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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 10-5-26 · The Sean O'Connell Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Thank you. Happy Monday, everybody.
0:21
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
0:26
Speaker 2: Glad to be with you here on your home of
0:29
Speaker 2: the Utes. It is a game week again after a
0:31
Speaker 2: bye week last week. Utah back in action this Saturday
0:36
Speaker 2: night at Rice Eccles Stadium against a Kansas Jayhawks team that,
0:40
Speaker 2: let's be honest, we're going to have to manufacture some
0:44
Speaker 2: stuff here. This team looks stanky.
0:48
Speaker 1: Right now.
0:50
Speaker 2: The task at hand for Morgan Scali and the Utes
0:54
Speaker 2: is going to be staying focused and dialed in in
0:57
Speaker 2: a game where you are probably going to be favored significantly.
1:01
Speaker 2: I have not seen actually what the line is in
1:06
Speaker 2: this game because I looked just a few minutes ago and.
1:10
Speaker 1: There's no spread line.
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Speaker 2: There's A total of 52.5 points, but I'm not seeing
1:17
Speaker 2: a point spread yet on this game. Maybe betting experts
1:22
Speaker 2: out there, maybe someone can inform me why that would
1:25
Speaker 2: be the case.
1:25
Speaker 1: 877-353-0700.
1:28
Speaker 2: Always happy to hear from you for any reason, but
1:33
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why there's no point spread yet on
1:37
Speaker 2: this Utah versus Kansas game. We'll have plenty of time
1:40
Speaker 2: to discuss it when it does come out.
1:43
Speaker 1: Tickets are.
1:45
Speaker 2: Available for as low as $ 69 right now at that game.
1:49
Speaker 2: It's supposed to be 80 degrees and cloudy on Saturday.
1:53
Speaker 2: And of course, this is a night game, 815 Mountain
1:57
Speaker 2: Time kickoff. And we will see what the number 12
2:02
Speaker 2: Utes can do coming off their bye week.
2:08
Speaker 1: Do you think part of.
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Speaker 3: The reason why there's no betting line yet is because
2:12
Speaker 3: this is like the first whiteout night game ever.
2:16
Speaker 1: I don't think that has anything to do with it.
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Speaker 3: We know how they, we know how the Utes play
2:19
Speaker 3: at night at Rice Eccles. We've never seen them play
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Speaker 3: at night in a whiteout before.
2:25
Speaker 4: Sorry.
2:25
Speaker 3: That's a tongue in cheek way of bringing up the interesting,
2:29
Speaker 3: and you don't know the kickoff times they schedule, Hey,
2:31
Speaker 3: this can be a whiteout, you know, months before the
2:34
Speaker 3: season starts. But It'll be interesting, I think, to see
2:38
Speaker 3: the white uniforms and everyone in white in the stands
2:41
Speaker 3: at a night game. We're used to that. When they
2:43
Speaker 3: do a special color, it's a blackout, right?
2:45
Speaker 1: So that'll be interesting. Okay, here we go.
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Speaker 2: It's just the ESPN betting line that is not, for
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Speaker 2: whatever reason, they're not showing. So I'm looking here at
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Speaker 2: Vegas Insider. They've got Utah's 18.5 point favorites in this one.
3:05
Speaker 2: That is, that is a massive spread.
3:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: The fan dual sports book has Utah as 14 and
3:12
Speaker 2: a half point favorites. So we'll sorry, 15 and a
3:16
Speaker 2: half point favorites right now on fan dual. So we'll
3:19
Speaker 2: settle on something, probably three scores to two touchdowns plus
3:25
Speaker 2: for Utah as they take on Kansas this weekend and
3:27
Speaker 2: the big 12 conference and really all of college football
3:31
Speaker 2: had some very interesting results. This past weekend, there's just
3:36
Speaker 2: a lot to discuss, a lot to get into in
3:39
Speaker 2: the NFL as well. There's some seats heating up in
3:44
Speaker 2: the coaching realm. One of those seats happens to be
3:47
Speaker 2: the seat of the guy who used to be for
3:49
Speaker 2: 21 years the head coach at the University of Utah.
3:53
Speaker 2: Michigan lost to Minnesota this weekend. And I didn't think
3:58
Speaker 2: that I would feel this way at all during the season.
4:00
Speaker 2: I've been pretty clear that my whole thing with the,
4:04
Speaker 2: the departing members of the Utah football program that are
4:08
Speaker 2: now with the university of Michigan.
4:11
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what? I wish him well, I
4:13
Speaker 1: hope for good things.
4:13
Speaker 2: As long as Utah is doing great and we don't
4:15
Speaker 2: have to play this terrible comparative game. I think that
4:19
Speaker 2: we're all going to be happy with whatever result comes forth.
4:24
Speaker 2: I did not think we'd be in a situation where
4:26
Speaker 2: I found myself feeling sympathetic to what was going on
4:31
Speaker 2: with Michigan right now.
4:33
Speaker 1: Uh, the, The.
4:34
Speaker 2: Wolverines are really a three-loss team. Now, they've lost back-to-back
4:40
Speaker 2: weeks to Iowa, who's... You can kind of forgive that.
4:43
Speaker 2: You can get away with that. Iowa's a ranked team.
4:45
Speaker 2: They're a really high-quality team.
4:48
Speaker 1: They're like.
4:49
Speaker 3: It's funny watching that... Sorry to digress a little bit.
4:53
Speaker 3: Funny watching that Michigan-Iowa game because it felt like the
4:56
Speaker 3: same team playing each other. It felt like a spring
4:59
Speaker 3: game for Michigan or something. The way that Michigan has
5:01
Speaker 3: played to start this season where they're mostly... They're basically
5:05
Speaker 3: all defense and scoring just enough points, right? And Iowa
5:09
Speaker 3: has been that way for a really long time. And
5:11
Speaker 3: they came ahead a couple weeks ago, and of course
5:14
Speaker 3: it ended up being a low-scoring one-point win. So it
5:18
Speaker 3: feels like, okay, that's a step up for Iowa, yet
5:21
Speaker 3: a step down for Michigan at the same time.
5:23
Speaker 1: So that was really interesting.
5:24
Speaker 2: Michigan, in three wins, and the Western Michigan game, it's
5:29
Speaker 2: a dubious win. They scored 13 points in that game,
5:33
Speaker 2: and really... They scored seven points in that game before
5:38
Speaker 2: regulation ended, before the game was actually over. They scored
5:41
Speaker 2: seven points. They scored 17 against Oklahoma, an Oklahoma team
5:45
Speaker 2: that we now know, we now realize is just a
5:48
Speaker 2: bad team.
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Speaker 1: They're not good.
5:51
Speaker 2: And that was a ranked win at the time, but
5:54
Speaker 2: Oklahoma's sitting at two and two. I think it just
5:57
Speaker 2: meant more to the Wolverines that day. I don't think
6:00
Speaker 2: we're going to pull catchphrases, but They lost.
6:04
Speaker 1: Oklahoma has lost. You know what?
6:06
Speaker 2: Maybe I should be more fair to Oklahoma. I guess
6:08
Speaker 2: we're not a hundred percent sure they're a bad team
6:10
Speaker 2: right now. I think we're going to find out this
6:12
Speaker 2: week against Texas that they're just not even close to
6:16
Speaker 2: being a great team. They scored 14 points against New Mexico,
6:20
Speaker 2: respect to the Lobos, but you're not supposed to be
6:22
Speaker 2: in the same neighborhood as Oklahoma.
6:24
Speaker 1: Would they get destroyed by Georgia? They got killed by Georgia. They, they,
6:28
Speaker 1: they smashed UTEP.
6:30
Speaker 2: They got, they lost 17 to 10 to Michigan and,
6:33
Speaker 2: They barely beat new Mexico and then they got smashed
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Speaker 2: by Georgia. So Michigan right now, um, Kyle Whittingham is
6:42
Speaker 2: looking at, you know, he's looking down the barrel of a,
6:45
Speaker 2: of a hot seat conversation after deciding not to ride
6:50
Speaker 2: off into the sunset at the university of Utah. And
6:52
Speaker 2: I don't want to revise history here. We know that
6:54
Speaker 2: things were convoluted and complicated with his desire to stay.
6:57
Speaker 2: He had planned on leaving the whole year and they
6:59
Speaker 2: decided to stay. Look, uh, The results at Michigan are
7:03
Speaker 2: making it really, really easy for all of us to
7:06
Speaker 2: be extra happy that things happened the way they did
7:09
Speaker 2: because Morgan Scali has done an incredible job with this
7:12
Speaker 2: Utah football team so far. And Michigan, even though the
7:17
Speaker 2: schedule has not dictated that things are terrible for them,
7:20
Speaker 2: they still have the hardest part of their schedule. Michigan
7:23
Speaker 2: still has to play. They're coming off what we thought
7:27
Speaker 2: would be wins, right? Everyone, you pencil in Go back
7:31
Speaker 2: to your preseason. It was supposed to be win against
7:33
Speaker 2: Western Michigan. Technically, they got that, but in reality, we
7:36
Speaker 2: know they didn't. Win against Oklahoma, probably, or at least maybe,
7:42
Speaker 2: coin flip game, right? Win against UTEP, win against Iowa,
7:44
Speaker 2: win against Minnesota. They've got Penn State, then Indiana. Rutgers
7:51
Speaker 2: and Michigan State are very winnable games for them, but
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Speaker 2: their November is ranked Oregon, currently ranked UCLA, Ohio State.
8:02
Speaker 2: They've got Indiana, Oregon, UCLA, and Ohio State still on
8:06
Speaker 2: the schedule, and they should be a 2-3 football team
8:10
Speaker 2: right now. They're a 3-2 football team right now, back-to-back weeks,
8:14
Speaker 2: where the opposition scored 20 points and still beat them.
8:19
Speaker 1: And the reason I.
8:20
Speaker 2: Feel sympathy to this situation, the reason I'm looking at
8:24
Speaker 2: it and saying, like, oh, man, I can't believe, like,
8:27
Speaker 2: they're getting dragged down. aggressively for all of this right now.
8:31
Speaker 2: The reason I feel sympathy for it is because there
8:36
Speaker 2: is not a coach in college football who can overcome
8:40
Speaker 2: bad quarterback play on a consistent basis. There is not
8:44
Speaker 2: a program in college football or in the NFL or
8:47
Speaker 2: in high school football for that matter, that can overcome
8:51
Speaker 2: bad quarterback play for more than a game for more
8:55
Speaker 2: than maybe if you're lucky two games. We know what
8:58
Speaker 2: this looks like. And by the way, if you're going
9:01
Speaker 2: to be the kind of quarterback or the kind of
9:03
Speaker 2: coach that can overcome bad quarterback play, it's because you've.
9:08
Speaker 1: Got everything else so dialed in.
9:10
Speaker 2: Your run game is so good and your defense is
9:13
Speaker 2: so good that you can survive on bad quarterback play.
9:17
Speaker 1: I think.
9:19
Speaker 2: Maybe folks hoped for that in Ann Arbor, but man,
9:23
Speaker 2: what a nightmare. That situation has turned out to be
9:27
Speaker 2: for everybody involved. Nobody's happy, right? And I said it
9:33
Speaker 2: many times, and people are probably sick of me even
9:35
Speaker 2: bringing it up. I asked the question, you know, if
9:41
Speaker 2: you left here and you muddied the waters on your exit.
9:47
Speaker 2: From the University of Utah football program where you establish
9:51
Speaker 2: this legacy of respect and pride and national relevance and
9:55
Speaker 2: all these cool things. And if if you walked away
9:57
Speaker 2: from that to be the fifth best team in the
10:01
Speaker 2: big 10 conference, it's not going to feel worth it.
10:06
Speaker 2: And I don't think the money makes it feel worth it.
10:09
Speaker 2: Maybe for the players, the money makes it feel worth
10:11
Speaker 2: it because these are young people just getting a start
10:13
Speaker 2: in their life. And you know, that many zeros in
10:16
Speaker 2: your bank account translates to a lot of different outcomes
10:20
Speaker 2: for you and your family.
10:23
Speaker 1: For Kyle Whittingham. It doesn't right.
10:25
Speaker 2: Kyle Whittingham already had more money than he needed. He
10:27
Speaker 2: already had more security and he already had everything that
10:32
Speaker 2: you could possibly ask for. And now it goes badly
10:37
Speaker 2: for everyone, this whole thing. And again, The reason it
10:41
Speaker 2: matters is because we got to kind of sit back
10:44
Speaker 2: on a bi-week when Morgan Scali has this Utah football
10:47
Speaker 2: team sitting at four and Oh, undefeated on the season
10:50
Speaker 2: and not just undefeated because they've snuck by a little bit,
10:54
Speaker 2: not just undefeated because a fortunate balance has gone their way.
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Speaker 1: They have done what good teams do, what great teams do.
11:00
Speaker 1: They have won.
11:01
Speaker 2: They have covered, they have handled their business well. in
11:04
Speaker 2: a way that is indicative of a team that knows
11:06
Speaker 2: exactly what they're playing for exactly who they are playing
11:10
Speaker 2: for exactly how they are supposed to execute their jobs.
11:14
Speaker 2: They go out and they execute their jobs. It is
11:15
Speaker 2: a beautiful thing to see. And it's something that quite
11:20
Speaker 2: frankly is at least mildly surprising from a first year
11:25
Speaker 2: head coach in a first year program. And I know
11:27
Speaker 2: it's not the same as a lot of first year programs,
11:29
Speaker 2: a lot of first year head coaches, because He's part
11:33
Speaker 2: of the fabric of this thing. He was a part
11:34
Speaker 2: of the team identity already. He was a part of
11:36
Speaker 2: the team culture already. But, man, I'll let the whole
11:41
Speaker 2: season play out before I make any hardcore declarative statements.
11:45
Speaker 2: The most impressive thing that we are seeing, because you
11:49
Speaker 2: can't help but do the comparatives here, is that so far,
11:53
Speaker 2: this Utah football team has handled business exactly how we
11:57
Speaker 2: expected them to and how they are quote-unquote supposed to.
12:00
Speaker 1: The schedule.
12:02
Speaker 2: the, the preseason, the stuff you had penciled in right now,
12:05
Speaker 2: this team has done what we thought they would do
12:09
Speaker 2: and really exceeded some expectations as well. The rest of
12:12
Speaker 2: the big 12 conference BYU had a scare this weekend.
12:19
Speaker 2: Now 1710 against the TCU team that definitely has a
12:22
Speaker 2: lot of talent, but really needs to figure some things out.
12:26
Speaker 2: It's still a good win. BYU improves to four and oh,
12:29
Speaker 2: they had the week four by BYU.
12:31
Speaker 1: Right?
12:31
Speaker 2: So they started three and oh by week, they come
12:35
Speaker 2: off the buy and really have their worst performance of
12:37
Speaker 2: the season on the road. Again, that's something that you
12:41
Speaker 2: have to talk about because when you're looking at a
12:45
Speaker 2: BYU football team that played well on the road the
12:49
Speaker 2: first week, but did so their first road trip was
12:52
Speaker 2: against Colorado state. They played well there, but then You
12:57
Speaker 2: go against a power four team and your first road
12:59
Speaker 2: trip coming off a bi-week is pretty sloppy. Offensively is
13:04
Speaker 2: really abysmally bad. I mean, if I told you that
13:09
Speaker 2: the starting quarterback for one of these big 12 teams
13:12
Speaker 2: was going to have an 11 for 24 day for
13:14
Speaker 2: 62 yards and his team was still going to win,
13:19
Speaker 2: you'd be like, that's not real. That's not possible. That
13:22
Speaker 2: was bear Bachmeier's passing stat line against TCU 11 for
13:26
Speaker 2: 24 for 62 yards. He also ran 15 times, but only,
13:31
Speaker 2: only for 66 yards. So TCU defensively did a lot
13:35
Speaker 2: of really good things here. Unfortunately, their offense wasn't able
13:39
Speaker 2: to help out enough and the BYU defense continues to
13:43
Speaker 2: create turnovers and give their team a.
13:47
Speaker 1: Chance to win in every situation.
13:50
Speaker 2: It's, The reason I bring it up, the reason we're
13:53
Speaker 2: talking about it on the first segment of a Monday
13:55
Speaker 2: show is because that right now is the top-ranked team
13:59
Speaker 2: in the Big 12 Conference, and in this Big 12 Conference,
14:01
Speaker 2: as Utah's fitting in and figuring out where they fit in,
14:06
Speaker 2: you're the only team now through five weeks, four weeks
14:10
Speaker 2: of actual gameplay for you, you're the only team now
14:13
Speaker 2: through those four weeks who's kind of been what you're
14:16
Speaker 2: supposed to be in every game.
14:19
Speaker 1: Texas Tech.
14:20
Speaker 2: They're 5-0, and it's probably unfair for me to say
14:24
Speaker 2: that they're not what they're supposed to be, but it
14:27
Speaker 2: doesn't look all that pretty in a lot of cases
14:29
Speaker 2: for Texas Tech.
14:30
Speaker 1: They've had a couple of scares. This week was not
14:33
Speaker 1: one of them.
14:34
Speaker 2: Colorado is inept, and Deion Sanders, another of the hot seats.
14:41
Speaker 2: Deion Sanders, Kyle Whittingham, Jim Harbaugh. Who's got the hottest
14:45
Speaker 2: seat right now?
14:46
Speaker 3: Two of those guys, all due respect to Dion, two
14:49
Speaker 3: of those guys, that's unbelievable to think of, that their
14:54
Speaker 3: seats might be hot. Knowing their track record, and for
14:57
Speaker 3: Jim Harbaugh in both leagues, although he's a little less
15:02
Speaker 3: unbelievable because he's worn out his welcome just because of
15:04
Speaker 3: his personality, but his teams were still really good football teams.
15:08
Speaker 3: Right now, it's unprecedented for him. The Chargers are 0-4.
15:13
Speaker 3: His seat is hot. Kyle Whittingham had the most job
15:16
Speaker 3: security of maybe any coach other than Kirk Ferentz over
15:19
Speaker 3: the last, like, 30 years. And now his first year
15:23
Speaker 3: at a new place, they're underachieving. And he's on the
15:27
Speaker 3: hot seat for the first time since maybe the beginning
15:30
Speaker 3: of the Pac-12 era, OC? Like, that's an unfamiliar place
15:34
Speaker 3: for both those guys.
15:36
Speaker 2: Iowa State, with a huge win over West Virginia, both
15:41
Speaker 2: of those teams.
15:43
Speaker 1: really needed this one.
15:44
Speaker 2: And Iowa state got it done down the stretch on
15:47
Speaker 2: a absolutely monstrous performance from Aiden Flora, the running back
15:54
Speaker 2: who we talked about going into the Utah game, Aiden Flora,
15:57
Speaker 2: the former walk-on from like a town of a thousand
16:00
Speaker 2: people in Iowa, the farm kid. Hello to Adele, Aiden Flora,
16:06
Speaker 2: 22 carries 212 yards and three touchdowns. He also threw
16:11
Speaker 2: two touchdown passes. Two for two for 48 yards and
16:15
Speaker 2: two touchdowns. He had a better quarterback efficiency day than
16:19
Speaker 2: Jalen Rainer did.
16:21
Speaker 5: Wow.
16:21
Speaker 2: And by the way, it was a good day for
16:23
Speaker 2: Jalen Rainer. By his standards, he's inconsistent. He was 19
16:26
Speaker 2: to 27, 264. That's a pretty good day. One touchdown,
16:30
Speaker 2: one interception. West Virginia only has Michael Hawkins Jr. for
16:35
Speaker 2: their offense. He's the only thing that they have going
16:38
Speaker 2: for him. Now, they're running back.
16:40
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say that.
16:42
Speaker 2: Their running back, Cam Cook, also deserves a little bit
16:45
Speaker 2: of respect. He did some nice things in this game.
16:48
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, Iowa State gets
16:50
Speaker 2: the job done 45-42 over the Mountaineers. And now you're
16:56
Speaker 2: looking at an Iowa State team and an Iowa State
16:59
Speaker 2: win that looks a little bit better for the University
17:02
Speaker 2: of Utah.
17:03
Speaker 1: Baylor smashed Arizona State. Arizona State has fallen.
17:06
Speaker 2: And Cincinnati got beat by Arizona.
17:11
Speaker 1: By a lot.
17:12
Speaker 2: 34 to seven.
17:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.
17:14
Speaker 1: That was boat race by the wildcat.
17:16
Speaker 2: So this big 12 conference where we, we talked about
17:19
Speaker 2: that game being like probably the most interesting contest because
17:23
Speaker 2: these are two teams that have flirted with the rankings
17:26
Speaker 2: and have been in and out and things like that. Now,
17:28
Speaker 2: Arizona coming off of their only loss of the year
17:32
Speaker 2: so far, uh, looks like there's still a team to
17:35
Speaker 2: be reckoned with and the team that you actually have
17:37
Speaker 2: to pay some attention to.
17:39
Speaker 1: They've got a home game coming up in mid-November.
17:42
Speaker 2: That's a sneaky, tough game for the University of Utah
17:45
Speaker 2: because it's BYU at home, the emotional adrenaline dump that
17:49
Speaker 2: happens there, regardless of the result. And then you've got
17:52
Speaker 2: to go on the road to the desert to take
17:54
Speaker 2: on the most experienced quarterback in the conference, who, again,
17:58
Speaker 2: they haven't been exactly what we thought they would be,
18:02
Speaker 2: but they're a solid team.
18:04
Speaker 1: They beat Northern Arizona, didn't look pretty doing it.
18:06
Speaker 2: They lost to BYU, didn't look pretty doing it.
18:08
Speaker 1: They beat Northern Illinois. That was okay.
18:10
Speaker 2: The Washington State game wasn't all that clean for Arizona. Finally,
18:15
Speaker 2: against Cincinnati, who, aside from BYU, is the best team
18:18
Speaker 2: that they have played this year, Arizona puts together a
18:20
Speaker 2: complete performance.
18:21
Speaker 1: The Big 12 Conference continues.
18:24
Speaker 2: It's trend of random unpredictability with maybe the constant, the
18:30
Speaker 2: outlier right now, at least being the university of Utah
18:35
Speaker 2: and everyone being able to like, look to them as
18:37
Speaker 2: this beacon of our consistency, which again, with the amount
18:42
Speaker 2: of turnover, both coordinators replaced in the off season, new
18:46
Speaker 2: head coach in the off season, brand new offensive line
18:50
Speaker 2: in the off season, plenty of football left to.
18:52
Speaker 3: Play new offensive line coach, by the way, not, not
18:56
Speaker 3: near as much shine as new coordinators, but that's a
18:58
Speaker 3: big deal.
18:59
Speaker 1: Both actual coach and assistant coach, like all of it.
19:04
Speaker 2: Leads to a sort of, hey, we can forgive if
19:07
Speaker 2: there are some growing pains. I have been for months
19:11
Speaker 2: telling you that the growing pains, you will feel them.
19:14
Speaker 1: They will come. They will manifest themselves.
19:16
Speaker 2: The ugly head of human nature will rear itself and
19:21
Speaker 2: be like, hey, look, this is all brand new stuff.
19:24
Speaker 2: And instead, what we're getting from this Utah football team,
19:27
Speaker 2: at least so far, is a lot of comfort, a
19:29
Speaker 2: lot of consistency, a lot of, hey, this is who
19:32
Speaker 2: we thought we were going to be. And I don't
19:36
Speaker 2: want to alter my predictions and tell you that everything's
19:38
Speaker 2: going to be clean and beautiful the rest of the way.
19:41
Speaker 2: It is going to get tougher. The schedule, the road
19:44
Speaker 2: does get harder for the University of Utah. This football
19:47
Speaker 2: team has to have handled their bye week.
19:50
Speaker 1: The right way. As far as we know, they did.
19:52
Speaker 1: I think they did.
19:53
Speaker 2: Maybe they come out and look better against Kansas than
19:57
Speaker 2: they did against any of these other teams.
19:59
Speaker 1: Kansas stinks. Then they go on the road against Colorado.
20:02
Speaker 1: Colorado stinks.
20:04
Speaker 2: So there's a realistic scenario here that Utah is sitting
20:09
Speaker 2: at six and oh, with six very healthy victories, probably
20:13
Speaker 2: a top 10 team at that point before they then
20:16
Speaker 2: welcome Houston, where I think things get a little bit
20:19
Speaker 2: more real. It's Houston on the road at Cincinnati home
20:23
Speaker 2: against BYU on the road at Arizona.
20:26
Speaker 3: That's I mean, before the season, we weren't, thinking that
20:30
Speaker 3: Cincinnati would be a tough game in that stretch, and
20:32
Speaker 3: maybe they won't be. We just talked about after a
20:35
Speaker 3: 4-0 start for them, or was it 3-0, whatever it was,
20:39
Speaker 3: their undefeated start, they get boat raced by Arizona, so
20:43
Speaker 3: maybe this is the beginning of them not being very
20:46
Speaker 3: good the rest of the year, but right now they
20:48
Speaker 3: look like they're going to be a challenge. That's a
20:50
Speaker 3: really tough four-game stretch, and OC, if we're being honest,
20:55
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the year, I didn't think that
20:57
Speaker 3: the season really would start for Utah until they played
21:00
Speaker 3: Houston anyway. And it's starting to look even easier than
21:06
Speaker 3: the beginning of the year because we knew Arkansas was
21:10
Speaker 3: going to be a winnable game. We didn't know they
21:12
Speaker 3: were going to be maybe the worst team in the
21:13
Speaker 3: SEC and one of the worst teams in Power 5.
21:17
Speaker 1: We didn't know.
21:18
Speaker 3: That Colorado was going to look as bad as they
21:24
Speaker 3: have the last couple of weeks, especially after they... get
21:27
Speaker 3: what looked like was a really impressive win on the
21:29
Speaker 3: road at Georgia tech to start the year. We didn't,
21:32
Speaker 3: we didn't know that TCU that's after that four game stretch.
21:35
Speaker 3: We didn't know that TCU was going to look as
21:37
Speaker 3: bad as they have. Although they played BYU tough Saturday,
21:41
Speaker 3: this schedule looks even easier than it did. It's so
21:46
Speaker 3: far the first, the first six weeks of this schedule
21:49
Speaker 3: look easier.
21:49
Speaker 2: And then the last six weeks of this are all
21:51
Speaker 2: teams that you, you better be playing really good football,
21:55
Speaker 2: but I'm not, doom and glooming here. The optimism in
21:59
Speaker 2: this studio is an all time high for Utah football
22:02
Speaker 2: because what we are seeing in an inconsistent big 12
22:05
Speaker 2: conference where everybody has shown at least some stubbing of
22:10
Speaker 2: the toe, some questionable can like, Ooh, I don't, they.
22:14
Speaker 1: Can't run the ball. I thought they were going to
22:15
Speaker 1: be really good at running the ball. Oh my gosh.
22:17
Speaker 2: What, what happened here? They weren't able to protect the
22:20
Speaker 2: quarterback in this game. Thought they had an experienced offensive line.
22:25
Speaker 2: Why is this kid regressing at the quarterback position?
22:30
Speaker 1: Why was.
22:30
Speaker 2: I mean, Aiden Flora had 212 yards rushing. He was
22:35
Speaker 2: 10 yards a carry, effectively, in this last game against
22:39
Speaker 2: West Virginia.
22:40
Speaker 1: He had... a quiet, he borderline silent day against the Utes, right?
22:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.
22:47
Speaker 2: Remember how we came into the year? Hey, you gotta
22:49
Speaker 2: be better against the run. You gotta be better against
22:51
Speaker 2: the run. You gotta be better against the run right now.
22:53
Speaker 2: What we know about Aiden Flora is he's probably a
22:55
Speaker 2: top five running back in this big 12 conference. And
22:59
Speaker 2: he couldn't do Jack at home against the university of Utah.
23:03
Speaker 2: And don't tell me it's because of weather, because that's
23:05
Speaker 2: when the running backs are supposed to thrive. That's when
23:08
Speaker 2: the running backs are supposed to be able to let,
23:10
Speaker 2: they know where they're going. They're proactive. The defense is
23:14
Speaker 2: supposed to be reactive. I mean, you certainly get more
23:17
Speaker 2: opportunities in bad weather games. I'm not telling you that
23:21
Speaker 2: the university of Utah through four weeks, I'm not even
23:25
Speaker 2: saying that they're definitively the best team in the big
23:27
Speaker 2: 12 conference, although they've made a case for themselves there.
23:31
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is everybody else so far, except for
23:35
Speaker 2: the Utes, has given you a reason to question whether
23:38
Speaker 2: or not they can sustain this or whether or not
23:43
Speaker 2: another good team is going to exploit your issues. We
23:47
Speaker 2: were nitpicking last week. We were trying to find a
23:50
Speaker 2: reason to feel concern for the University of Utah. We
23:53
Speaker 2: were trying to find in a bye week something to
23:55
Speaker 2: clean up. Right now, Morgan Scali's team is the most
23:59
Speaker 2: consistent team, the most reliable team in the Big 12 Conference.
24:04
Speaker 2: Morgan Scali, first-year head coach, first-year coordinator on offense and defense.
24:12
Speaker 2: Somehow they are right now the most reliable team in
24:14
Speaker 2: the Big 12 Conference.
24:15
Speaker 1: And I get it.
24:16
Speaker 2: It's only through four weeks. Five weeks of the season,
24:19
Speaker 2: four weeks of actual performance. So it could all unravel.
24:24
Speaker 2: Things could come apart. We could question it. Kansas could
24:27
Speaker 2: inexplicably be the team that makes us wonder. But right now,
24:31
Speaker 2: you're a three-score favorite over the Jayhawks at home, night game,
24:37
Speaker 2: weird uniform combination makes me superstitious. However, Utah football, death, taxes,
24:48
Speaker 2: and Utah football, despite no constancy, despite no continuity... is
24:55
Speaker 2: somehow showing the same continuity that the nation expected in
25:00
Speaker 2: the best years of the Kyle Whittingham tenure, at least
25:04
Speaker 2: through four games. It is not something that we should
25:10
Speaker 2: take for granted. And it's not something that we should
25:13
Speaker 2: automatically assume is going to remain consistent for the rest.
25:16
Speaker 1: Of the year.
25:17
Speaker 2: But the fact that everybody else in this conference so
25:20
Speaker 2: far has given you something to scratch your head about,
25:23
Speaker 2: even Texas Tech has. Utah's not playing close games right now.
25:30
Speaker 2: Respect to the Red Raiders. Houston's a good enough team
25:33
Speaker 2: that it's okay you played tough against them.
25:36
Speaker 1: But man, I did not think we would wake up
25:41
Speaker 1: at any point.
25:42
Speaker 2: This season and say, well, the team that you definitely
25:45
Speaker 2: know what you're going to get, you definitely know what
25:47
Speaker 2: you're going to see, is Utah.
25:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, that you're not going to have these, why are
25:51
Speaker 3: they being this inconsistent kind of questions? And you're right,
25:55
Speaker 3: that's Utah. You would have expected it to be differently
25:58
Speaker 3: with all the new. One question I have for you,
26:02
Speaker 3: we got the new top 25 rankings as we do
26:06
Speaker 3: every Sunday in the season, right? BYU highest ranked in
26:11
Speaker 3: the Big 12 still at number eight. They move up
26:13
Speaker 3: a couple of spots. Texas Tech and Utah move up
26:17
Speaker 3: one spot each, right? And they're 11 and 12. It
26:22
Speaker 3: feels like even though BYU's three, four spots ahead of
26:26
Speaker 3: those guys and they're the only team in the top 10,
26:29
Speaker 3: it feels to me like it's still just kind of
26:32
Speaker 3: a cluster of and at least the media in a
26:35
Speaker 3: cluster of big 12 teams at the top. And at
26:37
Speaker 3: least the media who vote in the AP poll are
26:39
Speaker 3: looking at this at like whoever finishes first, we'll put
26:43
Speaker 3: them in the top 10. The others will leave them
26:45
Speaker 3: just outside the top 10 and maybe it's, it's one bid,
26:48
Speaker 3: but I don't know. The other part of me goes,
26:53
Speaker 3: maybe at least the media vote in the AP think
26:57
Speaker 3: that there's three good teams in this conference that could
27:00
Speaker 3: be playoff teams. Maybe two of them could be playoff teams.
27:03
Speaker 3: Obviously it's early, but I don't know. It feels like
27:05
Speaker 3: they still are just kind of clustering and waiting for
27:08
Speaker 3: the top one to be, to separate themselves.
27:10
Speaker 1: Well, I think that.
27:13
Speaker 2: Until we have a reason to believe otherwise, until we're
27:16
Speaker 2: given reason to believe, believe otherwise, we have to accept
27:19
Speaker 2: that the big 12 is a one bid league.
27:20
Speaker 6: Yeah.
27:21
Speaker 4: Right.
27:22
Speaker 2: And maybe this is the year that that changes because
27:27
Speaker 2: two of the top four ranked teams, right? So you've
27:31
Speaker 2: got the three, you just mentioned that are in the
27:33
Speaker 2: top 12, BYU, Texas tech, Utah. And then the next
27:37
Speaker 2: highest ranked big 12 team is Oklahoma state, right? And 18,
27:42
Speaker 2: they're 18 and Oklahoma state does not play Utah or BYU.
27:47
Speaker 2: They do play Texas tech. So you've got like almost
27:50
Speaker 2: two races happening, right? On one side, the tiebreaker is
27:55
Speaker 2: going to be figured out most likely, but between Utah
27:58
Speaker 2: and BYU head to head. If everything goes to chalk
28:02
Speaker 2: and we should probably expect that it won't in the
28:04
Speaker 2: big 12 conference, the tiebreaker between Texas tech and Oklahoma
28:08
Speaker 2: state is going to be figured out in a head
28:10
Speaker 2: to head matchup the week after the BYU Utah game.
28:13
Speaker 1: Right.
28:14
Speaker 2: And yes, there are other teams in there that could
28:16
Speaker 2: sneak in. Houston's got some ideas for Oklahoma state, right?
28:20
Speaker 2: Arizona's got some ideas for Utah. There's some other teams
28:23
Speaker 2: in there. And by the way, BYU is going to
28:25
Speaker 2: play Notre Dame before that Utah game. If they beat
28:28
Speaker 2: Notre Dame, they're a top five team in the country
28:31
Speaker 2: when this happens.
28:32
Speaker 1: Yep.
28:32
Speaker 2: And if they lose to Notre Dame, even if they
28:35
Speaker 2: play tough with Notre Dame, but if they lose, right,
28:38
Speaker 2: then now maybe Utah is the highest ranked team in
28:40
Speaker 2: the Big 12 Conference.
28:41
Speaker 1: Maybe they go in the top ten.
28:42
Speaker 2: Then they're in the top 10. If everything again goes
28:44
Speaker 2: according to plan. So there's these two races happening right
28:47
Speaker 2: now in the big 12 conference because of the way
28:50
Speaker 2: scheduling works out, Texas tech and Oklahoma state meet each other.
28:55
Speaker 2: They miss Utah and BYU. There's no head to head.
28:57
Speaker 2: There's not going to be a comparison. That's why if
29:00
Speaker 2: you want to make it into the conference championship game,
29:03
Speaker 2: you have to beat BYU because the other side of
29:07
Speaker 2: the bracket, so to speak is Like Texas tech or
29:11
Speaker 2: Oklahoma state is going to get into the game. And
29:14
Speaker 2: the only outlier there, the only one that could sneak
29:16
Speaker 2: in is probably Houston because Houston's got head to head
29:20
Speaker 2: against everybody. And they already lost the tiebreaker to Texas tech,
29:24
Speaker 2: but they could, I guess, win the tiebreaker against Utah.
29:28
Speaker 1: And do they play BYU? I don't remember if they
29:30
Speaker 1: play BYU. Get a Cougs Cougs matchup. Oh, they don't play.
29:35
Speaker 7: Okay.
29:35
Speaker 2: But now Baylor is like looking pretty decent. So like,
29:39
Speaker 2: and they do play Oklahoma state. So Houston is like,
29:43
Speaker 2: you've got two races running parallel with the top four
29:46
Speaker 2: ranked teams in the conference right now. And then Houston
29:48
Speaker 2: is the fifth ranked team in the conference right now.
29:51
Speaker 2: That's looking up at Oklahoma state and Utah and saying, well,
29:54
Speaker 2: we could take care of both.
29:55
Speaker 4: Yeah.
29:56
Speaker 2: And then Houston suddenly leapfrogs everybody.
29:59
Speaker 3: Maybe it's a, maybe it sets up for a Texas
30:02
Speaker 3: tech Houston rematch in the big 12 championship game.
30:04
Speaker 6: Yeah.
30:04
Speaker 3: It's way too early to really be getting in the
30:07
Speaker 3: weeds on this. I just, it's just an observation I made.
30:09
Speaker 3: It feels like, and it's a good thing. Again, the
30:12
Speaker 3: AP poll means nothing as far as this CFP race goes,
30:16
Speaker 3: but it's just interesting to see BYU is maybe just
30:21
Speaker 3: far enough ahead in the top 10 of Utah and
30:24
Speaker 3: Texas tech. It might fool you into thinking, Hey, if
30:27
Speaker 3: the media were deciding this, maybe they think that there
30:30
Speaker 3: could be two teams in the, from the big 12
30:33
Speaker 3: in the CFP, but then it also just kind of
30:35
Speaker 3: looks like they still got them clustered in one place.
30:37
Speaker 2: I made that mistake last year because of how the
30:39
Speaker 2: college football playoff rankings came out. And it was just like, Oh,
30:43
Speaker 2: look at this. Turned out the way we thought it
30:45
Speaker 2: would be Texas tech, BYU and Utah all right there
30:48
Speaker 2: within striking distance. And then as soon as it really
30:50
Speaker 2: mattered in the final two weeks, They were like, ah,
30:53
Speaker 2: just kidding, one bid.
30:54
Speaker 1: And that's how it's going to go this year. I
30:56
Speaker 1: think that's how it's going to go this year.
30:57
Speaker 2: We've got to get to a break so we can
30:59
Speaker 2: join Ari Temkin next, or he can join us, and
31:02
Speaker 2: then the Morgan Scali press conference, and Zach Moss. It's
31:06
Speaker 2: a Utah heavy day here on the Sean O'Connell Show,
31:08
Speaker 2: ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM. It's a nice day for
31:10
Speaker 2: a white wedding.
31:12
Speaker 6: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
31:17
Speaker 6: Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
31:27
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show. Welcome in one
31:30
Speaker 2: of our favorite weekly guests from Big 12 Radio on
31:32
Speaker 2: TuneIn and Big 12 Studios. He also does some Dallas
31:36
Speaker 2: Cowboys work, star time on the Haymaker Network.
31:39
Speaker 1: He is Ari Temkin. Welcome back to the show. How
31:42
Speaker 1: are you, sir?
31:44
Speaker 4: I'm great. How are you, brother?
31:45
Speaker 1: I'm doing all right. How was your weekend?
31:48
Speaker 4: It was great. I'm a big White Sox fan, so
31:51
Speaker 4: I was super pumped about their game one win on
31:53
Speaker 4: Saturday and looking forward to game two tonight. So hopefully
31:56
Speaker 4: I can make some more history here. That'd be fun.
31:57
Speaker 5: All right.
31:58
Speaker 2: Well, help us figure out what's going on in the
32:01
Speaker 2: Big 12 football conference.
32:03
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, that too.
32:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had another interesting weekend of football. I want
32:07
Speaker 2: to start with the BYU-TCU game because, look, BYU went
32:12
Speaker 2: on the road against Colorado State, and that counts as
32:14
Speaker 2: a road game, but also, right, it's not a power
32:17
Speaker 2: for a competitor. And they somehow got the win in
32:20
Speaker 2: an absolutely hideous offensive performance for the Cougs. Now, winning
32:25
Speaker 2: ugly means you have a good team because it's not
32:27
Speaker 2: always going to be perfect. But TCU had opportunities in
32:32
Speaker 2: this one and seemed like they handed them back away.
32:34
Speaker 2: They're probably watching film and regretting so much of what
32:36
Speaker 2: happened in that game. 17-10 victory for BYU in their
32:41
Speaker 2: worst offensive day in the last five or so years.
32:45
Speaker 1: What does it mean... For the Cougs and for the
32:48
Speaker 1: Horned Frogs.
32:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is very much a Rorschach test in terms of,
32:53
Speaker 4: you know, 10 different people can look at this game
32:55
Speaker 4: and come up with 10 different things and takeaways from it.
32:58
Speaker 4: I mean, if you start on the TCU side, this
33:01
Speaker 4: has just been an absolutely dreadful season. The biggest piece
33:06
Speaker 4: to what Sonny Dyches was trying to do this offseason
33:09
Speaker 4: was exactly what this team is. They have not fixed anything.
33:12
Speaker 4: They just look different and are far worse and still
33:15
Speaker 4: turn the ball over too much and, you know, still
33:18
Speaker 4: can't run the football. And They had some big runs
33:22
Speaker 4: in this game, but ultimately when you look at the totals,
33:24
Speaker 4: they were not able to really create separation from their linemen.
33:28
Speaker 4: It sort of regresses to what they were last year.
33:31
Speaker 4: On the BYU side, I think the first thing is
33:34
Speaker 4: the status of L.J. Martin because anything you hope to
33:38
Speaker 4: do this year rests on the ankles and health of L.J. Martin.
33:44
Speaker 4: This is a guy that when he was healthy, he
33:46
Speaker 4: was the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year last
33:49
Speaker 4: year and You know, we see how good this team
33:51
Speaker 4: is with him. And, you know, conversely, we see how
33:54
Speaker 4: poor this team can be without him. You know, look,
33:56
Speaker 4: I certainly will chalk up some of the offensive inabilities
33:59
Speaker 4: of BYU to the weather in Fort Worth. It was
34:02
Speaker 4: really nasty. But, yeah, this was not a great showing
34:06
Speaker 4: for either side. You're just happy that BYU came away
34:09
Speaker 4: with it. And I think there were a few games
34:11
Speaker 4: this weekend where quarterbacks just willed their teams to victory.
34:13
Speaker 4: And this was certainly one of them. Bachmeier did what
34:17
Speaker 4: he needed to do in order to get the win.
34:19
Speaker 4: And you like what you see, but they've got a
34:22
Speaker 4: short week here Friday night against Iowa State, which that'll
34:25
Speaker 4: be a tough one, especially because of what Iowa State
34:27
Speaker 4: is doing, surprisingly. And then, of course, Notre Dame. And
34:30
Speaker 4: my hope is, depending on the situation with LJ, that...
34:33
Speaker 4: he can be healthy in return for that Notre Dame game.
34:37
Speaker 4: I'm not so sure about Isaiah Glasker. It looked like
34:40
Speaker 4: that could be significantly worse because of just his demeanor
34:43
Speaker 4: on the sideline. He had a towel over his head.
34:45
Speaker 4: He had a bunch of defense players coming up to him.
34:47
Speaker 4: That's never a good sign, so you hate that, but
34:50
Speaker 4: LJ is far more instrumental for the team's success.
34:53
Speaker 2: You mentioned Iowa State, who does come to Lavelle Edwards
34:57
Speaker 2: Stadium on Friday, and that's a team. They're 3-2 on
35:00
Speaker 2: the year. They're coming off a very important win. against
35:03
Speaker 2: West Virginia and what was ultimately a really entertaining game. And,
35:07
Speaker 2: you know, Aiden Flora went off 22 carries, 212 yards,
35:11
Speaker 2: three touchdowns. He also threw two touchdown passes. And like,
35:16
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it from a Utah lens. Do we
35:19
Speaker 2: suddenly say that that Iowa state went on the road
35:21
Speaker 2: was like a super high quality win or did, do
35:24
Speaker 2: we just have to take these games in a vacuum
35:26
Speaker 2: week by week in the big 12?
35:29
Speaker 4: No, I think it's definitely aging better from a win.
35:32
Speaker 4: West Virginia's got some major issues on defense. That's abundantly clear.
35:38
Speaker 4: They had some of the worst pass defense in the
35:42
Speaker 4: country the last two seasons. One of those is not
35:45
Speaker 4: Rich Rod's fault, but certainly last year is. This year
35:48
Speaker 4: doesn't appear to be much better. Jalen Rayner... who had
35:51
Speaker 4: completed about 54% of his passes on the season coming
35:54
Speaker 4: into the game, completed 70% of his passes. He was
35:58
Speaker 4: basically flawless during the football, which is something we haven't
36:00
Speaker 4: really seen from him all season. I credit that or
36:04
Speaker 4: chalk that more up to what West Virginia can't do
36:07
Speaker 4: more so than what Jalen Rayner can do. The thing
36:10
Speaker 4: we know about Iowa State is they can play good defense,
36:12
Speaker 4: although they didn't as much in this game. and they
36:14
Speaker 4: can run the football. And Flora is no joke. We
36:16
Speaker 4: had him on the show this morning. He's a former
36:18
Speaker 4: walk-on who's one of the few guys that hung around Ames.
36:24
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if Campbell invited him to Penn State
36:27
Speaker 4: or not, but he's one of the few that stuck
36:29
Speaker 4: with it as a former walk-on, and he's getting the
36:31
Speaker 4: opportunity now to be a future back. He was a
36:34
Speaker 4: guy that certainly showed some explosiveness in the return game
36:36
Speaker 4: last year, and he's, I believe, second in the league
36:39
Speaker 4: right now in rushing games. He's at eight yards a carry.
36:42
Speaker 4: It's a ridiculous number that he's at. So BYU is
36:45
Speaker 4: going to have a handful on Friday night, even though
36:48
Speaker 4: it is a home game. This is a really good
36:50
Speaker 4: rushing attack. They're well-schemed. They're well-coached. And I don't know
36:53
Speaker 4: how many games Iowa State's going to end up winning.
36:56
Speaker 4: I don't know if they're going to get to six
36:57
Speaker 4: and get to bowl eligible. But I think they are
36:59
Speaker 4: going to be a tough out every single week.
37:03
Speaker 2: And obviously if you're a Utah fan, you're, you're probably
37:06
Speaker 2: trying to figure out where you should view that game
37:08
Speaker 2: because you want your rival to lose, but also I
37:11
Speaker 2: think you want your rival to be a top 10
37:13
Speaker 2: opponent when they come to recycle stadium so that it's
37:16
Speaker 2: a more quality win for you. Although maybe it doesn't
37:19
Speaker 2: matter if Utah continues to be consistently the way they
37:22
Speaker 2: have been. You know, I think that you're probably okay.
37:25
Speaker 2: And they had a bi-week last week. So there's nothing
37:27
Speaker 2: new to talk about necessarily from what, what we had
37:31
Speaker 2: against that Iowa state, in that Iowa state game, Ari,
37:34
Speaker 2: but you know, based on what we're seeing in the
37:37
Speaker 2: rest of the big 12 conference, I guess my takeaway
37:41
Speaker 2: with the youths right now is I'm surprised with the consistency. They,
37:45
Speaker 2: they have been arguably the most consistent team through four games.
37:49
Speaker 6: Right.
37:50
Speaker 2: And they're the team with the two new offensive coordinators
37:53
Speaker 2: and a totally remade offensive line. It just, it seems
37:58
Speaker 2: like the excuses are there where they could be inconsistent, but.
38:01
Speaker 1: They haven't been yet.
38:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, and look, I mean, they're going to get
38:05
Speaker 4: a Kansas team coming to town next week that's fresh off,
38:08
Speaker 4: you know, the best offensive performance in the history of
38:10
Speaker 4: the program. And look, it is Middle Tennessee State, so
38:14
Speaker 4: take it with a grain of salt, but this was
38:16
Speaker 4: a team that under Andy Kovalecki had been an explosive
38:19
Speaker 4: rush offense. really as he's been the OC and had
38:22
Speaker 4: not figured it out yet. So, you know, they may
38:25
Speaker 4: have figured some stuff out with Dylan Edwards. We'll see.
38:27
Speaker 4: But I do think that this could be a tougher
38:30
Speaker 4: opponent than most expect coming in. And I think to
38:32
Speaker 4: your point, you know, look, Utah has not played the
38:36
Speaker 4: toughest schedule yet, but they played their schedule. They played
38:38
Speaker 4: the teams in their schedule. They beat them. You know,
38:40
Speaker 4: and they beat them pretty, they've handled teams pretty well.
38:42
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, this Saturday should be another
38:44
Speaker 4: test like that, where coming out, it might look just
38:47
Speaker 4: like you said, very consistent and, And it shouldn't be
38:50
Speaker 4: thought of anything other than, yeah, this is what this
38:52
Speaker 4: team does. They take care of business against the teams
38:54
Speaker 4: they are supposed to take care of business against. And,
38:57
Speaker 4: you know, look, I think they're very matchup-oriented. I know
38:59
Speaker 4: you and I have talked about that, where, you know,
39:01
Speaker 4: one week it's going to be Ficklin and Dampier. Another
39:05
Speaker 4: week it's going to be Wayshon Parker. And they're just
39:07
Speaker 4: going to go in and figure out defensively what teams
39:09
Speaker 4: want to do to them and take advantage of it.
39:11
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, that is more than anything
39:14
Speaker 4: most important in terms of overall offensive success. Look, there's teams...
39:18
Speaker 4: you know, like Arizona's a good example, Arizona-Cincinnati. You know,
39:22
Speaker 4: Cincinnati had one of the best rush offenses in the
39:24
Speaker 4: Big 12, it was showing, but that did not show
39:27
Speaker 4: up against Arizona. They completely flipped the script. So I
39:30
Speaker 4: think teams, you know, that show the ability and capabilities
39:33
Speaker 4: of being multiple, they just don't necessarily have to do
39:36
Speaker 4: it week to week. They're the ones, you know, that
39:38
Speaker 4: are going to be best served right now. And that
39:40
Speaker 4: certainly is Utah.
39:43
Speaker 2: So we were talking in the first segment about how
39:46
Speaker 2: there's like these two parallel races going on right now
39:49
Speaker 2: with the top four ranked teams in the conference. Because
39:52
Speaker 2: Utah and BYU play each other, but they don't play
39:54
Speaker 2: Texas Tech or Oklahoma State. And Texas Tech and Oklahoma
39:58
Speaker 2: State do play each other, and they miss.
40:01
Speaker 1: BYU and Utah.
40:02
Speaker 2: And then there's Houston that gets in the mix with everybody.
40:07
Speaker 2: And now Houston is like the ultimate wild card for me.
40:11
Speaker 2: in a big 12 race. That's going to shape up
40:13
Speaker 2: over these next few weeks because they do have a
40:16
Speaker 2: head to head against Oklahoma state. They do have a
40:19
Speaker 2: head to get ahead here at rice cycle stadium. That's
40:22
Speaker 2: going to be Utah's first real tough test of the season.
40:25
Speaker 2: We think, and you know, the Cougars have seen the
40:29
Speaker 2: Houston Cougars. I should say to clarify, we're not talking
40:31
Speaker 2: about BYU here. We've seen some good from them and some,
40:34
Speaker 2: also some head scratching stuff from them.
40:36
Speaker 1: And their only.
40:37
Speaker 2: Loss is against Oklahoma. Texas tech, who was the defending
40:41
Speaker 2: champs and is one of those top ranked teams that
40:43
Speaker 2: we're talking about. So I guess it's a long winded
40:45
Speaker 2: way of me setting up, like how good is Houston
40:50
Speaker 2: and will they be a real factor in the conference
40:52
Speaker 2: championship race?
40:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think the short
40:58
Speaker 4: answer is yes, but the longer answer is a lot
41:01
Speaker 4: more complicated and a lot more of a, I'm not sure.
41:04
Speaker 4: let's look at what Houston did with UCF this week.
41:06
Speaker 4: They were done 17-0 in the third quarter of that game.
41:10
Speaker 4: It completely flipped, and I think some of the reason
41:13
Speaker 4: it flipped was because of Scott Frost. Some of the
41:15
Speaker 4: reason it flipped was because of Connor Wigman. I mentioned earlier,
41:19
Speaker 4: Bachmeier would just not allow his team to lose in
41:21
Speaker 4: that TCU game. Well, same is true with Connor Wigman
41:24
Speaker 4: in the Houston game, but it's more of of what
41:26
Speaker 4: we've seen from him running the football than it was,
41:29
Speaker 4: you know, being great down the field. Now Houston's past
41:32
Speaker 4: defense had been a major problem at points this season
41:36
Speaker 4: and their defense played really well in this game. They
41:39
Speaker 4: just found themselves in a early hole down 17, nothing.
41:43
Speaker 4: You know, it's interesting. Duke Watson for UCF had a
41:47
Speaker 4: 37 yard carry in the third quarter of this game
41:51
Speaker 4: that led to a touchdown, which put UCF up 17, nothing.
41:55
Speaker 4: At that point, Duke Watson had nine carries for 50 yards.
41:58
Speaker 4: Duke Watson finished the game with nine carries for 50 yards.
42:02
Speaker 4: Scott Frost ran 21 plays following that and did not
42:05
Speaker 4: run the ball once. Five possessions, 21 plays, 17 yards total,
42:13
Speaker 4: zero rush attempts.
42:15
Speaker 6: So.
42:16
Speaker 4: He said after the game they were all RPOs. It
42:18
Speaker 4: was sort of on the quarterback. He said it's not
42:19
Speaker 4: really that we didn't call a run, but, man, at
42:22
Speaker 4: some point you've got to get on the headset and say,
42:24
Speaker 4: run the dang ball, because they were running the ball effectively. Again,
42:27
Speaker 4: 9 of 50 to not see another carry after a
42:29
Speaker 4: 37-yard carry that sets up a score to put you
42:32
Speaker 4: up three scores. It's sort of inexplicable. And, again, Houston
42:36
Speaker 4: saw the opening and took it. I don't want to
42:40
Speaker 4: take too much away from Houston because like we've been
42:42
Speaker 4: talking about, like you got to win your game, you
42:44
Speaker 4: got to win your clunkers. And you know, this is
42:46
Speaker 4: certainly one of them. The thing is like, nobody has
42:48
Speaker 4: looked dominant in the big 12. I think you mentioned
42:51
Speaker 4: Utah has been the most consistent. I think that's obvious.
42:53
Speaker 4: Oklahoma state to me is the most complete team, but
42:55
Speaker 4: they've not been consistent and they're lost to Tulsa, but
42:58
Speaker 4: they've shown ability to be really good passing the ball.
43:01
Speaker 4: They showed their ability to be really good on the
43:02
Speaker 4: ground and they have a really good defense. And that's
43:04
Speaker 4: been the most consistent part of Oklahoma state and, Texas
43:07
Speaker 4: tax feels like they're, they're flirting with disaster here and
43:10
Speaker 4: they're about to lose. I think Houston is the same. They're,
43:13
Speaker 4: they're due for a huge disappointment. And then there's the
43:15
Speaker 4: two Utah schools. And, and I certainly think they're, you know,
43:18
Speaker 4: they're as good as they've looked and maybe Utah is
43:21
Speaker 4: the most consistent out of the bunch.
43:23
Speaker 1: Should we start talking about Baylor also Ari?
43:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, there, that, For all the good defenses in
43:30
Speaker 4: the Big 12, man, Baylor's got the best defense. I mean,
43:33
Speaker 4: it's dominant, and the offense finally showed some signs of life.
43:38
Speaker 4: Going into this game, Baylor had not really shown much
43:41
Speaker 4: in terms of just any offensive firepower with Lagway and
43:44
Speaker 4: with their running game. They got Rylan Morris, who's their
43:48
Speaker 4: true freshman. He's a four-star going. He's out of Honeygrove, Texas.
43:52
Speaker 4: They got him going in a big way in this game. Um,
43:55
Speaker 4: you know, and, and it feels like once they sort
43:57
Speaker 4: of broke a few runs, everything opened up for lagway
44:00
Speaker 4: and he played a really good game. It's tough to
44:02
Speaker 4: take any credit for him. He played phenomenally, but yeah,
44:05
Speaker 4: I think with this defense, it is so disruptive and look,
44:09
Speaker 4: I mean, Iran is not calling the plays and, and
44:11
Speaker 4: there's a lot of jokes on that in terms of like,
44:13
Speaker 4: just keep around as far away from the defense as possible.
44:15
Speaker 4: But this, this defense has ran to fingerprints all over it.
44:18
Speaker 4: If he's, even if he's not calling the plays. It's disruptive.
44:22
Speaker 4: They play behind the line of scrimmage. They've had guys
44:24
Speaker 4: get hurt, and it still hasn't mattered. I think they're
44:27
Speaker 4: number one or number two in the country in tackles
44:28
Speaker 4: for loss. They're living in the backfield. So I think
44:32
Speaker 4: you're totally right there. Baylor has shown, especially going on
44:34
Speaker 4: the road late at night, winning a game like that,
44:36
Speaker 4: completely dismantling an Arizona State team. That's as good as
44:40
Speaker 4: Baylor has looked since Durant took over, basically since 2021,
44:44
Speaker 4: and as bad as Arizona State has looked since they
44:46
Speaker 4: joined the Big 12.
44:48
Speaker 2: I feel like it's a bit of a crisis point
44:50
Speaker 2: for Arizona state after Kenny Dillingham showed up in the
44:53
Speaker 2: desert and shocked everyone and won the conference championship and
44:58
Speaker 2: looked good in a playoff game. And I was like, ah,
45:01
Speaker 2: finally my prediction, my longstanding prediction going back to when
45:06
Speaker 2: Utah was in the, in the PAC 12, I was like,
45:08
Speaker 2: if anyone gets things figured out at Arizona state, that's
45:12
Speaker 2: a wonderful campus. It's an easy place to recruit to.
45:15
Speaker 2: You've got a robust high school talent pool that you
45:18
Speaker 2: can pull from the neighboring communities. Like somebody is going
45:21
Speaker 2: to get it figured out at Arizona state again in
45:24
Speaker 2: the year of our Lord, 2020 something. And now you
45:28
Speaker 2: got to worry about them. And I thought that Kenny
45:30
Speaker 2: Dillingham did that. And then he's fading, he's falling. And
45:35
Speaker 2: there was a weird, like, as he's exiting the field,
45:38
Speaker 2: kind of like, I don't want to micro analyze social
45:41
Speaker 2: media videos where, you know, he kind of like, Well,
45:44
Speaker 2: that was a lot of fun talking to his athletic
45:46
Speaker 2: director and university president, and they got dirty looks about it.
45:49
Speaker 1: I'm just like, what's going on with Arizona State?
45:51
Speaker 2: Because I thought this team was going to put themselves
45:54
Speaker 2: in the same conversation as Texas Tech and Utah and BYU,
45:58
Speaker 2: and they're just not.
46:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with their offense.
46:04
Speaker 4: This offense has just not been very good. Even in
46:07
Speaker 4: the Kansas win in London, the offense was set up
46:13
Speaker 4: with really enticing fields. I mean, Arizona State had a
46:17
Speaker 4: fumble recovery return to the two-yard line, which obviously set
46:21
Speaker 4: up an easy score. Early in that game, there was
46:24
Speaker 4: a 17-yard punt by Kansas, which set up an easy
46:27
Speaker 4: touchdown for Reed Harris. So, you know, even in the
46:30
Speaker 4: games where they've scored some points, they haven't done it
46:33
Speaker 4: through offense, and it's not one thing. I mean, we
46:36
Speaker 4: could certainly lay blame squarely on Cutter Boley, and certainly
46:39
Speaker 4: he's got, you know, his culpability in it, but it's
46:42
Speaker 4: the offensive line. I mean, as long as Kenny Dillingham
46:45
Speaker 4: has been in Arizona State, they've had really good offensive lines,
46:48
Speaker 4: they've been able to run the football, and they've just been...
46:50
Speaker 4: awful at trying to run the ball, and then that
46:53
Speaker 4: forces a lot on Connor Boley, who's still very inexperienced.
46:57
Speaker 4: I think it'll be telling to see what they do
46:59
Speaker 4: in these next few weeks, because do they transition to
47:04
Speaker 4: Mikey Keene, who's the experienced quarterback that was battling with
47:08
Speaker 4: Boley during fall camp? Do they go in another direction,
47:12
Speaker 4: or do they stick with Boley and kind of help
47:14
Speaker 4: him go through these growing pains and think more long-term
47:17
Speaker 4: with it? I still have a lot of faith and
47:19
Speaker 4: confidence in Dillingham. This is clearly the most disappointing team
47:23
Speaker 4: that he's had since they joined the Big 12, and
47:25
Speaker 4: it's not very good. I think defensively they expect to
47:28
Speaker 4: be a lot better, and this Baylor game really exposed
47:30
Speaker 4: them in a lot of ways. But for me, it
47:32
Speaker 4: starts at the offense. It just has not been very
47:34
Speaker 4: good all year. It starts up front, and they just
47:36
Speaker 4: did not do a good enough job in replacing some
47:38
Speaker 4: of the guys they lost and making their offensive line
47:40
Speaker 4: work because their running game can't go, which now reflects
47:45
Speaker 4: on Bowley, and it just all plays into why they've
47:47
Speaker 4: been bad.
47:48
Speaker 1: Is Dion on the hot seat yet?
47:51
Speaker 4: Oh, he should be.
47:52
Speaker 7: Yeah.
47:53
Speaker 4: Oh man.
47:53
Speaker 1: He should be.
47:55
Speaker 4: What's happening outside the lines is inexcusable. And let's start
48:01
Speaker 4: with the Julian Lewis stuff. So it looks like Julian
48:04
Speaker 4: Lewis has played his last nap for the Colorado Buffaloes
48:07
Speaker 4: because however, the whole benching went down, did not go
48:10
Speaker 4: well because you know, So Dion says publicly, Oh, I
48:15
Speaker 4: haven't spoken with him.
48:17
Speaker 6: What?
48:17
Speaker 4: What does that, what do you mean?
48:18
Speaker 1: What do you mean? You haven't spoken to the quarterback
48:21
Speaker 1: that you're benching?
48:23
Speaker 4: Like what? And, you know, you're hoping, thinking, like, maybe
48:27
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean what we think it means. Like, maybe
48:29
Speaker 4: it just sounds really bad. But as it turns out,
48:31
Speaker 4: it probably does mean exactly what we think it means
48:33
Speaker 4: because Lewis was the third-string quarterback, and then Dion was
48:38
Speaker 4: asked about it after the game, and he was like,
48:39
Speaker 4: we have to ask Juju. No, no, we're asking you
48:41
Speaker 4: because you're available, and you're the coach of this football team. And,
48:44
Speaker 4: you know, eventually it was like, Oh man, did he,
48:47
Speaker 4: did he basically have a falling out with Julian Lewis
48:49
Speaker 4: because of the way that that went down? And it's
48:51
Speaker 4: hard to blame Lewis for that, quite frankly. I mean,
48:53
Speaker 4: if you've got a familial atmosphere that you're trying to
48:56
Speaker 4: peddle at Colorado of how much we love each other
48:59
Speaker 4: and blah, blah, blah, blah, that doesn't sound very familial.
49:01
Speaker 4: That sounds like a really bad toxic situation. And then
49:05
Speaker 4: I'm sure you heard the story about somebody on Colorado
49:09
Speaker 4: staff basically leaving their, their playbook, the opening set of
49:13
Speaker 4: plays and, at the bar at the Colorado team hotel,
49:17
Speaker 4: the tech fans found and, and as most figured probably
49:22
Speaker 4: wasn't anything until that they looked and saw that that
49:25
Speaker 4: was basically the exact script, the opening script of the game.
49:28
Speaker 4: I mean, what like this, you can't even make this
49:33
Speaker 4: up how negligible this stuff is. So, you know, look,
49:36
Speaker 4: I I've got egg on my face. I expected Colorado
49:39
Speaker 4: to be a lot better. They are absolutely atrocious on offense.
49:42
Speaker 4: In fact, the six plays that they leaked were the
49:45
Speaker 4: best six plays of the ballgame because they scored in
49:47
Speaker 4: the opening drive and then didn't score again. Now they
49:49
Speaker 4: have an absolute mess on their hands with Isaac Wilson,
49:52
Speaker 4: of course, a guy very familiar in the state of
49:54
Speaker 4: Utah who did not play well once. They really pinned
49:57
Speaker 4: their ears back and came after him. Tack in the
49:59
Speaker 4: second half just decided. We're just going to go all
50:01
Speaker 4: out blitz at every single play. And yeah, it worked
50:04
Speaker 4: because Wilson couldn't do nothing in the second half of
50:06
Speaker 4: that game. Colorado's got a major problem and they're paying
50:09
Speaker 4: Dion a bunch of money. And even though they've got
50:12
Speaker 4: a bunch of money to get out of that and
50:13
Speaker 4: a buyout, I mean, at this point, you're almost better
50:17
Speaker 4: off looking at that buyout given, you know, you can't
50:20
Speaker 4: afford to keep him at this point in time because
50:22
Speaker 4: of all the money it's going to take to try
50:23
Speaker 4: to get the players you need in here. You know,
50:26
Speaker 4: we'll see when it's all said and done how many
50:28
Speaker 4: wins he has. But, yeah, this is trending in a
50:30
Speaker 4: very wrong direction for Colorado.
50:33
Speaker 2: Oh, the Big 12 soap opera, so much fun to cover.
50:35
Speaker 2: We're lucky to be able to do it. We're lucky
50:38
Speaker 2: to have Ari Temkin join us every single week. Ari,
50:41
Speaker 2: thanks for your time as always. You're not making it
50:44
Speaker 2: out to Salt Lake City for this one as a Jayhawk,
50:46
Speaker 2: are you?
50:48
Speaker 4: No, not for this one, but I would love to
50:50
Speaker 4: go out for BYU in Utah, man. That's what I'm
50:53
Speaker 4: hoping for.
50:53
Speaker 7: We'll see.
50:54
Speaker 2: Hopefully you could do that, and we'd love to have
50:56
Speaker 2: you in studio when you get here if you.
50:58
Speaker 1: Do, all right?
50:59
Speaker 5: Awesome.
51:00
Speaker 4: That sounds amazing.
51:01
Speaker 1: All right. Thanks, Ari. Appreciate you.
51:04
Speaker 4: Take care, OC.
51:05
Speaker 1: Ari Temkin.
51:07
Speaker 2: Great stuff, as always, from the man who hosts Big
51:10
Speaker 2: 12 Radio on TuneIn. Just an absolute encyclopedia of Big
51:16
Speaker 2: 12 knowledge.
51:17
Speaker 1: We'll double up here.
51:18
Speaker 2: We've got the Morgan Scali Press Conference starting next on
51:21
Speaker 2: the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
51:23
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Sean.
51:27
Speaker 6: O'Connell Show from the Murdoch Hungain Studio of ESPN 700
51:33
Speaker 6: and 92.1 FM.
51:36
Speaker 8: At one point? OK. My man.
51:40
Speaker 9: And then Sergio Jimenez of the men's golf team preparing
51:44
Speaker 9: to compete at the Spanish Open this week. He's the
51:47
Speaker 9: first Utah youth golfer to play in a professional international tournament.
51:52
Speaker 8: So big time for him. Good bye week.
51:57
Speaker 9: Got a lot of work done. Good early preparation for
52:00
Speaker 9: a very good Kansas squad. cleaned up some stuff from
52:04
Speaker 9: the Iowa State game. Very proud of the guys for
52:09
Speaker 9: fighting adversity. Really good crowd there.
52:13
Speaker 8: First road game.
52:16
Speaker 9: Pleased with the performance of both the offensive and defensive line.
52:20
Speaker 9: The challenge was for them to really step up and
52:24
Speaker 9: set the tone physically. Like how we started the game, obviously,
52:28
Speaker 9: and then A couple long drives by them and some
52:31
Speaker 9: stalls by us in the second half is what led
52:35
Speaker 9: to the closer outcome. But they're a good football team,
52:39
Speaker 9: as you saw this past weekend with them playing West
52:43
Speaker 9: Virginia the way they played them. But very, very proud
52:46
Speaker 9: of our guys for fighting adversity and finishing that thing off.
52:49
Speaker 8: So this is going to be a big one this week.
52:52
Speaker 9: We expect the Rice Eccles to be packed and a
52:56
Speaker 9: wide out, so we're excited for that. and I'm sure
53:00
Speaker 9: a lot of stuff is going to be revealed in
53:02
Speaker 9: terms of merchandise and gear and all that stuff, what
53:06
Speaker 9: we're going to provide for our fans, but it should
53:09
Speaker 9: be a pretty awesome environment for a Kansas team that
53:13
Speaker 9: is physical.
53:15
Speaker 8: They are ranked in the tops of the conference in
53:18
Speaker 8: both offensive and.
53:19
Speaker 9: First total defense, first in total defense in the conference,
53:22
Speaker 9: second in total offense. Second in rushing offense. So again,
53:26
Speaker 9: another team that prides itself in running the football. Very
53:28
Speaker 9: athletic quarterback in Marshall. Have a lot of respect for
53:33
Speaker 9: Coach Leipold and what he's done with his crew there.
53:36
Speaker 9: Their defensive front, very stout. Very productive. You get in TFLs,
53:43
Speaker 9: they're pretty aggressive defense. They run to the ball. You
53:46
Speaker 9: can tell they're coached really well. And so this is
53:49
Speaker 9: going to be a great opportunity for us. in front
53:53
Speaker 9: of a packed house.
53:55
Speaker 8: So, first question. Who's got it for my guy? Okay,
53:58
Speaker 8: Justin's question.
53:59
Speaker 5: All right, it was a great win last game. In
54:02
Speaker 5: the third quarter of last game, the offense looked a
54:06
Speaker 5: bit discombobulated.
54:07
Speaker 9: Ooh, that's a great word, discombobulated. That's a Bud Scali word.
54:13
Speaker 5: Preventing it from happening against Kansas, especially.
54:16
Speaker 8: Coming off a bye week. Well, yeah, there are things
54:19
Speaker 8: that go into, you know, a drive.
54:25
Speaker 9: Going back, Idaho, first drive, second half, touchdown. Defense, first drive,
54:31
Speaker 9: three and out. Arkansas, first drive, second half, touchdown. Defense,
54:37
Speaker 9: three and out. Utah State, first drive, second half. That's
54:43
Speaker 9: where you end up having a dropped pass. I think
54:48
Speaker 9: on one of them they get a fourth down stop.
54:50
Speaker 9: The second possession, some missed opportunities, and then third possession,
54:56
Speaker 9: I think it was like nine plays or something like that, touchdown. Defense,
55:00
Speaker 9: three and out. Iowa State's kind of the one time
55:05
Speaker 9: where coming out of halftime, I thought, okay, we're not
55:08
Speaker 9: as clean as we need to be. We took it
55:13
Speaker 9: from the minus 25 to the plus 40, so it's
55:15
Speaker 9: not like they were three and out and uh, you know,
55:20
Speaker 9: not doing anything in terms of flipping the field, had
55:24
Speaker 9: the one first down. And, uh, then we had to
55:27
Speaker 9: pooch punt it, the long drive by them. Uh, we
55:30
Speaker 9: get the ball to minus 34. We get a first down, uh,
55:34
Speaker 9: that really it was the third and fourth possessions that
55:37
Speaker 9: you can't go three and out. And, um, on the
55:41
Speaker 9: fourth possession, it was that, uh, Let's see, fourth possession,
55:46
Speaker 9: I thought Way had a good run, incomplete RPO, and
55:49
Speaker 9: then the way Sean got stuffed felt like we needed
55:54
Speaker 9: to punt it at that time.
55:56
Speaker 8: So then fifth possession, seven plays, touchdown.
55:59
Speaker 9: So, again, I've mentioned this before, the burden of execution
56:02
Speaker 9: is on the offense. You can have a guy wide
56:04
Speaker 9: open and it's a misread or he drops the ball,
56:08
Speaker 9: and then penalties can also be a factor in that.
56:12
Speaker 8: So really.
56:13
Speaker 9: in my opinion, one game where you're saying, okay, we
56:16
Speaker 9: probably didn't, wasn't clean enough coming out of the half.
56:19
Speaker 9: Other than that, you know, it's not time to panic.
56:24
Speaker 8: There, Justin.
56:25
Speaker 5: And then, well, happy birthday.
56:28
Speaker 1: Week, too.
56:30
Speaker 8: Oh, man.
56:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.
56:32
Speaker 8: At my point, we don't celebrate getting older, you know
56:35
Speaker 8: what I mean?
56:38
Speaker 5: How do you guard against rust during this bye week?
56:40
Speaker 1: I mean, you're going every week.
56:41
Speaker 5: You've got those four straight weeks, and now we've seen
56:44
Speaker 5: teams coming off a bye that might not look as
56:47
Speaker 5: sharp as they did, especially in the first half. What
56:49
Speaker 5: did you do during the bye week to.
56:50
Speaker 10: Kind of guard against that?
56:52
Speaker 9: Well, first of all, you can't just not practice, and
56:57
Speaker 9: practices have to be physical.
56:58
Speaker 8: They have to be fast.
57:00
Speaker 9: Certain guys that you kind of taper off on maybe
57:03
Speaker 9: some of the workload based.
57:04
Speaker 8: On where they are physically. At the same time, we
57:07
Speaker 8: got work to do.
57:08
Speaker 9: We got stuff to improve upon, and those things were
57:10
Speaker 9: targeted throughout the week. You know, in terms of you
57:17
Speaker 9: really have to be, you're looking for self-motivated guys, self-starters.
57:21
Speaker 9: It's part of the culture in the nasty acronym that
57:26
Speaker 9: S stands for starts with me.
57:28
Speaker 8: So if you need someone else to motivate you, I mean, we've.
57:32
Speaker 9: Prepared and trained since January for this.
57:35
Speaker 8: And you're going to fall asleep.
57:38
Speaker 9: It's like, no, this is an opportunity for us to
57:41
Speaker 9: keep on going, keep on improving, and if you need
57:43
Speaker 9: someone to motivate you to get you there, you're in
57:46
Speaker 9: the wrong business. So our guys understand what's at stake
57:52
Speaker 9: and understand that all 12 guaranteed games matter. If you look, again,
57:57
Speaker 9: across college football, it's hard to win football games, and
58:02
Speaker 9: you've got to show up every game prepared, every game hungry,
58:06
Speaker 9: and never take an opponent lightly. Credit our leadership for
58:12
Speaker 9: really coming out. No lackluster practices, in my opinion. I
58:16
Speaker 9: thought they attacked it. We're ready to get going again today.
58:20
Speaker 11: Morgan, Elder Rasband was with the team at Iowa State.
58:24
Speaker 11: What was it like having him around the team, flying
58:27
Speaker 11: with you guys? How did all that come to fruition?
58:31
Speaker 8: It was fantastic.
58:34
Speaker 9: All our guys, I educated them on who he was. Obviously,
58:39
Speaker 9: our LDS players know who he is. But just to
58:42
Speaker 9: have his presence, and it was fun just catching up
58:46
Speaker 9: with him. He's an Olympus high grad. He's a University
58:49
Speaker 9: of Utah guy. So just a humble servant, and our
58:57
Speaker 9: guys loved it. So how it came about, you'd have
59:01
Speaker 9: to ask President Randall on that one.
59:03
Speaker 8: We were just happy to have him on the trip.
59:06
Speaker 12: Morgan, recruiting has revolved over the last few years with NIL.
59:09
Speaker 12: but how important and how valuable is it to still
59:13
Speaker 12: get your coaches out on the road visiting prospects during
59:15
Speaker 12: a bye week?
59:17
Speaker 8: Very important.
59:19
Speaker 9: It's the lifeblood of your program. We have jobs as
59:23
Speaker 9: coaches because of players. It's not the other way around.
59:26
Speaker 9: So Finding guys that fit your culture, getting out on
59:29
Speaker 9: the road and showing.
59:31
Speaker 8: Your brand, your logo, but finding guys that fit your culture.
59:34
Speaker 9: It's such a huge part of what we do here
59:39
Speaker 9: is bringing in the right guys. All of our coaches
59:42
Speaker 9: were out on the road this weekend and also watching football.
59:48
Speaker 10: Morgan, going back to that Iowa State game, at times
59:51
Speaker 10: Fogo got flagged for a couple pass interferences. How much is,
59:55
Speaker 10: where's the line for you and Sharif when it comes
59:58
Speaker 10: to being physical, but also not being so, like not
1:00:02
Speaker 10: physical enough that things.
1:00:04
Speaker 8: Can, you know, kind of spiral? Yeah, I would say
1:00:06
Speaker 8: with Bobo, that was more of a technique thing.
1:00:11
Speaker 9: You know, he had the one slant that he got
1:00:15
Speaker 9: the PI on, just keeping an inside leverage in that situation. And,
1:00:19
Speaker 9: you know, he's also been playing very well in coverage.
1:00:22
Speaker 9: You're going to get those flags that the key is
1:00:26
Speaker 9: when you go to the sideline, it's okay. Why did
1:00:28
Speaker 9: I get the flag? Uh, now that we have these tablets,
1:00:32
Speaker 9: you can watch the film. It's, it's much easier for
1:00:34
Speaker 9: us to correct.
1:00:35
Speaker 8: And coach on the go.
1:00:36
Speaker 9: So, uh, you know, I, I don't, there's nothing really
1:00:41
Speaker 9: in his play that's egregious. And, and, uh, you know,
1:00:45
Speaker 9: I think we're first in the, in the league in
1:00:47
Speaker 9: past defense efficiency and, when you.
1:00:50
Speaker 8: Play as much man coverage as we do, you're going
1:00:52
Speaker 8: to get those.
1:00:53
Speaker 9: It's, it's a matter of how can we teach proper
1:00:56
Speaker 9: techniques so that we're not overdoing it.
1:01:00
Speaker 11: Well, Bob got his first start, um, against Iowa state.
1:01:03
Speaker 1: What did, what's he shown you this.
1:01:05
Speaker 12: Year in practices and games to make you confident in
1:01:08
Speaker 12: starting him there?
1:01:10
Speaker 8: Well, two things.
1:01:11
Speaker 9: He is very athletic, you know, um, Eventually, we see
1:01:17
Speaker 9: him moving out to the tackle position. He's got the
1:01:19
Speaker 9: athleticism to be able to do it. He's also very
1:01:21
Speaker 9: physical and aggressive. He's just going to get better and
1:01:25
Speaker 9: more confident with time. The reps that he's going to
1:01:29
Speaker 9: accumulate this season are going to be huge for his
1:01:31
Speaker 9: growth going into his second year, but this is a
1:01:34
Speaker 9: guy that he was a highly touted recruit for a reason,
1:01:38
Speaker 9: and his combination of athleticism and physicality are special.
1:01:45
Speaker 1: Coach, a third of the way through the regular season now.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: How do you feel about your coordinators?
1:01:50
Speaker 11: How would you grade their performance thus far?
1:01:53
Speaker 9: Oh, very pleased. Very pleased with our coordinators and what's
1:01:57
Speaker 9: going on. But, again, we're four games in. I still
1:02:01
Speaker 9: think people are finding out who they are. I'm just
1:02:05
Speaker 9: pleased with the culture and how they're holding their guys accountable,
1:02:11
Speaker 9: correcting things on the go. Not only the coordinators, it's
1:02:15
Speaker 9: the position coaches as well. To have that loyalty and unity,
1:02:20
Speaker 9: that's big across the board. Those guys work so hard.
1:02:25
Speaker 9: Just as you don't necessarily see the work that the
1:02:28
Speaker 9: players put in, you definitely don't necessarily see the work
1:02:32
Speaker 9: that the coaches put in and the sacrifice. It's a
1:02:34
Speaker 9: grinder of a job. I'm very happy and grateful for
1:02:40
Speaker 9: everything that they're doing.
1:02:42
Speaker 11: Morgan, I want to ask you about the Utah Players Association.
1:02:44
Speaker 11: A lot of former players have kind of come together
1:02:47
Speaker 11: to build this community of former athletes, and you've been
1:02:50
Speaker 11: kind of big on welcoming former players to the program.
1:02:54
Speaker 11: I'm just curious, what is your thoughts on that, I guess,
1:02:57
Speaker 11: association and group of players coming together, and have you
1:03:00
Speaker 11: partaken in anything in trying to help that come together?
1:03:03
Speaker 9: Well, that's, you know, there's a big reason why I
1:03:06
Speaker 9: hired Bo Nog. He is our alumni relations, the director
1:03:09
Speaker 9: of alumni relations, and Bo.
1:03:12
Speaker 7: is, I.
1:03:14
Speaker 9: Mean, as good as they get at helping our guys
1:03:18
Speaker 9: understand how valued they are. We want them coming back.
1:03:22
Speaker 9: We want them feeling welcome here. I wish we could
1:03:25
Speaker 9: give them everything. It is what it is, but bottom
1:03:30
Speaker 9: line is, if you've played here, Bo's going to find you.
1:03:36
Speaker 8: He's that dedicated, and it means a lot.
1:03:40
Speaker 9: There's Again, and I've said this, a sign of a
1:03:44
Speaker 9: healthy program is when you see your players giving back.
1:03:47
Speaker 9: And you go around this facility and you look at
1:03:50
Speaker 9: the amount of players that have given back. You look
1:03:52
Speaker 9: at the guys playing on Sunday now, representing the University
1:03:56
Speaker 9: of Utah, the things that they're doing. It was good
1:03:59
Speaker 9: to see Devin Lloyd.
1:04:02
Speaker 8: It was Utah and Utah crime.
1:04:03
Speaker 9: It was Devin Lloyd tackling Sione Vahke yesterday. And it
1:04:08
Speaker 9: was good to see Sione getting a bunch of reps.
1:04:10
Speaker 9: But all those guys know how much we love them,
1:04:13
Speaker 9: how much we appreciate them, the sacrifice they gave to
1:04:15
Speaker 9: the program. So I credit Bo Nagahe really for getting
1:04:20
Speaker 9: a lot of things going and making sure our players
1:04:23
Speaker 9: feel heard, valued, and then welcomed back with all the
1:04:27
Speaker 9: different events that we have.
1:04:30
Speaker 12: Morgan, as you're evaluating the team during the bye week,
1:04:34
Speaker 12: what was something maybe that you saw on film that
1:04:38
Speaker 12: doesn't necessarily reflect what you see in the numbers and
1:04:41
Speaker 12: in the stats, just something that stood out to you
1:04:44
Speaker 12: when you're watching your team play?
1:04:47
Speaker 8: Oh, man. I don't know.
1:04:54
Speaker 9: Again, playing clean football, I know we had the penalties
1:04:59
Speaker 9: last week, but The amount of times where it would
1:05:04
Speaker 9: be very easy to turn and throw an extra shot
1:05:09
Speaker 9: at a guy or get upset.
1:05:11
Speaker 8: And the second guy is always the one that's usually
1:05:15
Speaker 8: going to get flagged.
1:05:16
Speaker 9: But I'm just really pleased with them understanding what team
1:05:22
Speaker 9: football looks like. When you score, celebrate together because there
1:05:27
Speaker 9: are other guys doing their job in order for you
1:05:29
Speaker 9: to score.
1:05:30
Speaker 8: You look at the Iowa State game.
1:05:32
Speaker 9: And watch Larry Simmons on Weishan's last touchdown and the
1:05:38
Speaker 9: effort he gives to get a block.
1:05:40
Speaker 8: And get in there.
1:05:42
Speaker 9: So playing team football, understanding it's not about you or
1:05:48
Speaker 9: your personal battles. It's about the team, and it's showing
1:05:52
Speaker 9: up in a bunch of different areas, the way our
1:05:54
Speaker 9: guys block, block for each other, celebrate together, interact with
1:05:59
Speaker 9: each other on the sideline.
1:06:00
Speaker 8: When things aren't going great. And that's a credit to
1:06:03
Speaker 8: our leaders.
1:06:05
Speaker 5: How are you guys health-wise during this bye week? Are
1:06:09
Speaker 5: you able to get some guys healthy that could use
1:06:13
Speaker 5: that week off? And then I wanted to ask you
1:06:15
Speaker 5: about Isaiah Marshall, a true dual-threat guy. You've faced guys
1:06:18
Speaker 5: like that before, but what makes him unique?
1:06:22
Speaker 9: Yeah, fairly healthy coming out of the bye week. And
1:06:27
Speaker 9: then in terms of the Marshall kid.
1:06:28
Speaker 8: He's a guy– I would say he's probably the quickest
1:06:32
Speaker 8: that we've faced thus far.
1:06:34
Speaker 9: Putting his foot in the ground, getting vertical, the ability
1:06:36
Speaker 9: to escape the pocket. There's a reason why they're number
1:06:40
Speaker 9: one in the conference in rushing offense. He's a big
1:06:42
Speaker 9: part of that. And he's not afraid of contact. He
1:06:48
Speaker 9: doesn't necessarily slide or avoid it. So when you've got
1:06:54
Speaker 9: players like that that run the ball like a running back,
1:06:58
Speaker 9: that's pretty difficult.
1:07:00
Speaker 13: Last one kind of going back to steve's question we
1:07:02
Speaker 13: talk a lot about grading systems with like pff and
1:07:06
Speaker 13: all those other nfl style grading systems where is the
1:07:09
Speaker 13: line between seeing what the grading system is is rating
1:07:12
Speaker 13: some of these players specifically on the offensive line versus
1:07:16
Speaker 13: your eyeball test and you as a coach knowing what
1:07:18
Speaker 13: they need.
1:07:19
Speaker 6: To do.
1:07:22
Speaker 9: Um i i respect pff i don't know that i've
1:07:26
Speaker 9: ever looked at a for our offensive line, or for
1:07:29
Speaker 9: any of our players for that matter, it's all about
1:07:32
Speaker 9: how we grade them. We're the ones that know what
1:07:34
Speaker 9: their assignment is and what we're asking of them.
1:07:38
Speaker 8: PFF has a great staff.
1:07:41
Speaker 9: Of guys that have probably played the game and fairly
1:07:46
Speaker 9: good at analyzing football and what coverage is, but at
1:07:51
Speaker 9: the same time, they may not know some of the
1:07:55
Speaker 9: tweaks of a defense or stuff that we're trying to
1:07:58
Speaker 9: ask our offense to do. And so we just look
1:08:01
Speaker 9: at the grades of our position coaches.
1:08:04
Speaker 1: All right, that'll be it. Thanks, Morgan.
1:08:06
Speaker 10: Okay.
1:08:06
Speaker 8: Appreciate it. Thank you.
1:08:08
Speaker 2: Sneaky good question there at the end, comparing, you know,
1:08:12
Speaker 2: the analytics of independent sources like PFF and, you know,
1:08:19
Speaker 2: asking a coach how he integrates that. And he basically
1:08:23
Speaker 2: said he doesn't. So this is one thing that we
1:08:27
Speaker 2: have to remember in the entire industry of football. Coaches,
1:08:33
Speaker 2: for better or worse, most of the time care about
1:08:37
Speaker 2: their own internal evaluations of things and don't really give
1:08:41
Speaker 2: a lot of credence to, I mean, the number of
1:08:44
Speaker 2: stars next to a player's name.
1:08:47
Speaker 1: That's not what's going to get them a scholarship offer.
1:08:50
Speaker 2: Even though, well, I shouldn't say that because I think
1:08:53
Speaker 2: that There's plenty of following that happens when it comes
1:08:57
Speaker 2: to that. But the way that the University of Utah
1:08:59
Speaker 2: has traditionally. recruited people and then develop people after they
1:09:03
Speaker 2: recruit them is based on what Morgan Scali just said.
1:09:06
Speaker 2: It's their own internal evaluations. It's the grades that the
1:09:08
Speaker 2: assistant coaches give to the players where PFF and some
1:09:13
Speaker 2: of these other independent sources have their limitations, even though they're,
1:09:17
Speaker 2: you know, like Morgan said, they're really good, uh, knowledgeable
1:09:22
Speaker 2: football sources and resources, guys who played the game, guys
1:09:27
Speaker 2: who are super dialed in on, you know, scheme awareness
1:09:31
Speaker 2: and things like that. They don't have actual access to
1:09:38
Speaker 2: what the playbook is, what the, the stunt is, what
1:09:42
Speaker 2: the blitz is, what the, you know, They can read
1:09:45
Speaker 2: and say, oh, this is where he's going. This is
1:09:47
Speaker 2: what he's supposed to be doing. And most of the time,
1:09:51
Speaker 2: they're going to be accurate on that. But they don't
1:09:54
Speaker 2: know 100%. The assistant coaches do know 100%. They are
1:09:57
Speaker 2: the ones who are telling the players what to do,
1:10:00
Speaker 2: coaching them up on how to do it. So that
1:10:03
Speaker 2: was an interesting little conversation to be had there at
1:10:06
Speaker 2: the end. I also think that when you hear Morgan
1:10:09
Speaker 2: Scali talk about and be questioned about the.
1:10:12
Speaker 1: Third quarter situation, right?
1:10:14
Speaker 2: We, we identified that as something that you probably want
1:10:18
Speaker 2: to alter, or maybe for lack of a better word,
1:10:22
Speaker 2: fix for this Utah football team moving forward.
1:10:28
Speaker 1: How do you do it? How urgent is it that
1:10:31
Speaker 1: you do it?
1:10:32
Speaker 2: What needs to happen in order to make that part
1:10:35
Speaker 2: of your offense or that part of your team look better? Well,
1:10:38
Speaker 2: Morgan Scali took the, the approach of, you know what? I'm,
1:10:42
Speaker 2: I just want to let you guys know that this
1:10:44
Speaker 2: went well, this went well.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: We're not getting a lot of three and outs.
1:10:48
Speaker 2: And again, we become prisoners of the individual moments in games.
1:10:53
Speaker 2: We get really mad about, Oh, that particular drive stalled out. Oh,
1:10:57
Speaker 2: I can't believe this happened in the third quarter when
1:11:01
Speaker 2: ultimately it doesn't matter when you score matters that you score.
1:11:05
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter how you score matters that you did score.
1:11:08
Speaker 1: There's, there's a lot of.
1:11:09
Speaker 2: Ways that you can unpack those things. And Morgan, breaking
1:11:13
Speaker 2: it down as, yes, we always want to be better.
1:11:15
Speaker 2: We always want to be more efficient. We always want
1:11:17
Speaker 2: to improve. However, this went well. This went okay. We
1:11:22
Speaker 2: got this good play out of so-and-so. That's more indicative
1:11:27
Speaker 2: of the internal approach. Again, the internal evaluation of this
1:11:31
Speaker 2: team is what matters. Our external pressures and our external
1:11:35
Speaker 2: thoughts on what's going well and what's not are only
1:11:38
Speaker 2: going to affect things so much.
1:11:39
Speaker 1: They're only going to affect this team so much. And
1:11:42
Speaker 1: that's how it should be.
1:11:45
Speaker 2: Kansas is a team that you heard Morgan talking about
1:11:49
Speaker 2: there that has, you know, is a coach. He's always
1:11:52
Speaker 2: going to give respect to the upcoming opposition, but Kansas
1:11:56
Speaker 2: is a team that when you look at what they
1:11:57
Speaker 2: are statistically, they're kind of middle of the road on
1:12:01
Speaker 2: offense so far. When you break that down in terms
1:12:05
Speaker 2: of their actual competition, they're scoring against, well, They put
1:12:12
Speaker 2: up a bunch of yards and numbers against Middle Tennessee,
1:12:16
Speaker 2: and they've been inadequate in other games.
1:12:19
Speaker 1: They're scoring defense.
1:12:20
Speaker 2: They're middle of the road in scoring defense as well,
1:12:22
Speaker 2: eighth in the conference in scoring defense. Again, they blanked
1:12:27
Speaker 2: Middle Tennessee, gave up zero points in that game, and
1:12:30
Speaker 2: that changes, that skews things. Right now, through a four-game sample,
1:12:37
Speaker 2: I've said this after week two. I'll say it again
1:12:39
Speaker 2: after week three. We're saying it again right now. Utah, 43.3
1:12:45
Speaker 2: points a game, number one scoring offense in the Big
1:12:48
Speaker 2: 12 Conference right now. And now that you're in conference play,
1:12:51
Speaker 2: that's really what matters here. It's nice to be ranked
1:12:54
Speaker 2: number 12. It's nice to have a little bit of
1:12:56
Speaker 2: respect from the national landscape. But the schedule is going
1:13:00
Speaker 2: to let everything figure itself out. Utah is the number
1:13:05
Speaker 2: one scoring defense in the conference right now. 10.3 points
1:13:09
Speaker 2: a game, they are surrendering. Everything that you compare now
1:13:17
Speaker 2: for the University of Utah until we get to a
1:13:20
Speaker 2: point where if you're lucky enough, you belong back in
1:13:23
Speaker 2: the national conversation from a college football playoff perspective from a, hey,
1:13:28
Speaker 2: can you win this conference championship and then get into
1:13:30
Speaker 2: the college football playoff? Everything that Utah does from here
1:13:33
Speaker 2: on out is how do you compare against the rest
1:13:36
Speaker 2: of the Big 12 conference? What does the rest of
1:13:38
Speaker 2: the Big 12 conference schedule look like? How are you
1:13:40
Speaker 2: going to perform against Utah? Big 12 defenses. Can you
1:13:44
Speaker 2: stop Big 12 offenses? And we'll go week by week
1:13:47
Speaker 2: individually by, you know, team by team. But right now,
1:13:52
Speaker 2: Utah is the top offense and the top defense from
1:13:55
Speaker 2: the scoring metrics here in the Big 12 conference. Sometimes
1:14:01
Speaker 2: after you have a bye week, things get influenced one
1:14:05
Speaker 2: way or another. We talked at the beginning of the
1:14:08
Speaker 2: season about how the rush defense for the University of
1:14:10
Speaker 2: Utah has to be a lot better now. than they
1:14:13
Speaker 2: were in the 2025 season, especially at the end of
1:14:15
Speaker 2: that 2025 season. Utah currently sitting fourth in the conference.
1:14:20
Speaker 2: It's Houston, BYU, Arizona that are the stiffest against the run.
1:14:26
Speaker 2: But Utah's only giving up 2.87 yards per carry.
1:14:31
Speaker 1: Less than three yards a carry.
1:14:33
Speaker 2: If you could maintain three to three and a half
1:14:35
Speaker 2: yards a carry through the course of a season, I'll
1:14:38
Speaker 2: take it.
1:14:39
Speaker 1: That's, we would all, I mean.
1:14:44
Speaker 1: Less than four yards of carry is winning football.
1:14:48
Speaker 2: Last year, you ended up giving up 4.8 yards of
1:14:51
Speaker 2: carry over the course of your games.
1:14:54
Speaker 1: You gave up 18 touchdowns.
1:14:55
Speaker 2: Texas Tech, conversely, who was the number one rushing defense
1:14:58
Speaker 2: in the conference last year, only gave up eight rushing
1:15:01
Speaker 2: touchdowns on the year, and they only gave up 2.2
1:15:05
Speaker 2: yards per rush on the year.
1:15:07
Speaker 1: That's an entire year.
1:15:08
Speaker 2: Year-long sample size Texas Tech right now has not given
1:15:11
Speaker 2: up a rushing touchdown so far this year.
1:15:16
Speaker 1: Their fifth overall.
1:15:18
Speaker 2: Against the run they've given up 457 yards and are 3.17
1:15:23
Speaker 2: yards per carry so Texas Tech already not quite as
1:15:26
Speaker 2: stiff as they were against the run last year Houston
1:15:30
Speaker 2: is number one as I mentioned but they've given up
1:15:33
Speaker 2: seven rushing touchdowns so I mean You've got to look
1:15:37
Speaker 2: at every number statistically, and you've got to break down
1:15:39
Speaker 2: how much it means to you one way or another.
1:15:42
Speaker 2: That Morgan Scali press conference that we have for you
1:15:45
Speaker 2: live every week here on the Sean O'Connell Show, that
1:15:47
Speaker 2: will be available online as well in the on-demand section
1:15:52
Speaker 2: of our app, ESPN700Sports. com as well. Of course, off the
1:15:58
Speaker 2: bye week, we'll have Dishing with Dev again this week.
1:16:00
Speaker 2: We'll have Coordinator's Corner. We're back to Colton Swan for
1:16:04
Speaker 2: Coordinator's Corner.
1:16:05
Speaker 1: Is that right? I think that's right, maybe. I hope so.
1:16:12
Speaker 2: Hate saying wrong things. Hate saying inaccurate things. You've got
1:16:18
Speaker 2: Monday Night Football coming up. Falcons and Saints. The first
1:16:24
Speaker 2: Saints game at the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina was 20
1:16:28
Speaker 2: years ago in a Monday Night Football matchup between the
1:16:31
Speaker 2: Falcons and the Saints. That was a 23-3 Steve Gleason
1:16:36
Speaker 2: blocked punt. recovered in the end zone by a Saints teammate.
1:16:40
Speaker 2: Gleason has since become, unfortunately, very famous for his advocacy
1:16:47
Speaker 2: as he deals with ALS and watching his deterioration over
1:16:51
Speaker 2: the years since 2011 has been hard for a lot
1:16:53
Speaker 2: of people to watch, but he's helped raise a lot
1:16:56
Speaker 2: of money and bring a lot of awareness to the
1:16:58
Speaker 2: disease research on that. Falcons-Saints tonight on Monday Night Football.
1:17:04
Speaker 2: Both teams are 1-2. And if you win here, you
1:17:09
Speaker 2: can move into a tie for first in the division
1:17:11
Speaker 2: with the fighting Devin Lloyds, the Carolina Panthers currently atop
1:17:15
Speaker 2: that division.
1:17:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of unbelievable.
1:17:18
Speaker 3: It's only three games in, but it's unbelievable that teams
1:17:21
Speaker 3: that are under 500 are a half game away from
1:17:26
Speaker 3: first place. It's weird to think of that, but that's
1:17:30
Speaker 3: where we are. Again, this is only the fourth game
1:17:32
Speaker 3: of the season, so it does happen in those times,
1:17:35
Speaker 3: but it's still kind of, it twists your brain to
1:17:39
Speaker 3: be like, wait, these guys have been, have both been bad,
1:17:42
Speaker 3: but they're one went away from first place Carolina, by
1:17:46
Speaker 3: the way, incredible game against the lions last night. Did
1:17:50
Speaker 3: you see your guy T Mac? I say your guy,
1:17:53
Speaker 3: cause that's a guy you talked up a ton while
1:17:55
Speaker 3: he was in, while he was in the big 12
1:17:58
Speaker 3: slash pack 12 with Arizona. I mean, what 15 catches
1:18:03
Speaker 3: that one that kind of helped seal the game to
1:18:06
Speaker 3: get that first down where he dragged that second foot
1:18:10
Speaker 3: at the end of the game there. I mean, impressive
1:18:12
Speaker 3: performance for Bryce Young and company. And Devin Lloyd and company,
1:18:15
Speaker 3: I should say. Yeah, Devin Lloyd is the headliner, at
1:18:19
Speaker 3: least here on that team.
1:18:22
Speaker 2: This is a great tweet when I was just talking
1:18:24
Speaker 2: about the analytics from Chris. Little subtweet, little quote here.
1:18:31
Speaker 2: Sorry not to tell you this, but if you think
1:18:32
Speaker 2: you're smarter than analytics, you're not. Anybody out there, if
1:18:35
Speaker 2: you think you've got a better grasp of the game
1:18:37
Speaker 2: and strategy.
1:18:38
Speaker 1: Than the analytics, you don't.
1:18:42
Speaker 2: That, of course, words uttered by Kyle Whittingham after the
1:18:47
Speaker 2: BYU game where the analytics told him to kick... go
1:18:50
Speaker 2: for it instead of kicking field goals that ultimately would
1:18:52
Speaker 2: have won you the game.
1:18:53
Speaker 1: Why are you bringing up old stuff, Chris? Come on, man.
1:18:57
Speaker 1: Why are you twisting the knife here, Chris?
1:19:00
Speaker 3: Maybe it's because bringing up the PFF question and Morgan
1:19:05
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, we don't rely on PFF specifically, but
1:19:09
Speaker 3: respect what they do.
1:19:09
Speaker 1: Maybe it was a nod to that. Yeah, I think
1:19:13
Speaker 1: that's why he brought it up. All right, Daily Dump
1:19:17
Speaker 1: is next.
1:19:19
Speaker 2: One of the all-time greats in the NHL is going
1:19:22
Speaker 2: to be done after this season. And if you've got
1:19:26
Speaker 2: nothing to do this afternoon, I've got a little appointment
1:19:29
Speaker 2: for you at the Delta Center. We'll talk about all
1:19:31
Speaker 2: of it in the Daily Dump on the Sean O'Connell Show,
1:19:33
Speaker 2: ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
1:19:40
Speaker 1: Feeling out of the loop?
1:19:42
Speaker 6: Let's catch up on today's biggest headlines in the Daily
1:19:45
Speaker 6: News Dump, where we flush out the biggest stories of
1:19:48
Speaker 6: the day on the Sean O'Connell Show and Utah's number
1:19:51
Speaker 6: one sports talk, ESPN 792.1 FM. Brought to you by
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1:20:19
Speaker 2: Time for the Daily Dump. Brought to you by the
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1:20:35
Speaker 1: All right. A little hockey talk here.
1:20:40
Speaker 2: Alexander Ovechkin announced to his team that that he is
1:20:45
Speaker 2: going to be done at the end of this season.
1:20:47
Speaker 2: Now I'm actually surprised by this. This is a very
1:20:49
Speaker 2: non hockey thing, but it's going to turn into a
1:20:53
Speaker 2: farewell tour. Everyone's going to show up to watch him
1:20:56
Speaker 2: for the last time. I will be very curious if
1:21:01
Speaker 2: there are like gifts associated with this, like we see
1:21:05
Speaker 2: in the NBA, like we see in the NFL where
1:21:08
Speaker 2: the last time you're going to play it in certain arena,
1:21:12
Speaker 2: the opposing team, trots out a gift for you. Again,
1:21:18
Speaker 2: hockey is a lot more unassuming about stuff like this,
1:21:22
Speaker 2: about their hellos, their goodbyes, their awards.
1:21:26
Speaker 1: It's just like a.
1:21:29
Speaker 2: Don't look at me type culture, whereas a lot of
1:21:32
Speaker 2: professional sports are very much look at me type culture. But,
1:21:36
Speaker 2: I mean, he is one of the all-time greats. He
1:21:38
Speaker 2: is a Mount Rushmore of hockey type player. He has
1:21:41
Speaker 2: broken the unbreakable goals of or the unbreakable records, I
1:21:45
Speaker 2: should say with goals. Like the guy is an absolute
1:21:48
Speaker 2: monstrosity of a hockey player. And, uh, I don't mind
1:21:52
Speaker 2: a farewell tour personally. I think it's kind of neat
1:21:56
Speaker 2: when you let an, a fan base and opposing fan
1:21:59
Speaker 2: base know that like, Hey, you've got a limited amount
1:22:02
Speaker 2: of time to continue watching me apply my trade. If
1:22:06
Speaker 2: you want to splurge for those tickets, when I come
1:22:09
Speaker 2: to salt Lake city, or when I show up in Denver,
1:22:11
Speaker 2: or for the last time, when I'm in San Jose, uh,
1:22:14
Speaker 2: You got to do it because I'm not going to
1:22:15
Speaker 2: be here anymore. So Ovi told his teammates, this is it.
1:22:20
Speaker 2: I'm done after this. And their reaction was somewhat predictable,
1:22:24
Speaker 2: but I'm curious to see how the league handles the
1:22:27
Speaker 2: departure and the farewell tour of Alexander Ovechkin, who definitely
1:22:34
Speaker 2: belongs on the very short list of greatest players to
1:22:37
Speaker 2: ever play the.
1:22:38
Speaker 1: Game of hockey.
1:22:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, you remember they do it in baseball too, or
1:22:42
Speaker 3: at least they have done it a few times. You
1:22:43
Speaker 3: remember when Mariano Rivera had his final season, and it
1:22:48
Speaker 3: might have been your Minnesota Twins, or at least maybe
1:22:51
Speaker 3: if it wasn't them, it was one visiting team or.
1:22:56
Speaker 1: Home team.
1:22:57
Speaker 3: They made a bat out of broken bats, or sorry,
1:23:02
Speaker 3: a chair out of broken bats for him.
1:23:04
Speaker 1: That's actually really cool.
1:23:05
Speaker 3: Because, you know, the story with Mo was that Cutter
1:23:10
Speaker 3: just shredded bats.
1:23:12
Speaker 1: It was the only pitch he threw, basically.
1:23:15
Speaker 3: And he is known for being a big-time closer and
1:23:20
Speaker 3: getting big timeouts in pressure pack situations. And then he's
1:23:24
Speaker 3: also known for the amount of broken bats that Cutter caused.
1:23:29
Speaker 3: And so they gave him a chair made out of
1:23:31
Speaker 3: broken bats. So it'd be interesting to see, like, do you,
1:23:35
Speaker 3: do you make something creative out of pucks that they,
1:23:39
Speaker 3: you know, for the amount of goals that he scored
1:23:41
Speaker 3: against you, if you're, if you're a certain team, I
1:23:44
Speaker 3: don't know.
1:23:45
Speaker 2: So Derek Jeter was one of the more famous of
1:23:49
Speaker 2: the farewell tour people.
1:23:51
Speaker 3: It was like Rivera, Jeter, and then Big Papi all
1:23:55
Speaker 3: almost in a row.
1:23:57
Speaker 2: It seems like Jeter's farewell gifts got a lot more
1:23:59
Speaker 2: attention than other people's did. So the Boston Red Sox
1:24:03
Speaker 2: gave him a placard from the Green Monster, a signed
1:24:08
Speaker 2: second base, and some boots. The Minnesota Twins gave him
1:24:16
Speaker 2: the last jersey. second base that was ever used at
1:24:19
Speaker 2: the Metrodome, their old, their old stadium. It's kind of cool.
1:24:22
Speaker 2: A little piece of history. The Chicago Cubs gave Derek
1:24:26
Speaker 2: Jeter a, an outfield outfield banner and the number two
1:24:31
Speaker 2: of the Wrigley field scoreboard.
1:24:33
Speaker 1: That one is really cool. That is cool.
1:24:35
Speaker 2: Of course, Wrigley field still uses the old manual antique scoreboard,
1:24:40
Speaker 2: which is part of the kind of appeal, part of
1:24:42
Speaker 2: the ambience at Wrigley field. Um, the Houston Astros gave
1:24:47
Speaker 2: him a Stetson cowboy hat, pinstripe cowboy boots, golf clubs,
1:24:50
Speaker 2: and golf instruction, Baltimore Orioles, a bucket of Maryland crabs.
1:24:57
Speaker 1: Uh, so they gave him crabs cause Maryland's known for
1:25:00
Speaker 1: their crap.
1:25:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:25:01
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:25:01
Speaker 2: Um, he got crabs in Baltimore, the Texas Rangers. This is,
1:25:05
Speaker 2: they gave him goat leather cowboy boots cause he's the goat. Um,
1:25:12
Speaker 2: I mean, he's not. He's really popular, but he's not
1:25:14
Speaker 2: the GOAT. But anyway, moving on.
1:25:16
Speaker 1: They gave him GOAT cowboy boots. So some cool stuff.
1:25:21
Speaker 1: Can I say one?
1:25:22
Speaker 2: I think he got surfboards from two different teams. Oh,
1:25:25
Speaker 2: like which California team? Yeah, you got to be original
1:25:29
Speaker 2: when you're doing these things, which is why, like Wrigley Field,
1:25:32
Speaker 2: you're kind of in a situation where you get a better.
1:25:35
Speaker 1: Fenway, too. Cleveland gave him a guitar.
1:25:40
Speaker 2: a custom Cleveland Indians guitar, but it was pinstriped. I
1:25:44
Speaker 2: don't know how much I like the opposing teams leaning
1:25:48
Speaker 2: too far into the pinstripe thing and giving them something
1:25:51
Speaker 2: of theirs that then was pinstriped. Like let the Yankees
1:25:54
Speaker 2: do all the pinstripe stuff for him. But he got
1:25:57
Speaker 2: a bunch of second bases from teams.
1:25:59
Speaker 1: Okay. Cause yeah. Shortstop covering second a lot. It makes sense.
1:26:04
Speaker 3: I I'll say this one thing that makes me a
1:26:07
Speaker 3: little uncomfortable is about the farewell tours is all these
1:26:12
Speaker 3: teams that, and their fan bases who hated that player
1:26:17
Speaker 3: because they were so good against them.
1:26:18
Speaker 1: Right.
1:26:19
Speaker 3: And you probably lost to that player a lot. All
1:26:24
Speaker 3: of a sudden being like, Oh, we, we love you
1:26:27
Speaker 3: so much.
1:26:27
Speaker 1: Here you go.
1:26:28
Speaker 3: Here's, here's something for like, like the red Sox Yankees rivalry,
1:26:31
Speaker 3: for example, Yeah. Why don't we just give you this
1:26:34
Speaker 3: really cool gift? And it's like, dude, well, we hate
1:26:36
Speaker 3: your guts. Like, why are we doing this?
1:26:38
Speaker 1: But it's, it's not real hate. That's the thing.
1:26:41
Speaker 2: It's sports hate. And when somebody is leaving the game, right.
1:26:46
Speaker 2: You have to acknowledge that they gave you some of
1:26:50
Speaker 2: that emotion. Part of why you cared so much about
1:26:53
Speaker 2: those rivalry games is because you had villains to root against, right?
1:26:57
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:26:58
Speaker 2: Like Utah football is It Batman needs the Joker. Joker
1:27:02
Speaker 2: needs Batman. It's the central theme of the dang movie.
1:27:05
Speaker 5: All right.
1:27:07
Speaker 1: You need that. You need each other. You need each other.
1:27:09
Speaker 2: Like Utah and BYU and Utah and BYU fans.
1:27:13
Speaker 1: You hate each other.
1:27:14
Speaker 2: You hate, you hate, you hate, you hate, but also
1:27:16
Speaker 2: you need, you need that, right? Think of Utah football's
1:27:20
Speaker 2: schedule in the big 12 conference. If you don't have
1:27:23
Speaker 2: BYU on the schedule, if you don't have And especially
1:27:27
Speaker 2: in these early years where you've joined a new conference,
1:27:30
Speaker 2: Colorado is your rival now.
1:27:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:27:32
Speaker 1: The Arizona schools. No, thank you.
1:27:34
Speaker 2: Like you need to have, when, when you joined the
1:27:37
Speaker 2: PAC 12, it took a minute, but you, these organic,
1:27:41
Speaker 2: like distastes started to develop and it became like Utah,
1:27:46
Speaker 2: USC became a thing. Utah, Oregon became a thing. Not
1:27:50
Speaker 2: like Utah, BYU things. But you need those things, and
1:27:54
Speaker 2: you need your rival, and you need, I think, like
1:27:57
Speaker 2: you need an Austin Colley character.
1:28:00
Speaker 1: You need someone on the other side to hate.
1:28:02
Speaker 2: A problem I have right now with Utah BYU is
1:28:05
Speaker 2: I really, really like Kalani Satake, and I really, really
1:28:08
Speaker 2: like Aaron Roderick, and I really like.
1:28:11
Speaker 1: what bear Bachmeier represents.
1:28:12
Speaker 2: And I really think that this K do Luave kid
1:28:14
Speaker 2: is one of the best defensive place. Like it's super
1:28:17
Speaker 2: easy to root for these guys, except then you look
1:28:20
Speaker 2: at the uniform and you're just like, no, I can't
1:28:22
Speaker 2: do it.
1:28:23
Speaker 1: So maybe I.
1:28:24
Speaker 2: Actually enjoy that when like a Derek Jeter, like he's a,
1:28:30
Speaker 2: even if you hated him, he's like a classy dude.
1:28:33
Speaker 1: He didn't say a bunch of bad stuff.
1:28:34
Speaker 12: Right.
1:28:35
Speaker 2: When that guy is stepping away, I think it's cool
1:28:38
Speaker 2: that you acknowledge the contributions they made to the game.
1:28:42
Speaker 2: Some of the gifts are more clever than others where
1:28:44
Speaker 2: you like maybe do like a tongue in cheek, like, Oh,
1:28:47
Speaker 2: remember how much we hated this?
1:28:49
Speaker 1: Or you hated this about us.
1:28:50
Speaker 3: I would prefer it to be more like that, but
1:28:53
Speaker 3: I guess not every team is going to be able
1:28:56
Speaker 3: to come up with that. You would just think that
1:28:58
Speaker 3: You would think that the Red Sox could have come
1:29:00
Speaker 3: up with that, though, knowing how.
1:29:01
Speaker 2: The Boston Red Sox should have come up with like
1:29:05
Speaker 2: they should have given him like a terrible gift for
1:29:07
Speaker 2: himself and then donated to his charity.
1:29:10
Speaker 1: Some teams donated to his charity.
1:29:12
Speaker 3: Maybe they should have given him the exact second base
1:29:14
Speaker 3: that Dave Roberts stole. they should know for, you know, like.
1:29:18
Speaker 2: Something like that, like give them something that's like a
1:29:20
Speaker 2: nod to, Hey, remember how tough this was between us.
1:29:24
Speaker 2: Remember how much we hated each other. Remember how much
1:29:27
Speaker 2: this was a bad thing. And if you're Alexander Ovechkin
1:29:31
Speaker 2: and you're the reason for the conversation we're having right now,
1:29:34
Speaker 2: and you're retiring and you're getting this farewell tour, like,
1:29:39
Speaker 2: I mean, everyone just going to give you a hockey stick.
1:29:42
Speaker 7: Yeah.
1:29:43
Speaker 2: I know what someone needs that wherever he lost the
1:29:47
Speaker 2: tooth that he never decided to put back in, they
1:29:50
Speaker 2: needed to get him a gold tooth.
1:29:51
Speaker 1: There you go. That's the only one I want to
1:29:53
Speaker 1: see him get. Yeah.
1:29:55
Speaker 3: I'll say this because I'm probably way too petty about this.
1:30:02
Speaker 3: I would have loved for the red socks in particular
1:30:04
Speaker 3: to give Derek cheater a nice day.
1:30:06
Speaker 1: Goodbye.
1:30:06
Speaker 3: We're glad you're not playing us again. Congratulations on retirement.
1:30:10
Speaker 3: Just a little, just, Hey, see you later. instead of
1:30:14
Speaker 3: some contrived gift that says, hey, we actually loved you
1:30:17
Speaker 3: and we hated you. The charitable donation is the best.
1:30:20
Speaker 3: The charitable donation is great. There's nothing wrong with that.
1:30:24
Speaker 3: The thing that bothered me the most as far as
1:30:26
Speaker 3: a farewell tour was Kobe Bryant because that guy not
1:30:32
Speaker 3: liked Derek Jeter where he was likable, right, and said
1:30:36
Speaker 3: good things, always did the right thing kind of thing.
1:30:39
Speaker 3: And when he came to Salt Lake City– the jazz
1:30:42
Speaker 3: fans gave him a standing. Oh, like he was always
1:30:44
Speaker 3: their favorite players. Like, no, like this guy, I get the,
1:30:48
Speaker 3: I get, let's give him a nod of respect. I
1:30:51
Speaker 3: saw like messages, social media messages like, Oh man, hate
1:30:56
Speaker 3: it playing against him. But you, you gotta give him respect. Like, no,
1:30:59
Speaker 3: you don't have to, you can just hate him.
1:31:01
Speaker 2: The Kobe farewell sucked because there were like 10,000 Laker
1:31:05
Speaker 2: fans in there.
1:31:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:31:06
Speaker 3: I mean, that's true. That ended up skewing the amount
1:31:09
Speaker 3: of people giving them, giving them.
1:31:11
Speaker 2: Some, but that's, that's true. That's the worst part about
1:31:14
Speaker 2: like a Kobe farewell. And yeah, I, I don't know
1:31:17
Speaker 2: how much of that will exist. Like certainly not here
1:31:19
Speaker 2: in Utah, but like, I don't think the capitals have
1:31:23
Speaker 2: a bunch of fans outside of that market where, when
1:31:26
Speaker 2: they go to like New Jersey, there's, 8,000 capital sweaters
1:31:32
Speaker 2: in the, because that, that's the thing that always bugged
1:31:34
Speaker 2: me when the jazz were in those really lean years
1:31:37
Speaker 2: and those down years, you'd go to the, to the
1:31:39
Speaker 2: Delta center and it, you know, like, Hey, wow, the
1:31:41
Speaker 2: fans are really showing up.
1:31:42
Speaker 12: Yeah.
1:31:43
Speaker 2: The opposing teams fans are really showing up. Golden state
1:31:45
Speaker 2: warrior fans proliferated during that time. Laker fans were all
1:31:49
Speaker 2: over the place at that time. you want your home
1:31:52
Speaker 2: arena and it's going to become this again. It already
1:31:55
Speaker 2: is for hockey. You still like, you know, it's crazy
1:31:58
Speaker 2: is I remember the very first Utah hockey club game at,
1:32:03
Speaker 2: at the Delta center was full of opposing team sweaters.
1:32:08
Speaker 7: Yeah.
1:32:09
Speaker 4: Right.
1:32:09
Speaker 2: There were a lot of, and now there are already within,
1:32:13
Speaker 2: You're in the third season now. There's already fewer of
1:32:15
Speaker 2: those because people are jumping on the hockey fans that
1:32:20
Speaker 2: came from Chicago or came from Buffalo or came from
1:32:23
Speaker 2: wherever else. Now they're like, well, this is my home now,
1:32:26
Speaker 2: so maybe I'll at least jump on board this bandwagon.
1:32:30
Speaker 2: There were still some Blackhawks sweaters, but there were probably... 40%,
1:32:35
Speaker 2: 30% of as many Blackhawks sweaters for this one as
1:32:39
Speaker 2: there was for that original, which was also the Chicago Blackhawks.
1:32:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say this year is a
1:32:45
Speaker 3: good year to contrast because it's the same opponent, you know, two, three,
1:32:51
Speaker 3: I guess three years later. So this is, yeah, this
1:32:54
Speaker 3: was a good one to see. We were both at
1:32:58
Speaker 3: both those games. I want to say way less Blackhawks
1:33:02
Speaker 3: jerseys this time. You still saw some. but way less
1:33:05
Speaker 3: Blackhawk jerseys this time than there were in the inaugural game.
1:33:11
Speaker 3: I still notice the occasional Coyotes sweater, too, which I'm like,
1:33:16
Speaker 3: shout out to you guys for still supporting the team,
1:33:20
Speaker 3: even though that was a bitter exit from Arizona. And
1:33:24
Speaker 3: a lot of those Arizona fans are still pretty mad
1:33:27
Speaker 3: at Ryan Smith and Salt Lake City, but it's nice
1:33:30
Speaker 3: to see the Coyotes sweaters around.
1:33:32
Speaker 1: They're still supporting the team.
1:33:33
Speaker 2: Spencer texting in when Messi set the record for most
1:33:35
Speaker 2: goals scored for one club at Barcelona, he teamed up
1:33:38
Speaker 2: with Budweiser and sent every goalkeeper a beer for how
1:33:41
Speaker 2: many times he scored on them. 644 bottles to 160
1:33:46
Speaker 2: different goalkeepers. One guy got 21 beers. So maybe OB
1:33:52
Speaker 2: could do something like that. That's actually really cool. If you,
1:33:55
Speaker 2: if you are the, the, the departing player, Give that's okay.
1:34:01
Speaker 2: This is what I want. Spencer, another great text from Spencer.
1:34:03
Speaker 2: He's really good at this. Alexander Ovechkin should flip the
1:34:07
Speaker 2: script and show up to every arena for the last
1:34:11
Speaker 2: time with a gift that he remembers about that place.
1:34:14
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
1:34:15
Speaker 2: Like whether it's like, even if it's like a scored
1:34:19
Speaker 2: or something or something, it's like, yeah, I scored 70
1:34:22
Speaker 2: goals against you guys. So here's 70 bottles of my signature,
1:34:27
Speaker 2: Alexander Ovechkin, Russian vodka, which I'm sure he has. If
1:34:34
Speaker 2: not Alexander Ovechkin, that's probably something you should get on
1:34:37
Speaker 2: board with.
1:34:37
Speaker 1: Or some kind of Russian vodka sponsor.
1:34:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, that that's a, that's a really good text by Spencer.
1:34:43
Speaker 1: Really good idea. I have to talk about this. This
1:34:46
Speaker 1: will be the only other thing I put in this.
1:34:49
Speaker 2: And then I want to talk about the Utah mammoth
1:34:51
Speaker 2: losing their first game of the season, but Colorado state
1:34:58
Speaker 2: is not going to generate a lot of headlines here
1:34:59
Speaker 2: on the show. They had a really weird scenario this
1:35:02
Speaker 2: last weekend. And I'm sure some of you were watching
1:35:05
Speaker 2: the game, or if you didn't watch the game, you
1:35:08
Speaker 2: probably at least read about this, but their defensive coordinator
1:35:13
Speaker 2: is left the game at halftime.
1:35:19
Speaker 1: So his name is Tyson Summers.
1:35:21
Speaker 2: And at halftime, Jim Mora relieved Tyson Summers of play
1:35:27
Speaker 2: calling duties in the middle of the game said, you're
1:35:30
Speaker 2: not calling the defense in the second half. Now, Jim
1:35:35
Speaker 2: Mora insists he did not fire the guy at halftime,
1:35:38
Speaker 2: but he relieved him of his play calling duties, which
1:35:41
Speaker 2: let's be honest is That would be really tough to experience.
1:35:46
Speaker 1: You wouldn't want that. He left the game.
1:35:52
Speaker 2: Halftime, he just leaves. Jim Morris said this. Tyson was
1:35:56
Speaker 2: relieved of his play-calling duties.
1:35:57
Speaker 1: He left the field.
1:35:58
Speaker 2: He's no longer part of the football program. That is permanent.
1:36:02
Speaker 2: So maybe, I don't know, right. We haven't heard anything
1:36:06
Speaker 2: from summers yet. Maybe he thought he was being fired.
1:36:09
Speaker 2: And if you're being fired at halftime of a game,
1:36:12
Speaker 2: you're certainly not going to go back out.
1:36:13
Speaker 12: Yeah.
1:36:13
Speaker 1: You're not sticking around.
1:36:14
Speaker 2: If you believe you're being fired rather than demoted, then yeah,
1:36:19
Speaker 2: you're just going to leave. However, if there's any question
1:36:22
Speaker 2: at all, whether or not like, and, and the way
1:36:25
Speaker 2: that Jim Moore describes it, he said, Kenny McClendon is
1:36:29
Speaker 2: calling the place. who's Kenny McClendon's is the assistant head
1:36:33
Speaker 2: coach and had co-defensive coordinator tag at one point. So Kenny,
1:36:39
Speaker 2: he said, Kenny McClendon is going to call the place,
1:36:43
Speaker 2: Oregon state running all over the place, scoring a bunch.
1:36:47
Speaker 2: Kenny's going to call the second half and Tyson Summers left.
1:36:52
Speaker 2: Now things get heated in football games. It would be
1:36:58
Speaker 2: an emotional and embarrassing, a terrible thing. If you had
1:37:00
Speaker 2: to deal with that. However, if you left because you
1:37:03
Speaker 2: thought you were being fired and you weren't actually being fired,
1:37:07
Speaker 2: that would really suck.
1:37:08
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:37:09
Speaker 3: That's, I mean, that's makes it hard for any other
1:37:12
Speaker 3: program to hire him now that he's available.
1:37:15
Speaker 1: Right.
1:37:16
Speaker 3: Cause you, that's just a really bad impression to leave. Now,
1:37:20
Speaker 3: obviously I think all of us can relate to being
1:37:25
Speaker 3: that emotional to where we just want to leave right away.
1:37:29
Speaker 3: We want to quit our job right now. We want
1:37:31
Speaker 3: to leave a situation right now.
1:37:34
Speaker 1: Right. I can't imagine ever feeling that way, James.
1:37:36
Speaker 11: No.
1:37:37
Speaker 3: I think all of us can relate to that, but
1:37:40
Speaker 3: you most of the time and hope most time, hopefully you,
1:37:46
Speaker 3: you don't think better of it and you come back
1:37:49
Speaker 3: and finish out whatever the tenure is in this case,
1:37:52
Speaker 3: at least finish the game. If you're Tyson summers, but that,
1:37:56
Speaker 3: cause that's just, that's not gonna be great on, that's
1:37:59
Speaker 3: not a great look for him as he's now looking
1:38:01
Speaker 3: for another job as a football coach.
1:38:04
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering 660.
1:38:10
Speaker 2: Yards of total offense for Oregon state in that game
1:38:14
Speaker 2: against Colorado state. So it's not like Jim Morrow was
1:38:17
Speaker 2: not warranted and being like, we need to figure something
1:38:20
Speaker 2: out on the defensive side of the ball. They started
1:38:22
Speaker 2: the season strong. They've lost three in a row, the
1:38:25
Speaker 2: Colorado State Rams, who of course are now a pack
1:38:28
Speaker 2: 12 team which is pretty crazy one other thing on
1:38:32
Speaker 2: this coach summers thing if the guy that he's handing
1:38:37
Speaker 2: the reins to like now you're the play caller was
1:38:40
Speaker 2: at one point your co-defensive coordinator so meaning both of
1:38:43
Speaker 2: you were defensive coordinator on point like that's another reason
1:38:47
Speaker 2: where it's like dude like if he didn't say you're fired,
1:38:51
Speaker 2: you're done. Then you have reason to believe that you're
1:38:57
Speaker 2: just done calling place. Speaker 3 I will also allow
1:39:00
Speaker 2: for the fact that Jim Mora is kind of the
1:39:02
Speaker 2: dude who would be like, I didn't fire him.
1:39:04
Speaker 1: He decided to leave.
1:39:06
Speaker 2: Even if he did fire you like Jim Moore is
1:39:09
Speaker 2: not exactly the most above board guy we've had in
1:39:11
Speaker 2: college football.
1:39:13
Speaker 3: I hope it works out well for Summers, but again,
1:39:19
Speaker 3: he might have a hard time finding another job as
1:39:21
Speaker 3: a football coach for a minute because this is just
1:39:22
Speaker 3: not a good look.
1:39:23
Speaker 2: You don't want to throw a fit and walk off
1:39:26
Speaker 2: your job if you weren't actually fired. So that's where
1:39:29
Speaker 2: it stands right now with Colorado State on the defense.
1:39:33
Speaker 1: All right.
1:39:34
Speaker 2: Something very important happened with the Utah Mammoth this weekend,
1:39:37
Speaker 2: and we've got to talk about what it is because...
1:39:40
Speaker 2: If you're going to be a team that can contend
1:39:42
Speaker 2: and eventually win a Stanley Cup, you need your star
1:39:46
Speaker 2: players healthy. You need your star players protected. You need
1:39:49
Speaker 2: your star players to be rallied around by their teammates.
1:39:55
Speaker 2: That happened, and we'll talk about it. It's the Sean
1:39:57
Speaker 2: O'Connell Show on ESPN.
1:39:58
Speaker 1: 700 and 92 on FM. My wayward son, there'll be
1:40:04
Speaker 1: peace when you are done.
1:40:06
Speaker 6: This is the Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the
1:40:10
Speaker 6: best inside of your Utes. Let's get back to OC
1:40:13
Speaker 6: from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN 792.1 FM.
1:40:18
Speaker 2: The Utah Mammoth are no longer undefeated in the state
1:40:27
Speaker 2: of New York.
1:40:30
Speaker 4: Tragic.
1:40:30
Speaker 1: Hate to hear it.
1:40:34
Speaker 2: Uh, six wins, zero ties, zero losses in the first
1:40:37
Speaker 2: two seasons of our professional hockey experience here in the
1:40:41
Speaker 2: state of Utah.
1:40:42
Speaker 1: And it was like NHL experience. I should say outright
1:40:46
Speaker 1: wins too. I guess there was there.
1:40:48
Speaker 3: I think I remember it overtime win, which would, you know,
1:40:51
Speaker 3: put the one in the tie column when it comes
1:40:53
Speaker 3: to hockey, but that's, uh, yeah.
1:40:56
Speaker 2: But So now you have some New York talent on
1:41:00
Speaker 2: your roster, and now you're losing to teams in New York.
1:41:02
Speaker 1: You don't like it. You hate to hear it. You
1:41:04
Speaker 1: hate to see it. Look, long season. By the way, 10.
1:41:10
Speaker 2: Goals in the first two games, one goal given up
1:41:13
Speaker 2: in the first two games. Game three, you lose. And
1:41:16
Speaker 2: the reason I want to bring up the loss here
1:41:19
Speaker 2: is because.
1:41:22
Speaker 1: will Cooley.
1:41:23
Speaker 2: Who's not, he spells his name in a really strange way.
1:41:27
Speaker 2: It's not like Logan Cooley will Cooley hit. He had
1:41:32
Speaker 2: a dangerous hit from behind on Dylan Gunther on Sunday.
1:41:36
Speaker 2: And Dylan Gunther is probably going to be your leading
1:41:39
Speaker 2: score this year. I think he's got a chance to
1:41:41
Speaker 2: be one of the leading scores in the NHL, like
1:41:43
Speaker 2: a top 10 goal scorer in the NHL right now,
1:41:46
Speaker 2: he's off to a really hot start of the season
1:41:48
Speaker 2: and you, you can't let guys like that sustained dirty hits.
1:41:55
Speaker 2: And in the NHL, more than in any other league
1:41:58
Speaker 2: and more than in any other sport, they litigate these
1:42:03
Speaker 2: things on the ice. So Jack McBain went out and
1:42:06
Speaker 2: fought and that's how it's going to be. You're not
1:42:10
Speaker 2: going to send Cooley or Keller and you're not going
1:42:14
Speaker 2: to make Gunther fight it out himself against the big guy. But, um,
1:42:21
Speaker 2: Jack McBain goes out there and you know, you get
1:42:25
Speaker 2: a penalty for fighting.
1:42:26
Speaker 1: Uh, will Cooley.
1:42:29
Speaker 2: Said that he was not intending to, to throw a
1:42:34
Speaker 2: dirty hit. He doesn't ever want it to be, uh,
1:42:38
Speaker 2: considered a dirty player and things like that. But then
1:42:41
Speaker 2: he had the very hockey player reaction, just like, yeah,
1:42:43
Speaker 2: I respect that they had to come get me and
1:42:46
Speaker 2: I had to answer the call. Um, it's not, it's,
1:42:50
Speaker 2: he got a minor infraction. He shoved Dylan Gunther into
1:42:54
Speaker 2: the boards headfirst though. And this is something that the
1:42:57
Speaker 2: league has to review. This is something that you've got
1:43:00
Speaker 2: to take very, very seriously because we've seen guys get
1:43:05
Speaker 2: hurt in a really like, like a significant, not, not,
1:43:09
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be season ending, but it can
1:43:11
Speaker 2: be career altering type of scenario where a guy goes
1:43:16
Speaker 2: face first into the boards or top of his head
1:43:18
Speaker 2: first into the boards. And, you know, Anders Lee got
1:43:21
Speaker 2: right in there and was fighting. And eventually, uh, it
1:43:24
Speaker 2: was McBain who actually had to throw it down, I think,
1:43:27
Speaker 2: but just a really unfortunate situation. And you don't send
1:43:33
Speaker 2: people into the boards face first. It's something that in
1:43:36
Speaker 2: the NHL, uh, the players usually police amongst themselves, even
1:43:40
Speaker 2: guys on your own team We'll tell you like, Hey,
1:43:43
Speaker 2: don't do that.
1:43:43
Speaker 1: That's going to bring that back on us. Cause there's
1:43:47
Speaker 1: supposed to be someone.
1:43:48
Speaker 2: On every roster. That's, you know, willing to do this
1:43:52
Speaker 2: dirty work. And you just, you dodged a bullet. Dylan
1:43:57
Speaker 2: Gunther seems to be fine, but they lose their first
1:44:02
Speaker 2: game in the state of New York. Thankfully he kind
1:44:04
Speaker 2: of went, He was able to turn, so the side
1:44:07
Speaker 2: of his head kind of hit the boards. He didn't
1:44:09
Speaker 2: go fully face first or top of the head first
1:44:11
Speaker 2: because that gets really scary with the amount of momentum
1:44:13
Speaker 2: that these guys have moving fast on the ice.
1:44:16
Speaker 1: Hate to see it.
1:44:18
Speaker 2: Glad to see the team immediately go out there and
1:44:21
Speaker 2: try to give some.
1:44:27
Speaker 3: Hockey justice to it. Yeah, and just have Dylan Guthrie's back, right,
1:44:31
Speaker 3: to put it simply. It's crazy that this was only
1:44:35
Speaker 3: a two minute minor though, given like that is such
1:44:39
Speaker 3: a violation of a unwritten rule to hit guys, particularly
1:44:44
Speaker 3: from behind headfirst into a wall like that. Seems like
1:44:49
Speaker 3: that should have been a lot harsher penalty given out
1:44:53
Speaker 3: by the refs in game. But as you said, When
1:44:58
Speaker 3: the refs don't, especially when the refs don't give it
1:45:00
Speaker 3: that hard of a penalty, guys like Jack McBain are
1:45:02
Speaker 3: going to step up and give them a different kind
1:45:04
Speaker 3: of penalty.
1:45:04
Speaker 1: And that's what they did in the game yesterday. McBain
1:45:08
Speaker 1: won the fight, by the way, if that matters to anybody.
1:45:10
Speaker 2: It's like they don't really keep score on those types
1:45:13
Speaker 2: of things, but.
1:45:14
Speaker 1: You do.
1:45:15
Speaker 2: Cooley went down first. Is there any new Twitter bit
1:45:18
Speaker 2: for you? Just looking up hockey fights and scoring it?
1:45:21
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting? The Sky 1. The way that
1:45:25
Speaker 2: you have to fight on skates and you have to
1:45:26
Speaker 2: fight wearing... a sweater with pads underneath it. I don't think,
1:45:34
Speaker 2: I don't think you could actually translate a lot of
1:45:37
Speaker 2: like what, you know, from traditional fighting to that. Like,
1:45:40
Speaker 2: obviously you want to throw good punches and things like that.
1:45:43
Speaker 1: But the other night, uh, I was watching and like.
1:45:48
Speaker 2: Guys, you never in a million years want to like
1:45:51
Speaker 2: turn your head away from your opponent in a real fight.
1:45:55
Speaker 2: But if you have the right, grip on their sweater
1:45:59
Speaker 2: and you have the right length of your arm, it's
1:46:02
Speaker 2: actually seemingly like a pretty good strategy in an NHL
1:46:06
Speaker 2: fight where you've got a reach advantage. You like basically
1:46:10
Speaker 2: just look away, lean far enough away that they can't
1:46:14
Speaker 2: hit you. And then you time it. So you're coming
1:46:16
Speaker 2: back in and hit them. I saw two people using that.
1:46:18
Speaker 2: That's like, Oh dang, that's actually kind of clever. Can't
1:46:21
Speaker 2: really do that in a fight where you don't have
1:46:24
Speaker 2: a shirt on.
1:46:24
Speaker 3: And I would think that it's almost impossible to plant
1:46:29
Speaker 3: because you're sliding around on skates, too.
1:46:33
Speaker 2: Also, these guys can move better on skates than I
1:46:35
Speaker 2: can on my two feet. They probably can plant in
1:46:39
Speaker 2: some way.
1:46:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I think they have it figured out.
1:46:41
Speaker 3: By the way, if you want to hear more about
1:46:42
Speaker 3: Jack McBain's hockey fighting... inspiration or influences. You can just
1:46:48
Speaker 3: listen to our OCS interview with Jack McBain from a
1:46:51
Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago, ESPN, 700 sports stuff.
1:46:53
Speaker 1: Yes, we did.
1:46:54
Speaker 2: We did get into that a little bit. We talked
1:46:55
Speaker 2: to him probably too much for his own taste about that.
1:46:59
Speaker 2: I appreciate him. Like he, he really went down the
1:47:01
Speaker 2: rabbit hole with me on that kind of thing.
1:47:02
Speaker 3: So that was, he seemed to be amused by, he
1:47:05
Speaker 3: chuckled a few times at a couple of your questions.
1:47:07
Speaker 1: That was cool of him to do.
1:47:09
Speaker 2: So yeah, look, the Utah mammoth are now two and
1:47:12
Speaker 2: one They lost this one for two against the Rangers,
1:47:15
Speaker 2: but most importantly, Dylan Gunther, it seems like he's going
1:47:19
Speaker 2: to be totally fine. And Jack McBain is making sure
1:47:22
Speaker 2: that other teams don't think they can get away with
1:47:25
Speaker 2: that kind of crap because.
1:47:26
Speaker 1: The NHL did not.
1:47:28
Speaker 2: And the NHL referees did not penalize a dirty hit enough.
1:47:32
Speaker 2: So we'll Cooley no relation to Logan Cooley because you
1:47:36
Speaker 2: spell it like some kind of an ingrate you're on notice.
1:47:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't like you, and not just because you
1:47:43
Speaker 1: spell your name weird, okay?
1:47:45
Speaker 2: That is the primary reason, though. I guess that's part
1:47:48
Speaker 2: of it, but that's not just why.
1:47:50
Speaker 1: C-U-Y-L-L-E. Yeah. I don't know how else I would pronounce it.
1:47:55
Speaker 1: It's kind of like Brett Favre. Yeah, Favre.
1:47:59
Speaker 3: Honestly, reading his name and not hearing the call, I
1:48:05
Speaker 3: was like, is it Kewl?
1:48:08
Speaker 1: But I guess it's Cooley.
1:48:11
Speaker 2: I think the only player I actually like who's got
1:48:13
Speaker 2: a weird name with the weird spelling is Luke Keekly.
1:48:18
Speaker 1: So maybe it's a me problem. I don't know. Got
1:48:22
Speaker 1: to take a break. We'll come back with Zach Moss.
1:48:24
Speaker 2: Utah football legend, NFL veteran. His thoughts on Utah, Kansas
1:48:32
Speaker 2: this week and what happened in the NFL this weekend.
1:48:35
Speaker 1: It's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700, 92 on FM.
1:48:40
Speaker 6: You're listening to The Sean O'Connell Show, your source for
1:48:43
Speaker 6: the best youth football coverage.
1:48:45
Speaker 1: Here's O.C.
1:48:46
Speaker 6: From the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM.
1:48:50
Speaker 2: Welcome back to The Sean O'Connell Show. Welcome in Zach Moss,
1:48:59
Speaker 2: the Utah football legend, NFL veteran.
1:49:04
Speaker 1: Zach, welcome to the show again. How are you, sir?
1:49:07
Speaker 8: Doing good, doing good.
1:49:08
Speaker 7: Thank you guys for having me on.
1:49:11
Speaker 1: What did you do with your bye week Saturday this
1:49:13
Speaker 1: past weekend?
1:49:14
Speaker 7: Not too much, not too much. Just hung out at
1:49:18
Speaker 7: home and enjoyed some quiet.
1:49:22
Speaker 2: So, team back in action this weekend. Another night game
1:49:26
Speaker 2: at Rice Echo Stadium against Kansas. And I guess this
1:49:30
Speaker 2: applies to Kansas, but it applies to every team right
1:49:33
Speaker 2: now in the Big 12 Conference, including Utah to a
1:49:36
Speaker 2: certain extent.
1:49:37
Speaker 1: You're either four games or five games into your season here. And,
1:49:41
Speaker 1: you know, I think.
1:49:42
Speaker 2: For a lot of these teams, we kind of know
1:49:44
Speaker 2: what to expect. We know what they are, but also
1:49:47
Speaker 2: not because competition has been odd. You've played in Kansas's case,
1:49:52
Speaker 2: a couple of like really non-factor teams, FCS team, middle
1:49:56
Speaker 2: Tennessee state. You've lost the games against power four teams,
1:50:00
Speaker 2: but you looked really, really good against middle Tennessee state.
1:50:03
Speaker 2: I don't know if that is something we could translate
1:50:05
Speaker 2: to Utah. So, When you're watching film in a week
1:50:08
Speaker 2: like this and you can only evaluate the sample size
1:50:11
Speaker 2: of the four games that the Kansas Jayhawks have played
1:50:13
Speaker 2: or that the Utes have played, how do you know
1:50:17
Speaker 2: what is what that team really is and what is
1:50:19
Speaker 2: kind of like an outlier?
1:50:23
Speaker 7: Obviously, like you said, the schedule that they've played, they
1:50:30
Speaker 7: haven't really truly had a outrageous schedule. So, you know,
1:50:36
Speaker 7: but they look good in certain things that you kind
1:50:39
Speaker 7: of want to see when you talk about the capability
1:50:43
Speaker 7: that good teams have. They've been able to show those
1:50:47
Speaker 7: in different ways and win in different styles. I think
1:50:50
Speaker 7: the Iowa state game was the biggest thing because Iowa
1:50:55
Speaker 7: State is a sneaky, weird team, as you kind of saw,
1:50:58
Speaker 7: versus I think they played West Virginia, if I'm not mistaken. And,
1:51:02
Speaker 7: you know, we bottled up their running back extremely, extremely well,
1:51:06
Speaker 7: especially in the first half. And then he went off
1:51:08
Speaker 7: to have just a spectacular game. So, you know, when
1:51:13
Speaker 7: you see stuff like that, right, and I think his
1:51:15
Speaker 7: name is Aiden something.
1:51:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, Aiden Flora, yeah.
1:51:20
Speaker 7: Yeah, and, you know, to see something like that and
1:51:23
Speaker 7: the way that the youth had to respond in the
1:51:27
Speaker 7: second half, right, obviously dominating the first half on both
1:51:29
Speaker 7: sides of the ball, had some pushback going back and forth,
1:51:32
Speaker 7: some adversity, and then to put the game away right
1:51:35
Speaker 7: on the road, I think that's the biggest thing when
1:51:38
Speaker 7: you talk about, you know, the schedule hasn't been anything
1:51:41
Speaker 7: to really, really blink at, but at the same time,
1:51:44
Speaker 7: they've won in different ways. They've won in different ways.
1:51:48
Speaker 7: They've shown they can do that. And that's the type
1:51:51
Speaker 7: of stuff you've got to see when you get into
1:51:53
Speaker 7: the thick of the Big 12 conference play.
1:51:57
Speaker 2: Coming back off a bye week, what's got to be
1:52:00
Speaker 2: the main focus for a team that got to rest
1:52:03
Speaker 2: up a little bit, got to lift a little bit
1:52:04
Speaker 2: more maybe, put some muscle back on, eat good, rest good.
1:52:08
Speaker 2: And now you're starting off your week with practices again
1:52:12
Speaker 2: to get back into your routine. What's the biggest challenge
1:52:15
Speaker 2: of getting back into that season routine after the bye
1:52:18
Speaker 2: week breaks it?
1:52:21
Speaker 7: I think the biggest thing is to, you know, the
1:52:25
Speaker 7: conditioning is probably the hardest thing. Getting back, you know,
1:52:29
Speaker 7: that's a long week off. Essentially, you know, obviously not exactly.
1:52:34
Speaker 4: Sure on.
1:52:36
Speaker 7: Every single thing that they did up there during the
1:52:38
Speaker 7: bye week. But, you know, from bypass and dealing with
1:52:42
Speaker 7: bye weeks, you know, you still... You know, practice a
1:52:45
Speaker 7: little bit on injuries and who's banged up, who's not
1:52:50
Speaker 7: banged up, things like that. But, you know, I think
1:52:53
Speaker 7: the main thing is to getting back into that groove
1:52:56
Speaker 7: of things. And they've been pretty groovy. offensively and defensively
1:53:01
Speaker 7: so far and continue to find that fire. But, you know,
1:53:05
Speaker 7: definitely not worried about that because that's where, you know,
1:53:08
Speaker 7: you talk about the coaching staff and things of that
1:53:10
Speaker 7: nature and the strength staff and keeping these guys ready
1:53:14
Speaker 7: to go, keeping them motivated mentally and physically. So, you know,
1:53:18
Speaker 7: we really don't have a big issue coming out of
1:53:20
Speaker 7: a bye week. So looking forward to that to continue
1:53:23
Speaker 7: to be the same trend.
1:53:27
Speaker 2: How do you, feel about momentum game to game week
1:53:30
Speaker 2: to week obviously momentum exists in games right uh but
1:53:34
Speaker 2: week to week do you believe are you a believer
1:53:37
Speaker 2: in momentum in this case it would have been momentum
1:53:39
Speaker 2: interrupted by a week off sometimes it's bad momentum you
1:53:43
Speaker 2: want to stop with a week off but is there
1:53:46
Speaker 2: even such a thing when you know your games are
1:53:48
Speaker 2: separated by six or seven.
1:53:50
Speaker 7: Days Um, yeah, I mean, you never know with momentum,
1:53:57
Speaker 7: it can swing, uh, real fast. Um, you know, but
1:54:01
Speaker 7: I think that's the part where it comes to the coaches, uh,
1:54:05
Speaker 7: you know, how they structure practice during the bi-week, right?
1:54:07
Speaker 7: It's not like these guys are taking an absolute, uh,
1:54:10
Speaker 7: whole week off of just away from football right it's
1:54:14
Speaker 7: not where they don't live they don't watch film um
1:54:17
Speaker 7: you know and then i'm sure we have guys that
1:54:19
Speaker 7: you know um are really dedicated to their crafts so
1:54:24
Speaker 7: i i'm for sure that you know during the bye
1:54:26
Speaker 7: week these guys are still getting together without the coaches
1:54:30
Speaker 7: right and you know and trying to enjoy their time
1:54:32
Speaker 7: off at the same time and get healthy, but just,
1:54:36
Speaker 7: you know, doing the same things that they need to
1:54:37
Speaker 7: do to continue to stay in that rhythm and stay
1:54:39
Speaker 7: in that flow of all the things that have given
1:54:42
Speaker 7: them the type of momentum that they've carried through the
1:54:44
Speaker 7: first four weeks of playing. Because, you know, obviously this
1:54:48
Speaker 7: Kansas team is going to come in and give them
1:54:51
Speaker 7: a fight for sure. And you can't start slow. um
1:54:55
Speaker 7: coming up about a week sometimes that's a big issue
1:54:58
Speaker 7: with teams coming up about a week it's starting slow
1:55:00
Speaker 7: and we've started fast offensively each and every week so
1:55:03
Speaker 7: to your point about momentum um definitely got to keep
1:55:06
Speaker 7: that momentum of starting fast uh and has to show
1:55:10
Speaker 7: up this week again.
1:55:12
Speaker 2: Speaking of starting fast it's it's been coming out of
1:55:15
Speaker 2: the halftime break that this utah team seems to slow
1:55:18
Speaker 2: a little bit they seem to fall asleep a little
1:55:21
Speaker 2: bit at halftime.
1:55:22
Speaker 1: And I think that's part of human nature.
1:55:23
Speaker 2: It's a little bit natural when especially you're carrying big
1:55:26
Speaker 2: leads as they have in all of their first four
1:55:29
Speaker 2: games this season. But the third quarter has been the
1:55:31
Speaker 2: least productive quarter for this University of Utah football team,
1:55:35
Speaker 2: both on the offensive side of the ball and on
1:55:37
Speaker 2: the defensive side of the ball.
1:55:39
Speaker 1: Ultimately, it doesn't matter because they're all wins.
1:55:42
Speaker 2: But when you've got extra time to study film and
1:55:44
Speaker 2: to self-scout during a bye week, maybe that's something that
1:55:49
Speaker 2: you identify. And we've talked about this before, like, all right,
1:55:52
Speaker 2: third quarter, how do you make sure that your third
1:55:54
Speaker 2: quarter is just as good as your first quarter if
1:55:56
Speaker 2: you're Zach Moss?
1:56:00
Speaker 7: I think for me, it goes back to you know,
1:56:05
Speaker 7: the way you structure practice, right? You know, obviously coming
1:56:08
Speaker 7: off being in a bi-week week and it being early,
1:56:11
Speaker 7: you know, I wasn't, I kind of sucked being in
1:56:15
Speaker 7: a bi-week coming off of week four, man, when, you know,
1:56:18
Speaker 7: your body is just starting to, you know, get used
1:56:22
Speaker 7: to playing football again after being months off. But to me,
1:56:26
Speaker 7: it's all about practice, right? You practice how you play. And,
1:56:30
Speaker 7: you know, the coaching staff is putting these guys in
1:56:32
Speaker 7: the right positions in practice, right? Because football is all
1:56:37
Speaker 7: about situations. And that's one thing I've learned is, you know,
1:56:40
Speaker 7: and been taught over time is, you know, to be
1:56:44
Speaker 7: massive of situation. So, you know, put these guys in
1:56:47
Speaker 7: third down situations in practice, right? Make it as much
1:56:49
Speaker 7: as a game style format as much as you can.
1:56:53
Speaker 7: So that way, when these guys get into the game
1:56:56
Speaker 7: and it's this third quarter, these third downs, whatever it
1:56:58
Speaker 7: may be, right? These situations arise, right? It's not their
1:57:02
Speaker 7: first time, right, on a Saturday night. Being in those situations,
1:57:07
Speaker 7: they practice it all week, right? That's the reason when
1:57:10
Speaker 7: you go to a practice, these things are scripted, right?
1:57:13
Speaker 7: These are situations that the coaches feel are the most important, right?
1:57:18
Speaker 7: You can have situations where you come out of the
1:57:20
Speaker 7: halftime break, right? All these little different things that need
1:57:24
Speaker 7: to show up, that do show up in game days.
1:57:27
Speaker 7: It's all about the coaching staff putting the players in
1:57:30
Speaker 7: the right place um, positions to be at their best. Um,
1:57:34
Speaker 7: and you know, things of that nature.
1:57:37
Speaker 2: Zach Moss is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell show,
1:57:40
Speaker 2: Utah football legend, NFL veteran. And right now, uh, the
1:57:46
Speaker 2: sideline reporter for the Utah radio broadcast that you can
1:57:49
Speaker 2: listen to right here on ESPN, 700 and 92, one FM, uh,
1:57:54
Speaker 2: whiteout uniform for a night game. Zach Moss. It's backwards.
1:57:58
Speaker 2: It's usually blackout during the night game. I feel a
1:58:02
Speaker 2: little superstitious about it. I'm not going to try to
1:58:04
Speaker 2: curse anything, but how much did you care about what
1:58:08
Speaker 2: uniform you were wearing, especially in college where you got
1:58:10
Speaker 2: so many different combinations?
1:58:14
Speaker 7: Honestly, I didn't care. I feel like I pay much
1:58:20
Speaker 7: more attention to that stuff now than I did in college.
1:58:25
Speaker 7: I think for one, with Coach Witt and the guys
1:58:29
Speaker 7: that we had up there running the equipment room, things
1:58:33
Speaker 7: of that nature, it was a pretty... status quo kind
1:58:36
Speaker 7: of a thing right you know we had our certain
1:58:38
Speaker 7: games right night game is black and then if it's
1:58:41
Speaker 7: the you know the pride game you pride games a
1:58:44
Speaker 7: certain uniform for that and you go on the road
1:58:47
Speaker 7: right it's pretty much only this right it's always almost
1:58:50
Speaker 7: white on the road so you know it was more
1:58:54
Speaker 7: of a almost like an NFL ran program essentially when
1:58:59
Speaker 7: it came to the You know, the uniform, right? One
1:59:03
Speaker 7: thing that's popped up to me is, you know, how
1:59:07
Speaker 7: way Sean... I think it was last year. I don't
1:59:09
Speaker 7: think he's done it much this year. But last year,
1:59:12
Speaker 7: you know, the pink cleats, right? You know, pretty much
1:59:16
Speaker 7: almost the whole rest of the season. And, you know,
1:59:20
Speaker 7: that was... Kind of weird to me because you never
1:59:24
Speaker 7: really see that much individualism, especially at Utah when being
1:59:29
Speaker 7: in the Coach Winningham era and things of that nature
1:59:32
Speaker 7: and you look back all those years as well, you
1:59:34
Speaker 7: don't really see that much individualism. individualism. But I love that,
1:59:38
Speaker 7: you know, Coach Scali, you know, he's obviously, he's an ex-player, ex-alum.
1:59:44
Speaker 7: He's a lot closer in age, right? He's kind of
1:59:48
Speaker 7: far off still, but closer than Coach Witt was to
1:59:52
Speaker 7: what the new age of football essentially.
1:59:55
Speaker 4: Is, right?
1:59:55
Speaker 7: You got to allow these guys to have, you know,
1:59:59
Speaker 7: some type of, you know, input on what they're wearing,
2:00:01
Speaker 7: what they want to wear, right? And I think this
2:00:03
Speaker 7: is a direct, you know, calls of players, right? The leadership, right?
2:00:09
Speaker 7: Giving the players leadership and, you know, changing some things up, right?
2:00:12
Speaker 7: You know, the captains and things like that. And I'm sure,
2:00:15
Speaker 7: you know, that comes directly from them with some stuff
2:00:19
Speaker 7: from Coach Scali as well. So I'd like to see
2:00:22
Speaker 7: things being different, right? I love the night game with
2:00:26
Speaker 7: the all white out. I think that's going to be
2:00:27
Speaker 7: just an absolute spectacular view just for everybody inside of
2:00:33
Speaker 7: life cycles and people watching it on TV as well. So,
2:00:36
Speaker 7: you know, I'm super happy that, you know, these guys
2:00:40
Speaker 7: are having a lot more input on certain things and,
2:00:43
Speaker 7: you know, who knows what, I'm not sure if they're
2:00:45
Speaker 7: going to do the hand painting helmets again this year,
2:00:47
Speaker 7: but who knows if they do, what type of style
2:00:50
Speaker 7: we're going to get from that as well.
2:00:53
Speaker 2: Speaking of style, the coaching style that we're seeing Morgan Scali.
2:00:58
Speaker 2: Now he's, he's five games into the bowl game last
2:01:00
Speaker 2: year and first four games this season. Morgan as an
2:01:04
Speaker 2: assistant coach was, you know, an animated type guy, kind
2:01:09
Speaker 2: of loud, a little crazy at times, especially in practice,
2:01:13
Speaker 2: not as much during games and things like that. But
2:01:16
Speaker 2: I've noticed that he's borderline stoic on the sideline when
2:01:22
Speaker 2: he's the head coach.
2:01:23
Speaker 7: Right.
2:01:23
Speaker 1: He's observing.
2:01:25
Speaker 2: He's quiet. He's conversational, it seems. And obviously we don't
2:01:29
Speaker 2: have a camera on him all the time. And I'm
2:01:31
Speaker 2: not looking at him all the time when I'm watching
2:01:33
Speaker 2: the games in the stadium to see how he's reacting
2:01:36
Speaker 2: to things. But he has a very calm demeanor on
2:01:40
Speaker 2: the sideline and he's an intense guy overall. It's just
2:01:43
Speaker 2: like on game day, he's trusting that, you know what,
2:01:46
Speaker 2: I've already put in the work.
2:01:47
Speaker 1: Let's just see how this thing plays out.
2:01:49
Speaker 2: I'm a little surprised by that, if I'm being honest,
2:01:51
Speaker 2: because I enjoy that. charismatic, energetic approach from Morgan Scali.
2:01:57
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying it's totally absent, but it's just
2:01:59
Speaker 2: not as noticeable. Have you noticed anything about his demeanor
2:02:03
Speaker 2: on the sideline? And does it maybe surprise you one
2:02:06
Speaker 2: way or the other?
2:02:08
Speaker 1: Um, no.
2:02:12
Speaker 7: I wouldn't say I'm surprised because I didn't really have
2:02:16
Speaker 7: any expectations. I'm not a person that lives in an
2:02:19
Speaker 7: expectation world. So I didn't really have any expectations on
2:02:25
Speaker 7: how he would present himself on the sideline.
2:02:27
Speaker 5: I think.
2:02:31
Speaker 7: Personality obviously does matter. Like we all know, he's definitely
2:02:34
Speaker 7: a lot more fiery in practice. He definitely has a
2:02:40
Speaker 7: personality that will shock you if you don't know him
2:02:44
Speaker 7: and things of that nature as well. So to see
2:02:47
Speaker 7: him pretty stoic and kind of just really, really super mild, honestly,
2:02:53
Speaker 7: to be on the sideline throughout these first couple weeks.
2:02:55
Speaker 7: You know, it's been, I wouldn't say weird, but it's,
2:03:00
Speaker 7: it's like, oh, okay, you know, he can have different
2:03:04
Speaker 7: personalities when they call for them, right? But I think,
2:03:07
Speaker 7: you know, and I've talked about it before on our
2:03:10
Speaker 7: pregame show with Bill and Sly, you know, to me,
2:03:15
Speaker 7: I think that comes from the type of trust that
2:03:18
Speaker 7: he has in his coaches that he's picked to, you know,
2:03:22
Speaker 7: build this program with the vision that he has as well, right?
2:03:27
Speaker 7: You know, he's not one of those guys that's going
2:03:30
Speaker 7: to jump into, you know, the D.C. meeting as far
2:03:33
Speaker 7: as taking over the D.C.
2:03:34
Speaker 4: Meeting, right?
2:03:34
Speaker 7: He's not going to die. He's going to come in
2:03:36
Speaker 7: and take over the office of coordinators meeting, right? Special
2:03:38
Speaker 7: teams meeting, right? And you're talking about a guy who
2:03:40
Speaker 7: played at this level and played at the next level
2:03:42
Speaker 7: and things of that nature as well. So I think
2:03:45
Speaker 7: some of that is just him having full trust in
2:03:48
Speaker 7: the players and the coaches, right? That gives the coaches
2:03:52
Speaker 7: who are calling these plays and putting the players in
2:03:54
Speaker 7: position to just have, you know, just the outright confidence that,
2:03:59
Speaker 7: you know, if there's an issue, they mess up, right?
2:04:01
Speaker 7: They're not going to have somebody breathing under their neck
2:04:03
Speaker 7: and things of that nature. So, you know, sometimes a
2:04:06
Speaker 7: lot of coaches, coordinators, they don't get that type of privilege.
2:04:10
Speaker 7: And I think, you know, just his... His demeanor on
2:04:13
Speaker 7: the sideline so far has just been, in my opinion,
2:04:17
Speaker 7: from what I've seen, is just that he has a
2:04:19
Speaker 7: ton of trust in these guys, and these guys are
2:04:21
Speaker 7: doing an absolute great job. Obviously, Coach Swan in his
2:04:25
Speaker 7: first year at the D.C. year, Coach McGivins, who has
2:04:29
Speaker 7: a storied history himself and being a play caller over
2:04:32
Speaker 7: the years. But the first time at Utah, he's giving
2:04:36
Speaker 7: these guys every key to the doors right now.
2:04:42
Speaker 2: Zach Moss for another minute or two here on the
2:04:44
Speaker 2: Sean O'Connell Show talking all things Utah football and NFL football.
2:04:48
Speaker 1: I want to touch on here with you.
2:04:51
Speaker 2: Did you ever have crazy encounters with the referees at
2:04:54
Speaker 2: any level of football? We saw a couple instances this
2:04:58
Speaker 2: week from NFL referees where, you know, guy gets knocked over,
2:05:02
Speaker 2: gets mad about it, gets up in somebody's face. Trey
2:05:06
Speaker 2: McBride somehow upset a ref enough that the ref is...
2:05:09
Speaker 2: telling them to bleep off or whatever. And it's kind
2:05:11
Speaker 2: of crazy. It's kind of crazy to see that because
2:05:14
Speaker 2: refs are usually like stonewall you, if anything, right?
2:05:18
Speaker 1: They just don't talk.
2:05:18
Speaker 2: But did you ever have a crazy encounter with a referee?
2:05:23
Speaker 7: Surprisingly, no. I didn't have a weird encounter with the
2:05:29
Speaker 7: referees in my time. You know, honestly, every referee– Sometimes
2:05:37
Speaker 7: I was surprised they knew who I was. And then,
2:05:41
Speaker 7: you know, sometimes you just had a decent quick little,
2:05:44
Speaker 7: you know, witty comment, you know, joking manner to the
2:05:47
Speaker 7: referees and things like that, because you always want to
2:05:50
Speaker 7: be in the referees good favor as many times as
2:05:53
Speaker 7: you can. But yeah, no, I never had an encounter
2:05:57
Speaker 7: with them. And that wasn't the negative way.
2:06:01
Speaker 1: We're seeing it in the NFL.
2:06:02
Speaker 2: We're seeing it in college football with certain teams and,
2:06:06
Speaker 2: especially a team that has a bunch of former Utes
2:06:09
Speaker 2: and Ute coaches on it right now. Can a team
2:06:14
Speaker 2: on a consistent basis, like more than one or two
2:06:16
Speaker 2: games a year, can you outplay bad quarterback production? Is
2:06:21
Speaker 2: there a way that you could still be a good
2:06:24
Speaker 2: team without having at least a quality quarterback, at least
2:06:27
Speaker 2: a decent quarterback? But if your quarterback is turning the
2:06:30
Speaker 2: ball over, throwing 50% completion, if your quarterback is actually
2:06:34
Speaker 2: below a certain standard, Is there a way Zach Moss
2:06:37
Speaker 2: that a team can truly overcome that?
2:06:42
Speaker 7: In this, in this era of football, the modern era
2:06:45
Speaker 7: of football, I don't, I don't think so. I think
2:06:47
Speaker 7: because the game football is now so quarterback centric a
2:06:52
Speaker 7: lot more than it ever has been. You know, I
2:06:55
Speaker 7: think just the other, I believe, yeah, yesterday, you know,
2:07:00
Speaker 7: they put so much onus on the quarterback. You know,
2:07:03
Speaker 7: obviously I played in Buffalo and I saw firsthand just
2:07:07
Speaker 7: how much onus was on Josh to go out there and,
2:07:11
Speaker 7: you know, pretty much will us to a win each
2:07:13
Speaker 7: and every week. And obviously the same thing with Joe Burrow,
2:07:17
Speaker 7: who just do, I want to say 58, 59 passes
2:07:22
Speaker 7: in a game yesterday.
2:07:23
Speaker 4: Right.
2:07:24
Speaker 7: So I don't think you can, I think you can
2:07:27
Speaker 7: be a good team, right? I think, Look at the
2:07:29
Speaker 7: Minnesota Vikings right now. They're a good team. In 4-0,
2:07:35
Speaker 7: they average 15 points per game. They've only scored six
2:07:38
Speaker 7: touchdowns in four weeks and haven't scored a touchdown in
2:07:42
Speaker 7: 32 offensive drives. So I think you could be a
2:07:46
Speaker 7: good team, but when you talk about being a good team,
2:07:48
Speaker 7: are you wanting to just be a good team or
2:07:49
Speaker 7: do you want to be a team that can you
2:07:51
Speaker 7: know go to different places like that's being winning your
2:07:55
Speaker 7: uh your division being um in that championship game right
2:08:00
Speaker 7: or being in the super bowl or in the playoff
2:08:03
Speaker 7: uh in that 12 spot playoffs right i think you
2:08:06
Speaker 7: can do that when you're getting so far placed in
2:08:09
Speaker 7: your quarterback in this era um you know just because
2:08:13
Speaker 7: you know even if you had a great running game
2:08:16
Speaker 7: it'll be really hard to do that week in and
2:08:18
Speaker 7: week out, week in and week out, without getting anything
2:08:21
Speaker 7: from a quarterback, especially if you add in turnovers and
2:08:25
Speaker 7: things of that nature. So, you know, my answer would
2:08:28
Speaker 7: be no. I think it could be, well, my answer
2:08:31
Speaker 7: is yes, to be a good team. But whatever your
2:08:35
Speaker 7: definition of a good team is will then, you know,
2:08:41
Speaker 7: make the answer a little bit more difficult.
2:08:46
Speaker 2: And on that same vein, right, if you're a college
2:08:49
Speaker 2: football player right now and knowing how the landscape has changed, right,
2:08:53
Speaker 2: and a starting quarterback makes a bunch of money and
2:08:56
Speaker 2: you as a starting running back, you're making some money too.
2:08:59
Speaker 2: So you're professionals, but you've also got, it's all one-year contracts, right?
2:09:03
Speaker 2: You've also got a transfer portal and things like that.
2:09:05
Speaker 2: And you know that there's only certain windows of success,
2:09:08
Speaker 2: especially for a college football team.
2:09:10
Speaker 1: You can't really play the long game anymore. You're on
2:09:13
Speaker 1: a team. Your quarterback's underperforming.
2:09:16
Speaker 2: And you're, you know, the second or third or fourth
2:09:19
Speaker 2: most important player on the team, aside from the quarterback,
2:09:22
Speaker 2: and you're looking at that guy screwing up your opportunities here,
2:09:25
Speaker 2: you still want to be a great teammate. You still
2:09:27
Speaker 2: want to make sure that you're doing what's, you know,
2:09:29
Speaker 2: in the best interest of everybody. But, I mean, is
2:09:32
Speaker 2: there a role in which you as a player can
2:09:35
Speaker 2: be like, man, we got to make a change here, coach,
2:09:39
Speaker 2: or coach, when is this going to happen? Because, I mean,
2:09:42
Speaker 2: there are a few teams in college football that, right
2:09:45
Speaker 2: now that are at that precipice that it looks like
2:09:47
Speaker 2: they have some other things they got a great defense
2:09:49
Speaker 2: there may be capable runners but when the quarterback is
2:09:52
Speaker 2: not playing well you got to make a change at
2:09:54
Speaker 2: some point how is a player especially an important player
2:09:58
Speaker 2: do you manage that with your teammate with your coaches.
2:10:03
Speaker 7: Um i think for one i think uh I think
2:10:06
Speaker 7: I know one of the teams that you're talking about
2:10:08
Speaker 7: that are having that issue right now.
2:10:11
Speaker 2: Michigan, Michigan's got a bench Bryce Underwood at some point,
2:10:14
Speaker 2: but he's on a $ 12 million deal.
2:10:17
Speaker 7: Well, that's the issue when you bring in the NIL, right?
2:10:21
Speaker 7: It becomes more of the professional level thing, right? You know,
2:10:24
Speaker 7: obviously go back, just 10 years, right, you know, and
2:10:28
Speaker 7: then Bryce Underwood isn't performing well, he's benched without even
2:10:31
Speaker 7: blinking an eye, right? It's already done. But now that
2:10:34
Speaker 7: he's making the type of money he's making, right, and
2:10:37
Speaker 7: the people who are paying him, right, you never want
2:10:39
Speaker 7: to see an investment, right, not doing well, right, or
2:10:43
Speaker 7: sitting on the bench, right? Because it's not doing you
2:10:45
Speaker 7: any favors, right? That's like reinvesting in something And I
2:10:49
Speaker 7: put X amount of dollars into it, and then I
2:10:51
Speaker 7: just pull my money out, and I take all the
2:10:53
Speaker 7: negative loss on.
2:10:54
Speaker 1: That, right?
2:10:55
Speaker 7: It's the worst thing that you can do. So, you know,
2:10:58
Speaker 7: as a coaching staff, and it happens all the time
2:11:00
Speaker 7: in the pro levels, which is why the NIL stuff
2:11:03
Speaker 7: was always going to be a bit difficult in the
2:11:06
Speaker 7: college level because it's so new, right? And you're dealing
2:11:08
Speaker 7: with essentially kids that they have to learn. uh, progress, right?
2:11:13
Speaker 7: And you see it in the NFL right now, these
2:11:14
Speaker 7: guys in the first round getting drafted, right? You're talking 30,
2:11:17
Speaker 7: $ 40 million in contract total money. And that's not even
2:11:21
Speaker 7: money that essentially is on the caps, but still, even
2:11:24
Speaker 7: if the guy like a CJ shroud plays well, essentially
2:11:27
Speaker 7: through the first three years, do you want to extend
2:11:29
Speaker 7: them $ 50 million? Why? Because the handicapped routine, uh, They
2:11:34
Speaker 7: move on from you guys so fast.
2:11:36
Speaker 4: J.J.
2:11:36
Speaker 7: McCarthy, they move on from them so fast. And that's
2:11:39
Speaker 7: because of the money. It's not because of anything else,
2:11:41
Speaker 7: just the money. But as a player, and you're on
2:11:45
Speaker 7: the team, and you're in that space, you just have
2:11:48
Speaker 7: to believe... that the coaching staff is going to figure
2:11:52
Speaker 7: it out. And that's their job. That's why they get paid.
2:11:56
Speaker 7: You can't essentially, you know, it doesn't matter where you're
2:11:59
Speaker 7: ranked as the player on the team, two, three, four,
2:12:01
Speaker 7: in terms of importance, you can't go to your coaches
2:12:06
Speaker 7: and pretty much you know, lobby for your quarterback to
2:12:10
Speaker 7: be benched. You got to support them in every way
2:12:14
Speaker 7: possible because, you know, at the end of the day,
2:12:16
Speaker 7: you still got to do your job as well. And
2:12:19
Speaker 7: if you can do, you find a way to do
2:12:20
Speaker 7: your job even better, maybe you might be able to
2:12:22
Speaker 7: help him out and things of that nature. But it
2:12:24
Speaker 7: all comes down to just having faith and trust that
2:12:26
Speaker 7: the coach staff will get it right. Because like I said,
2:12:30
Speaker 7: it's a lot more, things to why you hold on
2:12:33
Speaker 7: to a guy and you let them play it out.
2:12:35
Speaker 7: Especially when you're making five, six, seven, $ 8 million in
2:12:39
Speaker 7: one season in college. Yeah.
2:12:41
Speaker 1: I mean, it's, it's different than it used to be.
2:12:43
Speaker 2: That's for sure. But I appreciate your insight on that.
2:12:46
Speaker 2: I will see up there on Saturday night, Zach, appreciate
2:12:48
Speaker 2: your time.
2:12:49
Speaker 7: Absolutely, man. See you.
2:12:51
Speaker 2: Zach Moss, Utah football legend, NFL running back. Now you
2:12:57
Speaker 2: can hear him on the sidelines, uh, as he works
2:13:00
Speaker 2: the broadcast with the voice of the youths, Bill Riley, Stevenson,
2:13:04
Speaker 2: Sylvester up in the booth and Zach Moss on the sideline,
2:13:07
Speaker 2: eight 15 kickoff, a whiteout Saturday night at rice echo stadium,
2:13:12
Speaker 2: at least for the team. I haven't looked at, I
2:13:16
Speaker 2: haven't crossed reference to see if the fans are also
2:13:19
Speaker 2: supposed to wear white for the night game. I think
2:13:23
Speaker 2: they probably are. Oh, white stadium. I don't know how
2:13:28
Speaker 2: I feel about that. Sean O'Connell Show. Lots to get to.
2:13:33
Speaker 2: CSPN 700 and 92.1 FM. You're tuned to the.
2:13:40
Speaker 6: Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN
2:13:45
Speaker 6: 700 and 92.1 FM.
2:13:46
Speaker 2: Little junk mail update. Official Utah football mail from Keeler McJunkin.
2:13:58
Speaker 2: Junk Mail tells us that the Colorado kickoff time has
2:14:02
Speaker 2: been set at 8.15 p.m. So you've got an October
2:14:07
Speaker 2: 10th game at 8.15 p.m. You've got an October 17th
2:14:11
Speaker 2: game at 8.15 p.m. Utah becoming a favorite on the
2:14:16
Speaker 2: late night slot.
2:14:17
Speaker 1: I actually enjoy this.
2:14:18
Speaker 2: I know there's people out there who don't necessarily love
2:14:22
Speaker 2: having to wait that long for Utah kickoff. when you
2:14:25
Speaker 2: got little kids and they go to bed around this time,
2:14:27
Speaker 2: it's great because they're asleep. You can watch the rest
2:14:30
Speaker 2: of the game. You don't have to get pulled away
2:14:33
Speaker 2: to help, you know, clean things up and make lunches
2:14:37
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. So the downside is
2:14:40
Speaker 2: then the kids can't watch the game, which is now
2:14:42
Speaker 2: becoming a thing in my house.
2:14:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's a road game. It's in Boulder.
2:14:47
Speaker 3: So you don't have to worry about, Hey, that's my
2:14:50
Speaker 3: kid's bedtime. I can't go to the game now. because
2:14:54
Speaker 3: someone's got to be home with the kids. So it's
2:14:57
Speaker 3: a road game, so it is a watch-from-home situation more
2:15:00
Speaker 3: than likely for everybody. This is the third 8-15 kickoff. Remember,
2:15:05
Speaker 3: the Arkansas game was also 8-15, and then two of
2:15:09
Speaker 3: the other three games were 1-30 kickoffs. So someone said
2:15:16
Speaker 3: on Twitter, and they're not wrong, so far it's either
2:15:19
Speaker 3: 1-30 or 8-15 kickoffs.
2:15:22
Speaker 2: Whose seat is hotter right now, Deion Sanders or Kyle Whittingham? Expectations, obviously, way, way,
2:15:31
Speaker 2: way higher for Kyle Whittingham at Michigan.
2:15:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.
2:15:35
Speaker 1: But also, I think, and I'm not talking about the
2:15:38
Speaker 1: fan base.
2:15:38
Speaker 2: The fan base at Michigan is completely unreasonable because all
2:15:41
Speaker 2: fan bases are, and they're done. They've said it already
2:15:45
Speaker 2: many different times. He is in a situation now where,
2:15:49
Speaker 2: I mean, we're getting into real territory. This is not, oh,
2:15:53
Speaker 2: we're mad at you and we're the schadenfreude of our
2:15:56
Speaker 2: collective fan base. We want to see bad things happen
2:15:59
Speaker 2: to Kyle Whittingham. I'm not in that space. I'm never
2:16:01
Speaker 2: going to be in that space. However, we're getting to
2:16:04
Speaker 2: a critical point now with the University of Michigan and
2:16:08
Speaker 2: the fact that this 21-year head coach at a certain
2:16:12
Speaker 2: spot that is well-respected then gets brought in to kind
2:16:15
Speaker 2: of right the ship and stabilize things. And they haven't,
2:16:19
Speaker 2: it's unstable. It's, and I said at the beginning of
2:16:24
Speaker 2: the show, I'll say it again. I, there is not
2:16:28
Speaker 2: a coach in college football that can overcome terrible play
2:16:33
Speaker 2: from a quarterback, crazy inconsistency from a quarterback, especially from
2:16:37
Speaker 2: a quarterback that as far as our understanding goes, was
2:16:40
Speaker 2: forced upon him, a quarterback that was dictated to you
2:16:45
Speaker 2: as though this is our starter.
2:16:47
Speaker 1: We have him under contract.
2:16:48
Speaker 2: He's the guy like you see this happen in the
2:16:50
Speaker 2: NFL and you haven't had to see it happen in
2:16:53
Speaker 2: college football until the NIL stuff really kind of took
2:16:57
Speaker 2: hold here.
2:16:57
Speaker 3: And it's almost like it's a good comparison in the NFL.
2:17:01
Speaker 3: It's almost like Bryce Underwood was the number one overall
2:17:04
Speaker 3: pick for the Michigan Wolverines. And we've seen those awkward
2:17:07
Speaker 3: situations when a brand new coach comes in with last
2:17:11
Speaker 3: year's number one overall pick at quarterback and that new
2:17:15
Speaker 3: coach sometimes I probably most of the time feels obligated
2:17:20
Speaker 3: to stick with the number one overall pick who might
2:17:23
Speaker 3: be struggling because they were the number one overall pick.
2:17:26
Speaker 5: Yes.
2:17:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:17:28
Speaker 2: And Deon Sanders is in a totally different place now
2:17:31
Speaker 2: where he's just drastically overpaid, insanely overpaid. And he's doing
2:17:37
Speaker 2: a terrible job, not only with the football team itself
2:17:41
Speaker 2: with the wins and losses situation. But part of the
2:17:45
Speaker 2: reason why he was given the job and was given
2:17:47
Speaker 2: the extension is because it was purely win after PR
2:17:51
Speaker 2: win after PR win for Colorado football for Colorado as
2:17:56
Speaker 2: a university. It was like, Hey, look what's going on.
2:17:59
Speaker 2: And he was relying very heavily on his own son who,
2:18:02
Speaker 2: even though he's unlikable is incredibly talented and, And on
2:18:04
Speaker 2: Travis Hunter, who's the best player in football at the time,
2:18:08
Speaker 2: he was relying very heavily on those guys. And when
2:18:12
Speaker 2: you have elite, elite players at two incredibly important positions,
2:18:16
Speaker 2: and in the case of Travis Hunter, he made it three,
2:18:19
Speaker 2: four incredibly important positions because it was kick return, punt return,
2:18:24
Speaker 2: corner and wide receiver. So you had, he was, he
2:18:28
Speaker 2: was three players by himself and Shador was an awesome player.
2:18:31
Speaker 2: And you had the horn kid who was another great
2:18:33
Speaker 2: wide receiver, right? You had some talent. And now Dion
2:18:36
Speaker 2: is doing this thing where we talked about with Ari Temkin.
2:18:39
Speaker 2: He's kind of like foisting responsibility. And he's saying like, God, juju.
2:18:43
Speaker 2: And look, Isaac Wilson, we love you, man. Like, I
2:18:46
Speaker 2: wish it would have worked out better at the university
2:18:48
Speaker 2: of Utah. I wish it would work out better for
2:18:50
Speaker 2: you at the university of Colorado. He threw three picks
2:18:52
Speaker 2: in this game, including he threw a pick from his
2:18:55
Speaker 2: own end zone to a defender who was also standing
2:18:59
Speaker 2: in the end zone.
2:19:01
Speaker 1: Like the guy was right in front of him.
2:19:05
Speaker 2: And he tried to put it up over his head
2:19:06
Speaker 2: and the kid just jumped and picked the ball and
2:19:08
Speaker 2: landed in the end zone. It wasn't a pick six return.
2:19:13
Speaker 2: It was just a pick six land. I'm already here.
2:19:16
Speaker 4: Right?
2:19:17
Speaker 1: So if your answer six, he ever got, if your
2:19:21
Speaker 1: answer for.
2:19:22
Speaker 2: Colorado trying to overcome inconsistent quarterback play with Juju Lewis
2:19:26
Speaker 2: is is now to play Isaac Wilson. I know coach
2:19:30
Speaker 2: can overcome that. They're on a buy this week. If
2:19:33
Speaker 2: they weren't on a buy, I would be asking you
2:19:36
Speaker 2: who is going to be the Colorado head football coach
2:19:39
Speaker 2: when Utah plays them in Boulder, because if they had
2:19:42
Speaker 2: another bad loss and another bad press conference from Dion after,
2:19:46
Speaker 2: then I would think that there's going to be some
2:19:50
Speaker 2: more pressure To make a change, to make a move.
2:19:53
Speaker 2: They might not be able to afford it, so maybe
2:19:54
Speaker 2: he's safe because of that. Because when you've got a
2:19:57
Speaker 2: $ 10 million contract, you probably have a $ 70 million buyout
2:20:00
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. I don't know what his buyout is,
2:20:03
Speaker 2: but man.
2:20:03
Speaker 3: He's got a lot of years left on that, though.
2:20:05
Speaker 3: It's probably a substantial buyout, given how many years are left.
2:20:09
Speaker 3: I'll say this to the quiet part with Kyle Whittingham.
2:20:13
Speaker 3: He's had some of that same stuff that's plaguing Dion
2:20:16
Speaker 3: right now, that Dion is handling poorly. He's had some
2:20:19
Speaker 3: of that same stuff. at Michigan that we did not
2:20:22
Speaker 3: see that much of here at Utah. And by that,
2:20:25
Speaker 3: I'm talking about when he's told reporters that Bryce Underwood
2:20:29
Speaker 3: is our quarterback for now.
2:20:31
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad he said it the way he said it.
2:20:33
Speaker 2: Like I I'm actually, that's just one thing though, that one,
2:20:36
Speaker 2: when he was just like, well, look, it's not infinite.
2:20:39
Speaker 2: And then reporters were asked about it or reporters asked
2:20:43
Speaker 2: Bryce about it. And Bryce was just like, Oh, he
2:20:45
Speaker 2: said that, that that's one thing that you have to,
2:20:48
Speaker 2: I know that the timeline is tough because it's, like
2:20:51
Speaker 2: if you do a morning press conference and the players
2:20:54
Speaker 2: are in school or whatever, but you should always let
2:20:58
Speaker 2: players hear it from you first as a coach.
2:21:00
Speaker 7: Yeah.
2:21:01
Speaker 1: That's, that's a bad look.
2:21:02
Speaker 2: I think the worst look is, is you know, saying like, well,
2:21:07
Speaker 2: Jay Hill wanted us to be in this.
2:21:08
Speaker 1: That's the other one I was going to bring up.
2:21:10
Speaker 1: You have to, you're the, like the correct thing.
2:21:12
Speaker 2: And the thing that Kyle Whittingham did for so long
2:21:15
Speaker 2: and every head coach does for so long, even when
2:21:16
Speaker 2: they don't mean it, by the way, is you take
2:21:20
Speaker 2: the bullet. When the kid screws up, when your quarterback
2:21:23
Speaker 2: throws a game-sealing interception, that's our fault.
2:21:26
Speaker 1: We've got to coach them up better. That's my fault.
2:21:28
Speaker 1: I'm the head coach. Coaches are supposed to do that.
2:21:31
Speaker 1: And it's weird.
2:21:31
Speaker 2: I think there are certain coaches and I hope Kyle
2:21:33
Speaker 2: Winningham is not one of them who now that the
2:21:35
Speaker 2: kids are being paid, they don't feel like I'm not
2:21:38
Speaker 2: going to take bullets for you anymore.
2:21:39
Speaker 1: You make more money.
2:21:40
Speaker 2: Than I did when I was 40 years old. I
2:21:43
Speaker 2: think that there's a little bit of that happening in
2:21:44
Speaker 2: college football when it used to be just like, Nope,
2:21:47
Speaker 2: that's on me. I got to coach them up better.
2:21:49
Speaker 2: I got to put them in a better situation to
2:21:51
Speaker 2: be successful. Now there are coaches who are just like, yeah, bad.
2:21:54
Speaker 1: It's bad. Throw by our quarterback.
2:21:56
Speaker 2: It's a bad read. Can't have that happen. And it's like,
2:21:59
Speaker 2: that's true and it's fine. I don't really think that's
2:22:03
Speaker 2: throwing someone under the bus. And I don't think he
2:22:04
Speaker 2: was throwing Jay Hill under the bus, but he's also
2:22:08
Speaker 2: kind of like, like Dion is straight up saying, I
2:22:10
Speaker 2: don't know what's going on here.
2:22:11
Speaker 1: Talk to the quarterback. Don't talk to me. Talk to him.
2:22:14
Speaker 1: It's like, Whoa, what?
2:22:16
Speaker 2: And he gets away with that kind of stuff because
2:22:19
Speaker 2: he's Dion and he's got this charisma and he's got
2:22:21
Speaker 2: this different communication style, but it is wearing so thin that,
2:22:26
Speaker 2: And if they were winning football games, he could wear
2:22:28
Speaker 2: as thin as he wanted to.
2:22:30
Speaker 1: But they're not. And if Kyle Whittingham was winning football
2:22:33
Speaker 1: games at.
2:22:34
Speaker 2: The University of Utah, like he did so much of
2:22:37
Speaker 2: when he was just like, I'm not going to tell
2:22:38
Speaker 2: you anything about injuries.
2:22:41
Speaker 1: Uno doctor.
2:22:42
Speaker 2: Like, we could, first of all, we were all on
2:22:45
Speaker 2: his side because you trusted in the coach and not
2:22:48
Speaker 2: anything else because of the wins.
2:22:51
Speaker 1: But if the winds aren't there, and if.
2:22:52
Speaker 2: You lost a Western Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota, and that's
2:22:56
Speaker 2: how the fan base is looking at it, your seat
2:22:59
Speaker 2: is warming up.
2:23:01
Speaker 1: The fans are warming up.
2:23:03
Speaker 2: I don't know if in the athletic department, they can
2:23:07
Speaker 2: truly walk up to Kyle Whittingham and say, dude, we're
2:23:10
Speaker 2: firing you. Cause he's going to look back and say, why?
2:23:12
Speaker 2: Because I'm playing the quarterback. You made me keep. If
2:23:16
Speaker 2: I'm Kyle Whittingham, if I'm Jason Beck, I'm walking in
2:23:19
Speaker 2: to whoever wants to fire me his office, and I'm
2:23:22
Speaker 2: putting Devin Dampier's stats in front of them every single week.
2:23:26
Speaker 2: Look what he's doing. Look what he's doing without me.
2:23:29
Speaker 2: Or if not him, Bird Ficklin. Fine.
2:23:31
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring this kid. Remember that?
2:23:33
Speaker 2: And you said we already have our quarterback? Like, it's convoluted.
2:23:37
Speaker 2: It's complicated. Deion doesn't have that. He does not have.
2:23:42
Speaker 2: They get Dion has carte blanche. He can do whatever
2:23:44
Speaker 2: he wants in Boulder and that's been a killer. So
2:23:47
Speaker 2: I think his seat is significantly hotter.
2:23:50
Speaker 1: I think he's worn a little bit more thin.
2:23:53
Speaker 2: I think that the tolerance is getting to its breaking
2:23:57
Speaker 2: point there. I think the fan base at Michigan would
2:24:00
Speaker 2: be happy with it, whatever outcome, but I don't think
2:24:02
Speaker 2: the leadership at Michigan can realistically look at Kyle Whittingham
2:24:06
Speaker 2: and say, you were supposed to, supposed to do more
2:24:08
Speaker 2: than this.
2:24:09
Speaker 1: He's going to say, well, yeah, I know I was.
2:24:12
Speaker 1: But this Bryce Underwood kid ain't it.
2:24:16
Speaker 2: And one of my greatest players ever told you that
2:24:19
Speaker 2: and everyone bit back at him and got mad. Like
2:24:23
Speaker 2: how vindicated is Eric Weddle in the circles of Michigan
2:24:26
Speaker 2: football conversation? Gosh, they were Michigan was so mad about
2:24:31
Speaker 2: that whole scenario that they cooled off the recruiting of
2:24:36
Speaker 2: gauge Weddle because the fan base was so mad at
2:24:39
Speaker 2: Eric Weddle that for telling the truth about Bryce Underwood.
2:24:43
Speaker 1: That's a, that's bad strategy by them, by the way.
2:24:46
Speaker 2: Well, and it's not a permanent thing, but it was,
2:24:49
Speaker 2: it's a PR move again, right? You don't want to
2:24:51
Speaker 2: put a full court press on publicly with a kid
2:24:56
Speaker 2: whose dad has undermined your quarterback.
2:24:59
Speaker 1: Bad mouth, the program, but here's the thing he's right.
2:25:02
Speaker 2: And he's always right. Cause he knows everything about football.
2:25:05
Speaker 2: And if you're, if you're in this situation now, like,
2:25:09
Speaker 2: The beauty of Morgan Scali and what is going on
2:25:12
Speaker 2: with Utah right now is Morgan Scali recognized what he
2:25:17
Speaker 2: needed and what he wanted as he was taking over,
2:25:20
Speaker 2: even as that situation got complicated. He recognized what this
2:25:23
Speaker 2: team needed and how he wanted to improve what was
2:25:26
Speaker 2: already pretty solid, was already pretty darn good, were already
2:25:30
Speaker 2: kind of spoiled by, and he was like, I'm going
2:25:32
Speaker 2: to improve upon this with A, B, C, and D.
2:25:36
Speaker 1: And he knew.
2:25:38
Speaker 2: He knew, he didn't think, he knew that a big
2:25:42
Speaker 2: part of that was going to be Devin Dampier. And
2:25:45
Speaker 2: everything pointed to Devin Dampier having all the reasons in
2:25:48
Speaker 2: the world to go somewhere else. If not Michigan, and
2:25:53
Speaker 2: you know what? Michigan, had they backed up a Brinks truck,
2:25:55
Speaker 2: if they had made a better decision, maybe he would
2:25:57
Speaker 2: have ended up in a Wolverines uniform and I wouldn't
2:25:59
Speaker 2: have begrudged him for it. Arizona State put on a
2:26:02
Speaker 2: full court press. Levitt is gone. Cutter Boley. They wanted
2:26:07
Speaker 2: Devin Dampier. And Morgan Scali shows up at his door
2:26:11
Speaker 2: and says, uh, stay here.
2:26:13
Speaker 1: This is my vision. This is what we can do, right?
2:26:16
Speaker 1: There's a luxury to that.
2:26:18
Speaker 2: That should be enjoyed by every head football coach. I
2:26:21
Speaker 2: can't believe I'm defending Kyle Whittingham here, but if somebody
2:26:24
Speaker 2: tells you, Hey, you got to play this guy at quarterback.
2:26:28
Speaker 1: Oh really? Then I'm an NFL coach.
2:26:30
Speaker 2: You better make me the head coach for an NFL
2:26:33
Speaker 2: team where there's just contractual things that we can't get around.
2:26:36
Speaker 2: Because if this is college football and it's about me
2:26:39
Speaker 2: recruiting and getting my guys here, I don't want that.
2:26:43
Speaker 1: And you guys made me keep that. You can't punish
2:26:45
Speaker 1: me for that.
2:26:47
Speaker 2: And by the way, in college football, how many times
2:26:51
Speaker 2: you go back far enough, how many times did we say, well,
2:26:54
Speaker 2: you can't really judge what he is as a coach
2:26:57
Speaker 2: until he's got his guys. When we say his guys,
2:27:02
Speaker 2: his quarterback is the most important of those guys. Deion
2:27:08
Speaker 2: Sanders on a buy this week. I think that's one
2:27:10
Speaker 2: of the only reasons why Morgan Scali will be coaching
2:27:12
Speaker 2: against him when the youths go to Boulder and kick
2:27:15
Speaker 2: off at eight 15 in a couple of weeks.
2:27:17
Speaker 3: I mean, that's probably, that's probably a good call by
2:27:19
Speaker 3: you because he is just screwing up left and right.
2:27:24
Speaker 3: And I think a big reason why I'm, I'm saying
2:27:29
Speaker 3: the seat is probably hotter In Boulder is what you've
2:27:33
Speaker 3: alluded to as well, OC. He's been there longer, and
2:27:36
Speaker 3: he's disappointed them for longer, right?
2:27:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. wit is like, it's.
2:27:41
Speaker 2: Disappointed for three in three games and Dion Sanders is
2:27:45
Speaker 2: now disappointed for two years.
2:27:46
Speaker 1: Right.
2:27:47
Speaker 3: And so as exciting and as great a PR that
2:27:52
Speaker 3: he gave for two years, he's now kind of given
2:27:54
Speaker 3: all that back in the last two years.
2:27:56
Speaker 2: Also Dion makes more money than Kyle Whittingham does at Michigan.
2:28:00
Speaker 5: Yeah.
2:28:00
Speaker 1: That's wild. 10 of Dion, $ 10 million. That is bananas.
2:28:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. I, if, if Dion stays, he makes $ 10 million
2:28:13
Speaker 2: this year. He makes $ 11 million next year. He makes
2:28:16
Speaker 2: $ 12 million in 2029. That is silly. The return on
2:28:22
Speaker 2: investment is negligible here. And I was of the belief
2:28:27
Speaker 2: that That would, when we saw Dion do what he
2:28:30
Speaker 2: did with Jackson state, I was like, Hey man, he
2:28:33
Speaker 2: could make lemonade out of lemons. He's that charismatic. He's
2:28:36
Speaker 2: the guy that if he actually recruited would show up
2:28:39
Speaker 2: in your living room and get you to come play
2:28:41
Speaker 2: for his school. But guess what? He doesn't do that.
2:28:45
Speaker 2: And I, I just can't imagine Colorado keeping them around.
2:28:49
Speaker 2: We got to take a break. Final segment of the
2:28:51
Speaker 2: show coming up. We have, is this, we have tickets
2:28:55
Speaker 2: to give away.
2:28:56
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh. I love when we have tickets to
2:28:58
Speaker 1: give away.
2:28:59
Speaker 2: Two tickets to Skillet coming up at the Union Event
2:29:03
Speaker 2: Center on October 23rd.
2:29:05
Speaker 1: Get your texting fingers ready at 877-353-0700. It's the Sean
2:29:07
Speaker 1: O'Connell Show on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.