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

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Speaker 1: He's the Shan O'Connell Show, brought to you by Big
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Speaker 1: Willies on Utah's number one sports talk and home of
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Speaker 1: the ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one a FM,
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Speaker 1: a proud part of Utah's ESPN Radio Network.
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Speaker 2: Papping Monday.
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Speaker 3: But I welcome to the Shan O'Connell Show on ESPN
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Speaker 3: seven ninety two to one FM. Glad to be with you.
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Speaker 3: After a beautiful weekend in Salt Lake City, beautiful weather wise,
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Speaker 3: devoid of the necessary sports load for me. There were
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Speaker 3: some fights on Saturday night. Interesting outcomes there, see the
1:00
Speaker 3: Utah Mammoth and the Jazz in action. But the dearth
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Speaker 3: of football is something that I am not comfortable with,
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Speaker 3: and I'm gonna have to get comfortable with because after
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Speaker 3: this weekend super Bowl, we head into that kind of uncomfortable,
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Speaker 3: itchy sort of hiatus where, yeah, you can hope for
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Speaker 3: some spring ball announcements and practices. My fingers are crossed
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Speaker 3: that Morgan Scaley will allow us a little bit more
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Speaker 3: access this coming spring to things like well anything, but
1:35
Speaker 3: we'll see. Looking forward to the super Bowl, but also
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Speaker 3: not looking forward to a true football off season. We're
1:49
Speaker 3: gonna talk about some hockey today. We're gonna talk a
1:51
Speaker 3: little hoops today. We're going to talk about a little
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Speaker 3: Utah football. Rojo, Yes, that Rojo's gonna join us at
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Speaker 3: twelve thirty. Try to get him on at noon. We're
2:03
Speaker 3: gonna have him join us at twelve thirty. So we'll
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Speaker 3: do the daily dump at noon and Rojo at twelve thirty,
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Speaker 3: and then Tom Callahan to talk a little Utah Mammoth
2:13
Speaker 3: at one o'clock. There's some mock drafts out that I
2:16
Speaker 3: want to cover on the show today. A couple of
2:19
Speaker 3: Utes projected as first round NFL draft picks, as you know,
2:23
Speaker 3: but we have talked about it many times and it's
2:26
Speaker 3: worth touching on again. Fit is a massively important thing
2:33
Speaker 3: and going to the right place to sustain success in
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Speaker 3: your career. As we watched it play out several times,
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Speaker 3: it's massively important. So I'm not loving the projections for
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Speaker 3: at least one of these former Utes, but we'll get there.
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Speaker 3: Our show today and every day is brought to you
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Speaker 3: by our friends at Big Willie's seventeen seventeen, South Maine.
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Speaker 3: We're coming up on the drawing for We're going to
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Speaker 3: do the drawing actually here on air.
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Speaker 2: The game is.
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Speaker 3: The Games in two days, Detroit Red Wings at Utah
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Speaker 3: Mammoth will pull a name out of the I think
3:14
Speaker 3: it's a fish bowl for the Utah Mammoth. So if
3:17
Speaker 3: you can get down there today to Big Willies and
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Speaker 3: say that you heard about the place on the Sean
3:22
Speaker 3: O'Connell show, they'll probably still be willing to put your
3:25
Speaker 3: name into the drawing drink specials every single day. And
3:29
Speaker 3: I do not invibe myself, but I can appreciate the
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Speaker 3: fact that we're talking about a sports part here that
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Speaker 3: is not just marking up their liquors and marking up
3:39
Speaker 3: their drinks as aggressively as they can.
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Speaker 2: They are still keeping it affordable.
3:43
Speaker 3: They want it to be a wallet friendly experience for
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Speaker 3: you so that you don't stop by Big Willies one time,
3:48
Speaker 3: but that you keep coming back and.
3:49
Speaker 2: You make it kind of your home for sports watching.
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Speaker 3: They're going to have a massive, massive, massive event for
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Speaker 3: this coming Sunday for the Super Bowl, and it's a.
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Speaker 2: Great place to watch it.
4:02
Speaker 3: Delicious food Craft food Menu Telemoc sent you so Utah
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Speaker 3: Mammoth Dallas Stars in action on what was this Friday night?
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Speaker 3: Saturday Night at the Delta Center, and I saw one
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Speaker 3: of the things that frust is potentially most frustrating for fans.
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Speaker 3: And it doesn't matter what sport we're talking about, where
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Speaker 3: you have a team that is totally capable, competitive, hardcore,
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Speaker 3: you know, chemistry, all the good stuff, but you dig
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Speaker 3: yourself a hole. Self inflicted wounds for me begs the question,
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Speaker 3: and I put it out on Twitter today at realoc Sports.
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Speaker 3: You can also answer it at eight seven seven three
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Speaker 3: five three zero seven hundred. The most frustrating, aggravating, upsetting
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Speaker 3: self inflicted w wound that your team finds itself guilty of,
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Speaker 3: and I know every single team does. This is guilty
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Speaker 3: of all the options I put, and I could have
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Speaker 3: added another, but I just want to know, of the
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Speaker 3: self inflicted wounds that you have observed or complained about
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Speaker 3: with your team, which one is most aggravating? Penalties, slow starts, turnovers,
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Speaker 3: And if you're a huge Utah Mammoth fan, slow starts
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Speaker 3: is gonna be rising up the ranks for you, even
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Speaker 3: if it's not one that you traditionally over index toward the.
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Speaker 2: Utah Mammoth.
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Speaker 3: Would be seven eight ten games better, seven eight ten
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Speaker 3: points better if they just stopped giving up early goals.
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Speaker 3: If they were a better first period team, this Utah
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Speaker 3: Mammoth squad would have solved a problem this weekend against
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Speaker 3: the Dallas Stars that is one of the best teams
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Speaker 3: in the NHL on home ice because down the stretch,
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Speaker 3: I think you can make an argument that the Mammoth
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Speaker 3: outplayed the Stars, but you had already dug yourself a
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Speaker 3: hole by giving up a goal thirty seconds into the game.
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Speaker 3: And obviously it's not isolated to hockey, isolated to Utah
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Speaker 3: Mammoth hockey. We see this all the time where you
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Speaker 3: come out from You come out of the tunnel sleepy,
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Speaker 3: right after the opening tip, right after the puck drops,
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Speaker 3: opening kickoff, whatever, you're just not ready to go. And
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Speaker 3: to me, I've always blamed it on coaching. It's one
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Speaker 3: of the few things that I will blame on coaching
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Speaker 3: in sports. I because I think it's because I was
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Speaker 3: an athlete who was raised in a house where you
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Speaker 3: didn't get you didn't get coddled to explain away you're
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Speaker 3: a miss if they happened, and my parents weren't like
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Speaker 3: the biggest sports people, so they weren't going to be
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Speaker 3: analyzing the play call, or they weren't going to be
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Speaker 3: analyzing the performance of the coach. It was kind of like, hey, well,
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Speaker 3: should have been ready to go. Slow starts are one
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Speaker 3: of the few things that I blame more on coaching
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Speaker 3: than I do on players, because I believe as a
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Speaker 3: coach you have to have it figured out and every
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Speaker 3: team's going to be a little bit different. You could
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Speaker 3: probably be a little bit more hands off if you've
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Speaker 3: got a bunch of veteran leadership in a dressing room
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Speaker 3: or a locker room.
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Speaker 2: You probably.
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Speaker 3: Have some teams where there's a lot of vocal raw
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Speaker 3: rah gets you fired up guys, and maybe that's necessary,
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Speaker 3: maybe your group, it's not necessary at all. As a coach,
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Speaker 3: I think it's your job to figure that out. I
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Speaker 3: think it's one of the jobs of a coaching staff
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Speaker 3: to assess the needs of the team and meet the
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Speaker 3: team where they are. And slow starts, in my opinion,
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Speaker 3: have always been an evidence of that of a disconnect
8:13
Speaker 3: in that particular front. Well, why they come out slow,
8:18
Speaker 3: why'd they come out sluggish? Why did they come out sloppy?
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Speaker 4: What?
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Speaker 3: Maybe you're warming them up too hard, or maybe you're
8:23
Speaker 3: not warming them up hard enough, or maybe maybe you're like,
8:29
Speaker 3: who's the guy the Gannon Rich Gannon's kid. What's his
8:34
Speaker 3: first name that just got fired by the Cardinals? Steve Gannon,
8:40
Speaker 3: John Gannon, And I'm gonna George.
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Speaker 5: I want to say Terry Gannon, but that's the that's
8:47
Speaker 5: the basketball announcer, I think anyway, But Gannon was with
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Speaker 5: the Eagles before and Cardinals head coach? How irrelevant are
8:56
Speaker 5: the are the Cardinals that we can't even remember? Who
9:00
Speaker 5: who just got fired by?
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Speaker 4: Then?
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Speaker 2: Gee? Jonathan Gannon? Jonathan Gannon?
9:04
Speaker 3: Like have you seen the post firing? Of course, have
9:08
Speaker 3: you seen the viral videos of John Gannon trying to
9:13
Speaker 3: fire up his team? It is the funniest thing. It's
9:18
Speaker 3: like it's like something out of the office. It's like
9:23
Speaker 3: if you took Toby Flinderson from the office and put
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Speaker 3: him in charge of pump up speeches before a game,
9:31
Speaker 3: or he's doing a film he's doing a film session,
9:34
Speaker 3: you just go find him or like uh, just or hey.
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Speaker 2: What do you what are you here for? What are
9:41
Speaker 2: we what are we doing? It's like it is the
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Speaker 2: most awkward cringey.
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Speaker 3: Is this guy trying to motivate people or is this
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Speaker 3: some sort of kind of like really really advanced humor
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Speaker 3: that none of us get, Like it's total understated and
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Speaker 3: that's what we're supposed to.
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Speaker 2: Be laughing at.
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Speaker 3: It's just painful to watch that guy speak. Maybe he
10:08
Speaker 3: thought that was the right thing for that particular group,
10:10
Speaker 3: and maybe everyone in the room except for him was
10:13
Speaker 3: just like, dude, this is why we come out of
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Speaker 3: the tunnel.
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Speaker 2: And are just like, do we really have to play
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Speaker 2: this game? But slow starts? Drive me and sing the
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Speaker 2: penalty thing?
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Speaker 5: New poll question idea, Oh see better, better, motivational better,
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Speaker 5: pep talk, pregame, pep talk, Jonathan Gannon, any of them
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Speaker 5: or Michael Scott leadership talk on Boot Cruise episode that.
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Speaker 3: There's a viral video of a Walmart manager singing a
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Speaker 3: K pop song and he's not singing, he's lip syncing
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Speaker 3: a K pop song to like the gathered shift of people,
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Speaker 3: and he's terrible, no doubt. Well, he's like a fifty
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Speaker 3: year old man lip syncing a K pop song from
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Speaker 3: that demon Hunters on Netflix. It's At first I thought
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Speaker 3: it was Ai and then I thought it was like, oh,
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Speaker 3: this guy must have been doing something else, And they
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Speaker 3: dubbed the song over it and then I actually watched
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Speaker 3: it and I was like, Nope, he's actually doing this.
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Speaker 3: It's real, and it's it doesn't seem like it's parody.
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Speaker 3: Oh maybe maybe there are people out there in the
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Speaker 3: coaching world that are that bad from a motivation standpoint.
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Speaker 3: In that case, slow starts are gonna be a problem
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Speaker 3: for you all the time. I just the self inflicted
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Speaker 3: wounds of a team like the Utah Mammoth, who are talented.
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Speaker 3: They're in this Goldilock zone of you can beat anybody
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Speaker 3: in the NHL right now. Okay, you just went on
11:43
Speaker 3: the second night of a back to back. You went
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Speaker 3: to Sunrise Florida, and you beat the Florida Panthers, the
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Speaker 3: defending Stanley Cup champions. Now they're not the best team
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Speaker 3: in the league right now, but you beat them, right
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Speaker 3: So you've got all these feathers stuffed into your cap
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Speaker 3: of franchises you had not previously beaten. Now you got
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Speaker 3: wins against them, And now you got a matchup against
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Speaker 3: the Dallas Stars team that has been a regular. They've
12:11
Speaker 3: been a staple presence in the Western Conference playoffs and
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Speaker 3: even in the Western Conference Finals. They've made multiple appearances.
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Speaker 3: And you can play with them. I was there at
12:22
Speaker 3: the game. You're as good as they are, but you
12:27
Speaker 3: dug yourself a hole.
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Speaker 2: Early in this game.
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Speaker 3: There was a late chance Peterka right in front of
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Speaker 3: the net, perfect pass, and it just you just didn't
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Speaker 3: convert that one should have been a game tying third
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Speaker 3: period goal. And then maybe you have to, you know,
12:44
Speaker 3: rally a little bit for overtime. But we've seen what
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Speaker 3: this Utah Mammoth squad looks like in overtime. Keller Gunther
12:51
Speaker 3: guarantee you're gonna get the overtime win.
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Speaker 2: There that chance.
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Speaker 3: With a minute fifteen or so left, so so painfully close,
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Speaker 3: But you don't desperately need it, You're not dependent on
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Speaker 3: it if you haven't dug yourself a hole. Self inflicted
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Speaker 3: wounds in team sports are one of the most aggravating
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Speaker 3: things in the fan experience. So tell me which one
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Speaker 3: is worst for you at realoc sports eight seven seven
13:23
Speaker 3: three five three zero seven hundred peace love and uts
13:26
Speaker 3: on Twitter offensive holding Yes, I see, I see.
13:31
Speaker 2: You, you are heard.
13:34
Speaker 3: I appreciate exactly the sentiment you are expressing with that gift,
13:39
Speaker 3: and it is a nightmare. Big play, chunk play, maybe
13:47
Speaker 3: scoring play, and then you see laundry on the field
13:50
Speaker 3: and you're like, no, no, not down, now back at
13:54
Speaker 3: the line of scrimmage. No, So which self inflicted wound
13:59
Speaker 3: bothers you most as a sports fan? Another question, it
14:04
Speaker 3: is groundhog Day? Are you aware of this? I was
14:07
Speaker 3: under the impression Groundhog Day was a federal holiday. I
14:10
Speaker 3: don't know why we're working today, Jay, Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Come on, now, we're not.
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Speaker 5: We're not in punks of Tony trying to We don't
14:17
Speaker 5: need to be covering groundhog Day today. Give it, we
14:21
Speaker 5: can take the day off. But hey, we're just we're
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Speaker 5: just that kind of We're just that those kind of workhorses,
14:27
Speaker 5: those kind of grinders on a groundhog Day.
14:30
Speaker 3: By the way, for people who are interested in the
14:33
Speaker 3: very strange pagan ritual of listening to a groundhog's shadows
14:38
Speaker 3: or not about whether or not they w winter.
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Speaker 2: You're anti groundhog Day. I'm hearing.
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Speaker 3: Six more weeks of winter, which for us would be
14:47
Speaker 3: just six weeks of winter. Yeah that if we get
14:50
Speaker 3: six more weeks of winter, that will be a six
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Speaker 3: weeks total.
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Speaker 5: Honestly, that I would be fine with because as much
14:58
Speaker 5: as I am more a warm weather guy. Oh see,
15:01
Speaker 5: grown up in Saint George. That's just how what I
15:04
Speaker 5: what I grew up used to over three hundred days
15:07
Speaker 5: of sunshine a year where I'm from. We need the
15:13
Speaker 5: winter here, we need it up here where where it
15:16
Speaker 5: typically happens. So I'm fine with it if we just
15:18
Speaker 5: get six weeks of winter here.
15:22
Speaker 3: I would just like one week of winter with painfully
15:25
Speaker 3: aggressive snowstorms. We need the water man, and then we're
15:29
Speaker 3: done right. And by the way, it was nice to
15:31
Speaker 3: have this the one storm. James, you probably didn't notice
15:34
Speaker 3: this about yourself, but I'm sure we need the water.
15:38
Speaker 3: I'm sure that's a sentence that never came out of
15:39
Speaker 3: your mouth before you became a dad. I bet, I bet,
15:44
Speaker 3: I bet that you never said that even one time. Now,
15:46
Speaker 3: you might have thought it, you might have known it,
15:48
Speaker 3: But it's when you become a dad that.
15:52
Speaker 2: You are you are. You walk out and you're kind
15:55
Speaker 2: of scratching the little roll, uh, and.
15:57
Speaker 3: You're like, man, we need the water. I'll tell you what,
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Speaker 3: and my little drizzle comes down.
16:04
Speaker 5: Hey, did I just walk into those progressive commercials?
16:07
Speaker 2: Is turning new? Honestly? Yes?
16:09
Speaker 5: Oh man, it's something you start paying attention to it.
16:12
Speaker 5: Doctor Watson's face.
16:13
Speaker 3: And you're gonna start reading World War two history books
16:16
Speaker 3: and smoking meats.
16:18
Speaker 2: Those are your hobbies? Is an old dad books about boats.
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Speaker 2: End of the Day.
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Speaker 3: I bring up Groundhog Day because it's one of the
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Speaker 3: most rewatchable comedy films of all time in my opinion.
16:33
Speaker 3: And I'm not even the biggest Bill Murray fan out there.
16:37
Speaker 3: Eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred at
16:39
Speaker 3: Rielosi Sports. The most rewatchable comedy film in your mind
16:44
Speaker 3: is Fill in the Black.
16:45
Speaker 5: You gotta read vegas Utes reply to your tweet just now.
16:51
Speaker 5: You don't have to read the whole thing. It's a
16:52
Speaker 5: little wordy, but like read the actual submission. This is
16:55
Speaker 5: a deep cut by vegas Ut.
16:58
Speaker 3: Vegas Uts has promised not to snort a vote from
17:01
Speaker 3: the film history Department Philadelphia's story.
17:03
Speaker 2: From nineteen forty You know this one. I don't know
17:06
Speaker 2: this one.
17:06
Speaker 3: I'm shy about recommending classic movies to modern audiences, but
17:09
Speaker 3: this is a classic that translates Katherine Hepburn, Carry Grant
17:12
Speaker 3: and Jimmy Stewart find out why your grandparents love them.
17:17
Speaker 2: I mean that's a ack of a cast.
17:19
Speaker 3: Look, I will cast no aspersion on the recommendation I
17:24
Speaker 3: will make no judgment because I've never seen it. It
17:30
Speaker 3: might be hilarious, it might be intensely rewatchable. It appears
17:34
Speaker 3: to be a black and white film. Maybe there's a
17:36
Speaker 3: colorized version out there somewhere. Doesn't bother me too much.
17:40
Speaker 3: I like Carry Grant and Jimmy Stewart. I'd give it
17:44
Speaker 3: a watch. I do know this about myself. My favorite
17:49
Speaker 3: humor is probably it's probably crude humor, which I don't
17:57
Speaker 3: think they were throwing a lot about there in nineteen forty.
18:00
Speaker 5: You don't think Philadelphia's story has a lot of sneaky
18:04
Speaker 5: crude humor. Maybe maybe asked, maybe, maybe asked your your grandpa.
18:09
Speaker 2: Maybe there's jokes about someone showing their ankles. I have
18:12
Speaker 2: no idea. Ask your grandpa what some of the crude
18:15
Speaker 2: slang was, so you can keep an eye out for it.
18:17
Speaker 3: Who knows. But that's, by the way, that's a me problem. Okay,
18:22
Speaker 3: that's a that's a me problem.
18:24
Speaker 2: People.
18:24
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not endorsing crude humor. This is a
18:27
Speaker 3: family show, but it's the stuff that makes me laugh
18:29
Speaker 3: the most. So, like Wes on Twitter saying, Old School
18:33
Speaker 3: is the most rewatchable comedy, Field.
18:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're down with that?
18:37
Speaker 3: Old school is way up there for me, I mean
18:38
Speaker 3: blues My Boy, and I'm a huge Will Ferrell fan.
18:42
Speaker 3: But in any case, we'll keep those going throughout the day.
18:44
Speaker 3: We'll ask Rojo when he joins us, last Tom Callahan
18:47
Speaker 3: when he knows when he joins us the the most
18:49
Speaker 3: rewatchable comedy films in honor of Groundhog Day. The actual
18:55
Speaker 3: Groundhog Day is today and punksatani Field did see his shadow,
18:59
Speaker 3: which a note six more weeks of winter, which we
19:02
Speaker 3: probably need here in Salt Lake City. The Bill Murray
19:04
Speaker 3: comedy Groundhog Day is quite rewatchable.
19:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really good. It's a funny one.
19:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, need Ryerson watch out for that last step, it's
19:16
Speaker 5: a doozy.
19:20
Speaker 2: In any case, we'll keep that up throughout the show today.
19:26
Speaker 5: Okay, I have to I have to say something else
19:30
Speaker 5: out loud, and hopefully, hopefully this isn't something that that
19:33
Speaker 5: our guy Tom Callahan isn't like annoyed with because he
19:37
Speaker 5: happens to have the same name as someone in a
19:40
Speaker 5: in a very rewatchable comedy. Okay, but I'm hoping that
19:43
Speaker 5: he says Tommy Boy is his rewatchable comedy.
19:47
Speaker 2: That's not even on my list, not really close.
19:51
Speaker 3: I I feel like I missed the love of some
19:56
Speaker 3: of those Chris Farley I love Chris Farley on SNL.
19:59
Speaker 3: I don't love Chris Farley's movies for some reason. And
20:03
Speaker 3: maybe it's because I now harbor resentment for David Spade
20:06
Speaker 3: because he's my wife's celebrity crush. Oh, which is so
20:10
Speaker 3: hard to explain and terrible, just horrific to even have
20:16
Speaker 3: to acknowledge on air.
20:17
Speaker 2: But here we are.
20:22
Speaker 3: A response to my other question, the much more relevant
20:25
Speaker 3: sports question about what self inflicted wounds aggravates you the
20:30
Speaker 3: most as a sports fan. And again this is inspired
20:33
Speaker 3: by the Utah Man digging themselves a first period hole
20:37
Speaker 3: against the Dallas Stars so that even when they midpoint
20:40
Speaker 3: of the game on outplayed Dallas, they were only able
20:43
Speaker 3: to claw back a couple of goals and they ended
20:46
Speaker 3: up losing that one three to two.
20:47
Speaker 2: In what is you know?
20:49
Speaker 3: If you win that game, that's a double win because
20:51
Speaker 3: of the divisional opponents type situation, and obviously you're chasing Dallas,
20:57
Speaker 3: so if you can keep them from getting points massive
21:00
Speaker 3: for you. It's not as crucial as keeping the teams
21:05
Speaker 3: beneath you in the wild card race at Bay I
21:08
Speaker 3: will admit that, but it's something that you just you
21:11
Speaker 3: would like to see this Utah Mammoth squad against a
21:14
Speaker 3: perennial contender in the West and a team that is
21:18
Speaker 3: just I should say, just to placement wise. They are
21:22
Speaker 3: just ahead of you in the standings in your division,
21:25
Speaker 3: but there are thirteen points ahead of you because Colorado
21:28
Speaker 3: now with eighty one points, Minnesota was seventy four, Dallas
21:31
Speaker 3: was seventy three and fourth in the Central Division. Are
21:35
Speaker 3: your Utah Mammoth with sixty points. Canucks coming in tonight
21:41
Speaker 3: and you have to destroy the Vancouver Canucks. They are
21:48
Speaker 3: right now the worst team in the West. You cannot
21:51
Speaker 3: fall asleep at the wheel. You cannot afford a slow start.
21:54
Speaker 3: You cannot you cannot create any self inflicted wounds as
22:01
Speaker 3: a franchise. You have got to get over on this
22:03
Speaker 3: team in order to keep climbing the standings and stay
22:06
Speaker 3: where you need to stay in the wildcard and in
22:08
Speaker 3: the conference race. Colorado at the top, Minnesota and Dallas
22:14
Speaker 3: not only at the top.
22:15
Speaker 2: Of your division, but of the Western Conference.
22:18
Speaker 3: And then it's Vegas, Edmonton, Seattle, Anaheim, LA, and the
22:23
Speaker 3: Utah Mammoth tied with LA. Right now, it's sixty points,
22:26
Speaker 3: but flirting with that line. The annoying thing here with
22:32
Speaker 3: Utah is your differential, right your goal differential statistic. This
22:39
Speaker 3: Mammoth team offensively has done a remarkable job this year.
22:43
Speaker 3: They are plus nineteen having lost to in Arona. You're
22:48
Speaker 3: plus nineteen, which is better than the Vegas Golden Knights
22:54
Speaker 3: who are ahead of you in the standings, the Edmonton
22:57
Speaker 3: Oilers who are ahead of you in the standings, and
22:59
Speaker 3: way ahead of Seattle, Anaheim, and LA, who are all
23:03
Speaker 3: ahead of you in the standings. They're all at negative
23:07
Speaker 3: goal differential on the season. The Utah Mammoth are plus nineteen.
23:12
Speaker 3: That's good enough for fourth in the West. So your
23:18
Speaker 3: fourth in goal differential, but you're what is that We've
23:22
Speaker 3: decided eighth in the standings, ninth in the standings. Explain
23:29
Speaker 3: that to me, well, I can explain it. Special teams errors,
23:38
Speaker 3: slow starts, self inflicted wounds. And when I say special
23:42
Speaker 3: teams errors, one of the biggest special teams errors you
23:44
Speaker 3: could make in hockey is creating a scenario where you
23:48
Speaker 3: need your special teams to rise to the occasion, and
23:50
Speaker 3: you need your penalty kill to be excellent because you're
23:53
Speaker 3: taking too many penalties. So that actually the mammoth right
23:58
Speaker 3: now are checking two boxes of the three in my
24:02
Speaker 3: worst possible self inflicted wound scenario where you've got slow
24:07
Speaker 3: starts a problem, penalties a problem, and we'd have to
24:12
Speaker 3: get well, we'll ask Tom Callahan about it. How big
24:16
Speaker 3: of a problem the turnovers are for this Utah Mamma
24:19
Speaker 3: squad right now? When you get into the advanced analytics,
24:22
Speaker 3: are they possessing the puck the way that they need
24:25
Speaker 3: to in order to keep all of this stuff at bay?
24:31
Speaker 3: The poll question is up the pole. The non pole
24:36
Speaker 3: question is also up. So tell me the self inflicted
24:39
Speaker 3: wound that bothers you tell me the most rewatchable comedy.
24:44
Speaker 3: Derek on the text line said, missed free throws are
24:49
Speaker 3: the most annoying self inflicted wound for him, and the
24:53
Speaker 3: most rewatchable comedy is Anchorman, which is.
25:00
Speaker 2: Way up there for me.
25:01
Speaker 5: That's a that's a great text on both fronts because
25:04
Speaker 5: miss free throws from as obviously from basketball standpoint, that
25:09
Speaker 5: probably is. It's that and like the I'm not paying,
25:17
Speaker 5: I'm not paying enough attention. Kind of turnovers like oh
25:21
Speaker 5: I just I just accidentally threw that in the fourth row,
25:24
Speaker 5: or like I threw it right to the teammate in
25:27
Speaker 5: a in a really tight moment in the playoffs, but
25:29
Speaker 5: it hit off their hands and went out of bounds.
25:32
Speaker 2: I think those kind of things are just terrible, a
25:34
Speaker 2: mental mistake.
25:35
Speaker 3: Okay, So I could probably make you a list for
25:37
Speaker 3: basketball only here. So those types of boneheaded turnovers absolutely yes.
25:45
Speaker 3: Miss free throws, absolutely yes, And maybe the one that
25:49
Speaker 3: is has plagued basketball more in recent years than ever before.
25:54
Speaker 3: But the inexplicable, disgusting hero ball possessions where guys just
26:01
Speaker 3: decide that they're instead of being on an NBA floor
26:05
Speaker 3: with four other people in the lineup with them who
26:07
Speaker 3: are all professional basketball players, they decide that they are
26:11
Speaker 3: playing on like an eleventh Avenue park hoop, or they're
26:16
Speaker 3: at the seventeenth Ward gym or whatever, and they're just like,
26:22
Speaker 3: it's me, this is my moment, this is my time
26:26
Speaker 3: to shine. Palms are sweaty, knees, weak arms are heavy, whatever,
26:30
Speaker 3: and they just get crazy and go mom spaghetti and
26:33
Speaker 3: they vomit all over themselves with that possession that It
26:36
Speaker 3: is one of the most frustrating, disgusting, aggravating things that
26:42
Speaker 3: you're going to see. And I think it's one of
26:43
Speaker 3: the reasons why, at least from a novice perspective, hockey
26:48
Speaker 3: is becoming more and more watchable and basketball is becoming
26:52
Speaker 3: less and less watchable for a lot of people, because
26:55
Speaker 3: I mean, and I'll fully acknowledge it might be because
26:57
Speaker 3: of the lack of understanding with hot, but you just
27:01
Speaker 3: don't see it as much. Where a guy picks up
27:04
Speaker 3: the pucket like the blue line, and it's just like
27:07
Speaker 3: it's all me. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pass,
27:09
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna look to anyone else. It's me versus
27:12
Speaker 3: the five guys on the other side, and I'm just
27:14
Speaker 3: gonna drive this thing home and put up the worst
27:17
Speaker 3: shot anyone can imagine. And the only thing that could
27:21
Speaker 3: make it even worse, James, is when you do it
27:26
Speaker 3: with like twenty seconds left on the shot clock.
27:29
Speaker 5: You're the end of the game, shot clocks off, it's
27:33
Speaker 5: like fifteen twenty seconds left, and it's like.
27:36
Speaker 2: We didn't we didn't design a play.
27:38
Speaker 5: We just gave it to our best player, and it's
27:40
Speaker 5: iso ball until he decides to shoot it with a
27:43
Speaker 5: few seconds left, whether he's open or not, Like it's
27:46
Speaker 5: which is over. Dribbling is one of the biggest problems
27:49
Speaker 5: with the game today.
27:51
Speaker 2: Crazy negligence.
27:52
Speaker 3: By the way, if that's now by all means drop
27:55
Speaker 3: the play to get your best player of the shot
27:57
Speaker 3: and to get your best player of the possession. But
28:00
Speaker 3: if your whole play is like Anthony Edwards just makes up,
28:07
Speaker 3: it happen.
28:08
Speaker 5: Which Listen, they're drawing something up, being I'm being tongue
28:13
Speaker 5: in cheek, they're drawing something up. But that's what it
28:15
Speaker 5: looks like. It looks like what you and me, who
28:19
Speaker 5: are not paid millions of dollars to coach basketball say
28:24
Speaker 5: all the time. Like in the the joke in Michael
28:26
Speaker 5: Jordan's era was philled. All Phil Jackson ever did was say,
28:30
Speaker 5: give give the ball to Michael. It's like, yes, that's
28:33
Speaker 5: what we say. Give it to Donovan Mitchell when he
28:36
Speaker 5: was here, Give it to Karl Malone, right, and then.
28:40
Speaker 2: Everybody else get out of the way.
28:41
Speaker 5: But like people who are actually paid millions of dollars
28:45
Speaker 5: to come up with good ways to get your guys
28:47
Speaker 5: open and good ways to get good shots, like you
28:50
Speaker 5: should actually be more organized than that.
28:55
Speaker 2: Hot take ninety two thirty one.
28:59
Speaker 3: How about this just checking all the boxes at eight
29:02
Speaker 3: seven seven three five three zero seven hundred with this
29:05
Speaker 3: text message most painful or aggravating self inflicted wounds he
29:11
Speaker 3: says in basketball misfree throws and not rebounding. In football
29:15
Speaker 3: procedure penalties and holding or illegal man downfield. Oh it
29:20
Speaker 3: feels like that is very specific to this past season.
29:26
Speaker 2: Why did you bring that up? That hurt me right there?
29:28
Speaker 3: And then I answered the movie question most rewatchable comedy
29:31
Speaker 3: movie in honor of Groundhog Day, Hangover, Anchorman, twenty one,
29:38
Speaker 3: Jump Street, All excellent.
29:40
Speaker 5: All good, good entries there by the way, illegal man
29:44
Speaker 5: downfields just sizesm Isn't it?
29:46
Speaker 4: Is there?
29:46
Speaker 2: Actually?
29:47
Speaker 5: Like I'm a bit of tell me there are rules, James,
29:51
Speaker 5: So I know that tell me the the advantage As
29:54
Speaker 5: someone who has watched football his whole life. I'm not
29:57
Speaker 5: a football novice, but I am in the in the
30:00
Speaker 5: sense of, like I don't I'm not understanding everything I'm
30:03
Speaker 5: seeing when I'm watching it. Tell me what distinct advantage
30:07
Speaker 5: do you get from a Spencer Fano being downfield when
30:13
Speaker 5: he shouldn't be sorry.
30:16
Speaker 2: You brought up the very specific case from the Texas Tech.
30:19
Speaker 5: Game, like, because I'm not sure it's usually it's usually
30:22
Speaker 5: way off the ball.
30:23
Speaker 3: Okay, So anyway, I'm glad you're the rules. I'll tell
30:27
Speaker 3: you why. What it was from.
30:31
Speaker 2: Was it from the National Championship game.
30:34
Speaker 3: Where we got that viral clip from the play where
30:38
Speaker 3: the six foot eight inch three and forty pound Miami
30:43
Speaker 3: offensive tackle was out there with a full head of
30:47
Speaker 3: steam blocking an Indiana corner. Okay, yeah, you remember this
30:53
Speaker 3: play that I'm talking about.
30:54
Speaker 2: I remember that now that you say.
30:55
Speaker 3: That, that's the answer to your question. There is a
31:00
Speaker 3: distinct advantage to having blockers, like the physical mismatch of
31:07
Speaker 3: if you can take a situation right and so just
31:12
Speaker 3: bear with me here, instead of your screen pass being
31:14
Speaker 3: a lateral manufactured blocking scenario, all right, imagine you put
31:21
Speaker 3: your quarterback in a deep shotgun, all right, and you
31:25
Speaker 3: tell whoever Spencer Fano, Tainoa Tongy I, Jared Cump. You say,
31:32
Speaker 3: all right, you're going to disengage from the defensive tackles
31:38
Speaker 3: and linebackers and you're just going to run immediately past
31:42
Speaker 3: the linebackers to the safeties. So it's you three versus
31:48
Speaker 3: the safeties, and we're gonna have Dallan Bentley run a
31:51
Speaker 3: little hide pass behind the linebackers and then it's him
31:55
Speaker 3: with the ball and you.
31:56
Speaker 2: Three, and he's got an offensive line ball.
31:58
Speaker 3: Blocking to say now a lot harder to pull off
32:03
Speaker 3: than just speaking it into existence, obviously, because if your
32:07
Speaker 3: linebackers are good, even if your dtackles are good, they're
32:10
Speaker 3: gonna realize, oh bleep, they're not touching me. I need
32:15
Speaker 3: to instead of attacking the quarterback, I need to get
32:18
Speaker 3: back into this passing lane.
32:19
Speaker 5: Here.
32:19
Speaker 3: They know how to fight defeat screens, but now we're
32:22
Speaker 3: talking about screens that are ten yards downfield. You can't
32:26
Speaker 3: let the blockers get that far downfield and create the
32:29
Speaker 3: physical mismatches by design.
32:32
Speaker 2: Now that makes sense.
32:33
Speaker 3: A good lineman that hustles and gets himself downfield in
32:37
Speaker 3: the first place. Hopefully the referees know that that's a
32:42
Speaker 3: hustle play and aren't just like, wait, there's no way
32:45
Speaker 3: that that guy was able to get down to fifteen
32:48
Speaker 3: yards that quickly. Usually when they call illegal man downfield,
32:52
Speaker 3: that is actually an illegal man downfield.
32:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I understand that that's that part's not been
33:00
Speaker 5: confusing for me, I've been able to see, Oh yeah,
33:02
Speaker 5: he's he's downfield when he shouldn't be. It's I guess
33:07
Speaker 5: maybe we've gotten so good at enforcing it that you
33:10
Speaker 5: just don't see anything near what you described happening. Which
33:13
Speaker 5: is why I'm like, I don't understand what's the problem
33:16
Speaker 5: with him being there? Because they're not act because because
33:18
Speaker 5: it's usually when we see it now, it's an RPO
33:21
Speaker 5: play and the the O line's in a bad spot
33:24
Speaker 5: because they thought he handed the ball off and he
33:26
Speaker 5: ended up keeping it and throwing it, you know, and
33:29
Speaker 5: they're not. So that's why I've I've always been scratched
33:32
Speaker 5: my head. I'm like, why don't they just let them
33:34
Speaker 5: do it? But because if they did, they'd be doing
33:36
Speaker 5: stuff like that. Yeah, well we have Robert Johnson.
33:40
Speaker 3: We got Rojo coming on, and maybe maybe you can
33:43
Speaker 3: ask him why aren't the why aren't the offensive lineman
33:46
Speaker 3: just allowed to be downfield?
33:47
Speaker 2: Whatever?
33:48
Speaker 5: Can't I mean, can't you just shake off a three
33:51
Speaker 5: hundred pound center, Rojo?
33:53
Speaker 2: Aren't you weren't you a good safety?
33:56
Speaker 3: I mean Jo, maybe maybe maybe Rojo would for they
34:01
Speaker 3: have to take on blocks from offensive linemen and.
34:04
Speaker 2: They got to skim a little shimmy, shake and juke
34:06
Speaker 2: and front.
34:07
Speaker 3: There is that, but there are too many videos of
34:11
Speaker 3: the offensive tackle or the pulling guard that gets a
34:16
Speaker 3: corner in the in their sights and it's just like
34:18
Speaker 3: oh no, yeah, oh no, and there's an annihilation. I
34:24
Speaker 3: think that that's the easiest way to explain why the
34:27
Speaker 3: illegal man downfield thing is still a rule in football.
34:31
Speaker 5: Makes perfect sense, and I should have as you were
34:35
Speaker 5: saying that, I'm like, well, okay, that that seems obvious.
34:37
Speaker 5: But I guess, like I said, we've enforced it so
34:41
Speaker 5: well that nothing like that scenario ever really plays out.
34:44
Speaker 5: When they throw the flag, it seems like, so.
34:46
Speaker 3: You know what, it may it made me question it,
34:48
Speaker 3: so I also approach that from the blocking perspective. There's
34:52
Speaker 3: also and you know what, Todd, we'll have to talk
34:55
Speaker 3: with Todd Newcombe Todd over on X ninety six.
34:58
Speaker 5: Yes, are a rules analyst. He's well, he's a referee.
35:01
Speaker 3: He's he's been like a long time high school referee
35:04
Speaker 3: and is like pretty dedicated to the craft.
35:07
Speaker 5: And then he's say when even when he and his
35:10
Speaker 5: brothers were playing football growing up, he would he would
35:13
Speaker 5: have designated as the ref. It's always been the ref.
35:17
Speaker 3: Which is something to it sounds like something the other
35:19
Speaker 3: kids are doing to just like let you participate, even
35:22
Speaker 3: though you're not a good player, but whatever. But Todd's
35:25
Speaker 3: the man. We love Todd, and he takes it very,
35:27
Speaker 3: very seriously. He might be able to tell us more.
35:31
Speaker 3: But there's also there's also just the pure chaos and
35:35
Speaker 3: confusion factor in a coverage scheme if you have to
35:39
Speaker 3: deal with the five offensive lineman also being like even
35:42
Speaker 3: if they're not allowed to touch anyone and block, now you're like, wait,
35:48
Speaker 3: who's an eligible receiver and who's not? Just like the
35:52
Speaker 3: the visual mess of being a safety, linebacker, corner when
35:56
Speaker 3: you've got ten guys that you're like, oh wait, nope,
35:59
Speaker 3: he's too big.
35:59
Speaker 2: Nope, that's the guy right there.
36:01
Speaker 1: Like it.
36:02
Speaker 3: It would muddy up passing routes in such a way
36:05
Speaker 3: and coverages in such a way that I'm sure the
36:08
Speaker 3: original rules writers of football were just like, you can't
36:11
Speaker 3: have that, man, that's crazy, that's just too weird. No, well,
36:16
Speaker 3: call whoever invented the football rule book and put it
36:19
Speaker 3: in put it in place in the first.
36:21
Speaker 5: Win when they when they were making the rules they said,
36:24
Speaker 5: the original rules. They see, you can't have that many
36:26
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty plus pound guys.
36:27
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. When they wrote that rule.
36:30
Speaker 3: It's like, we can't have guys weighing one to eighty
36:32
Speaker 3: five running out there in the passing routes.
36:34
Speaker 2: No chance.
36:36
Speaker 5: It's good thing they put it in then, before they
36:39
Speaker 5: started becoming three hundred pounders.
36:42
Speaker 2: All right, got to take a break here.
36:45
Speaker 3: The show and the whole opening segment is brought to
36:47
Speaker 3: you every single day by Big Willie's seventeen seventeen South Main.
36:52
Speaker 3: ESPN's latest mock draft is out. I will tell you
36:55
Speaker 3: where they see Spencer Fano going, where they see Caleb
36:58
Speaker 3: Lomu going in a conspicuous absence in the top ten.
37:02
Speaker 3: It's the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven hundred, n's one FL.
37:17
Speaker 1: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
37:20
Speaker 1: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two to one.
37:24
Speaker 2: Af am.
37:29
Speaker 3: Alright, ESPN dot Com with the mock draft out.
37:32
Speaker 2: I think it's Matt Miller.
37:37
Speaker 3: NFL mock Draft out, and obviously I'm gonna be giving
37:40
Speaker 3: you the updates on every single one of these, because well,
37:44
Speaker 3: when you're predicting the top rounds of the upcoming NFL Draft,
37:48
Speaker 3: you're gonna be talking about a couple of units. The
37:51
Speaker 3: top five, according to Matt Miller, looks like this. The
37:54
Speaker 3: Raiders pick for Nana Mendoza, as a lot of people
37:57
Speaker 3: expect they will before.
37:59
Speaker 2: I just cant usually cast that aside. To move on
38:01
Speaker 2: from there.
38:03
Speaker 3: Are we sure that Bernana Mendoz is the right quarterback
38:05
Speaker 3: to pick at number one? I am as big a
38:08
Speaker 3: fan as you're going to find a Fernando Mendoza because
38:11
Speaker 3: I always love that underdog story. This kid, his last
38:16
Speaker 3: four years are a Disney movie. No, you're not allowed
38:23
Speaker 3: to walk on at the school that's right down the
38:25
Speaker 3: road from your high school in your house. Yeah, I
38:30
Speaker 3: know that your dad was the high school teammate of
38:34
Speaker 3: the head coach at that school, but still we're not
38:38
Speaker 3: gonna let you on.
38:38
Speaker 2: By the way, when they make the movie of.
38:40
Speaker 3: This, I want a flashback to Mario Cristobal being like
38:46
Speaker 3: the the Biff Tannin high school bully, and that's why
38:51
Speaker 3: he wasn't down with having the the Fernanda Mendoza walk
38:55
Speaker 3: on story.
38:55
Speaker 5: Even I mean, that's what that's what makes it based
38:58
Speaker 5: on a true story and not a truth or even
39:00
Speaker 5: if that's not who crystal Ball was, let's make him
39:03
Speaker 5: that way.
39:04
Speaker 2: Let's use a little creative license. Let's be honest. I
39:06
Speaker 2: bet he was.
39:07
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going to cast that aspersion on Mario crystal Ball.
39:12
Speaker 3: I'll say allegedly to protect myself legally, but allegedly, I'm certain.
39:17
Speaker 2: Seems like a good time to say the view is
39:18
Speaker 2: expressed by Sean.
39:20
Speaker 3: I am allegedly certain that Mario crystal Ball was an
39:25
Speaker 3: absolute bully and that it had some effect on not
39:28
Speaker 3: letting Frenana Mendoza walk on at the University of Miami
39:32
Speaker 3: in any case under Puppy Dog's story. By the way,
39:35
Speaker 3: when it comes to this kid is just like he's
39:40
Speaker 3: too good to be true. He's too effusive, he's too bubbly,
39:43
Speaker 3: he's too like. He is not the modern day college
39:45
Speaker 3: football player. You don't care how much nil money? Has
39:49
Speaker 3: anyone noticed that we know how much nil money every
39:53
Speaker 3: other prominent quarterback is making in college football. We don't
39:57
Speaker 3: have a real good idea about the highs trophy winners
40:01
Speaker 3: because you don't care, because it's not the part of
40:05
Speaker 3: his story that you're interested in. I'm sure we could
40:08
Speaker 3: find it. I'm sure the Indiana message boards have it
40:10
Speaker 3: all over the place. I'm sure it's like four and
40:12
Speaker 3: a half million dollars, some non insignificant, ridiculous sum But
40:19
Speaker 3: we know about Dante more, we know about Arch Manning,
40:22
Speaker 3: we know what Julian Sayans ballpark is, and Bryce Underwood
40:26
Speaker 3: and then the guy who actually won the national championship
40:29
Speaker 3: and the Heisman Trophy. If you can find it, it's
40:33
Speaker 3: the tenth thing that you have to like sort through
40:35
Speaker 3: all the other like, hey, did you know that Fernana
40:38
Speaker 3: Mendoza saves puppies from trees in his spare time. It's
40:41
Speaker 3: just we don't do that to him. Now, as you
40:46
Speaker 3: make the transition to the NFL, that perceived innocence, that
40:51
Speaker 3: aw shucks type of thing that I think is so
40:54
Speaker 3: endearing in college football becomes probably a liability at the
40:58
Speaker 3: next level. I don't know that it's gonna be viewed
41:02
Speaker 3: as positively. I don't know if you want your starting
41:06
Speaker 3: quarterback to have that boy scout look to him and
41:09
Speaker 3: that boy scout reputation to him. If it's fine, if
41:14
Speaker 3: that's like your tight end, or if your fullback has that,
41:17
Speaker 3: or if an offensive guard has that. Your quarterback is
41:21
Speaker 3: a guy that needs to be universally respected by everyone
41:24
Speaker 3: on your team. Everyone in the locker room has to
41:26
Speaker 3: feel like they can relate to the guys somehow. Everyone
41:29
Speaker 3: in the locker room has to feel like And I'm
41:31
Speaker 3: not saying Freenana Mendoza should change who he is. I'm
41:34
Speaker 3: saying that NFL teams in this process are always looking
41:39
Speaker 3: for a reason not to love you and not to
41:41
Speaker 3: draft you number one overall. And if we're talking about
41:44
Speaker 3: the biggest bad boy organization in the NFL, the Las
41:47
Speaker 3: Vegas Raiders, they might use that against you. They might
41:51
Speaker 3: also look at it and say, it hasn't really been
41:53
Speaker 3: working out for us lately trying to be the bad boys.
41:56
Speaker 3: So let's get this boy scout kid from the movie up.
42:01
Speaker 3: That's what Bredana ban KNOWSA. He's like a tall, skinny
42:03
Speaker 3: version of Thats.
42:04
Speaker 2: A good poll. Yeah.
42:07
Speaker 5: Maybe it's like uh for the Raiders specifically, maybe it
42:11
Speaker 5: maybe it could be looked at as like this is
42:13
Speaker 5: this will be a nice change of pace. The rest
42:14
Speaker 5: of our team can be can be the Raiders we
42:17
Speaker 5: can our quarterback leader can be puppy dog man.
42:21
Speaker 2: They had that.
42:22
Speaker 3: They had that with Derek Carr though, and like Carr,
42:27
Speaker 3: Carr was like the sort of like overt evangelical, like
42:34
Speaker 3: very very Christian, which I respect. If those are your
42:37
Speaker 3: views and your beliefs, I don't think you should ever
42:39
Speaker 3: put a filter on. I think you should. This is America.
42:42
Speaker 3: It's one of the great things about our country. If
42:44
Speaker 3: that's who you are, be that. And I don't think
42:47
Speaker 3: it hurt him as a Raiders quarterback. I don't know
42:49
Speaker 3: if it helped him either. And I don't know if
42:52
Speaker 3: if he had been that vocal about everything, you know,
42:55
Speaker 3: whether they would have said, yeah, that's that's gonna be
42:58
Speaker 3: the guy that sets our culture here with the Raiders specifically.
43:02
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
43:02
Speaker 3: The Fernanda Mendoza at number one thing. To me, I'm
43:06
Speaker 3: just like, huh, I wonder how that's gonna go.
43:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
43:09
Speaker 5: My my only thought is because Dante Moore is not
43:13
Speaker 5: coming out. Yeah, he's staying with Oregon, Arch Manning's staying
43:17
Speaker 5: with Texas. If you're if you're a team, that's that's like,
43:23
Speaker 5: we need to take the best quarterback available at number
43:26
Speaker 5: one overall, like presumably the Raiders, I'm not sure there's
43:29
Speaker 5: another obvious option at quarterback. I mean, who is the
43:33
Speaker 5: gonna be the next I you'll you if you've still
43:36
Speaker 5: got the mock draft pulled up, I'm not. I don't
43:39
Speaker 5: even know off the top of my head without having
43:40
Speaker 5: looked at the mock draft yet, who the obvious number
43:44
Speaker 5: two quarterback is.
43:45
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's.
43:46
Speaker 3: Part of the problem here for the Raiders, But there's
43:48
Speaker 3: not an obvious number two quarterback because we might see
43:52
Speaker 3: Feranana Mendozo be the only QB taken in the first
43:55
Speaker 3: round of this upcoming said, yeah, it's it's a very
43:58
Speaker 3: quarterback light draft.
44:03
Speaker 5: I'll say this too about Fana Mendoza. I think you're
44:05
Speaker 5: right about this. Like we've had squeaky clean reputation Hall
44:10
Speaker 5: of Fame quarterbacks Drew Brees comes to mind, Peyton Manning
44:14
Speaker 5: comes to mind. But those guys still had some grit
44:20
Speaker 5: to them. They still had some of that I'm tough
44:23
Speaker 5: guy quarterback substance to them that I'll say this, if
44:28
Speaker 5: you listen to Fernanda Mendoza talk, if you just go
44:32
Speaker 5: off based what he based on what he looks like,
44:35
Speaker 5: you have not seen him play, you can fall into
44:38
Speaker 5: that does this guy really have enough of a football
44:40
Speaker 5: player dog in him? But you watch him play. Yeah,
44:44
Speaker 5: And the hits that he that he took in the
44:47
Speaker 5: I'm thinking Big Ten Championship game right away against Ohio State,
44:51
Speaker 5: he got knocked out of the game right away and
44:53
Speaker 5: then came back and was as tough of guys you'll
44:57
Speaker 5: see on the football field. And then against Miami in
45:00
Speaker 5: the National Championship game, they went after him physically and
45:04
Speaker 5: he just kept getting He just kept getting up. He
45:06
Speaker 5: was like speaking a boy scout, squeaky clean reputation, but
45:09
Speaker 5: also tough guy Fictionally, he was like Captain America, I
45:14
Speaker 5: can do this all day.
45:15
Speaker 3: I have Yeah, I actually I have a deep appreciation
45:18
Speaker 3: for this type of like mindset and stuff.
45:21
Speaker 2: My best friend was our high school quarterback. He is
45:24
Speaker 2: the same way. He was like the squeakiest, cleanest Mormonist.
45:30
Speaker 3: Guy that you could find and was a savage, savage competitor,
45:37
Speaker 3: just quietly and didn't Fanaen doesn't say that in his
45:40
Speaker 3: Heisman trophy speech.
45:41
Speaker 2: He taught me toughness doesn't have to be loud.
45:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said that about his mom, like that that's
45:46
Speaker 3: as someone who's a loud guy who likes to think
45:49
Speaker 3: he was pretty tough. It's one of the most admirable
45:52
Speaker 3: traits for me when I see someone who is scary,
45:56
Speaker 3: but they don't have to tell you about it, right,
45:58
Speaker 3: So maybe that's ferananamen dozen. Maybe everyone in that locker
46:01
Speaker 3: room is going to acknowledge it like in Indiana they did.
46:03
Speaker 3: But it just feels interesting to see how this thing
46:06
Speaker 3: is gonna play out. I just wasted ten minutes of
46:09
Speaker 3: our time talking about this. We got to take another break,
46:11
Speaker 3: and I promise when we get to the other side,
46:13
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you where Caleb Lomu and Spencer Fanawar
46:18
Speaker 3: in this draft, and we'll decide whether that's a good
46:20
Speaker 3: or a bad thing. It's The Sean O'Connell Show on
46:22
Speaker 3: ESPN seven ninety twoe FM that you.
46:29
Speaker 1: Were listening to The Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
46:32
Speaker 1: Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one
46:36
Speaker 1: a half am.
46:38
Speaker 3: Post Malone and Jelly Roll are coming to ryce Eco
46:41
Speaker 3: Stadium July twenty eighth.
46:44
Speaker 2: Tune into the Drive with Spence.
46:45
Speaker 3: Check its every day this week for your chance to
46:47
Speaker 3: win a pair of tickets. I want, I want, so
46:50
Speaker 3: I want those, sorry listeners, Oh see, you wants your tickets.
46:56
Speaker 3: It's fine. I only need eight, so we'll give away
47:01
Speaker 3: eight to me and then two to the listeners. All right, right,
47:05
Speaker 3: because he's gonna have five days of two yeah, two days,
47:07
Speaker 3: so yeah, all right, cool, as long as we can
47:10
Speaker 3: all agree on that post Blon and Jelly Roll, Rice
47:12
Speaker 3: eCos Stadium, July twenty eighth.
47:15
Speaker 2: I actually don't know if I'm in town, dang it.
47:18
Speaker 3: In any case, I promise you would talk about this
47:21
Speaker 3: mock draft.
47:22
Speaker 2: Ro Joe.
47:23
Speaker 3: By the way, Robert Johnson gonna join us at twelve
47:25
Speaker 3: thirty the Daily Dump coming right around noon today to
47:28
Speaker 3: accommodate one of the Utah Football Greats mock draft from ESPN.
47:33
Speaker 2: And it is only that it's only a mock draft.
47:35
Speaker 3: I got bogged down at number one, Number two Rvel
47:38
Speaker 3: Reese to the New York Jets from Ohio State. UH
47:42
Speaker 3: number three Arizona Cardinals would pick Francis Moligoa, the offensive
47:48
Speaker 3: tackle from Miami pep Okay, no wrong, Tennessee Titans Reuben
47:54
Speaker 3: Bain Junior, so Miami going back to back in this
47:58
Speaker 3: mock draft.
48:01
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, is what's the what's the number three? Guys?
48:05
Speaker 2: What's the name again?
48:06
Speaker 4: There?
48:06
Speaker 5: Francis mongol Is, Francis jingo a the Outland Trophy? Did
48:10
Speaker 5: he win the Outland Trophy? I don't think he did.
48:15
Speaker 5: Wrong choice if the Cardinals, I mean, just another wrong
48:18
Speaker 5: choice for the Cardinals at the top of the draft,
48:20
Speaker 5: if that happens.
48:21
Speaker 3: Number five, the New York Giants select Carnell Tate wide
48:25
Speaker 3: receiver Ohio State University.
48:27
Speaker 2: And two of these top five picks are incredible. How
48:30
Speaker 2: about this?
48:30
Speaker 3: Jackson Dart, cam Scataboo Molik Neighbors and Carnell Tate.
48:36
Speaker 5: Who John Harbaugh gotta be excited about that for his
48:40
Speaker 5: new offense.
48:41
Speaker 3: All right, number six and look number six, yay, wonderful, awesome,
48:49
Speaker 3: great signing bonus. Perfect way to start your life as
48:53
Speaker 3: a professional Well, let's be honest, continue your life as
48:56
Speaker 3: a professional athlete. Spencer Fono offensive tackle you number six.
49:01
Speaker 3: The problem is that's a Cleveland Browns pick. Although so
49:09
Speaker 3: the Browns don't win. That's the problem with the Browns right.
49:12
Speaker 5: Right, But they have typically been good at the offensive
49:16
Speaker 5: and defensive lines, so that's a good place for you
49:19
Speaker 5: for you to be in offense a star offensive line.
49:22
Speaker 2: Okay? Is it though?
49:23
Speaker 3: Because you're right, they've had really good offensive linemen, they've
49:30
Speaker 3: had solid defensive linemen. They have right now the best
49:34
Speaker 3: defensive line presence in the league. They like, Miles Garrett
49:38
Speaker 3: is the best defensive player probably in the league. Joe
49:44
Speaker 3: Thomas was a I mean, first team All Pro Hall
49:51
Speaker 3: of Fame, best tackle in the league for most of
49:55
Speaker 3: his career.
49:56
Speaker 5: Never I don't even I don't think Joe Thomas played
49:58
Speaker 5: a single playoff game. And yet that's when Yeah, that's see,
50:03
Speaker 5: that's why it's like, you don't want to go to
50:05
Speaker 5: the Browns.
50:05
Speaker 3: And look, when you get to be a pro, the
50:10
Speaker 3: goals are you want to maximize your earnings, right, you
50:14
Speaker 3: want to make you set yourself and your family up.
50:20
Speaker 3: Spencer's well on his way to that already. Okay, he's
50:24
Speaker 3: he's a he has more than one million dollars already,
50:28
Speaker 3: he has more than two million dollars already, Okay, and
50:32
Speaker 3: he's going to get another thirty five when he gets
50:35
Speaker 3: drafted in the first round. So you're going to check
50:37
Speaker 3: that box quickly. In your early twenties, you have checked
50:42
Speaker 3: the box of my family, my immediate family is set
50:46
Speaker 3: up generational wealth potentially at some point when you check
50:52
Speaker 3: that box and then the next box is maybe like
50:56
Speaker 3: I want to be named All Pro or Pro Bowl
50:58
Speaker 3: or whatever. You want to be at an organization where
51:02
Speaker 3: you can check all the boxes that the team. This
51:05
Speaker 3: is a team sport you want to win. This guy
51:08
Speaker 3: wants to win championships. He wants to at least compete
51:11
Speaker 3: for them. That's where this sucks for Spencer Fuinnal because
51:14
Speaker 3: the Cleveland Browns, you just don't believe it. Number seven,
51:18
Speaker 3: they've got Caleb Downs, another Ohio State Buckeye. That's three
51:20
Speaker 3: so far in the top ten. Number eight Jeremiah Love
51:24
Speaker 3: to the New Orleans Saints had a notre dame. Number
51:29
Speaker 3: nine David Bailey, who we became painfully aware of this
51:33
Speaker 3: past season. In the Big twelve, the Texas Tech edge
51:36
Speaker 3: rusher going to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs getting
51:40
Speaker 3: that good of player that sucks all the way down
51:43
Speaker 3: at number ten is interesting where you see the first
51:46
Speaker 3: SEC player in the mock. Oh, I wasn't even thinking
51:51
Speaker 3: about that is your name in these that?
51:53
Speaker 2: The wow? Isn't that wild?
51:58
Speaker 3: I mean, look, it's just a mock draft, and so
52:00
Speaker 3: this could be this could go very very differently.
52:03
Speaker 2: On draft win.
52:04
Speaker 5: And also there's a there's a number of those players
52:08
Speaker 5: that are from Southeastern Region schools, Miami being one of them.
52:13
Speaker 3: They're just not in the SEC. It's wild that. I mean,
52:17
Speaker 3: I know that the SEC. If you if you say, hey, guys,
52:21
Speaker 3: everyone's catching up or everyone's passing you by, you haven't
52:23
Speaker 3: been in the championship game for like we here in
52:27
Speaker 3: Big twelve Country can't mock anybody for that. And I'm
52:29
Speaker 3: not mocking, I'm just acknowledging the SEC. They're like they're
52:33
Speaker 3: starting to hear the footsteps and they're starting to You're
52:36
Speaker 3: getting comments out of the SEC, even people like Nick
52:38
Speaker 3: Saban are starting to get like they're making comments rooted
52:41
Speaker 3: in insecurity.
52:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been back to the pack a little.
52:45
Speaker 3: Bit that the dominance that they have enjoyed for years
52:48
Speaker 3: and years and years is escaping them. Now, do I
52:52
Speaker 3: think that the SEC is not going to have a
52:55
Speaker 3: bunch of first round picks.
52:56
Speaker 2: That's not what I'm saying.
52:57
Speaker 3: But in any other year, if we said there might
53:01
Speaker 3: not be a top ten pick from an SEC school,
53:04
Speaker 3: you'd be like, Yeah, right, dude, But now you're studying
53:07
Speaker 3: to be like, well, Okay, yeah, I guess I could
53:09
Speaker 3: see that.
53:10
Speaker 5: Yeah, you'd say if you were a betting if you're
53:12
Speaker 5: a betting person and you heard someone say you want
53:16
Speaker 5: to make a bet that there won't be an SEC
53:17
Speaker 5: player in the top ten of the NFL Draft, all
53:20
Speaker 5: of us would say, I don't care what the odds are,
53:23
Speaker 5: I'm taking that bet so that it's a good thing.
53:26
Speaker 2: We aren't. It's a good thing. None of us did
53:29
Speaker 2: take that better, maybe some of you did.
53:31
Speaker 3: And even as you get down into the rest of
53:33
Speaker 3: this first round, the SEC is not the dominant I mean,
53:37
Speaker 3: you've got two guys again all mock draft, couple guys
53:40
Speaker 3: from Clemson. You've got a Toledo safety. You've got Aledo,
53:45
Speaker 3: You've got USC Mackay Lemon the wide receiver. You've got
53:49
Speaker 3: Jordan Tyson, the wide receiver from Arizona State. By the way,
53:53
Speaker 3: Arizona State's right tackle is he had maybe the best
53:57
Speaker 3: Senior Bowl practices of anyone. He could be sneaking into
54:00
Speaker 3: the first round of this NFL Draft. And actually, if
54:03
Speaker 3: I'm Caleb Lomu and Spencer Fano, I'm looking at my
54:08
Speaker 3: agent and going like, are we sure this was the
54:10
Speaker 3: right thing for us to not participate here? While this
54:13
Speaker 3: guy's skyrocketing up people's draft boards by bullying around people
54:17
Speaker 3: at the Senior Bowl, should I be participating in one
54:19
Speaker 3: of these? So Number twenty seven, the San Francisco forty
54:25
Speaker 3: nine Ers, have the pick according to this mock draft,
54:29
Speaker 3: and I so desperately hope this is how it plays out.
54:34
Speaker 3: Number twenty seven, San Francisco forty nine Ers select Caleb Lomu,
54:37
Speaker 3: offensive tackle Utah. There's a couple of reasons why I
54:41
Speaker 3: love this, and it's not just because it's a ute
54:44
Speaker 3: going to the San Francisco forty nine Ers, But for
54:47
Speaker 3: Caleb Lomu, you're being drafted by an organization that, look,
54:52
Speaker 3: I think they missed their Super Bowl window. This recent
54:55
Speaker 3: Super Bowl window being open, I think it's I think
54:56
Speaker 3: it's slamming shut on them this offseason, and especially when
54:59
Speaker 3: an in division rival is probably going to win the
55:01
Speaker 3: Super Bowl. I'm not real happy as a San Francisco
55:05
Speaker 3: forty nine Ers fan right now, But if I'm looking
55:07
Speaker 3: at this from a ute fan, Lens, a Caleb Lomu fan,
55:10
Speaker 3: Lens in particular, I'm saying, how great could it be
55:14
Speaker 3: for Caleb Lomu to go understudy for Trent Williams, who
55:19
Speaker 3: has been the best left tackle in the game for
55:22
Speaker 3: the last decade. He's not done yet, Trent Williams. I
55:27
Speaker 3: don't think he's going to retire this offseason. He's going
55:29
Speaker 3: to be thirty eight years old next year, though, and
55:32
Speaker 3: the end is coming, right. If you can go play
55:37
Speaker 3: in Shanahan's offense under Trent Williams, back that guy up
55:42
Speaker 3: understudy for him staying at left tackle, is there a
55:46
Speaker 3: better situation? You're still a first round draft pick. You
55:49
Speaker 3: still get first round draft picks, signing bonus money, you
55:52
Speaker 3: still get that. Hey, you're a first round draft pick,
55:54
Speaker 3: which means we're going to give you like basically five
55:58
Speaker 3: years of a pass in the NFL, even if you
56:02
Speaker 3: don't show up to a single workout. People are banking
56:05
Speaker 3: on your potential, right, And obviously that won't be the
56:07
Speaker 3: case with Caleb lomo But to be a guy who's
56:10
Speaker 3: not thrown to the fire Spencer Fano, if he's drafted
56:13
Speaker 3: by the Browns, he's a Day one starter. They're saying, like, yep, dude,
56:18
Speaker 3: you're learning on the job and do I think play.
56:20
Speaker 2: Do I think he's gonna be fine with that?
56:23
Speaker 4: Yes?
56:23
Speaker 3: Are there gonna be growing pains? Sure, Because you're in
56:26
Speaker 3: the NFL now, right like everybody at practice, you're gonna
56:31
Speaker 3: have to work against Miles Garrett. You're gonna go through
56:34
Speaker 3: the fire a little bit and he'll adjust to it.
56:36
Speaker 2: He'll be fine. That's the kind of football player is.
56:38
Speaker 3: But if you're Caleb Lomo and you can learn with
56:42
Speaker 3: a little bit less demand, he's.
56:45
Speaker 2: Into it a lot more.
56:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, he probably is one of those guys that needs
56:49
Speaker 3: to get physically stronger in the NFL. Right, He's he's
56:52
Speaker 3: still very young and to be a every day, every
56:56
Speaker 3: down left hand. I mean, I see Caleb Lomo so
57:00
Speaker 3: having a similar trajectory to like a Garrett Bowles, where
57:05
Speaker 3: it takes him three or four years to really figure
57:08
Speaker 3: it all out from a physicality standpoint. At this next level,
57:13
Speaker 3: Garrett Bowles was a penalty machine. He was holding people
57:15
Speaker 3: all the time because he physically didn't have everything he
57:18
Speaker 3: needed to to stop those dudes, right, and then he
57:21
Speaker 3: figured it out. Now he's one of the better, more
57:23
Speaker 3: reliable tackles in the game. He's a team captain, all
57:26
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff. I could see Caleb Lomo having
57:28
Speaker 3: a similar trajectory, and that's not an insult at all.
57:31
Speaker 2: The difference being here that.
57:34
Speaker 3: Caleb Lomu you might not have to watch him go
57:37
Speaker 3: through the growing pains because he's doing it at practice,
57:40
Speaker 3: and he's doing it in the weight room, and he's
57:42
Speaker 3: doing it while he's learning from Trent Williams. This would
57:46
Speaker 3: be a dream for Caleb, for the San Francisco forty
57:52
Speaker 3: nine ers to get the heir apparents to that ever
57:54
Speaker 3: crucial position.
57:55
Speaker 2: Man, I hope it plays out that way.
57:57
Speaker 3: Again, it's just a mock draft, so I'm not gonna
57:59
Speaker 3: put too much stock in it, but I'm in love
58:02
Speaker 3: with the idea.
58:03
Speaker 2: At the very least.
58:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, And like Dan Patrick likes to say, you almost
58:09
Speaker 5: it's very sexy to be the number one overall pick, right,
58:14
Speaker 5: But you often see guys who get picked later in
58:19
Speaker 5: the first round have more success many years because they're
58:25
Speaker 5: because they're in better situations. The San Francisco forty nine
58:28
Speaker 5: ers much better organization to play for than the Cleveland
58:34
Speaker 5: Browns or the Las Vegas Raiders, Right, So that's an
58:39
Speaker 5: another example of hey, yeah, you're not gonna get paid
58:42
Speaker 5: as much as as your guys, Spencer final because you
58:44
Speaker 5: get picked as high, but you might have a longer,
58:48
Speaker 5: more successful career because you're in a better situation. And
58:52
Speaker 5: we believe Spencer Fano is gonna overcome being part of
58:55
Speaker 5: a bad team and have a great career too.
59:01
Speaker 2: As much as you.
59:01
Speaker 3: Can, man, I can't stand that idea. Also, just the
59:08
Speaker 3: uniforms suck. They're just ugly brown and orange. Gross. Your dream,
59:15
Speaker 3: your childhood dream to play in the NFL, to pull
59:19
Speaker 3: that helmet on and trot out. Oh crap, I'm in
59:23
Speaker 3: Cleveland and I just say bad organization now, I mean
59:29
Speaker 3: it's the Browns. They might be bad forever as they
59:33
Speaker 3: have been, but there there's a chance he not only
59:37
Speaker 3: overcomes it individually but contributes to them turning it around.
59:40
Speaker 3: You really believe that, James, I mean there's a chance, James,
59:43
Speaker 3: It's not a zero. I understand why you feel the
59:47
Speaker 3: need to say it, because you know, we love Spencer
59:50
Speaker 3: Fano and there might be you know, the Final clan
59:53
Speaker 3: is large, there might be some fanos listening, like, come on, guys,
59:56
Speaker 3: it's not It's not an indictment against Spencer or Logan.
1:00:00
Speaker 3: Maybe they both end up there. The Browns would have
1:00:05
Speaker 3: to draft like it. They would have to draft every
1:00:10
Speaker 3: good football player.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: Shaun Watson's so under contract.
1:00:14
Speaker 3: See if you gave the if you gave the Cleveland
1:00:16
Speaker 3: Browns six first round picks in a given year, I
1:00:20
Speaker 3: think they would still find a way to screw it up.
1:00:23
Speaker 5: Listen, I don't believe it. I just wanted to put
1:00:26
Speaker 5: it out there that it's a non zero chance.
1:00:28
Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, okay, sure, what's gonna happen? First?
1:00:33
Speaker 3: The Cleveland Browns are gonna win a Super Bowl or
1:00:36
Speaker 3: a flaming asteroid obliterates planet Earth eight seven seven three
1:00:41
Speaker 3: five three zero seven hundred.
1:00:43
Speaker 2: Tell me your answer, any least sterling can give us
1:00:45
Speaker 2: odds on.
1:00:45
Speaker 3: That If give me one of the pull up one
1:00:48
Speaker 3: of the Calshi or poly market. These prediction markets. Compare
1:00:52
Speaker 3: the two, Let's see which one is a higher chance.
1:00:56
Speaker 3: All right, Daily Dump is coming next. It's the Sean
1:00:58
Speaker 3: O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred.
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Speaker 1: Feeling out of the loop, Let's catch up on today's
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Speaker 2: Right, bro Jo's gonna join us.
1:01:26
Speaker 3: See all time great Utah safety one of them at
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Speaker 3: least is going to join us.
1:01:29
Speaker 2: Next, we'll.
1:01:32
Speaker 3: Dive into a little Utah football with him and of
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Speaker 3: course talk about the upcoming Super Bowl. He played at
1:01:39
Speaker 3: the highest level of college and in the NFL. We'll
1:01:41
Speaker 3: see his thoughts on Seahawks Patriots. Jay, is there anywhere
1:01:46
Speaker 3: fans can listen to the Super Bowl?
1:01:49
Speaker 2: Oh?
1:01:49
Speaker 5: Let me see here on Utah's number one Sports Talk,
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Speaker 5: your exclusive home here in Utah of Super Bowl sixty.
1:01:57
Speaker 2: I actually knew that, you guys magic of radio.
1:02:00
Speaker 4: There.
1:02:01
Speaker 3: I asked a question I knew the answer to to
1:02:03
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Speaker 3: All right, my friend who rents my old house from me,
1:02:25
Speaker 3: sends me a leaking a picture of a leaking condensate pump.
1:02:30
Speaker 3: Condensate pump. Oh you figured out what the pump was? Yes,
1:02:33
Speaker 3: because like everyone was mocking me for I was like,
1:02:36
Speaker 3: all right, well now I have Now I'm not doing
1:02:40
Speaker 3: live radio as I'm trying to figure out what this
1:02:42
Speaker 3: pump is. And I just was like, oh what is that.
1:02:44
Speaker 3: Oh it's a it's a condensate pump, which you knew
1:02:47
Speaker 3: the whole time, of course.
1:02:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:02:49
Speaker 3: No, So I scheduled the appointment while I'm doing radio.
1:02:53
Speaker 3: This is how easy it is at Valley Plumbing. The
1:02:55
Speaker 3: truck with the duck helps you out. Okay, I'm literally
1:02:58
Speaker 3: doing a segment of ray video and I'm typing into
1:03:02
Speaker 3: the computer right The Valley Plumbing website has an appointment
1:03:07
Speaker 3: setting feature on it, a chat feature where you could say,
1:03:11
Speaker 3: here's my address.
1:03:12
Speaker 2: I need a plumber.
1:03:13
Speaker 3: I've got a leak there it is, so, while I'm
1:03:17
Speaker 3: talking on the radio, I set that appointment. The magic
1:03:21
Speaker 3: of technology. I leave right after I meet him at
1:03:25
Speaker 3: the rental. He's there already. Okay, he got there before
1:03:29
Speaker 3: I got there. Guess what the appointment window was? Two
1:03:33
Speaker 3: to four pm at two eleven pm. He's at the house.
1:03:41
Speaker 3: Beautiful all right, and it's not.
1:03:43
Speaker 5: That's not a six to eight hour even four hour
1:03:46
Speaker 5: appointment window. That's a two hour appointment window, so much better.
1:03:50
Speaker 5: Even if he hadn't gotten there.
1:03:52
Speaker 3: Shows up right in the middle of it, right right
1:03:54
Speaker 3: early in the start start of it.
1:03:56
Speaker 2: So I was like, wow, this is great. We go downstairs.
1:03:59
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's one of these pumps that
1:04:01
Speaker 3: look there it is it's failing or whatever.
1:04:04
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, yeah, let's see this one.
1:04:06
Speaker 3: This one's hardwired in a lot of them you just
1:04:08
Speaker 3: have to plug into the wall here, but yours happens
1:04:10
Speaker 3: to be hardwired in.
1:04:11
Speaker 2: He's like, no problem, I'll fix this bad boy for you.
1:04:14
Speaker 3: Also, he put on those little plastic booties so that
1:04:17
Speaker 3: doesn't track anything into the house.
1:04:19
Speaker 2: His shoes are cleaner than mine.
1:04:20
Speaker 3: I wasn't worried about it, but he put them on anyway,
1:04:22
Speaker 3: and a couple hours later, done fixed. I didn't have
1:04:27
Speaker 3: to worry about it at all. Now I respect all
1:04:30
Speaker 3: of you out there who like to do your own work.
1:04:33
Speaker 3: Plumbing is one of those things that if you screw
1:04:34
Speaker 3: it up, it's bad. So I got kids screaming for
1:04:39
Speaker 3: the wife at home. She wants me to be home.
1:04:42
Speaker 3: I let Valley Plumbing handle that. They handled it rapidly
1:04:46
Speaker 3: on a Friday afternoon, heading into the weekend, when it
1:04:50
Speaker 3: could have been like, oh, yeah, gonna have to shut
1:04:52
Speaker 3: the water off. We'll come back on Monday. Whatever done
1:04:55
Speaker 3: before dinnertime. Beautiful stuff from Valley Plumbing. The truck with
1:04:59
Speaker 3: the duck can handle your plumbing needs. If you need
1:05:02
Speaker 3: to replace a condense ate pump, they'll take care of
1:05:04
Speaker 3: that for you. Also heating in air.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: Now.
1:05:08
Speaker 3: He looked at the furnace units down there in the rental.
1:05:10
Speaker 3: He's just like, oh, this one's probably okay. This one's
1:05:13
Speaker 3: starting to show a little wear and terry. You might
1:05:14
Speaker 3: want to have us look at it. Can I set
1:05:16
Speaker 3: an appointment for one of our HVAC people to come out.
1:05:19
Speaker 3: It's a free consultation. I was like, yeah, let's do that.
1:05:24
Speaker 3: They handle it all. The truck with the duck. Just
1:05:26
Speaker 3: send them down to your furnace room, where your water
1:05:28
Speaker 3: heaters are and everything. They're gonna take care of everything
1:05:30
Speaker 3: for you. Okay, tell the most He sent you. Now
1:05:35
Speaker 3: to the daily dump.
1:05:36
Speaker 2: We go.
1:05:38
Speaker 3: We touched on this last week with the Alabama player,
1:05:42
Speaker 3: the Charles Bettiaco, suing to get back into NCAA basketball
1:05:48
Speaker 3: and Alabama judge that was like, yeah, I'll definitely let
1:05:51
Speaker 3: you do that, who happened to be a season ticket
1:05:54
Speaker 3: holder and a contributor to like the Crimson Tide Club
1:05:57
Speaker 3: or whatever, ended up having to recuse himself from the
1:06:01
Speaker 3: from the actual trial, from the actual legal proceedings because
1:06:05
Speaker 3: it was very obvious that he was biased in favor
1:06:08
Speaker 3: of the Crimson Tide.
1:06:09
Speaker 2: But but now we're past that, Okay.
1:06:12
Speaker 3: At first it was like, ah, this guy played pros
1:06:14
Speaker 3: in Europe, and then Tim was like it doesn't matter,
1:06:18
Speaker 3: let him play, let him play college basketball.
1:06:20
Speaker 2: We don't want the lawsuits.
1:06:21
Speaker 3: And then next it was like, well this guy had
1:06:23
Speaker 3: like a two way contract in the G League and
1:06:26
Speaker 3: they're like out, whatever, that's not an NBA guy, that's
1:06:29
Speaker 3: not a real pro.
1:06:29
Speaker 2: It's fine. And then it was like oh, this.
1:06:32
Speaker 3: Charles Badiaka, this is someone who got drafted, like this
1:06:37
Speaker 3: is a this is a real this is a draft pick.
1:06:39
Speaker 3: And then cla again it was just like you know what, whatever,
1:06:42
Speaker 3: And now James is where we're getting to where the
1:06:44
Speaker 3: rubber really meets the road. Amari Bailey wants to go
1:06:49
Speaker 3: back to college basketball. Why does that matter? Who's Amari Bailey?
1:06:55
Speaker 3: Amari Bailey has played in NBA basketball games, and Amari
1:07:02
Speaker 3: Bailey is seeking a return After ten games of NBA experience,
1:07:07
Speaker 3: he is seeking a return to NCAA basketball. He played
1:07:11
Speaker 3: at UCLA. He's twenty one years old. He's hired an
1:07:15
Speaker 3: agent and a lawyer to fight the NCBLEA for eligibility,
1:07:20
Speaker 3: hoping that he can play one more season in college hoops.
1:07:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, because he's only gonna stop at one season if
1:07:28
Speaker 5: he gets this ridiculous eligibility.
1:07:31
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is, he's like, you're right, Okay, so
1:07:35
Speaker 3: he's only supposed to be a senior right now. But
1:07:40
Speaker 3: we already have lawsuits saying, well, I shouldn't have to
1:07:43
Speaker 3: cut off my eligibility at four or even five years.
1:07:47
Speaker 2: This is the guy who played in NBA game. Can
1:07:49
Speaker 2: you imagine?
1:07:51
Speaker 3: Can you imagine you're like, hey, like Bryce James Lebron's
1:07:57
Speaker 3: kid playing at U or something, and you go back, you, Hey,
1:08:02
Speaker 3: I played a game against your dad last year and
1:08:04
Speaker 3: now I'm playing against you. Isn't that weird? My name
1:08:08
Speaker 3: is Amari. By the way, like, what are we doing here?
1:08:13
Speaker 2: I get it. I get it.
1:08:16
Speaker 3: If you want to go explore the NBA draft, which
1:08:19
Speaker 3: by the way, you're now allowed to do, and see
1:08:22
Speaker 3: if you get picked, and see how it goes. And
1:08:25
Speaker 3: it doesn't go your way, all right, fine, you can
1:08:27
Speaker 3: go back to college basketball. They already allow that. That
1:08:30
Speaker 3: makes sense. That's an exploratory kick the tires on this thing.
1:08:35
Speaker 3: Oh guys, you know what I decided to leave. Like,
1:08:40
Speaker 3: Logan Fano has a year of eligibility left for Utah football.
1:08:44
Speaker 2: I don't think he's gonna get drafted. I hope he does.
1:08:47
Speaker 2: I don't think he's gonna get drafted.
1:08:49
Speaker 3: Right, If Logan Fano goes through training camp with the
1:08:53
Speaker 3: NFL and he makes like a Kansas City Chiefs roster
1:08:56
Speaker 3: and he plays special teams in ten games, or I
1:09:00
Speaker 3: guess that's not a it's an apples and oranges, because
1:09:02
Speaker 3: ten games in the NFL is nearly a whole dang season.
1:09:05
Speaker 2: Ten games in the NBA is not.
1:09:07
Speaker 5: He plays him two games, Yeah, he plays he plays
1:09:10
Speaker 5: the whole preseason in two regular season games. Are we
1:09:13
Speaker 5: realistically gonna look anyone in the face and say we
1:09:17
Speaker 5: I think he should come back and play Utah football.
1:09:20
Speaker 5: It didn't really work out the way he wanted it
1:09:23
Speaker 5: to in the NFL, and Utah fans listening to this show,
1:09:29
Speaker 5: remove the crimson colored glasses before you answer that question,
1:09:32
Speaker 5: because of course you'd be like, yeah, of course we're
1:09:35
Speaker 5: gonna we'd want to let him play.
1:09:36
Speaker 2: Watch let me do this instead.
1:09:39
Speaker 3: Keanutanuvasa is just like, I'm going to the NFL. I'm
1:09:45
Speaker 3: gonna play in the league. He gets it doesn't go
1:09:49
Speaker 3: well with the draft. Okay, he somehow makes his way
1:09:52
Speaker 3: onto a roster and he he's on field goal block
1:09:57
Speaker 3: and he plays like nine snaps in two games in
1:10:01
Speaker 3: the NFL.
1:10:02
Speaker 2: Are you really gonna be like, well, just bring them
1:10:04
Speaker 2: on back, let him play at BYU Oh, that was
1:10:07
Speaker 2: such good fix. The answer is no. They're pro athletes
1:10:12
Speaker 2: at that point.
1:10:13
Speaker 3: If you are good enough to play in the NBA,
1:10:16
Speaker 3: and you have been in ten regular season NBA games,
1:10:19
Speaker 3: if they're ten preseason games, I don't care.
1:10:22
Speaker 2: You are now gone. You're not allowed.
1:10:27
Speaker 3: If you do this in the NBA, it's gonna happen
1:10:30
Speaker 3: in college and guess where it's gonna end up. James,
1:10:34
Speaker 3: I would love to go back and play a couple
1:10:36
Speaker 3: more games of high school football.
1:10:38
Speaker 5: Wouldn't that be fun? I'm forty five years old, but
1:10:41
Speaker 5: I would love to do that.
1:10:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know much.
1:10:44
Speaker 1: I dominate those kids now because I'm just so much
1:10:46
Speaker 1: stronger than them.
1:10:48
Speaker 3: Like, there's just these The slippery slope gets to a
1:10:53
Speaker 3: point if I had brought this up, if we had
1:10:55
Speaker 3: a time machine and I had gone if I went
1:10:57
Speaker 3: back five years and I said today, there's an NBA
1:11:04
Speaker 3: player that will eventually try to get himself back into
1:11:08
Speaker 3: college basketball, everyone would laugh you off the air. What
1:11:12
Speaker 3: are you talking about, dude? That makes no sense. No,
1:11:15
Speaker 3: I'm telling you there's a guy. He's gonna have three
1:11:18
Speaker 3: points and three minutes in NBA games over the course
1:11:21
Speaker 3: of ten games, and he's gonna say no, I'd rather
1:11:24
Speaker 3: go back and play at UCLA some more. And it's
1:11:27
Speaker 3: likely he's gonna win that case. People would be like, no, no,
1:11:31
Speaker 3: because nobody believed that the slippery slope was this slippery
1:11:36
Speaker 3: five years ago and now it is, So what does
1:11:39
Speaker 3: it look like five years from now? If there's no
1:11:42
Speaker 3: adult in the room that just goes, dude, sue us, then.
1:11:48
Speaker 2: Fine, do the lawsuit. You were an NBA player.
1:11:54
Speaker 5: It's gotta there's gotta be a check put on this.
1:11:57
Speaker 5: And what for years ago, five years ago, I guess
1:12:02
Speaker 5: it was when the when nil officially became legal in NCAA.
1:12:11
Speaker 5: I was I was laughing at everyone who was trying
1:12:16
Speaker 5: to put who's trying to say, we're we can put
1:12:19
Speaker 5: guardrails on this without without naming them employees, without letting
1:12:23
Speaker 5: them collectively bargain and saying yeah, no you can't. And
1:12:28
Speaker 5: I was all for the no, you can't. Until we
1:12:31
Speaker 5: get this, they get a voice in the room at
1:12:34
Speaker 5: the at the bargaining table, right, But now we're to
1:12:36
Speaker 5: a point where that collectively bargaining to your to your
1:12:43
Speaker 5: credit oc is still still feels way too messy to
1:12:48
Speaker 5: try to put together in the next I don't know
1:12:50
Speaker 5: how many years, I don't. It feels like it's so
1:12:53
Speaker 5: it's way far off. I'm fed up, like we need
1:12:57
Speaker 5: something to these players who have all the power now.
1:13:04
Speaker 3: And here's here's the other frustrating thing about it is
1:13:07
Speaker 3: that the precedent set these are incremental changes and incremental
1:13:15
Speaker 3: thresholds that keep being broken. And this case is a
1:13:19
Speaker 3: perfect example of it. All right, because his legal team,
1:13:25
Speaker 3: Amari Bailey's legal team is basing their argument on two
1:13:29
Speaker 3: cases from this year. It's not, hey, well you know,
1:13:34
Speaker 3: we just think we're fighting the system, and you treated
1:13:37
Speaker 3: at Obannon wrong, and so we're gonna we're gonna pick
1:13:41
Speaker 3: up that flag.
1:13:42
Speaker 2: Now we're gonna march it forward.
1:13:44
Speaker 3: His legal team is using this as the defense or
1:13:47
Speaker 3: this as the case. Well, hold on a minute. James
1:13:51
Speaker 3: Nase is playing for Baylor right now.
1:13:54
Speaker 4: I was.
1:13:54
Speaker 3: I was picked ten picks after him. I signed the
1:14:00
Speaker 3: same contract, the same type of contract, this two way,
1:14:05
Speaker 3: ten day thing. Like Charles Beediaco who now is fighting
1:14:09
Speaker 3: with Alabama and you're gonna let him play. So if
1:14:13
Speaker 3: you're not gonna stop them from playing, you legally can't
1:14:18
Speaker 3: stop me from playing just because I happen to actually
1:14:21
Speaker 3: step foot on an NBA floor.
1:14:24
Speaker 2: And again, if nobody.
1:14:28
Speaker 3: Steps up and says, all right, that's the threshold we
1:14:30
Speaker 3: cannot break actually playing NBA minutes? Is that like, if
1:14:34
Speaker 3: you want to make your case that a two way
1:14:36
Speaker 3: contract or a ten day contract, or just being drafted
1:14:40
Speaker 3: or being a pro in Europe, if those don't apply
1:14:42
Speaker 3: to NCAA basketball and you really want to die on
1:14:45
Speaker 3: that hill, fine, I will listen to you. I will
1:14:48
Speaker 3: disagree with you, but I'll go ahead and listen to
1:14:50
Speaker 3: you if you don't stop and say playing actual NBA
1:14:55
Speaker 3: minutes is too much for us to let these people in.
1:14:58
Speaker 3: Then a guy here who is playing NBA minutes in
1:15:01
Speaker 3: ten games and he's allowed back in. Then the next
1:15:05
Speaker 3: guy's like, well, I only played in twenty games. He
1:15:08
Speaker 3: played in ten. I only played in twenty And then
1:15:11
Speaker 3: they're like, well, yeah, I guess if we're gonna be consistent,
1:15:14
Speaker 3: we can't really arbitrary, Like where is the line?
1:15:18
Speaker 5: Then I'm Lebron James. I only played twenty five years.
1:15:22
Speaker 5: Lebron James has all of his eligibility.
1:15:24
Speaker 2: Left all let me play for Ohio State.
1:15:28
Speaker 3: Like I got to play with my son. I got
1:15:31
Speaker 3: to play with my son Ronnie. I want to play
1:15:33
Speaker 3: with my son Bryce. He's not ready for the NBA.
1:15:35
Speaker 3: I'm gonna play college basketball with him. And I know
1:15:38
Speaker 3: that's an absurd example, and it's not actually gonna happen,
1:15:42
Speaker 3: because well, I'm nine percent sure it's not actually.
1:15:46
Speaker 2: Gonna How can you say it?
1:15:47
Speaker 5: It's not actually gonna happen, just like the Browns will
1:15:49
Speaker 5: never win a Super Bowl. How can you say that.
1:15:51
Speaker 3: But how do you shut the floodgates back if you
1:15:55
Speaker 3: allow someone with actual pro minutes into college sports, someone
1:16:02
Speaker 3: who's actually been out there on an NBA floor and
1:16:06
Speaker 3: scored NBA baskets, how do you then say, No, ten
1:16:11
Speaker 3: games is not too many, but twenty games is. Twenty
1:16:16
Speaker 3: games is okay, but forty games is not.
1:16:21
Speaker 2: You know what.
1:16:21
Speaker 3: I know you played one season, but two seasons is
1:16:24
Speaker 3: too many. That's the problem I have with all of
1:16:28
Speaker 3: these things that we've been watching happen is nobody thought
1:16:32
Speaker 3: about the extent and this. I was guilty of this
1:16:35
Speaker 3: at the very very beginning of all these changes, because
1:16:38
Speaker 3: I remember I was doing a radio show on Serious
1:16:41
Speaker 3: XM with Rick Neuheisel and I was just like, no,
1:16:45
Speaker 3: I think it's good that you allow open transfer, no
1:16:48
Speaker 3: penalty at least one time. And his assertion, as a
1:16:51
Speaker 3: coach who'd been around the game a lot longer and
1:16:53
Speaker 3: a smarter man than me, he was like, if you
1:16:56
Speaker 3: do this, if you allow open penalty free transfers, it
1:17:02
Speaker 3: will be an absolute free for all mess. And I
1:17:06
Speaker 3: was like, no, no, no, coach, because starters won't leave
1:17:11
Speaker 3: the only reason you want to go somewhere else is
1:17:13
Speaker 3: because you're not being treated fairly at your current school.
1:17:17
Speaker 3: And he was just like, there's plenty of starters that
1:17:19
Speaker 3: feel like they're not treated fairly. So I lacked the
1:17:25
Speaker 3: foresight back then, and these leaders still lack the foresight
1:17:29
Speaker 3: to understand that when you are more and more progressively
1:17:35
Speaker 3: more permissive, there is no end to it.
1:17:40
Speaker 2: You know, kids that were raised this way. Maybe you
1:17:42
Speaker 2: are a.
1:17:43
Speaker 3: Kid that was raised this way where you had these
1:17:44
Speaker 3: permissive parents that at first they were like, your curfew
1:17:48
Speaker 3: is midnight, and then you're like, come on, twelve thirty
1:17:50
Speaker 3: is no different than midnight. All right, fine, one o'clock's
1:17:54
Speaker 3: no different than twelve thirty. Ah, yeah, you're right. One
1:17:57
Speaker 3: thirty's no different than one. Okay, fine, four am is
1:18:02
Speaker 3: no different than one thirty. Mom, Yeah you're okay. You
1:18:06
Speaker 3: don't even need to come home anymore. Like that, excessive
1:18:11
Speaker 3: permission ends up breaking these systems down, and it already
1:18:15
Speaker 3: has an NCAA basketball and it's going to this. If
1:18:18
Speaker 3: Amari Bailey is granted some injunction where he can come
1:18:23
Speaker 3: off of an NBA floor back onto an nc double
1:18:26
Speaker 3: A floor, then we have lost the plot entirely all
1:18:30
Speaker 3: the way. All right, I gotta take a quick break here.
1:18:35
Speaker 3: That's your daily dump, brought to you by Valley Plumbing.
1:18:38
Speaker 3: The truck with the duck. It's now Valley Plumbing, Heating
1:18:41
Speaker 3: and air so they can handle your vent cleaning, your furnaces,
1:18:45
Speaker 3: your air conditioners, and everything else. Rojo is gonna join
1:18:50
Speaker 3: us in our next segment. We'll try to get him
1:18:53
Speaker 3: right off the top. It's the Sean O'Connell Show on
1:18:54
Speaker 3: ESPN seven.
1:19:00
Speaker 1: It's the Sean O'Connell Show. You were home of the
1:19:03
Speaker 1: best inside of your utes. Let's get back to OOC
1:19:06
Speaker 1: from the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of the ESPN seven hundred
1:19:10
Speaker 1: ninety two one a m.
1:19:15
Speaker 2: And welcome back to the Shan O'Connell Show.
1:19:23
Speaker 3: Welcome in Rojo, legend in the Utah football world. Robert
1:19:28
Speaker 3: Johnson kind enough to join us here on the Sean
1:19:30
Speaker 3: O'Connell Show.
1:19:31
Speaker 2: Rojo, how are you, sir?
1:19:33
Speaker 4: I'm doing good. How y'all doing today? Man?
1:19:35
Speaker 3: Doing great? Glad we get a chance to catch up
1:19:37
Speaker 3: with you. We'll talk a little utes. We'll talk some
1:19:39
Speaker 3: pro football as well, with the Super Bowl coming up
1:19:42
Speaker 3: this weekend. Uh, it's been a minute so, I mean,
1:19:46
Speaker 3: it's kind of old news now, but it's it's not
1:19:48
Speaker 3: really because we still don't know what the Morgan Sclly
1:19:51
Speaker 3: era is going to look like. I just want to
1:19:55
Speaker 3: let you get on record and tell me what your
1:19:57
Speaker 3: expectations are for Morgan Scalley taking over this program, a
1:20:00
Speaker 3: place where he's been for his entire coaching career and
1:20:05
Speaker 3: his playing career.
1:20:07
Speaker 4: I mean, I know for a fact that Coach Kelly
1:20:09
Speaker 4: gonna do good. He's gonna do good. It's just we
1:20:12
Speaker 4: just have to be patient as fans because at the
1:20:14
Speaker 4: end of the day, this is Coach Scaley being a
1:20:16
Speaker 4: head coach. You know, we know got used to him
1:20:18
Speaker 4: being a defensive coordinator or I mean, for you in
1:20:21
Speaker 4: my case, a GA or a player, you know, things
1:20:24
Speaker 4: like that. But I believe that he's going to do
1:20:26
Speaker 4: an awesome job. He already making some changes. He made,
1:20:30
Speaker 4: He made some quick changes, some big changes. I was like, okay,
1:20:33
Speaker 4: but we just have to be patient and give time
1:20:37
Speaker 4: for growth. But then on top of that, give time
1:20:41
Speaker 4: to let coach Scally put the program where he wants
1:20:44
Speaker 4: it to be and just continue it to be as
1:20:46
Speaker 4: high as we wanted when we had Coach with her.
1:20:50
Speaker 3: You were part of the early days of Kyle Whittingham,
1:20:54
Speaker 3: same thing, taking over as a first time head coach
1:20:56
Speaker 3: after being a longtime assistant in the program and as
1:20:59
Speaker 3: a long time coordinator, and you know that transition because
1:21:04
Speaker 3: of the legendary achievements that happened throughout the years, Like
1:21:08
Speaker 3: some people easily forget, or maybe some of the people
1:21:11
Speaker 3: listening weren't even born when it was happening. But it
1:21:13
Speaker 3: wasn't always so perfect and smooth, right, So take me
1:21:17
Speaker 3: back to those early days, and obviously you were part
1:21:19
Speaker 3: of massive, massive success, but not only massive success. There
1:21:23
Speaker 3: were growing pains even when you were on this roster.
1:21:25
Speaker 3: What did those look like and how did you and
1:21:28
Speaker 3: the coaching staff overcome them in that time?
1:21:31
Speaker 4: I mean, like thinking back, like my very first year
1:21:33
Speaker 4: here at the University of Utah, that was back in
1:21:35
Speaker 4: two thousand and seven, and if the fans remember that year,
1:21:40
Speaker 4: that was the year I think we barely made a
1:21:44
Speaker 4: bowl game. We played the points at a bowl game
1:21:46
Speaker 4: against Navy, and that year was it was a tough year.
1:21:49
Speaker 4: It was, it was up and down, but then we
1:21:51
Speaker 4: finally figured it out. It's a time and we figured
1:21:54
Speaker 4: it out because we lost that year to Air Force
1:21:57
Speaker 4: at home, and you know, that was something that you're
1:22:00
Speaker 4: not used to seeing. And then we lost the UNLV
1:22:04
Speaker 4: in Vegas that year. But then towards the end of
1:22:06
Speaker 4: the season, we figured it out because coach Coach witt
1:22:09
Speaker 4: stayed with the plan and we figured it out, and
1:22:12
Speaker 4: as the fans are listening, we wind up taking that win,
1:22:15
Speaker 4: taking those wins, and then they wind up pushing us
1:22:18
Speaker 4: into that undefeated season for the next year. But it
1:22:20
Speaker 4: took time. Like I just was mentioning, it took time
1:22:23
Speaker 4: those growing pains. It's a lot of times you have
1:22:26
Speaker 4: to be able to be a coach. Like the way
1:22:28
Speaker 4: coach wittou was look at it put the players in
1:22:30
Speaker 4: positions to be to be successful. I think coach Scalley
1:22:33
Speaker 4: will be pulling in that exact same mindset that you
1:22:36
Speaker 4: might have a Paul Krueger that was a quarterback and
1:22:38
Speaker 4: then it's like, hey, we got to put them at
1:22:40
Speaker 4: the end and you wind up being really good for
1:22:41
Speaker 4: the team. So it just takes a lot of patients
1:22:45
Speaker 4: and it takes a lot of we have to try
1:22:47
Speaker 4: things to see what makes sense. And I think coach
1:22:50
Speaker 4: Scalley is going to fully do that, and the fans
1:22:53
Speaker 4: just need to be okay with it. There's going to
1:22:55
Speaker 4: be some years, it's going to be rough, but it's
1:22:57
Speaker 4: going to be a lot of success that's going to
1:22:59
Speaker 4: be looking for or for the future.
1:23:01
Speaker 3: You have a unique role because of you know, your
1:23:03
Speaker 3: status with the program, but also the fact that you
1:23:06
Speaker 3: know you're in that world educating young people and being
1:23:10
Speaker 3: able to say, hey, I've walked in these shoes before,
1:23:12
Speaker 3: I followed this path. I made it to the league,
1:23:15
Speaker 3: which is what every high school athlete, every transfer coming
1:23:18
Speaker 3: into the University of Utah, that's what they want to do.
1:23:21
Speaker 2: Right.
1:23:22
Speaker 3: So we talk about patients for the fan base, how
1:23:26
Speaker 3: do you preach patients to players who now exist in
1:23:29
Speaker 3: a system unlike when you were playing or when I
1:23:32
Speaker 3: was playing, or you don't have to be patient if
1:23:34
Speaker 3: you're like, oh man, we had an eight and four year.
1:23:37
Speaker 3: We had a seven and five year. But I'm a
1:23:40
Speaker 3: good player. I don't need to stay here and see
1:23:43
Speaker 3: what next year can be. I don't need to see
1:23:45
Speaker 3: if we can go from nine to four to thirteen
1:23:48
Speaker 3: and oher because us he's calling me, or Texas has
1:23:52
Speaker 3: called me, or whatever, because I've shown my individual talents.
1:23:55
Speaker 3: How do you preach patients from a program perspective from
1:23:59
Speaker 3: a player perspective.
1:24:01
Speaker 4: That's one of the toughest questions to answer because we
1:24:05
Speaker 4: all know nowadays that nil money is big. Like I
1:24:09
Speaker 4: even like me and some of the boys back then
1:24:11
Speaker 4: that we played together, we cracked jokes about like what
1:24:14
Speaker 4: would you left, you know, like if this team was
1:24:16
Speaker 4: giving you one hundred thousand, like would you have left?
1:24:18
Speaker 4: And things like that, And every every player has its
1:24:21
Speaker 4: own Every player has different situations. So it becomes hard
1:24:26
Speaker 4: to have a really great player or a player that's
1:24:30
Speaker 4: potentially about to hit, about to become great, and having
1:24:34
Speaker 4: that player sitting on the bench and then you have
1:24:36
Speaker 4: a usc that's calling and it's time to go. It's
1:24:38
Speaker 4: like I have the money they pay me. It's really
1:24:42
Speaker 4: hard to just answer it with the with the full
1:24:44
Speaker 4: hundred percent answer. But what I can answer from my
1:24:46
Speaker 4: experience is that me coming here to the university in Utah,
1:24:50
Speaker 4: it was one of the best decisions that I made,
1:24:52
Speaker 4: and that was because the coaches allowed me to develop
1:24:55
Speaker 4: into the person that I was in The system that
1:24:58
Speaker 4: was that was installed at that when I was playing
1:25:01
Speaker 4: was one of the best systems that fit me. So
1:25:03
Speaker 4: I would tell players that if they're listening, that you
1:25:06
Speaker 4: need to find a system that fits you. Don't just
1:25:09
Speaker 4: chase the money. Trust me, you find the system because
1:25:12
Speaker 4: systems can make a player good and systems can make
1:25:14
Speaker 4: a player bad. So, you know, you kind of see
1:25:17
Speaker 4: some of that with the NIO money being thrown around
1:25:19
Speaker 4: with some of these college players where they wind up leaving,
1:25:21
Speaker 4: then they wind up not having a good year at
1:25:23
Speaker 4: the college that they were at. Then they try to
1:25:24
Speaker 4: go back to the college that they was at. Did
1:25:26
Speaker 4: they start chasing the coaches. It's just it's a lot
1:25:29
Speaker 4: of different variables that can click into this type of
1:25:32
Speaker 4: situation of the new generation in IOL money.
1:25:35
Speaker 3: I don't know if I tell myself and people on
1:25:37
Speaker 3: the air this to make myself feel better or what,
1:25:40
Speaker 3: But I mean, the numbers say it. There have not
1:25:43
Speaker 3: been a lot of guys who have left Utah and
1:25:46
Speaker 3: had that work out better in the new spot, right.
1:25:50
Speaker 4: YEA, that's true.
1:25:51
Speaker 3: There's been There's been a couple of guys who've done great,
1:25:54
Speaker 3: you know. Ja Quentin Jackson is probably the best example.
1:25:57
Speaker 3: He went to Arkansas and he had you know, when
1:25:59
Speaker 3: he stayed was healthy. He was great there, and that's
1:26:02
Speaker 3: that's the type of player he is. Whatever, there's a
1:26:04
Speaker 3: lot more examples of guys who think the grass is
1:26:07
Speaker 3: going to be greener on the other side and it's not.
1:26:10
Speaker 3: And very specifically guys who leave Utah and end up
1:26:14
Speaker 3: and they see a role reduced elsewhere or whatever? I mean,
1:26:19
Speaker 3: do you learn from other people's example when you take
1:26:22
Speaker 3: yourself back to when you're you know, nineteen twenty twenty
1:26:26
Speaker 3: one years old, you're a college football player, the world
1:26:28
Speaker 3: is your oyster, You're the big man on campus. Whatever
1:26:32
Speaker 3: do you look at and say, well, man, this receiver
1:26:35
Speaker 3: who left and we went to USC, he ended up
1:26:37
Speaker 3: having like three catches, man, Or this guy we thought
1:26:40
Speaker 3: was gonna be good playing at Alabama he ended up
1:26:42
Speaker 3: having two tackles in the whole dang year at Alabama.
1:26:45
Speaker 3: Maybe I shouldn't leave. Or do you have to make
1:26:47
Speaker 3: at that age group? Do you have to make mistakes
1:26:50
Speaker 3: yourself before you really learn?
1:26:52
Speaker 4: I believe that as an eighteen year old you're looking
1:26:55
Speaker 4: at money. Fair, you're looking at money. It kind of
1:26:59
Speaker 4: like my example of myself when I came here as
1:27:02
Speaker 4: a jerior college transfer. You have to remember Steve Tate
1:27:06
Speaker 4: was to start and safety yep, and then Joe Dell
1:27:09
Speaker 4: was a returning safety like he was reached, so he played.
1:27:12
Speaker 4: He played a little bit last year and he was
1:27:13
Speaker 4: a returner. So when I came here, I did not
1:27:17
Speaker 4: even have a plan in my brain of like I
1:27:19
Speaker 4: will be starting at some point. I just came here
1:27:21
Speaker 4: because I remember telling coach Otaki Yo, I just need
1:27:23
Speaker 4: to make sure you get my degree, and he was like,
1:27:25
Speaker 4: I could promise you a degree no matter what it is,
1:27:27
Speaker 4: no matter what the season looked like, I could promise
1:27:29
Speaker 4: you that, And that was one of the main reasons.
1:27:31
Speaker 4: But then once again going back to exactly what I said,
1:27:34
Speaker 4: everybody's situation is a little bit different, but I believe
1:27:37
Speaker 4: that most eighteen year olds it's about the money. And
1:27:39
Speaker 4: it's sad that this is how it's going now, but
1:27:42
Speaker 4: it's about the money. And you do have some players
1:27:44
Speaker 4: that will stay because of the coaches or stay because
1:27:46
Speaker 4: the program fits the system that they have, but it's
1:27:50
Speaker 4: just it's far and beyond. Because you're totally right, it's
1:27:53
Speaker 4: a lot of players. As I was sitting there thinking,
1:27:55
Speaker 4: as you said it, it's a lot of players that
1:27:57
Speaker 4: have left Utah and they have not had a really
1:28:00
Speaker 4: good experience leaving and then they wind up coming back
1:28:04
Speaker 4: or some of them wind up coming back. So it's
1:28:07
Speaker 4: one of those things of just as an eighteen year old,
1:28:09
Speaker 4: everybody has to look into it and see what fits
1:28:12
Speaker 4: them and makes them go good or make them want
1:28:15
Speaker 4: to do stuff.
1:28:17
Speaker 3: Robert Johnson is my guest here on the Sean O'Connell show.
1:28:20
Speaker 3: We're talking a little Utah football right now. Uh do
1:28:24
Speaker 3: you know coach owed him he's back to be the
1:28:26
Speaker 3: safeties coaches you play for him?
1:28:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, coaches, he's my guy, like, uh, between between him
1:28:32
Speaker 4: and Coast to Tacky. A funny story that we talk
1:28:35
Speaker 4: about is that my first year here, the first three
1:28:39
Speaker 4: games I didn't play. I didn't play, and going into
1:28:43
Speaker 4: that U c l a week when we wind up
1:28:45
Speaker 4: destroying UCLA. You know, we beat him. You know they
1:28:47
Speaker 4: was rinked eleven. We beat them forty four to six.
1:28:48
Speaker 4: But that week leading up to that week, I wasn't
1:28:52
Speaker 4: playing much and I remember going to coach old him
1:28:55
Speaker 4: was like, y'all just send me home, Like just send
1:28:58
Speaker 4: me closer, to send me close to LA so I
1:29:00
Speaker 4: can play a little bit or at least have my
1:29:02
Speaker 4: family I can see, and I just remember him in
1:29:04
Speaker 4: Coasta TAKEI both was just like, hey, like you're going
1:29:07
Speaker 4: to start this week, like you sure you want to leave?
1:29:09
Speaker 4: And it's like, oh, well, I guess I'm going to stay.
1:29:12
Speaker 4: And Coach Odham he the one that him between Coast
1:29:18
Speaker 4: of Hockey getting me here to the University of Utah
1:29:21
Speaker 4: and Coach Odens seeing something within me that just was like,
1:29:24
Speaker 4: Rojo will be a better free safety than a strong safety.
1:29:28
Speaker 4: I think that right there it clicked and we changed
1:29:32
Speaker 4: up the defense a little bit, because you remember back
1:29:35
Speaker 4: then we used to have the rock and roll where
1:29:38
Speaker 4: it was like both like all the safeties was pretty
1:29:40
Speaker 4: much the same signs, and if there was a receiver
1:29:44
Speaker 4: or tight end that motion to the other side, we
1:29:46
Speaker 4: call it rock and roll, where the other safety that's
1:29:48
Speaker 4: in the post will come down to be in the
1:29:49
Speaker 4: box and the box safety bumps back to be the post.
1:29:52
Speaker 4: But Coach Odam and Coasta Taki as well as Coach Anderson,
1:29:56
Speaker 4: they just was like, how about we just keep Rojo
1:29:58
Speaker 4: back deep. If that tight end motion's over, We'll just
1:30:02
Speaker 4: send Steve Tate to the other side instead of him
1:30:05
Speaker 4: bumping back. I believe that Coach Olden was a big,
1:30:08
Speaker 4: a big component of that, and he helped out a lot,
1:30:10
Speaker 4: and it made our defense change over the years. And
1:30:14
Speaker 4: then on top of that, it made me a better
1:30:15
Speaker 4: player knowing that I can play a real true free
1:30:19
Speaker 4: safety and play number to number and cover the field
1:30:21
Speaker 4: and be the human eracer. So I know a lot
1:30:24
Speaker 4: about Coach Oldham and he helped a lot with my.
1:30:25
Speaker 3: Career, and I want to I love that story and
1:30:29
Speaker 3: I just want to stress and express for people, like
1:30:32
Speaker 3: you have to remember when we're talking about a minor
1:30:34
Speaker 3: tweak like that being made to a Utah defense, this
1:30:38
Speaker 3: is a Utah defense that came from Fred Whittingham through
1:30:43
Speaker 3: Kyle Whittingham. Like, it's not one that is an easy thing.
1:30:47
Speaker 3: It has to make sense if changes are going to
1:30:49
Speaker 3: be made because it's been so successful on down the years.
1:30:53
Speaker 3: So to adjust something like that, it takes a lot
1:30:56
Speaker 3: from a whole coaching staff working together, and to be
1:30:58
Speaker 3: a guy who's even willing to propose that like a coach.
1:31:03
Speaker 4: It's something that's so small, But then a lot of
1:31:06
Speaker 4: fans probably wouldn't even understand it unless you go look
1:31:09
Speaker 4: at the stats. Because once you start looking at the stats,
1:31:11
Speaker 4: you'll see that most of the safeties the years prior
1:31:14
Speaker 4: before I came, we was making hundred plus tackles and
1:31:17
Speaker 4: we was always the the non countant player in the box,
1:31:21
Speaker 4: So we're the one that was making the tackles as
1:31:23
Speaker 4: the linebackers was sacrificing. And what I mean by sacrificing
1:31:26
Speaker 4: fans so you can clearly get it, is that if
1:31:28
Speaker 4: there's a fullback that's about to come down the block,
1:31:31
Speaker 4: it's normally the it used to be, the linebackers will
1:31:34
Speaker 4: go take that block to free up a safety to
1:31:37
Speaker 4: go make the tackle. But then when I kind of
1:31:39
Speaker 4: came into the system, it switched it up a little
1:31:41
Speaker 4: bit where now it was like, well, we don't even
1:31:43
Speaker 4: need to have a hundred tackle safety a hundred tackle
1:31:47
Speaker 4: safeties for the season because now we got one safety
1:31:49
Speaker 4: that's going to stick back there, so now we can
1:31:51
Speaker 4: start lighting them up and start blitzing them from all
1:31:53
Speaker 4: different angles because now it's the safety that can really
1:31:56
Speaker 4: cover the full field. So that's kind of where we
1:31:59
Speaker 4: went undefeated, because if you go back and look at
1:32:02
Speaker 4: that season, we was blitzing, like coach Anderson, we was
1:32:05
Speaker 4: blitzing a whole lot. And it was a lot of
1:32:07
Speaker 4: times that coach Anderson, as well as coach coach Scally
1:32:10
Speaker 4: as my safeties coach and coach Odum, that was like, well,
1:32:12
Speaker 4: Rojo's gonna cover the whole field, so we can play
1:32:15
Speaker 4: press man and Rojo just cover. And it just worked
1:32:18
Speaker 4: out really, really well, and the defense did change. We
1:32:21
Speaker 4: still had our common stuff, but it changed a lot.
1:32:24
Speaker 4: When I when I wind up staying at free safety.
1:32:27
Speaker 2: A beautiful thing for everyone to look back on.
1:32:30
Speaker 3: You can always find the Sugar Bowl highlights that are
1:32:32
Speaker 3: available on YouTube and everywhere else. I want to switch
1:32:35
Speaker 3: gears talk a little NFL with you here.
1:32:37
Speaker 2: I mean, we're we're watching this weekend.
1:32:39
Speaker 3: We're watching a super Bowl where the Patriots are back
1:32:43
Speaker 3: and the Seattle Seahawks with Sam Bleeping Donald as their
1:32:47
Speaker 3: starting quarterback, are the heavy favorite in this super Bowl.
1:32:51
Speaker 3: And obviously, I mean Donald's this is this is his
1:32:55
Speaker 3: third this is fourth.
1:32:57
Speaker 4: Stop, fourth, Yeah, it is fourth, fourth stop.
1:33:00
Speaker 3: And even when he won games for the Minnesota Vikings,
1:33:04
Speaker 3: they still weren't convinced that he was capable of what
1:33:06
Speaker 3: he's been showing us in Seattle. And now he's on
1:33:09
Speaker 3: the brink potentially of being not only a super Bowl champion,
1:33:13
Speaker 3: but you know, he'd be one of the guys we'd
1:33:15
Speaker 3: probably put as a favorite.
1:33:16
Speaker 2: To be super Bowl MVP. What is it?
1:33:19
Speaker 3: What should we learn from a story like this Rojo
1:33:22
Speaker 3: where a guy perseveres through you know, backup situation, expected
1:33:27
Speaker 3: to be a great player, but you're with the Jets,
1:33:29
Speaker 3: and it's hard to be a great player with the Jets,
1:33:31
Speaker 3: and then even when you win with the Vikings, they say,
1:33:34
Speaker 3: NA see you later.
1:33:35
Speaker 2: What should we learn as fans from this?
1:33:38
Speaker 4: Just being consistent like Sam Darnold, you've been through a
1:33:41
Speaker 4: whole lot and mentioning it again. System system fits, some
1:33:47
Speaker 4: systems don't. Maybe the system that was with the New
1:33:49
Speaker 4: York Jets it didn't fit them. They didn't fit his style.
1:33:52
Speaker 4: But he was drafted there, and it's you know, everybody
1:33:55
Speaker 4: can can't be a be a Eli Manning where you
1:33:58
Speaker 4: kind of request that I'm not going to play for
1:33:59
Speaker 4: you unless go for another team when you get drafted.
1:34:02
Speaker 4: But in Sam Darnald case, I'm really happy and proud
1:34:05
Speaker 4: of him. He's one of those I don't know him
1:34:07
Speaker 4: as a personal level, but I do know from what
1:34:09
Speaker 4: I've seen and I've heard is that, you know, he
1:34:12
Speaker 4: was always consistent. He made sure that what they say,
1:34:18
Speaker 4: bank on yourself, you know, or be bet on yourself,
1:34:20
Speaker 4: he bet on himself and it's working out. Not too
1:34:24
Speaker 4: many people can get to the super Bowl and think
1:34:27
Speaker 4: about this, Fans like Dan Marino never made it to
1:34:30
Speaker 4: a super Bowl. From my understanding, he never never have
1:34:33
Speaker 4: never even played anyone from my understanding of what I read.
1:34:37
Speaker 4: But then you got somebody named Sam Darnald that come
1:34:40
Speaker 4: in and bounced around through different systems, different team, different organizations.
1:34:45
Speaker 4: But somehow, some way, he figured out a way to
1:34:47
Speaker 4: bettle himself that he can get things done. And now
1:34:49
Speaker 4: look he's in the super Bowl with an opportunity to
1:34:52
Speaker 4: be one of the greatest teams, to be one of
1:34:54
Speaker 4: the to be in the record books. I'll say as
1:34:57
Speaker 4: one of those NFL Super Bowl teams.
1:35:00
Speaker 3: We were talking about that system fit earlier because we
1:35:03
Speaker 3: were looking at the mock draft and ESPN's mocked they
1:35:07
Speaker 3: got the first and second rounds and they've got two uts.
1:35:10
Speaker 2: In the first round.
1:35:11
Speaker 3: I got Spencer Fano going to the Browns, which for
1:35:14
Speaker 3: obvious reasons, I'm like, man great to be a number
1:35:17
Speaker 3: six overall pick, but who wants to be with the
1:35:19
Speaker 3: Browns because you're never gonna win anything. And then and
1:35:23
Speaker 3: Caleb Lombo going to the San Francisco forty nine ers,
1:35:25
Speaker 3: where the expectation would be that he would back up
1:35:28
Speaker 3: Trent Williams, who's one of the all time greats at
1:35:30
Speaker 3: the position, and I'm like, man, that to me is
1:35:33
Speaker 3: a perfect example of how, yeah, it's wonderful to be
1:35:36
Speaker 3: that top pick, but man, that's going to be tough
1:35:38
Speaker 3: sledding potentially with a Browns organization, versus if you can
1:35:42
Speaker 3: be a little bit later on in the draft and
1:35:44
Speaker 3: in that type of offense where there's so much value
1:35:47
Speaker 3: placed on offensive linemen and you're understudying behind someone like
1:35:51
Speaker 3: Trent Williams.
1:35:52
Speaker 2: Like, I get it.
1:35:53
Speaker 3: We all want to be the number one pick or
1:35:55
Speaker 3: the number five pick instead of the number twenty seven pick.
1:35:57
Speaker 2: But that's a fit situation for me.
1:36:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, well think about this though. Think about Denver
1:36:03
Speaker 4: Broncos Garrett bos You remember when he got there, Denver
1:36:08
Speaker 4: was not good at all. It was not good. I
1:36:12
Speaker 4: felt like the organization was going to get sold at
1:36:14
Speaker 4: some point, like that's where they was at. But then
1:36:17
Speaker 4: Garret Bose. He bowed out and did what he needed
1:36:19
Speaker 4: to be doing, and he made sure to stay loyal
1:36:21
Speaker 4: to them and worked hard, and they almost had the
1:36:24
Speaker 4: opportunity to make it to the super Bowl this year,
1:36:26
Speaker 4: where you would never think that Denver was going to
1:36:29
Speaker 4: be pretty good. But throughout the years, Garrett stayed there
1:36:33
Speaker 4: and he did exactly what he needed to do. I mean,
1:36:35
Speaker 4: if if Spence Fnal get get drafted to the Cleveland Browns,
1:36:38
Speaker 4: it sucks, I say, oh it's great. No, it sucks,
1:36:42
Speaker 4: but I feel like Cleveland Browns might their organization might
1:36:47
Speaker 4: start putting the right pieces around the most important position.
1:36:51
Speaker 4: So if they do draft them, they already got quarterbacks.
1:36:55
Speaker 4: They got quarterbacks. Two quarterbacks. That's pretty solid. Running backs,
1:36:59
Speaker 4: that's pretty solid. And see what happens, because any getting
1:37:03
Speaker 4: a Sunday, a team can win, and give a Sunday
1:37:05
Speaker 4: a team can lose. And if you think about some
1:37:08
Speaker 4: of these teams that was not as good, they're all
1:37:11
Speaker 4: of a sudden becoming better. And then the teams I
1:37:13
Speaker 4: was really good, they're not even making the playoffs. So
1:37:16
Speaker 4: it just matters about what system you fall into. But
1:37:18
Speaker 4: then also can the player be consistent and bet on themselves.
1:37:23
Speaker 3: As a former Tennessee Titan, how do you process that
1:37:27
Speaker 3: organization moving on from Mike Rabel and then him being
1:37:31
Speaker 3: in the Super Bowl two years later.
1:37:34
Speaker 4: All I can say is that, go Titans. You know,
1:37:40
Speaker 4: tighten up.
1:37:41
Speaker 2: You know.
1:37:41
Speaker 4: That's all I can say. But because I mean, like
1:37:44
Speaker 4: the fans, I don't think the fans really know that
1:37:46
Speaker 4: I'm a Raiders fan, like I'm a full time Raiders fan,
1:37:49
Speaker 4: but then I'm a Titans fan as well because they
1:37:51
Speaker 4: drafted me. Both of the organizations are they talked about
1:37:55
Speaker 4: organizations that just can't get right. It's getting tough.
1:38:01
Speaker 3: So Fernanda Mendoza to the Raiders, you think that'll be
1:38:04
Speaker 3: a good fit if that's where they take him.
1:38:06
Speaker 4: I was saying that that would be a good, good start,
1:38:10
Speaker 4: because right now, I guess I'm more of one of
1:38:13
Speaker 4: those guys that's like, let's just win more games than
1:38:16
Speaker 4: we won last year. Let's win more of this game.
1:38:18
Speaker 4: Like if we won three last year, let's just win
1:38:19
Speaker 4: four and then and now we're doing good. But yet
1:38:22
Speaker 4: getting him will be a really good, really good thing
1:38:25
Speaker 4: to do. But then you got to work on the
1:38:27
Speaker 4: biggest and the most important piece, Like if most of
1:38:30
Speaker 4: US football players, we know the most important piece when
1:38:33
Speaker 4: it comes to playing football is the d lineman. It's
1:38:35
Speaker 4: the big boys. You got to be able to control that.
1:38:37
Speaker 4: And I feel like register Raiders or the Titans or
1:38:40
Speaker 4: just you look at all the team You look at
1:38:42
Speaker 4: the teams that's now in the Super Bowl, like, you
1:38:45
Speaker 4: have offensive lineman that's really good, you have defensive lineman
1:38:48
Speaker 4: that's really good. Then the ones that wins most of
1:38:50
Speaker 4: those games. Don't get me wrong. The fantasy the quarterback
1:38:53
Speaker 4: throwing the ball and the running back running, yeah, that's
1:38:55
Speaker 4: the excitement part. But the dirty part is the trenches,
1:38:59
Speaker 4: the big boys. You got to have the big boys right.
1:39:01
Speaker 4: If you don't have your big boys right, then it
1:39:02
Speaker 4: kind of it messes up a lot of things. Can't
1:39:04
Speaker 4: protect the quarterback or can't get to the quarterback, or
1:39:06
Speaker 4: can't stop the run or can run. So you have
1:39:09
Speaker 4: to remember that as US football players that played offensive
1:39:12
Speaker 4: line is the most important piece. So you can put
1:39:14
Speaker 4: a camp Moore at that quarterback and he's awesome, but
1:39:18
Speaker 4: how he's supposed to look if the offensive line can't
1:39:20
Speaker 4: hold their blocks long enough for him, and then it
1:39:23
Speaker 4: turned into how quick he might get injured.
1:39:25
Speaker 3: Well, we saw that in playoffs with the Chargers going
1:39:28
Speaker 3: up against the Broncos and the just getting murdered.
1:39:31
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, you gotta look at the Texans. We run
1:39:35
Speaker 4: the playoffs. The Texans, they pretty much won because they deliged,
1:39:38
Speaker 4: like they delined like who they played against, because I
1:39:42
Speaker 4: didn't know CJ had a terrible game, but then the
1:39:44
Speaker 4: D line played so good. They even scored on defense.
1:39:46
Speaker 4: I think I can't remember what game that was in
1:39:48
Speaker 4: the playoffs, but it was like, this is what matters.
1:39:50
Speaker 4: The D line and the offensive line is what's the
1:39:53
Speaker 4: most important piece to sometimes having successful programs or successful
1:39:57
Speaker 4: organizations to having bad programs or bad or oranizations.
1:40:00
Speaker 2: With that in mind, and I agree with you one
1:40:03
Speaker 2: hundred percent.
1:40:04
Speaker 3: Like one of the bright spots, one of the few
1:40:06
Speaker 3: bright spots on this Raiders roster is Max Crosby, who's
1:40:11
Speaker 3: an excellent pass rusher, and that's a huge part of it.
1:40:14
Speaker 2: Right now.
1:40:16
Speaker 3: You could try to keep building talent around him, or
1:40:19
Speaker 3: you could say, hey, you know we're too far away
1:40:22
Speaker 3: right now, let's ship out Max Crosby and get back
1:40:26
Speaker 3: like four picks, probably two first round picks for him.
1:40:30
Speaker 3: What would you do if I put you in charge,
1:40:31
Speaker 3: and I say you're managing this roster. Now, Rojo, would
1:40:34
Speaker 3: you keep Max Crosby or would you use him to
1:40:37
Speaker 3: maximize draft capital.
1:40:39
Speaker 4: My biggest thing, We'll look at the draft players, the
1:40:41
Speaker 4: players that's being drafted, what's available, because you never know.
1:40:44
Speaker 4: You could probably get a Max Crosby from an income
1:40:47
Speaker 4: and draft pick that's coming in and you get him
1:40:49
Speaker 4: for the cheaper and then say, if you ship off Max,
1:40:52
Speaker 4: you get your four picks, you can wind up getting
1:40:55
Speaker 4: another Max Crosby and then turn around and get offensive
1:40:57
Speaker 4: lineman and get some weapons to get around on the
1:41:00
Speaker 4: running back that the Raiders have. But it's one of
1:41:03
Speaker 4: those like it's sometimes it's it's a smart move when
1:41:07
Speaker 4: you do it, and it's and it's good. It's a
1:41:09
Speaker 4: dumb move when you do it, and it doesn't make
1:41:12
Speaker 4: sense talking about the Raiders really fast, they got rid
1:41:15
Speaker 4: of Mac. I couldn't understand that they traded Mac Yard.
1:41:19
Speaker 4: Remember Mac, like the that's one of the best defensive linemen.
1:41:24
Speaker 4: Now he's with the Chargers. But that trade right there,
1:41:27
Speaker 4: it set the organization back because you trade, you trade
1:41:32
Speaker 4: one of the best defensive linemen and you get picks
1:41:35
Speaker 4: but you didn't use the picks the right way. So
1:41:38
Speaker 4: in my case, I will keep Max unless I see
1:41:41
Speaker 4: somebody that just jumps off the board. That's just like
1:41:43
Speaker 4: you watch them on film. It's like they fit the
1:41:45
Speaker 4: system really well and they're cheaper. Let's get rid of
1:41:47
Speaker 4: Max and bring in some picks that we can do
1:41:49
Speaker 4: what we need to do. So it's a matter it's
1:41:51
Speaker 4: different variables again. So I know I'm always talking like
1:41:53
Speaker 4: I'm always on defense when it's when I'm answering her questions,
1:41:55
Speaker 4: but it's it's how do you feel at that moment
1:41:58
Speaker 4: and what do you see when it comes to trusting
1:42:00
Speaker 4: your other components of coaching Road.
1:42:04
Speaker 2: Joe, It's always great to hear your thoughts. Man.
1:42:06
Speaker 3: We're gonna keep leaning on your expertise. We'll chat again
1:42:09
Speaker 3: during springball.
1:42:10
Speaker 4: All right, awesome, that sounds good man. And congratulations man,
1:42:13
Speaker 4: you know doing good. The show is amazing, So thank you. Congratulations,
1:42:16
Speaker 4: will let me own and then congratulations all the success
1:42:18
Speaker 4: is about to happen.
1:42:19
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
1:42:21
Speaker 3: Robert Johnson one of the legends of this Utah football
1:42:24
Speaker 3: program and just crazy informative on all that. Like the
1:42:28
Speaker 3: little tweaks, right, I did not know, like what he
1:42:32
Speaker 3: just told us, I did not know that coach owed
1:42:35
Speaker 3: him through that process, helped to make the change that
1:42:39
Speaker 3: really elevated that that Sugar Bowl defense because they adjusted
1:42:44
Speaker 3: to personnel and these this coaching staff, most.
1:42:47
Speaker 2: Good coaching staffs are are adept at that where.
1:42:51
Speaker 3: They realize, like, all right, my system matters, but I
1:42:54
Speaker 3: can flex a little bit in my system if we
1:42:56
Speaker 3: have the right personnel. And they recognized that road Joe
1:43:00
Speaker 3: was not built to be a box safety, and he's
1:43:04
Speaker 3: not built to be interchangeable free safety, strong safety. He's
1:43:08
Speaker 3: a true free safety, and so they made that adjustment
1:43:10
Speaker 3: on the fly and it obviously worked out nicely. So
1:43:13
Speaker 3: one the way you described that oc it made it
1:43:17
Speaker 3: makes perfect sense with how the game has evolved from
1:43:20
Speaker 3: he was talking about linebackers sacrifice and taking the block
1:43:24
Speaker 3: from the full back. Right, Yeah, Like the game has
1:43:27
Speaker 3: progressed obviously beyond that to a lot more of a
1:43:32
Speaker 3: passing an air raid attack in both college and the pros.
1:43:37
Speaker 5: And that what he describes makes total sense. And we
1:43:40
Speaker 5: were talking about foresight, the lack of foresight and leadership
1:43:43
Speaker 5: from the NCAA perspective that's incredible Foresight by Derek Odoman
1:43:49
Speaker 5: Morgan Scalley, who was.
1:43:50
Speaker 2: A GA at the time.
1:43:52
Speaker 5: If I'm not mistaken, or he was at the beginnings
1:43:54
Speaker 5: of his coaching career in a way at Utah.
1:43:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was just starting out being a defensive assistant.
1:44:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, to see, hey, we got this guy.
1:44:04
Speaker 5: We can change the we can change how we do
1:44:07
Speaker 5: things a little bit to to accommodate him and his
1:44:10
Speaker 5: what he can do in the in the passing game
1:44:13
Speaker 5: as a safety. But also, you know what, that's kind
1:44:18
Speaker 5: of how the game's going anyway. So this this could
1:44:21
Speaker 5: help us into the future as well. I mean, that's
1:44:25
Speaker 5: that's really cool to hear that kind of the origin
1:44:27
Speaker 5: story of that.
1:44:27
Speaker 3: I also got triggered when he was talking about that,
1:44:30
Speaker 3: because that's one of the things when you're so coaching
1:44:34
Speaker 3: in the at the high school level. Now is way
1:44:36
Speaker 3: better than it used to be. But when I was
1:44:39
Speaker 3: at high schooler dear Old Jordan High, playing middle linebacker,
1:44:45
Speaker 3: your responsibility in a run play was to make the
1:44:48
Speaker 3: tackle right. Your responsibility in a pass play we always ran, man,
1:44:55
Speaker 3: your responsibility was to pick up first back out of
1:44:59
Speaker 3: the backfield in most cases or potentially drop back into
1:45:03
Speaker 3: that shallow center of the field.
1:45:05
Speaker 2: Like that was it I had.
1:45:08
Speaker 3: I had two pass responsibilities potentially, and when it came
1:45:12
Speaker 3: to run plays, it was like see the ball, get
1:45:14
Speaker 3: the ball.
1:45:15
Speaker 2: It was not any more complicated than that.
1:45:18
Speaker 3: Going to the University of Utah and learning that defense
1:45:21
Speaker 3: where they were like no, no, no, no, no, no. This tackle if
1:45:26
Speaker 3: there's a pulling guard or like you just said, if
1:45:28
Speaker 3: there's a full back, you as the linebacker, if this
1:45:31
Speaker 3: is your gap responsibility based on the defensive call, you're
1:45:36
Speaker 3: either taking that block on with your inside shoulder or
1:45:38
Speaker 3: your outside shoulder. You're either trying to funnel this thing
1:45:41
Speaker 3: back inside or you're trying to spill it outside to
1:45:44
Speaker 3: where the safety is coming. You're supposed to know where
1:45:46
Speaker 3: the safety is coming from. It's a lot more complicated.
1:45:50
Speaker 3: And again I know now high school coaches are incorporating
1:45:54
Speaker 3: some of that in a way that they didn't back
1:45:55
Speaker 3: when I was younger. But it was one of the
1:45:58
Speaker 3: things that made it so jaw to make that transition
1:46:02
Speaker 3: to college football, because you were like, well, as long
1:46:06
Speaker 3: as I plug up this hole and I create a
1:46:08
Speaker 3: pile up, so either I can make the tackle or
1:46:11
Speaker 3: somebody else can make the tackle.
1:46:12
Speaker 2: That's a win.
1:46:13
Speaker 3: I'm going to grade out positively on this. But the
1:46:16
Speaker 3: attention to detail in that Fred Whittingham, Kyle Whittingham, Gary Anderson,
1:46:21
Speaker 3: Kalani Sataki Morgan's scally defensive lineage has evolved in such
1:46:25
Speaker 3: a way that it was like, No, you ran into
1:46:29
Speaker 3: that hole and you put your body there, but you
1:46:32
Speaker 3: clogged it up, so now the safety can't come down
1:46:34
Speaker 3: so that the cutback lane is there for the running back.
1:46:37
Speaker 3: You were supposed to take on the block with your
1:46:39
Speaker 3: inside shoulder and you didn't do that, so you actually
1:46:43
Speaker 3: failed that rep. And you're like, what are you talking about?
1:46:45
Speaker 3: I was right there where the ball was and it's like, no,
1:46:48
Speaker 3: that's not like that. The elevation of what you have
1:46:52
Speaker 3: to be able to think and process and do is
1:46:55
Speaker 3: pretty significant. And for Robert Johnson to be part of
1:46:59
Speaker 3: adjusting on the fly to accommodate his skill set is
1:47:03
Speaker 3: a thing that's pretty dang cool to hear that story.
1:47:06
Speaker 3: I can't wait to get Coach Odamon. We'll ask him
1:47:08
Speaker 3: about that now. Now that we've heard that from Rojo,
1:47:11
Speaker 3: we'll ask him about his memory of doing that and
1:47:14
Speaker 3: making that tweak an adjustment whenever we can talk with
1:47:16
Speaker 3: coach Odam who's back on this Utah football coaching staff
1:47:21
Speaker 3: after you know, being all over the place and of
1:47:23
Speaker 3: course being an assistant coach here after his playing career
1:47:29
Speaker 3: as a safety and as a center fielder on.
1:47:31
Speaker 2: The baseball team. Two sport athlete. No big deal.
1:47:35
Speaker 3: All right, we're gonna double up here. We're gonna come back.
1:47:37
Speaker 3: We can talk a little Utah Mammoth. They got to
1:47:41
Speaker 3: get this win against the Canucks. These are two points
1:47:43
Speaker 3: that you have to secure tonight at the Delta Center.
1:47:46
Speaker 3: How do they get it done? Mammoth Insider Tom Callahan
1:47:49
Speaker 3: will tell us. It's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN
1:47:51
Speaker 3: seven hundred nine.
1:47:52
Speaker 6: Tom with mere listening to about Sean O'Connell show, your
1:48:02
Speaker 6: source for the best Hems football couplege.
1:48:05
Speaker 1: Here's oc from the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven
1:48:09
Speaker 1: hundred ninety two to one.
1:48:10
Speaker 3: At end, you tell Mammoth in action tonight against the
1:48:16
Speaker 3: Canucks of Vancouver. Tom Callahan, hosts of Lockdown Mammoth podcast.
1:48:22
Speaker 3: Mammoth Insider joins us now to talk about that and
1:48:25
Speaker 3: much more.
1:48:26
Speaker 2: Around the NHL. Tom, how are.
1:48:28
Speaker 7: You I'm doing well, those things going this week.
1:48:32
Speaker 2: Uh, you know we're we're doing all right. I want
1:48:34
Speaker 2: to get to the mammoth here.
1:48:35
Speaker 3: I want to talk about that, but we have to
1:48:38
Speaker 3: touch on the Stadium series where Tampa Bay play in
1:48:42
Speaker 3: the Boston Bruins and the teams showed up Tampa Bay
1:48:47
Speaker 3: in the Buccaneers creamsicle uniforms, full football uniforms for the
1:48:52
Speaker 3: NHL team, and then on the opposite side, the Boston
1:48:55
Speaker 3: Bruins get off the bus wearing colonial patriot like period
1:49:00
Speaker 3: piece uniforms. Just an absolute phenomenal thing leaning into the
1:49:04
Speaker 3: Super Bowl matchups and the Super Bowl coming. What do
1:49:08
Speaker 3: you think of them like having that kind of fun
1:49:10
Speaker 3: with this with the Stadium series.
1:49:12
Speaker 7: Game, I loved it. Number one. I love those Buccaneers
1:49:15
Speaker 7: creamsical uniforms, and no one can tell me different. I
1:49:19
Speaker 7: just I have a thing for orange. The Pirate Treasure
1:49:23
Speaker 7: map around the rink was also awesome. I loved the uniforms.
1:49:28
Speaker 7: I thought everything about it was great. It felt like
1:49:31
Speaker 7: college football in a lot of ways, and I just
1:49:35
Speaker 7: I loved it. I thought the whole thing was great.
1:49:36
Speaker 7: Then you get a goalie fight and all kinds of
1:49:40
Speaker 7: crazy stuff going on. I mean game goes to a
1:49:43
Speaker 7: shootout like that was That was fantastic. I loved every
1:49:47
Speaker 7: minute of that.
1:49:48
Speaker 3: The goalie fights, we've seen a couple of them already
1:49:52
Speaker 3: this NHL season, and look, the casual hockey fan loves
1:49:56
Speaker 3: it when these guys mix it up inside the dressing room.
1:50:00
Speaker 3: I guess more from a coaching perspective, how is that
1:50:04
Speaker 3: processed when when the goalies skate out there and start
1:50:07
Speaker 3: hammering away with the big pads on.
1:50:10
Speaker 7: You're worried because those guys are expensive. You know, that's
1:50:15
Speaker 7: like can you imagine a quarterback fight at the fifty
1:50:18
Speaker 7: yard line? That's what that is. You know, that freaks
1:50:22
Speaker 7: That freaks out everyone internally, But yeah, the fans love it,
1:50:26
Speaker 7: but you know, nobody gets hurt. And I'll be honest
1:50:29
Speaker 7: with you, as someone who has played goalie my entire life,
1:50:32
Speaker 7: it is really hard to throw punches with all those
1:50:35
Speaker 7: pads on and get close, so you know, generally nobody's
1:50:40
Speaker 7: getting hurt. That's what you're hoping for. So yeah, I
1:50:45
Speaker 7: know that that freaks people out a little bit internally,
1:50:47
Speaker 7: but I mean it's just in the heat of the moment.
1:50:50
Speaker 7: You know, Swayman wanted to go. He came to center
1:50:53
Speaker 7: and Basileski obliged him, so off you go.
1:50:57
Speaker 3: Also around the league, did did Pastordak get jobbed by
1:51:03
Speaker 3: the nullified overtime goal?
1:51:06
Speaker 6: You know?
1:51:08
Speaker 7: I mean no, there was a penalty coming on the play,
1:51:10
Speaker 7: so as soon as Boston touches the pocket, whistle goes.
1:51:13
Speaker 7: Whether they heard it or not, I don't know, but
1:51:18
Speaker 7: if now it was the call, if he eh, maybe
1:51:20
Speaker 7: I don't know if I make that call on overtime,
1:51:23
Speaker 7: But I mean so, if you want to talk about
1:51:27
Speaker 7: the penalty was a legit and it could have gone
1:51:29
Speaker 7: either way. But as far as when the whistle blew, yes,
1:51:32
Speaker 7: that's supposed to happen. As soon as there's a penalty
1:51:35
Speaker 7: and it's touched by the team taking the penalty, then yeah,
1:51:37
Speaker 7: the play stops. So from that standpoint, no, he didn't
1:51:40
Speaker 7: get hosed. But I just don't know if i'd have
1:51:42
Speaker 7: made that call.
1:51:43
Speaker 3: All right, let's focus in on our beloved Utah Mammoth. Now,
1:51:47
Speaker 3: they had a nice little road trip the previous homestand
1:51:52
Speaker 3: was important with the stacking the points, and they they've
1:51:55
Speaker 3: looked strong up till these last two games. Now, law
1:52:00
Speaker 3: five to four to the Hurricanes, and at home the
1:52:02
Speaker 3: other night three to two to the Stars, and you
1:52:06
Speaker 3: dig yourself an early hole and it's really really hard
1:52:09
Speaker 3: to climb out of that. How do they avoid that
1:52:12
Speaker 3: moving forward? How do they stop giving up the early
1:52:15
Speaker 3: first period goals?
1:52:17
Speaker 7: You know, these guys have reminded me. I'm going to
1:52:19
Speaker 7: give the listeners a visual right now. If you've ever
1:52:21
Speaker 7: been at a sink with separate taps for hot and
1:52:24
Speaker 7: cold water, you're either getting cold out of the foster
1:52:27
Speaker 7: or you're getting hot out of the faucet, and they're
1:52:29
Speaker 7: two separate faucets. And I kind of feel like that's
1:52:31
Speaker 7: the story of the Mammoth this year. You know, they're hot,
1:52:35
Speaker 7: then they're cold, And the funny thing is, unfortunately they
1:52:39
Speaker 7: got cold at the end of that Carolina game. And
1:52:43
Speaker 7: I can say, honestly, I can write that off to
1:52:46
Speaker 7: you know, what things happen over the course of a season.
1:52:49
Speaker 7: Eighty two games, you're gonna have one of those. What
1:52:53
Speaker 7: I wanted to see was how they came out against Dallas,
1:52:56
Speaker 7: and I wanted to see if they turned that kind
1:52:58
Speaker 7: of anger and frustration into efforts and achievement against Dallas,
1:53:03
Speaker 7: or if they let it sit and fester a little
1:53:06
Speaker 7: bit in their heads, and I think it was a
1:53:08
Speaker 7: little bit more of the latter. You're right, they did
1:53:10
Speaker 7: have a slow start against Dallas and they didn't really
1:53:12
Speaker 7: recover from that now and special teams has been bad, right,
1:53:18
Speaker 7: So we'll talk about that maybe a little bit later.
1:53:20
Speaker 7: But five on five, it's funny. Andre Tourney says, well,
1:53:24
Speaker 7: I think our team won the game five on five,
1:53:26
Speaker 7: and I don't agree. They had eleven shots heading into
1:53:30
Speaker 7: the third. They scored on one of them, and that
1:53:31
Speaker 7: goal probably shouldn't have been allowed to stand. It should
1:53:34
Speaker 7: have been called back for goaltender interference. It wasn't so okay, good,
1:53:37
Speaker 7: that's a nice break. They score on their twelfth shot,
1:53:40
Speaker 7: and so now they've got two goals on twelve shots,
1:53:42
Speaker 7: and now in the third period you're like, oh, it's
1:53:44
Speaker 7: a game. They can do something with this. I never
1:53:47
Speaker 7: got the impression that they had it all going their
1:53:50
Speaker 7: way or that they were the better team five on five.
1:53:53
Speaker 7: And I think for this Mammoth team right now, to
1:53:55
Speaker 7: try to avoid the slow starts, the best you can
1:53:59
Speaker 7: do is really try to load up your energy early
1:54:02
Speaker 7: and you've got to throw some hits. You've got to
1:54:04
Speaker 7: go out there and be physical without taking penalties, and
1:54:07
Speaker 7: they've had a problem with that lately. They are stepping
1:54:10
Speaker 7: over that line far too often. And the other thing
1:54:13
Speaker 7: that kind of gets me is when the effort's not there,
1:54:17
Speaker 7: you take penalties that are born of not moving your feet,
1:54:20
Speaker 7: not continuing to skate, that you're hooking, you're holding those
1:54:23
Speaker 7: types of penalties, or they're doing something away from the play,
1:54:26
Speaker 7: which you know you don't need to take a penalty
1:54:29
Speaker 7: when it's not preventing a scoring chance. And those are
1:54:31
Speaker 7: the frustrating things. They kill your momentum. And then their
1:54:34
Speaker 7: special teams hasn't been good, so you're given up power
1:54:36
Speaker 7: play goals and you're not scoring on the power play
1:54:38
Speaker 7: when you get them. That's the frustrating part. And all
1:54:41
Speaker 7: of that goes into just not having that energy and
1:54:46
Speaker 7: that carry through, which is why, quite frankly, it's a
1:54:48
Speaker 7: good thing Vancouver's coming to town because they're not very good.
1:54:52
Speaker 2: Staying on the special teams.
1:54:53
Speaker 4: Thing.
1:54:55
Speaker 2: Is there an element to the timeliness of the penalties?
1:54:58
Speaker 2: Is there is?
1:55:00
Speaker 4: Is it?
1:55:00
Speaker 2: Well? I won't I won't throw out multiple choice here.
1:55:04
Speaker 3: You just tell me what you think the root of
1:55:06
Speaker 3: the special teams and specifically power play opponent power play
1:55:11
Speaker 3: goals and the frequency with which they're scoring.
1:55:14
Speaker 2: Where is that rooted?
1:55:17
Speaker 7: So timing is bad taking, especially the early penalties against Dallas,
1:55:23
Speaker 7: the uncharacteristic mistakes and like two delay game penalties when
1:55:28
Speaker 7: they take too many minute on the ice penalties. Again,
1:55:31
Speaker 7: fans understand a penalty worth of effort and coaches do too.
1:55:35
Speaker 7: If you have a guy that you take them down
1:55:38
Speaker 7: on a legitimate scoring chance, that's okay. I mean, yeah,
1:55:43
Speaker 7: it's a penalty. No, you don't want to It means
1:55:45
Speaker 7: you were probably out of position, but you may have
1:55:46
Speaker 7: prevented a goal. Okay, we're cool with that. Or if
1:55:49
Speaker 7: you're taking a penalty where you're standing up for your teammates,
1:55:51
Speaker 7: also good, we'll kill that one off. The problem is
1:55:55
Speaker 7: when you start taking the mental mistake penalties or the
1:55:59
Speaker 7: you know, I'm not moving my feet, I'm not putting
1:56:02
Speaker 7: forth the effort this guy is getting by me. Oh no,
1:56:05
Speaker 7: I better put my arm out, put my stick out
1:56:08
Speaker 7: because I'm not skating with them. That's where it becomes
1:56:11
Speaker 7: a problem, and that's the penalties you don't want to take.
1:56:16
Speaker 7: And I think that beyond that, on the penalty kill. Yes,
1:56:20
Speaker 7: special teams can be streaky and it can go hot
1:56:24
Speaker 7: and cold, as the Mammoth have this year. But to me,
1:56:28
Speaker 7: killing penalties is all about effort. It is the hardest
1:56:30
Speaker 7: thing to do in hockey because it is constant stopping
1:56:33
Speaker 7: and starting. It is just it's physically exhausting, and if
1:56:38
Speaker 7: you are not giving it your all, and even sometimes
1:56:40
Speaker 7: when you are, you're going to get beat. You have
1:56:42
Speaker 7: to have your goaltender be especially sharp in those cases,
1:56:45
Speaker 7: and you have to have just all out effort for
1:56:47
Speaker 7: that two minutes to be able to kill it out.
1:56:50
Speaker 7: And I think that that's why, you know, it's been
1:56:52
Speaker 7: tough against the more highly skilled teams that the Mammoth
1:56:55
Speaker 7: had been given up those power play goals. But I mean,
1:56:59
Speaker 7: we say that penalty kill actually was good for most
1:57:03
Speaker 7: of the year. Now they've slid down to nineteenth, which
1:57:05
Speaker 7: is just in front of the bottom third. But the
1:57:08
Speaker 7: power play is terrible. It's dead last now, and I
1:57:13
Speaker 7: just don't understand why. You know, that definition of insanity
1:57:18
Speaker 7: is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results.
1:57:21
Speaker 7: I mean, I would be trying so many different things
1:57:23
Speaker 7: right now in this power play and they just seem
1:57:25
Speaker 7: to keep beating their heads against the same spot in
1:57:27
Speaker 7: the wall.
1:57:28
Speaker 3: I noticed that, And I don't know where the threshold
1:57:33
Speaker 3: is when you're saying, all right, we got to let
1:57:36
Speaker 3: these guys work out of the slump, and so give
1:57:39
Speaker 3: them another shot, give them another shot, and give them
1:57:40
Speaker 3: another power play or two, versus saying all right, this
1:57:45
Speaker 3: is it's not a commentary on our lack of belief
1:57:49
Speaker 3: in you.
1:57:49
Speaker 2: We just have to mix it up.
1:57:50
Speaker 3: I mean, it feels like this dressing room, this team
1:57:53
Speaker 3: culture would be solid enough that you could say, hey, guys,
1:57:56
Speaker 3: you see the numbers. You see it's not working. We're
1:57:59
Speaker 3: just going to start your own things at a wall
1:58:00
Speaker 3: and see what sticks. Why hasn't that happened?
1:58:05
Speaker 7: I wish I had the answer to that. The fans
1:58:08
Speaker 7: wish they had the answer to that, because this goes back.
1:58:10
Speaker 7: This is not two weeks or two months. This is
1:58:12
Speaker 7: not even a year and a half. They've been in Utah.
1:58:14
Speaker 7: This has been something that's been going on for a while,
1:58:17
Speaker 7: and we've all been asking these questions. I mean, if
1:58:21
Speaker 7: it's me, you know, I look at You can change
1:58:26
Speaker 7: the x's and o's, you can change the personnel, you
1:58:29
Speaker 7: can move and a lot of people are saying, maybe
1:58:31
Speaker 7: take Sergachev off the first power play unit. They even
1:58:34
Speaker 7: floated the idea on the broadcast, which made me very
1:58:36
Speaker 7: surprised the other day. But you know, everybody knows you're
1:58:40
Speaker 7: going to try to set up Dylan Gunther for the
1:58:42
Speaker 7: one time over there, and then they take that away
1:58:44
Speaker 7: and okay, use him as bait, moose Sergachev down to
1:58:47
Speaker 7: the other side. Have now two one time options and
1:58:50
Speaker 7: then have somebody else running it through the top of
1:58:52
Speaker 7: the blue line, or change the x's and o's completely.
1:58:55
Speaker 7: You're right. I would I throw the whole thing in
1:58:57
Speaker 7: a blender and hit for ape right now, because what
1:59:01
Speaker 7: you're doing is not working. You're dead last there was
1:59:04
Speaker 7: nowhere else to go but up. So why don't you
1:59:08
Speaker 7: change the personnel? That's a question and what kills me? Oh,
1:59:13
Speaker 7: I'm glad you brought this up. I have thoughts Andre Tourney.
1:59:17
Speaker 7: Every time he talks postgame or morning skate or whenever
1:59:21
Speaker 7: a practice about it, always says, yeah, we're not And
1:59:24
Speaker 7: he said this the other day. Yeah, we just don't
1:59:26
Speaker 7: seem to have any execution right now. We don't seem
1:59:30
Speaker 7: to have things go on our way. For whatever reason.
1:59:33
Speaker 8: And you know, it's almost like he just it's like
1:59:38
Speaker 8: he's passing the buck. And the question is it's like, okay, well,
1:59:42
Speaker 8: if you're saying that they don't have any swagger on
1:59:45
Speaker 8: the power play and they don't have the execution on
1:59:47
Speaker 8: the power play, I'm like, isn't that your job to
1:59:52
Speaker 8: make that change?
1:59:54
Speaker 7: And it's just I feel like he's just passing the
1:59:56
Speaker 7: buck down to the assistant coaches. And look, that's fine
1:59:59
Speaker 7: if they're running the power but as the head coach, man,
2:00:01
Speaker 7: I expect something out of you too.
2:00:06
Speaker 3: I mean, it makes perfect sense to say, halt the insanity,
2:00:12
Speaker 3: make the change, don't blame it on the analytics, don't
2:00:14
Speaker 3: blame it on anything else. Just like and if you
2:00:17
Speaker 3: want to give credit to somebody else when it starts
2:00:20
Speaker 3: to get fixed, go ahead and do that. But man,
2:00:23
Speaker 3: it doesn't make a lot of sense to keep doing
2:00:25
Speaker 3: these things the same way. Tom Callahan, by the way,
2:00:27
Speaker 3: our guest here talking Utah Mammoth. Let's stay on this
2:00:31
Speaker 3: for just another second. If let's say they made that
2:00:33
Speaker 3: decision today, like all right, guys, we gotta do this.
2:00:37
Speaker 2: We've got to I like how you said it. We
2:00:39
Speaker 2: got to throw it in the blender.
2:00:41
Speaker 3: Do you do it against Vancouver, a team that's bad
2:00:44
Speaker 3: enough that you can probably make a couple of mistakes
2:00:47
Speaker 3: or have things go poorly and still survive it, Or
2:00:50
Speaker 3: do you do it you know in the more like
2:00:54
Speaker 3: Colorado Minnesota are coming up at the end of February.
2:00:57
Speaker 3: When do you do it? Does it matter what opponent
2:01:00
Speaker 3: you do it against?
2:01:02
Speaker 7: Well, I think Vancouver is a great time to do
2:01:04
Speaker 7: it because they're dead lasting penalty kill. So yes, this
2:01:08
Speaker 7: is your prime opponent to try some new stuff because yeah,
2:01:11
Speaker 7: you can probably get away with a little more.
2:01:13
Speaker 1: That said, I.
2:01:14
Speaker 7: Mean, so that's interesting, right, the worst power play against
2:01:18
Speaker 7: the worst penalty kill for special teams. You also have
2:01:20
Speaker 7: the Olympic break coming up, and so knowing that if
2:01:24
Speaker 7: you start to install a new system now or a
2:01:28
Speaker 7: new personnel now, look, you're going to bruise some egos
2:01:31
Speaker 7: and that's part of the problem. But at the end
2:01:34
Speaker 7: of the day, if you put in a new system
2:01:36
Speaker 7: now and you let guys work through the x's and o's,
2:01:39
Speaker 7: you've got two games before the Olympic break, and then
2:01:42
Speaker 7: you've got some time where they can think about it,
2:01:44
Speaker 7: try to adjust to it, and then you'll have practices
2:01:46
Speaker 7: coming back. It'll be like a tiny little mini training
2:01:49
Speaker 7: camp after the Olympics. I think this is the perfect
2:01:51
Speaker 7: time to do it, with the way the break in
2:01:52
Speaker 7: the schedule works out. Absolutely, now is the time.
2:01:57
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that Olympic break.
2:02:00
Speaker 3: Obviously, Team USA, we're going to see Clayton Keller in
2:02:03
Speaker 3: what is a lot of us felt like kind of
2:02:05
Speaker 3: an overdue chance to represent Team USA left out of
2:02:08
Speaker 3: four nations last year. And when you see the form
2:02:11
Speaker 3: he's in right now, are you optimistic that this is
2:02:14
Speaker 3: going to be an excellent Olympic tournament for him?
2:02:17
Speaker 7: You know what, he loves the international stage. I mean,
2:02:20
Speaker 7: he just steps up. Look at him last year at
2:02:22
Speaker 7: the World Championship as the captain of Team USA led
2:02:26
Speaker 7: him to that title, which was fantastic. I do think
2:02:32
Speaker 7: he's a big time player. I think when the lights
2:02:34
Speaker 7: are brightest, he's at his best. And I'm excited to
2:02:38
Speaker 7: see what he's going to do. I absolutely think it's
2:02:40
Speaker 7: going to be turned up for him. And of course,
2:02:42
Speaker 7: you know we're all going to be pumped for him,
2:02:44
Speaker 7: and you know the other guys that are going to
2:02:46
Speaker 7: their respectab Olympic teams as well. But I like this,
2:02:49
Speaker 7: and you know what this bodes well for when they
2:02:51
Speaker 7: get into a playoff run with Keller at the Helm
2:02:54
Speaker 7: and this is exactly what this is, a training ground
2:02:56
Speaker 7: and a preparation for I think he is going to
2:03:00
Speaker 7: be a big time performer. And that's why I'm excited
2:03:05
Speaker 7: to watch his Olympic tournament because I think he's going
2:03:08
Speaker 7: to be one of the names that there are people
2:03:11
Speaker 7: who still don't know who he is. Ninety point season
2:03:14
Speaker 7: last year, people still don't know who he is. I
2:03:15
Speaker 7: think this could be a bit of a coming out
2:03:17
Speaker 7: party for.
2:03:18
Speaker 3: Him as we talk about, you know, not necessarily Olympics,
2:03:24
Speaker 3: but the way this whole season is going, we've beaten
2:03:27
Speaker 3: to death the point that here in the best division
2:03:29
Speaker 3: in hockey right now, three of the top teams in
2:03:31
Speaker 3: the NHL are right above you in your own division,
2:03:35
Speaker 3: and we know that this is, you know, still a rebuild,
2:03:38
Speaker 3: although expectations have elevated for the Utah Mammoth. When we're
2:03:43
Speaker 3: looking at the grand landscape of this NHL season, is
2:03:47
Speaker 3: it Colorado's cup to lose?
2:03:50
Speaker 2: At this point?
2:03:51
Speaker 3: Do we have enough of a sample size that you're
2:03:53
Speaker 3: confident in saying that is there a team in the
2:03:55
Speaker 3: East that you think could unseat the Avalanche as we
2:03:59
Speaker 3: get down toward playoff time? What are we looking at
2:04:02
Speaker 3: as we handicap the league as a whole.
2:04:05
Speaker 7: Well, first of all, I want to retire the phrase
2:04:07
Speaker 7: we're in a rebuild. We aren't anymore at the beginning
2:04:10
Speaker 7: of the year. This is playoffs or bust for the
2:04:12
Speaker 7: Utah mamma. And that's where it is going forward. So
2:04:14
Speaker 7: we're out of the rebuild. Now, let's stop. That's five
2:04:16
Speaker 7: years of that and that's a message to the fans
2:04:19
Speaker 7: really for me, and I know the front office is
2:04:21
Speaker 7: going to say what they're going to say, but it's
2:04:23
Speaker 7: time let's go forward. So that said, you know what,
2:04:28
Speaker 7: Colorado is great. They're deep, they are a difficult team
2:04:32
Speaker 7: to beat. They have a lot of good things going
2:04:33
Speaker 7: for him, and I know they've cooled off a bit here lately.
2:04:36
Speaker 7: I like Colorado. I love the way Dallas is built.
2:04:39
Speaker 7: They are also a very deep team that really adheres
2:04:42
Speaker 7: to their system. They play really good hockey, and I
2:04:46
Speaker 7: actually like their goaltending a little bit better than Colorado's goaltending.
2:04:50
Speaker 7: Over in the East, Tampa Bay is crazy good right now.
2:04:56
Speaker 7: The Lightning look amazing. They look like the that won
2:05:00
Speaker 7: the Stanley Cup a couple of years ago, which should
2:05:02
Speaker 7: scare everyone else. That team is just they're putting it
2:05:07
Speaker 7: together at the right time. But the other team that
2:05:10
Speaker 7: I think folks might be sleeping on a little bit
2:05:12
Speaker 7: right now, watch out for the Carolina Hurricanes. They're riding
2:05:16
Speaker 7: a young goaltender who is just feeling it right now.
2:05:20
Speaker 7: I don't know if he's going to run out of
2:05:21
Speaker 7: gas eventually or not. I feel like that's almost the
2:05:23
Speaker 7: only thing that could derail them. But Rod Britdamore has them.
2:05:27
Speaker 7: And you talk about another team that plays its system
2:05:29
Speaker 7: to a t. Carolina is patient, it's physical. They wear
2:05:32
Speaker 7: you down, they wait for you to make a mistake
2:05:35
Speaker 7: and then they pounce on it. And that is a
2:05:37
Speaker 7: very frustrating formula in a playoff series. I think the
2:05:41
Speaker 7: Carolina Hurricanes are another team to watch out.
2:05:43
Speaker 3: For as far as the Western Conference wild card in
2:05:46
Speaker 3: playoff race goes. Last year, toward the end of the season,
2:05:50
Speaker 3: right we're looking at it, we're counting points, we're seeing
2:05:52
Speaker 3: how many games are left, and it's like, all right, yes,
2:05:56
Speaker 3: we know who you're chasing right now. Above the mammoth,
2:05:58
Speaker 3: they're obviously you know the three teams in division Colorado, Minnesota, Dallas.
2:06:04
Speaker 3: You've got Vegas and Edmonton. You've got Seattle and Anaheim
2:06:08
Speaker 3: and LA that are all within that like striking distance.
2:06:11
Speaker 3: But then right behind you you've got sharks, predators. When
2:06:17
Speaker 3: you look at the teams that could be poised to
2:06:20
Speaker 3: make a Saint Louis Blues from last year type run
2:06:23
Speaker 3: that are right now trailing the mammoth, 're in that
2:06:25
Speaker 3: same neighborhood as the mammoth. Is there anyone out there
2:06:28
Speaker 3: that you're like, that's a lurking giant or at least
2:06:31
Speaker 3: a lurking problem problem.
2:06:34
Speaker 7: Well, man, we really could say that about a lot
2:06:36
Speaker 7: of teams because of how bunched up it is right
2:06:39
Speaker 7: now for the wild card. So as of today, Utah
2:06:43
Speaker 7: has kind of fallen back out, Anaheim and Los Angeles
2:06:46
Speaker 7: have gotten in front of them. And I can make
2:06:48
Speaker 7: a million cases for why Anaheim will fall out, LA
2:06:51
Speaker 7: will get stronger. San Jose should fall out, Winnipeg will
2:06:54
Speaker 7: get stronger. But that's kind of the crazy thing is
2:06:57
Speaker 7: between the injuries and really the the thing we don't
2:07:00
Speaker 7: know is this year's Olympic break that pack. That is
2:07:05
Speaker 7: those really six or seven teams, and I include even
2:07:10
Speaker 7: Seattle in that one in Evanton, Vegas. Aren't they far
2:07:12
Speaker 7: out in front of the Pacific. Anything could happen. But
2:07:14
Speaker 7: what the deal is is these teams are all playing
2:07:17
Speaker 7: one another every single night, and no one really is
2:07:21
Speaker 7: gaining any ground. And this is where if you're Utah,
2:07:25
Speaker 7: it is so important to not turn anything into a
2:07:28
Speaker 7: three point game, meaning don't go past regulation and give
2:07:31
Speaker 7: the other teams a point because San Jose believes in
2:07:34
Speaker 7: themselves right now, that's what makes them dangerous. I don't
2:07:39
Speaker 7: know if Nashville is going to keep it up or not.
2:07:41
Speaker 7: I feel like Winnipeg is better than they've shown, but
2:07:44
Speaker 7: they better hurry. But La is good. The ducks are good,
2:07:48
Speaker 7: the cracking are good, and I should say good enough,
2:07:51
Speaker 7: you know, and the Mammoth are good enough that they
2:07:54
Speaker 7: need to continue to pick up these points where they can.
2:07:57
Speaker 7: What you hope is is that in the Pacific, one
2:08:02
Speaker 7: or two of Seattle, Anaheim, La San Jose just starts
2:08:06
Speaker 7: to shammer on those other teams and beat them down
2:08:09
Speaker 7: the standings for you, because right now the parody in
2:08:12
Speaker 7: the Pacific will actually hurt the Mammoth chance for a
2:08:15
Speaker 7: wildcard position. So you have to hope that the Pacific somebody,
2:08:19
Speaker 7: I don't care who it is, but somebody starts to
2:08:21
Speaker 7: separate themselves out and start to put away games and
2:08:25
Speaker 7: create a gap.
2:08:27
Speaker 3: Need to see those Mammoth get some a clean couple
2:08:30
Speaker 3: points tonight against a very vulnerable Canucks team that is
2:08:35
Speaker 3: seven point thirty puck drop on ESPN Plus. And obviously
2:08:41
Speaker 3: Tom Callahan and company will be leading you into it,
2:08:43
Speaker 3: talking about it tomorrow, talking about it the next day.
2:08:48
Speaker 5: Tom.
2:08:48
Speaker 2: Always appreciate your time and your insight. Thank you, sir,
2:08:52
Speaker 2: thanks for having me on.
2:08:53
Speaker 7: And yeah, big two points tonight, Fingers crossed.
2:08:57
Speaker 2: If you're not.
2:08:58
Speaker 3: Already following It's Callahan on air on Twitter. Tom Callahan
2:09:02
Speaker 3: and Utah Mammoth insider and host of the Lockedown Mammoth podcast.
2:09:06
Speaker 3: Very very dialed in on all things NHL, as you
2:09:08
Speaker 3: could tell by that conversation.
2:09:12
Speaker 2: Look, I know it's low.
2:09:14
Speaker 3: Hanging fruit and it's just an old adage, but you've
2:09:17
Speaker 3: got to beat the teams that you're supposed to beat.
2:09:20
Speaker 3: That's one characteristic of good teams. They don't make a
2:09:25
Speaker 3: big fuss out of smashing the teams at the bottom
2:09:28
Speaker 3: of the league, bottom of the conference, bottom of the division.
2:09:30
Speaker 2: You just go out, you take care of business.
2:09:33
Speaker 3: You got to be professional in those cases just as
2:09:36
Speaker 3: much as you do when you're trying to rise to
2:09:38
Speaker 3: the occasion to take on a couple of the better
2:09:40
Speaker 3: teams Minnesota and Colorado coming in. Like I said, end
2:09:44
Speaker 3: of February, those are gonna be tough games. You got
2:09:46
Speaker 3: the Detroit Red Wings. That's a very very winnable game
2:09:48
Speaker 3: that's coming up in just a couple of days. So
2:09:51
Speaker 3: this should be a four point week, and if you
2:09:54
Speaker 3: don't have that happen, you've probably wasted some opportunities in
2:09:58
Speaker 3: a very very tight Western conf It's wild card.
2:10:00
Speaker 2: Race, all right.
2:10:04
Speaker 3: Big basketball games over the weekend, running utes in action,
2:10:08
Speaker 3: women's basketball in action, and obviously a huge nationally featured
2:10:13
Speaker 3: Big twelve contest with BYU as well.
2:10:16
Speaker 2: We'll get to all of that next on The Shot
2:10:17
Speaker 2: O'Connell Show.
2:10:18
Speaker 3: It's ESPN seven hundred ninety two one FM.
2:10:25
Speaker 1: You tune to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
2:10:28
Speaker 1: show Rolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred at ninety two
2:10:32
Speaker 1: one a fn.
2:10:35
Speaker 3: SO College Hoops to discuss here on ESPN seven hundred
2:10:38
Speaker 3: ninety to one FM.
2:10:40
Speaker 2: Rough one over the.
2:10:41
Speaker 3: Weekend for the Running Utes for the Lady Utes, sixty
2:10:46
Speaker 3: five seventy seven for Gavin Peterson's squad fell to BYU
2:10:50
Speaker 3: on the road, their first loss on the road so
2:10:52
Speaker 3: far this year. And we had Coach Pete on on
2:10:55
Speaker 3: Friday and we were talking about, you know, the the
2:10:59
Speaker 3: best version of the Utah basketball team. Utah women's basketball
2:11:02
Speaker 3: team will see a third scoring option to merge, guys,
2:11:07
Speaker 3: I'm not giving you the secret to civilization here, but
2:11:12
Speaker 3: it didn't happen against BYU. Kira Evans did her level
2:11:17
Speaker 3: best by adding eleven, but Lonnie White with twenty points,
2:11:20
Speaker 3: Matty Wilkie with eighteen points. He didn't get much offensively
2:11:24
Speaker 3: out of Res Ross or Brooke Walker. La Snead came
2:11:28
Speaker 3: off the bench in this one was only good for
2:11:31
Speaker 3: six points. So you just didn't have enough in terms
2:11:35
Speaker 3: of the scoring. And as all of you know, that's
2:11:38
Speaker 3: what you need in order to win basketball games. Credit
2:11:41
Speaker 3: to BYU who found themselves with four players in double digits.
2:11:47
Speaker 3: So Rough one on the road for Utah women's basketball.
2:11:53
Speaker 3: As tournament time is right around the corner in the
2:11:56
Speaker 3: men's game. These were played on the same day. The
2:11:59
Speaker 3: women were over on our sister station ninety two five
2:12:02
Speaker 3: to beat. You were listening to ESPN seven hundred and
2:12:05
Speaker 3: ninety twe FM for running uts basketball, and we talked
2:12:08
Speaker 3: about how this was a big opportunity against Oklahoma State,
2:12:12
Speaker 3: a very beaticule Oklahoma State team for Alex Jensen and
2:12:15
Speaker 3: his crew to get another conference win, as you're trying
2:12:20
Speaker 3: to do this rebuild and it's going to take time,
2:12:22
Speaker 3: and we know this.
2:12:23
Speaker 2: The fan base showed up there.
2:12:25
Speaker 3: It was a decently attended game at the Huntsman Center,
2:12:28
Speaker 3: and again, unfortunately, just not enough in the tank.
2:12:32
Speaker 2: Eighty one sixty nine.
2:12:34
Speaker 3: Utah falls to one and seven in Big twelve play
2:12:38
Speaker 3: and the growing pains continue, but you are growing. You
2:12:43
Speaker 3: had another good game out of Terrence Brown, You had
2:12:46
Speaker 3: a solid game out of Don McHenry. Would have liked
2:12:49
Speaker 3: to see him be a little bit more efficient from
2:12:51
Speaker 3: the three point line. Keanu Dawes with twelve points, say
2:12:55
Speaker 3: who had ten? Not much out of your bench, and
2:12:58
Speaker 3: there was not a lot of not a lot of
2:13:00
Speaker 3: they played three guys. This was a seven It was
2:13:02
Speaker 3: an eight person game for Utah basketball, so short bench
2:13:08
Speaker 3: for Alex Jensen against Oklahoma State and unfortunately not able
2:13:13
Speaker 3: to get that done up. Next for Utah men's basketball
2:13:17
Speaker 3: will be Arizona State that's coming on Wednesday. This is
2:13:22
Speaker 3: another team that is struggling in Big Twelve play. They
2:13:26
Speaker 3: have two conference wins right now. There are team chemistry problems.
2:13:30
Speaker 2: You have a.
2:13:30
Speaker 3: Lunatic coach down there at Arizona State. This is a
2:13:33
Speaker 3: winnable game at the Huntsman. Hopefully Alex Jensen and crew
2:13:39
Speaker 3: can get this thing together. The more relevant game from
2:13:44
Speaker 3: a national standpoint took place with BYU on the road
2:13:49
Speaker 3: against Kansas. This is of course BYU coming off. They're
2:13:53
Speaker 3: loss to number one Arizona eighty six eighty three. They
2:13:56
Speaker 3: made that a heck of a game. Now here, I
2:14:01
Speaker 3: don't want to dunk on anybody. I'm not trying to
2:14:06
Speaker 3: have any kind of satisfied, self satisfied, smarmy tone to this.
2:14:11
Speaker 3: But one of the ultimate frustrations of the modern era
2:14:15
Speaker 3: of college sports, especially that you're gonna find people running
2:14:18
Speaker 3: into and you already see in certain spots, is when
2:14:24
Speaker 3: there's a massive commitment toward a certain end. Often that
2:14:29
Speaker 3: commitment is financial, and it does not bear the fruit
2:14:32
Speaker 3: that people expected to bear. You're going to see people
2:14:36
Speaker 3: starting to question the system question, the commitment question, the
2:14:40
Speaker 3: issues BYU is probably not there yet. I shouldn't say probably,
2:14:43
Speaker 3: They're definitely not there yet. But the last time AJ
2:14:49
Speaker 3: Debonsa had a really really good game against a top
2:14:54
Speaker 3: flight opponent was in the preseason against Yukon. Now I
2:15:03
Speaker 3: have to be fair to Aj and tell you that, like,
2:15:07
Speaker 3: what means a really really good game for Aj Debonsa
2:15:10
Speaker 3: is a lot different than how it looks for a
2:15:12
Speaker 3: really really good game for anyone playing for the Running
2:15:15
Speaker 3: Utes right now, or most people in the country for
2:15:17
Speaker 3: that matter. The bar is elevated when it comes to
2:15:21
Speaker 3: expectations for a guy who's projected to be a top two,
2:15:25
Speaker 3: top three pick of the upcoming NBA lottery. But Aj
2:15:29
Speaker 3: Debonsa against Arizona, we already talked about this game enough.
2:15:32
Speaker 3: AJ Debonsa was one for eight from three in that game.
2:15:36
Speaker 3: He was six of twenty four from the field in
2:15:39
Speaker 3: that game. Now, he got to the free throw line
2:15:42
Speaker 3: a lot. He still scored twenty four points in that game,
2:15:46
Speaker 3: But it was not the outing that you probably expect
2:15:49
Speaker 3: from a player who's on whatever it is, seven and
2:15:52
Speaker 3: a half million dollars or whatever it is we decide
2:15:55
Speaker 3: he's actually making. That's against Arizona, that's the number one
2:15:58
Speaker 3: team in the country. They're gonna make a lot of
2:16:00
Speaker 3: people look bad. They're gonna make a lot of people
2:16:03
Speaker 3: look like they're not really equipped the way that they
2:16:09
Speaker 3: need to be to win tournament games. Fast forward to
2:16:12
Speaker 3: this weekend number thirteen BYU number fourteen Kansas. Another big
2:16:17
Speaker 3: time matchup where you're facing a team with another lottery
2:16:21
Speaker 3: type player or players. Right, you're facing teams with NBA
2:16:25
Speaker 3: guys on that side as well, ninety eighty two, So
2:16:30
Speaker 3: this one not even as close as BYU's game against
2:16:33
Speaker 3: number one Arizona. Of course, this was played at Allen
2:16:37
Speaker 3: field House instead of at the Marriott Center, so that
2:16:39
Speaker 3: makes a big difference. And again aj debonsa seventeen points
2:16:43
Speaker 3: in this one. He shot fifty percent from the field,
2:16:46
Speaker 3: fifty percent from three, He got three or four at
2:16:49
Speaker 3: the stripe, and Richie Saunders was the guy who took
2:16:54
Speaker 3: over the scoring load for BYU. Rob Wright was the
2:16:58
Speaker 3: second leading scorer there. You didn't get anything out of
2:17:00
Speaker 3: the bench, which is a problem for everyone. And we
2:17:02
Speaker 3: talked with Jonathan Tabernari about this last week or I
2:17:06
Speaker 3: guess it's two weeks ago now about how you know,
2:17:10
Speaker 3: once you get past that kind of big three, big
2:17:12
Speaker 3: four for BYU, it's starting to get thin. And again,
2:17:17
Speaker 3: why does it matter? Well, this is a conference opponent,
2:17:19
Speaker 3: this is your rival. This is a team that's a
2:17:22
Speaker 3: lot further along in their development than where Utah basketball
2:17:25
Speaker 3: is at right now. And this is the I mean,
2:17:28
Speaker 3: one of the national storylines headlines in college basketball was
2:17:33
Speaker 3: the roster that this BYU team was able to put
2:17:36
Speaker 3: together and the fact that the number one overall recruit
2:17:39
Speaker 3: was now coming and he was going to do his thing.
2:17:41
Speaker 3: And you get six months of AJ Debonsa, and you
2:17:45
Speaker 3: get six games of AJ Debonsa in the regular season
2:17:48
Speaker 3: at least where an opponent is considered a premier opponent,
2:17:52
Speaker 3: and so far he's like one for four in taking
2:17:57
Speaker 3: over and really excelling in those big time matchups. Again,
2:18:03
Speaker 3: I realize the bar is unfairly high when we're talking
2:18:06
Speaker 3: about a true freshman, but them's the breaks.
2:18:09
Speaker 2: Right.
2:18:11
Speaker 3: Are we at a point now where it's safe to say,
2:18:15
Speaker 3: or it's appropriate to ask, is probably a better way
2:18:18
Speaker 3: to approach this, is it appropriate to ask, now whether
2:18:22
Speaker 3: or not Aj Debonsa is having some struggles in big
2:18:25
Speaker 3: time games. He will smash and demolish and destroy everyone
2:18:31
Speaker 3: who is beneath him. In college basketball, we've seen that,
2:18:35
Speaker 3: and that is sometimes a characteristic of hyper athletic front
2:18:42
Speaker 3: runner type players. But when he's facing NBA competition, not
2:18:47
Speaker 3: even the guy that's directly opposite him and guarding him,
2:18:52
Speaker 3: is it time to start questioning whether or not Aj
2:18:54
Speaker 3: Debonsa is ready for that as we get closer to
2:18:59
Speaker 3: turn and time. Because James, you know this as well
2:19:02
Speaker 3: as I do. You don't dump that kind of commitment
2:19:05
Speaker 3: and money into what these are all rentals. AJ's a rental.
2:19:09
Speaker 3: Rob Wright is a rental. You don't spend whatever ten
2:19:13
Speaker 3: million between the two of them hoping that you get
2:19:17
Speaker 3: to the NCAA tournament and you're out in the first weekend.
2:19:22
Speaker 3: Is it fair to start questioning the sustainability of what
2:19:25
Speaker 3: Aj Debonsa is against elite competition or something like eleite competition.
2:19:31
Speaker 2: I think it's.
2:19:31
Speaker 5: Fair to question that at the college level. You could,
2:19:37
Speaker 5: I mean, last year, Cooper Flag was no doubt about it,
2:19:41
Speaker 5: number one overall pick right, and he's having a Rookie
2:19:46
Speaker 5: of the year, putting up historic numbers for a rookie
2:19:48
Speaker 5: in the NBA right now. Historic for he just broke
2:19:51
Speaker 5: the single game record for a teenager in NBA history,
2:19:55
Speaker 5: which is nuts to think that he's not even twenty yet.
2:19:57
Speaker 5: But he also had his moments in clutch time last year,
2:20:07
Speaker 5: including how they lost in the Final four to Houston,
2:20:10
Speaker 5: where it's like, where'd Cooper Flag go? And yet he's translating,
2:20:15
Speaker 5: at least in an individual standpoint, really well in his
2:20:17
Speaker 5: in his first year in the NBA.
2:20:19
Speaker 3: So I think, I mean, yeah, you're right, You're it's
2:20:20
Speaker 3: a it's a well made point. You Also, you don't
2:20:22
Speaker 3: even have to go to Cooper Flag like Jegor Demon.
2:20:25
Speaker 3: Aj De Bounce is a better college player than Yegor
2:20:29
Speaker 3: Demon was last year. He's more impressive. He's more like
2:20:33
Speaker 3: an obvious goodbye than like good well money well spent
2:20:41
Speaker 3: b U Y For for aj, it's like, yeah, dude,
2:20:44
Speaker 3: this he's one of the top players in the country.
2:20:47
Speaker 3: It's a lot more obvious with him than it was
2:20:50
Speaker 3: when Jegor Demon was wearing a b YU jersey last year. Absolutely,
2:20:53
Speaker 3: Yegor's come along quite nicely in Brooklyn.
2:20:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, right now, he's uh, he's doing really well, especially
2:21:01
Speaker 5: recently in recent weeks in Brooklyn. So yeah, it's it's
2:21:05
Speaker 5: a different I guess what I'm getting at is it's different.
2:21:11
Speaker 5: It's almost a completely different game college basketball to NBA basketball.
2:21:17
Speaker 5: And we talked about the amount of we touched on
2:21:20
Speaker 5: part of the reason why the the ISO play in
2:21:24
Speaker 5: the NBA so isolation heavy. It's obviously way less zone
2:21:29
Speaker 5: played in the NBA than in college, so that favors
2:21:33
Speaker 5: guys like AJ Devonsa and how athletic he is that
2:21:38
Speaker 5: the NBA game favors him more than the college game does.
2:21:41
Speaker 5: So there that's a reason. But also I just think
2:21:45
Speaker 5: I think it's too early to say, and it would
2:21:47
Speaker 5: be unfair to say because he's struggling against relatively struggling
2:21:52
Speaker 5: against tougher competition at the college level as a freshman,
2:21:56
Speaker 5: that means he's going to he's we can question how
2:22:01
Speaker 5: much he's gonna work out in the NBA. I think
2:22:03
Speaker 5: we definitely have to see. Oh, for me, that's not happened.
2:22:06
Speaker 5: For me, that's not the question.
2:22:07
Speaker 3: Because this is because like a guy who's built like that,
2:22:12
Speaker 3: who has this level of skill already. Even if you
2:22:15
Speaker 3: have to wait till his second or third year in
2:22:17
Speaker 3: the NBA, it's gonna come through. Yeah, Like I just
2:22:20
Speaker 3: I'm convinced. However, BYU does not have time to be patient.
2:22:27
Speaker 3: You from BYU, you certainly, and that's start question. That's
2:22:30
Speaker 3: really all I care about here because BYU brought this
2:22:34
Speaker 3: guy in, They backed up a truckload of money for him,
2:22:38
Speaker 3: and they set this precedent like, we want to be
2:22:41
Speaker 3: in the market for the top players in the country.
2:22:45
Speaker 3: And the way that you stay in that conversation is
2:22:47
Speaker 3: certainly with the nil stuff, but it's also that guy
2:22:51
Speaker 3: has to win you the games, has to win you
2:22:53
Speaker 3: the big games. You have to be because when you
2:22:55
Speaker 3: are an AJ Debonsa and you have all these options, right,
2:23:00
Speaker 3: part of that option is, well, I want to go
2:23:02
Speaker 3: to the team that's going to get to the final four.
2:23:04
Speaker 3: I want to go play for the team that's going
2:23:06
Speaker 3: to be in the Elite eight at least, and BYU
2:23:10
Speaker 3: hasn't been there recently and they expect AJ.
2:23:13
Speaker 2: To take them there.
2:23:15
Speaker 3: And part of the return on investment of a guy
2:23:18
Speaker 3: like that is that you elevate here. Now it may
2:23:22
Speaker 3: very well happen, and he's the type of player that
2:23:24
Speaker 3: could just find another gear when we get to tournament time,
2:23:28
Speaker 3: and maybe Kevin Young will put him in a situation
2:23:30
Speaker 3: where he's just like, look, dude, I've been protecting you
2:23:34
Speaker 3: all year. We didn't want to burn you out, we
2:23:35
Speaker 3: didn't want to wear you out. Now I just need
2:23:38
Speaker 3: eight great games from you. Conference tournament, NCAA tournament. I
2:23:42
Speaker 3: just empty the tank for me, and maybe that carries
2:23:45
Speaker 3: BYU to where they need to be. But the teams
2:23:50
Speaker 3: that they're going to be facing at the top of
2:23:52
Speaker 3: the Big twelve tournament and the teams are going to
2:23:54
Speaker 3: be facing in the NCAA tournament, that type of competition.
2:23:58
Speaker 2: AJ has looked a little shaky against.
2:24:02
Speaker 5: It's definitely it's definitely a concern for for BYU this
2:24:07
Speaker 5: year because they put themselves in the position with the
2:24:09
Speaker 5: amount of money they've spent on two guys, by the way,
2:24:13
Speaker 5: just the two guys that they spent the most money with,
2:24:16
Speaker 5: allegedly uh Ajed Mansa and Rob Wright. That's that's, as
2:24:22
Speaker 5: you said, about ten million dollars on two guys. That's
2:24:25
Speaker 5: more than Utah's and maybe one other one or two
2:24:29
Speaker 5: other teams roster combined what they put and they did
2:24:33
Speaker 5: that from two of their starters. Right that that kind
2:24:38
Speaker 5: of money you spend the Sweet sixteen, your fourth ever
2:24:43
Speaker 5: Sweet sixteen is not good enough. Like you're getting to
2:24:46
Speaker 5: the sweet sixteen again as as I as I put
2:24:49
Speaker 5: out there just now, that's a benchmark. That's a big
2:24:54
Speaker 5: thing for any school, but for BYU hasn't been there
2:24:57
Speaker 5: very much in their history. That's in a normal year,
2:25:00
Speaker 5: that's a big deal. This is not a normal year.
2:25:04
Speaker 5: This is not necessarily Final four or bust. But it's
2:25:06
Speaker 5: certainly got to get out of the first weekend. And
2:25:11
Speaker 5: if you lose in the sweet sixteen, especially in blow
2:25:14
Speaker 5: up fashion like they did last year to Alabama with
2:25:17
Speaker 5: this roster, people are gonna be really disappointed. The honeymoon
2:25:21
Speaker 5: period of Hey, look at how much money we have
2:25:24
Speaker 5: and look at the kind of players we can attract
2:25:26
Speaker 5: here with that money and with our culture with.
2:25:29
Speaker 2: Kevin Young as early as next year.
2:25:33
Speaker 5: If you have a if you if you lose earlier
2:25:36
Speaker 5: than you expect to in the tournament, even sweet sixteen,
2:25:40
Speaker 5: which again big deal historically for BYU to get that far,
2:25:44
Speaker 5: that honeymoon period's gonna be over.
2:25:47
Speaker 3: I know nothing about Tyrone Stokes, who is the number
2:25:51
Speaker 3: one player for next year, this graduating class of twenty
2:25:55
Speaker 3: twenty six in high school. I know nothing about this
2:25:58
Speaker 3: guy other than that he's from Rainier Beach High School
2:26:02
Speaker 3: in Seattle, Washington. He's six foot seventies two hundred and
2:26:05
Speaker 3: thirty pounds, and he has BYU nowhere near his recruiting profile.
2:26:12
Speaker 3: You're not getting the top player in the country coming
2:26:14
Speaker 3: out of high school again next year, You're not. He's
2:26:18
Speaker 3: he's gonna go to Kansas. He's going to go to Kentucky.
2:26:21
Speaker 3: He's gonna go I guess he's interested in Oregon, probably
2:26:24
Speaker 3: because of the obvious reasons there, the number two player
2:26:27
Speaker 3: in the country's already signed with Duke U. There aj
2:26:33
Speaker 3: Debonsa is this kind of like magical unicorn of circumstance
2:26:38
Speaker 3: for BYU that you have to capitalize on right now,
2:26:41
Speaker 3: and so far I have not yet seen good reason
2:26:45
Speaker 3: to believe they're gonna be able to capitalize on it.
2:26:48
Speaker 3: I've been wrong about more serious things, so I won't
2:26:52
Speaker 3: be shocked if all of a sudden he's just like, Okay,
2:26:56
Speaker 3: now I'm ready.
2:26:56
Speaker 5: They certainly and he individually certainly has the talent to
2:27:03
Speaker 5: be like, Okay, I figured this out. I figured out
2:27:07
Speaker 5: this college basketball level thing. My coach has figured out
2:27:10
Speaker 5: how to use me. Whatever it is, whatever the things
2:27:13
Speaker 5: that are holding him back in these kind of games
2:27:16
Speaker 5: are for him to there, there's certainly a chance for
2:27:21
Speaker 5: there's still time for them to figure that out, and
2:27:23
Speaker 5: he certainly has the talent to capitalize on that if
2:27:29
Speaker 5: they're able to figure that out. And BYU could still
2:27:31
Speaker 5: end up having a Final Four run like many people
2:27:36
Speaker 5: thought they might before the season started, but it's not
2:27:41
Speaker 5: looking that way right now.
2:27:43
Speaker 3: Right now, there are one in four against top twenty
2:27:45
Speaker 3: five teams. Yeah, in college troops, they have Houston coming up,
2:27:52
Speaker 3: which is I mean, that's a home game for BYU,
2:27:54
Speaker 3: but that's a really tough out.
2:27:56
Speaker 2: Then they're on the road at Arizona.
2:27:58
Speaker 3: After it's Baylor Colorado that on the road at Arizona,
2:28:01
Speaker 3: and then three days later they've got the number seven
2:28:04
Speaker 3: Iowa State Cyclones. So you still have they finished the
2:28:08
Speaker 3: season with the ranked Texas Tech team. You still have
2:28:11
Speaker 3: some opportunities. But right now, that's what we have seen
2:28:16
Speaker 3: so far from BYU, from AJ specifically, and that's you
2:28:20
Speaker 3: put a ton of eggs in this basket, so we'll
2:28:24
Speaker 3: see how it plays out. All right, what are we
2:28:27
Speaker 3: giving away today, James? We'll do that in some trivia
2:28:32
Speaker 3: here on Super Bowl Week. We have two tickets to
2:28:36
Speaker 3: the Black Crows coming in August to Utah First Credit
2:28:40
Speaker 3: Union Amphitheater. Cross Talk powered by Advanced Windows is next.
2:28:44
Speaker 3: It's the Sean O'Connell Show on Utah's number one Sports
2:28:47
Speaker 3: Talk ESPN seven hundred.
2:28:53
Speaker 1: You were listening to the Sean O'Connell Show for the
2:28:55
Speaker 1: Murdoch Hunting Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety one
2:29:00
Speaker 1: A half am.
2:29:04
Speaker 3: All right, some some tickets to giveaway here on the
2:29:08
Speaker 3: Sean O'Connell show. Black Crows coming eight thirteen, that's August
2:29:13
Speaker 3: thirteenth to the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheater eight seven
2:29:17
Speaker 3: seven three five three zero seven hundred.
2:29:19
Speaker 2: Where to the Utah Mammoth rank in power play goals?
2:29:23
Speaker 2: Right now?
2:29:23
Speaker 3: In the NHL eight seven seven three five three zero
2:29:26
Speaker 3: seven hundred? Where do they rank in power play goals?
2:29:30
Speaker 3: We talked about this with Tom Callahan earlier in this hour.
2:29:34
Speaker 3: They've got the Canucks coming in tonight. They've got the
2:29:36
Speaker 3: Red Wings coming in on Wednesday, Tyerson Cross Talk brought
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Speaker 3: to you by Advanced Window Products eight on one A
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Speaker 3: five to oh ninety one hundred twenty five hundred dollars
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Speaker 3: off ten windows or more.
2:29:48
Speaker 2: If you tell them that spence check its referred you.
2:29:51
Speaker 2: All right? What about you though, then you're.
2:29:54
Speaker 3: Gonna get thirty five No, just kidding, you'll get the
2:29:57
Speaker 3: very same deal.
2:29:57
Speaker 2: You'll get the exact same deal.
2:29:59
Speaker 9: How's your weekend?
2:30:00
Speaker 2: But it was good? That was yours?
2:30:01
Speaker 4: Good?
2:30:01
Speaker 9: Good to see you. I played golf on Saturday and Sunday.
2:30:04
Speaker 2: Congratulations.
2:30:05
Speaker 10: And I had to use sunscreen on my face in
2:30:08
Speaker 10: on January thirty first and fifteenth and February first in
2:30:11
Speaker 10: Salt Lake, I had to put sunscreen on my face
2:30:14
Speaker 10: because I was outside playing golf.
2:30:15
Speaker 2: Weird.
2:30:16
Speaker 9: It's fifty six degrees outside today, is it really? Yes?
2:30:19
Speaker 10: And my family back east are preparing for another stretch
2:30:23
Speaker 10: of snow and cold. It's really really odd man. So
2:30:27
Speaker 10: my look, I'm a warm weather guy. So my weekend
2:30:30
Speaker 10: was lovely, but I feel bad. There was a couple
2:30:34
Speaker 10: on the golf course that booked a trip to Park
2:30:37
Speaker 10: City a year ago to ski, and they're like, we can't.
2:30:40
Speaker 10: They're golfing in Salt Lake because they couldn't ski. So,
2:30:44
Speaker 10: I mean, they're fine. The first first word of problem.
2:30:46
Speaker 3: That's a couple of people that have just you know,
2:30:48
Speaker 3: they take the lemons and they make lemonade.
2:30:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, good for them.
2:30:52
Speaker 10: No, for sure, but I think they were a little
2:30:54
Speaker 10: bit disappointed that they were playing nine holes at Forestdale
2:30:56
Speaker 10: and Salt Lake and not skiing at Deer Valley.
2:31:00
Speaker 9: I wanted to piggyback.
2:31:01
Speaker 10: You guys did a good job on the conversation you
2:31:04
Speaker 10: were having about BYU basketball. Now we should probably start
2:31:07
Speaker 10: with the caveat of if you're one of the sports
2:31:10
Speaker 10: talk radio listeners that's like, hey, it's either BYU or Utah.
2:31:13
Speaker 10: All right, Utah basketball isn't a really bad spot. It
2:31:16
Speaker 10: was a bad loss over the weekend. It was a
2:31:19
Speaker 10: winnable game. There's both the lack of talent and a
2:31:22
Speaker 10: lack of execution. No paid defense, It can't rebound. If
2:31:25
Speaker 10: Terrence and don don't go for one hundred each, which
2:31:29
Speaker 10: would be a record, they're going to struggle to win games.
2:31:32
Speaker 10: But the estimate I've heard is that the total spend
2:31:36
Speaker 10: for BYU basketball's roster this year is between twelve and
2:31:39
Speaker 10: thirteen million dollars including five five and a half or
2:31:43
Speaker 10: one year of AJ DEBONCA, which ultimately is five months
2:31:46
Speaker 10: of AJ DEBONSA right. I have no idea whate a
2:31:49
Speaker 10: Utah spend is. I would be stunned if it was
2:31:53
Speaker 10: even over a million.
2:31:55
Speaker 3: It's not enough to cover probably Richie Saunders, right.
2:32:01
Speaker 9: And Richie a seven figure guy, Rob Wright.
2:32:03
Speaker 10: And we know this because Rob Wright's college coach, Scott
2:32:06
Speaker 10: Drew from Baylor, was livid because Rob had signed a
2:32:10
Speaker 10: seven figure deal to come back to Baylor. Now, as
2:32:13
Speaker 10: we know, signing contracts for these players these days doesn't
2:32:16
Speaker 10: mean a rip. And then the report is BYU came
2:32:19
Speaker 10: with a close to three million dollar offer or whatever
2:32:22
Speaker 10: he said, Oh sorry, sorry that I signed. That doesn't
2:32:24
Speaker 10: mean anything because nobody can enforce this. I'm going to
2:32:26
Speaker 10: play for BYU. If it's between twelve to thirteen million dollars,
2:32:30
Speaker 10: that probably puts them either second or third in the
2:32:33
Speaker 10: Big Twelve. And for my money right now, they're either
2:32:37
Speaker 10: the fifth or the sixth best team in the conference.
2:32:39
Speaker 3: Well, the interesting thing about it for me is that, look,
2:32:42
Speaker 3: we know where a lot of that investment comes from.
2:32:43
Speaker 3: We know, and I will make it clear for the
2:32:46
Speaker 3: ten millionth time, I'd begrudge no one, absolutely not what
2:32:50
Speaker 3: they want with their money. And if like if I
2:32:52
Speaker 3: was a billionaire, people weaber State would be in the
2:32:56
Speaker 3: Big twelve and Utah would be a national champion. Like
2:33:01
Speaker 3: that's it's your prerogative. He's taking you so long, Yeah,
2:33:03
Speaker 3: exactly after the loser. I haven't earned even one billion
2:33:07
Speaker 3: dollars yet.
2:33:09
Speaker 2: The aj debonsa thing.
2:33:11
Speaker 3: The reason it's so fascinating, and James and I were
2:33:13
Speaker 3: talking about this. I think he's gonna figure it out.
2:33:16
Speaker 3: Rob Bright will probably go on to be a good
2:33:18
Speaker 3: NBA player. I think Richie Saunders is going to make
2:33:20
Speaker 3: a roster KEBA Keata. If he can find an NBA
2:33:24
Speaker 3: team that's like we want you to play defense and
2:33:26
Speaker 3: rebound for us and do any nothing else, he could
2:33:29
Speaker 3: have a career in the NBA. So you maybe have
2:33:32
Speaker 3: four NBA guys on this BYU roster. Certainly international talent
2:33:35
Speaker 3: if they want to go play overseas a no brainer.
2:33:39
Speaker 3: But the timeline is what's so interesting because how many
2:33:44
Speaker 3: times is BYU basketball going to find this perfect scenario
2:33:48
Speaker 3: where there's a guy worth spending five million plus on
2:33:51
Speaker 3: a number one player in the country, even a top
2:33:53
Speaker 3: ten player in the country coming out of high school
2:33:55
Speaker 3: or AAU basketball that will consider BYU. It's it's still
2:34:00
Speaker 3: a tough place to recruit to even with all that money.
2:34:03
Speaker 3: So there's not another AJ debotsa growing on the apricot
2:34:08
Speaker 3: tree down in Provo. While you have him, you have
2:34:12
Speaker 3: to maximize this, and it doesn't look promising right now
2:34:17
Speaker 3: that in this tournament that's upcoming that unless he turns
2:34:22
Speaker 3: it on and starts doing things that he's not doing
2:34:25
Speaker 3: right now in games against the league competition, I'm sure
2:34:30
Speaker 3: whoever spend the money will be like, No, I the exposure,
2:34:34
Speaker 3: the marketing was good enough. You paid that because you
2:34:37
Speaker 3: want wins. You paid that because you want a final four.
2:34:40
Speaker 3: And I'm not confident that that's the outcome with AJ
2:34:42
Speaker 3: right now.
2:34:43
Speaker 10: Just real quick, I hope you weren't being disparaging towards
2:34:45
Speaker 10: my favorite primary song, Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree.
2:34:48
Speaker 2: Why would I be.
2:34:49
Speaker 3: It's a very catchy tune. Okay, I looked out the window,
2:34:52
Speaker 3: and what did I see?
2:34:53
Speaker 10: Popcorn popping on the apricot tree? But not necessarily five
2:34:57
Speaker 10: star recruits all the time, is what you're saying, well,
2:34:59
Speaker 10: well done. We just preserve the sanctity of that song. Please,
2:35:04
Speaker 10: You're not wrong, and I would. I mean, look, we
2:35:06
Speaker 10: don't have to get into the whole. Like is Rob
2:35:09
Speaker 10: right an NBA guy. Rob Wright will make money playing
2:35:11
Speaker 10: basketball for ten years, whether it's in the NBA or
2:35:14
Speaker 10: in Europe.
2:35:14
Speaker 9: And so Akaba.
2:35:16
Speaker 10: I don't know that Kiba can play in the league,
2:35:17
Speaker 10: but he is so freaking athletic, like he will make
2:35:21
Speaker 10: money in Spain or China or somewhere. They have four
2:35:24
Speaker 10: pros on their roster. And the old sandy in college
2:35:27
Speaker 10: basketball is if you if you want to win a
2:35:29
Speaker 10: national championship, if you want to go to the final four,
2:35:31
Speaker 10: you have to have three to four pros. Now, there
2:35:33
Speaker 10: have been a few exceptions. Duke won a national championship
2:35:36
Speaker 10: with like John Shier who's now their coach, and the
2:35:39
Speaker 10: Zubac dude who played in the NBA for a minute.
2:35:42
Speaker 10: But there's always an outlier to the rule. If you
2:35:45
Speaker 10: have three to four pros on your roster like Rick
2:35:47
Speaker 10: did almost every year during that run, Andre Doleiak, Britt
2:35:52
Speaker 10: van horne Hano like he always had multiple pros. Utah
2:35:56
Speaker 10: Basketball right now has zero. Not one of those kids.
2:36:00
Speaker 10: I don't think will maybe in like the Third Dutch
2:36:04
Speaker 10: League if count of daz goes over, but they don't
2:36:06
Speaker 10: have any and you watch BYU and you know that
2:36:09
Speaker 10: there's talent on paper, I'm concerned about their death right, Like,
2:36:13
Speaker 10: ultimately this is a top heavy roster because that's where
2:36:16
Speaker 10: they've spent their money. But the point is these days,
2:36:19
Speaker 10: because of the money involved, there are expectations tied to investment,
2:36:24
Speaker 10: especially when you have donors that are just giving you money,
2:36:28
Speaker 10: like this thing with a private equity group for Utah.
2:36:31
Speaker 10: At least the donors are buying into something that at
2:36:33
Speaker 10: some point maybe there's a return on investment. For a
2:36:35
Speaker 10: school like BYU, you are just giving the school money.
2:36:38
Speaker 10: Are their tax breaks short? But you get it your expectation.
2:36:43
Speaker 10: I would imagine if you're a BYU donor or a booster,
2:36:47
Speaker 10: is represent the school the right way, right. But the
2:36:49
Speaker 10: Conard Davis kid got arrested, right, So I'm sure there's
2:36:52
Speaker 10: not a lot of people that are thrilled about that.
2:36:53
Speaker 10: And in addition, you have to win games in a
2:36:57
Speaker 10: way that we haven't seen here. BYU basketball has the
2:36:59
Speaker 10: most most tournament appearances without a final four in college
2:37:03
Speaker 10: basketball history. So if they go and win a couple
2:37:07
Speaker 10: of games in the Big Twelve Tournament, qualify as like
2:37:09
Speaker 10: a four or five seed in the NCAA. Right now,
2:37:11
Speaker 10: they're projected as a four because they have zero quad
2:37:15
Speaker 10: one wins. They've had four opportunities and they're own four.
2:37:18
Speaker 10: So if they qualify as a four or five and
2:37:20
Speaker 10: win like two games in the NCAA tournament, I think
2:37:22
Speaker 10: you're gonna hear from a lot of BYU fans go,
2:37:24
Speaker 10: wait a second. You told me this was the best
2:37:27
Speaker 10: team we've ever had, and they did the same thing
2:37:30
Speaker 10: as the team with Michelly Wesley, and.
2:37:32
Speaker 3: You know, the not a shot at the representative of
2:37:36
Speaker 3: the island nation of Guamala the national basketball How dare you?
2:37:39
Speaker 2: It's not?
2:37:40
Speaker 10: I mean, they didn't win state in ninety seven. I'll
2:37:42
Speaker 10: look up who did. It's not a big deal. But
2:37:44
Speaker 10: if you if you do the same thing that a
2:37:48
Speaker 10: team of basketball players who were paid zero dollars for,
2:37:52
Speaker 10: there will be questions that are very fair to answer
2:37:55
Speaker 10: and also fair to ask about their head coach.
2:37:57
Speaker 3: Utah fans would relish the opportunity to see BYU is
2:38:01
Speaker 3: the basketball.
2:38:02
Speaker 2: Equivalent of Texas A and M.
2:38:04
Speaker 3: When they spent all that money with Jimbo Fisher, a
2:38:07
Speaker 3: lot of basketball left to play. Kevin Young is a
2:38:10
Speaker 3: good coach as far as we could tell. Maybe they'll
2:38:12
Speaker 3: figure it out. NTBA basketball is a game of runs.
2:38:17
Speaker 3: Maybe they can go on a legendary one. But it's
2:38:20
Speaker 3: to the point you made on and four with the
2:38:22
Speaker 3: quad one wins, and I, fairly or not, I'm looking
2:38:26
Speaker 3: squarely at Aj Debonsa, the most expensive player in college basketball,
2:38:31
Speaker 3: and I'm saying you are one out of one for
2:38:34
Speaker 3: five with good games against ranked teams.
2:38:37
Speaker 10: Yeah, and they went to fog Allen with the eyes
2:38:41
Speaker 10: of America on them in college game Day there and
2:38:44
Speaker 10: AJ didn't take a shot for the first eight minutes.
2:38:47
Speaker 10: He had zero field goal attempts for eight minutes. And
2:38:50
Speaker 10: when I'm watching these games, what I tried to do
2:38:52
Speaker 10: is say, if you didn't know anything about any of
2:38:54
Speaker 10: these players, if you had zero preconceived notions about these players,
2:38:58
Speaker 10: what would your takeaway be? And my takeaway for the
2:39:01
Speaker 10: first eight minutes is like, where where's that kid? Where's three?
2:39:04
Speaker 10: What is he doing? Because he wasn't setting screens? He
2:39:07
Speaker 10: had one rebound all game, long. He's six' nine with
2:39:10
Speaker 10: a seven foot. Wingspan AND i do want to be
2:39:13
Speaker 10: very clear about one. THING i love his. UPSIDE i
2:39:16
Speaker 10: love his. TALENT i do think to your, point whether
2:39:18
Speaker 10: it's your one as a, rookie your two is a
2:39:21
Speaker 10: soft or eventually figures it out and honestly is AN
2:39:24
Speaker 10: Nba All. Star that's WHAT i believe his skill set.
2:39:26
Speaker 10: Is but so far in these, games there are way
2:39:30
Speaker 10: too many like congrats on forty three against the Jv,
2:39:34
Speaker 10: okay that's what your game Against utah, was and he
2:39:38
Speaker 10: is dominated inferior. Competition but whether It's, kansas he had
2:39:42
Speaker 10: a good second half Against, yukon but whether It's, kansas
2:39:45
Speaker 10: whether It's Texas, tech whether It's, arizona and the teams
2:39:48
Speaker 10: that you have played so far that will.
2:39:49
Speaker 9: Represent your biggest.
2:39:50
Speaker 10: Challenges there are way too many stretches Where i'm, going
2:39:53
Speaker 10: where is He if you're not scoring and affect the
2:39:56
Speaker 10: game in other, ways which is What Darren peterson, does
2:39:58
Speaker 10: by the, way and that's one of the the reasons
2:40:00
Speaker 10: a lot of people Believe darren is. Won and there's
2:40:02
Speaker 10: a pretty sizable gap before you get TO aj.
2:40:04
Speaker 3: Two, well the silver lining there is that when Aj
2:40:09
Speaker 3: debonsa ends up being AN Nba All, star it's in
2:40:12
Speaker 3: A Utah jazz uniform because you'll get pick number three
2:40:16
Speaker 3: or whatever instead of pick number one in the upcoming.
2:40:18
Speaker 10: Lottery it would be very nice if this was a
2:40:21
Speaker 10: serious team about, competing and everybody believes next year they will.
2:40:24
Speaker 9: Be we'll have to wait and.
2:40:26
Speaker 3: See stay tuned For The drive With Spence. Checkers thanks
2:40:29
Speaker 3: for listening To The sean O'Connell. Show we'll do it
2:40:31
Speaker 3: again tomorrow ON espn seven hundred ninety two ON fm