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3 Guys Before The Game - WVU Football vs Arizona Game Preview (Episode 745) · 3 Guys Before The Game

0:09
Speaker 1: Greetings, everybody, and welcome in. It's time for three guys
0:13
Speaker 1: before the game. This is West Virginia and Arizona, our
0:17
Speaker 1: game preview. And it's three guys before the game. 745
0:21
Speaker 1: on your episode count puts us 55 away from, as
0:27
Speaker 1: they say, D-Day. Senators here. Kerchival totally distracted. Not buying in.
0:36
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Say something. Am I right or right? Am
0:38
Speaker 1: I right or am I right? He's been horrible in
0:40
Speaker 1: pregame preparation. He's just like totally, anyway, he's doing something.
0:45
Speaker 1: The pregame was. Listen. Tony and I were both up
0:47
Speaker 1: very early this morning. Yeah, Johnny over here is texting
0:50
Speaker 1: at 430 this morning. Texting at 430. Hey, that's a
0:54
Speaker 1: great idea. We need to follow up. You know what?
0:57
Speaker 2: The thing is now, like, we were all together last
0:59
Speaker 2: night for United Way. We were together all day yesterday
1:02
Speaker 2: working on this golf program. We're back here this morning.
1:05
Speaker 2: So I woke up at 4, and I'm thinking about you.
1:08
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about Tony. I'm just going to get up.
1:13
Speaker 2: I'm just going to get up. Go text Tony.
1:16
Speaker 1: That time of the year. Let's jump in, man. Three guys.
1:20
Speaker 1: This is going to be, obviously, it goes without saying, huge,
1:24
Speaker 1: huge game of importance for West Virginia as they try
1:26
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1:49
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1:53
Speaker 1: Three guys brought to us by Tudor's Biscuit World. Start
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1:58
Speaker 1: guys way with a Tudor's Biscuit. Biscuit weather going on
2:02
Speaker 1: right now. A little coolness in the air in the morning.
2:04
Speaker 1: That was a great way to start one off. It's
2:06
Speaker 1: been beautiful. Weather's been gorgeous. Idyllic. Yeah. Three guys brought
2:10
Speaker 1: to us by Jan Dills. Attorneys at law, they won't
2:12
Speaker 1: take no for an answer. By the Conley CPA Group.
2:15
Speaker 1: Spreads on stats coming up, providing value beyond numbers. Textual
2:18
Speaker 1: healing later. Presented by WVU Medicine, the exclusive health care
2:23
Speaker 1: provider for all Mountaineers, including you. All right, so let's
2:28
Speaker 1: jump on in. West Virginia. West Virginia. And the Arizona
2:31
Speaker 1: Wildcats Saturday at noon Eastern. Just the second ever meeting
2:36
Speaker 1: between these two schools. And I know that geographically there
2:40
Speaker 1: is a distance between the two institutions of higher learning. However,
2:43
Speaker 1: you would think. Well, conference rivals. Yeah. You would think
2:46
Speaker 1: with over 100 plus years of playing football that at
2:50
Speaker 1: some point in a bowl situation you would have seen
2:54
Speaker 1: each other. What's really weird is West Virginia actually played
2:57
Speaker 1: a bowl game on their home field, the old Insight.com Bowl,
3:02
Speaker 1: West Virginia against Missouri. One of the weirder games I've
3:06
Speaker 1: ever seen. West Virginia drives the ball down the field
3:09
Speaker 1: to start the game, and there's a turnover. And I
3:12
Speaker 1: don't know what it was, but at that point, you're like, eh,
3:15
Speaker 1: this is over with. Remember that game?
3:17
Speaker 3: Oh, I remember, yeah, sure.
3:19
Speaker 1: Kobe Smith, Missouri quarterback. Mm-hmm. And just could never get
3:24
Speaker 1: on track. It wasn't a lot. It turned into.
3:26
Speaker 3: A really exciting game late. West Virginia got it together
3:28
Speaker 3: a little bit and started coming down the stretch.
3:30
Speaker 1: Yeah. Couldn't pull it out, though. So anyway, they've played
3:33
Speaker 1: in Tucson, but they've never played Arizona in Tucson. We'll
3:37
Speaker 1: get into that and more.
3:40
Speaker 3: Also....
3:41
Speaker 1: We were out and about yesterday and had a really
3:46
Speaker 1: super nice night with a bunch of WVU athletes and
3:49
Speaker 1: a bunch of WVU coaches. We'll talk a little bit
3:52
Speaker 1: about that. That was a lot of fun. We'll also
3:54
Speaker 1: give you our schedule for the weekend. We're recording early Thursday.
4:00
Speaker 1: And just for those of you that are listening in,
4:02
Speaker 1: and it's still Thursday, the 8th of October, no Buffalo
4:06
Speaker 1: Wild Wings show today, tonight. We'll let you know what's
4:10
Speaker 1: going on there later on when we get to textual healing.
4:13
Speaker 1: All right. Oh, by the way, the basketball team. Now
4:17
Speaker 1: we're 10 days away. Yeah, from the start. Now we're
4:21
Speaker 1: 10 days away from the start of that, and we'll
4:23
Speaker 1: get into that a little bit as well. All right,
4:26
Speaker 1: let's jump on in. This thing always begins with a
4:29
Speaker 1: guy who has obvious observations. He even delivered obvious observations
4:35
Speaker 1: during our event last night for the United Way. So
4:37
Speaker 1: this has become a brand. A non-sponsored brand. Public service. Yeah,
4:43
Speaker 1: just a public service from Hoppy. Just basically, these are
4:47
Speaker 1: the things that are rattling around his brain.
4:49
Speaker 3: He's got thoughts that sound brand new. But they're things
4:53
Speaker 3: we already knew.
4:54
Speaker 1: We got his lip balm ready. Heaven knows.
4:57
Speaker 3: Let's make it quick before his bladder blows.
5:00
Speaker 1: We took care of that before the show started. Thank goodness.
5:03
Speaker 1: Possible bladder blowing. Went for a long bike ride this week. Serious.
5:14
Speaker 1: And so I had a lot of time to think.
5:17
Speaker 1: How long is long? Oh, how many miles? Yeah. 30, 32.
5:20
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
5:23
Speaker 2: And it just, so you're riding along and Brad, you
5:28
Speaker 2: got free time to think. And I just kept thinking
5:31
Speaker 2: about this game, kept thinking about this game. And I
5:34
Speaker 2: came back and did a little of my own research
5:36
Speaker 2: and just some things.
5:37
Speaker 1: Came to me.
5:37
Speaker 2: One is that this is the most significant game since
5:41
Speaker 2: Rich Rodriguez returned.
5:43
Speaker 1: For Rich Rod. Wow. Oh, my. You put it out there, huh?
5:47
Speaker 2: It's the most significant game for Rich Rodriguez since his return.
5:52
Speaker 3: I thought Pitt was last year.
5:54
Speaker 1: Did he just go full Bobby Bowden on us? He
5:57
Speaker 1: just said the same thing twice. And I want you
5:59
Speaker 1: to know this is the most significant game.
6:02
Speaker 2: He was fired by Arizona in 2018. It was an
6:05
Speaker 2: embarrassing time for him and his family. And he's cast out,
6:10
Speaker 2: cast out. Back-to-back firings, Michigan and Arizona. What would become
6:14
Speaker 2: of Rich Rodriguez? And he calls his way back, right?
6:18
Speaker 2: Has a couple assistant coaching jobs. Is it Jacksonville State?
6:23
Speaker 2: By an oddity, ends up back in Morgantown with an
6:28
Speaker 2: incredible story. Then through an oddity, Brad, through conference affiliation,
6:34
Speaker 2: Arizona moves into the league where Rich Rodriguez's team is playing.
6:38
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they?
6:39
Speaker 3: It makes perfect sense. Why wouldn't you play Arizona in
6:41
Speaker 3: a conference game? I don't know if you caught it.
6:43
Speaker 3: Audity might not be the right term.
6:45
Speaker 2: Through a bizarre turn of circumstance, Arizona now is in
6:49
Speaker 2: the league with the West Virginia traditional rival.
6:52
Speaker 1: Can I interrupt you right there? Of course. That probably
6:55
Speaker 1: does need to be talked about more. How bizarre is that?
6:59
Speaker 1: That Rich is back to his alma mater. And the
7:03
Speaker 1: league that he's in has Arizona in the league. You
7:07
Speaker 1: can't make that stuff up. No, you can't.
7:09
Speaker 2: In fact, Tony, we sometimes equate these things to movies
7:12
Speaker 2: or script. If you were writing a movie, you would go, ah,
7:15
Speaker 2: nobody will believe that.
7:17
Speaker 3: That would be the part of the movie. They would
7:19
Speaker 3: wedge that in in order to get the conflict, and
7:22
Speaker 3: you'd go, well, that's not true. Arizona wouldn't be in
7:23
Speaker 3: West Virginia's conference. Why would they do that?
7:26
Speaker 1: We'd be here blasting the movie. Sports movies do that
7:29
Speaker 1: all the time, too. They make things that are totally incongruous,
7:32
Speaker 1: and you go like.
7:32
Speaker 3: Well, that wouldn't happen.
7:34
Speaker 2: So these things that are incongruous come together for Rich
7:40
Speaker 2: Rodriguez to play against Arizona. By the way, the AD
7:45
Speaker 2: that fired him is Fired himself, so he's gone.
7:49
Speaker 1: So this Saturday, the.
7:50
Speaker 2: Word I came up with, Tony, is this is an
7:53
Speaker 2: opportunity for redemption. Redemption for Rich Rodriguez. A way to
7:58
Speaker 2: say that if West Virginia wins, let's talk about the
8:02
Speaker 2: winning part. If West Virginia wins, it's him saying, I'm
8:05
Speaker 2: still here, I'm still coaching, and I just beat your ass.
8:10
Speaker 1: That's what that is. That's what that is. In the
8:13
Speaker 1: Rich Rodriguez.
8:13
Speaker 2: I haven't talked to him, but I think that's what
8:15
Speaker 2: it would be in the Rich Rodriguez world. I'm still here,
8:18
Speaker 2: I'm still coaching, and I just beat your ass. And
8:26
Speaker 2: I think that that would be a pretty meaningful sequel to...
8:31
Speaker 2: I mean, the first book, Brad, is Rich Rodriguez's Return
8:36
Speaker 2: to West Virginia. The sequel is I Just Beat Arizona, right?
8:40
Speaker 1: So I think... Tony, this is a great story.
8:42
Speaker 3: Well, it adds the second chapter. That book's already started.
8:46
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is the next chapter.
8:47
Speaker 3: He did that with Pitt last year, did he not?
8:48
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that's true.
8:49
Speaker 3: Didn't he come back and say, I beat your ass?
8:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so now.
8:52
Speaker 3: It's chapter two of the redemption book. How about that?
8:55
Speaker 1: That's better.
8:55
Speaker 3: Will you accept that?
8:56
Speaker 1: Absolutely, that's better. But it's just a great story. It
9:01
Speaker 1: truly is. I mean, remarkable.
9:03
Speaker 2: You couldn't come up with a better storyline, and that's
9:07
Speaker 2: what stands out to me most about this game.
9:09
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward, Brad, to your stuff, but that's what
9:10
Speaker 1: stands out to me. Another thing, Hop. Yeah. His son
9:13
Speaker 1: played quarterback.
9:14
Speaker 2: Right.
9:15
Speaker 1: He's on staff. He's on staff. Raquel was the captain
9:17
Speaker 1: of the cheerleading team at Arizona. She's here on staff. Yeah. So, yeah.
9:23
Speaker 2: So, a couple other things, and I'll get to about that,
9:26
Speaker 2: but now about the game. When you lose two games,
9:29
Speaker 2: you've lost back-to-back games.
9:31
Speaker 1: Now let me go to the other one. Well, that
9:33
Speaker 1: was prophetic. Now when you've lost two games, you have
9:35
Speaker 1: lost back-to-back games. Yes.
9:37
Speaker 2: If you lose three games, you're on a losing streak.
9:41
Speaker 1: Well, there's a difference. Losing back-to-back games is we've lost
9:44
Speaker 1: back-to-back games. Got to be, you know, back on track.
9:46
Speaker 2: You lose three, you're on a losing streak, which feels
9:49
Speaker 2: and sounds much worse than losing back-to-back games.
9:52
Speaker 1: Tony, I don't disagree with you. Okay. Does sound worse.
9:56
Speaker 1: All right.
9:57
Speaker 2: I got to throw in a John Wooden quote. I
9:59
Speaker 2: love to quote him. Losing does not make you a failure.
10:01
Speaker 2: It's when you blame someone for losing when you become
10:06
Speaker 2: a failure. So if you lose three, can you keep
10:10
Speaker 2: this thing together? And I think if you lose three,
10:12
Speaker 2: you're starting to talk about that. What can you keep
10:15
Speaker 2: together for the second half of the season? Brad will
10:19
Speaker 2: get into this. The challenge will be to contain Fafita.
10:23
Speaker 2: And not a big guy. I mean, I think I'm
10:25
Speaker 2: taller than he is, right? But in watching film, he's elusive.
10:31
Speaker 2: Not necessarily a guy who's going to take off and
10:33
Speaker 2: run all the time.
10:33
Speaker 1: He can, but he's elusive. He just evades people. Incredibly elusive.
10:36
Speaker 2: And Tony finds open guys, completing 70% of his passes.
10:40
Speaker 2: So he's really good at, like, dodging around and finding
10:43
Speaker 2: a guy, which is trouble considering West Virginia's Problems going forward.
10:48
Speaker 2: Quarterback rating of 166. Been there five years, which is
10:54
Speaker 2: unusual in this day and time.
10:57
Speaker 3: Bought a house.
10:58
Speaker 1: Excuse me?
10:59
Speaker 2: Bought a house in Tucson last year, valued at $ 950, 000.
11:02
Speaker 1: You got the price, too. You went total Zillow on
11:05
Speaker 1: the thing. So he's doing well. You know, he's one
11:07
Speaker 1: of three members of the Arizona football team, Hoppy, that
11:11
Speaker 1: currently own a house in Tucson. That's the world. That's
11:14
Speaker 1: the thing? That's the world that we are now living in.
11:16
Speaker 1: Three guys. Pretty smart. On the Arizona team have homes.
11:19
Speaker 3: Have your roommates live there, pay you rent, make a
11:21
Speaker 3: little money off that with your NIL money.
11:23
Speaker 1: Probably his little brother in there to live with him
11:26
Speaker 1: in the house. His brother's on the team. And what
11:29
Speaker 1: he said was, Tony, you'll like this. It's a good investment.
11:33
Speaker 1: I like that a lot. That's smart. Smart dude. Yeah. Okay.
11:37
Speaker 2: West Virginia Connection, Rodney Gallagher coming back. Hasn't done a
11:41
Speaker 2: lot yet, Brad.
11:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, just 10 catches on the air.
11:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. The OC and quarterbacks coach... There we go. is
11:49
Speaker 1: Seth Deggie. Why wouldn't it be?
11:51
Speaker 2: Brother of Jared Deggie, who played here for three years.
11:55
Speaker 2: Always a West Virginia connection. Okay, this is a stat
11:58
Speaker 2: I came up with. This is just for you.
12:00
Speaker 1: Are you getting into Brad's territory now? In the last.
12:04
Speaker 2: I spent time on this last night. In the last
12:07
Speaker 2: two WVU football games, Oklahoma State and Iowa State, the
12:10
Speaker 2: opponents have had 24... Offensive possessions, meaningful. Like if you
12:15
Speaker 2: took a knee at the end of the game, I
12:16
Speaker 2: don't count that. 24 offensive possessions in the last two
12:19
Speaker 2: games of opponents. They've resulted in 10 touchdowns, 5 field goals,
12:25
Speaker 2: 7 punts, 2 turnovers, and 86 points. That's a scoring
12:30
Speaker 2: rate of 63% of your possessions. Scoring points, 2 out
12:35
Speaker 2: of every 3 times they have the ball.
12:36
Speaker 1: Touchdown rate of 42%.
12:37
Speaker 2: Points per possession, 3.6%. So West Virginia, if that continues,
12:45
Speaker 2: West Virginia has to score a touchdown every other time
12:49
Speaker 2: to keep up if that continues.
12:53
Speaker 1: Look, can you hold them to 35?
12:54
Speaker 2: They've averaged 34 the.
12:58
Speaker 1: Last two games.
12:59
Speaker 2: Can you hold them to 35? Because so far, Brad,
13:01
Speaker 2: nobody has stopped Hawkins. Nobody has stopped Cook.
13:04
Speaker 1: Correct.
13:05
Speaker 2: I still put my money on it. I don't care
13:06
Speaker 2: what Cincinnati ran for less than 100.
13:08
Speaker 1: I don't care. I mean. I don't care about Cincinnati.
13:11
Speaker 1: They don't have Hawkins. Cincinnati just took a heater. They
13:14
Speaker 1: don't have Hawkins. They don't have Cook.
13:16
Speaker 2: Nobody yet has stopped Hawkins and Cook. So I have
13:20
Speaker 2: no reason to– until it happens, I have no reason
13:22
Speaker 2: to believe that it's going to happen this week. So
13:25
Speaker 2: ride Hawkins and Cook. Hold them to 35. See if
13:29
Speaker 2: you can win the game.
13:29
Speaker 1: That's what I have. Well, you came in strong. Very good.
13:36
Speaker 1: Very good. A lot of nice elements. Any follow-up? Yeah,
13:39
Speaker 1: I do have a follow-up. To underscore your point about
13:43
Speaker 1: Noah Fafita being a rarity of being a fifth-year quarterback,
13:48
Speaker 1: how about this number? This will tell you where we are. Oh,
13:52
Speaker 1: you're in Brad's territory too. No, I'm not. It's not
13:54
Speaker 1: a stat. Okay. It's an info nugget, but it's not
13:57
Speaker 1: a number. Noah Fafita, think about this, is one of five, five,
14:05
Speaker 1: FBS quarterbacks, Who has spent their entire career at the
14:10
Speaker 1: same school. Let me say it again. He's one of
14:14
Speaker 1: five who have spent their entire careers at the same school.
14:21
Speaker 1: Five years. That's incredible. And there was a story, I
14:25
Speaker 1: just read about a half of it this morning, about schools.
14:30
Speaker 1: That was on ESPN, actually. About, like, you can't get
14:34
Speaker 1: a number two quarterback of any value anymore because they
14:37
Speaker 1: just go, I'm out. And I think it was Texas
14:40
Speaker 1: A & M had to go down to like D2
14:41
Speaker 1: to get a guy that would come in or Ole Miss.
14:46
Speaker 1: I think it was Ole Miss had to get a
14:47
Speaker 1: guy because Chambliss was going to be the guy. And
14:49
Speaker 1: so you don't want to be under him. And so
14:51
Speaker 1: that's hard.
14:52
Speaker 3: Well, remember, the kid, it was the backup at Coastal
14:56
Speaker 3: that everybody thought might get some playing time. He had
14:58
Speaker 3: like seven power four high level FBS offers because it's
15:02
Speaker 3: hard to find guys. He was coming from a lower level, too.
15:05
Speaker 1: If you want to stay with West Virginia Connection, and
15:07
Speaker 1: this one may have gotten by you earlier this week,
15:09
Speaker 1: it was Tuesday night. Troy played on Tuesday night? Correct.
15:15
Speaker 1: Troy played on Tuesday night. Goose Crowder, the quarterback for
15:20
Speaker 1: Jared Parker. Jared, of course, was here. Goose Crowder went
15:24
Speaker 1: complete Aiden Flora. He threw for two and ran for two.
15:32
Speaker 1: He was 18 of 21, and you may not even remember,
15:36
Speaker 1: but he was a backup quarterback here. And so it
15:40
Speaker 1: just goes on and on. Guys are not sitting back
15:43
Speaker 1: and waiting because quarterbacks are the highest-priced player, and you
15:47
Speaker 1: can go make money somewhere else.
15:49
Speaker 2: But that's also where you like the transfer flexibility that
15:53
Speaker 2: somebody gets a chance to play.
15:55
Speaker 1: You do, but again, we're never going to get any
15:57
Speaker 1: stability anywhere. Unless they knock this thing down to one transfer.
16:01
Speaker 1: One transfer. Otherwise. Without sitting out a year. Yeah. Just
16:04
Speaker 1: some numbers. Brad, we certainly hope we didn't get into
16:06
Speaker 1: your space.
16:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, just like last week, I'm out now.
16:08
Speaker 1: I don't have any numbers. Hoppy took them all. I
16:11
Speaker 1: just had one. When he came with points per possession,
16:14
Speaker 1: I thought. Don't worry.
16:15
Speaker 3: I'll have obvious observations next week.
16:17
Speaker 1: I got it.
16:17
Speaker 3: That's enough of him jumping into the stats. I'll just
16:19
Speaker 3: go obvious observations next week.
16:21
Speaker 1: When he went points per possession, basically it's a slap
16:23
Speaker 1: in your face. It was a total affront. Hoppy, what
16:26
Speaker 1: are you doing? What happened was this. Don't help yourself. No,
16:28
Speaker 1: what happened was this. I got focused. Again, a long
16:32
Speaker 1: bike ride.
16:32
Speaker 2: I got focused on the number of times that the opponent.
16:37
Speaker 1: Scored when they had the ball. Yes. Over the last
16:39
Speaker 1: two games, that was all, so I didn't. So how
16:42
Speaker 1: long did it take you to ride this 32, 33 miles?
16:45
Speaker 1: Three hours. Three hours. Ten miles an hour.
16:49
Speaker 2: Huh?
16:49
Speaker 1: Ten miles an hour. Yeah, I can do the math.
16:52
Speaker 1: Three guys before the game was brought to us by
16:55
Speaker 1: Jan Dill's attorneys at law. That was Bradstead. Jordan, past client,
17:01
Speaker 1: wrote this. They handled my VA claim and took care
17:04
Speaker 1: of everything. I Had put it off for years after
17:08
Speaker 1: getting out of the service, worried about the hassle, worried
17:11
Speaker 1: about it being a waste of time, but because of
17:13
Speaker 1: the high denial rate, I didn't do it. I saw
17:15
Speaker 1: that Jan Dills was doing VA claims, so I gave
17:19
Speaker 1: them a call. Glad I did. They took care of everything.
17:22
Speaker 1: I'm gathering my records, dealing with my paperwork. At the
17:25
Speaker 1: end of the day, we won. I could go on
17:29
Speaker 1: and on about how great my experience was, has been.
17:33
Speaker 1: They honestly helped and treated me with dignity and respect.
17:36
Speaker 1: I highly recommend them. So if you or someone that
17:38
Speaker 1: you know needs help when it comes to VA benefit claims,
17:43
Speaker 1: disability claims, Social Security disability claims as well, they're there
17:47
Speaker 1: for you based right here in the state of West Virginia.
17:49
Speaker 1: It's Jan Dills, Attorneys at Law. Three guys also brought
17:52
Speaker 1: to us by Lewendl Marine Sales in St. Albans. You know,
17:57
Speaker 1: you have days like this. Earlier, a show or two ago,
18:00
Speaker 1: I said, okay, take the boat out of the water.
18:03
Speaker 1: Now I'm saying go put the boat back into the water.
18:05
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. These are golden days. Go up and down
18:07
Speaker 1: the lake. When the leaves are changing now, it's just like, whoo.
18:11
Speaker 1: Are you going to give us a Chestnut Ridge reference
18:13
Speaker 1: on Saturday? Probably give you one. Good. Yeah, as I
18:15
Speaker 1: see those leaves changing. But if it's time for you
18:18
Speaker 1: to put your boat up, they can service that. They
18:21
Speaker 1: do that at an expert level. They've been doing it
18:23
Speaker 1: for over 40 years. It's Lew Wendell Marine Sales, the
18:25
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18:52
Speaker 1: that Brad's entire episode... has been taken by Hoppy. Let's
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Speaker 1: does Brad. Brad, do you have anything left over there
19:48
Speaker 1: that Hoppy didn't just absolutely steal?
19:50
Speaker 3: I've got one, but it's just about TV ratings.
19:52
Speaker 1: I don't have any football information to get into.
19:55
Speaker 3: Did you see the TNT ratings came out? Iowa State,
19:58
Speaker 3: West Virginia, most watched regular season football game on TNT. Seriously?
20:03
Speaker 3: Now again, they haven't been doing college football for decades,
20:06
Speaker 3: but pretty significant Pretty significant note there, I thought. West
20:10
Speaker 3: Virginia-Iowa State, two passionate fan bases. Most watched regular season game.
20:14
Speaker 1: Nice. So what was that, 700,000, 800,000? What was it?
20:16
Speaker 1: I don't have the total number in front of me. Well,
20:18
Speaker 1: that helps, right? Yeah, it's good.
20:21
Speaker 3: Well, yes, because I think there's a lot of people
20:24
Speaker 3: that think the more partners that are involved in college
20:29
Speaker 3: sports television, the better it helps everybody somewhere down the road.
20:33
Speaker 3: And maybe that's not until 2031 and the renegotiation, But
20:36
Speaker 3: that helps to have more people at the table. And
20:40
Speaker 3: if TNT is going to jump into the Big 12
20:43
Speaker 3: as it has done, then you want to return some
20:46
Speaker 3: ratings to keep that ball moving and the momentum going.
20:50
Speaker 1: It's well said. And even though it's 2026, and as
20:53
Speaker 1: you said, we're five years away from these TV contract
20:57
Speaker 1: deals and what some anticipate to be some form of
21:02
Speaker 1: reconstruction of these leagues. everyone has to be at their best, right?
21:07
Speaker 1: And so every time West Virginia can do that and
21:11
Speaker 1: enhance its brand as something that people will watch and
21:15
Speaker 1: will follow, you know, on a big scale, that helps because,
21:19
Speaker 1: you know, Big 12 had meetings. Wren and the president
21:23
Speaker 1: were down for Big 12 meetings earlier this week. I
21:26
Speaker 1: guarantee you right now in those meetings, there's a lot
21:29
Speaker 1: of A lot of early whispering going on about, hey,
21:33
Speaker 1: you know, what about, could this happen? Could this happen?
21:35
Speaker 1: It's happening, right? They're talking it now. And it's not
21:38
Speaker 1: going to be 31, as you know, because 31 is
21:40
Speaker 1: when it explodes. It'll be 27, 28 when you're going
21:44
Speaker 1: to start to hear this kind of stuff. And that's
21:47
Speaker 1: what's happening.
21:47
Speaker 3: That game was one of those. And it's always watched
21:50
Speaker 3: differently by the fan bases that are involved in the
21:52
Speaker 3: game versus everybody else. There's a lot of people watching
21:55
Speaker 3: that game that did not have a rooting interest. For
21:57
Speaker 3: West Virginia fans, that hurt.
22:00
Speaker 1: Right?
22:00
Speaker 3: That one hurt as you watched it. And then you
22:02
Speaker 3: walked away seeing all the deficiencies in the defense that
22:05
Speaker 3: came out that game and the loss. If you're most
22:08
Speaker 3: of the country watching that as a college football game,
22:10
Speaker 3: just starting your day as a hell of a football game,
22:13
Speaker 3: back and forth, lots of points. And so if you
22:16
Speaker 3: listen to much of the national narrative around it this week,
22:20
Speaker 3: it was very different than how we were talking on
22:23
Speaker 3: Sunday or during the week. It was about that game.
22:26
Speaker 3: And so In a weird way, it might have been
22:28
Speaker 3: good for the Big 12 brand to have a game
22:30
Speaker 3: like that, even though West Virginia.
22:31
Speaker 1: Obviously came out on the wrong side. Yeah, I know.
22:33
Speaker 1: It had entertainment value. It did, unfortunately. I mean, like
22:36
Speaker 1: you said, if you didn't have a rooting interest. If
22:39
Speaker 1: you had a rooting interest. Iowa State, they loved it.
22:41
Speaker 1: That was a great rooting interest game for them. But
22:43
Speaker 1: for West Virginia, like, oh, but you lost in a
22:46
Speaker 1: game that basically came down to the last possession. And
22:48
Speaker 1: regarding the TV, that's exactly what you want. Sure. And
22:50
Speaker 1: as a fan, that's all you want. You want it
22:52
Speaker 1: to go back and forth. So when you were down
22:53
Speaker 1: 28 to 14, you come back and, Well, you guys
22:57
Speaker 1: know that story.
22:58
Speaker 3: All right, let's start. I'm going to go in reverse,
23:00
Speaker 3: which I don't know that I've done this. I'm going
23:02
Speaker 3: to go in reverse on something. I was not on
23:05
Speaker 3: a bike ride, but I didn't think a lot about
23:07
Speaker 3: this game over the last couple of days. It might
23:09
Speaker 3: surprise you. You don't have to be on a bike
23:10
Speaker 3: ride to think about it.
23:11
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I thought you had to be
23:12
Speaker 1: on a bike in order to get ideas. No, you
23:14
Speaker 1: did not.
23:14
Speaker 3: I mean, you can think about it on a bike,
23:15
Speaker 3: but you can also just think about the game in
23:17
Speaker 3: other walks.
23:18
Speaker 1: Of life as well.
23:21
Speaker 3: So I was doing just that.
23:23
Speaker 1: Wow, that's good. That's good, because I was... That's good.
23:25
Speaker 1: You told me.
23:26
Speaker 3: That because you hadn't been on a bike yet.
23:28
Speaker 1: No, I wanted to think more about the game today
23:30
Speaker 1: and I had to go get a bike.
23:31
Speaker 3: That's right. I go down, got to buy. There's one
23:33
Speaker 3: downtown Morgantown. You can go get a bike if you
23:35
Speaker 3: need to think about the game.
23:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:37
Speaker 3: So I was thinking about it from this angle. You know,
23:39
Speaker 3: we came in Sunday and just angst filled with the
23:43
Speaker 3: way it looked and the deficiencies were so visible to you.
23:47
Speaker 3: And that was the conversation. It's been the conversation most
23:50
Speaker 3: of the week, but But I think one of the
23:52
Speaker 3: nice things about football is you can turn the page
23:55
Speaker 3: and here you go again and you can start to
23:57
Speaker 3: build back the hope and the optimism and you got
23:59
Speaker 3: another chance. And okay, now you can get a win
24:01
Speaker 3: this week and get you back right back on track.
24:03
Speaker 3: And maybe I'm just talking about myself here, but I
24:05
Speaker 3: find myself during the week, you bottom out after a
24:09
Speaker 3: loss and then you start to, as I'm going through
24:11
Speaker 3: building my notes, I start to build myself back into,
24:14
Speaker 3: oh my God, there's no way you can stop this team.
24:17
Speaker 3: And then you start to go along and you're like, well,
24:18
Speaker 3: hold on here. Hold on here just a second.
24:20
Speaker 1: They're not the 85 Bears, 84 Bears.
24:22
Speaker 3: It's probably the beauty of football where the downside is
24:25
Speaker 3: you've got to wait a week to play again. The
24:26
Speaker 3: upside is you've got a week before you play again,
24:29
Speaker 3: and you build yourself into these narratives. But here's one
24:31
Speaker 3: that jumped, guys, because you and I talked, or the
24:34
Speaker 3: three of us talked about this after Sunday's show ended.
24:37
Speaker 3: You said, what do you think the line will be
24:39
Speaker 3: on Saturday? I was floored when the line came out
24:43
Speaker 3: Sunday afternoon at what it was. It opened at just
24:48
Speaker 3: two and a half. Given how Arizona has looked and
24:51
Speaker 3: how West Virginia had just looked defensively in the last couple,
24:54
Speaker 3: that surprised me that it was just two and a half.
24:56
Speaker 1: You said we're talking double digits.
24:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I didn't think it could get all the
25:00
Speaker 3: way to double digits for a road team coming all
25:02
Speaker 3: the way over. But a touchdown wouldn't have surprised me,
25:05
Speaker 3: given just the perception of it. So to see it
25:07
Speaker 3: open where it did, it brought me back to, I
25:10
Speaker 3: had a friend that was a bookmaker for a long,
25:12
Speaker 3: long time. And he said more than once, when the
25:17
Speaker 3: line stinks... You don't fight it. You don't fight it.
25:21
Speaker 3: Your eyes may tell you something different, but you do
25:23
Speaker 3: not fight it. I thought this line really stunk, but
25:26
Speaker 3: in a good way for West Virginia. I think you
25:28
Speaker 3: embrace the stink. The fact that it was what it was,
25:31
Speaker 3: two and a half, and it's since moved to three
25:32
Speaker 3: and a half and back to three, I think that might,
25:35
Speaker 3: that just, and they're not always right. They're not always right.
25:39
Speaker 3: And this may, we may come in Sunday and go, well,
25:41
Speaker 3: scrap the betting line, didn't work. But that told me
25:44
Speaker 3: a little something there. And so then I thought, okay, well,
25:47
Speaker 3: how'd they get there? Why did they get there?
25:50
Speaker 1: You reverse engineered the line?
25:51
Speaker 3: I just thought, well, why did they get there?
25:54
Speaker 1: And you were on a bike doing this?
25:55
Speaker 3: No, I was not on a bike, which is really
25:57
Speaker 3: odd that I came up with some of these thoughts
25:59
Speaker 3: without being on the bike.
26:01
Speaker 1: I've never heard of it.
26:02
Speaker 3: So I dove in. BetMGM looked at games during the
26:09
Speaker 3: 2024 season.
26:11
Speaker 1: Wow.
26:12
Speaker 3: Involving teams going from west to the eastern or central
26:15
Speaker 3: time zones. In those games, just that one season, I realized,
26:20
Speaker 3: the favorites were just 10, 19, and 1 against the spread.
26:24
Speaker 3: Nine of those favorites lost outright. One season sample. And
26:29
Speaker 3: since then, things have kind of normalized a little bit. Again,
26:32
Speaker 3: a little regression to the mean there, and that kind
26:34
Speaker 3: of balanced out more in the 50-50 part of it.
26:37
Speaker 3: Went back and I said, all right, that's fine. Now
26:39
Speaker 3: let's look at another angle. How about teams coming from
26:43
Speaker 3: the West... that kicked off at 9 a.m. on their
26:47
Speaker 3: body clock. I told you body clocks would be a
26:49
Speaker 3: big term this week.
26:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, body clock's the worst.
26:51
Speaker 3: Teams that started at 9 a.m. in their internal clocks
26:54
Speaker 3: over the last three seasons. What I could find shows
26:59
Speaker 3: me that the straight-up record for those teams from the
27:02
Speaker 3: West coming East or Central starting at 9 a.m. on
27:04
Speaker 3: their body clock, just three and seven straight up. Just
27:09
Speaker 3: three and seven. There was only one that I could
27:12
Speaker 3: find where the Western-based team was favored over the Eastern team.
27:17
Speaker 1: Wow.
27:17
Speaker 3: So that hasn't happened.
27:19
Speaker 1: So that was a direct. You skipped Central there. You
27:21
Speaker 1: just went West to the East.
27:22
Speaker 3: Just starting at 9 o'clock on their body time, whatever
27:25
Speaker 3: that was, whatever time zone they were in, if it
27:27
Speaker 3: was starting at 9 o'clock on their body time. So
27:29
Speaker 3: it was 3 and 11 straight up. The four teams. Well,
27:35
Speaker 3: that's just that.
27:36
Speaker 1: I'll leave it there.
27:37
Speaker 3: That's it. That's the story. 3-11 over the last three
27:40
Speaker 3: seasons for teams starting at 9 a.m.
27:42
Speaker 1: On their body clocks. Now, they are coming in early, right? Tonight.
27:45
Speaker 1: They're coming in tonight.
27:46
Speaker 3: They're still starting at 9 a.m. on their body clocks.
27:48
Speaker 1: I agree.
27:48
Speaker 3: So if you're just trying to look at something that's external,
27:51
Speaker 3: that doesn't get into the football side of it, and again,
27:54
Speaker 3: it may have no bearing on this. Because what happened
27:57
Speaker 3: when USC came to Rutgers last year may have zero
28:01
Speaker 3: effect on a West Virginia-Arizona game. But I also thought
28:04
Speaker 3: that was kind of interesting. There's a reason the line
28:07
Speaker 3: is put where it was.
28:08
Speaker 1: Is that why?
28:10
Speaker 3: I think that's a big factor. We have mentioned travel
28:12
Speaker 3: and especially West East gets a lot of attention. That's
28:15
Speaker 3: a hard trip, guys. I mean, we've we've made that
28:17
Speaker 3: trip out there. That is a long trip. You're coming
28:20
Speaker 3: a long ways and you're starting at an abnormal time
28:23
Speaker 3: that you're not used to. Could that throw you off?
28:25
Speaker 1: Maybe it does.
28:26
Speaker 3: Maybe it doesn't. Again, we might come in Sunday and say, well,
28:28
Speaker 3: that had no effect whatsoever. That was inaccurate. Didn't work.
28:32
Speaker 3: But I just found it interesting because it doesn't happen
28:34
Speaker 3: very often. And there's a reason that, again, if you
28:37
Speaker 3: just looked at the teams the last couple of weeks,
28:39
Speaker 3: you would not put that line at two and a half.
28:41
Speaker 1: You just wouldn't.
28:42
Speaker 3: And again, those folks out there don't make a habit
28:44
Speaker 3: of missing tremendously on the opening line or they get crushed.
28:47
Speaker 3: And it hasn't moved a ton. Jumped to three and
28:49
Speaker 3: a half. And as soon as it got to three
28:50
Speaker 3: and a half, it was immediately bought back down to three.
28:53
Speaker 3: There's people in that market that are.
28:54
Speaker 1: Saying, yeah, okay, let's go.
28:57
Speaker 3: So just keep an eye on that. Now, let's dive
29:00
Speaker 3: into the football stuff. One of the big matchups, and
29:04
Speaker 3: this is file this under Brad's obvious observations. West Virginia's
29:08
Speaker 3: past defense that struggled the last two weeks gets Noah
29:10
Speaker 3: Fafita in this one. And there's some numbers here that
29:13
Speaker 3: should make you concerned. So Arizona has been heavy pass,
29:16
Speaker 3: 60% pass, 40% run. Let's dive into some of these numbers.
29:20
Speaker 3: Their key has been the down-to-down success that this group
29:24
Speaker 3: has had. They have a success rate, offensive success rate.
29:28
Speaker 3: How many plays were successful? We went over that Sunday.
29:30
Speaker 3: How many you need to gain? on first down, then
29:32
Speaker 3: second down, then get a first down or touchdown on
29:34
Speaker 3: third or fourth. They sit 21st nationally out of 138
29:37
Speaker 3: teams in success rate. on the offensive side. Contrasted with
29:42
Speaker 3: West Virginia's defensive success rate, it's just 109th in the country.
29:47
Speaker 3: So an obvious matchup there. Their success moving the ball
29:50
Speaker 3: down the field against your inability to stop it over
29:53
Speaker 3: the last couple of weeks, which of those comes to fruition?
29:56
Speaker 3: Can you stand up and get some more stops than
29:58
Speaker 3: you have before? Arizona's passing down success has been really good.
30:03
Speaker 3: 11th in the country. So they throw it on standard downs.
30:06
Speaker 3: They throw it on passing downs. They've been good on
30:08
Speaker 3: both of those. Here's one area where maybe you can
30:12
Speaker 3: have some success here. Their EPA per play is just
30:16
Speaker 3: 55th nationally. So they're very successful down to down, but
30:19
Speaker 3: they haven't been wildly explosive like West Virginia has. So
30:23
Speaker 3: your EPA is affected by that. If you're not super explosive,
30:26
Speaker 3: your EPA is going to be pretty normalized. You're not
30:29
Speaker 3: adding a ton of expected points on shorter passes underneath.
30:33
Speaker 3: The big expected points added come when there's massive plays.
30:36
Speaker 3: So Arizona's just 55th in that area. Can you keep
30:39
Speaker 3: them from being explosive, make them have to at least
30:42
Speaker 3: march down the field on you, then stand up on
30:45
Speaker 3: a third down and either get off the field and
30:47
Speaker 3: force a punt, get a turnover because they've had to
30:49
Speaker 3: run more plays, or hold them to a field goal?
30:52
Speaker 3: So if those numbers hold, maybe that's your path to
30:55
Speaker 3: victory is stand up and get a couple key stops.
30:59
Speaker 3: We said that about Oklahoma State, though, and what did
31:02
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State do, Hoppy?
31:03
Speaker 1: They ran, they passed, they run, they passed. And they
31:07
Speaker 1: big played you. They big played you.
31:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, they hadn't big played, and then they did against
31:12
Speaker 3: your defense. West Virginia allows an average of 8.7 yards
31:16
Speaker 3: per pass play. That's 128th in the country. So they're
31:20
Speaker 3: throwing for almost a first down on you every time
31:24
Speaker 3: they complete a pass. So that's something to watch. He
31:31
Speaker 3: has been a he being Fafita. Not super explosive, as
31:35
Speaker 3: I just mentioned, but effective when he throws it downfield.
31:38
Speaker 3: So they have picked their spots. They've been judicious about it,
31:41
Speaker 3: but he's been very good. He has three touchdown passes
31:44
Speaker 3: on plays of 20 yards or more. But here's the
31:46
Speaker 3: more concerning stat. He has six big time throws on
31:50
Speaker 3: those deep balls and just one turnover worthy play. So
31:53
Speaker 3: when they've decided to pick on you deep, it's been
31:55
Speaker 3: pretty successful. So we'll have to watch that.
31:58
Speaker 1: I wonder how many of those involve Trey Spivey, who's
32:00
Speaker 1: now out.
32:01
Speaker 3: Well, we'll talk about that here in a minute, because
32:03
Speaker 3: that might be something that comes back into play, is
32:06
Speaker 3: all the injuries for the Arizona wide receivers. All right,
32:09
Speaker 3: now flip it over. And Hoppy, you touched on this.
32:12
Speaker 3: The next question.
32:13
Speaker 1: What didn't he touch on? Took your whole report.
32:14
Speaker 3: The next question becomes, can West Virginia run the ball
32:17
Speaker 3: against a defense that just stopped Cincinnati's run game that
32:20
Speaker 3: Hoppy poo-pooed? That was the seventh ranked national rushing team
32:24
Speaker 3: coming into that game in Cincinnati. That's what they had done.
32:26
Speaker 3: They rebuilt their offensive line. They have been running behind
32:29
Speaker 3: that line and had a lot of success. Arizona held
32:32
Speaker 3: them to 74 yards on the ground and just 2.6
32:35
Speaker 3: yards per carry. So I'm interested to watch that matchup.
32:39
Speaker 3: If you dig a little deeper into Arizona's defense, they
32:42
Speaker 3: also held BYU 90 yards under its season rushing average.
32:46
Speaker 3: So it wasn't just a Cincinnati game. They stopped what
32:49
Speaker 3: is a really good BYU running attack as well.
32:51
Speaker 1: That's frightening right there because that was at BYU. And
32:55
Speaker 1: you go to BYU and you hold those cats to
32:58
Speaker 1: 90 under, that is significant.
33:02
Speaker 3: So is that real or is that an outlier? That's
33:04
Speaker 3: two top 30 rush offenses that they've held in check.
33:07
Speaker 3: I tend to agree with Hoppy looking outside in. They
33:10
Speaker 3: have not seen Hawkins and Cook. Iowa State's rush defense
33:13
Speaker 3: had been very good, too, against two pretty good rushing
33:16
Speaker 3: teams in Utah and Iowa. And West Virginia made them
33:18
Speaker 3: look like they were playing against air. Just ran whatever
33:20
Speaker 3: you wanted, ran up and down the field on them.
33:22
Speaker 3: So we'll obviously watch that. That's West Virginia's key. But
33:26
Speaker 3: I will go back into the key again for West
33:27
Speaker 3: Virginia that we talked about that you didn't do against
33:30
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State that again happened against Iowa State. You've got
33:33
Speaker 3: to hit some big pass plays. You hit big pass
33:35
Speaker 3: plays if you're West Virginia, and that defense got a
33:37
Speaker 3: heck of a problem trying to figure out what you're doing.
33:39
Speaker 3: So hit big play them a little bit, Arizona. They're
33:42
Speaker 3: rebuilding that defensive backfield. This is pretty remarkable. They sent
33:46
Speaker 3: five defensive backs from last year's team to the NFL.
33:49
Speaker 3: That's wild. Five, guys. So that's a whole new group
33:52
Speaker 3: there that's coming in the back. Can you get a
33:54
Speaker 3: little confusion like you have Against most opponents other than
33:57
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State, big play them through the air, then run
34:00
Speaker 3: crazy like you have and outscore this team. One thing
34:03
Speaker 3: to watch on Arizona's run defense, and this is probably
34:06
Speaker 3: part of their key, and it will certainly be a factor.
34:09
Speaker 3: If they're able to hold West Virginia and check on
34:11
Speaker 3: the ground, I would think it will be part of this.
34:13
Speaker 3: This is wild. They've used 17 defensive linemen and linebackers
34:17
Speaker 3: just against Cincinnati. 17 different guys at that position. 13
34:21
Speaker 3: of those dudes got 10 snaps or more. So they play,
34:25
Speaker 3: they only have seven guys that have played more than
34:28
Speaker 3: half of their snaps. So they are rotating a ton
34:32
Speaker 3: against a West Virginia defense that's made a living off
34:35
Speaker 3: wearing down defenses. And I thought you did see that
34:37
Speaker 3: against Iowa State. That defense was gassed, tired, and couldn't
34:40
Speaker 3: even remotely tackle you. Arizona might have the antidote to
34:44
Speaker 3: that with all these different guys they roll in.
34:46
Speaker 1: So let's watch that. And that's what makes keeping the
34:49
Speaker 1: ball and not allowing them to substitute so important, right?
34:53
Speaker 1: That is even more important. But you're right. You look
34:56
Speaker 1: at their defensive statistics, and there isn't one or two
35:00
Speaker 1: players that you normally see on a stat sheet defensively
35:03
Speaker 1: that kind of leads the parade in TFLs, tackles for
35:06
Speaker 1: a loss, or sacks. It's like everyone's got a little.
35:09
Speaker 1: Like just a long line of guys. You know, this
35:11
Speaker 1: guy's got two. This guy's got one. This guy's got three.
35:13
Speaker 1: This guy's got two. Just like to his point, just
35:16
Speaker 1: a bunch of different guys are getting on the field.
35:19
Speaker 1: All right.
35:19
Speaker 3: Let's focus on the West Virginia defense for a second.
35:23
Speaker 3: Is it going to be a third consecutive showing like
35:25
Speaker 3: it is, or is this the week they stand up
35:27
Speaker 3: and actually make some plays? So let's look at this
35:30
Speaker 3: part of it right here. Arizona is fourth best in
35:35
Speaker 3: the power four at preventing pressure relative to expectation. So
35:41
Speaker 3: they're doing a better job than what the baseline would
35:43
Speaker 3: expect at protecting the quarterback. So there's a couple ways
35:48
Speaker 3: to look at that. Does that continue for them? Or
35:51
Speaker 3: is that a number that's maybe unsustainable? Are they due
35:54
Speaker 3: for a little regression coming back? Is someone due to
35:57
Speaker 3: get through and put some pressure on Noah Fafita? If
36:00
Speaker 3: West Virginia changes its approach this week and just decides
36:03
Speaker 3: to bring more guys and says, hey, we're not covering.
36:06
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. We're not covering with six. We may
36:09
Speaker 3: not cover with three or two, but we're bringing guys
36:11
Speaker 3: at you. Can West Virginia get home? Because like most quarterbacks,
36:16
Speaker 3: Noah Fafita becomes a little different when you get to him. Guys,
36:19
Speaker 3: he's completing. 81% of his passes from a clean pocket.
36:25
Speaker 3: 81% from a clean pocket. Just like Drew Mestemaker, if
36:28
Speaker 3: you don't get home and make this guy uncomfortable, you
36:31
Speaker 3: have virtually no shot against him. 81% against a clean pocket.
36:35
Speaker 3: That blew my doors off. But only 48% under pressure.
36:40
Speaker 3: That's the second largest drop in completion percentage among all
36:43
Speaker 3: qualifying Big 12 quarterbacks. The biggest gap between Completion percentage
36:48
Speaker 3: clean and completion percentage versus pressure. Interestingly, the next biggest
36:54
Speaker 3: decline is from Drew Mestemaker. And you saw what happened.
36:56
Speaker 3: You didn't get to Mestemaker at all, and he carved
36:59
Speaker 3: you up. Can that change this week? Add in, when
37:04
Speaker 3: Fafid has been pressured, he has just two touchdown passes
37:07
Speaker 3: versus three interceptions. So that would be a key. And again,
37:09
Speaker 3: that could be classified under Brad's obvious observations. Got to
37:13
Speaker 3: get to the quarterback. You've got to hit him. and
37:16
Speaker 3: make him uncomfortable.
37:17
Speaker 1: And to this moment, the answer is who, right? Who, how, when, who?
37:26
Speaker 3: And again, if you're going to simplify the defense, it's
37:29
Speaker 3: been much talked about the couple weeks, then it relies
37:34
Speaker 3: a little more on, all right, if you're simplifying it,
37:36
Speaker 3: then someone's got to make a play. Someone's got to
37:39
Speaker 3: be individual. If you're going to eliminate some of the
37:42
Speaker 3: stunts and moves you're doing up front and from the
37:44
Speaker 3: linebacker position. Okay, then just beat your guy. Somebodies have
37:49
Speaker 3: to beat their guy, and you've got to get to Fafita,
37:52
Speaker 3: and you've got to make him pay for standing back there.
37:54
Speaker 3: If you want to throw it 60% of the time,
37:56
Speaker 3: so be it. You've got to make them pay for
37:58
Speaker 3: that decision. And even if it's not a sack, or
38:01
Speaker 3: even if it's not a hit, you have got to
38:03
Speaker 3: be there and let him know we're over here and
38:05
Speaker 3: we're coming all day. And I think that's something important
38:07
Speaker 3: to watch. Because here's the other part. Not only does
38:10
Speaker 3: he complete a ridiculous rate when he's healthy, He's ridiculous
38:14
Speaker 3: against zone, and West Virginia has played more zone than
38:17
Speaker 3: man to this point. 80% completion percentage, nine yards per
38:21
Speaker 3: attempt when he throws against zone, zero interceptions. So you're
38:25
Speaker 3: going to have to, again, obvious, you're going to have
38:29
Speaker 3: to do something different, and that would be a great
38:31
Speaker 3: place to start. Find a way to get home and
38:33
Speaker 3: make him uncomfortable.
38:34
Speaker 1: He is, I guess, to use a word to describe him,
38:37
Speaker 1: he's very slippery. Yes. He's very elusive. He maintains his
38:42
Speaker 1: vision downfield, just gets enough out of the pocket where
38:46
Speaker 1: he just kind of hangs on and then fires that thing.
38:48
Speaker 1: But to your point, that's a significant drop in completion percentage.
38:52
Speaker 1: And to your point, you're dead if you don't make it.
38:54
Speaker 1: If he sets his, if he dropped, bop, bop, bop, bop, drop, survey, 81%.
38:59
Speaker 3: And you're sitting in zone. I mean, all the numbers
39:02
Speaker 3: tell you it's a long day if you don't get
39:04
Speaker 3: home and make him uncomfortable. So do that. Now add
39:07
Speaker 3: to it what you just brought up a second ago.
39:09
Speaker 3: When we saw him last out in Arizona, he was
39:13
Speaker 3: going bananas throwing a Ted McMillan. That was a lethal combination.
39:17
Speaker 3: You do catch a break if you're West Virginia here.
39:19
Speaker 3: Your top three receivers for Arizona are now listed as
39:22
Speaker 3: out on their injury report. So that changes them significantly.
39:25
Speaker 3: You've got to go in now and you've got to
39:27
Speaker 3: find some guys. And Rodney Gallagher, who just has... 10
39:30
Speaker 3: catches on the years, he play a more important role.
39:32
Speaker 3: But we talked about that defensive line depth. Now they're
39:35
Speaker 3: into the depth at the receiver position here and have
39:37
Speaker 3: to find a way to replace some of their receivers.
39:40
Speaker 3: So can that be a break that you just got?
39:43
Speaker 3: We'll keep an eye on it. Now, Hop, let's go
39:45
Speaker 3: back to our point that we talked about earlier. what's
39:48
Speaker 3: Arizona's chances of containing your dynamic duo of Hawkins and cook.
39:51
Speaker 3: And let's talk about those guys for just a second.
39:55
Speaker 3: Rich talked about this earlier with you, Tony, on the
39:57
Speaker 3: coaches show, Arizona brings a ton of blitz, right? They're
40:01
Speaker 3: one of the blitz, his, his words, one of the
40:03
Speaker 3: most blitz happy teams in the country.
40:05
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:07
Speaker 3: Well, you guys, you remember the first iteration of rich
40:09
Speaker 3: Rodriguez when Pat white was at the helm. What did,
40:12
Speaker 3: what did those guys always used to say over in
40:13
Speaker 3: the building? You want to bring a little pressure on Pat?
40:17
Speaker 3: Come on with it. You may walk over.
40:20
Speaker 1: You're going to limp back.
40:22
Speaker 3: This might be a little you walk over, you're going
40:25
Speaker 3: to limp back. If you turn, if you don't, the
40:28
Speaker 3: reverse of what I just said is also true. If
40:31
Speaker 3: you're going to come at Hawkins and you don't get
40:33
Speaker 3: home on Hawkins, look out here. As we know, pressuring
40:37
Speaker 3: him doesn't necessarily end the play. He leads the country
40:41
Speaker 3: in scramble yards, averaging 14 yards per scramble. This was
40:45
Speaker 3: pretty wild, too. Of his 33 rushing first downs, 10
40:50
Speaker 3: of them have come via scrambles. So he's punishing you
40:53
Speaker 3: when you come up with pressure and don't make it
40:56
Speaker 3: all the way to get there. This guy, I'm going
40:58
Speaker 3: to keep talking about these ridiculous stats for Hawkins because
41:01
Speaker 3: if West Virginia had won another game or so, this
41:03
Speaker 3: would be a legitimate Heisman conversation with this guy. He's
41:06
Speaker 3: been remarkable. Mentioned how he led the country in scramble yards. Also,
41:10
Speaker 3: 87% of his rushing yards, guys, are after contact.
41:13
Speaker 1: Ha!
41:14
Speaker 3: Talk about a guy just handling his business. So that's
41:17
Speaker 3: important to watch. Can Hawkins and Cook continue to operate
41:21
Speaker 3: at the rate at which they've been operating? There hasn't
41:24
Speaker 3: been a big margin for error. You need to give
41:27
Speaker 3: them some help somewhere along the way. Can that be
41:29
Speaker 3: this week? But can they also just keep doing what
41:31
Speaker 3: they're doing for another week? Because those two have been fantastic.
41:36
Speaker 3: We'll end it there, I think.
41:37
Speaker 1: No, that's very good. That's good. Let me just kind
41:41
Speaker 1: of put into context... their injury report. Now, they are
41:45
Speaker 1: listing these guys right now as out. Their tight end,
41:50
Speaker 1: Cole Rusk, is out. And among their tight ends, he's
41:55
Speaker 1: got six catches for 86 yards. And then we already
41:59
Speaker 1: knew during the course of this week that Trey Spivey,
42:04
Speaker 1: who is their leading receiver, he is out. But now
42:07
Speaker 1: they're also putting out.
42:11
Speaker 1: A couple of other guys that were number two and
42:15
Speaker 1: number three in their mix. So think about that.
42:20
Speaker 3: Gio Richardson being one of them.
42:21
Speaker 1: He had 16 catches for 187 yards. Chris Hunter is out.
42:27
Speaker 1: 13 catches for 155 and a touchdown. So that's not
42:33
Speaker 1: just one dude, man.
42:35
Speaker 3: It's their top three receivers by yardage and by receptions.
42:38
Speaker 1: And a tight end that was second.
42:39
Speaker 3: And a tight end out. So that's significant. Now, can
42:42
Speaker 3: you take advantage of it?
42:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:46
Speaker 2: Can a guy, can you, I mean, they're backups for
42:49
Speaker 2: a reason. So can they not get as open as
42:52
Speaker 2: the other guys? Can they drop a couple, just a
42:56
Speaker 2: couple of things? I mean, can you, to help you get,
42:58
Speaker 2: to help you get a stop.
43:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
43:01
Speaker 3: And I, and I, again, good. Go back to Western.
43:03
Speaker 3: He's got to find a way to get some pressure.
43:06
Speaker 3: They just had, they have to get home and they
43:08
Speaker 3: were able to do that against Virginia.
43:10
Speaker 1: Right.
43:10
Speaker 3: And you made them one dimensional. And that's, And that's
43:12
Speaker 3: probably where I should have started this. It hasn't just
43:16
Speaker 3: been the pass defense, as we've noted. The last two weeks,
43:18
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State and Iowa State, you haven't stopped the run either.
43:22
Speaker 3: So you've been deficient in both areas, which now you've
43:26
Speaker 3: got no shot. Now you have no shot. You go
43:28
Speaker 3: light box, you're just going to run it down your throat.
43:30
Speaker 3: If you go heavy, now they're going to throw it
43:31
Speaker 3: over you. So you take something away. No, you're absolutely right.
43:34
Speaker 3: This is an Arizona team that wants to throw it
43:36
Speaker 3: more than the others. Caleb Hawkins, Oklahoma State, was content
43:39
Speaker 3: to run him. Aiden Flora, obviously, Iowa State preferred to
43:42
Speaker 3: run him. The fact that you couldn't stop that is
43:45
Speaker 3: what I thought started the downfall for you. This is different.
43:48
Speaker 3: Can you at least make them one-dimensional? Then they have
43:50
Speaker 3: to throw. Then maybe you can get home a little
43:52
Speaker 3: bit more.
43:52
Speaker 1: The biggest thing that we're probably not talking about enough
43:56
Speaker 1: is that, that the two past opponents just ran with
44:01
Speaker 1: an unbelievable success rate, right? Aiden, Jim Flora. And Caleb
44:08
Speaker 1: Hawkins went for $ 1. 80 in back-to-back weeks, to your point.
44:13
Speaker 1: All right. Coming up, we've got textual healing. We'll tell
44:16
Speaker 1: you a little bit about some things, other things that
44:19
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44:22
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44:25
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44:30
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44:34
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44:37
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45:03
Speaker 3: Wait, what are those? That's coffees they have?
45:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's right up your alley.
45:07
Speaker 3: Yeah. Read a couple of those again. There's something mocha
45:10
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45:10
Speaker 1: Dubai Chocolate, Killer Brew, Irish Cream, Salted Caramel, and Mean
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45:17
Speaker 3: Might be heading there shortly.
45:18
Speaker 1: So you can keep your energy level up. I mean,
45:20
Speaker 1: Hoppy said he was up early. Hoppy might need.
45:23
Speaker 3: He'll have a crash coming.
45:24
Speaker 1: I will. Hoppy might need a little something. If you're
45:25
Speaker 1: coming to the game on Saturday, and it's going to
45:28
Speaker 1: be early, but they're open. Tudor's Biscuit World going on
45:31
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45:33
Speaker 1: Elk Stadium. Or when you leave out of town on Sunday,
45:36
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45:45
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45:50
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45:55
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46:01
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46:05
Speaker 1: All right, news notes and a few other things. Well,
46:09
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46:11
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Speaker 1: or visit wvmedicine.org. Okay, so a couple of things. Let
47:17
Speaker 1: me let you know what we're into. As I said
47:19
Speaker 1: at the start, quick apology for those of us, for
47:23
Speaker 1: those of you expecting to see us at Buffalo Wild
47:26
Speaker 1: Wings this week, had to cancel this, tonight's show, and
47:30
Speaker 1: then unfortunately, We're off again next Thursday before the Cincinnati
47:35
Speaker 1: game because there's going to be balling at Woodburn. Balling.
47:39
Speaker 3: Drop the G there. It's a really hip way to
47:41
Speaker 3: say it.
47:42
Speaker 1: Balling.
47:44
Speaker 3: B-A-L-L-I-N. Apostrophe after the N. Balling.
47:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the second time in two days that I'm
47:50
Speaker 1: just reading the script, the extra letters in there. But anyway,
47:55
Speaker 1: balling at Woodburn is a week from this Thursday. They
47:57
Speaker 1: did it last year. It's super neat, super fun. The
48:01
Speaker 1: women's teams and the men's team are out there in
48:03
Speaker 1: the middle of campus, and it's all lit up.
48:05
Speaker 3: It is a great setting.
48:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, put a basketball court out there. It's a great idea.
48:09
Speaker 1: Super fun.
48:10
Speaker 3: Weather, I think, is going to be very nice.
48:11
Speaker 1: Well, sure. Almost heaven. And so we'll eventually get back
48:16
Speaker 1: to Buffalo Wild Wings. We've got a couple events we'll
48:18
Speaker 1: do there before the end of the year. The food
48:20
Speaker 1: court this week, for those of you coming into the
48:22
Speaker 1: game Friday, we're going to start at 4 p.m. next
48:25
Speaker 1: to Daniels on University Avenue. and friday night we're going
48:30
Speaker 1: to be four to eight nine ish you got connection
48:33
Speaker 1: 304 you got rev kevs barbecue got live music got
48:36
Speaker 1: the fire pit going brought in some special special wood
48:40
Speaker 1: excuse me yeah just really well burns really well one quick.
48:44
Speaker 3: Note it is a coal rush this weekend so my
48:47
Speaker 3: shift at daniel's this week put out some nice new
48:49
Speaker 3: black gear you guys don't miss over a nice little
48:52
Speaker 3: horn legend it's a little half zip or quarter zip
48:54
Speaker 3: hop however you want to refer to it's got The
48:56
Speaker 3: state of West Virginia is all throughout. I find it
48:58
Speaker 3: very nice.
48:59
Speaker 1: I find it feels on it.
49:02
Speaker 3: You'll be traveling, so you didn't screw up and forget
49:05
Speaker 3: you're black, which likely would have happened. But it's not
49:08
Speaker 3: of concern this week. But if you need some black
49:11
Speaker 3: coal rush gear, we recommend stuffing.
49:13
Speaker 1: Can I wear it while traveling? You can. You can.
49:15
Speaker 1: I'm going to show your support.
49:16
Speaker 3: Solidarity.
49:17
Speaker 1: I will. Super thanks to the cookie customers. So Ben
49:22
Speaker 1: Cutter's mom, Jen, we sold out of her cookies for
49:25
Speaker 1: this week's game and didn't advertise. I think there was
49:28
Speaker 1: like one post that went out there, and those oatmeal
49:30
Speaker 1: cream pies and the chocolate chips, they're like, but she's
49:33
Speaker 1: going to make a little extra. So if you go
49:35
Speaker 1: over to the food court, you might want to go like, hey,
49:38
Speaker 1: You might have one or two, but other than that,
49:40
Speaker 1: sold those bad boys out. Poor Jen. What do you
49:43
Speaker 1: mean poor Jen? She's happy. She's making stuff she likes
49:45
Speaker 1: to do. All the time. She's a baker. World champ baker.
49:50
Speaker 1: World renowned. That's what she does. Okay. Okay.
49:54
Speaker 2: I'm just saying now. She's probably up at four this
49:59
Speaker 2: morning as well.
49:59
Speaker 1: It's part of the business, Hoppy. That's what you got
50:01
Speaker 1: to do. Bakers bake. Ballers ball. Bakers bake. Shooters shoot. Saturday,
50:08
Speaker 1: we're going to be there from 9 until about 10.30
50:10
Speaker 1: or 11. RevCav's breakfast sandwiches. Brisket on a biscuit. Oh,
50:15
Speaker 1: it's great. Plus, you start things off with some Mountaineer
50:18
Speaker 1: Roasting Coffee, free drip coffee, plus cookie order pickups. And
50:22
Speaker 1: then you've got Connection 304 over there from Parkersburg Brewing.
50:24
Speaker 1: So you can get breakfast, coffee, and a beer.
50:28
Speaker 3: I mean, what a better way to start a day.
50:30
Speaker 1: That's America.
50:32
Speaker 3: Walk over to the stadium.
50:33
Speaker 1: By the way, you get that biscuit, Tony, last time
50:34
Speaker 1: I had that breakfast biscuit. They said, what sauce?
50:37
Speaker 2: Cheese?
50:37
Speaker 3: No.
50:38
Speaker 1: Just give me the brisket. Biscuit and brisket. That's all
50:44
Speaker 1: I want. Like Brad said, weather's going to be perfect
50:46
Speaker 1: Friday night. So just come on out. Good food, beverages, music,
50:49
Speaker 1: fire pit. It's just fun. Just chilled out. Last night
50:53
Speaker 1: we were a part of an event. for the United
50:56
Speaker 1: Way of Montague and Preston County. And we had, what
50:59
Speaker 1: did we have? 10 student athletes. Do we have five
51:01
Speaker 1: different teams represented? We had gymnastics, we had rifle, we
51:04
Speaker 1: had baseball, we had women's basketball, men's basketball. And, um, we,
51:09
Speaker 1: we chatted with 10 of those student athletes and just great.
51:13
Speaker 1: As I said, to get to know them, they all
51:15
Speaker 1: have wonderful, interesting stories. A couple of things that I
51:20
Speaker 1: pulled out, we had two of the gymnasts with them
51:21
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, If there was a pull-up bar
51:24
Speaker 1: right there, how many could you crank? And the one
51:26
Speaker 1: young lady said, just did it recently. Yeah, how many? 25.
51:31
Speaker 3: 18 and 25 were the two answers.
51:33
Speaker 1: 18 and 25 were the two answers.
51:35
Speaker 2: Tony, Brent and I were talking about this in our
51:36
Speaker 2: pre-production meeting, that one of the great things that's happening
51:41
Speaker 2: now with the change in college sports is you're getting
51:43
Speaker 2: to meet these people, meet these athletes, and not just,
51:47
Speaker 2: not just, Yeah, we played hard. Looking forward to next week.
51:50
Speaker 2: But there's personal stories. Everybody's got a story. And these
51:53
Speaker 2: are really interesting, Brad, interesting young men and women. And
51:57
Speaker 2: you get to know them a little bit.
51:59
Speaker 1: And it's fun. It's entertaining.
52:02
Speaker 3: Two rifle athletes were there. They were great. Talked about
52:04
Speaker 3: how they got started in their sport. Colin Kunrat, one
52:07
Speaker 3: of the new baseball players, was in with Chance and Cole.
52:11
Speaker 1: Seems like he might have some power.
52:12
Speaker 3: Colin Kunrat, 37 dingers last year in JUCO. He can rake.
52:18
Speaker 3: So you'll be excited to watch him.
52:20
Speaker 1: That's one thing that doesn't change, right? In baseball, if
52:23
Speaker 1: you hit it in junior college, you're probably going to
52:25
Speaker 1: hit it.
52:25
Speaker 3: Your exit VLO is over 100. It probably stays. It's
52:28
Speaker 3: a transferable. And again, we've talked many times. West Virginia
52:31
Speaker 3: has done about as good a job as anybody at
52:33
Speaker 3: finding those folks, either from a JUCO or a Division II,
52:37
Speaker 3: moving up to this level and turning into stars. Chanson
52:40
Speaker 3: Cole being one of those guys.
52:41
Speaker 1: Chanson Cole, we had him with us. And he's always
52:43
Speaker 1: great to chat with. And he worked over there at
52:46
Speaker 1: the biomechanics center over the summer with one goal in mind,
52:50
Speaker 1: and that was to increase his velocity. And what was
52:53
Speaker 1: wild is, on the mound yesterday in a real pitching
52:56
Speaker 1: situation for the very first time since the World's Championship. Sure.
53:01
Speaker 1: And his velocity went up to 92, and as I
53:04
Speaker 1: said last night, with his ball placement, if he takes
53:07
Speaker 1: that thing up to 92 width.
53:10
Speaker 3: He has that same ball placement. He was elite last year,
53:12
Speaker 3: just down in the zone, throwing what they call a
53:14
Speaker 3: heavy ball there. Heavy ball if you're throwing... In the
53:17
Speaker 3: upper 80s, low 90s, and you're keeping it down low,
53:20
Speaker 3: look for another good year from Chanson Cole.
53:22
Speaker 1: And got an update on Gavin Kelly. He's gained 15 pounds.
53:27
Speaker 1: And obviously, he already was powerful at the plate. So
53:31
Speaker 1: he's improved. And Chanson basically said, we got a lot
53:34
Speaker 1: more guys on the mound that can really bring it.
53:38
Speaker 1: So he's happy there. And we've got guys. From a
53:41
Speaker 1: home run perspective, he thinks they've added a lot of power.
53:43
Speaker 3: Kunrat being one, there's some hitters, some of those pitchers
53:46
Speaker 3: now coming close to 100 miles an hour on their fastball.
53:50
Speaker 3: As we talked with him, that defense returns almost intact
53:54
Speaker 3: there when you talk about Gavin's backing play second, Inish's
53:57
Speaker 3: back at shortstop, Tyrus Hall, who had one of the
53:59
Speaker 3: best seasons, I thought, defensively of any Mountaineer third baseman.
54:02
Speaker 3: For a guy that was a shortstop and had moved
54:04
Speaker 3: to third, they all return. You've got some gloves back, too.
54:07
Speaker 1: Brennan Lorien and Javen Buchanan from the Mountaineer men's basketball
54:10
Speaker 1: team were also there. It was great to hear from
54:13
Speaker 1: Brennan Belo on his story of how this whole thing
54:17
Speaker 1: turned around. He thought he was done. He said, I'm
54:19
Speaker 1: done with the crown. You're going like, OK, what do
54:21
Speaker 1: I do now? And all of a sudden, you have
54:23
Speaker 1: a chance to become eligible. And then Javen Buchanan, who
54:26
Speaker 1: comes from Boise, and just how the transition is going
54:31
Speaker 1: for him. And those two guys play the same spot.
54:33
Speaker 1: And so that's going to be one heck of a
54:36
Speaker 1: tandem there in and out with those two guys.
54:38
Speaker 3: It is great size at that position now too.
54:40
Speaker 1: Right.
54:41
Speaker 2: Tony talking to coach Hans last night and he, he's excited.
54:44
Speaker 2: I mean, usually coaches are downplaying like, well, I mean,
54:48
Speaker 2: he's excited about what he has seen so far, but
54:52
Speaker 2: what he's anxious to find out, like Brad, like every
54:54
Speaker 2: coach in the country is how do you respond in
54:56
Speaker 2: a game and how do you respond.
54:58
Speaker 1: When you get punched in the mouth? Sure.
54:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
54:59
Speaker 1: Alexis Bordas, uh, one of the women's players, uh, who
55:03
Speaker 1: were there and, uh, How many shots does she shoot
55:06
Speaker 1: per day in the summer? 1,000. Gets 1,000. 1K. Gets 1,000
55:09
Speaker 1: shots up. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? So she
55:12
Speaker 1: might not get that many in a game. Nah, probably not.
55:14
Speaker 1: Probably not. So off it goes. Mark Kellogg was there.
55:18
Speaker 1: John Hammond was there. John Hammond is fantastic. Was there
55:21
Speaker 1: as well. And the two rifle shooters, athletes, custom WVU shoes. Yeah,
55:30
Speaker 1: because they got a daddy.
55:31
Speaker 3: They were sweet.
55:32
Speaker 1: They were pretty nice. Yeah. They were pretty nice. And
55:35
Speaker 1: your question, obviously, were maybe Brad's. Hey, can anybody get those? No. No. Vaulted.
55:40
Speaker 1: That's the vault.
55:41
Speaker 3: Got to win a world championship.
55:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, let's jump in. Three guys before the game.
55:44
Speaker 1: Textual healing. Textual says, we continually get beat by teams
55:49
Speaker 1: with more or equal turnover. Newer coaches, NIL program support. So,
55:55
Speaker 1: quit all of the excuses of needing more money and
55:58
Speaker 1: taking time. I know Rich isn't responsible for the Neil
56:01
Speaker 1: Brown years, but it is what it is. We as
56:03
Speaker 1: fans have continued to support the team and program through
56:05
Speaker 1: all of this. I say, if we can't compete in football,
56:09
Speaker 1: let's just admit that we can't and take some of
56:12
Speaker 1: the resources and put it in basketball and baseball and
56:16
Speaker 1: at least try to win at something so we have
56:18
Speaker 1: something to be proud of. I would rather win a
56:20
Speaker 1: national championship in something other than rifle than continue this
56:25
Speaker 1: same give it time stuff.
56:27
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, you do have success with these
56:31
Speaker 2: other teams at WVU. And second of all, if you
56:34
Speaker 2: get rid of football, you become irrelevant nationally.
56:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'll just do this really super simple.
56:40
Speaker 1: And it makes the money. I'll just do this really
56:42
Speaker 1: super simple. If West Virginia or if any other school
56:46
Speaker 1: ever devalues and stops investing in its football program that
56:51
Speaker 1: takes away the financial resources and support that that your
56:57
Speaker 1: school has within its athletic department. That is the biggest
57:01
Speaker 1: draw and that is the biggest source. So once you
57:04
Speaker 1: do that, everything, I could say the football program is
57:08
Speaker 1: your heart. And once you constrict the blood flow to
57:13
Speaker 1: the heart of your athletic department, everything else withers. And
57:17
Speaker 1: that's exactly what would happen. So that's not how it works.
57:21
Speaker 1: You're going to say, hey, we de-emphasize football and we're
57:23
Speaker 1: going to do this. You just don't have the resources
57:26
Speaker 1: to fund the other things at that level. So you'd
57:28
Speaker 1: be killing yourself. Three guys. I could not watch this
57:33
Speaker 1: past week's game. We were in transit to a bucket
57:36
Speaker 1: list golf and sightseeing trip to Pebble Beach, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone,
57:42
Speaker 1: and other sites. We did listen while driving around the
57:45
Speaker 1: Monterey Peninsula. And we found the John Denver Memorial at
57:51
Speaker 1: the site of his crash years ago. Wow. We got
57:54
Speaker 1: out of our car with Country Roads playing in the
57:58
Speaker 1: background to pay our respects. So there you go. Here's
58:02
Speaker 1: these dudes. There's the John Denver plaque where, unfortunately, he
58:07
Speaker 1: lost his life with that plane, an experimental plane. And
58:11
Speaker 1: then these are the dudes that were there. So you
58:15
Speaker 1: see the guy in the green? Yeah. That's the guy
58:18
Speaker 1: that's been on that, like, 99-month cruise all over the world.
58:22
Speaker 1: Now he's, like, in California. Does he get tired? No,
58:25
Speaker 1: he's got a great life. So he's back from that.
58:28
Speaker 3: I like to be that guy when I grow up.
58:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's back from that. Now he's out there.
58:31
Speaker 3: Well, that should be some good karma there. You go
58:32
Speaker 3: to the John Denver Memorial. You play Country Roads. There
58:35
Speaker 3: should be some good karma coming this weekend.
58:36
Speaker 1: Exactly. West Coast, right? They're out on the West Coast.
58:39
Speaker 3: They're coming west to east.
58:39
Speaker 1: They're coming, yeah. Probably be all tired when they get back.
58:43
Speaker 1: Texter says, an incredible weekend at Ross Hodge's inaugural fantasy
58:47
Speaker 1: basketball camp this past weekend. The hype around this team
58:50
Speaker 1: is real. Get excited. Spreads, that's you, did an awesome
58:54
Speaker 1: job Friday night hosting, interviewing Hodge, facilitating question and answer,
58:58
Speaker 1: and generally working real. Well, there you are. You're with me.
59:01
Speaker 1: You're with me. Is that our guy?
59:02
Speaker 3: That's Rick.
59:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's our guy, Rick, man.
59:06
Speaker 3: He's a blast.
59:07
Speaker 1: He's a dude. So that was you didn't even talk
59:10
Speaker 1: about this fantasy you didn't yeah why didn't you talk.
59:13
Speaker 3: About it well i don't know we haven't had a
59:15
Speaker 3: chance to talk about it is it good it was
59:17
Speaker 3: great it was great had a bunch of guys back
59:19
Speaker 3: and they did that was at the meet and greet
59:21
Speaker 3: friday night and as rick alluded to here we had
59:23
Speaker 3: a question and answer with Coach Hodge and talked to
59:26
Speaker 3: folks in the room. And then they went out and
59:29
Speaker 3: played on Saturday.
59:30
Speaker 1: No serious injuries.
59:31
Speaker 3: No serious injuries. Very few even tweaks. There were a
59:34
Speaker 3: couple little tweaks. It was some bad basketball. There's no question.
59:37
Speaker 3: Some bad basketball being played. But it was also neat.
59:40
Speaker 3: There were multiple former players back. Nathan Adrian was back.
59:43
Speaker 3: John Flowers. Truck was there doing some coaching.
59:47
Speaker 1: Kevin Pitsnagel.
59:48
Speaker 3: Pitsnagel. I spent a lot of time talking to Kevin.
59:50
Speaker 3: That was really fun to catch up with him. He's
59:52
Speaker 3: excited to watch. His son Quincy come into the Coliseum
59:55
Speaker 3: with Wheeling and playing an exhibition game.
59:57
Speaker 1: Lowe's Moore?
59:58
Speaker 3: Lowe's Moore was back and played.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: Really?
1:00:02
Speaker 3: Lowe's was back and played. It was awesome to catch
1:00:04
Speaker 3: up with him. You know, he's almost 70 now, he said.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:00:06
Speaker 3: Looks great.
1:00:07
Speaker 1: Looks great.
1:00:08
Speaker 3: So he was there all weekend. Daryl Pru was back.
1:00:10
Speaker 3: He played as well.
1:00:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. Truck play? Truck still got this.
1:00:13
Speaker 3: Truck just coached. He got a bad wheel. And I
1:00:15
Speaker 3: air quote coaches. There wasn't a whole lot. I did
1:00:18
Speaker 3: a couple in-game interviews in the huddle. Pit snoggles over there,
1:00:21
Speaker 3: drawing up some great plays. He was assisted. He had
1:00:24
Speaker 3: a great assistant, our buddy out of Orlando, Mike Pouncey.
1:00:28
Speaker 3: Now Mike's probably inflating how much he had to do
1:00:31
Speaker 3: with their world championship they won, but Pit's Knuckles down
1:00:34
Speaker 3: there taking it serious.
1:00:35
Speaker 1: Well, sure.
1:00:35
Speaker 3: I went down to the other huddle, and Truck was
1:00:37
Speaker 3: really not drawing much up there. But Truck was great.
1:00:41
Speaker 3: You know who one of the great player coaches was, though,
1:00:44
Speaker 3: that I saw over the weekend? Miles Sadler.
1:00:48
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
1:00:48
Speaker 3: He did a tremendous job coaching his team. Didn't get
1:00:50
Speaker 3: to the world championship, but he did. He did a
1:00:52
Speaker 3: tremendous job. So all the current players were around as well.
1:00:55
Speaker 3: They were awesome, interacting, running up and down. And then
1:00:57
Speaker 3: it ended, and they cut down the nets. The champion
1:00:59
Speaker 3: cut down the nets, as we are the champions, blaring.
1:01:02
Speaker 3: They had a reception later that night, and they all
1:01:05
Speaker 3: got a video that was set to one shining moment.
1:01:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw that. It was a neat weekend. Kevin's–
1:01:11
Speaker 1: Kevin Pitsenoggle's college coach going into the Hall of Fame
1:01:14
Speaker 1: this weekend, John Beeline. Mm-hmm. We'll be here. Don't forget,
1:01:18
Speaker 1: if you are coming to the game, 9 a.m. Saturday
1:01:21
Speaker 1: inside the Caperton practice facility, the ceremony will begin. John
1:01:26
Speaker 1: Beeline among some great, it's a good, really big boy,
1:01:30
Speaker 1: really big boy, big girl.
1:01:32
Speaker 4: Tony, I got the note on that. I wanted to
1:01:35
Speaker 4: mention that. Oh, yeah. A couple of the women's soccer players, right?
1:01:40
Speaker 4: You got Kadisha Buchanan, Ashley Lawrence.
1:01:44
Speaker 3: As they should go in together.
1:01:45
Speaker 1: As they should go in together. You've got Dennis Folks
1:01:49
Speaker 1: from the football squad. You've got your buddy from the
1:01:53
Speaker 1: track and field team. Alex Kasich. Yeah, absolutely. You know, Tony,
1:01:56
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that.
1:01:57
Speaker 2: And Kasich, I was in school at the same time
1:01:59
Speaker 2: as him, as he was, and saw him run cross country.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: He was very, very good.
1:02:03
Speaker 2: But, you know, with Folks going in, that linebacking corps,
1:02:07
Speaker 2: that was like 81-82, 88-182, right around in there.
1:02:08
Speaker 1: So Folks, Darryl Talley. Steve Hathaway, Dave Preston in that era.
1:02:17
Speaker 1: That was a really, really good linebacking corps. Yeah. So
1:02:21
Speaker 1: that's 9 a.m. Saturday for the ceremony. You'll be there.
1:02:25
Speaker 1: I'll be there. Texter says, based on the last few years,
1:02:29
Speaker 1: WVU football should change their mascot from the Mountaineer to Shakespeare.
1:02:34
Speaker 1: And the team motto should be much ado about nothing. Ouch.
1:02:39
Speaker 1: Bill Shakespeare is one of the good ones. He didn't
1:02:42
Speaker 1: use AI. He wrote it himself. Well, there's some controversy
1:02:45
Speaker 1: about that. Some suggest others contributed. Seriously?
1:02:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's always been hypothesized that it wasn't just Shakespeare
1:02:53
Speaker 2: that others also wrote.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: First I've heard of this. Oh, no, you've heard of that.
1:02:57
Speaker 3: I've never heard that.
1:02:59
Speaker 1: Did they say someone else helped him?
1:03:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe that there were others that contributed. It wasn't
1:03:04
Speaker 2: just that. People think that one person couldn't have done
1:03:09
Speaker 2: as much and as well as he did.
1:03:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:03:12
Speaker 1: Next time you're going to tell me Michelangelo had a
1:03:16
Speaker 1: paint crew come in and help with the ceiling. Is
1:03:18
Speaker 1: that what you're going to tell me? It was a
1:03:20
Speaker 1: union job. He traced it.
1:03:23
Speaker 3: He traced it.
1:03:24
Speaker 2: Famous painters did have assistants that would do parts of portraits.
1:03:32
Speaker 1: You're just popping balloons all over the place today. Breaking
1:03:35
Speaker 1: my heart. I thought those guys did it by themselves. Well,
1:03:38
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I mean, when you do a game,
1:03:40
Speaker 1: you have help. They're going to start to attack me.
1:03:50
Speaker 1: Dexter says, the Oliver Luck curse. Coach Bill Stewart takes
1:03:54
Speaker 1: over under impossible circumstances, beats Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl,
1:03:59
Speaker 1: goes 9-4, 9-4, 9-4 in his three full seasons, finishes 28-12,
1:04:03
Speaker 1: 70% winning percentage. Apparently it wasn't good enough. So Oliver
1:04:08
Speaker 1: Luck decides we need to aim higher. Dana Holgerson's first
1:04:11
Speaker 1: full year on his own in 2012. West Virginia goes
1:04:15
Speaker 1: over that period since 12. 95 and 84. That's a
1:04:20
Speaker 1: 53% winning percentage since Bill Stewart's been gone. 15 years
1:04:24
Speaker 1: of basically treading water. Few really good seasons mixed with
1:04:27
Speaker 1: a whole lot of 6-7, 7-6, 5-7s. Coaching changes, rebuilds,
1:04:32
Speaker 1: more rebuild. And every fall, we Mountaineer fans somehow convince
1:04:35
Speaker 1: ourselves that this is finally the year we turn the corner. Maybe. Maybe.
1:04:39
Speaker 1: Winning 70% of your games and going 9-4 every damn
1:04:42
Speaker 1: year wasn't such a terrible problem. Being a Mountaineer fan, painful,
1:04:46
Speaker 1: occasionally irrational, and apparently a lifetime commitment. The Oliver Luck
1:04:52
Speaker 1: curse lives on. Brandon from Baltimore. Well, the numbers are
1:04:59
Speaker 1: the numbers, man. And that is the reality of the situation.
1:05:04
Speaker 2: Well, you've got to win, and we've talked about this season.
1:05:08
Speaker 2: I thought they would, I think, and I said seven games.
1:05:12
Speaker 1: I'll stick with that.
1:05:13
Speaker 2: But if you don't, I've said, if you have five
1:05:17
Speaker 2: or fewer, then there's tremendous pressure. That makes for a
1:05:20
Speaker 2: tough next year. It's going to be, wow, okay, you
1:05:23
Speaker 2: have to win in year three. If you don't win
1:05:25
Speaker 2: this year, you have to win in year three.
1:05:29
Speaker 1: Texter, players have no reason to care anymore. They're paid
1:05:33
Speaker 1: very well. The check is the same whether they win
1:05:35
Speaker 1: or lose. It's about the money now.
1:05:39
Speaker 2: Well, except that you want to get paid and you
1:05:41
Speaker 2: want to get paid next year. I think there's more
1:05:44
Speaker 2: incentive for a lot of players because you are getting paid.
1:05:48
Speaker 1: It's a one-year deal now. You don't perform, you're gone.
1:05:52
Speaker 1: You're gone.
1:05:54
Speaker 3: I haven't personally seen any of that. I really haven't.
1:05:57
Speaker 3: I understand the sentiment. I know a lot of people
1:05:59
Speaker 3: say that and that there's examples that we could go
1:06:02
Speaker 3: through professional sports all the time, and some in college.
1:06:04
Speaker 3: I really haven't seen that from players here yet.
1:06:07
Speaker 2: You know, Brad, what's interesting, too, from a macro is that,
1:06:11
Speaker 2: and we talk about this all the time, the chaos
1:06:12
Speaker 2: of college sports, the chaos of college football.
1:06:15
Speaker 1: Oh, it's chaos. And it is. But this sport has
1:06:17
Speaker 1: never been more popular. Never. Mm-hmm.
1:06:20
Speaker 2: People still go to games. There's more talk about TNT.
1:06:23
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to run the games. It has never been
1:06:25
Speaker 2: more popular than it is now and never been more chaotic.
1:06:27
Speaker 2: So the chaos has not diminished. People say, oh, now
1:06:30
Speaker 2: I don't want to watch because players are getting paid.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: More people are watching.
1:06:33
Speaker 3: We say this every offseason, and we said it again
1:06:35
Speaker 3: this offseason. You know why? You know what always saves
1:06:38
Speaker 3: college sports from the chaos that's off the field or court?
1:06:41
Speaker 1: The games.
1:06:42
Speaker 3: The games begin. Yeah, and even though, yeah, would you
1:06:45
Speaker 3: like to see a guy grow up and play all
1:06:46
Speaker 3: four years? Yeah, we'll miss those times. There's no question.
1:06:48
Speaker 3: But you tune in, and you watch your game, and
1:06:50
Speaker 3: you get excited, and it's your team. And so that is,
1:06:53
Speaker 3: in my opinion, guys, that's what saves the sport, the
1:06:56
Speaker 3: game start. And that's really what we all live for
1:06:59
Speaker 3: is the competition on the field. And you put up
1:07:02
Speaker 3: with all of the stuff that's going on around it
1:07:04
Speaker 3: to get to the time in which the games begin.
1:07:07
Speaker 1: Correct. Next texter comes at me with a heater. Tony.
1:07:12
Speaker 2: Tony.
1:07:12
Speaker 1: That is not a moose in the picture of the
1:07:15
Speaker 1: 18-month-old in the Grand Tetons. It's an elk. The National
1:07:19
Speaker 1: Elk Refuge is right there in Jackson, Wyoming. It's a
1:07:22
Speaker 1: great place to visit. Well, this texter is 1,000% correct.
1:07:28
Speaker 1: In fact, I've been to the National Elk Refuge. That's
1:07:33
Speaker 1: what he's referring to. That is an elk. I've been
1:07:35
Speaker 1: there myself. And across from that, there is this unbelievable...
1:07:41
Speaker 1: piece of land and the elk come down from the
1:07:44
Speaker 1: mountains in Yellowstone every year and they drop their antlers
1:07:51
Speaker 1: and that field becomes littered literally with thousands of antlers.
1:07:56
Speaker 1: So on behalf of myself personally and three guys before
1:08:01
Speaker 1: the game, I issue a formal apology to all moose
1:08:06
Speaker 1: and to all elk. the confusion, and it certainly won't
1:08:12
Speaker 1: happen again here. Well done, Tony. Well played on your part.
1:08:14
Speaker 1: Thank you. Very humble.
1:08:15
Speaker 2: By the way, Michelangelo did start with help on the
1:08:18
Speaker 2: Sistine Chapel. However, he was unhappy with their work. He
1:08:22
Speaker 2: fired all his assistants, locked the doors, and finished the
1:08:25
Speaker 2: job himself.
1:08:26
Speaker 1: Wow. Makes sense.
1:08:29
Speaker 2: When you're unhappy, you would throw out your stats guy.
1:08:32
Speaker 2: You'd throw everybody out of the booth and just say,
1:08:34
Speaker 2: I'll do it.
1:08:35
Speaker 1: We've had some spotters on the road through the years.
1:08:37
Speaker 1: Are you fired? They get senior day at halftime Really? Oh, yeah.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: What do you say to them? Hey, listen, why don't
1:08:45
Speaker 1: you enjoy the game? Keep your press pass and head
1:08:49
Speaker 1: on down the road.
1:08:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:08:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. You always know this, and this is the inside
1:08:55
Speaker 1: thing on play by play guys. When you're using a
1:08:58
Speaker 1: spotter for the first time, either that person is doing
1:09:00
Speaker 1: it for the first time, or it's the first time
1:09:02
Speaker 1: that you've met and they say, yeah, I've spotted before,
1:09:04
Speaker 1: you know, on the very first play of the game,
1:09:08
Speaker 1: whether they'll, and this is true for someone that's never
1:09:10
Speaker 1: done it. If they screw it up the first time,
1:09:13
Speaker 1: there'll be a bad spot of the rest of their life.
1:09:15
Speaker 1: There's no ifs, ands, or buts. And if they're, if
1:09:17
Speaker 1: they hit it the first time, They're a really good spotter.
1:09:20
Speaker 1: They become a good spotter. What makes a good spotter?
1:09:23
Speaker 1: I think it's just like a feel for the game
1:09:25
Speaker 1: and understanding of the game and then obviously the vision
1:09:28
Speaker 1: to say, okay, that's who has the ball. But sometimes
1:09:31
Speaker 1: they go into a complete deer in the headlights look
1:09:35
Speaker 1: and it's like this and they're going like this on
1:09:36
Speaker 1: the board. And you go like, it's done. Ain't going
1:09:41
Speaker 1: to happen. Ain't going to happen. Seriously. Everyone knows that.
1:09:45
Speaker 1: Smack their hand away. Everyone knows that. Okay.
1:09:48
Speaker 3: Anyway.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: Texter, gentleman who identifies as Arn from Pittsburgh, I'd like
1:09:54
Speaker 1: to say to Mountaineer Nation, I get the frustration. It's
1:09:57
Speaker 1: been a long time coming since West Virginia was in
1:10:00
Speaker 1: its best version of itself. Mountaineer Nation will not tolerate
1:10:03
Speaker 1: any more disappointments. It may not seem like it, but
1:10:05
Speaker 1: West Virginia is on the up and up. Just look
1:10:08
Speaker 1: at what baseball did. Look at what our lady hoops
1:10:11
Speaker 1: did in the winter. Basketball, although disappointed that we didn't
1:10:14
Speaker 1: make the tournament, sets itself up for success by winning
1:10:16
Speaker 1: the crown. In Ross Hodge's first year, football will be
1:10:19
Speaker 1: no different eventually. I said to myself over the summer,
1:10:23
Speaker 1: the 26 will probably not be our year, but 27 will.
1:10:26
Speaker 1: Look how this offense has exploded this year compared to last,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: and it's still getting better. Defense might be similar to
1:10:33
Speaker 1: the 12 team, where we have to have some gunfights
1:10:36
Speaker 1: to win some games. Our offense versus the other team's offense.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: Rich has the record to show consistent improvement from first
1:10:44
Speaker 1: year on. Last year was year zero. This year is
1:10:47
Speaker 1: year one. Mountaineer fans, I get it. It's frustrating. I've
1:10:50
Speaker 1: been dealing with it for almost 20 years, but hunkered
1:10:53
Speaker 1: down in our foxholes. Relief will be here soon. Until then,
1:10:58
Speaker 1: let's go, Mountaineers. He adds, I hope this show goes
1:11:03
Speaker 1: on beyond episode 800. It gets me through my week. Texter,
1:11:09
Speaker 1: thanks for keeping us a bit sane following the last
1:11:12
Speaker 1: two games. This might be a tough one, but I'll
1:11:14
Speaker 1: ask anyway. I get it. Teams generally will put more
1:11:18
Speaker 1: money into their offensive players compared to the defense. But
1:11:22
Speaker 1: do we have real numbers so we can compare that
1:11:24
Speaker 1: ratio for WVU to the other Big 12 schools? In
1:11:27
Speaker 1: other words, did we overspend on offense to the detriment
1:11:31
Speaker 1: of the defense, Bill and Evansdale? I don't think you'll
1:11:39
Speaker 1: ever be able to find publicly what other teams have
1:11:42
Speaker 1: allotted offense, defense. I think maybe internally, They have some
1:11:48
Speaker 1: hunches or generalized numbers of what others are paying, right? Ish. Ish.
1:11:56
Speaker 1: You can do it, ish. And, you know, to answer
1:12:00
Speaker 1: your question, I don't know what the allocation is percentage-wise,
1:12:04
Speaker 1: offense to defense, but the reality of it is this.
1:12:12
Speaker 1: Until you get players... on both sides that are legitimate
1:12:20
Speaker 1: all-conference contenders or have the potential to play in the
1:12:25
Speaker 1: National Football League, you're not going to be where you
1:12:29
Speaker 1: need to be in this league. Right? So Michael Hawkins
1:12:33
Speaker 1: and Cam Cook, five games into the season, they are strong,
1:12:37
Speaker 1: viable candidates for all-conference honors. Right? Yes. And So you
1:12:44
Speaker 1: got two. That's where you need to be to have
1:12:47
Speaker 1: a shot. And you're seeing that the offense is having success.
1:12:52
Speaker 1: Same is going to go on defense. When you get
1:12:54
Speaker 1: some cats out there that are like, that guy's leading
1:12:58
Speaker 1: the league in TFLs. That guy's leading the league in sacks.
1:13:01
Speaker 1: That guy's leading the league in interceptions. That guy's got
1:13:03
Speaker 1: a chance to be a first-team all-conference performer. When you
1:13:07
Speaker 1: get there, then everything begins to turn. And at this point,
1:13:12
Speaker 1: You cannot make any claim that defensively anyone's on its
1:13:16
Speaker 1: way to any all-conference honors this year. I hope that changes.
1:13:19
Speaker 1: I hope all of a sudden someone starts putting up
1:13:20
Speaker 1: stupid numbers. But at this point, that's not there. And
1:13:24
Speaker 1: as a result, you're not where you need to be.
1:13:27
Speaker 3: That'll be something to watch this weekend, too. You mentioned
1:13:30
Speaker 3: Ross saying for the basketball guys, he's interested to see
1:13:32
Speaker 3: how those guys respond when they're punched in the face
1:13:33
Speaker 3: with some adversity. OK, the defense is under fire. It's
1:13:37
Speaker 3: had some adversity. Are they able to do two things? One,
1:13:40
Speaker 3: certainly get this to the point where guys are in
1:13:42
Speaker 3: the right spot more often than they have been. That's
1:13:45
Speaker 3: a clear number one. And then number two, Tony, to
1:13:47
Speaker 3: that point, who steps forth? Who's going to be on
1:13:50
Speaker 3: the defensive side that says, all right, enough. I'm going
1:13:53
Speaker 3: to go make some plays. I'm going to be difficult
1:13:56
Speaker 3: to block up front, and you're going to have to
1:13:57
Speaker 3: put two on me, which frees somebody else up. We
1:14:00
Speaker 3: probably didn't talk about this enough. We did a little
1:14:02
Speaker 3: bit after the game. What can Chambers, Jason Chambers and
1:14:05
Speaker 3: Ja'Cory Thomas, do to this defense? Those are two guys, boys,
1:14:09
Speaker 3: that played a lot more snaps, I think, than many
1:14:12
Speaker 3: were thinking, certainly than I thought they would. Ja'Cory Thomas
1:14:14
Speaker 3: in the 30s, Chambers 20-some snaps last week in their
1:14:18
Speaker 3: first game back. Those are guys that are going to
1:14:20
Speaker 3: play more coming up. And Ja'Cory Thomas in particular had
1:14:24
Speaker 3: some moments where you went, oh, okay, there you go.
1:14:26
Speaker 3: What do those guys do to this defense if they're
1:14:28
Speaker 3: playing more snaps this week? Because, again, it's rare. Normally
1:14:31
Speaker 3: we would go in and say, guys, your team's your team.
1:14:34
Speaker 3: The defense is the defense. That's not true. You added
1:14:37
Speaker 3: two free agent acquisitions this last week that are very
1:14:41
Speaker 3: good football players, one that's played a lot of football
1:14:42
Speaker 3: for you. What difference can they make this week?
1:14:45
Speaker 2: And you're going to have a good crowd there, and
1:14:47
Speaker 2: it's going to be a nice day.
1:14:49
Speaker 1: Look, the crowd's going to be, Tony, looking for something.
1:14:53
Speaker 1: They will respond.
1:14:55
Speaker 2: So if the defense makes a play, gets a third
1:14:56
Speaker 2: down stop, gets a fumble, gets a pick, the crowd
1:14:59
Speaker 2: will respond to that. So again, the phrase of the
1:15:03
Speaker 2: week is make a play.
1:15:04
Speaker 1: Somebody make a play. Yeah. Fans will be there. You
1:15:07
Speaker 1: as the team need to provide them hope. Yes. That's
1:15:11
Speaker 1: what you give them. Can you give them hope? If
1:15:13
Speaker 1: you give them hope, it's like a fire starter, right?
1:15:16
Speaker 1: The logs will burn if you give them some hope
1:15:19
Speaker 1: in this game early on. It'll be super interesting because
1:15:22
Speaker 1: let's face it, the reality of it is the defense
1:15:24
Speaker 1: has been told all week by anyone and everyone how
1:15:28
Speaker 1: poor they are. So this is the ultimate backed into
1:15:32
Speaker 1: a wall, gut check, whatever sports cliche you want to use.
1:15:37
Speaker 1: Like this team will either bow up, this unit will
1:15:42
Speaker 1: either bow up at this moment. And if they don't
1:15:45
Speaker 1: bow up, then that is a really, really frightening signal
1:15:51
Speaker 1: because there are still going to be six games to play.
1:15:54
Speaker 1: but they should come out absolutely in a life or death, again,
1:16:00
Speaker 1: but in a sports context, a life or death mentality
1:16:03
Speaker 1: of scratching and clawing, sports context here. That's what they
1:16:08
Speaker 1: have to play like this week.
1:16:11
Speaker 2: They do, but just one other footnote on that is
1:16:14
Speaker 2: that when we've seen teams that weren't very good offensively,
1:16:17
Speaker 2: we've talked endlessly about who's going to make a play.
1:16:19
Speaker 2: Now you have guys that can make a play offensively.
1:16:21
Speaker 2: So it comes back to, I know what you're saying, Tony,
1:16:23
Speaker 2: but still, Do you have the talent to make those
1:16:26
Speaker 2: plays that we're talking about that you need? Zach Alley
1:16:29
Speaker 2: sat right where Brad is and said on this program,
1:16:31
Speaker 2: it's 100% guys.
1:16:32
Speaker 1: It's 100% players. Meaning, is it plan or players?
1:16:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'll say again, guys, you don't have to
1:16:39
Speaker 3: go from where you've been to the best defense in America.
1:16:43
Speaker 3: This is stair-step the thing up. That should be the
1:16:46
Speaker 3: reasonable expectation.
1:16:47
Speaker 1: Get two more stops.
1:16:47
Speaker 3: Get two more stops.
1:16:48
Speaker 1: Two more stops. Right?
1:16:49
Speaker 3: Get another turnover mixed in there. This does not have
1:16:52
Speaker 3: to be you totally shut down Noah Fafita. That's going
1:16:55
Speaker 3: to be hard to do. But get a couple picks there.
1:16:57
Speaker 3: Get a couple third down stops. Hold the two field
1:16:59
Speaker 3: goals instead of two touchdowns in the red zone. And then, again,
1:17:03
Speaker 3: it's a thin margin of error for the offense. Hawkins
1:17:05
Speaker 3: and Cook have to be Hawkins and Cook again. But
1:17:07
Speaker 3: that's the formula for this week.
1:17:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. All right. The show is completed. Again, we'd
1:17:14
Speaker 1: love to see you out there at our events, our
1:17:17
Speaker 1: food court, 4 o'clock. It starts on Friday until about
1:17:20
Speaker 1: 8 or 9. Fire. Food. Fun. Fun. Beverages. Yeah. What
1:17:26
Speaker 1: time did they say starting Saturday morning? 9. 9 a.m.
1:17:29
Speaker 1: Saturday morning. Get you in there for a couple hours
1:17:31
Speaker 1: before the game goes. Hall of Fame's at 9 a.m.
1:17:35
Speaker 1: And a good time, as they say, will be had
1:17:38
Speaker 1: by all. We'll be back Sunday. We'll post about noon
1:17:43
Speaker 1: or 1 with our recap of the game. Three Guys
1:17:46
Speaker 1: Before the Game is brought to us by folks at GoMart.
1:17:50
Speaker 1: Get the app. I did it yesterday. I had to
1:17:53
Speaker 1: fill up down to 50 miles. Ding, ding, ding. I
1:17:56
Speaker 1: went to Postal Go-Mart. Postal Plaza Go-Mart. Kind of nice.
1:17:59
Speaker 1: What did it cost you? I was well into hundreds. $ 130.
1:18:02
Speaker 1: Because you know, Brad, I drive a pickup. Three guys
1:18:07
Speaker 1: brought to us by Go-Mart. Go to Go-Mart.com for details.
1:18:10
Speaker 1: By Lew Wendell Marine Sales in St.
1:18:13
Speaker 3: Albans.
1:18:13
Speaker 1: They sell family fun. Visit lewwendellmarinesales.com. Did you trade in
1:18:16
Speaker 1: the station wagon? Yeah, I got the minivan. I got
1:18:19
Speaker 1: a pickup truck. Brought to us by Tudor's Biscuit World.
1:18:22
Speaker 1: Start your day the homemade way with a Tudor's Biscuit.
1:18:25
Speaker 1: By Jandill's Attorneys at Law. They just don't take no
1:18:29
Speaker 1: for an answer. Spreads on stats. Brought to us by
1:18:33
Speaker 1: Connelly's CPA Group, providing value beyond numbers. And Textual Healing
1:18:38
Speaker 1: from the folks at WVU Medicine. the exclusive health care
1:18:42
Speaker 1: provider for all Mountaineers, including you. Special thanks to our producer, Jake.
1:18:46
Speaker 1: Jake's going to the ball game on Saturday. Thanks to you.
1:18:49
Speaker 1: He wore some black clothing and coal rush.
1:18:51
Speaker 3: A little coal rush.
1:18:51
Speaker 1: A little coal rush.
1:18:52
Speaker 3: All right.
1:18:53
Speaker 1: Have a good weekend and enjoy yourselves back on Sunday.
1:18:56
Speaker 1: Three guys before the game. Episode 745 done.