year because you got two really awesome quarterbacks. And QB1,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: we expect to be even better than he was last year. Now,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: if you don't have five quarterbacks, starters named on the
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: offensive line before week one and your offensive line coach says, Hey,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: we got 10 guys we could use. And maybe we
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: see you actually use 10 guys in game one. Is
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: that a good thing or a bad thing? Because, you know, we, we,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: we go into most years with Utah football being like, Hey,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: who's going to be your starting left guard or your
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: starting right tackle. We have a good sense of who
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: is going to take the first snaps, I think, on
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: this offensive line, but we have been told by players,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: by coaches, that there is going to be some rotation
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: here early in the season.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? How should we feel
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: about that?
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I get why people might be a little
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: bit concerned by that, and it gives them pause. I
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: am far less concerned, and it might just be because
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: I'm the eternal optimist, and I'll own that. I'm okay
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: with that. There are a couple of things, though. I
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: think if you're rotating guys... in series two and series three,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: that might be an issue. And, and look, people need
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: to remember Utah rotated the offensive line a lot last
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: year as well. We saw, we saw a lot of
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: toe emoji. I, and yes, he played tight end snaps,
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: but he didn't just play tight end snaps. We saw
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: a lot of Keith Olson, you know, they, there are
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: appropriate times where you want to give a guy a
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: spell or get a look at a guy, even with
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: the other starters. And so I do think that, uh,
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: that the context is going to matter a lot about
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: how that happens. And for me, when, when I look
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: at the offensive line, look, the guys that I expect
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: to start, you know, zero way Williams at left tackle, uh, uh,
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: toe M O E I at left guard, Al Harrison
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: at center, uh, and, and Keith Olson at right guard,
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: and then probably said Jefferson, the transfer from Montana state
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: at right tackle. And I think that that has a
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: chance to be a pretty solid offensive line. And one
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: of the things that told me a couple of weeks ago,
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: and I think that it, it bears repeating is that
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: so much of offensive line play is about chemistry. It's
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: about communicating with one another. It's about knowing the guy
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: next to you, knowing what they're going to do, being
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: able to, to, to move without thinking and react to
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: the game as, as these, you know, multiple car crashes
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: are happening in the chaos that happens once the ball
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: is snapped. And Tola said, you know, one thing that
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: people need to remember is that the big Z and
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: me and Al and Keith have been the number twos
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: at Utah for the last two or three years. So
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: we've taken every single second team rep together. We've played
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: a lot together on the line and against a pretty
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: good team. defensive line, you know, going against the youth.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: So I think that there's already a, even though you're
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: replacing all five offensive line starters, there's already a lot
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: of chemistry that's happening. We've heard a good things about
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: said Jefferson, when you see the rotation and when they
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: talk about the rotation, I think the big guys that
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: they're talking about are certainly Kelvin Oba five-star guy showed
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: up ready to play. I think on a lot of
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: different teams that he would have had a he would
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: have been an immediate freshman starter. And look, there's only
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: been one true freshman starter at the University of Utah,
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: and he's currently the starting left tackle for the Cleveland Browns.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: So it's not a bad thing that Obat may or
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: may not start on this line, but I think we're
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: going to see plenty of him, and I think we're
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: going to see plenty of Ike Garcia, so that they
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: can get a look at what those guys look like.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: at in, in live reps. But I do think that
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: that five that I mentioned initially is going to be
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: the main five. We'll see some rotation there, of course,
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: hoping to, you know, have this be a blowout, be
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: able to send in as many guys as they, as
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: they can, so they can get a guy like a
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: Reese Parmenter or a, or an Isaiah Kema in and
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: get him reps as well, because that not only helps
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: the depth of the line now, but building into the
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: future and, and, And look, Harding used to talk about
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: having 10 guys that they feel comfortable with, and that
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: was the goal to get there. And so I'm not
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: surprised that that's what Gross said. And I'm not saying
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: that that's not right or that he was sandbagging or
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: anything like that either. But I don't, I'm personally not
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: too concerned about what that rotation may not look like,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: especially because I think those five are going to be
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: the main guys. And unless Ike Garcia comes out and
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: lights something on fire or Obot, the light bulb really
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: goes on where they just can't keep them off the field.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty comfortable with what that five looks like.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Cal Poly put up about 500 yards of offense on
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: this Idaho team and came from behind to win 38, 34.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: What does this game actually look like tomorrow night? What's
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: the score?
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's going to be pretty similar to the.
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: Utah Cal Poly game last year. And, and both Idaho and.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Cal Poly are expected, expected to be kind of middle
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: of the road, big sky teams. And so I, I, and,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: and look, I, and this Idaho team, yeah, they, they
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: gave up a lot of yards and I really liked
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: that Cal Poly quarterback. I liked him when at, at
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: college of San Mateo and Juco. And he played a
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: little bit last year against Utah and did okay for
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: none of those quarterbacks really lit the world on fire
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: against Utah last year. But I do think that with
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: Idaho playing back-to-back road games, they're on a short week.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: They're playing dramatically better competition and bigger and stronger and
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: faster competition. We're going to see a pretty similar thing
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: to what we saw last year against Cal Poly. I
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: do think that this is going to be a high
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: scoring game for the youth. I would not be surprised
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: if they hung 50 or more on, on this defense. I, uh, I,
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: I just published my, my hashtag team fund guide to
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: enjoying the game. And one of the things I talked
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: about in that story was, was the fact that looking
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: at the yardage that Cal Poly put up, uh, this
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: wide receiver crew at Utah has just gotta be just
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: chomping at the bit to get out on the field
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: against the secondary. I don't play a lot of zone.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: I think that there are a lot of guys that
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: are good at finding holes in the zone and dev
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: is especially good at attacking it. And so it, this
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: team is going to put up yards. They're going to
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: put up points. And the bigger question is how well
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: does the defense do against a quarterback that I feel
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: is capable. And they've got a couple of skill guys that, that,
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: that can do some things. And, and you know, if,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: if they come out and, and, and can shut down
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: the Idaho offense so that the Vandals aren't doing anything
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: to move the football, I'm going to feel pretty good
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: about what's going to happen over the next two or
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: three weeks as well.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: We're almost there, Dan. Almost there.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: For the folks that have been procrastinating and have not
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: yet subscribed, what specials do you have going.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: On at Ute Zone?
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Oh man, so we've been doing this 75% off an
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: annual subscription for your first year at Youth Zone for
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: the last month. It's going to continue. I'm blown away
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: by the response. So it's like $ 30 to come be
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: a part of this community. And I think it's really
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: important that people understand Youth Zone, we are here. to
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: make everybody's experience as a fan better. So the community
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: is awesome. It's what it's there for. We're doing some
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: special things to help people have a lot more fun,
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: to be more knowledgeable. You don't get the trolls like
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: you do on X or... or other places, and it's
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: just a place for great conversation. You get some great knowledge.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Sammy and the rest of the team, they're incredible at
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: the stuff that they're digging up. But, yeah, $ 30 for
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: your whole year, it's worth coming. We're the largest community online. Look,
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: if you're a diehard youth fan, there's no reason to
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: not be there, and we just might surprise you.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you giving us some time again today, sir. We'll
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: see you for having me on.
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Look, it's our long national nightmare is, is finally over.
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: I can't wait.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Can't wait to see on the, at the stadium tomorrow and, and,
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: and see everybody else. The fans look, you fans are amazing.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: My they're so passionate. They're awesome. It's going to be
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: a fun year.
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: And I just, it's, The.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: World is right again because everybody's going to be packed
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: in that place.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Hear, hear. That is Dan Sorensen from Ute Zone. If
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: you see him up there at Rice Eccles, say hello.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I will do that. Dan, see you tomorrow night.
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: See you.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: Thanks, man.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: Spence Checketts is going to be at Wasatch Front Kia
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: on Friday. From 2 to 6 p.m., 770 West Riverdale Road.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: It's the annual Labor Day tent sale. Tents go up,
• 53:04
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• 53:07
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• 53:10
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• 53:14
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• 53:17
  Speaker 2: to win a free TV at Wasatch Front Kia, 770
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: West Riverdale Road in Ogden. Speaking of the Utah football game,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: Now is the perfect time, right? There's going to be
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: a little crisp in the air very, very soon. And
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: maybe you've been procrastinating because you're like, ah, you know what?
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: If a little warm air gets in during the summer
• 53:39
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• 53:42
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• 55:00
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  Speaker 4: Feeling out of the loop? Let's catch up on today's
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: biggest headlines in the Daily News Dump, where we flush
• 55:14
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• 55:59
  Speaker 2: Dude, we're almost there. Football season starts this week. Utah
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  Speaker 2: kicking off tomorrow night. BYU on Saturday. Uh, I imagine
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  Speaker 6: No.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: Where you set your thermostat at a certain level, and
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: in the same day in the morning, maybe your heater
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: has to kick on, and then sun comes out, starts
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: baking all day long.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Now your air conditioner is pumping.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: And then overnight, the temperature dips down again, and your
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: heater has got to keep up. I'm sure it happens
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: in a lot of different states, but it doesn't happen
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: in every state.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: It certainly does in ours.
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: It was interesting. Even this morning, that's what all of
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: a sudden hit me this morning when I got up.
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: I smelled something burning. I thought, there's something burning. Got up,
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: walked around, and realized, no, it's the furnace. The furnace
• 57:13
  Speaker 7: kicked on this morning at, you know, 5 o'clock in
• 57:15
  Speaker 7: the morning, and it was running. Yeah, it does not
• 57:18
  Speaker 7: smell good.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all that old dust starts to burn a little bit, right? Well.
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: Maybe I need to call Valley Plumbing to come out
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: and service my system.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you know anybody who could have taken the
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: care of that for you, Rob?
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: Oh, man, I got to get on the schedule.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: It's always... It's always the last, right? Your own stuff
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: is always the last stuff to get taken care of.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: You also unlocked a new fear for me, which I
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: don't appreciate because I didn't realize this happens. With the water,
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: you know, we had a lot of rain. There's water
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: settling and things like that. And it shifts where the
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: main water line, the main sewer lines can come in
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: and out of your house.
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: So what ends up happening is you think about when
• 57:53
  Speaker 7: they put your house there, all that soil around your home,
• 57:56
  Speaker 7: it's what we call native soil. It hasn't been touched.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: It's solid.
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: It's not sinking. You dig a big hole and put
• 58:02
  Speaker 7: your house there, and then you dig a couple of
• 58:04
  Speaker 7: trenches and put a water line and a sewer line. Well,
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: you disturb that ground, and now it is not native
• 58:10
  Speaker 7: soil anymore. So after a few years, your rain gutters,
• 58:14
  Speaker 7: every time it rains, that water comes down, and it
• 58:17
  Speaker 7: either goes into a pipe right next to your house
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: or just plain dumps next to your house. It starts
• 58:22
  Speaker 7: settling that dirt. Years later, it starts settling that dirt,
• 58:26
  Speaker 7: and you've got your water line that goes right through
• 58:29
  Speaker 7: your foundation. And as that dirt settles, takes that water
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: line down with it, well, the water line can't move.
• 58:36
  Speaker 7: It's going through your foundation. So you end up separating
• 58:39
  Speaker 7: that water line right outside your house. And we're starting
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: to see that a lot over the last few weeks
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: with all this rain. And, you know, there's ways to help, obviously.
• 58:49
  Speaker 7: But once it's broken, you just got to dig it up,
• 58:51
  Speaker 7: get it fixed. But, you know, rain gutters are a
• 58:55
  Speaker 7: big thing to keep them away from your house. But
• 58:57
  Speaker 7: if damage is done. That's when you've got to give
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: us a call. We can definitely help out with that.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Well, that's not something that you're going to go down,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: you know, grab a shovel and fix yourself. You need
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: an experienced plumber, some excavation experience. You need that kind
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: of person to check in on a big project like that.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: So again, it's 801-341-4222.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: There's a few stories I wanted to get to here
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: in the Daily Dump. One of them is near and
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: dear to my heart. I'm a combat sports guy. I'm
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: an MMA guy. And we haven't talked about this a lot,
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: but we are one month and one day away from
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: the UFC coming back to the Delta Center. There is
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: no main event announced yet for this card.
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: What?
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: It's a very strange scenario.
• 59:44
  Speaker 7: A month away.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: A month away.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: And we've had this happen before in Salt Lake specifically.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: This is, you go all the way back to before
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: it was a pay-per-view card. They were trying to figure
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: out who to put on, who to put on the
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: top of the card. And actually the announcement ended up
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: coming down for the first ever UFC card that was
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: supposed to be in Salt Lake. It was John Jones,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: pre-championship John Jones. They bring out John Jones versus a
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: guy named Vladimir Matyshenko, whose, whose nickname was the janitor.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: And he was just like a tough Russian dude. And
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: John Jones was like 24 years old, 25 years old
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: at the time. The tickets sold so poorly that they
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: moved the event from Salt Lake. It was scheduled for
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: a Sunday night, which is a problem by itself. They
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: moved the event from Salt Lake to San Diego in
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: kind of a panic move. But that main event was lackluster.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Now we're a month away, and here's the problem, right?
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: If you're talking about star players in any sport, if
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: you're talking about starfighters, in boxing and MMA and things
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: like that, they don't want to take a main event
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: fight on one month's notice.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 7: No, no, that takes a lot of practice. So do
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 7: you think there, do you think they have it and
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 7: they're just keeping it quiet?
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: So what I was told is that their initial plan
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: was there to be a, a women's flyweight title fight.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: So they were going to have it be 125 pound
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: women's championship. And, uh, Valentina Shevchenko was going to defend
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: her belt and, her team announced this week that she's injured.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: So I think that was the plan.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: And now they're probably hitting the panic button because without her,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: like she's a star, she's an unbelievable fighter.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: She's great to watch.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: The challengers in that division are not nearly as exciting,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: and they're not nearly as notable or as popular. So
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: now I think what they've found themselves in, they're kind
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: of stuck where it's like, well, we could do an
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: interim title fight. We could do like a backup title
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: fight and wait for her to get back from the injury.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: But we don't know these women. Even the casual fan
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: does not realize who those people are. So now they're
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: going to have to throw a bucket of money at
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: somebody who's popular to come out on short notice and
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: and be your main event, or they're just going to
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: have to give you a crappy main event.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 7: Or move it to California.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: No, don't move it. Don't move it. So an interesting thing.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: And obviously, you know, like you're a sports fan here.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: And we've talked about this before. The ticket prices don't
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: go down because of something like this. And the fans
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: in Salt Lake are, You got people who come down
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: from Wyoming, from Idaho, that come up from Arizona, Northern Nevada.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Folks come out. Cause it's as close as it's going
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: to get for them.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: And they bought their tickets and they paid their three $ 5, 000 tickets.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: And now you're not getting, you're probably not getting a
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: title fight at the top of it. You're probably not getting.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: a big time draw at.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: The top of it. Crazy.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 7: They're selling tickets already.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: They've been selling tickets for, for weeks now.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 7: So do you think they're waiting to see how many
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: tickets they sell before they come out with a, how
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 7: much are we going to spend to get somebody?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: I don't, maybe could be, but a really weird situation
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: because this is a numbered event. And for people who
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: are close to the, to the sport, right? So the
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: UFC traditionally has put numbers next to like events that
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: have title fights on them. If it's something that's not
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: a big deal, they'll call it a fight night. They'll
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: call it like something, you know, this is UFC three 32.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: This is a big numbered event. Usually it's a main
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: event title fight for something like that. And if it's
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: not a title fight, it's top five versus top five,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: top 10 versus top 10. It's popular fighters. This one
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: is a numbered event, but no main event announced. And
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: we are 31 days, 32 days away from it actually happening. Well,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: I guess we'll see as the guy who's working for
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: a competitor of the UFC and I kind of love it.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: But as somebody who lives here in Salt Lake and
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: wants to go to some great fights on what happens
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: to be the Utah bi-week, I don't love that. Let's
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: talk about it. Don't get mad at Rob. Still call
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: Valley Plumbing. We're the home of the Utes.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: He happens to be a little bit more in touch
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: with the BYU side of things.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 7: But hey, 99% of my company, Utah.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: So, so still call 801-341-4222.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 7: I'm not coming out. So you don't have to hate me.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 7: My guys will come out. They like Utah.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: The guys will come out. The people actually doing the
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: work for you.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: They're going to be, they're going to be wearing the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: Utes socks or something like that.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Um, but BYU does start their season this week.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: The same way Utah does Utah Thursday night, BYU Saturday,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: as we already alluded to. I mean, hopes are really high,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: both in Salt Lake and in Provo right now. Uh,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: The projections for BYU are even better than for Utah.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: The projections for BYU are higher than they've been really
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: in the last 20 years or so.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 7: Oh, I think it's great. But every time, though, every
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 7: time they have these high hopes, something happens, you know,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 7: so it's like, hey, let's just keep it quiet, keep calm,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: and let's just do what we do. Let's just go
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: out and win.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, so another thing that's weird for BYU right now,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: and I'm sure you've seen this, They made the announcement
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: that the athletic director Kalani's boss is no longer Kalani's boss.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know if there is an equivalent to this
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: in the plumbing business. I mean, it's to me, it's
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: just like, you know, you're coming down and you're saying like, look, our,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: our best plumber, our master plumber, the best guy, the
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: most important guy we have on the staff. no longer
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: reports to the plumbing manager. He reports directly to the
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: head of the company, to me. And it creates a
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: weird thing in this chain of command.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 7: Correct.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: I mean, literally putting one guy under a completely different division.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 7: I don't understand how that works, but of course we're
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: probably not hearing the whole story.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 7: There's probably something more to it.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: There's, there's definitely, you know, some stuff that actually I
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: was told back in January that like, this was kind
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: of the arrangement the whole way. And now it's been
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: made public because the feud has been made a little
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: bit more public. Are you worried about it being a distraction?
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: Cause players don't care about this kind of thing.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 7: No, I don't think it'll be. No, I, it shouldn't
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 7: be a distraction as long as they'll leave him alone.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 7: Let him do his thing. We shouldn't have a problem.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: Uh, another one here, another story here in the daily dump. Tennessee.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: We talked about Utah's wearing like they're wearing an insurance
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: sponsored patch. They're wearing the big 12 monster energy patch.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Everyone in the conference has to do that. BYU is
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: doing it. Who's your BYU's Jersey patch, James? Who did
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: they decide they're putting on there? It's like a tech
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: company of some kind. If I'm not mistaken, Utah's got
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: a helmet bumper pad, Tennessee. Entrada it's Entrada. That's the,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: the BYU Jersey patch.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Tennessee is going to be wearing helmet stickers, a little
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: butterfly sticker with that says Dolly to memorialize Dolly Parton,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: who of course passed away recently. The most, one of
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: the most famous residents of Tennessee.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: Great history of philanthropy, obviously television star, movie star, country
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: music star Tennessee with a little, a little feminine energy
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: on the helmet to shout out Dolly Parton.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 7: You know, I'm, I'm, I'm okay with that. But as
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 7: far as the advertising at what, how far does this go?
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 7: I mean, is it going to get to the point
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 7: where the BYU is going to be the smallest thing
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 7: on their Jersey is going to be like patch on
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 7: top of patch.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: They're going to keep it small for now as these
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: schools need more and more and more money. Who knows
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: what it looks like? You know what I think you
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: guys should do? Cause your logo is iconic, right?
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: The duck.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: So the university of Washington hates the university of Oregon, right?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: Ghost.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: Let's run an experiment. See if you can offer a
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: ridiculous amount of money. Obviously don't actually pay them. Cause But, like,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: see if you could get the University of Washington, or
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: even Oregon State, any of the rival schools for the
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: University of Oregon, to agree to put the duck on
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: their jersey. How much would it cost Valley Plumbing to
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: get a duck on a team that hates Oregon?
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 7: Right next to their logo.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: Yes. Right next... Yeah.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: We should try this.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it'd be great.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: We should see what the number actually is, because everyone's
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: got a price, right? Like, if you're... I mean, we
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: could do that.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: We could do this here in the state, the university
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: of Utah health systems or whatever that is the Jersey patch.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: They should have offered BYU been like, we want you
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: of you health on the BYU game jerseys. How much
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: is that going to cost us and see what the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: actual price is.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 7: Could you put another school?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: That's what I mean.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 7: Let's put BYU right on Utah.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: Like what if, what if, what if Deseret book came
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: to the university of Utah? It was just like, we
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: want to be your Jersey patch sponsor. How much would
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: it cost?
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 7: Well, they'd have to do it. They'd have to allow it.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: You have to, at some point there's got, there's a
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: price where you have to like there, even these schools
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: are going to throw their principals away.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Aside and they're just be like, fine, you give us
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: enough money. We'll put, Oh yeah. Be grudgingly. We'll put
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: that on our jersey. And then of course the fans
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: would lose their mind. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: I want to try it with the truck, with the duck.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: I want to try it with Valley plumbing's logo on
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: the university of Washington because they cannot stand anything duck related.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 7: Okay, I'll make the call.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: You and I are both fans of Kyle Van Noy.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: You're obviously a fan because of his BYU connections. I
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: like what he's done in the NFL, despite the fact
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: that he's a BYU guy. Kyle Van Noy has been
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: a remarkably productive player. He's now on the wrong side
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: of 35.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: And as Super Bowl.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Champion, a guy who's done it all, he's on the
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: Vikings practice squad.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: This year.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: Now, this was not even a possibility a few years ago.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: You couldn't be someone who's like a tenured veteran who'd
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: been in the league this long and make it onto
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: a practice squad. They've since expanded the rules for practice
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: squad to allow these types of guys to step in
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: and spend a little time, you know, as they're rehabbing
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: an injury or getting back to whatever.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: But I mean, I don't like seeing it.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: I like seeing guys kind of right off in the sunset.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: I like seeing guys like Kyle Vannoy is an unbelievable
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: football player. A practice squad is an incredible achievement for
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: most people for Kyle Vannoy. It's sort of beneath what
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: he has done in his career. Are we going to
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: see him end his NFL career on a practice squad?
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 7: You know, I don't, I don't see him getting better
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 7: at this age.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 7: He's got to be feeling it. So yeah, At this point,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 7: he's there. I don't know. Teach others maybe or something.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 7: Maybe he's working for a coaching job.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: All right. I like that angle on it.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: Last thing before we get out of here for the
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Daily Dump, we're going to have Steve Rabel, the voice
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: of the Seattle Seahawks, former player who actually became a
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: play-by-play man. He's going to be our next guest after
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: the Daily Dump brought to you by Valley Plumbing, Heating, Cooling,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: and Excavation. You saw this, the BYU fan experiences. They're
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: offering to fans.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: Did you see this? You're a busy man.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 6: I have not.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: What is it?
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: It's part of what every school is trying to find
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: revenue opportunities.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: And BYU came up with these fan experiences where you
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: can pay your way into like the Cougar walk pregame.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: You can walk with the team. You can, you could
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: pay your, there's some weird ones.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: You could pay your way into the press box and
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: have the press meal. You could pay for Cosmo, the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: Cougar to come take pictures with you.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: This kind of a stuff.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 7: They're selling everything.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: They're selling everything now. Have we gone too far with
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: this from a fan experience? Like the logos?
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: I get it.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: Corporate sponsorship is part of sports. Have we gone too
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: far with the fan experience?
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 7: Absolutely. It's too far because. You used to have to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: earn stuff like that. You know, like, I don't know,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 7: save a bus, you know, pull a bus out of
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 7: a lake or something to be able to walk out
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 7: with a team, do something amazing, be a hero. But
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 7: now you just got to have money. Don't the people
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 7: with money have enough money and do enough things already?
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: Well, we were laughing because, so they, in the press
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: box at BYU, they cater the press meal for all
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: of us who get our press passes.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: They cater to Cano's. like Brazilian grill. It's good. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: It's better than any press meal you're going to get anywhere.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: And for the Notre Dame game, we, we of course
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: pulled the most expensive of all the examples for the
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: Notre Dame game.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: Cause BYU is hosting Notre Dame this year.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: If you want to pay for that experience where you
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: get to be in the press box, you get to
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: see the radio booth. You get to talk to the
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: radio broadcaster, stuff like that. And you get to eat
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: the press meal. Guess how much it is per person?
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: 15,000.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: Thank goodness it's not that much, but $ 800 for one
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: meal from Tacano's.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 7: Oh, just for the meal?
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Just to come up at the press box, have the meal, pregame,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: and then you've got to leave. You don't get to
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: spend the whole game in the press box.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you get to stay. It's like an
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: hour and a half experience. Oh, my. $ 800.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 7: Are they going to have, like, a limit to how
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 7: many they're going to allow?
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're going to have to limit because that's a
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: small press box.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 7: You guys are going to feel like you're at a zoo.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 7: I mean, these are going to be like ropes where, like, hey,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 7: don't touch.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: I said on the air here, if you want to
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: pay half that, I'll just bring you up with me.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: You know what? I'll go get you the plate. I
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: get it for free. You get it for $ 400 instead
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: of $ 800.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely going to be a zoo.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 7: You guys are going to be the animals.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: That's fine.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: Valley plumbing, heating, cooling, and excavation. 801-341-4222. You can make
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: an appointment online, get on the schedule at valleyplumbing.com. If
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: you're worried that the job is a little bit too
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: big for you to afford right now, Valley offers financing options.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 7: Absolutely. We have many different financing options. We have, you know,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 7: 12 months, you know, no interest. We have longer ones.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 7: We have, Steady payments, just whatever works best for you.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 7: We have plenty of those. But, yeah, no job is
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 7: too big or too small.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Give us a call. Get ahead of it right now.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: You're right around the corner from when you're going to
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: need that furnace tune-up anyway. So just get on the
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: schedule now, and you'll be the first one. You won't
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: have to wait. And when that furnace kicks on unexpectedly,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: you won't be like Rob, wondering what's burning.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 7: Yep, absolutely.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Rob, thanks for coming in.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 7: Hey, thank you for having me.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: That's Valley Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling, the daily dump brought
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: to you by the truck with the duck every single
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: day here on the Sean O'Connell Show. Up next, the
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: voice of the Seahawks, Steve Rabel, a former player who
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: became a play-by-play man. We're going to talk about that,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: but obviously the defending Super Bowl champs and their outlook.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: That's next on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700, 92
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: on FM.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: You're listening to The Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: Hyundai Studio.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 7: Of ESPN 792.1 FM.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to The Sean O'Connell Show. Our next guest
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: has one of the coolest resumes you're ever going to
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: find in any business. Steve Ray bowl is currently the
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: play by play voice of the Seattle Seahawks. Before that,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: he was the lead analyst on the broadcast. Before that,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: he was a Seattle Seahawks professional football player. And by
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: the way, he's won some Emmys as well, working in Seattle.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: sports and news uh because i guess he's just good
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: at everything he does and we're lucky enough to welcome
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: him to the sean o'connell show because we are going
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: to be broadcasting seattle seahawks games on espn 792 1
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: fm during this upcoming 2026 season steve thank you so
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: much for the time how are you sir well.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: I'm fine trump thank you and uh you know i'm
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 5: lucky to be doing what i'm doing uh I don't
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: know about being talented or being good at any of it,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 5: but I appreciate the opportunities that everybody has given me.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to selfishly pick your brain about the
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: broadcasting stuff here for a second because I do play-by-play
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: in the MMA world, in the combat sports space, as
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: a former competitor, as a former professional fighter. And, of course,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: that is not the normal transition that the athlete makes.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: Most of the time, people go from the.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: Competitive floor to the analyst chair, which is, of course,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: something that you did. And for most people, they stay there.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: Why play-by-play? A lot of guys don't want to do
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: the play-by-play. A lot of guys don't have the radio
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: chops or the television chops, the formatics to do the play-by-play.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: Why did you decide that this was the right move
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: for your career?
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting. And by the way, I'm amazed at
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 5: what you people do. You guys in the ring, it's
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 5: just Phenomenal to me. I wore a helmet and still
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 5: tried to stay away from getting hit. And you guys, literally,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 5: that's what you do for a living. But now you're
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 5: on radio. I hope it's a lot safer for you.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 5: As far as how this all came about, so I
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 5: retired after my sixth year of playing. I was right
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 5: up to training camp of my seventh season and the
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 5: radio station that had had the rights to the Seahawks
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 5: since the first year, 1976. and owned by Bonneville Broadcasting.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 5: I've been to the headquarters there several times in Salt
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: Lake City. And what they did was they came to
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 5: me and said, listen, we see you've done lots of
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 5: work in the off-season, radio and television. We think you
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 5: could be pretty good at that. And we have some
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 5: jobs available here in television and on radio, but you're
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 5: going to have to retire from football. So I said, well,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 5: what are the jobs? And one of them was to
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 5: become the analyst on the broadcast. The analyst that we
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 5: had for the first six years was moving on to
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: the 49ers. They said one of the jobs is going
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: to be to be the backup sports guy to our
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: main television sports broadcaster. So I said, okay. And what's
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 5: the other part? And the other part was to do
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 5: an evening magazine show five nights a week called PM Magazine.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 5: And they said, we think you could do that. And
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 5: so we'd love to entertain you on those things. So
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 5: my wife and I talked about it, and she called
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: him back and said, I'll have him there on Monday morning.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 5: That's kind of the way it happened. And so the
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 5: very first thing was getting to stay close to the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: guys that I literally had just come off the field with,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 5: all those guys in 1981. were all my teammates. And
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: it was a tough year. It was a strike year.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: They fired our head coach, Jack Patera, in the middle
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: of that season during the strike. But the good thing
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 5: that came out of it was that Chuck Knox was hired,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 5: and from there on it was just a race to
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 5: get to the playoffs with Chuck and with predominantly the
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: guys that I had played with. So that was a
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: comfort zone for me. Then as I went along in
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 5: my career, one sad thing that happened was our play-by-play
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 5: guy who started as the voice of the Seahawks, a
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 5: gentleman named Pete Gross, got kidney cancer and eventually died.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 5: He was inducted into our Ring of Honor two nights
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 5: before he died. It was during the season of 1992.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 5: And it was a very jarring thing for all of us.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 5: And we had a couple of backup guys fill in
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 5: for the rest of the season. Then they hired another
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 5: play-by-play guy for a couple of years, and that didn't
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 5: work out really well. They hired another guy for a
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 5: couple of years. So now we get to 2004, and
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 5: a gentleman named Warren Moon, became available he had been
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 5: working for westwood one as a sideline reporter we knew
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 5: he was going to make the hall of fame he
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: was a you know an established star he was an
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: institution here in seattle having played for the huskies and
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: he let it be known that he would love to
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 5: be on our radio broadcasts well the question then became
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 5: if we want to keep ravel and you know he
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: was an original seahawk and it's not like he's done
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 5: anything wrong can he do play by play if we
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 5: bring more and all And I had done enough television
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 5: and enough radio by that time. By that time, I
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 5: was in the news department, so I was anchoring the
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 5: main newscast. I had done a lot of breaking news,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 5: so I could think on my feet. I could do
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 5: all those things. And so they gave me an opportunity.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: And during the offseason, I sat with Warren. We sat
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 5: in a room with a big screen, and we just
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: did games over and over until we started to get comfortable.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 5: And that's how it started for me doing play-by-play. The
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 5: Seahawks gave me that opportunity, just like the folks in
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 5: the television business gave me an opportunity to learn how
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 5: to become– I didn't major in journalism. I majored in
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 5: industrial management at Georgia Tech. But they gave me an
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 5: opportunity to learn on the job, which is, as you know,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 5: it's almost unheard of. And so I just– like I said,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 5: I was blessed. And I've been at it now for,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 5: this will be my 40, but 44th year in the
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 5: broadcast end of things. And my 23rd year as the
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 5: play-by-play guy.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for telling that story. That's really incredible because
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: it's just not, it's not the path most traveled. So
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: I like to hear that that's how you got there.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: And obviously, you know, like you said, original Seahawk and
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: you've seen the lean years, you've seen the not so
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: great years. And I imagine there's a certain amount of
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: gratification there. having been with this franchise every step of
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: the way, with the way things played out this past year?
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: Once again, Super Bowl champs up in Seattle.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's truly amazing. I mean, I can tell you
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: literally the best things that have happened to me since
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: I got to Seattle. Making this team was certainly one
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 5: of them. But I met my wife here. We've been
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 5: married now 45 years. And so that's like right up
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 5: at the top. That's the number one thing on the list.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 5: But then you look at all the football things that
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 5: have happened. We've been to four Super Bowls now. We've
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 5: won two of them. I've broadcast all of them. NFC
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: Championship games, we're undefeated in those. And we've hosted those
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: games here in Seattle. I will say, I think my
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 5: wife is the reason why, because some of the only
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 5: games that she comes to during the season, she'd come
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: to the NFC Championship and she'd sit in the broadcast
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 5: booth with us with, if you've been to Seattle... As
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 5: you might know, our broadcast booth, you have to literally
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 5: go out the door to change your mind. You've got
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 5: to go out in the hall. It's that tight in there.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: But she comes, and we've won all those games. So
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 5: she's that lucky person for us. But I've just been
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 5: truly remarkably blessed to be here and to be able
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 5: to stay on this road through different ownerships, through different
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 5: general managers. through head coaches, and it's been a great,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 5: great fun for me. I hope to be able to
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 5: continue it for a while, but I'm also a realist,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 5: I know, and you're in this business, so you know
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 5: there's always somebody that's going to come along that has,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 5: for television-wise, better looking, has more hair, has a deeper voice,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 5: has a better broadcast voice for radio. That day is
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 5: going to come, but I hope I can make that decision.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 5: I made my decision to retire from football. I didn't
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 5: let somebody else tell me You're not good enough. So
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 5: I'd like to be able to make the decision when
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 5: that time comes that I think, OK, now's the time
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 5: for me to retire. And I don't think it's, you know,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 5: in the foreseeable future, but a couple of years from now,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm 72. I hope to do this for
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 5: a while longer, but I'll also be realistic.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 6: About it, I hope.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: Well, I hope you get to make that decision because
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: I think that's the right thing.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: Especially someone who's put this much time, energy, effort, passion
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: into the craft for one particular franchise. I hope that's
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: how your career ends up playing out. But like you said,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: I hope that's not anytime soon. So let's talk about
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: this Seahawks team because I'm a Niners guy, to be transparent.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: So it's a bad taste in my mouth almost immediately.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: given them the credit that they deserve. But one of
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: the interesting things, one of the most interesting things about
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: this team is the fact that you want a super
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: bowl and you want a super bowl with Sam.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: Darnold is the quarterback.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: In a league where everyone for years has talked about.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: It's all about who you got taking snaps. It's all
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: about that guy. That's the most important position in all
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: the team sports. And there were several franchises who had
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: written off Sam Darnold before Seattle figured out. And I
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: guess you got to give some credit to Minnesota. You
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: got to give maybe a little bit of credit to
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: the 49ers at some point there, but Seattle said, you
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: know what? This is going to be our guy. Sam
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: deserves credit because he put in the work himself, but
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: the Renaissance of his career all the way to the
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: point where he won a Superbowl and got a ring
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: in Seattle really is one of the more fascinating stories
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: in modern football for me.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 5: And it is, I think, for most football fans. And,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 5: you know, I mean, look at how his career started.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 5: He was, what, the number two or number three overall
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 5: pick in the draft, and he goes to a losing team.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: That invariably is what happens, that losing teams draft quarterbacks very,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 5: very high and then expect that quarterback to raise the
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 5: level of everybody. Well, the reason you're a losing team
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 5: is because you don't have all the other pieces besides
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 5: the quarterback to make you a winning team. And so
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 5: he went to places that were going to be impossible
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 5: for him to make any headway, the Jets being the
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 5: worst of them. Carolina was in not much better shape
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 5: at that point. He goes, you know, eventually to Minnesota
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 5: or to San Francisco, where he talked about, you know,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 5: I finally started to learn how to prepare for games
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 5: and understand how to let go of a bad play
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 5: and to move on to the next one. He learned
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 5: that by working with the 49ers coaches, offensive coordinators. He
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 5: also learned how that system, which is the system that
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 5: he's basically playing in today. Then he goes to Minnesota
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 5: and gets to open things up and unlock it a
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 5: little because he had some good teammates around him, a
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 5: coach that believed in him and some really good players
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 5: on offense and defense. But then the Vikings make the
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 5: mistake of saying, you know what? We drafted a guy
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 5: from right here in our own backyard with the first-round
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 5: pick to be our future quarterback. He was hurt this season.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 5: We need him to be our guy. Part of that's
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 5: a financial decision. Part of it is that emotional decision of,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 5: I don't want to be wrong on a first-round quarterback pick.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 5: And so they went with J.J. McCarthy. And as soon
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 5: as that window opened up, John Schneider said, this could
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 5: be our guy. We knew we had lost by that time.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 5: We had lost our quarterback. Geno Smith, he wanted more
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 5: money than I think we were willing to pay him.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 5: And the decks were starting to clear. It was time
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 5: to start anew. We had a guy who everybody believed
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 5: could be a number one, but the folks outside of
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 5: Seattle didn't see that. But we saw it in Jackson, Smith,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: and Jigba. What we needed was that guy, that quarterback.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 5: And so Sam came in knowing the system, understanding what
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 5: his weaknesses were and how to get better at those.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 5: and how to become the best quarterback and leader he
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 5: could be. He's always been a leader, but that has
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 5: remarkably shown through since being here and in Minnesota to
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 5: a certain extent as well. They loved him back there.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 5: His teammates did. He is just a terrific person as
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 5: well as a quarterback. And listen, the run that he
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 5: led us on to end the season after that Rams
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 5: game where he had four interceptions and Ernest Jones stood
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 5: up at the microphone in the postgame and said, he's
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 5: our leader, and if you don't like it, you know
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 5: what you, and that kind of let everybody know that
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 5: they had his back and Sam went on from there
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 5: and was just dynamic the rest of the year. So
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 5: he's been a remarkable story. And I think, I think
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 5: it's going to continue to play out. I just think he's,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 5: he gets better every game, every play, every practice.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 2: Steve Rabel is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: He is the voice of the Seahawks, who will kick
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: off their season against the Patriots on a Wednesday night,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: which is a little bit odd, but that's how things
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: go when you've got international Thursday games in Australia and
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: everything else. Steve, how sustainable is it, this success, this
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: high-level success for the Seahawks? Because it's not like college football,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: where you get a little dynasty going. It's really, really
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: difficult to repeat in the NFL. Very few teams are
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: able to do it. Can the Seahawks?
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 5: Well, I think they can. More importantly, I think they
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 5: believe they can. And the way that they believe they
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 5: can do that is not by thinking about dynasties or
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 5: repeating a Super Bowl or having 12 game winning streaks
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: to end the year. The way to do that is
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 5: they feel like we have to get better every single practice.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 5: And I know this sounds kind of trite. You hear
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 5: this every team, every coach, every player you talk to.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 5: But it is a remarkable sense on this team as
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 5: to how they're going to get better, how they prepare
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 5: and and what they put into it every week. And
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 5: it's literally play-to-play. Mike talks about when he first got here,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 5: he started talking about we need.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: To stack wins.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 5: And I kind of thought, well, that sounds kind of cliché.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 5: What does that mean? Now I understand what it means.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: And now he's down to the micro level of talking
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 5: about stacking plays, stacking individual performances, play-to-play. Coaches have different
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 5: ways of saying it. Pete used to always say there's
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 5: no next week. It's, you know, we're only worried about
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 5: the game we're playing today or this week. And that
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 5: really is what you have to do as a player.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 5: You can't look ahead to see, okay, when do we
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 5: play the Rams? They look at the schedule. They know
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 5: we play the Rams two out of the last three
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 5: weeks of the regular season. Okay, that's fine. And everybody
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 5: is saying, well, the Rams actually have the best roster
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 5: in football, maybe not the Seahawks. I would dispute that,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 5: and so would the Seahawks. But I think this team
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 5: is singularly set. We've lost two starters from the Super
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 5: Bowl game, and virtually everybody on that team that really
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 5: contributed is back. Now, we lost our starting running back,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 5: but we got a guy who's younger, maybe a little faster,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 5: better receiver, and I think should prove to be a
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 5: really good running back in this league in Jadarian Price.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 5: So he's our first-round pick. You know he's going to play.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 5: He's got all the other tools around him. Our entire
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 5: offensive line is back, made stronger through our off-season program.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 5: And the defense was wiped out to end the season
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 5: last year. I think this team is set to do it. But, again,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 5: this is football. It doesn't bounce the same way twice.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: I think even though I'm a Niners guy and you're
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: a Seahawks guy, I think we can agree on one thing,
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: that we need to somehow join forces. and take down
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: the evil empire of the Los Angeles Rams who figured
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: out a way to get two of the best defensive
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: front players, the best defensive lineman in the last decade
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: or more of football to be on.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: The same team at the same time.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: This is a, this is a wild experiment that they're
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: running down there in LA. And I wonder what you
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: think the results will be.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 5: Well, you're right. Excuse me. They are as individuals, fabulous players.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 5: I think the thing that we will see is them,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 5: because neither of them are kids, you're not going to
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 5: see them play every play. You're going to see them,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 5: I think, situationally. You'll see them, the defense will be
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 5: somewhat built around their skills. But ultimately, you know, they're
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 5: going to have to play team defense. So you're not
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 5: going to give a guy, just because he's a former All-Pro,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 5: I don't think, at least this is my estimation, me
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: knowing coaches now having been around this league for 51 years,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 5: that coaches just say, okay, you have carte blanche, do
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 5: whatever you want to do. This isn't the days of
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 5: Lawrence Taylor and, okay, you just go. You do what
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 5: you're going to do, and the rest of us will
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 5: fill in around you. Defenses have to be much more
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 5: aligned because offenses are so good. We'll take advantage of that. And, yeah,
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 5: they're going to get through. They're going to make some plays.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 5: There's no question about that. The key for us is
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 5: those two guys don't play against our defense. They play
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 5: against our offense. So our defense is, I think, one
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 5: of the best in the league. We gave up a
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 5: lot of big plays to the Rams last year. Puka
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 5: Nakua single-handedly, along with Matthew Stafford, beat the living tar.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 6: Out of us.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 5: And still they couldn't win the game, even when he
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 5: caught 250 yards worth of passes. They are really, really good.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 5: But if you can keep a team from putting 12, 14, 18,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 5: 21 points on the board, you don't need a lot
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 5: of points to win a football game. Our defense is
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 5: of that belief. that that's their job is to keep
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 5: the other guys out of there. Plus, our special teams
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 5: are really good. The Rams, if they had an Achilles
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 5: heel last year, it was their special teams. So I
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 5: think they've gotten better there. But, again, this is a
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 5: team game, 53 guys on the team, 22 on the
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 5: field at any one time. And so to think those
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 5: two guys are going to make an absolute and unbelievable
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 5: difference in the Rams, I just find that kind of
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 5: hard to believe. We've got some pretty good players on
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 5: our side that will be involved in making sure that
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 5: those guys are at least neutralized, if not knocked back
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 5: off the line of scrimmage, we hope.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: I already alluded to this. San Francisco versus L.A. in Melbourne,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: Australia at the legendary cricket ground, the MCG, on a
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 2: Thursday night.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: New England, Seattle will proceed.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: They'll kick off the season on Wednesday night, a week
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: from today. And this Australia game is one of many
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: international games being played this year. As a guy who's
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: been around the NFL, part of NFL growth in a
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: market like Seattle, and you've kind of seen every phase
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: of what this league has become, America's number one pastime now,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: they want to make it an international game also, the
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: way that the NBA has done. Do you think NFL
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: football can do that successfully? I'm a skeptic, even though
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: I'm a huge football fan. It's quintessentially an American thing.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: And I know it's a fun little freak show for
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: European fans and maybe even South American and Australian fans.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: I have my doubts about whether or not it'll be
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: truly adopted. Gridiron, as they like to call it in Australia.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: Where do you stand on the NFL's international initiatives?
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 5: Well, I can appreciate your sense on that. I never
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 5: played in an international game, but I've been overseas many
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 5: times with the Seahawks in different situations. Going back to
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 5: the late 80s, early 90s, we played in Japan against
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 5: the Broncos in a preseason game. And then, of course,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 5: regular season games, we've been to London, we've been to Germany.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 5: We played in British Columbia. Our viewership is huge here
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 5: in the Northwest. into Canada, through Idaho and down South Colorado,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 5: just all around. We have great listeners and great broadcast partners,
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 5: of which, again, we hope you guys are going to
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 5: be involved in that because I know we have a
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 5: lot of fans back there. I find it, and I've
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 5: talked to the commissioner about this. I've talked to folks
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 5: who are in position to, if not make the decision,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 5: to have certainly a say in it. It's difficult. It
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 5: would be really difficult. But the time change is a problem.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 5: The other problem is if you go to a place
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 5: like Australia, I mean, first of all, it's a forever
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 5: airplane trip. And so if you're going to go there,
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 5: you better have more than just one team to go
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 5: all the way over there to play and then come back.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 5: This was the conversation about Europe 10 years ago. Do
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 5: we have more than one team? Do we have like
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 5: two teams in Britain? Do we have two teams in
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 5: Germany and maybe a team in France or one in Italy?
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 5: so that then when you go to Europe, you're hitting
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 5: two or three of those teams, but your road trip
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 5: is going to be like a baseball road trip now.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 5: You're on the road for three or four weeks, which
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 5: that in and of itself makes it difficult. You're not
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 5: just traveling 20 guys or 22 guys on a baseball
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 5: team and a manager and a few bats and balls.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 5: You're traveling a hell of a lot of people and
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 5: equipment to make an NFL team run, and that becomes
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 5: a serious proposition. You know, in my humble opinion, what
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 5: sometimes appears to me, you go play these games, like
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 5: you said, this experiment, but you play a game that
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 5: counts overseas. But the real key is going to be
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 5: selling all of those folks on buying the opportunity to
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 5: watch the games in America. You know, yes, it'd be
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 5: great to fill up Wembley Stadium seven or eight times
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 5: a year with fans to watch a local pro team
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 5: play there. But I think you can, you know, get
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 5: an awful lot out of it when it comes and
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 5: it's eventually going to come to pay for you. I
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 5: think that everybody agrees that eventually that's going to happen
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 5: to some extent anyway. And overseas might be the place
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 5: that you experiment with that. You can make a lot
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 5: of money doing that and not have to fly a
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 5: team over to Italy to play. So I think it
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 5: would be difficult to do that. I think right now
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 5: they see this as this opportunity to make us international
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 5: without having to become international. That's just me. What do
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 5: I know? I'm a dope. I played in this game
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 5: for a while. And I'm not, you know, automatically, no,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 5: I'm not very smart. But that just is how it
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 5: appears to me.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll see how it all plays out. Have a
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: great call a week from today. Thanks so much for
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: joining us. And I guess fans here in Salt Lake
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: City are going to be hearing a lot more of
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: your voice.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 5: I sure hope so. And I apologize up front. if
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 5: you don't like that voice. There's nothing much I can
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 5: do about it at this point. But I'll do my best.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 5: I love this team. I love the guys on it
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 5: and the coaches. This is a special group of players,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 5: really special. And I've been around all the Super Bowl teams.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 5: And this group is as close as any group I've
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 5: ever seen. And so I look forward to broadcasting their games.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 5: I look forward to a great season.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: We appreciate your time and your perspective, Steve. Thank you.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 5: John, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: Steve Rabel, voice of the Seattle Seahawks, former wide receiver
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: for the Seahawks, who then became a radio analyst, then
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: became the play-by-play guy, and he's been doing it up there,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: as you've heard, for more than 40 years as part
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: of that broadcast.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to him for hopping on.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: Speaking of broadcast, if you missed last night's first-ever Morgan
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: Scali Utah Football Coaches Show, we will replay it for
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: you tonight, 6 o'clock, right here on your home of
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: the Utes and your home for Utah football. where, of course,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: you'll be listening to the game tomorrow night. All right,
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: I never got to this in the Daily Dump. I
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: want to get to it now. You will not believe
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: what Penn State football has decided to do at their stadium.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: It's the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 4: This is the Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 4: best inside of your youths. Let's get back to OC
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 4: from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: Football season kicks off tomorrow. Perfect time for you to
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: take advantage of Wagyu Wednesdays. At Southern steer 1705 North
• 1:40:17
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• 1:40:20
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• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: Wagyu Wednesdays, 10% off wagyu beef cuts and wagyu hot dogs.
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• 1:40:30
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  Speaker 1: All right?
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  Speaker 2: They've got them right now. Maybe you're looking to buy
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  Speaker 1: That's every day. Ground turkey, $ 5.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: 99 a pound every day. Pork chops, $ 5. 99 a pound
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• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: Not only do they have great deals, but the meat
• 1:41:38
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• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: to go to this old.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: School mom and pop butcher shop that has been reimagined
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: with a modern twist. It's like your grandparents used to do,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: your great grandparents used to do, going down to the
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: specialty store, the specialty butcher.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: But now with modern convenience.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: Southern steer 17 Oh five North Redwood road in Saratoga Springs.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: Tell him OC sent you. All right.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: We've got Colton Swan sound that we're going to play
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: for you. The, the coordinator's corner. We, we already pre-recorded
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: this earlier today, which means I can play a little
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: bit with the timing here. I have to get this
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: out because one of the things that bothers me most,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: and James knows this about me. One of the things
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: that bothers me most is, is a lack of self-awareness,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: tone deafness. And if you ever get that from me,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: by the way, on air, I want you to text
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: in or call in and let me know I'm being
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: tone deaf or lacking self-awareness, right? It's like if I
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: ever walk up to you and say hello and my
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: breath stinks, I want you to tell me it does.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: If I got a booger hanging out of my nose,
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: I want you to tell me. All right? We need
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: to share these painful things.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: Somebody along the way needed to talk to Penn State
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: University and say, this is a terrible idea.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: Don't do this right now.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: Penn State is opening a paternal family football experience. It's
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: effectively a permanent museum, a permanent football museum in Beaver Stadium,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: like under the bleachers. that is named for the paternal
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: family and their impact decades long impact for Penn state athletics.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: Remember 14 years ago, they tore down the Joe pa
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: statue at Penn state. Since then, the university has quietly
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: settled a couple of lawsuits from the paternal family. But
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: it doesn't mean you have to memorialize the name forever.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: I realize that there were three plus decades of success
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: under Joe Paterno before any scandal happened or before we
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: became aware of any scandal. But the scandal is so
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: awful that I don't even feel comfortable bringing it back
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: up because you might be driving around with kids in
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: the car. Because you might be triggered by the idea
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: of what that whole thing centered on.
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to bought like, I don't like
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: talking about it. It was the most heinous and disgusting
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: of all sports stories that we have ever covered in
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: this market or any other. And unfortunately, Joe Paterno's leadership
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: or lack thereof through that process enabled the abuses that
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: were happening to happen.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: So in my opinion then and in my opinion now,
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: this is not one of those things. It's not one
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: of those wounds that time heals. It's like, look, man,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 2: you could have been great for 100 years as a coach.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: And as soon as you fail in this particular way,
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: you forfeit the right to have a statue. You forfeit
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: the right to have your family name plastered on the
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 2: stadium and on anything inside of the stadium forever.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: I completely agree.
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: We talked about this off air before the start of
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: the show. OC, you're the one who brought this to
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: my attention. And I just don't understand if you're willing
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: to take down a statue of someone, why you'd be
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: willing to put up a museum in their name, no
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: matter what they did, no matter what impact they had
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: on the field of play. Like obviously Joe Paterno's impact
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: on Penn state football from the between the lines was,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, indisputable high impact. It doesn't matter when under
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: your leadership, these abuses that his former assistant coach did happened.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: Like it, you forfeit that.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: Like if you're willing to pull down a statue, then
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: how are you willing to give, to put his name
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: on anything?
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: That's, that's what doesn't make sense to me.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: And look, The story would be different if the investigations
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: figured out that there was like truly no knowledge, like
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: zero knowledge, like blindsided. I had no idea there was
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: anything even remotely resembling this. And that's why I never
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: did anything. If that's what the Joe Paul connection to
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: what somebody else did was just complete ignorance.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: Then my opinion would be different. But we were there
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: for the investigations.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: We followed the story closely for the really couple of
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: years after he was caught, right?
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't complete ignorance. It was passing the buck.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: It was, oh, we better make that a university problem. Oh,
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: that's a university police problem. Oh, that's a, I mean,
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: there's an atmosphere in the locker room in the coaching office,
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 2: that if you witness something incongruently horrific, you're not sure
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: how you're supposed to handle it because you might get
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: in trouble for trying to get the other guy in trouble. Like,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: give me a break, man. That is an unforgivable failure.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 2: And I, I'm not going to sit here and say
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: Joe pause entire impact on Penn state should be forgotten,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: but You have to tell this part of the story
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: if you're going to tell the story. And you know
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 2: damn well they're not putting that in the museum. Yeah,
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: that's what I said to you is, if you're going
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: to put up a museum, presumably about Penn State football,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: and of course, Joe Pa is going to be everywhere
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: because it's the Joe Paterno family experience at Beaver Stadium there.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: You have to tell this story in detail. You have
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 2: to tell how he failed in his leadership. You have
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: to tell about this disgusting assistant coach that did these
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: horrible things to players over, what, a 20-something year period, right, OC?
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: You have to tell that story.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: That's the only justifiable way of being like, yeah, go
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: ahead and put Joe Paterno's name on something in the stadium,
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: on a museum in the stadium.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: That's not even.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: That doesn't even completely justify it for me, but it
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: would at least be like, okay, at least they're not
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 2: going to hide anything. And to be fair, I don't
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 2: know if anything in their press release says that. they're
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: not going to tell that story, but I think it's
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: a safe assumption. Like you just said that they're probably not.
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: The other thing that just bothers me immensely about this
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 2: is that there are enough people in the Penn state community.
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: I'm just talking about fans, right? Who are so cultish
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: in their loyalty to, the man's name that they're, they're.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: Not bothered by this at all.
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: The, all the criticism comes from like random dudes in
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: Salt Lake city and the guy that in Columbus, Ohio
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: and the person in Minneapolis, it's just like.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: What are you doing? Yeah.
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: People who are not under the Joe Paterno Penn state
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: tradition spell.
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: It's a cult. It's very weird. So Penn state.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: And I had, I hope the fans are not for
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: this either. Like you said, there's probably a, large amount
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: that are because of what you just outlined.
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: But I hope that.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: There's enough fans that are going to voice their opinion
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 2: on this to say, no, we don't want any part
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: of this. Do you know what this guy allowed to happen?
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: It's terrible.
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 2: And there's an, in no way should he, should he
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: be honored? That's why you tore down the bleeping statue.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 2: Like what the, I still don't get that. I don't,
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know how you go from We don't want
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: this statue on campus anymore, too.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: Let's name a museum after him. What in the world?
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: I'll never understand it. I'm not going to put him
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: in the ring of honor, too. Like, goodness gracious.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: Dumb, dumb.
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 2: And there were people I saw some message for stuff
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 2: where people like, yeah, James Franklin never wanted this. Good
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: for Matt Campbell for allowing it. If I'm Matt Campbell,
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This wasn't my idea.
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: Keep your keep. Keep Joe Pa's name and my name separate.
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be involved in that. Anyway, Penn State,
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: you're morons. Coordinator's Corner is next. We start Coordinator's Corner
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: with the D.C.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: Colton Swan stepping into his new role, calling the defense
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: against Idaho in every game after. We'll talk with him
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: next on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700 and 92
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 2: on FM.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 4: Let's dive into this week's matchup in the coordinator's corner
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 4: of the Sean O'Connell Show. OC chats with the coordinators
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 4: every week of the Utah football season. On your home
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 4: of the Utes and your home for football, ESPN 792.1 FM.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: All right, it's that time on the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: Game week and every game week during the football season,
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: we're lucky enough to catch up with the coordinators at
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: the University of Utah. We'll alternate between defense and offense.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: We will start the season ahead of an Idaho versus
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: Utah kickoff with the defensive coordinator, Colton Swan. Kind enough
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: to give us some time today.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: Coach, how are you?
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 6: Doing well, doing well. How about yourself?
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: Man, excited because we're almost there.
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: And we'll get to the actual game plan, what you
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: see on film from the Vandals here in just a second.
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: But it's been a few weeks since we've had a
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: chance to catch up with you. So I want to
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: touch on some of the big picture things. Everybody that
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: we talked to players, other coaches, they've kind of confirmed
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: that this was a successful fall football camp and that
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: the game prep weeks have gone well. Also, I want
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: your thoughts and your words on how you thought camp
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: came out and then the transition into actual game prep.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 6: Right. Yeah. Well, it has been a very good fall
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 6: camp for us, you know, with defensively and as a team,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 6: but for us on the defensive side, the biggest thing
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 6: was like, okay, we've got, you know, new guys in
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 6: almost every position and seeing these guys start to emerge
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 6: and kind of work their way through the defense and
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 6: really start to gain the trust of the coaches was
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 6: the biggest thing in us gaining confidence in them in
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 6: performance style and And so it's been nice to see that.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 6: I think the kids have worked extremely hard. It has
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 6: been a successful camp for us. I think even from
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 6: an injury standpoint, we've been very fortunate and good there.
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 6: And I think everybody's in a great position right now
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 6: going into this first game to be successful.
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: How much of a wait-and-see mentality is there still? Because
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: you want to be a good practice player. You want
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: to have great habits. You want to be a hard worker.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: But some things do change when the lights are on.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 2: So I'm sure you and your staff have a pretty
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: good idea of who you think the best guy at
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: each position is and whatnot. But is there still a
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: little bit of allowance for, well, let's see what he
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: looks like in live game reps.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 6: Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, you're going against an
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 6: offense for the last, you know, eight months here that
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 6: where you haven't been able to tackle a quarterback, right.
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 6: You're going against an offense where you're not live all
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 6: the time. You know, so things like that are always
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 6: the question mark of, okay, where are we at? And, and,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 6: you know, how well are we going to do it in,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 6: in hopes that you've prepared them enough that they are
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 6: successful on, on game one, you know, and we understand
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 6: as coaches, Hey, there's going to be mistakes made, right.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 6: But our whole job is to minimize those mistakes and
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 6: make sure, number one, we play extremely hard and we
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 6: do it very smart. We can align, we can assign,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 6: and we're running that football. The technique has got to
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 6: be good inside hands with good vertical leverage. Our pad
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 6: level has got to be better than their pad level,
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 6: and we've got to be able to tackle. And so,
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 6: you know, those are things that we focused on defensively
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 6: kind of going through that fall camp. But, you know,
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 6: it's like you said, you're going against an offense where
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 6: you're not tackling a quarterback. And so when the lights
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 6: get on, you know, turn on, how are you actually
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 6: going to perform as a player and in hopes that
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 6: we've done a good job preparing them?
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like you were able to find through
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: camp and in practice the right balance of like actual
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: live tackling, working on the craft of tackling and We
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 2: are hypersensitive to this because we've seen first game performances
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: in the last several years where it looks like, oh, man,
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 2: they must have tackled a lot in camp. Very few
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: missed tackles. We've seen the opposite end of that spectrum
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: as well. Was the right balance struck in camp, you think?
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, we obviously, that's something that we talked
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 6: about almost from a daily standpoint is okay. Have we
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 6: tackled enough? Have we done in the live tackling and,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 6: and we, you know, feel like we have in game one,
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 6: you know, you're, you're going to have some guys that,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 6: you know, haven't tackled as much, or you're going to
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 6: have some missed tackles that will appear and that you
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 6: got to get, get better at. And so that's been
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 6: a huge focus for us defensively. Even though we're not
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 6: live tackling, we're always working tackling of some sort within
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 6: our individual drills because it is the nucleus of what
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 6: we do. We play hard, we tackle, we play smart,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 6: and we do it with good technique.
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: For Utah fans that have been watching this team and
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: this defense for two or three decades, where the defense
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 2: has been largely the same, will there be a noticeable
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: flavor change under Colton Swann?
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 6: Speaker 4 0 5, you know, I think the, probably
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 6: the biggest thing, because this defense has been around, you know,
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 6: the backbone of this defense has been around for a
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 6: number of years, ever since I started, you know, coaching
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 6: clear back in, in 2004, you know, when Ron McBride
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 6: came to the, to.
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 3: The university of Utah and this defense was, was put
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 3: in place.
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 6: Clear back then, you know, and then you look at
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 6: the years of through Weaver state of Jay Hill and
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 6: then on into coach Scali over here at the university
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 6: of Utah. you know, and every, every coordinator has got
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 6: their little spin on things as do we. And, but
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 6: I would say that, you know, what we get back
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 6: to is, is the backbone of, of what's been successful
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 6: here at the university of Utah, you know, and, and
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 6: being able to play hard and play smart. And, and
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 6: I think that you'll see my own little spin and
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 6: maybe that's because offenses are changing. you know, as you
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 6: face different opponents, I think you've got to be creative
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 6: enough to attack different things from a defensive standpoint. And
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 6: that's probably the biggest thing that you'll see between myself
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 6: and other coordinators that have been involved in this defense.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: When we asked Morgan Scali about it, you know, having
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 2: filled this role, your role for so long, when we
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: asked him about, you know, the difficulty of surrendering that
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 2: and how he sets you up for success, he'll kind
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 2: of laughingly say, well, I just got to get out
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: of his way. I got to make sure that I'm
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 2: not trying to influence things too much. Have you guys
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: found the right balance there?
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 6: Number one, he's been extremely supportive. He is definitely an ally.
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 6: I don't feel that there is a figure looking over
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 6: my shoulder, you know, judging of any sort. He's been
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 6: an absolute ally and a blessing. You know, how he
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 6: has handled me and our progression through this has been amazing.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 6: He looks at it as in, hey, use me as,
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 6: you know, uh, an analyst, use me as a tool.
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 6: Let me provide, you know, some knowledge from, you know,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 6: a 30,000 view perspective and, and just what he does
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 6: with me and our defense has been amazing and just
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 6: his suggestions and things that he would attack. And, and
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 6: so it's been great. It's been a great, great, uh, relationship. And, and, uh,
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 6: I look forward to, to the, you know, it growing.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 2: We don't know a lot about Coach Brechterfield, for example.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: He's new on the staff, doesn't have the same deep-rooted
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 2: connections to the program that some of the other guys do.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 2: But now you've been through spring and a fall camp
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 2: with him and getting into game week. What is something
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 2: that the Utah fans need to know about him and
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 2: maybe that you've learned?
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: Through this process?
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 6: Well, number one, he's a wealth of knowledge. He comes
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 6: to as well, diverse in multiple defenses. He's been to
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 6: a lot of really awesome universities and he's coached a
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 6: lot of really good players. As we all know, I mean, in,
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 6: in Aaron Donald, as far as one of the best,
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 6: you know, NFL players out there, he had the opportunity
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 6: to coach him. And, um, uh, TJ watt, you know,
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 6: and guys of that nature. So he knows how to
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 6: get the most out of his guys. Uh, but when
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 6: you just talk to him in the coaching staff room
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 6: of what he can provide from a defensive line, knowledge is,
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 6: is amazing. He does a fantastic job. He's got the
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 6: trust of his players. I think the players really know
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 6: what he's all about when it comes to what his
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 6: expectations are. His guys play really hard. And so he's
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 6: just been an absolute blessing for us on the defensive side,
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 6: especially as a D-line coach.
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 2: A lot of talk about the offensive line in fall camp,
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 2: because obviously replacing five starters, but some uncertainty on the
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 2: D line and with the safeties we'll get to here
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 2: in a second, as far as the D line goes,
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 2: how did that rotation come out? How many guys deep
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 2: do you think you go at that interior defensive line position?
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 6: Know, it's, it's interesting because you look at last year's
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 6: team and there wasn't a huge rotation of guys. I mean,
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 6: you had, you had your four or five sticks guys
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 6: that you were playing. I think this year, if you
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 6: look at the defensive end spot, you know, there's four
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 6: guys that can play at any point within the game
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 6: that are all really talented players. You look at the,
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 6: the D tackle spot, I believe there's going to be
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 6: another four guys that So I feel like we have
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 6: the depth on the defensive line spot this year. And,
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 6: you know, they're all new. I mean, you look at
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 6: every defensive lineman really from, from last year, you got
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 6: to carry over in Carson Kapusi, who was a young
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 6: defensive tackle, but you look at these guys this year
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 6: and it's like, okay, everybody's new. Right. And we feel
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 6: like all all these guys can play. And it's going
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 6: to be nice to see kind of as Coach Witt
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 6: would always put it. You got this Christmas package and
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 6: you're unwrapping it here in game one. See what you got.
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 2: Colton Swan, Utah defensive coordinator, is our guest here on
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 2: the Sean O'Connell show for coordinator's corner ahead of week
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 2: one game one matchup for Utah as they welcome the
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: Vandals of Idaho on a Thursday night at Rice Echo Stadium.
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that safety position again. You know, a
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: lot of people are just like, oh yeah, we're good there.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. I think we are good there. However,
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: who's it going to be? Because you got correct me
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: if I'm wrong, four or maybe five guys that I
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 2: could see be in starters. And there's only most of
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: the time, two safety spots, I guess with Jackson, Benny's
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: athletic versatility, he could be your nickel or something like that.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: But you tell me, are we going to see all
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: those guys?
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 6: And, and that's, you know, they kind of mimic and
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 6: then it's almost, almost every position and where we're at
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 6: is the amount of guys that we have at, you know,
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 6: backer and corner and D-line, like we mentioned earlier, but
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 6: it's like, okay, you look at the safety position, there's
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 6: guys that, you know, have a number of experience, Nate, Richie, right.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 6: Rabbit Evans. And then you throw in Jackson, Benny, who's
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 6: the Swiss army knife of football, who can, who can
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 6: play a bunch of different spots. And then you start
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 6: to see the, you know, a young safety and Nate
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 6: Tillman start to emerge and come up who, you know, when,
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 6: when Nate Ritchie got hurt last year, he started playing
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 6: a bigger role for us defensively. So he's got the experience.
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 6: It's a good problem to have defensively. You will definitely
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 6: see a lot of these guys on the field and,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 6: and I'm excited for, you know, for all of them.
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 2: As long as we're talking about Swiss army knives, did
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: you have to like, tell Kevin McGiven to get away
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: from some of your defensive players. He's not going to
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: be a two-way guy because we started to see that
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: become not only a luxury, but also a problem at
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 2: times for Utah football the last.
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: Couple of years.
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, and Utah's always done a really good job
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 6: of utilizing talent. Coach Witt had a knack for that,
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 6: and I don't think it's stopped as Coach Scali takes
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 6: over the helm. And it's been a good thing. So
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 6: as a defensive coordinator, obviously, number one thing is you
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 6: want to win the game. And any way that you
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 6: can provide help and depth or guys that can come
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 6: over and do things like Jackson did last year, like
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 6: Lander Barton did last year, Those guys that can provide
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 6: a skill set to the offense, we're all for it
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 6: on the defensive side.
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 2: All right, so I'm interpreting that as maybe we will
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: see some of it this year.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 6: Well, do with it what you will.
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: All right. Keeping it close to the vest, Colton Swan here.
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: That's fine. That's fine.
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: The natural progression for me as an observer, as a fan,
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 2: is I expect to see guys come into a program And,
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 2: you know, be special teams, defensive players, at least be
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 2: special teams guys for half season, maybe a full season.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, they're a reliable rotational player. Maybe
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 2: they get some spot starts. Maybe they even become a
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 2: full-time starter because of an injury or something like that.
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 2: And then they're a full-time starter and then they become
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: a captain. When you guys released the captain's list and I,
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 2: and I saw Trey Reynolds name on there, I was
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 2: a little surprised, not because I doubt his abilities or
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: anything like that, but because he you know, we, we,
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 2: we don't know as much about him. He doesn't have
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 2: like this deep well of, of production, but obviously his
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: teammates look at him and say, yeah, that's one of
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 2: our guys. That's one of our leaders. And they voted
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: him to be a captain. Did that surprise you at all?
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 2: Tell me how you saw that thing unfold.
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 6: Well, I think the biggest thing with him, you know,
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 6: earning that position and use that word is that, um,
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 6: is that he's really gained the trust of his teammates
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 6: by how hard he works. You'll be hard to find
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 6: another kid that works harder than Trey Reynolds. And I
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 6: think his teammates see that obviously he's extremely talented. He's
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 6: been amongst some really talented linebackers over the years and
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 6: has done, you know, his part in keeping his progression
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 6: going and developing. He's had a huge role on, on
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 6: special teams. And, you know, he's been behind guys like
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 6: Corinne Reed and Lander Barton and You know, Levani Damouni
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 6: and some players like that, John O'Hall, you know, and
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 6: now it's his opportunity to emerge. And I think that
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 6: the guys, you know, it's a very good question because
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 6: I think the guys have always known about Trey Reynolds
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 6: and how hard he works. But he's really taken it
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 6: to the next step of becoming that leader in a
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 6: compelling aspect. He's grabbing guys and bringing them with him.
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 6: And I think the guys really are taking to Trey Reynolds.
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 6: And he's a playmaker. You go back through his film
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 6: and just look at what he's done over his career here,
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 6: not only from a special team standpoint, which has been amazing,
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 6: but even from a defensive standpoint. I mean, there's a
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 6: lot of trust coming from me about Trey and what
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 6: he does and just how he handles himself. And like
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 6: I said, he just brings, he's compelling. He brings guys
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 6: along with him and he wants his defense, not only
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 6: him to be great, but he wants his defense to
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 6: be great.
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: Is there any element in modern-day college football, because it
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 2: is so different now than it was even five years ago,
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 2: and certainly than it was 10 and 20 years ago,
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: is there any element of awareness for you or your
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: position coaches or anything about what a guy is paid now,
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 2: what his NIL deals are like when it comes to
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 2: practice reps, when it comes to trying to get him
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: in a game? Is there any influence there?
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 6: I try to stay out of, I guess I would
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 6: call that the political side of things. When it comes
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 6: to that, we feel like in order to win games,
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 6: the best players obviously have to play. We feel like
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 6: we've got a lot of really good players, but I
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 6: try to stay out of the politics or, if you will,
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 6: the NIL stuff and being influenced by stuff like that.
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 6: We educate our guys right from the very beginning. Okay.
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 6: Some guys are getting paid this and some guys are
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 6: getting paid that. And, and, and that's great, you know,
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 6: but at the end of the day, you know, in
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 6: order to win games, are you able to execute? Are
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 6: you the line? Are you able to sign, you know,
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 6: are you able to do the things that we're asking
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 6: you defensively? Right. And so, you know, it doesn't necessarily
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 6: matter what you knew, you know, you have with our,
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 6: our team manager, or even from the NIL standpoint, you know,
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 6: the best players got to play. And that, that's what
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 6: we've got to do in order to win.
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 2: A couple more questions with Colton Swan here, coordinator's corner.
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 2: This is our defensive coordinator, of course, at the University
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 2: of Utah. So what do you see on film from
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 2: this Idaho team?
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 6: They're talented. Yeah, they've got some good, talented players. You
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 6: look at them from just starting, the guy that touches
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 6: the ball every snap is going to be the quarterback.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 6: And what he can do, he's extremely talented with his feet.
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 6: I think that is probably his brightest talent. spot and
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 6: what he can do. He can create plays. He does
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 6: a really good job of getting outside the pocket and,
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 6: and looking downfield and creating plays with his feet. You
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 6: can see that he's older and has complete command of
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 6: the offense. We had the luxury of watching one of
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 6: their games from this year, so really studying that and
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 6: studying him has been a blessing. I've been really impressed
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 6: with him. He does a great job. You look at
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 6: their offensive line, they're a bunch of veterans that have
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 6: played together for a long time, and that's a strong
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 6: point of what they do offensively. offensively. And so it's
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 6: nice to see those guys and what we're going to
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 6: be up against. You look at kind of the outside
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 6: and the perimeters between the wide receivers and the tight ends.
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 6: The tight ends have talented players, you know. I like
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 6: what they're doing. And they're, you know, running 11, 12
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 6: personnel sets that they do a good job in. And
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 6: you can see the athleticism come from them. I think
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 6: at the wide receiver position, they've done a really good
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 6: job of adding some speed to it, and some guys
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 6: that really understand their offense. You know, they run the
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 6: RPO system and have the ability to get the ball
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 6: out to them, and those guys do a great job
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 6: at the line of scrimmage. They play hard, they block
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 6: out on the perimeter, and I've been really impressed with
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 6: how well they're coached. The running backs are a good group.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 6: They treat it as a three-headed monster. And you can
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 6: see that in their first game of all three guys
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 6: getting reps. And so being able to attack them and
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 6: their strengths is part of what we need to do.
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 2: All right, last thing before I let you go. Pull
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 2: back the curtain for me a little bit. You're my guy.
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited for you to have this opportunity. You're
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 2: stepping into the shoes of a great lineage of defensive coaches,
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 2: and you get to be the University of Utah defensive coordinator,
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 2: and you get to call games, and you get to
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 2: lead this defense, which is what.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: The program is known for. How you feeling? What is
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: it like? Is there nervousness?
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 2: How is your level of self-belief heading into a game
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 2: like this one tomorrow night?
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a little nerve-wracking. It's a position. Anything that
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 6: changed or new, you've got that nervousness to it. But
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 6: at the same time, I'm surrounded by really good guys,
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 6: really good coaches, really good players. Coach Scali has done
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 6: an amazing job with our culture and things like that.
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 6: And so, yeah, is there a nervousness to it? Absolutely.
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 6: And if you didn't have nerves.
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: and.
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 6: Excitement, I, you know, I would think there's something wrong. But,
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 6: but fear is something that, you know, in my opinion,
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 6: where you didn't prepare well enough, then you should be fearful. Right. And,
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 6: and I feel like, you know, we've done a great
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 6: job in preparing not only us as coaches, but our
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 6: players to be successful. And, and so, you know, yeah,
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 6: there's going to be nerves and it's exciting. Like I said,
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 6: there's been, a long tenure of coaches that have come
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 6: through this program as a defense coordinator that have gone
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 6: on to, you know, be great ed coaches and things
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 6: of that nature and gone on to be, you know,
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 6: do great things. And so I'm looking forward to the
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 6: next step.
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: Speaker 2, what's scarier, getting ready to call your first
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 2: game or climbing onto the back of a rough stock
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 2: animal or handling something nasty at rodeo?
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 6: Speaker 3 Well, in, in the steer wrestling, I know
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 6: going 35 miles an hour down the arena, jumping off
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 6: a perfectly good horse onto, you know, a six, 700
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 6: pound steer and trying to throw it to the ground.
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 6: That's a little nerve wracking too. Right.
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 3: And you can be sitting there backing up into.
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 6: A box and being like, what the heck am I
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 6: doing right now? And then you nod your head and
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 6: it's about four seconds of rush. So yeah, it's very,
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 6: that's a great analogy for sure. Sean is that the
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 6: nervousness of, of steer wrestling and doing some of those
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 6: rodeo events versus, you know, calling a defense.
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: So, well, We're excited.
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 2: You know, if you can handle that, you can probably
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 2: handle making some defensive calls and letting these guys go execute.
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, no doubt.
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 3: No doubt.
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah. That's the way you got it. You got to
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 6: put everything into perspective.
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: Looking forward to seeing you out there. Good luck.
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: Keep these guys healthy. Have a good last day of
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 2: practice and preparation. And we'll see you Thursday night up
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 2: there at Rice Eccles for live, live blow.
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 6: Sounds good. Appreciate it, Josie.
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 2: Colton Swan, defensive coordinator. at the University of Utah. We'll
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 2: get into their depth chart, or their projected depth chart,
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 2: just a little bit, on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: You're listening.
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 4: To the Sean O'Connell Show, your source for the best
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 4: youth football coverage. Here's O.C. from the Murdoch Hyundai Studio
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 4: of ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM.
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 2: Speaker 1, big thanks to Colton Swan for joining us
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 2: in coordinator's corner. Text the word football to 3 3
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 2: 9 8 6 for your chance to win ESPN 700
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 2: tailgate passes season opener tomorrow night. 4 PM is when
• 2:12:41
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  Speaker 2: by R & R Barbecue, Sound Warehouse, and Budweiser. Tailgate
• 2:12:47
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• 2:12:50
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  Speaker 2: from 2 to 6 at Advanced Window Products, 3052 South,
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• 2:13:16
  Speaker 2: join Spence down there and listen to The Drive every
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: single day here on the Sean O'Connell Show. We were
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 2: talking with Colton Swan about his debut as the Utah
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 2: football defensive coordinator. You've heard me say this before. You
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 2: guys already knew this. He spent years calling defensive plays
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 2: at Weber State University after being a position coach at
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 2: Weber State, and then he comes here.
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: He's a position coach.
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 2: He's helping make defensive game plans for Morgan Scali as
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 2: Morgan was meeting out his duties as a defensive coordinator himself.
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 2: Morgan bumps up to head coach. Colton Swan bumps up
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 2: to defensive coordinator, and that was not as easy of
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 2: a decision as some people make it out to be. Now,
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 2: Swan had the advantage over the other guys that were
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 2: on staff because He had been a defensive coordinator before,
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 2: but like a Sharif Shaw, one of Morgan's best friends
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 2: in the world, a guy who's been on staff with
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 2: him longer than Colton Swan had been on staff with
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 2: him a lot longer, actually. Luther Ellis is a guy
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 2: that has NFL credentials to go along with All-American player
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 2: credentials and has been a formational coach for the real
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 2: anchor position of Utah's defense. Lewis Powell, you want to
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 2: talk about what is one of the ways you could
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 2: have tried to keep your best recruiter on staff. Lewis
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 2: Powell being promoted from defensive ends coach to a defensive
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 2: coordinator was one of those things that could have happened.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 2: But Colton Swan wins out in that. And those are
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 2: just the internal candidates, by the way. Colton Swan wins out.
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 2: and ends up taking this job. And now we will
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 2: get to see what the Utah defense looks like under him.
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 2: And I talked about, or we talked about in the interview,
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 2: how he's going to have a little bit of flexibility
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 2: to put his own flavor on it. The base defense,
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: the principles behind the defense, they're not going to change
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 2: a lot. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Now
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 2: the run stopping needs to be fixed from last year.
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 2: So that was broke temporarily. So go ahead and fix that.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 2: But what is the depth chart going to look like?
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 2: John Newhall, Trey Reynolds are going to be your every
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 2: single down linebackers. The base defense is either a nickel,
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 2: a four, a four, two, five nickel, or it is
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 2: a four, three, depending on what, the offensive personnel is.
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 2: So if you've got a three linebacker formation, John, who
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 2: Hall Trey Reynolds, and are we talking about Cyrus Polu.
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: In that situation? That's an interesting one for me.
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 2: Now, Jackson Benny, it sounds like is going to be
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 2: the floater. The guy who moves down into the nickel spot.
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 2: Is he in every down starting safety? If the nickel
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 2: is not on the field, if you don't need to
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 2: have that fifth defensive back on the field, Is it
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 2: Jackson Benny and Nate Ritchie? Is it Jackson Benny and
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 2: Rabbit Evans? Is it Rabbit Evans and Nate Ritchie? That's
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 2: why I asked him about the safety room. I didn't
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 2: even mention Nate Tillman. Nate Tillman's a guy that they really, really,
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 2: really like back there and who stepped in for an
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 2: injured Nate Ritchie last year and had some serious production.
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 2: They also like Josh Sovereign. His name hasn't been out
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 2: there quite as much. I mean, they have good players here.
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 2: So some mix of Rabbit Evans, Nate Ritchie, Jackson Benny,
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 2: and how much do we see of Nate Tillman in
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 2: the safety room, in the safety spot? The corners projecting
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 2: what the depth chart actually looks like. You're going to
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 2: see something on paper in a game program, but what
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 2: does it actually look like? They really like Rock Caldwell.
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 2: They really like Scooby Davis for obvious reasons. Is your
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 2: nickel a corner and not a Jackson Benny?
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: A J.C. Hart type player? And maybe most importantly.
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 2: as we project and think about it, the defensive line. Now,
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 2: you keep hearing these sort of rotational ideas on the offense,
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 2: even with the offensive line, we talked about that. On
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 2: the defensive line, it's a more natural thing to have
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 2: some mix of Pupu Cepulona, Carson Calfusi, Jai Moy, Lucas Samsula.
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 2: We've heard good things about Mike Tauteoli. Those are your
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 2: interior defensive linemen. Jam Wallace, who came from Tennessee, got
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 2: some shout-outs during fall camp and during the spring.
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: Do they actually go six deep?
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 2: Because if you remember a couple of years ago, we
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 2: were told, Hey man, we, and this was not the
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 2: D tackles.
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: It was the defensive ends.
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 2: We were told a couple of years ago, we might
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 2: have six or eight guys that we'll see pretty frequently
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 2: out there. And then it was like, Hey, get van
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 2: fillinger on the field, every possible down, even though he's
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 2: far less than a hundred percent.
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: Defensive end. Again, we're projecting starters here.
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 2: Ethan day, Lance Holtzclaw, Paul Fitzgerald, Cash Dillon, and who
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 2: and what? Do we see Alex Cloward on the field
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 2: a lot? Do we see Paul Fitzgerald healthy and productive?
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 2: We got a chance to talk with Ethan day after,
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 2: after practice the other day.
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: And this is a guy who came here.
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 2: From North Texas expecting to be a three or four
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 2: down type player for you. So we kind of know
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 2: what the rotational depth looks like. I need to know frequency.
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 2: I need to know usage for these guys. And if
• 2:19:51
  Speaker 2: you go off the national narrative around Oklahoma state, everybody
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 2: from North Texas is like, national champions. So Ethan day
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 2: is probably going to be the youth. He has to
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 2: be the youth's best pass rusher this year based on that.
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: Well, yes.
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, North Texas did some nice things last year,
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 2: but that was primarily offensive.
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: Ethan days of really good player. He started 13 games.
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 2: 48 tackles, seven tackles for loss, four and a half
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 2: sacks fumble recovery.
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: He's a good player.
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 2: How much improvement has he made since joining this Utah
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 2: football team? Has Steve Saunders figured out how to unlock
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 2: a new level of strength and explosiveness in him like
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of these other guys are talking about?
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: He's a big boy. I'll tell you that. He's a
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: big guy, and.
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 2: He just kind of looks like he walks with his
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 2: belly out, which is what you want defensive ends to do.
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know why they all do it. but they
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 2: will walk with their hips forward and their bellies out. Like,
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 2: like your son is going to be walking James.
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: I may have said this on the air.
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 2: My wife is a tease me that he walks like me,
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 2: which is, belly out.
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: So very belly forward. My boy.
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 2: That's a little kid's walk. That's a little kid's walk.
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 2: And that is how defensive linemen walk. And apparently it's
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 2: how program directors at ESPN seven tend to walk according to,
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 2: according to my lovely wife. I think offensive lineman is
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 2: kind of a mix because some of them are self-conscious
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 2: about being as giant as they are. So they don't
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 2: walk with their belly out. The other ones that are
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 2: just like, this is who I am deal with it.
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The, Love me.
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 2: You're going to love me. They got the bellies out.
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 2: All D linemen feel that way about themselves.
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 2: Something's true. Some it's like 50% of old linemen feel
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 2: that way. And listen, I didn't play football, but I
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 2: would have been a lineman on the offense or defensive line.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 2: Like I'm just, I'm tall, not tall for division one athletes,
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 2: but tall for a high school athlete in.
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: In, You're just tall for a person in general. You're
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: like 6'3. Tall. I'm a big dude.
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 2: Never was accused of being skinny for long periods of time, okay? Like,
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 2: I have that lineman body, so maybe that's, even though
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 2: I never played the game, maybe that's, it's just a
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 2: natural thing. Guys who are built like linemen are going
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 2: to walk like linemen. Yeah, but you, see, based on
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 2: how you walk, you'd be defensive linemen. I mean, let's
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 2: go James Peterson in his childhood idol. Dwight Freeney channeling
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 2: that like that. Maybe that's, maybe I missed my calling.
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 2: Let's get you up to the Steve Saunders weight room.
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: Let's go.
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 2: I'll see Alex Smith weight room, but Steve Saunders could
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 2: be your coach. Let's see what, what he can get
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 2: that vertical 40. What can you do for me, coach?
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: Let's go.
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 2: A little combine situation. You never used that fifth year
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 2: of eligibility.
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: I did not.
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 2: I didn't use the other four either. So I'm available, baby.
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 2: Let's let's do this. You did start your clock, right?
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, you went to school. I was a college student.
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: So I guess you do.
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 2: I guess I did use up for years without the four,
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 2: but not number five.
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I got one more.
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know.
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 2: There's probably a judge that will say, Hey, he never played.
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 2: He's got all five, even though he went to four
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 2: years of school. Honestly, there will probably be a judge
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 2: who would do it just for the humor of seeing
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 2: what it would look like.
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, let him play. Let's see.
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 2: This is a guy who didn't play at a high level.
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 2: Let's let him play college ball now. Let's see what happens.
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 2: He went 34 years without having any major knee injuries,
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 2: any major surgeries. Well, really no surgeries at all. And
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 2: then in one year, he had to have his whole
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 2: body rebuilt because he decided to play football.
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: For the first time. All right.
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 2: The season begins in earnest tomorrow, certainly for the University
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 2: of Utah. We'll take another quick break here. We'll come back,
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 2: and I'll tell you the latest Heisman Trophy odds. Where
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 2: does Bear Bachmeier sit? Where does Devin Dampier sit, more importantly?
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 2: Where does anyone in the Big 12 Conference sit? It's
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 2: the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 4: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 4: Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM. All right, if.
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 2: You're going to make a preseason prediction on anything that
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 2: happens with Utah football, we got to do it by tomorrow.
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 2: So we're going to finish our preseason predictions. The over-under
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 2: question for today is, was do you think the Utah
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 2: football offense goes over or under 32.5 points per game?
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 2: Over 32.5 points per game is inside the top 25
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 2: from last year. Under that means you're right outside the
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 2: top 25, and your defense has to play a little
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 2: bit better. Last year, you scored almost 42 points a game,
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 2: so you're not even fully having to keep up. You
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 2: can score a touchdown fewer points per game, and still...
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 2: be right on pace as far as I'm concerned. So
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 2: that's the over under eight, seven, seven, three, five, three,
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 2: zero 700. The Heisman trophy odds as of today. And again,
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 2: we're trying to get all these predictions in prior to
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 2: the actual week one season kicking off right now. CJ car,
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 2: Notre Dame quarterback is the, has the best odds to
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 2: win the Heisman arch Manning is second. Darien Mensah is third.
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 2: Dante Moore, Oregon quarterback, is fourth. Julian Sane and Jeremiah
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 2: Smith take up the next two spots for Ohio State.
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 2: They are tied, excuse me, Smith is tied with Josh Hoover,
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 2: who transferred from TCU to Indiana. Trinidad Chambliss has the
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 2: same odds at plus 1500. And you got to scroll down.
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 2: Sam Levitt, former ASU guy, is now at LSU.
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: He's plus 2500.
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 2: Along with John Mateer and Keelan Russell to get down
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 2: to the first person on the Heisman trophy odds here
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 2: in this big 12 conference, you go all the way
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 2: to plus 5,000 and James, I'll give you a dollar. No,
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 2: I'll give you James Peterson bonus points. If you can
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 2: tell me who the, the most likely Heisman trophy candidate
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 2: is in the preseason odds, according to fan duel, at
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 2: least from the big 12 conference.
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: So, uh, highest fan duels, fan duels.
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 2: Best odds from the big 12 conference to win the
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 2: Heisman trophy. Is it, uh, let's see, you just made
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 2: an observation about this school.
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 1: It's messed to maker.
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 2: It's true. Mess the mess to maker, which listen, I'm,
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 2: I don't want to, I'm not a hater of Oklahoma state.
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: Never have been.
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not a hater of, Group of five, now group
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 2: of six coaches elevating up and doing– I'm not an
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 2: unbeliever of them being able to have success right away.
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, Kurt Cignetti showed us the blueprint for that, right,
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 2: just a couple years ago. What I'm bothered by is
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 2: just this automatic– they're not necessarily crowning them to win
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 2: the Big 12, but they're crowning them as the next Indiana.
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 2: And it's like, that is such a fluky once in
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 2: a lifetime thing that Indiana did. And listen, maybe it's
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 2: a model. Maybe time will tell. Maybe this will end
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 2: up being a norm. The Norman college football where guys
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 2: have bring the same group of six team with them
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 2: to a power four level. And they, they, elevate his
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 2: head coaches and they end up having an, have an
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 2: instant success. What I'm arguing is that we don't, there's
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 2: no proof of concept for that. So why are we
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 2: crowning these guys as big 12 championship contenders already? And
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 2: drew mess to maker is a Heisman trophy winner. There's
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 2: a lot more examples of quarterbacks and other players going
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 2: up a level and still being awesome. So that's not as,
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 2: I don't have as much of a problem with that,
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 2: but it's, I mean, arch Manning is still a starting
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 2: quarterback and has yet to live up his, live up
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 2: to his potential. He's not in the big 12, but
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 2: I would think that, I mean, there's plenty of other guys.
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 2: Devin Dampier has actually proven to do what drew mess
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 2: to maker is. People are saying drew mess to maker
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 2: will do. Maybe he deserves to have higher odds than
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 2: mess to maker.
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 2: I I'm just a little sick of Oklahoma state getting
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 2: all this love based on a once in a lifetime
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 2: thing that Indiana did a couple of years ago. So
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 2: mess to maker best odds for a big 12 Heisman,
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 2: according to the fan dual sports book Bear Bachmeier, second highest.
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: He's at plus 5,500.
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 2: Connor Wegman right behind him at plus 6,500. And then
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 2: it's Will Hammond from Texas Tech. Did you see the
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 2: article talking about how Will Hammond wanted to be a
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 2: BYU guy? His family grew up as big BYU fans.
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 6: Oh, really?
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: They're a BYU family. So are they members of the church?
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: Which church? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 5: Of course.
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: I believe so. I mean, if you're a BYU fan, well,
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: you probably are.
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 2: If you didn't already hate Will Hammond enough as a
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 2: Utah fan, the first quote from this article is the
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 2: dad talking about... how glorious it was for him to
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 2: watch his son win a game at rice Eccles because he,
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 2: the dad despises Utah.
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: And I'm just like, oh my gosh, hating Utah. Yeah.
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 2: I grew up hating Utah, but anyway, we'll Hammond apparently
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 2: wanted to be a Coug like that. That's something that
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 2: if he ends up being great this year and causing
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 2: problems for BYU and like an eventual championship matchup, that
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 2: that will be a story that we'll get sick of
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 2: talking about.
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 1: But I didn't know. That Will Hammond was from the
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: BYU family.
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 2: I didn't know he grew up in a family of
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 2: BYU fans or that he was a member of the
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 2: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I appreciate you
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 2: checking me on that because there is more than one
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 2: church out in existence, allegedly.
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: Allegedly.
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 2: Devin Dampier, plus 8,000. So he's after Hammond? He's after Hammond, yeah.
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: See, I just, I think people are sleeping on Devin, man.
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 2: You're getting a lot of bang for your buck with
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 2: Devin Dampier wager there, people at FanDuel.
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: Let's see.
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 2: Fafita lower than? Yeah, plus 10,000. Fafita is down there
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 2: a little bit lower. See, I think, I'm not sure that, well, no,
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 2: I think I am sure. I think the best two
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 2: quarterbacks in the Big 12 going into the season are
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 2: those two guys, Devin Dampier and Noah Fafita in some order.
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 2: I think Mestemaker could end up being the best quarterback
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 2: in the Big 12, but he hasn't played Big 12 football.
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 2: He hasn't played any Power 4 schedule yet, so I'm
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 2: not going to say he's the best yet. And I
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 2: think that Bear Bachmeier certainly has the potential to be
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 2: the best, too. I don't get having Fafita and Devin
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 2: that low as far as the quarterbacks in the conference.
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 2: Here's what I'm going to do for entertainment purposes only.
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to sprinkle a little bit on Devin. And
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 2: I'm also going to put a bunch of money. I'm
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 2: going to throw a house payment down on Alberto Mendoza
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 2: at plus 17,500 first ever brothers to go back to back.
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 2: Where's Alberto playing Georgia tech, Georgia tech. Oh, is he
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 2: the projected starter then?
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: I don't even know. I don't even know. Cause he was,
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 1: he was the backup obviously behind his brother at Indiana.
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 2: And he's got some pretty big shoes to fill. Take
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 2: it over for Haynes King.
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 2: We're going to turn it over to the drive with
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 2: Spence Chickens. He is on remote today down at Advanced
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 2: Window Products, 3052 South, 460 West in Salt Lake City.
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 2: It's not only the showroom, but it is also the
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 2: manufacturing facility.
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: Spence is down there. Stay tuned.
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 2: And when you hear my voice tomorrow... It will be
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 2: a Utah football game day. Doesn't it feel so good?
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 2: That's all for the Sean O'Connell Show. ESPN 700, 92
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 2: on FM.