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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 7-29-26 · The Sean O'Connell Show

0:30
Speaker 1: Happy Hope Day. Everybody.
0:33
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sean O'Connell Show on a Wednesday from
0:37
Speaker 2: now until two o'clock. We will do our best to educate, entertain,
0:42
Speaker 2: and edify all of you out there listening. Always love
0:46
Speaker 2: being here with you on Utah's number one sports talk
0:49
Speaker 2: on your home of the Utes. We march closer and
0:52
Speaker 2: closer to the beginning of college football season, and most importantly,
0:56
Speaker 2: closer to Utah's debut on a thirdday night at Rice
1:01
Speaker 2: Cycles Stadium. Camp begins in five days next Monday. We
1:07
Speaker 2: will be having conversations with players and coaches.
1:12
Speaker 1: As far as we know. As of now, we will
1:14
Speaker 1: not be able to.
1:14
Speaker 2: Watch practice, but they left a little caveat in the
1:18
Speaker 2: announcement that practice is closed unless otherwise noted, So my
1:22
Speaker 2: hope is that there will be some otherwise noted type
1:25
Speaker 2: of days. With that in mind, we have to rely
1:31
Speaker 2: on the testimony of players and coaches to talk about
1:36
Speaker 2: who's really excelling, who's climbing the depth chart, who's making
1:39
Speaker 2: some noise in practice, who's got good reps, who's winning
1:43
Speaker 2: one on one battles? Right and everyone's excited right now,
1:48
Speaker 2: They'll be excited next week. They'll start to lose some
1:51
Speaker 2: of that excitement and enthusiasm about two days into week two.
1:55
Speaker 2: That's when the grind is really set in a little
1:57
Speaker 2: bit for camp. And then when game prep starts again,
2:01
Speaker 2: when install starts again and the schedule goes more to
2:04
Speaker 2: the season doldrums, that's when people get energized, like, oh,
2:08
Speaker 2: now we're actually putting in stuff for week one and probably.
2:13
Speaker 1: Also for week two. If for being honest, but.
2:18
Speaker 2: Because we don't get to rely on our own eyes
2:20
Speaker 2: for the most part, and we have to trust in
2:24
Speaker 2: what Morgan scally tells us, and what Kevin mcgiven tells us,
2:27
Speaker 2: and what Colton Swan tells us.
2:33
Speaker 1: I want a.
2:34
Speaker 2: Prediction from all of you before we get any statements
2:38
Speaker 2: from those coaches or even from other players, to lead
2:42
Speaker 2: the witness all right, eight seven seven three five three
2:46
Speaker 2: zero seven hundred.
2:47
Speaker 1: I do it every single year.
2:48
Speaker 2: I will do it every single year as long as
2:52
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in this chair because it's fun. And those
2:55
Speaker 2: of you who were correct in your predictions last year,
2:59
Speaker 2: hopefull got to brag. You get to brag here on
3:02
Speaker 2: this show. At least, there was an assortment of folks
3:05
Speaker 2: that when I asked this question last year, who is
3:07
Speaker 2: going to be the breakout star of the twenty twenty
3:11
Speaker 2: five football season. There were a handful of you who
3:14
Speaker 2: said it's gonna be John Henry Daily. You tweeted it
3:16
Speaker 2: at me, you texted it to me. Eight seven seven
3:19
Speaker 2: three five three zero seven hundred are at real OC sports.
3:22
Speaker 2: I want to know who your breakout stars are this year,
3:27
Speaker 2: offensive and defensive. If you think there's just going to
3:30
Speaker 2: be one, give me that person, whoever it is. And
3:33
Speaker 2: the caveat is that it cannot be someone who's an
3:36
Speaker 2: incoming transfer who had big production elsewhere. So we spent
3:41
Speaker 2: a lot of time yesterday and the day before talking
3:43
Speaker 2: about the wide receiver room, the wide receiver talent. Pagan
3:46
Speaker 2: and Shoals and people of that ilk are not breakout
3:53
Speaker 2: stars at the University of Utah. As incoming transfers. We
3:58
Speaker 2: know what they're capable of. John Henry Daily was it
4:02
Speaker 2: incoming transferred two seasons back right at the University of Utah,
4:07
Speaker 2: but he didn't have big production at BYU before he
4:09
Speaker 2: got to the University of Utah. He didn't have big
4:11
Speaker 2: production in his first year in a ute uniform. And
4:14
Speaker 2: then obviously last year he exploded onto the scene and
4:18
Speaker 2: ended up being your best and in a lot of ways,
4:21
Speaker 2: most important defensive player.
4:25
Speaker 1: Who is that going to be this year?
4:26
Speaker 2: Before you get the little tidbits, the breadcrumbs from Morgan
4:31
Speaker 2: Scaley and the rest of the coaches and even in
4:33
Speaker 2: the other players, I want your opinion. I want your
4:37
Speaker 2: prediction eight seven seven three five to three zero seven
4:41
Speaker 2: hundred somebody who you think is going to be a
4:45
Speaker 2: breakout star for the University of Utah this year. My
4:48
Speaker 2: preference is you give me someone on the offensive side
4:50
Speaker 2: of the ball, someone on the defensive side of the ball.
4:53
Speaker 2: And if you're wondering, hey, why is he doing this
4:55
Speaker 2: on a Wednesday instead of on Friday or on Monday
4:57
Speaker 2: when camp starts, well because on Monday, when camp starts,
5:00
Speaker 2: the sound will be coming out. And if Morgan scally
5:05
Speaker 2: has asked the question, and invariably he will be, Hey,
5:08
Speaker 2: who's really impressing you right now? Who's got a chance
5:11
Speaker 2: to be a star for the team this year that
5:13
Speaker 2: maybe we don't know about yet. And he gives you
5:15
Speaker 2: that name, you're just gonna adopt that name, and so
5:19
Speaker 2: that you're correct, so that you're right, so that you
5:21
Speaker 2: get your prediction on point. I want your prediction without
5:26
Speaker 2: anybody giving you or feeding you that information eight seven
5:31
Speaker 2: seven three five three zero seven hundred or at real
5:34
Speaker 2: oc sports on the Twitter.
5:38
Speaker 1: Now, the caveats beyond.
5:40
Speaker 2: Just hey, you can't be someone who had big numbers
5:43
Speaker 2: last year elsewhere. I think the caveat is, even if
5:50
Speaker 2: you played, and even if you started games last year, right,
5:54
Speaker 2: you probably didn't score more than a touchdown maybe two,
6:00
Speaker 2: you didn't have more than one and a half sacks.
6:03
Speaker 2: Although if I said the threshold that low, then a
6:07
Speaker 2: lot of people are gonna say, like, Lance Holtzklaw is
6:09
Speaker 2: your breakout star, and honestly, which this is crazy, like
6:12
Speaker 2: Lance Holtzklaw could be a breakout star. He is, He's
6:16
Speaker 2: someone we know of, He's someone we feel like we
6:18
Speaker 2: know because we've heard a lot from him. But as
6:22
Speaker 2: him as a football player, him as a productive member
6:26
Speaker 2: of the team, him as a stat stuffers, that's not
6:30
Speaker 2: what he's been so far. So I think if you
6:33
Speaker 2: want to put that name in, I would accept it.
6:35
Speaker 2: You can't say Jackson Benny his breakout year was last year,
6:41
Speaker 2: all right, and he would have been one of the
6:43
Speaker 2: big breakout stars.
6:44
Speaker 1: He was one of the big breakout starts.
6:46
Speaker 2: He would have been maybe the breakout star had it
6:49
Speaker 2: not been for John Henry Daily doing what John Henry
6:51
Speaker 2: Daily did. I think he got a lot of possibilities
6:56
Speaker 2: on the offensive side of the ball. I'm going to
6:58
Speaker 2: disqualify somebody like Larry Simmons. He was too productive last year,
7:06
Speaker 2: not in terms of volume, but in terms of production.
7:12
Speaker 2: Eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred. Texas
7:14
Speaker 2: City and you can call us. We've radio in general
7:18
Speaker 2: seems to have gotten away from calling. But Ryan up
7:21
Speaker 2: in Otown shout out Ogden wants to weigh in. Ryan,
7:25
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sean o'conllalls Show.
7:26
Speaker 1: How are you pretty good?
7:28
Speaker 3: How you doing, Buddy?
7:29
Speaker 2: Doing awesome? I'm very excited that you called in. I'm
7:32
Speaker 2: happy to hear from you.
7:35
Speaker 4: I'm pack you let me, you let me through.
7:39
Speaker 5: I predict that Morgan Scalley's gonna go and defeat is
7:43
Speaker 5: I really I've been waiting for him to take over
7:47
Speaker 5: the rankings. I think it's been a long time coming.
7:51
Speaker 5: I appreciate coach with I mean, he's great coach and everything.
7:56
Speaker 5: He can give us all them great years. But I
7:58
Speaker 5: really I believe in Scali. He's gonna and this is
8:03
Speaker 5: the way he coached in that Bowl game. I just
8:06
Speaker 5: think that Utah is gonna be really, really good.
8:10
Speaker 2: Your your belief is in year one as a head coach.
8:14
Speaker 2: With this schedule, Morgan scally goes undefeated in his opening campaign.
8:20
Speaker 5: Yep, I do they have a soft schedule. I mean
8:25
Speaker 5: BYU we get at home, so I mean they should
8:29
Speaker 5: be able to pull the off. I don't think Scaley
8:32
Speaker 5: wants to lose to b Why you at home his
8:34
Speaker 5: first year out.
8:36
Speaker 2: Nobody does. Nobody ever wants to lose to be Yu anywhere. Unfortunately,
8:40
Speaker 2: you gotta play the game. I love the phone call.
8:43
Speaker 2: I love the bold prediction.
8:44
Speaker 1: Ryan.
8:45
Speaker 2: I hope everyone in Ogden feels as strongly as you do.
8:48
Speaker 2: Thank you for the phone call. And look, we've talked
8:50
Speaker 2: about this. He is correct. It is a friendly schedule. Idaho, Arkansas,
8:57
Speaker 2: Utah State, at Iowa State. There are a lot of
9:00
Speaker 2: people who had Brett siance on yesterday. There are a
9:02
Speaker 2: lot of people who think that Utah's road games, with
9:05
Speaker 2: the exception of the final two, are layups right on
9:10
Speaker 2: the road. At Iowa State, new coaching staff something like
9:16
Speaker 2: seventy new players on that roster. Every productive guy from
9:21
Speaker 2: Iowa State transferred. At Colorado, those might be two of
9:27
Speaker 2: the three bottom teams in the league this year. I
9:33
Speaker 2: I probably give Dion Sanders more credit than most people do.
9:37
Speaker 2: I think a healthy version of him might be a
9:39
Speaker 2: little bit better of a coach this year.
9:41
Speaker 1: We'll see.
9:43
Speaker 2: They got some issues personnel wise, though, So at Colorado, right,
9:48
Speaker 2: don't fall asleep in that one, and you're probably okay.
9:50
Speaker 2: At Cincinnati, Cincinnati, they lost the best player on their
9:57
Speaker 2: team who now doesn't play anywhere, and they lost the
10:02
Speaker 2: two great wide receivers that they had, They lost the
10:04
Speaker 2: great linebacker that they had, but they still have some athletes.
10:07
Speaker 2: I still think if you could beat him as badly
10:10
Speaker 2: as he did last year, you could beat him even
10:12
Speaker 2: worse this year. At Arizona at TCU, scare me right,
10:17
Speaker 2: those are two incredibly athletic teams. Arizona's got the most
10:22
Speaker 2: experienced quarterback in the Big Twelve Conference as far as
10:25
Speaker 2: a returner goes. And I think Brett Brennan's a great coach.
10:32
Speaker 2: Brent Brennan has established himself as a really good coach
10:35
Speaker 2: who can do more with less.
10:39
Speaker 1: Last year he.
10:41
Speaker 2: Had the growing pains thing that you kind of expect
10:45
Speaker 2: TCU the week after that not an easy out. Ever,
10:49
Speaker 2: TCU's never an easy gain. TCU might be the fastest
10:54
Speaker 2: team in the Big Twelve this year. You finish at
10:57
Speaker 2: West excuse me, you finish at home against West Virginia. Look,
11:02
Speaker 2: I love Ryan's boldness. I do not anticipate Morgan scally
11:07
Speaker 2: going undefeated this year. But if you do, I hope
11:12
Speaker 2: I'm wrong and you're right. And to stick with the
11:16
Speaker 2: conversation we're having today, if Morgan Scalley coaches this team
11:24
Speaker 2: to an undefeated season in his first year, then he
11:28
Speaker 2: is the breakout star of the season.
11:30
Speaker 1: He is the breakout star of all of college football.
11:33
Speaker 2: If the Utes go undefeated in a regular season, that
11:36
Speaker 2: means they're in a Big Twelve championship game. That means
11:39
Speaker 2: even if they lose that Big Twelve championship game, they've
11:42
Speaker 2: still got a really, really good shot of being in
11:45
Speaker 2: the College Football playoff. Because if you go undefeated through
11:48
Speaker 2: a regular season, even with a perceived soft schedule, you're
11:52
Speaker 2: a power for team. With an undefeated slate, you're a
11:56
Speaker 2: top four or five team in the country heading into
11:59
Speaker 2: championship weekend. And then even if you lost to BYU
12:04
Speaker 2: or to Texas Tech, or to whatever surprise team is
12:08
Speaker 2: there opposite you in a Big twelve championship game, as
12:11
Speaker 2: long as it's a close game, you might still have
12:13
Speaker 2: a case. If Morgan Scalley goes undefeated in the regular
12:16
Speaker 2: season and then drags a team into the college football
12:19
Speaker 2: Playoff in his first year as a head coach, does
12:22
Speaker 2: something accomplishes something that even his predecessor was not able
12:26
Speaker 2: to do in twenty one years as the headman that
12:31
Speaker 2: some of the high I mean Lane Kiffin, of these
12:33
Speaker 2: guys that make three times as much as Morgan Scally
12:37
Speaker 2: as a head coach have not been able to do
12:41
Speaker 2: the same thing that that would accomplish or that would represent.
12:47
Speaker 1: I love the optimism.
12:48
Speaker 2: I don't share it to that extent, but I am optimistic,
12:52
Speaker 2: and I do think the more I look at this roster,
12:55
Speaker 2: the more I examine the potential of this team, the
12:58
Speaker 2: more I think this Utah football season might be a
13:02
Speaker 2: heck of a lot of fun. I do expect growing
13:05
Speaker 2: pains somewhere. I expect a toe to be stubbed along
13:10
Speaker 2: the way somehow, And it doesn't disqualify anyone for being
13:14
Speaker 2: a great player, or Morgan for being an awesome coach.
13:18
Speaker 2: It's just football. It's just college football. Especially eight seven
13:22
Speaker 2: seven three five three zero seven hundred. The breakout star
13:28
Speaker 2: of this year's season would be fill in the blank.
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Speaker 2: Jake says, I second Scally as the breakout star. It's
13:37
Speaker 2: gonna work undefeated as crazy. He says, ten and two.
13:40
Speaker 2: Ten and two is still one of the best performances
13:44
Speaker 2: for a first year head coach in the history of
13:47
Speaker 2: power football.
13:48
Speaker 1: If you could pull that off.
13:50
Speaker 6: Wow.
13:53
Speaker 2: Derek on the text line says offense, breakout star Daniel Bray,
13:58
Speaker 2: defense cash Dylan. Daniel Obray is the guy for me. Offensively.
14:04
Speaker 2: We saw flashes of it last year. What we saw
14:08
Speaker 2: from Daniel Bray was a sneak preview. It was a tease.
14:15
Speaker 2: It was the Odyssey trailer that got you in your
14:18
Speaker 2: back to the movie theater for the first time in
14:20
Speaker 2: three years.
14:23
Speaker 1: Daniel Bray is like Borderline.
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Speaker 2: He's almost too productive to call this a breakout season.
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Speaker 7: We got two callers in the same day. Eight seven
14:35
Speaker 7: seven three five three zero seven hundred. Get on the trade, people,
14:39
Speaker 7: this is a Collins show now. Shane and West Jordan
14:44
Speaker 7: shout out to the Jaguars.
14:45
Speaker 1: What's up, Shane.
14:48
Speaker 4: Yes, it's a miracle I'm calling it's kind of shocking.
14:50
Speaker 4: But my offensive well, my star, my breakout is the
14:55
Speaker 4: offensive line. Oh, I don't have to be perfect.
15:00
Speaker 8: We don't. We won't, we don't.
15:01
Speaker 4: I'm not going to say we're going to go undefeated
15:02
Speaker 4: like the previous caller by any but they don't have
15:05
Speaker 4: to be perfect. We have the tools in place. We
15:07
Speaker 4: just need to make some tweaks. We have enough offensive
15:11
Speaker 4: talent where the offensive line just have to be above average.
15:14
Speaker 4: We've never had like two first rounders in the past,
15:18
Speaker 4: not that I know of.
15:19
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong, you are correct.
15:22
Speaker 4: They just need to be good enough and we will
15:24
Speaker 4: be in the playoff conversation for sure. Not necessarily undefeated,
15:28
Speaker 4: but we'll be in the playoff conversation. We don't have
15:31
Speaker 4: to be phenomenal because we have enough tools. Just tweak
15:35
Speaker 4: a few things, work off the last year we figured
15:39
Speaker 4: it out. We have our offensive prowess, we have the plan.
15:42
Speaker 4: Just keep that going, make some tweaks. You don't have
15:46
Speaker 4: to do a whole lot much else in this case.
15:49
Speaker 1: Look, I love the idea.
15:52
Speaker 2: If the again we're talking about we have one caller
15:55
Speaker 2: who says, thank you for the phone call. Shame shout
15:57
Speaker 2: out to West Jordan as well Ogden and West Jordan
16:00
Speaker 2: represented here on the show. Keep it coming in eight
16:02
Speaker 2: seven seven three five three zero seven hundred. If the
16:06
Speaker 2: offensive line, like like he just said, is above average,
16:10
Speaker 2: well we think the belief is you've got above average
16:15
Speaker 2: wide receiver room. Maybe for the first time in a
16:19
Speaker 2: decade or more, you've got an above average running back room.
16:25
Speaker 2: I believe that wholeheartedly. I think way Sean Parker is
16:27
Speaker 2: above average. I think his numbers say that he is
16:29
Speaker 2: above average. I think he's well above average. I think
16:32
Speaker 2: that the thunder and lightning thing, as I was about
16:34
Speaker 2: to rant about Daniel Bray when we got the call,
16:37
Speaker 2: I think you have an opportunity to have that perfect
16:39
Speaker 2: change of pace type back. Also love what we're seeing
16:42
Speaker 2: with that possibility.
16:44
Speaker 1: So I think the.
16:45
Speaker 2: Quarterback room is far, far above average. And don't I
16:51
Speaker 2: don't suffer from just a bias because we feel like
16:53
Speaker 2: we know dev a little bit. We got him into
16:55
Speaker 2: the studio a bunch of times last year to have conversations.
16:58
Speaker 2: He's a great dude. He's a guy that displays the
17:02
Speaker 2: kind of grit and toughness and lack of complaint that
17:05
Speaker 2: you want from Utah football players. He made zero excuses
17:09
Speaker 2: last year, even if he was playing with dual sports
17:12
Speaker 2: hernias and a busted up ankle. He just went out
17:15
Speaker 2: there and did things, and he took the bullets when
17:17
Speaker 2: people were criticizing him, and he didn't blame it on
17:20
Speaker 2: anybody else. So I think that as your starter is incredible.
17:25
Speaker 2: The fact that you also have Bird Fickland, who could
17:28
Speaker 2: be a starter at one hundred schools or more in
17:34
Speaker 2: college football right now, that is not an exaggeration. By
17:38
Speaker 2: the way, think of that Bird Fickland. If you put
17:44
Speaker 2: him on any of like one hundred rosters around college football.
17:50
Speaker 1: You take any of the.
17:51
Speaker 2: Top twenty five to thirty quarterbacks, maybe top thirty five quarterbacks,
17:56
Speaker 2: they want to keep their guy. The schools that that
17:58
Speaker 2: person is playing it, they want to keep their guy
18:00
Speaker 2: someone else. We'd be happy to have Bird Ficklin, and
18:01
Speaker 2: we got him at Utah who's got a top fifteen,
18:04
Speaker 2: top twenty type quarterback already in front of him.
18:08
Speaker 1: So if all of those things are.
18:09
Speaker 2: True, and all of those people are above average, and
18:12
Speaker 2: then the offensive line is even slightly above average. Now
18:15
Speaker 2: we're talking about a really good offense and a pretty
18:20
Speaker 2: easy schedule and now a big city. You guys are
18:22
Speaker 2: getting me fired up. You said, we have another call
18:25
Speaker 2: James Peterson and is Mike from Harriman. Okay, he's got
18:31
Speaker 2: a different kind of breakout. Mike, Welcome to the show.
18:33
Speaker 1: How are you?
18:35
Speaker 8: I'm good, sir. How about yourself?
18:37
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. Thanks for calling in.
18:41
Speaker 8: Mine's more of a breakout concern. All this offense is great,
18:46
Speaker 8: but we actually got run on like I've never seen
18:50
Speaker 8: us get run on in years last year, and if
18:52
Speaker 8: we can't, if we dodge some bullets, and what's your
18:56
Speaker 8: thoughts on stopping the run?
18:59
Speaker 2: So I'm glad you brought that up because that is
19:02
Speaker 2: something that we like conveniently set aside and forget. Okay,
19:07
Speaker 2: now here, there's two ways to think about this one.
19:11
Speaker 2: The really really bad run defense happened after John Henry
19:16
Speaker 2: Daly got hurt those final games.
19:18
Speaker 1: It was abysmal.
19:19
Speaker 2: Right, He was more important in run support than I
19:21
Speaker 2: think a lot of people give him credit for. I
19:24
Speaker 2: think also, you lost a couple of young players, a
19:28
Speaker 2: couple of young transfers. Jonah Lea a as someone that
19:30
Speaker 2: we all got excited about. He was not particularly stout
19:34
Speaker 2: against the run. And I think that the transfer portal
19:37
Speaker 2: guys that you brought in, the Jaimoys and the Samsulas
19:41
Speaker 2: and some of these other big body individuals, I think
19:44
Speaker 2: we're designed exactly for that, or were courted exactly for that.
19:50
Speaker 2: I think that there was an acknowledgment from Luther Ellis
19:53
Speaker 2: and from Morgan Scalley and from Colton Swan, like, hey,
19:57
Speaker 2: we have to be stouter up the middle up front.
20:00
Speaker 2: I also think your safeties last year had some really
20:04
Speaker 2: big tackling issues. Some of that is because of injury
20:07
Speaker 2: and rotation going through. I don't like to pile on
20:11
Speaker 2: the Tao Johnson thing, because everyone knows I've been hyper
20:13
Speaker 2: critical of him at times. I think that was an issue.
20:17
Speaker 2: I think this year, this defense, this scheme is not
20:21
Speaker 2: actually designed for your defensive line to get a bunch
20:24
Speaker 2: of plays and tackles.
20:25
Speaker 1: They're block eaters.
20:26
Speaker 2: They gobble up space right it's supposed to free up linebackers,
20:31
Speaker 2: and even linebackers in this scheme are not really supposed
20:35
Speaker 2: to be as productive as some other places when it
20:39
Speaker 2: comes to piling on tackles. Some there's a significant amount
20:43
Speaker 2: of reps in this Utah football defense where your job
20:47
Speaker 2: as a linebacker is actually to take the block on
20:51
Speaker 2: the lead blocker on with the correct shoulder so that
20:55
Speaker 2: the cut from the running back so that the traffic
20:59
Speaker 2: directs that per into the clutches of your safeties. And
21:04
Speaker 2: that means your safeties have to be really good tacklers.
21:07
Speaker 2: And that's where I'm excited about Rabbit Evans being back
21:10
Speaker 2: this year. I'm excited about healthier version of Nate Ritchie.
21:14
Speaker 2: I'm excited about all of that for Utah football because, man,
21:19
Speaker 2: that is a really good shout. That's a good acknowledgment
21:23
Speaker 2: that there was some issue, some issues with the tackling
21:27
Speaker 2: and the rush defense, especially last year.
21:30
Speaker 1: And as much.
21:31
Speaker 2: As we love some of the guys that are now
21:34
Speaker 2: matriculated on and moved on from the program, there were
21:37
Speaker 2: issues Like Lander Barton, My dog was a home run
21:42
Speaker 2: or strikeout type guy, right he just was. He was
21:47
Speaker 2: either going to make a big play or he was
21:49
Speaker 2: going to be nowhere to be found. The pedestrian, boring
21:54
Speaker 2: type linebacker of you know, like a Jared Norris. That's
22:00
Speaker 2: what I think Trey Reynolds is and I say that
22:04
Speaker 2: as a compliment, it sounds like it's an insult. I
22:06
Speaker 2: say it as a compliment the Cody Barton's of the world. Right,
22:09
Speaker 2: Remember when it was Cody Barton and Chase Hanson and
22:12
Speaker 2: everyone was always like waiting for Chase Hanson to make
22:15
Speaker 2: an interception or to blitz through with a big hit
22:18
Speaker 2: on a sack, or to force a fumble, And then
22:22
Speaker 2: you looked at the actual gameplay and you were like,
22:24
Speaker 2: you know what, Cody Barton had thirteen tackles in that game.
22:30
Speaker 2: He's just where he's supposed to be all the time.
22:33
Speaker 2: I think that's what Trey Reynolds is going to be
22:35
Speaker 2: this year. I think John neu Hall is going to
22:37
Speaker 2: be more of a disruptor, and I think Trey Reynolds
22:39
Speaker 2: is going to be the guy, the Robin to the Batman,
22:42
Speaker 2: all right, the Captain America to the thor. If you
22:48
Speaker 2: want to make it a marvel instead of a DC thing,
22:51
Speaker 2: and it's not as sexy, it's not as spectacular, it's
22:54
Speaker 2: not as impressive sometimes, but it's equally important. It's a
22:58
Speaker 2: great shout all the way from Harriman. Hello tall you
23:01
Speaker 2: Harriman folks. You didn't even exist as a community when
23:05
Speaker 2: I was young, and now you're like a thriving metropolis
23:08
Speaker 2: out there, so we love you. Eight seven seven three
23:11
Speaker 2: five three zero seven hundred. We're talking about the breakout stars.
23:14
Speaker 2: And by the way, with that point being made of
23:17
Speaker 2: like who's going to be you know, is the run
23:19
Speaker 2: defense going to be better this year? Imagine if Poopu
23:22
Speaker 2: Sepolona or Lucas Samsula or any of these defensive tackles,
23:27
Speaker 2: Carson Kalfusi ends up being as disruptive the king of
23:31
Speaker 2: knockback like we've had in the past, where you're a
23:34
Speaker 2: Steve Fifita, you're a star Lotlalay or even when you're
23:37
Speaker 2: not making the play, you're bundling up offensive linemen in
23:41
Speaker 2: their own backfield and the tackle goes to somebody else,
23:44
Speaker 2: but the play is made by you. Now we're talking
23:47
Speaker 2: about a breakout star on the defensive line. Everybody on
23:51
Speaker 2: this defensive line is eligible for breakout star status. It's
23:56
Speaker 2: the good and the bad of everything that happened this
24:00
Speaker 2: past year, Right, you don't want to bring back the
24:03
Speaker 2: exact same thing.
24:04
Speaker 1: If you have that if the exact same thing was
24:06
Speaker 1: not effective.
24:09
Speaker 2: PAD level was an issue for Jonahlaea, who's an awesome player,
24:13
Speaker 2: who's gonna be a great player for.
24:15
Speaker 1: Somebody else now.
24:18
Speaker 2: But Luther Ellison, company, Colton Swan and Company, that middle especially,
24:25
Speaker 2: they've got to figure it out and tackling, tackling, tackling, tackling.
24:30
Speaker 2: This has been something that one game per year in
24:34
Speaker 2: the final four years of Kyle Whittingham's tenure, at least
24:37
Speaker 2: final five, maybe six years of Kyle Whittingham's tenure, as
24:40
Speaker 2: they tried to strike this perfect balance between injury prevention
24:46
Speaker 2: and physicality, they would screw that balance up one game
24:50
Speaker 2: every single year, invariably. A few years back, he was
24:55
Speaker 2: that Florida game in the swamp cam.
24:57
Speaker 1: Rising all these guys.
24:58
Speaker 2: You're just like, hey, yeah, going down on the swamp,
25:00
Speaker 2: gonna beat an SEC team and put some respect on
25:04
Speaker 2: the name of the utah Utes. And what lost you
25:07
Speaker 2: that game? It was tackling. It was missed tackles. Some
25:10
Speaker 2: of that is because you had young guys starting. Some
25:14
Speaker 2: of us was because you went through camp and he
25:18
Speaker 2: didn't tackle full speed because you felt like, oh man,
25:21
Speaker 2: we have established starters at all these positions and we
25:24
Speaker 2: don't want anybody hurt. We don't want to risk anything
25:29
Speaker 2: in camp. Football, unfortunately, is a risky game. The guys
25:34
Speaker 2: that we know who have played at the highest level,
25:37
Speaker 2: every time we talk about this exact thing, what do
25:40
Speaker 2: they say? They loathe the idea of careful practice. We
25:46
Speaker 2: had Stevenson Sylvester, one of the great linebackers in this program,
25:50
Speaker 2: a guy who went on to great success a healthy
25:54
Speaker 2: NFL career, and I said, man, how do you make
25:58
Speaker 2: sure that this team gets too the season, gets through
26:01
Speaker 2: the season healthy?
26:01
Speaker 1: And what did he say? Go full speed, whether.
26:08
Speaker 2: The drill calls for it, or more importantly, whether you're
26:12
Speaker 2: trying to loaf or you're trying to protect, or you're
26:14
Speaker 2: trying you have to when contact is a thing, you're
26:20
Speaker 2: more likely to get hurt if there's a disparity between.
26:23
Speaker 1: How hard you're going and how hard the other guy's going.
26:28
Speaker 2: If he's going eighty percent and I'm going forty percent,
26:31
Speaker 2: he's going eighty and I'm going sixty, he's gonna hurt me.
26:36
Speaker 2: If I'm going eighty and he's going fifty, I'm gonna
26:38
Speaker 2: hurt him.
26:40
Speaker 1: Right. So, when you hear coaches.
26:43
Speaker 2: Talk about, oh yeah, we're gonna do We're gonna do
26:46
Speaker 2: thud today, there are some guys who thud at one
26:49
Speaker 2: hundred percent. Thud means we're just not going to the ground.
26:53
Speaker 2: We're gonna shells right, We're gonna do shoulder pads and helmets.
26:58
Speaker 1: We're gonna run full speed.
26:59
Speaker 2: We're gonna hit each other hard, and I'm not gonna
27:01
Speaker 2: keep running my feet through to try to take you down.
27:03
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna hit you at your waist. I'm gonna
27:05
Speaker 2: hit you in your ribs. Morgan Scalley knows this. Morgan Scalley,
27:12
Speaker 2: My strong belief is he's going to conduct his practices accordingly.
27:20
Speaker 2: Eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred. That's
27:24
Speaker 2: a show record, and I'm very excited about it. Three
27:26
Speaker 2: calls in the first segment. We have no guest in
27:29
Speaker 2: our next segment, so we're gonna keep coming with your
27:31
Speaker 2: reactions to today's question offensive breakout star defensive breakout star
27:37
Speaker 2: of this upcoming Utah football season. I want your predictions.
27:40
Speaker 2: We will log them away, we will write them down.
27:45
Speaker 2: And when we're eleven games in and twelve games in
27:49
Speaker 2: and headed to a conference championship game because of the
27:52
Speaker 2: guy that because you said Daniel Bray was gonna be
27:54
Speaker 2: great and Daniel Bray's got fifteen touchdowns for this team.
27:57
Speaker 2: We're gonna give you something because you got it right,
28:00
Speaker 2: probably gonna be James Peterson bonus points. But they're totally
28:02
Speaker 2: They're totally worthless in your daily life, but on this show,
28:06
Speaker 2: they are the currency of choice. Absolutely, And and Ryan
28:10
Speaker 2: and Ogden. When we're twelve games in and the Utes
28:13
Speaker 2: still haven't lost, we're gonna be We're gonna be like, Ryan,
28:16
Speaker 2: we thought you were crazy, but it turns out you
28:19
Speaker 2: were absolutely right.
28:20
Speaker 1: How great is that?
28:22
Speaker 2: He'll get like a million James Peterson bonus points if
28:25
Speaker 2: he if they go undefeated. And Morgan Scalley's first year
28:28
Speaker 2: and he saw it coming, like absolutely, you get all
28:31
Speaker 2: of them. This is we're gonna do this if you
28:35
Speaker 2: predict something like that, and he did. He went out there,
28:38
Speaker 2: he put his name on the air, He told people
28:40
Speaker 2: where he lives, and he said, we're going undefeated. And
28:43
Speaker 2: you are correct. You're guest hosting the show with me
28:47
Speaker 2: one day at least for a segment. We're gonna bring
28:49
Speaker 2: you into the studio. You're gonna sit down and I'm
28:52
Speaker 2: gonna sit here. And how did you know? Why did
28:54
Speaker 2: you know? All Right? Eight seven seven three five three
28:57
Speaker 2: zero seven hundred. What can you tell me about my
29:00
Speaker 2: future too? By the way, Ryan, exactly, that's what we're
29:03
Speaker 2: asking him. If that's the case, apparently we need to
29:07
Speaker 2: get your numbers for the power ball, Like I want
29:10
Speaker 2: you to tell us all about the future. You need
29:14
Speaker 2: to be a betting handicaper or something. Eight seven seven
29:16
Speaker 2: three five three zero seven hundred. I want your breakout
29:19
Speaker 2: star on offense. I want you breakout star on defense.
29:21
Speaker 2: And for a couple of people already, that breakout star
29:24
Speaker 2: for the upcoming Utah football season is the head coach himself.
29:27
Speaker 2: There are people who believe Morgan scally will be the
29:31
Speaker 2: talked about guy because of what he's able to do
29:34
Speaker 2: with this Utah football program. And you know what, if
29:38
Speaker 2: there's a silver lining to the devastating nature of Kyle
29:41
Speaker 2: Whittingham's departure, it's that if Utah football can have the
29:46
Speaker 2: season we think they're capable of, Morgan will get the
29:49
Speaker 2: credit for it. If the ideal fairytale scenario that all
29:54
Speaker 2: of us dreamed of had happened, where Kyle Whittingham quietly
29:57
Speaker 2: marches into retirement, every assistant coach that Morgan wants to
30:01
Speaker 2: keep stays. Every player that Morgan wants to keep stays,
30:06
Speaker 2: and then he wins a championship the next year, or
30:08
Speaker 2: the next year or the first three years. Basically, part
30:12
Speaker 2: of that credit is going to go to who people
30:16
Speaker 2: are gonna say, Wow, Morgan Scalley did a great job,
30:18
Speaker 2: but he didn't have to do much because he was
30:20
Speaker 2: just continuing what had already started with Kyle Whittingham. The
30:27
Speaker 2: hidden benefit of the bridges being burnt is that whatever
30:32
Speaker 2: happens with Utah football now is Morgan Scalley. It's because
30:36
Speaker 2: of Morgan Scalley. Eight seven seven three five three zero
30:41
Speaker 2: seven hundred. Your breakout stars will take more of your reactions. Next,
30:45
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear more phone calls. It's the Sean
30:46
Speaker 2: O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred ninety.
30:54
Speaker 9: You'll tune to The Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
30:57
Speaker 9: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN at ninety one a.
31:02
Speaker 2: M eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred
31:18
Speaker 2: breakout star offensively and defensively. Let me know who that
31:23
Speaker 2: is for this Utah football season. This is my last
31:26
Speaker 2: live show before camp starts on Monday, so I don't
31:28
Speaker 2: want anyone being led by the witness, right, that's actually
31:32
Speaker 2: not the right way to say that. I don't want
31:34
Speaker 2: anyone being influenced by the comments Morgan Scali or anyone
31:38
Speaker 2: of his coaching staff, or even like Devin dan Pierre saying,
31:41
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, Mona Carvalio is going to be our
31:44
Speaker 2: best receiver this year.
31:46
Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden, people can heat it's Manna
31:47
Speaker 1: Manas the breakout star.
31:49
Speaker 2: All right, You're not allowed to call breakout star someone
31:54
Speaker 2: who was a breakout star last year, someone who's highly
31:57
Speaker 2: productive last year, even if they were at a different
31:59
Speaker 2: school last year, the camp be breakout stars for the
32:02
Speaker 2: utes this year. Someone trold me on the text line
32:06
Speaker 2: and said it's Larry Simmons and Jackson Benny. That was
32:09
Speaker 2: like five seconds after I said Larry Simmons had slightly
32:12
Speaker 2: too much production to even call him a breakout star.
32:14
Speaker 2: I think Jackson Benny was obviously a breakout star of
32:17
Speaker 2: last year, because remember you came into camp last year
32:22
Speaker 2: not talking about or thinking about Jackson Benny, and then
32:25
Speaker 2: Jackson Benny ended up being a two way player on
32:28
Speaker 2: the team. Yeah, we so media days last year, Smith,
32:33
Speaker 2: Snowden and Lander Barton told us, yeah, we're gonna play
32:37
Speaker 2: some offense this year. Yes, remember that, And Witt said, yeah,
32:41
Speaker 2: we're gonna have some guys playing both sides this year.
32:45
Speaker 2: We had no idea till camp that Jackson Benny was
32:49
Speaker 2: a third guy that was gonna play both sides. Were like,
32:51
Speaker 2: we're like, how about we by the way on that
32:54
Speaker 2: for about a month, like Smith, Snowden and Lander Barton
32:56
Speaker 2: could they be good offensive players? And then all of
32:58
Speaker 2: a sudden we get into camp and they're like, oh,
33:00
Speaker 2: Jackson Benny is gonna be on offense too.
33:03
Speaker 1: Wait what, I'll have to go back and research.
33:04
Speaker 2: I think Jackson Benny actually ended up playing more snaps
33:08
Speaker 2: than both of those guys on offense, if I'm not
33:10
Speaker 2: mistake might have. It seemed like Lander played quite a
33:14
Speaker 2: bit a lot, but maybe goes Lander than he played
33:18
Speaker 2: more than Smith.
33:19
Speaker 1: I'm on my Smith.
33:21
Speaker 2: He got some handoffs against UCLA and then he barely
33:25
Speaker 2: played offense the rest of the year.
33:26
Speaker 1: There were some injuries that played into that too.
33:30
Speaker 2: Kate on the text line says, took the words right
33:32
Speaker 2: out of my mouth, Trey Reynolds is going to be
33:34
Speaker 2: what we need in the defense this year. Not a
33:36
Speaker 2: lot of flash, but lots of consistency with occasional huge plays.
33:40
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a weird year.
33:41
Speaker 2: I believe where our offense is going to do better
33:43
Speaker 2: than our defense and need a couple of breakout guys
33:45
Speaker 2: on defense to be real contenders come to playoffs.
33:48
Speaker 1: That was last year too.
33:49
Speaker 2: The offense was better than the defense for Utah football
33:52
Speaker 2: last year, right, because you were really good against the past.
33:55
Speaker 2: You were quality pass rush, you were not stellar against
33:59
Speaker 2: the run. Last year you were average against the run.
34:01
Speaker 2: And when we see Utah be average against the run,
34:04
Speaker 2: we're like, that is well below average because we're accustomed
34:08
Speaker 2: to we have become familiar with so many years of
34:12
Speaker 2: Utah football being like top ten in the nation against
34:15
Speaker 2: the rush, and so when you're outside of that, it's uncomfortable.
34:19
Speaker 1: It gives people an icky feeling.
34:21
Speaker 2: You're just like, like the Kansas game, the Kansas State game,
34:26
Speaker 2: You're like, what is going on here?
34:28
Speaker 1: Also, you mentioned the Kansas State game.
34:32
Speaker 2: The numbers are skewed heavily by one like nightmarishly bad
34:37
Speaker 2: game too, which Kansas.
34:39
Speaker 1: You're right.
34:41
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks later was that the next week,
34:43
Speaker 2: whatever they were, they weren't great against the run against
34:47
Speaker 2: Kansas either, but they were much better than they were
34:49
Speaker 2: against Kansas State. So hopefully that was just a just
34:54
Speaker 2: a horrible one off and you know, remindered everybody. They
34:58
Speaker 2: end up coming back to win that game, so kind
35:01
Speaker 2: of comes out in the wash a little bit. Yeah,
35:03
Speaker 2: I mean, look, all that really matters is did you win?
35:07
Speaker 2: But there's there's the matter of saying, hey, does this
35:12
Speaker 2: look like Utah football? Are we comfortable with this kind
35:14
Speaker 2: of football? And there are more sustainable ways of winning
35:19
Speaker 2: in college football, especially like you go back to when
35:23
Speaker 2: Colorado had Shador Sanders and Travis Hunter, right, they won games.
35:30
Speaker 2: I don't think there was a person on planet Earth
35:33
Speaker 2: that thought that was a great college football team, right,
35:36
Speaker 2: because it was like, okay, well, as soon as they
35:39
Speaker 2: go up against someone who is either a very scheme
35:42
Speaker 2: sound or actually has the kind of athletes to limit
35:46
Speaker 2: a little bit of what they're doing with these wide
35:48
Speaker 2: receivers and with Travis Hunter, they're gonna lose that game.
35:52
Speaker 2: They had no physicality, zero c almoble byu right, they
35:59
Speaker 2: blew the door off of that Colorado team. It was
36:02
Speaker 2: one of those things, I mean, and Jay Hill if
36:04
Speaker 2: you go back and you listen to what Jay Hill
36:07
Speaker 2: had to say the week's leading up to that Bowl game.
36:11
Speaker 2: Jay Hill was like, he's he was being respectful, but
36:15
Speaker 2: Jay Hill was like, these guys actually suck.
36:17
Speaker 1: We're gonna kill them.
36:19
Speaker 2: Like you can hear him in his interviews smiling through
36:24
Speaker 2: his description of what that matchup is going to be, right, And.
36:29
Speaker 1: That's no disrespect to Colorado.
36:31
Speaker 6: It's just there's.
36:31
Speaker 2: Limitations to a certain kind of football, which is why
36:35
Speaker 2: when you talk to Morgan scally and you talk to
36:38
Speaker 2: Kevin mcgiven, they're like, yeah, we're gonna open things up
36:42
Speaker 2: a little bit more this year, and everyone's like, oh sweet, yes,
36:45
Speaker 2: eighty passing and then they're like, no, it's gonna be
36:49
Speaker 2: a nice even fifty to fifty split and we're gonna
36:53
Speaker 2: play complimentary football where our passing game opens up our
36:56
Speaker 2: run game and vice versa. We're gonna pound the ball
36:59
Speaker 2: until people have to, you know, respect us in the box,
37:03
Speaker 2: and then we're going to take the top off. And
37:05
Speaker 2: that's that's what the best teams in the country do, right.
37:09
Speaker 2: There were a lot of years May he rest in peace,
37:13
Speaker 2: where Mike Leach had the most proficient efficient productive passing
37:19
Speaker 2: offenses that you could find very very very very rarely
37:26
Speaker 2: did you think that team actually had a shot of
37:29
Speaker 2: winning anything meaningful. And that happened when he was a
37:32
Speaker 2: Texas Tech. That happened when he was at Washington State.
37:35
Speaker 2: It just wasn't There's a certain thing like remember when
37:40
Speaker 2: Hawaii with Colt Brennan demolished, everyone scored more points than
37:46
Speaker 2: a basketball team.
37:49
Speaker 1: On their way to a Sugar Bowl. It was the
37:51
Speaker 1: Sugar Bowl, right, I think?
37:52
Speaker 2: So against Georgia, against Georgia, and then they go up
37:55
Speaker 2: against Georgia and it looked like a varsity team against
37:58
Speaker 2: the JV team.
37:59
Speaker 1: They looked like they were playing at a lower level
38:02
Speaker 1: than Georgia all year.
38:04
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and he was just like, oh, man, like, there's
38:07
Speaker 2: some styles of football that are more sustainable. Being a
38:11
Speaker 2: great run defense is that that travels that sustainable. That's
38:17
Speaker 2: something that makes Georgia good every year, that makes Notre
38:19
Speaker 2: Dame good every year, That makes Utah good every year.
38:24
Speaker 2: And when you're back to average on that front, there's
38:27
Speaker 2: gonna be games you lose because of it. There are
38:30
Speaker 2: games where Utah almost had to like pick and choose
38:36
Speaker 2: whether or not they were gonna be elite on passing
38:38
Speaker 2: defense or or rushing defense because they had to adjust scheme.
38:42
Speaker 2: They had to walk a guy down into the box
38:44
Speaker 2: to take away the run. They could they couldn't play
38:46
Speaker 2: the base like against BYU. You weren't effective just playing
38:50
Speaker 2: your base defense in a quarter and a half of
38:52
Speaker 2: that game and ended up killing you, right Texas Tech.
38:57
Speaker 2: The backup comes in and your game plan was that
39:01
Speaker 2: you were going to have to do this. You weren't
39:02
Speaker 2: going to have to contain a rushing quarterback. The adjustments
39:07
Speaker 2: you weren't able to make them, Your players weren't able
39:10
Speaker 2: to make them. Whatever, and it cost you a game.
39:14
Speaker 2: The margin for air on that kind of stuff is
39:16
Speaker 2: raise within. But I'm glad we had people called in.
39:20
Speaker 2: I'm glad we had people texting and and acknowledging that
39:22
Speaker 2: they are like, there are some things as I'm asking you,
39:26
Speaker 2: who the breakout stars are. Your people are saying, your
39:28
Speaker 2: breakout star is the guy who can solve this problem
39:33
Speaker 2: for you.
39:35
Speaker 1: By the way, O see total tangent here.
39:37
Speaker 2: But our guy alec and Vineyard, who has given us
39:40
Speaker 2: the Sauna updates and grievances, he texted that he's he's
39:45
Speaker 2: got updates like Alex, you need to give us a call,
39:49
Speaker 2: my guy, Alan, we may have any time.
39:50
Speaker 1: Dog. We may not do an official airing of grievances today.
39:54
Speaker 1: We may not have time for it. But you go
39:56
Speaker 1: ahead and give us a call.
39:58
Speaker 2: We'll we'll take will take your your sauna update inappropriate
40:02
Speaker 2: behavior in sauna's some of the just gold so Alec
40:05
Speaker 2: and Vineyard give us a call. Offense, Daniel Bray defense,
40:09
Speaker 2: Cash Dylan for breakout stars?
40:11
Speaker 1: Can I tell you.
40:14
Speaker 2: How great that would be for this football team if
40:18
Speaker 2: Daniel Bray was a breakout star, and I'm saying, like
40:21
Speaker 2: a ten plus touchdown breakout star, combine, combine on the
40:25
Speaker 2: ground and through the air, because he's then multifaceted.
40:27
Speaker 1: It's running back guy.
40:29
Speaker 2: Ten ten touchdowns for Daniel Bray wins you an extra
40:33
Speaker 2: two games this year. Cash Dylan, he's the most productive
40:43
Speaker 2: returning sack man. But he didn't have enough production last
40:46
Speaker 2: year that he was a star. Right, he was a
40:48
Speaker 2: rotational player last year. Yeah, he absolutely counts what we
40:52
Speaker 2: what we say three and a half sacks last year.
40:54
Speaker 2: That's he's a breakout star candidate. If he could make
40:57
Speaker 2: that happen for this team, you are again you're over
41:02
Speaker 2: the moon because now you've got at least one half
41:06
Speaker 2: of your pass rush is formidable, is scary, is problematic.
41:10
Speaker 2: That's really what you had last year, right, That's and
41:13
Speaker 2: by the way, that's what most really good teams have,
41:16
Speaker 2: whether it's NFL or college football. Very rarely do you
41:20
Speaker 2: have like the Colts teams that I grew up loving
41:23
Speaker 2: with Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney.
41:25
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous, Like that's that is the exception.
41:29
Speaker 2: You Usually it's one really good pass rusher that's getting
41:33
Speaker 2: all your sacks and then it's by committee on the
41:35
Speaker 2: other side. And if you can do that, if you
41:38
Speaker 2: have and look, if it's Cash Dylan, wonderful, If it's
41:41
Speaker 2: Lance Holtsklaw wonderful, If it's Paul Fitzgerald, wonderful.
41:44
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter who it is.
41:46
Speaker 2: If one guy on that defensive front is an elite
41:50
Speaker 2: pass rusher, I don't care. If it's Jai moy who
41:53
Speaker 2: are like, that's a six foot tall defensive tackle. He's
41:55
Speaker 2: not supposed to be a great pastruger. I don't care
41:57
Speaker 2: if it's him. If you have one person who the other,
42:00
Speaker 2: their team now has to scheme against in order to
42:04
Speaker 2: keep their quarterback up right, it opens up so many
42:07
Speaker 2: opportunities for Colton Swan and his first year as a
42:10
Speaker 2: defensive coordinator right, because if I have to slide protection
42:14
Speaker 2: toward Cash Dylan, or I have to chip Cash Dylan
42:17
Speaker 2: with a running back or with a tight end before
42:19
Speaker 2: he can get out into his route, that opens up
42:22
Speaker 2: blitz opportunities for other players. That makes me, It makes
42:26
Speaker 2: it easier for me to hide things that I'm trying
42:28
Speaker 2: to do. If that tight end or that running back
42:31
Speaker 2: has to chip him, it means he's not going to
42:33
Speaker 2: get out to the nickel as the nickels trying to blitz.
42:36
Speaker 1: I mean, there's all of these.
42:37
Speaker 2: Things that open up because of elite pressure from one player.
42:44
Speaker 2: If you can get that, if that if your breakout
42:46
Speaker 2: star on this defense is a sac man, that is
42:51
Speaker 2: almost ideal in today's college football world. If it's somebody
42:54
Speaker 2: who pulls down like six interceptions, I'll take that also
42:58
Speaker 2: because interceptions are as impactful of play as can happen
43:01
Speaker 2: in all of college football. But the reason I lean
43:03
Speaker 2: more towards a sack man is because you have the
43:06
Speaker 2: opportunity for turnovers. There the sack fumble is probably my
43:10
Speaker 2: favorite play in all of football, college, pro, little league, whatever.
43:15
Speaker 1: You want to talk about. A momentum swing.
43:18
Speaker 2: You see your quarterback get ragged, all the ball goes flying,
43:22
Speaker 2: and then you've got the ball loose, bouncing around. Some
43:27
Speaker 2: big fat guy rumbles over, picks it up, takes it
43:30
Speaker 2: into the house, or even if he only takes it
43:32
Speaker 2: like eight yards, stands up, celebrates too hard, has to
43:36
Speaker 2: go over to the bench and sit down with the
43:38
Speaker 2: oxygen mask because he's spent too much energy celebrating. Now
43:43
Speaker 2: you've deflated the offense. You've handed the ball back to
43:46
Speaker 2: your offense on a short field. Hopefully you go you
43:50
Speaker 2: turn that into points, and momentum is now firmly in
43:54
Speaker 2: your grasp or has been stolen away from the other team.
43:56
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and you mean you make a great point
43:58
Speaker 2: about the impact that one great sack man is. We're
44:04
Speaker 2: as we're calling it today, sack leader can have. I
44:09
Speaker 2: feel like I feel like this fan base has been
44:12
Speaker 2: spoiled by many years where he had where he had
44:15
Speaker 2: a couple I mean, think about Nate Orchard's record breaking season.
44:19
Speaker 2: Oh see, he had Hunter Dimmick on the other side
44:21
Speaker 2: of on the other side of that, like that was
44:23
Speaker 2: a that was a nightmarish thing, but it is. It
44:26
Speaker 2: is an exception there, and I think it's easy to
44:29
Speaker 2: forget just what you were just breaking down there, the
44:33
Speaker 2: impact that just one guy who gets double digit sacks
44:38
Speaker 2: can have, even if you have no other guys get
44:41
Speaker 2: close to it.
44:41
Speaker 1: It's it's a bunch of guys.
44:43
Speaker 2: The rest of the guys get three or four, there's
44:45
Speaker 2: there's four or five guys with that many and one
44:48
Speaker 2: guy with ten to twelve like that ends up being
44:52
Speaker 2: an incredible pass rush. That's the impact that one that
44:56
Speaker 2: one guy with double digit sacks can have. So that's
44:59
Speaker 2: really all you can ask for it and really need
45:02
Speaker 2: to ask for I think I agree with most people
45:05
Speaker 2: that I'm looking at Cash Dylan. I'm also kind of
45:08
Speaker 2: looking at Lance Holtzsklaw to see if he can be
45:11
Speaker 2: that guy. If you one of those two guys, maybe
45:14
Speaker 2: someone else we're not even thinking of can do that.
45:18
Speaker 2: That would be incredible for Utah this year. I think
45:21
Speaker 2: Ethan Day is not being talked about enough. Ethan Day
45:24
Speaker 2: is a good one, Yeah, mostly because I like his
45:28
Speaker 2: mustache in his team picture. Ethan Day, respect to you,
45:34
Speaker 2: because you know I think you're gonna be a great
45:37
Speaker 2: player for this team. It looks like he's wearing a
45:40
Speaker 2: fake costume mustache in his because he's got like a
45:44
Speaker 2: he's got a baby face feature wise, and then he's
45:47
Speaker 2: got just a caterpillar. I'll cross that top lip. He
45:54
Speaker 2: looks like a sixteen year old that put on a
45:57
Speaker 2: fake mustache. His face does not look old enough to
46:00
Speaker 2: even grow a mustache. Very he just keeps it very
46:05
Speaker 2: clean cut. The rest of his face there, he's looking
46:09
Speaker 2: very top gun Maverickely. The reason I put his name
46:12
Speaker 2: out there is because he started thirteen games last year.
46:16
Speaker 2: He played every game right, and again this is lower level,
46:20
Speaker 2: but as a defensive end, he had forty eight tackles,
46:23
Speaker 2: seven tackles for loss, fumble recovery, four and a half
46:26
Speaker 2: sacks those thirteen games. That level of experience, even if
46:30
Speaker 2: it is at a slightly lower level, I think, becomes
46:33
Speaker 2: invaluable when you're trying to be in every down player
46:38
Speaker 2: at a new spot. Cash Dylan did not start thirteen games.
46:42
Speaker 2: Lance Holtzklaud did not start thirteen games.
46:45
Speaker 1: Those guys.
46:48
Speaker 2: Played a lot, but being someone at a lesser school
46:53
Speaker 2: and relied on a little bit more I think has
46:55
Speaker 2: maybe set him up for some success. Paul Fitzgerald as
47:00
Speaker 2: a healthy player is a total wild card here because
47:03
Speaker 2: if you go back and you watch what he was
47:05
Speaker 2: able to do at Utah State a couple of seasons ago,
47:08
Speaker 2: you're like, oh my gosh, this guy's gonna be awesome,
47:10
Speaker 2: and then injury stopped him from being awesome. Sometimes injuries
47:15
Speaker 2: you never the same. Sometimes injuries are just like an
47:18
Speaker 2: temporary annoyance. But the team can't wait for anybody, right,
47:24
Speaker 2: So everything moved on without Paul Fitzgerald. And if I'm him,
47:28
Speaker 2: I'm like, I probably have a massive chip on my
47:30
Speaker 2: shoulder because injury took me out of the conversation that
47:33
Speaker 2: I probably feel like I firmly belonged in. I'm starting
47:37
Speaker 2: to get excited about the rotation you're gonna be able
47:39
Speaker 2: to have with these sack men. I'm gonna call him
47:42
Speaker 2: that until somebody corrects me. For sure, I sack men.
47:47
Speaker 2: It is the men of sack Lake City on the
47:51
Speaker 2: Sean O'Connell show. They are sack men or the men
47:53
Speaker 2: of sack Lake City. Absolutely one thing we gotta be
47:56
Speaker 2: careful of, though, Remember was it going into that ill
47:59
Speaker 2: fated twenty twenty four season. Maybe it was the year
48:01
Speaker 2: before when the coaching staff in fall camp was like,
48:06
Speaker 2: we got a rotation of seven players. That made me
48:09
Speaker 2: so mad, and it ended up playing three of them. Yeah,
48:13
Speaker 2: injuries were a big reason why Conor O'Toole. Unfortunately, that
48:18
Speaker 2: was the story of his career at Utah. He was
48:22
Speaker 2: one of those guys that the coaching staff was was
48:25
Speaker 2: talking up. And so that's that's something. That's something else
48:28
Speaker 2: we got to guard against a little bit. Here is like, yes, potential,
48:33
Speaker 2: the if if nothing, if nothing bad happens. The potential
48:37
Speaker 2: is could have a great could have a great pass
48:41
Speaker 2: rush rotation. Here things some things, various things go wrong.
48:47
Speaker 2: You could end up having a bunch of average guys
48:51
Speaker 2: or or worse. Hopefully that's not the case, though. All right,
48:55
Speaker 2: we got to take another break here more of your
48:56
Speaker 2: reaction if you want to keep texting us eight seven
48:59
Speaker 2: seven three five three zero seven hundred, it's the Sean
49:02
Speaker 2: O'Connell show. Oh, by the way, at the top of
49:04
Speaker 2: our number three, we're gonna celebrate the Utah Tallons championship
49:09
Speaker 2: in the Athlete's Unlimited Softball League. Bree Ellis, Georgina Corrick
49:14
Speaker 2: and jay Lenalcin all gonna join us in our number two.
49:18
Speaker 2: It's The Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred and
49:20
Speaker 2: ninety two one FM.
49:26
Speaker 9: You were listening to The Sean O'Connell Show from the
49:29
Speaker 9: Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
49:33
Speaker 9: to one a f M.
49:39
Speaker 2: It's maybe one of my favorite questions to ask every year,
49:42
Speaker 2: and I'm asking it now before Morgan scalley's comments, or
49:45
Speaker 2: Colton swan's comments, or Kevin mcgiven's comments, or Devin Dan
49:49
Speaker 2: Pierce or John Neuhaals or whoever's comments can skew your
49:53
Speaker 2: opinion of who the breakout stars of this coming season
49:55
Speaker 2: are going to be. Give me your prediction now, Offensive star,
49:59
Speaker 2: defensive star or the University of Utah He didn't talk
50:02
Speaker 2: about last year. Maybe we didn't know the name last
50:04
Speaker 2: year this year's breakout star. We got a couple interesting
50:08
Speaker 2: tweets in as well, and I like this one from Andy.
50:13
Speaker 2: I don't know if he counts, but I hope it's
50:15
Speaker 2: Nate Johnson. It'd be cool to see him have a
50:16
Speaker 2: wonderful year. Absolutely, Nate Johnson can be a breakout star,
50:20
Speaker 2: even though we've known him for five years. The reason
50:24
Speaker 2: is because we've had that flash from Nate Johnson. He
50:29
Speaker 2: has elite speed. He is possessed of the number one
50:33
Speaker 2: most important skill in college athletics and especially in college football.
50:38
Speaker 1: He is a burner. He can run. There was a
50:41
Speaker 1: lot of time spent in his career not knowing.
50:45
Speaker 2: What position he should play, not knowing where he should
50:50
Speaker 2: be on the field, and not knowing which field he
50:52
Speaker 2: should be on. I belong at Utah. Should I be
50:55
Speaker 2: playing quarterback? If I go to Vanderbilt? Could I play
50:58
Speaker 2: quarterback there? I'm at Vanderbilt and I'm not real happy here,
51:02
Speaker 2: and they want me to move to this position they
51:03
Speaker 2: want me to do this? Or can I be a
51:05
Speaker 2: punt returner? Can I be just a wide receiver? There
51:10
Speaker 2: are guys like this. You could probably find one or
51:13
Speaker 2: more on every roster in college football, where it's not
51:16
Speaker 2: a fault necessarily a fault of their own, where it's like, hey,
51:21
Speaker 2: I just you were brought up. Nate Johnson is a
51:25
Speaker 2: good example of if you are anywhere near the strongest,
51:29
Speaker 2: anywhere near the biggest, anywhere near the fastest in little
51:33
Speaker 2: league football, you're probably the quarterback for your football team,
51:37
Speaker 2: and because you're a quarterback in little league, you end
51:39
Speaker 2: up being the quarterback for your high school football team
51:42
Speaker 2: in a lot of cases.
51:43
Speaker 10: Right.
51:44
Speaker 2: And then because you're the quarterback and you used to
51:46
Speaker 2: touching the ball every single play and being the most
51:48
Speaker 2: impactful guy on the field, that's what you want to
51:51
Speaker 2: do at the next level. It's why Chase Hansen wanted
51:54
Speaker 2: to be a quarterback in college football, not a safety,
51:58
Speaker 2: and not a linebacker eventually, right, because quarterback.
52:01
Speaker 1: That's the show man.
52:02
Speaker 2: And so you can't begrudge Nate Johnson and everyone around
52:04
Speaker 2: him and the coaches who recruited him from thinking like,
52:06
Speaker 2: all right, if that guy with that speed can dial
52:10
Speaker 2: every other skill set in, having him touch the ball
52:13
Speaker 2: every single play is a wonderful thing. Didn't have the
52:17
Speaker 2: right arm for it, didn't have the right mind for it,
52:19
Speaker 2: didn't have the right whatever else for it, and so
52:22
Speaker 2: you get stuck in this weird place. Nate Johnson was
52:26
Speaker 2: stuck in that weird place at two different schools. Then
52:29
Speaker 2: he came back to Utah, and I think there was
52:32
Speaker 2: an acceptance of this is what's best for me and
52:35
Speaker 2: what's best for the team to utilize my one elite
52:38
Speaker 2: skill in a way that is more helpful. But he
52:43
Speaker 2: has yet to be overly productive as a wide receiver.
52:48
Speaker 2: I would love to see that happen for him this year.
52:57
Speaker 2: Coach Martin on the tweet line also said Larry Simmons
53:00
Speaker 2: is going to be a huge factor, Kyrie Sholz is
53:03
Speaker 2: gonna be Those guys, Neither of them, especially Kyrie shols
53:07
Speaker 2: They don't qualify as breakout stars because he was a
53:10
Speaker 2: He was a breakout star at San Jose State. The
53:14
Speaker 2: reward for him being a breakout is now he's at
53:16
Speaker 2: a power forward institution. Now he's at the University of Utah.
53:21
Speaker 2: Now he's a guy that is getting real and I
53:24
Speaker 2: ol money. All right, we got to take a break.
53:28
Speaker 2: Keep the reactions coming in eight seven seven three five
53:30
Speaker 2: three zero seven hundred. Love to hear from you. Noah
53:34
Speaker 2: Beenni and Cyrus Polu just came in on the text line.
53:37
Speaker 2: Not Jackson Benny, Noabenni and Cyrus Polu. That would be awesome.
53:40
Speaker 2: You got a great tight end and Cyrus Polo as
53:43
Speaker 2: a linebacker. I could see it happening. I wonder how
53:46
Speaker 2: much run he's actually gonna get because Lance Reynolds and
53:50
Speaker 2: John ouall are going to be your primary guys. I'd
53:52
Speaker 2: like to see Cyrus get plenty. We're gonna index heavily
53:56
Speaker 2: on the Utah Talons coming off of their first championship
54:00
Speaker 2: as the Utah Talents their second championship in a row
54:04
Speaker 2: in Ausl bre Ellis, Georgina Corrick, Jayda Len Olson all
54:10
Speaker 2: going to join us here on the Sean O'Connell Show.
54:12
Speaker 2: Preelis is up first. ESPN seven hundred ninetye FM.
54:20
Speaker 9: Is the Sean O'Connell Show. You were home of the
54:22
Speaker 9: best inside of your use. Let's get back to OC
54:26
Speaker 9: from the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven.
54:31
Speaker 11: FM.
54:33
Speaker 6: And I won't damn.
54:39
Speaker 1: What I got jes one.
54:44
Speaker 2: Love, Welcome back to the Shad O'Connell Show, ESPN seven
54:50
Speaker 2: hundred ninety two one FM. We now have another professional
54:56
Speaker 2: team in the state of Utah who has won a
54:59
Speaker 2: league Championshi. It happened for RSL in two thousand and nine,
55:04
Speaker 2: it happened for the Utah Talons in twenty twenty six.
55:08
Speaker 2: Bri elis infielder joins us now on The Sean O'Connell
55:11
Speaker 2: Show to talk about a championship run in the Talents
55:15
Speaker 2: first year up at the Dunky bre Welcome to the show.
55:18
Speaker 1: How are you hi, I'm great.
55:20
Speaker 11: Thank you so much for having me.
55:23
Speaker 1: We appreciate you giving us a little bit of time.
55:25
Speaker 2: It's a few days old now, the news, right, you
55:27
Speaker 2: guys won this championship over the weekend. Has it really
55:30
Speaker 2: set it in for you that you guys are now
55:33
Speaker 2: back to back champions in ausl Oh.
55:37
Speaker 11: Yeah, totally. I mean it felt like we kind of
55:40
Speaker 11: had it all year. I think we were number one
55:42
Speaker 11: the entire time, and it was you know, getting close
55:46
Speaker 11: to the end and the competition is just so good.
55:50
Speaker 11: But at the end of the day, I felt like
55:53
Speaker 11: there was never really a moment where we questioned if
55:56
Speaker 11: we were going to do it or not.
55:57
Speaker 12: We just had it the whole time.
56:01
Speaker 2: So you get the news after kind of a barnstorming
56:05
Speaker 2: season last year, right, this league is launching and hey,
56:08
Speaker 2: you're going to be you guys are going to be
56:10
Speaker 2: at the Utah franchise. Now, what what awareness did you
56:14
Speaker 2: have of the state of Utah, Like, what sense did
56:16
Speaker 2: you have that Salt Lake may or may not be
56:18
Speaker 2: a good fit for you for the team et cetera.
56:21
Speaker 11: So last year we when we like weren't necessarily the
56:25
Speaker 11: Utah Challenge, we did get to play here for about
56:28
Speaker 11: a week, so I think we got four or five
56:30
Speaker 11: games in here at our soon to be home field,
56:34
Speaker 11: and I thought it was spectacular. I mean the views
56:38
Speaker 11: we play at the University of Utah right now and
56:42
Speaker 11: the views of that stadium. It's just mountains everywhere. Which
56:46
Speaker 11: I'm from Houston, Texas, so I'm totally not used to
56:49
Speaker 11: some scenery like we have here. But I mean, overall,
56:54
Speaker 11: the atmosphere, the people here, they really do love sports overall.
56:59
Speaker 11: But I'm shocked kind of at how many people love
57:02
Speaker 11: softball or we're just so happy to have another sports
57:06
Speaker 11: team that they were willing to learn and get to
57:09
Speaker 11: know us. But I am stoked that we've got Salt
57:11
Speaker 11: Lake City by far, the best weather out of all
57:14
Speaker 11: the markets, best people, best food, best everything. I am
57:19
Speaker 11: just absolutely love.
57:20
Speaker 3: It here and so happy to be here.
57:22
Speaker 2: Forgive me for not knowing this, but you know, how
57:25
Speaker 2: does it work contract wise and things like that. It
57:27
Speaker 2: is a fledgling league. Everything's new. So when you know
57:32
Speaker 2: you're a now successful two time champion with the Utah talents.
57:37
Speaker 2: Do you know that you get to be a Utah
57:39
Speaker 2: talent next year? Is it kind of a wait and see?
57:42
Speaker 11: So, like you said, it is new, we're on our
57:45
Speaker 11: second year. I think right now, basically everyone is either
57:50
Speaker 11: on a one year or two year contract, and we
57:56
Speaker 11: because it is so new and that the Professional Softball
57:59
Speaker 11: League in the past haven't really been able to get
58:03
Speaker 11: on their feet, they're using like a tier system for
58:06
Speaker 11: salary pay. So I think it's like one through five.
58:10
Speaker 11: I think I don't know one of them being the
58:12
Speaker 11: best obviously, but there's a certain amount of players in
58:16
Speaker 11: each group tier. And I think the rookie contract is
58:21
Speaker 11: the lowest obviously, and then I'm not sure what it
58:24
Speaker 11: gets all the way up to. Hopefully maybe I'll get
58:28
Speaker 11: to find out soon. Yeah, we're on We're on tier
58:33
Speaker 11: tier bank salaries.
58:36
Speaker 2: Let's get Briellis to that max level a USL. Let's
58:39
Speaker 2: go Talents.
58:40
Speaker 1: She's gonna take the time of cup on this show.
58:42
Speaker 1: We're going to campaign for that break.
58:44
Speaker 2: Briellis is our guest here talking Talents Softball Championship. And
58:49
Speaker 2: you know we had Coach Malona on a couple of times.
58:52
Speaker 2: Coach ball Malone on, and we've had a couple of
58:55
Speaker 2: your teammates on. And there's with the new league, with
58:58
Speaker 2: the startup league, there's kind of like dual duties. You
59:02
Speaker 2: have to be a great player, obviously, but then you're
59:05
Speaker 2: an ambassador for the league, an ambassador for the game,
59:08
Speaker 2: I guess, by extension in this case, an ambassador for
59:11
Speaker 2: women's professional sports, which are really getting some support and
59:14
Speaker 2: all that now, And some people probably like that. Some
59:18
Speaker 2: people are probably like, just let me be a softball player.
59:20
Speaker 2: I don't want to have to do interviews and all
59:22
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. Where do you fall on the spectrum.
59:24
Speaker 2: Do you enjoy sort of evangelizing and spreading the gospel
59:28
Speaker 2: of pro softball while you're also trying to win games?
59:33
Speaker 11: Yeah, I totally get it. I think that I kind
59:36
Speaker 11: of fell into the higher on the skill.
59:42
Speaker 2: Position for that.
59:43
Speaker 11: So like I do get pulled for a lot of
59:45
Speaker 11: interviews and stuff. I was a pretty big name in college.
59:49
Speaker 12: I won National Player of the Year.
59:52
Speaker 6: Last year, and so.
59:55
Speaker 11: I also do well with the audience on social media,
59:59
Speaker 11: and I pull pull a good group of people, so
1:00:02
Speaker 11: they love for me to be an ambassador. Like you said, now,
1:00:05
Speaker 11: some days if I have a bad game. It's really
1:00:08
Speaker 11: like the last thing I want to.
1:00:09
Speaker 12: Do, But like you said, it's we got to do
1:00:12
Speaker 12: it because we are, you know, business people.
1:00:14
Speaker 11: At the end of the day to the business, and
1:00:16
Speaker 11: we have to find a way to keep pushing it
1:00:19
Speaker 11: while it's hot and just drive it out to new audience,
1:00:23
Speaker 11: new audiences.
1:00:24
Speaker 2: Probably eighty percent of what we talked about on this show,
1:00:27
Speaker 2: maybe not quite eighty, but like at least fifty sixty
1:00:30
Speaker 2: percent of what we talked about is college sports. We're
1:00:32
Speaker 2: here in Utah, We're still very much a college sports town.
1:00:36
Speaker 2: University of Utah where you guys play football season coming
1:00:39
Speaker 2: as you're aware BYU is huge here, right, And it's
1:00:43
Speaker 2: been fascinating to watch the evolution of college sports. And
1:00:49
Speaker 2: you were a player at Auburn and then you obviously
1:00:52
Speaker 2: one player of the year at Arkansas, and you have
1:00:54
Speaker 2: like these, you know, different stops on your journey before
1:00:58
Speaker 2: becoming a professional. In a lot of ways, the college
1:01:01
Speaker 2: game is a professional game now to a slightly lesser extent.
1:01:05
Speaker 2: Do you feel like those changes in college softball and
1:01:09
Speaker 2: in college sports in general have prepared people like you
1:01:12
Speaker 2: more to be professional athletes eventually?
1:01:17
Speaker 11: Absolutely? I think the whole nil and getting paid based
1:01:22
Speaker 11: off of you're not necessarily your performance, but almost like
1:01:28
Speaker 11: you can't technically be like, hey, I'm going to pay
1:01:30
Speaker 11: you X amount of money if you hit X amount
1:01:32
Speaker 11: of home runs this year, because then that's technically being
1:01:35
Speaker 11: a professional athlete. But you can obviously pick out the
1:01:38
Speaker 11: best of the best players and give them a you know,
1:01:41
Speaker 11: one two million dollar deal. They love to find ways,
1:01:47
Speaker 11: you know, through the through the boosters and such. I'm
1:01:49
Speaker 11: sure y'all are very familiar with that, but yeah, understanding like, look,
1:01:54
Speaker 11: you're not all going to get an equal pay. You're
1:01:56
Speaker 11: not going to have like I said, we do have
1:02:00
Speaker 11: the tier salaries, but obviously we can't just rely on that,
1:02:03
Speaker 11: Like we get endorsed, we get sponsorships, we have stuff
1:02:07
Speaker 11: we do in the off season, stuff like that. And
1:02:09
Speaker 11: so knowing that we have to work our butts off
1:02:12
Speaker 11: and make ourselves stand out as players in order to
1:02:17
Speaker 11: get more money and get.
1:02:19
Speaker 12: Better pay and bring overall awareness to.
1:02:23
Speaker 11: The sport in general is huge. And I do think
1:02:25
Speaker 11: that college prepared me for.
1:02:27
Speaker 12: That because I was well aware of what.
1:02:29
Speaker 11: It was going to take coming into pro softball, what
1:02:32
Speaker 11: it was going to take to you know, get a
1:02:36
Speaker 11: good enough salary to where I don't necessarily need a
1:02:38
Speaker 11: second job like some people do.
1:02:42
Speaker 2: So now, successful season, championship season, you can't really go
1:02:46
Speaker 2: up from here. But I know every athlete is always
1:02:48
Speaker 2: trying to improve. So as you've digested the year that
1:02:52
Speaker 2: just happened and you head into an off season, what's
1:02:55
Speaker 2: one thing you really want to improve on for next
1:02:57
Speaker 2: year where we hope to see you three pete with
1:03:00
Speaker 2: the talents.
1:03:02
Speaker 11: Yeah, I would love to improve on my power numbers.
1:03:06
Speaker 11: I from last year, I had a pretty kind of
1:03:10
Speaker 11: low season and then too this year it like double tripled,
1:03:15
Speaker 11: quadrupled my numbers. But I still feel like there's more
1:03:18
Speaker 11: left in the tank. And my job on a team
1:03:22
Speaker 11: as a power hitter is to hit extra base hits
1:03:25
Speaker 11: and home runs, and I feel like I got a
1:03:28
Speaker 11: lot of extra base hits in but I would love
1:03:29
Speaker 11: to get some more home runs under my belt. So
1:03:33
Speaker 11: just working on being on time and freeing up my
1:03:37
Speaker 11: mind in the box to allow me to get my
1:03:40
Speaker 11: swing off on every pitch. That'll that'll kind of take
1:03:43
Speaker 11: care of itself and the home runs will come.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: So yeah, right, I'm going to put you on the
1:03:47
Speaker 2: spot here Georgina Korik is going to join us next
1:03:51
Speaker 2: what what's a What's something I should ask her about that?
1:03:54
Speaker 1: It'll throw her off. She'd be like, how did you
1:03:55
Speaker 1: know that?
1:03:58
Speaker 9: Oof?
1:03:58
Speaker 11: Okay, So she plays softball basically year round. She plays
1:04:06
Speaker 11: in Japan, she plays in Australia.
1:04:09
Speaker 12: I don't know if she played in Mexico this year.
1:04:11
Speaker 11: And then she also plays for the Great Britain national team.
1:04:14
Speaker 11: And she's from Florida, like, doesn't have a British accent
1:04:18
Speaker 11: at all.
1:04:18
Speaker 13: You would never guess that.
1:04:20
Speaker 12: Her parents are from I think London, So like, I don't.
1:04:25
Speaker 11: Know something along the lines of Great Britain. She'd be like,
1:04:29
Speaker 11: why where is that coming from?
1:04:31
Speaker 1: That is, yes, I'm random, That's exactly what I was
1:04:34
Speaker 1: looking for. You're the best. Thank you for giving us
1:04:36
Speaker 1: that little tidbit.
1:04:37
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on the show obviously, congrats and
1:04:40
Speaker 2: all the success, and we hope to see you back
1:04:42
Speaker 2: in the Talents uniform next year.
1:04:45
Speaker 11: Yeah, of course, so great talking with you.
1:04:47
Speaker 2: That's bre Ellis Championship Infielder for the Utah Talents and
1:04:54
Speaker 2: we roll right from a an infielder conversation to one
1:04:58
Speaker 2: with Utah Talents pitcher Georgina Kork who joins us now. Georgina,
1:05:02
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
1:05:03
Speaker 1: How are you great?
1:05:05
Speaker 10: Thank you?
1:05:05
Speaker 1: How are you guys doing all right?
1:05:07
Speaker 2: We just had a conversation with Brie Ellis, and I'm
1:05:10
Speaker 2: going to start with the same question I asked her
1:05:12
Speaker 2: right off the top champions over the weekend. You win
1:05:16
Speaker 2: this championship, You've had a few days to digest it
1:05:19
Speaker 2: as it settled in. Give me a sense of your
1:05:22
Speaker 2: feelings right now, the accomplishment of taking down a league championship,
1:05:26
Speaker 2: the first time Utah has its own professional team.
1:05:30
Speaker 10: Oh gosh. I don't know what Brie had to say.
1:05:33
Speaker 10: She usually is a better wordsmith than I am. It
1:05:36
Speaker 10: still kind of feels dreamlike. It's one of those things
1:05:40
Speaker 10: where like the season was really really fast paced. I
1:05:43
Speaker 10: know the fans had like insane accessibility to us as
1:05:46
Speaker 10: a team if you wanted to tune in on TV.
1:05:49
Speaker 10: I think there was an AUSL game on every single
1:05:52
Speaker 10: day from the start of season. So for us as
1:05:54
Speaker 10: the athletes, it kind of felt like we just like
1:05:56
Speaker 10: kept rolling and we didn't really stopped. So I still
1:05:59
Speaker 10: keep kind of like waiting up in a little bit
1:06:01
Speaker 10: of a panic, worrying if coach Leee is going to
1:06:03
Speaker 10: call me for a practice or if I'm starting today.
1:06:05
Speaker 10: It hasn't really set in yet that we've won the
1:06:08
Speaker 10: whole thing and that I get to have a little
1:06:10
Speaker 10: bit of downtime.
1:06:11
Speaker 2: What's your favorite pitch? What's your best pitch?
1:06:15
Speaker 11: Oh gosh, I think.
1:06:15
Speaker 10: If you watched any of our stuff, you know I'm
1:06:17
Speaker 10: a change up guy. In college, I was all about
1:06:20
Speaker 10: the rise everybody in this league. I'm sure we've seen
1:06:24
Speaker 10: some of brief swings. She can hit that change up
1:06:27
Speaker 10: very very far or that ride ball very far. So
1:06:30
Speaker 10: a lot of my strength, I would say, is the
1:06:32
Speaker 10: ability to change speat and put a change up anywhere.
1:06:34
Speaker 6: That I want it.
1:06:36
Speaker 2: So a lot of people that are listening to this
1:06:39
Speaker 2: show probably played baseball growing up. I played baseball growing up,
1:06:43
Speaker 2: and softball is awesome. The most fascinating thing about it
1:06:47
Speaker 2: for me is the pitching, is the variance of pitches.
1:06:51
Speaker 2: A rise ball effectively doesn't exist in baseball, right, and
1:06:55
Speaker 2: so it's just like it's so it's so fascinating. And
1:06:59
Speaker 2: when you're in when you're in baseball, right, a lot
1:07:02
Speaker 2: of times they don't let you throw breaking balls.
1:07:03
Speaker 1: Do you get to a certain age.
1:07:05
Speaker 2: They don't want you to mess up your arm, and
1:07:06
Speaker 2: then you do invariably mess up your arm anyway, and
1:07:09
Speaker 2: you gotta have Tommy John surgery before you become a pro.
1:07:11
Speaker 2: And it's all this like craziness. Walk me through like
1:07:15
Speaker 2: that process in softball. Is it the same thing where
1:07:18
Speaker 2: when you're young, you're throwing pretty basic stuff and you
1:07:20
Speaker 2: add more to your repertoise you get a little bit older.
1:07:23
Speaker 2: Is there a ubiquitous Tommy John type surgery that a
1:07:27
Speaker 2: lot of softball pitchers have to get.
1:07:30
Speaker 10: I think, actually, surprisingly the injury that softball pitchers have
1:07:34
Speaker 10: to worry about the most is our lower botder injury.
1:07:37
Speaker 10: We get a lot of I personally had a miniscus tear.
1:07:40
Speaker 10: We get a lot of atls, MTLs, you get the trifecta,
1:07:42
Speaker 10: the terrible all three. I think for us, because baseball
1:07:47
Speaker 10: is so top heavy, you get a little bit more
1:07:50
Speaker 10: strain and wear and tear on the shoulder and on
1:07:53
Speaker 10: the arm. For softball, a lot of us start from
1:07:55
Speaker 10: the ground. I know myself. I've done a lot of
1:07:58
Speaker 10: collegiate coaching. I've done a lot of youth coaching. I'm
1:08:01
Speaker 10: very big on I won't teach you another pitch until
1:08:03
Speaker 10: I feel really strong on your fastball mechanics, because that's
1:08:06
Speaker 10: going to be your basis for everything that you do,
1:08:08
Speaker 10: and then I'm going to try and build off of that.
1:08:10
Speaker 10: But if I don't feel confident in your ability to
1:08:13
Speaker 10: use your legs, keep them underneath you come off the
1:08:16
Speaker 10: mound correctly, and get your arm in the right kind
1:08:18
Speaker 10: of arm paths and armslots that I like. I don't
1:08:21
Speaker 10: feel comfortable usually teaching a lot of pitches. But if
1:08:25
Speaker 10: you've ever like tuned in and watched any of the
1:08:27
Speaker 10: softball in from the pitching side of things, there are
1:08:29
Speaker 10: so many amazing ways to throw. And if you were
1:08:33
Speaker 10: watching the championship game, you would have watched five pitchers throw,
1:08:36
Speaker 10: and all five of them had pretty strong stylistic differences
1:08:40
Speaker 10: across the board. So pitching for me is really interesting
1:08:42
Speaker 10: because even though my job is to make the ball
1:08:45
Speaker 10: go up, down, left and right, all of us do
1:08:47
Speaker 10: it a little bit differently. And I think that's what
1:08:49
Speaker 10: separates us at kind of a professional level is taking
1:08:52
Speaker 10: that and knowing that what our strength is is what
1:08:54
Speaker 10: our strength is, and being able to lean hard into that.
1:08:57
Speaker 10: Because I definitely didn't even start running breaking pitches until
1:09:00
Speaker 10: I was fourteen, I would want to say, and I
1:09:02
Speaker 10: started pitching when I was around ten.
1:09:06
Speaker 2: Georgiana Corey is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell show.
1:09:09
Speaker 2: Utah Talons pitcher coming off a championship season. First season
1:09:13
Speaker 2: obviously that the Talons were resident here in Utah at
1:09:17
Speaker 2: the University of Utah the Dunky Family Stadium. Georgina, tell
1:09:21
Speaker 2: me what that was like for you. I don't know
1:09:23
Speaker 2: if you had a lot of awareness or had been
1:09:25
Speaker 2: to Utah a bunch before joining this team, but it
1:09:29
Speaker 2: seems like the community did a good job of embracing
1:09:31
Speaker 2: all of you and supporting throughout the season.
1:09:35
Speaker 10: Oh my god, I couldn't have asked for a better crowd.
1:09:37
Speaker 10: I know we got a little bit of a teaser
1:09:40
Speaker 10: about how amazing Utah look last year when we were
1:09:42
Speaker 10: on a bit more of a traveling schedule. I'm from Florida.
1:09:45
Speaker 10: I'm looking out on the water right now. It's pretty flat.
1:09:48
Speaker 10: We've got a little with the storms or whatever. But
1:09:50
Speaker 10: I had never ever ever seen mountains the way that
1:09:52
Speaker 10: I've seen them in Utah. I thought it was incredible
1:09:55
Speaker 10: that you're sitting on the field and you can see
1:09:57
Speaker 10: these beautiful mountains behind right field, and as you're traveling around,
1:10:02
Speaker 10: just the entire kind of city in the entire campus
1:10:04
Speaker 10: being built into this really gorgeous mountain range was incredible.
1:10:08
Speaker 10: The people with Utah were amazing. I joined about halfway
1:10:11
Speaker 10: through the season, coming in off with SMA Japanese Diamond
1:10:14
Speaker 10: Lake experience. But I was welcome in like I was
1:10:18
Speaker 10: one of them.
1:10:19
Speaker 11: You know.
1:10:19
Speaker 10: I couldn't have been more thankful for the crowds that
1:10:21
Speaker 10: we had and the location that it was. It's definitely
1:10:24
Speaker 10: a picture's part too. The air is a little bit
1:10:26
Speaker 10: thinner there. It's hard to get a ball out. So
1:10:28
Speaker 10: I was very very partial to Utah, and I thought
1:10:30
Speaker 10: it's absolutely beautiful. I could not have chosen a better
1:10:33
Speaker 10: place for us to call home.
1:10:35
Speaker 2: Can we talk about your international duties as well? Because
1:10:38
Speaker 2: Bree just mentioned this to us. I was like, I
1:10:40
Speaker 2: was like, give me something, give me something I need
1:10:43
Speaker 2: to ask Georgina about and she was like, she plays
1:10:45
Speaker 2: softball all year round. She plays all over the world.
1:10:49
Speaker 2: You don't like an off season. You don't want to
1:10:50
Speaker 2: give your arm when your legs arrest? Ever, what's the deal?
1:10:54
Speaker 10: Goodness? No, if I ever stopped going, I don't know
1:10:56
Speaker 10: what would happen. I think I'd forget how to pitch entirely.
1:10:59
Speaker 10: I loved I obviously tuned in at the last second
1:11:02
Speaker 10: for your call and I got to hear breeze like
1:11:04
Speaker 10: wiki how of what I do? But it's really cool.
1:11:08
Speaker 10: I've been playing internationally for a long time. Both my
1:11:11
Speaker 10: parents were born in the UK, raised in the UK.
1:11:14
Speaker 10: I was born there, and then I think I was
1:11:16
Speaker 10: probably I believe it was twenty thirteen when I first
1:11:19
Speaker 10: joined the Great Britain national team, and I've played for
1:11:21
Speaker 10: them ever since. So ever since I was a wee
1:11:24
Speaker 10: little tight, I have been playing overseas, taking the summers
1:11:27
Speaker 10: and going playing to my national team over there, and
1:11:30
Speaker 10: then once I graduated from college, the Japanese Diamond League
1:11:33
Speaker 10: is kind of the krem Dela creme of professional softball.
1:11:37
Speaker 10: AU was just kind of getting its seat. Went in
1:11:39
Speaker 10: the professional softball year, COVID was still a thing going on,
1:11:43
Speaker 10: so people were really sure how that was going to
1:11:45
Speaker 10: kind of manipulate the dynamic of professional softball. So when
1:11:49
Speaker 10: I got the opportunity to go play overseas in Japan,
1:11:52
Speaker 10: I took it immediately. And that season is a seven
1:11:55
Speaker 10: month season. There's a spring and a fall. So I
1:11:58
Speaker 10: usually go and join my Japanese team the first week
1:12:01
Speaker 10: of March, and I stay out there until the middle
1:12:03
Speaker 10: of June, and then right after our All Star Cup
1:12:06
Speaker 10: finishes in Chicago, I'm going to fly right back out
1:12:08
Speaker 10: and rejoin my Japanese team, and that will run September
1:12:11
Speaker 10: through maybe even November. It's a long season and I
1:12:16
Speaker 10: wouldn't really change it for anything, especially as a picture.
1:12:18
Speaker 10: I mean, I need to if I want to be
1:12:21
Speaker 10: a picture, I have to throw pitches. I can't just
1:12:23
Speaker 10: work in the cages or throw to a plastic dummy.
1:12:26
Speaker 10: I need to throw against real life batters. And that's
1:12:29
Speaker 10: always been something that I've like one hundred percent advocated
1:12:31
Speaker 10: for and believed my entire life. Is if you want
1:12:34
Speaker 10: to compete, you have to compete.
1:12:36
Speaker 1: How much Japanese do you speak.
1:12:40
Speaker 10: Though you know a little bit?
1:12:42
Speaker 2: Uh.
1:12:42
Speaker 10: It's my third year there now, so a lot of
1:12:45
Speaker 10: it is uh. It's kind of survival of the fittest
1:12:47
Speaker 10: to either pick it up or you, uh, you don't
1:12:49
Speaker 10: quite make it and survive out there. So a lot
1:12:51
Speaker 10: of my days I go out. I used to live
1:12:53
Speaker 10: in Tokyo. I live a little bit closer to Kyoto now,
1:12:55
Speaker 10: but I go out there and I try and speak
1:12:57
Speaker 10: to my neighbors. I try to talk to my local
1:13:00
Speaker 10: coffee guy in Japanese. They usually look at me a
1:13:02
Speaker 10: little funny because they're English. Is better than my Japanese?
1:13:06
Speaker 10: Not that picked up a little bit.
1:13:07
Speaker 2: That's incredible, h Is your parents are from the UK?
1:13:12
Speaker 2: Is there a real I mean member of the national team.
1:13:15
Speaker 2: So obviously there's some softball there. But like when you
1:13:19
Speaker 2: guys came over to the United States where your parents
1:13:21
Speaker 2: are like, yeah, you're definitely going to be playing softball
1:13:24
Speaker 2: or is this just something that became a part of
1:13:26
Speaker 2: the family because of you.
1:13:28
Speaker 10: I think it's definitely your parents kind of fall in
1:13:32
Speaker 10: love with things through you, and softball has definitely been
1:13:35
Speaker 10: that for me. You know, my dad, obviously, I'm sure
1:13:38
Speaker 10: many of us were following the the insane England run
1:13:41
Speaker 10: in the World Cup this year, Like he's been a
1:13:43
Speaker 10: football guy. He's been a soccer guy his whole life.
1:13:45
Speaker 10: So that was my first four and he tried a
1:13:47
Speaker 10: little bit of everything just to kind of like get
1:13:49
Speaker 10: me out of the house. And you know, you're a
1:13:51
Speaker 10: little kid, you're bouncing off the walls. They just wanted
1:13:53
Speaker 10: me to put my energy somewhere else for goodness sake.
1:13:57
Speaker 10: And I think we ended up seeing a softball ad
1:13:59
Speaker 10: in the paper and my dad took me to a
1:14:01
Speaker 10: tryout and I loved it. He went and got me
1:14:04
Speaker 10: like the hot pink foam bat that used to sell
1:14:06
Speaker 10: at Walmart and the little fall ball, and I like
1:14:09
Speaker 10: remember us standing out in the backyard and him like
1:14:12
Speaker 10: throwing the ball to me, and me just like hitting
1:14:14
Speaker 10: them as far as I could imagine hitting the ball
1:14:17
Speaker 10: when I was that little. And he would sit in
1:14:20
Speaker 10: his office sometimes and he would like pull up old
1:14:22
Speaker 10: videos on YouTube of Jimmy Fitch pitching or Crystal Blusso's batting,
1:14:27
Speaker 10: and we would sit there together in his office. We
1:14:29
Speaker 10: would do softball homework and he would make me sit
1:14:31
Speaker 10: there and watch like YouTube video after YouTube video softball
1:14:35
Speaker 10: because I just I loved it so much. So I
1:14:37
Speaker 10: thought it was really fun and interesting that it was
1:14:40
Speaker 10: a sport that he didn't really know too much about baseball, definitely.
1:14:43
Speaker 11: Not really sing.
1:14:44
Speaker 10: In the UK, softball is a very developing sport. Ever
1:14:47
Speaker 10: since I started in twenty thirteen, we've been a little
1:14:50
Speaker 10: bit on the climb, but we're a small island, We're
1:14:52
Speaker 10: a small country. It's hard to find a lot of
1:14:54
Speaker 10: softball players there that aren't currently playing cricket or slow pitch.
1:14:58
Speaker 10: And just being able to see my parent it's kind
1:15:00
Speaker 10: of fall in love at the sport through watching me
1:15:02
Speaker 10: and taking me to all my lessons and my practices
1:15:05
Speaker 10: and everything has been really cool because now you can't
1:15:07
Speaker 10: see it, but I've got like paraphernalia all on the walls,
1:15:11
Speaker 10: like my jerseys and any of the things that they
1:15:13
Speaker 10: like hang out because they are proud of it, or
1:15:15
Speaker 10: I've done something cool and they like to post it
1:15:17
Speaker 10: on their Facebook. It's really cute, I think to see
1:15:20
Speaker 10: your parents fall in love with something because they love
1:15:22
Speaker 10: you so much that they kind of can't get away
1:15:24
Speaker 10: from soll phone now it's going to be in their
1:15:26
Speaker 10: lives forever.
1:15:27
Speaker 2: The last thing before I let you go, because you
1:15:30
Speaker 2: have that international experience and you've been over in Japan
1:15:33
Speaker 2: with a little bit more of an established league is
1:15:37
Speaker 2: athletes unlimited on the right track. Is this something that
1:15:40
Speaker 2: you can see having a permanent foothold in American sport?
1:15:46
Speaker 10: I really hope so I grew up watching and I've
1:15:49
Speaker 10: name dropped them a couple of times, like the Jenny
1:15:51
Speaker 10: Pinches and Natasha Wattley's The cat Austromans of the World.
1:15:54
Speaker 10: They played in the MPs, which was the first professional
1:15:57
Speaker 10: league that I knew of when I was younger. I
1:16:00
Speaker 10: remember just growing up and wanting to be them so bad.
1:16:02
Speaker 10: I went to a Pride game, I bought the Jenny
1:16:05
Speaker 10: Finch gloves and I'd like tossed it down to her
1:16:07
Speaker 10: since she can sign it. And I remember being a
1:16:10
Speaker 10: little girl and all I wanted to do was be
1:16:12
Speaker 10: just like them. And I think as I got older
1:16:15
Speaker 10: and there was a little bit of collapse with the MPF,
1:16:18
Speaker 10: they weren't getting the interest that they needed, they weren't
1:16:20
Speaker 10: getting the financial backing. I remember being in college and
1:16:24
Speaker 10: really just focusing on my academic career because I didn't
1:16:27
Speaker 10: think the softball was really going to be an opportunity
1:16:30
Speaker 10: for me post graduation. And so when Athletes Unlimited kind
1:16:34
Speaker 10: of launched in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, I remember getting
1:16:38
Speaker 10: really really excited because it felt like it was the
1:16:42
Speaker 10: start of something new and it had some really strong backing.
1:16:45
Speaker 10: And then when I was drafted out of my senior
1:16:47
Speaker 10: year and I went and played for them the first time.
1:16:51
Speaker 10: I felt like a professional. They took really good care
1:16:55
Speaker 10: of us. Sam Fisher was still kind of at the
1:16:57
Speaker 10: helm of that, and she did such a great job
1:16:58
Speaker 10: of kind of leading it from the athlete side. And
1:17:01
Speaker 10: now seeing what Kim Ng as our commissioner, has been
1:17:04
Speaker 10: able to do to partnership with m Wilb, then putting
1:17:07
Speaker 10: financial investment into us, in what ESPN has been able
1:17:10
Speaker 10: to do, us being the first ever professional softball game
1:17:14
Speaker 10: on television with ABC with like, you know, that's unreal.
1:17:19
Speaker 10: In my mind, I still can't quite wrap my head
1:17:21
Speaker 10: around the fact of it's only been seven years since
1:17:26
Speaker 10: the launch of this league and just the investment that
1:17:29
Speaker 10: we have seen so far, whether you're talking about the
1:17:31
Speaker 10: community in Utah and like how incredible they've been welcoming
1:17:34
Speaker 10: to us as kind of a home team, or the
1:17:37
Speaker 10: hundreds of girls that we'll see at the end of
1:17:40
Speaker 10: each of our games and we're all sitting there signing
1:17:42
Speaker 10: autographs and I distinctly remember being in their shoes and
1:17:46
Speaker 10: looking up to somebody and being like, Wow, I cannot
1:17:49
Speaker 10: wait to be you. So I think every single year
1:17:52
Speaker 10: that Athletes Unlimited has been able to continue growing and
1:17:55
Speaker 10: expanding into these communities and offering opportunities and visibilities for
1:17:59
Speaker 10: young athletes as well as people who just enjoy the
1:18:02
Speaker 10: sport and enjoy the game. You know, not everybody who
1:18:04
Speaker 10: goes to an MLB game wants to be a professional
1:18:06
Speaker 10: baseball player, but they love watching the game, and so
1:18:09
Speaker 10: us offering those opportunities on both sides of the coin.
1:18:12
Speaker 10: I think that's been really important for AU and it
1:18:14
Speaker 10: has allowed us to expand and reach audiences we have before.
1:18:18
Speaker 10: And I don't know, I'm very, very proud to be
1:18:20
Speaker 10: a part of it. Even if my career ends up
1:18:22
Speaker 10: kind of like finishing while this is still on an
1:18:24
Speaker 10: upward time, it will have been really cool to it's
1:18:26
Speaker 10: been a part of something that feels transformational.
1:18:29
Speaker 13: For our sports.
1:18:30
Speaker 2: Well, congrats on the championship, congrats and all the other success.
1:18:34
Speaker 2: Thank you for the information and the time and the inside.
1:18:37
Speaker 2: It's really been fun to learn a little bit more
1:18:40
Speaker 2: and we're on board. We're going to be trying to
1:18:43
Speaker 2: pump up this AUSL as much as we can, so
1:18:45
Speaker 2: thank you for your time.
1:18:47
Speaker 10: Of course, and thank you. We'll be trying to keep
1:18:49
Speaker 10: winning things and make it interesting for you guys.
1:18:51
Speaker 2: That's Georgina kork Utah Tallon's pitcher. One more talent is
1:18:56
Speaker 2: going to join us, and she happens to be the
1:18:58
Speaker 2: MVP of the Championship Series. Jadlen Alchin is next. A
1:19:02
Speaker 2: reminder before we get to the break that the Road
1:19:05
Speaker 2: Home Apple Tree is live right now. You can help
1:19:07
Speaker 2: you tak kids start school with a little bit of
1:19:10
Speaker 2: extra confidence. There's two hundred ish kids at the Road
1:19:14
Speaker 2: Home right now and they need your help to get
1:19:16
Speaker 2: to back to school. Close shoes, backpacks, and more. Your
1:19:20
Speaker 2: kids are going back to school and you're probably getting
1:19:22
Speaker 2: them the best that you can get them.
1:19:25
Speaker 1: These kids deserve that too.
1:19:26
Speaker 2: Just because their families have fallen on hard times and
1:19:28
Speaker 2: are getting back on their feet with the Road Home
1:19:30
Speaker 2: doesn't mean the kids should have to suffer for it,
1:19:32
Speaker 2: So you TuS. Number one Sports Talk invites you to
1:19:35
Speaker 2: be a child's advocate AppleTree for Kids dot com or
1:19:39
Speaker 2: more details at ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. You
1:19:42
Speaker 2: can find information you can donate there. They will take
1:19:44
Speaker 2: donations of clothes, shoes, backpacks, and more. Let's get these
1:19:49
Speaker 2: kids going back to school looking right more importantly feeling
1:19:52
Speaker 2: right and excited to be back in school with their peers.
1:19:56
Speaker 1: Jadlen Alchin.
1:19:57
Speaker 2: Next on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven ninety two one.
1:20:04
Speaker 10: Another one.
1:20:05
Speaker 12: That's the test.
1:20:06
Speaker 9: You were listening to the Sean O'Connell's show, your source
1:20:09
Speaker 9: for the best youthes football cover reach. Here's oc from
1:20:13
Speaker 9: the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred at ninety
1:20:17
Speaker 9: two to one a f M.
1:20:20
Speaker 2: All right, we're gonna effort. Jadaln Alcin. Utah Talons out
1:20:24
Speaker 2: outfielder who actually won MVP of the Championship Series. As
1:20:29
Speaker 2: of course, the Utah Talents they go back to back, well,
1:20:32
Speaker 2: the talents go back to back. The Utah Talents win
1:20:34
Speaker 2: their first championship as residents of Salt Lake City. The
1:20:39
Speaker 2: home field is up there at the Donkey. If you
1:20:40
Speaker 2: didn't get a chance to get out there this year,
1:20:42
Speaker 2: hopefully you can do it next year. You've got champs again,
1:20:46
Speaker 2: and last year the championship rings were pretty sweet. Hopefully
1:20:48
Speaker 2: this year just as good or twice as good. Get
1:20:52
Speaker 2: it because back to back championships. We might have had
1:20:55
Speaker 2: a little miscommunication with the timing on Jaydaln so maybe
1:20:59
Speaker 2: she joins us, maybe she didn't. We're gonna start. We're
1:21:05
Speaker 2: gonna start the Daily Dump. Okay, I'm gonna do that.
1:21:08
Speaker 2: And if she can join us, great, If not, also fine.
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Speaker 2: Valley Plumbing, heating and Cooling gives you the Daily Dump
1:21:14
Speaker 2: every single day. A collection of stories in and around
1:21:17
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1:21:45
Speaker 2: This is one of the great things. James put it
1:21:47
Speaker 2: in his update. This is one of the great things
1:21:49
Speaker 2: slash terrible things that you're gonna find in in college
1:21:53
Speaker 2: football right now. So Tennessee has like a lot of people,
1:22:01
Speaker 2: a lot of teams in the SEC and a lot
1:22:03
Speaker 2: of teams around college football. They have players that are
1:22:09
Speaker 2: going to every single year explore their opportunities for the
1:22:16
Speaker 2: NFL draft. Right, they're going to go through a pre
1:22:19
Speaker 2: draft process. They're going to go work out with somebody
1:22:22
Speaker 2: who knows they're going to talk to an agent. Now
1:22:24
Speaker 2: you can have agents in college football, so at least
1:22:27
Speaker 2: that layer of the onion has been removed. There's a
1:22:30
Speaker 2: Tennessee linebacker named Arian Carter who just got handed a
1:22:33
Speaker 2: two game suspension for the NCAA because he accepted a
1:22:37
Speaker 2: flight paid for by an NFL agent. He was going
1:22:43
Speaker 2: to maybe declare for the NFL, so he signed with representation,
1:22:49
Speaker 2: which used to be immediately a disqualifier. You're out, you
1:22:54
Speaker 2: no longer have eligibility. Not the case anymore. All of
1:23:00
Speaker 2: these guys have agents. But because this was paid for
1:23:03
Speaker 2: by an NFL agent, not a registered NIL agent in
1:23:07
Speaker 2: NCAA football, the NCAA is like aha a violation four
1:23:14
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty seven dollars for this plane ticket, four
1:23:21
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty seven dollars When you're having players on
1:23:27
Speaker 2: his very team paid literal millions by NIL agreements, by
1:23:36
Speaker 2: random boosters, by revenue share, the four hundred and twenty
1:23:40
Speaker 2: seven dollars plane ticket was deemed an impermissible benefit because
1:23:45
Speaker 2: of who paid for it. So that is grounds for
1:23:49
Speaker 2: the NCAA to suspend this young man for two games.
1:23:53
Speaker 2: He decided not to enter the NFL, and he is
1:23:56
Speaker 2: back with Tennessee and he is going to he's gonna
1:24:00
Speaker 2: play this season, but apparently he's gonna miss two games.
1:24:05
Speaker 2: They initially NCAA initially wanted it to be a three
1:24:07
Speaker 2: game suspension.
1:24:10
Speaker 1: This is the guy.
1:24:11
Speaker 2: Arion Carter is the one of the defensive players that
1:24:14
Speaker 2: Tennessee brought down to SEC media days. He's expected, obviously
1:24:17
Speaker 2: to be a great player for them. If he's a
1:24:19
Speaker 2: guy who's flirting with the NFL, he's he's an above
1:24:22
Speaker 2: average college football player, and he's coming off an injury
1:24:26
Speaker 2: this year. But look, the NCAA, just in cases like this,
1:24:33
Speaker 2: just take the four hundred and twenty seven dollars l
1:24:37
Speaker 2: It's nothing. It's the tiniest drop in the tiniest bucket.
1:24:44
Speaker 2: It's only an embarrassment when you try to enforce this,
1:24:46
Speaker 2: it only makes you look bad. There is no positive
1:24:49
Speaker 2: outcome for the nc DOUBLEA none. So I was listening
1:24:54
Speaker 2: to as I've mentioned it, I should get Pablo Torri
1:24:58
Speaker 2: needs to pay me at this point at times. But
1:25:03
Speaker 2: he had a Demorris Smith on the show, former NFL
1:25:10
Speaker 2: Players Union executive director, the head.
1:25:12
Speaker 1: Of the union.
1:25:12
Speaker 2: There for a really long time. They were talking about
1:25:16
Speaker 2: the latest with the Kawhi Leonards stuff, which, by the way,
1:25:19
Speaker 2: come on, NBA, let's get a resolution here. But he
1:25:22
Speaker 2: they were talking about that and one of the things
1:25:24
Speaker 2: that he brought up a perspective that he brought up
1:25:26
Speaker 2: that I had not considered that I think relates to
1:25:30
Speaker 2: the reasoning behind the NCBLA trying to enforce a silly
1:25:36
Speaker 2: thing like this is he said. He brought up the
1:25:39
Speaker 2: bounty gate. You remember New Orleans Saints. Yes, okay, how
1:25:42
Speaker 2: are they connected? Makes no intuitive sense?
1:25:44
Speaker 6: Right?
1:25:45
Speaker 1: He said?
1:25:46
Speaker 2: That was, yes, a terrible scandal for the for the
1:25:52
Speaker 2: players and for and for New Orleans Saints in that
1:25:55
Speaker 2: like you're paying people to take people's heads off, right,
1:25:58
Speaker 2: to hit it, to knock the snot out of them.
1:25:59
Speaker 2: That's a that's a terrible player safety thing. But on
1:26:02
Speaker 2: the other side of the thing, it's also technically salary
1:26:06
Speaker 2: cap circumvention.
1:26:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it would be.
1:26:09
Speaker 2: And so he brings he brought that up to say,
1:26:12
Speaker 2: we went after we filed grievances all the time against
1:26:16
Speaker 2: the NFL, because we needed to. We were parties in
1:26:19
Speaker 2: the CBA. As much as it seemed like the owners
1:26:22
Speaker 2: were the collective bargaining agreement and we're the players, we
1:26:26
Speaker 2: were as much as the owners were parties in the CBA,
1:26:29
Speaker 2: So we needed to. If we weren't gonna try to
1:26:32
Speaker 2: enforce the CBA and the owners were, we're going we're
1:26:35
Speaker 2: circumventing it. One of those two has to always try
1:26:38
Speaker 2: to enforce the CBA, or we have other chaos.
1:26:41
Speaker 1: Okay, And I think that that still do I think
1:26:44
Speaker 1: that I think that that is.
1:26:46
Speaker 2: I think that this is the NCAA saying, yeah, this
1:26:49
Speaker 2: is technically something we like, why why should we care
1:26:52
Speaker 2: about four hundred and twenty seven dollars?
1:26:54
Speaker 1: But also, we're in a state of other chaos here.
1:26:58
Speaker 1: We have to try to enforce some rules.
1:27:01
Speaker 2: As silly as that is, maybe that's the reasoning behind
1:27:04
Speaker 2: them saying we we gotta get we gotta get them
1:27:06
Speaker 2: with something here. And if four hundred and twenty seven
1:27:09
Speaker 2: dollars technically illegal flight technically illegal benefit, which I'm not
1:27:14
Speaker 2: sure how it's an illegal benefit with with the state
1:27:16
Speaker 2: of things we have now, that's all we can enforce.
1:27:19
Speaker 1: Enforce. We're gonna try to enforce that.
1:27:22
Speaker 2: It's like if your house is on fire and so
1:27:25
Speaker 2: you put the hose on your mailbox.
1:27:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, just it's dumb. It is, It is really dumb.
1:27:32
Speaker 1: I just I wanted to break up that perspective.
1:27:34
Speaker 2: Is like, hey, well maybe that's why leagues and I
1:27:37
Speaker 2: feel like unions doce try to enforce silly things. You
1:27:41
Speaker 2: have to jump through that level of hoop to to
1:27:44
Speaker 2: make to make it make sense. Then it's by itself,
1:27:47
Speaker 2: it's not worth the effort. So Tennessee's gonna win this case.
1:27:50
Speaker 2: By the way, he's not gonna serve a two game
1:27:52
Speaker 2: suspension and the four hundred and twenty seven dollars has
1:27:55
Speaker 2: already been paid back to the agent because it's four
1:27:58
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty seven dollars, So.
1:27:59
Speaker 1: Who can this one?
1:28:01
Speaker 2: This next story in the Daily Dump is maybe the
1:28:05
Speaker 2: most relatable thing in the world for me, and I'm
1:28:08
Speaker 2: so it's it's it's not really a sport sport, right,
1:28:11
Speaker 2: but hiking is a sports adjacent activity. Being out in
1:28:15
Speaker 2: nature on a mountain, climbing things, that's a that's sports adjacent, right.
1:28:20
Speaker 2: This is one of the wildest stories of frugality that
1:28:24
Speaker 2: you're ever going to hear. I am a notorious but
1:28:28
Speaker 2: proud cheap skate, Okay. I don't want to pay for
1:28:30
Speaker 2: anything if I can avoid it. And because of that,
1:28:35
Speaker 2: I feel like this David Sofaldi, who are about to
1:28:37
Speaker 2: talk about, is my kind of guy. So there's a
1:28:41
Speaker 2: place called Granite Peak up in Billings, Montana. It's like
1:28:45
Speaker 2: they're Mount Olympus. Okay, twelve eight hundred foot mountain, tallest
1:28:51
Speaker 2: mountain in the state. He was hiking up with a
1:28:56
Speaker 2: group ten miles in to a challengeing a scent.
1:29:01
Speaker 1: All right.
1:29:02
Speaker 2: He had those hiking poles, you know the ones they
1:29:05
Speaker 2: look like ski poles. Yeah, stumbled, fell and tragically, very unfortunately,
1:29:14
Speaker 2: one of his poles pierced his torso went through his body. Now,
1:29:22
Speaker 2: it went through his body kind of like on the
1:29:26
Speaker 2: outside of his rib cage, I mean, under the skin
1:29:28
Speaker 2: and the soft tissue.
1:29:30
Speaker 1: The muscle scraped along the rib exited out the back.
1:29:35
Speaker 2: It's like it's like when you're playing you're play fighting
1:29:38
Speaker 2: with swords and you and you're pretending to be stabbed
1:29:40
Speaker 2: and you grab it with your elbow, except you actually
1:29:44
Speaker 2: you got some it actually did pierce you on the
1:29:47
Speaker 2: on the side of your your body there so actually
1:29:50
Speaker 2: goes in.
1:29:50
Speaker 1: Ah no terrible impaling injuries.
1:29:54
Speaker 11: Whah.
1:29:55
Speaker 1: I don't want to even think about that.
1:29:57
Speaker 2: But so this, luckily, David Sofaldi is a nurse okay
1:30:02
Speaker 2: by profession, emergency room nurse, so like, I have to
1:30:06
Speaker 2: deal with this kind of freak stuff out of a
1:30:09
Speaker 2: regular basis, probably more often than he wants to write,
1:30:13
Speaker 2: and kind of new Okay, what do I need to assess?
1:30:15
Speaker 2: Did this pierce my lung? Am I suffering any kind
1:30:18
Speaker 2: of internal damage?
1:30:20
Speaker 13: Here?
1:30:20
Speaker 1: Took some deep breaths and was like, Okay, it hurts,
1:30:23
Speaker 1: but my lungs are filling up. I'm fine.
1:30:26
Speaker 2: Right, realized that it was an entrance and exit wound,
1:30:32
Speaker 2: and relatively quickly deduced that this had just basically gone
1:30:37
Speaker 2: through his skin and then exited out of his latissimus
1:30:42
Speaker 2: door site his lap muscle. Right, so it's a it's
1:30:46
Speaker 2: an internal injury that didn't touch any organs or any vitals.
1:30:51
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:30:52
Speaker 2: Now, remember he's up a mountain right now. He's with
1:30:56
Speaker 2: a group of friends, they're all hiking. He's a nurse, ANCESAAFH.
1:31:00
Speaker 2: He's with people that he knows closely. Maybe there's a
1:31:03
Speaker 2: doctor or two with him.
1:31:03
Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't see that in the article.
1:31:05
Speaker 2: But after a little self assessment of the severity of
1:31:09
Speaker 2: this injury, he decides, I don't need medovac. I'm not
1:31:13
Speaker 2: gonna call nine one one. We're not gonna try to
1:31:15
Speaker 2: radio down the mountain because I don't want to have
1:31:18
Speaker 2: to pay for a helicopter rescue. That's the only way
1:31:20
Speaker 2: you can get somebody out in a situation like that.
1:31:23
Speaker 2: So he's like, I'm not paying for helicopter rescue. Let's
1:31:26
Speaker 2: just turn around and walk back. They are ten miles
1:31:29
Speaker 2: into this hike. He's now got. I mean, there's a
1:31:34
Speaker 2: picture of it. It's it's a pole sticking through his body.
1:31:42
Speaker 2: There's no other way to describe it. It goes in
1:31:44
Speaker 2: under the skin, it's under there for probably about a foot,
1:31:48
Speaker 2: and then it pops out on the other side. It's
1:31:51
Speaker 2: like putting a needle through Like felt like that's what
1:31:54
Speaker 2: it looks like. It is so unnerving, being like I'm
1:31:59
Speaker 2: used to seeing something like that, but not on someone's
1:32:02
Speaker 2: body unless it's like a little piercing. So this this
1:32:07
Speaker 2: frugal badass spends the next six and a half hours
1:32:13
Speaker 2: trekking back down this glacier laden, rock fall covered mountain.
1:32:21
Speaker 2: It's like Timpanogus. It's a relatively challenging hike. It's hazardous.
1:32:25
Speaker 2: There's places where you gotta make sure you're doing okay.
1:32:28
Speaker 2: While he's got a pole sticking out the front and
1:32:31
Speaker 2: out the back of him, and he makes it.
1:32:36
Speaker 1: He's fine. His friends they get to a.
1:32:38
Speaker 2: Point where, like they realize he's not gonna die. Nobody's
1:32:41
Speaker 2: panicking anymore. They're six and a half hours into a hike.
1:32:44
Speaker 2: Apparently they're making they're making shish kebab jokes about him.
1:32:48
Speaker 2: He even had the presence of mind. Once they got
1:32:51
Speaker 2: to a more crowded part of the mountain. He had
1:32:54
Speaker 2: some of his friends walk ahead to tell other hikers, Hey,
1:32:58
Speaker 2: just so you know, there's a pretty gory situation coming down.
1:33:02
Speaker 2: He didn't want, like any kids to be traumatized by
1:33:05
Speaker 2: seeing this pole sticking through his body. This dude, not
1:33:09
Speaker 2: only is he cheap, not only does he not want
1:33:11
Speaker 2: to pay the insurance premiums, and for metavack, he's like
1:33:15
Speaker 2: the most courteous injured person in the history.
1:33:17
Speaker 9: Of the world.
1:33:18
Speaker 2: Why don't you go down and warn them. I've got
1:33:21
Speaker 2: a freaking pull stuck in my body. I've been stabbed
1:33:25
Speaker 2: through the body, and I really probably like the picture
1:33:28
Speaker 2: is on the article is of him sitting in the clinic,
1:33:34
Speaker 2: the emergency room. No doubt that he's being treated in
1:33:37
Speaker 2: so he doesn't look bloody or anything. But I'm sure
1:33:41
Speaker 2: at that moment, when he was hiking the ten miles back,
1:33:45
Speaker 2: there was blood everywhere, all over his clothes. Maybe anyway,
1:33:50
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was a gory site.
1:33:52
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, his.
1:33:55
Speaker 2: Friend said, he didn't complain once the whole time, remained
1:33:58
Speaker 2: remarkably good spirits the whole time.
1:34:00
Speaker 1: He's walking back down the mountain. Impressive as heck.
1:34:04
Speaker 6: That is.
1:34:04
Speaker 2: I've never been more impressed with a random person in
1:34:08
Speaker 2: my life, because this could go really, really bad. You're panicking,
1:34:13
Speaker 2: you're hyperventilating, you're causing yourself of myocardial infarction. Instead, he's
1:34:17
Speaker 2: just like, whoof that sucks, Let's walk back down the mountain,
1:34:21
Speaker 2: and he grits it out the whole way. Everyone stayed,
1:34:23
Speaker 2: set up a GoFundMe for him and all that stuff.
1:34:25
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, he's fine. This dude is fine.
1:34:30
Speaker 2: He has superficial injuries, minor internal injuries, and he's gonna
1:34:36
Speaker 2: be okay. And that is the greatest story that he
1:34:39
Speaker 2: and his friends get to tell for the rest of life.
1:34:41
Speaker 1: He's thirty two years old. I don't know if he's married.
1:34:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's single.
1:34:44
Speaker 2: But anyone who is on that hike with him now
1:34:48
Speaker 2: goes to a party, a social event, goes to a
1:34:51
Speaker 2: bar with him, or whatever. The best wingman in the
1:34:55
Speaker 2: world just walks up to the most beautiful lady there,
1:34:57
Speaker 2: just said, you want to know who the toughest guy
1:34:58
Speaker 2: on the planet is. He's right there. Ask him to
1:35:00
Speaker 2: show you the scar. Tell that person the whole story.
1:35:03
Speaker 2: This dude's like a superhero. You didn't want a helicopter
1:35:06
Speaker 2: to come rescue you, Nah, I just decided to walk
1:35:09
Speaker 2: back down the mountain. Didn't it hurt a little bit?
1:35:13
Speaker 2: It hurt a little bit, but we were cracking jokes
1:35:15
Speaker 2: the whole way. Oh, it must have just been quick, right,
1:35:17
Speaker 2: You just turn around and walk right back down the mountain.
1:35:19
Speaker 1: No, six and a half hours, It was ten miles.
1:35:25
Speaker 1: Super human baby. I remember doing for Scouts.
1:35:30
Speaker 2: I remember going to co Op Canyon and hiking the
1:35:34
Speaker 2: to the colub Arch, which is about six six and
1:35:38
Speaker 2: a half miles each way. I remember by the time
1:35:43
Speaker 2: we were not even halfway on the way back, it
1:35:46
Speaker 2: felt like I was like struggling to stay upright, just
1:35:50
Speaker 2: because how tired I was. Thirteen miles round trip like that.
1:35:53
Speaker 2: I'd never done anything like that before. I'd done plenty
1:35:56
Speaker 2: of hikes, but nothing like that, So I I can't
1:36:00
Speaker 2: even imagine just being able to walk straight for ten
1:36:05
Speaker 2: miles at a time, let alone having something like through
1:36:10
Speaker 2: your body and having to walk straight. You know famous
1:36:14
Speaker 2: in Utah, right, the one hundred and twenty seven hours
1:36:16
Speaker 2: guy who had to cut his own arm off.
1:36:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, made a movie about it.
1:36:19
Speaker 2: Like that story is unbelievably impressive, But that sucks, right
1:36:24
Speaker 2: because now you don't have an arm yea and like
1:36:26
Speaker 2: that that was like life threatening, terrible, horrific, awful, right,
1:36:31
Speaker 2: that is Like that movie is one of the most
1:36:34
Speaker 2: traumatizing movies I've ever watched in my life.
1:36:37
Speaker 1: This is like the.
1:36:40
Speaker 2: Like the double a version of that where it just
1:36:43
Speaker 2: ends up being an awesome story without really any kind
1:36:47
Speaker 2: of long term damaging effect to your life. You just
1:36:51
Speaker 2: get the story of being like Yeah, this dude is
1:36:54
Speaker 2: an incredible outdoor badass.
1:36:57
Speaker 1: But you're fine. Superficial injury. He got a couple of scars.
1:37:01
Speaker 1: 'tis a flesh wound?
1:37:02
Speaker 2: Hey, just like see that, that's where it went in,
1:37:05
Speaker 2: That's where it came out, and I we're just like, whoa,
1:37:07
Speaker 2: there's a picture of it. Yeah, check out the news
1:37:11
Speaker 2: article with another picture of it. Mister Sfaldi. I applaud you,
1:37:16
Speaker 2: and you saved yourself a heck of a lot of money. Yeah,
1:37:18
Speaker 2: that's the best part of this, you know what. Thank goodness,
1:37:21
Speaker 2: he himself is an emergency room nurse to or he
1:37:24
Speaker 2: was able to self assess, and thank goodness, he had
1:37:27
Speaker 2: people with him too. Obviously he's able to like coach
1:37:29
Speaker 2: them through, like, Hey, watch me feel here as I'm
1:37:33
Speaker 2: as I'm doing these things. That's how If you feel this,
1:37:37
Speaker 2: you know that I'm good. If you don't feel this,
1:37:39
Speaker 2: then we I don't care how much it costs. We
1:37:41
Speaker 2: need to get we need to get a helicopter out here.
1:37:43
Speaker 2: One thing I do I need a little clarification. If
1:37:46
Speaker 2: you look at the article and you look at the picture,
1:37:49
Speaker 2: the hiking pole appears to be way longer than any
1:37:52
Speaker 2: hiking pole I've ever seen. It's like, it's not like
1:37:57
Speaker 2: a regular ski pole. It seems like he's got like
1:37:59
Speaker 2: xx L long hiking polls. That's true. You can't see
1:38:04
Speaker 2: it's see either other end of it in the frame, David,
1:38:10
Speaker 2: if you're listening eight seven seven three five three zero
1:38:12
Speaker 2: seven hundred, you can explain that to us. Also, Alec
1:38:16
Speaker 2: in Vineyard, we need that SNA update, my guy, let's
1:38:19
Speaker 2: go come on now. Eight seven seven three five three
1:38:23
Speaker 2: zero seven hundred. The question of the day is who
1:38:26
Speaker 2: is the breakout star this year for Utah football? Offensive
1:38:30
Speaker 2: and defensive? Texted in eight seven seven three five three
1:38:33
Speaker 2: zero seven hundred. Tweeted in at realoc sports going on
1:38:37
Speaker 2: on Sports Center? Man, what is going on with Sports Center?
1:38:41
Speaker 2: They got people painting the Sports Center anchors now speed painting.
1:38:45
Speaker 1: This is weird.
1:38:49
Speaker 2: James put this in his update, But I want to
1:38:51
Speaker 2: tell you what it means for the Utah Mammoth. There's
1:38:53
Speaker 2: a new highest paid player in the NHL and you're
1:38:56
Speaker 2: gonna have to deal with them for the foreseeable future.
1:39:00
Speaker 2: Don O'Connell show on ESPN seven hundred at ninety two
1:39:02
Speaker 2: one FM.
1:39:06
Speaker 9: Who We Were You tune to the Sean O'Connell show
1:39:10
Speaker 9: for the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred at
1:39:14
Speaker 9: ninety two one af M.
1:39:18
Speaker 10: To me.
1:39:22
Speaker 1: Maclin Celebriny.
1:39:24
Speaker 2: If you don't know him already, you're gonna know him
1:39:26
Speaker 2: for years, because he just signed an extension with the
1:39:29
Speaker 2: San Jose Sharks to make him the highest paid NHL
1:39:33
Speaker 2: player currently and ever. He is also twenty years old
1:39:42
Speaker 2: when he signs this deal. That is, he played most
1:39:47
Speaker 2: of the season as a nineteen year old and now
1:39:49
Speaker 2: he's twenty. He's the ripe old age of twenty five
1:39:54
Speaker 2: years eighteen point eight million dollars per year, which in
1:39:59
Speaker 2: the NHA is massive money. Why does this matter for
1:40:03
Speaker 2: you as a Utah Mammoth fan. Well, two reasons. One
1:40:08
Speaker 2: because this guy is going to be a thorn in
1:40:10
Speaker 2: the side of every Western Conference team for the foreseeable future.
1:40:14
Speaker 1: He is the next great one.
1:40:15
Speaker 2: He is I'm not calling him weighing Gretzky, but he
1:40:19
Speaker 2: is going to be the best player in the league
1:40:23
Speaker 2: for several years during his career. If he's not quite
1:40:26
Speaker 2: there yet, he will be at some point if he
1:40:29
Speaker 2: was able to stay healthy. Macklin Celebrini is a freak
1:40:35
Speaker 2: when the Anaheim Ducks offered Leo Carlson eighteen million dollars
1:40:38
Speaker 2: a year, it looked like, oh my gosh, they're resetting
1:40:41
Speaker 2: the market. And then Connor Bodard signed for like fifteen
1:40:46
Speaker 2: million dollars a year, and you're like, oh, wait, maybe
1:40:48
Speaker 2: he didn't reset the market. But in California they did.
1:40:51
Speaker 2: San Jose Sharks are paying eighteen point eight million dollars
1:40:56
Speaker 2: per year. A maximum NHL salary is twenty point eight,
1:41:01
Speaker 2: so he's just below the maximum. No one is making
1:41:03
Speaker 2: the maximum right now. But man, twenty years old, and
1:41:08
Speaker 2: you've already signed a league league leading deal like this,
1:41:13
Speaker 2: and now you're expected to deliver on it, which I
1:41:16
Speaker 2: think he will. Why does it matter more for you
1:41:19
Speaker 2: Utah Mammoth fans, Because goodness, gracious Bill Armstrong, give the
1:41:23
Speaker 2: man a trophy.
1:41:24
Speaker 1: Right now.
1:41:27
Speaker 2: He got Logan Cooley and Dylan Gunther and Clayton Keller
1:41:33
Speaker 2: and Nick Schmaltz and all of these core important players
1:41:39
Speaker 2: to your franchise signing for less than twelve million dollars
1:41:44
Speaker 2: per year average annual value. Those are going to be
1:41:50
Speaker 2: considered they already are. They're going to be hefty discount deals.
1:41:57
Speaker 2: These are all long term deals. It's going to be
1:42:02
Speaker 2: looked at when Macklin Celebrini is making twenty million dollars
1:42:07
Speaker 2: a year and your best players, four of your five
1:42:10
Speaker 2: best players are making half that, everyone in the league
1:42:13
Speaker 2: is gonna be like, goodness, gracious, how'd you do this?
1:42:16
Speaker 2: How did you get these guys to agree to these
1:42:18
Speaker 2: long term extensions for less than their worth? Because they
1:42:22
Speaker 2: all are going to play above their worth on these
1:42:24
Speaker 2: contracts on Utah Mammoth ice. And I'm not trying to
1:42:28
Speaker 2: put any of them in the same category as Macklin Celebrini.
1:42:31
Speaker 2: He at nineteen years old, is scoring more points than
1:42:35
Speaker 2: your best players are at thirty but still the top
1:42:40
Speaker 2: guys in the NHL, the top guys for each franchise. Now,
1:42:43
Speaker 2: a lot of them are making a lot more than
1:42:45
Speaker 2: the Mammoth are paying their top players. And I say
1:42:51
Speaker 2: that in a complimentary fashion, because this is a salary
1:42:54
Speaker 2: cap league and you've got to give yourself some roster
1:42:57
Speaker 2: flexibility any chance you can. We're gonna head atwo hour
1:43:05
Speaker 2: three here in just one second. I want to remind you,
1:43:07
Speaker 2: if you're looking for something to do later today or
1:43:10
Speaker 2: over the weekend, maybe you're fancying around to golf but
1:43:14
Speaker 2: having a hard time getting a tea time or your
1:43:17
Speaker 2: favorite in Valley or down in you know, Thanksgiving Point area.
1:43:21
Speaker 2: Maybe those are a little bit too expensive and you
1:43:23
Speaker 2: just don't want to deal with the hassle and the
1:43:25
Speaker 2: traffic and all that stuff.
1:43:27
Speaker 1: Here's what you're gonna do. You gonna hop on I EIGHTI.
1:43:30
Speaker 2: You're gonna head west all the way out to Tuila,
1:43:33
Speaker 2: and you're gonna go to the Stansbury Park golf Course.
1:43:36
Speaker 2: If you're playing on a weekday, it's gonna cost you
1:43:38
Speaker 2: forty five dollars for a.
1:43:39
Speaker 1: Round of eighteen.
1:43:40
Speaker 2: If you're playing on a weekend, it only goes up
1:43:42
Speaker 2: to fifty dollars for a round of eighteen. Pace a
1:43:46
Speaker 2: play not an issue. It's not crowded out there. The
1:43:48
Speaker 2: traffic is a lot easier to deal with on I
1:43:51
Speaker 2: eighty than it is on I fifteen. In both directions,
1:43:55
Speaker 2: got great restaurants around the course, so you can grab
1:43:58
Speaker 2: a little bit of Tuila County's finest and you're not
1:44:01
Speaker 2: paying the exorbitant fees I already mentioned. It's forty five
1:44:05
Speaker 2: dollars on weekdays or fifty dollars on weekends. Great rates,
1:44:09
Speaker 2: gorgeous greens minutes away. Get yourself to Stansbury Park golf Course.
1:44:14
Speaker 2: You can book a tea time now. It's Stansbury Park
1:44:17
Speaker 2: dot gov slash golf course. Stansbury Park dot gov slash
1:44:22
Speaker 2: golf course. Brett Siegel is going to join us at
1:44:26
Speaker 2: the top. He's an NBA insider. What are his thoughts
1:44:30
Speaker 2: on this remade? Utah Jazz roster Lebron James going to Philadelphia.
1:44:34
Speaker 2: We'll talk all things NBA with Brett Siegel in three minutes.
1:44:38
Speaker 2: It's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred and
1:44:40
Speaker 2: ninety two ONEFM.
1:44:41
Speaker 9: We O no, you were listening to the Sean O'Connell
1:44:49
Speaker 9: Show from the Murdoch Hundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred
1:44:53
Speaker 9: and ninety two to one af AM.
1:45:02
Speaker 2: Jam packed out number three here on a Wednesday. Brett
1:45:05
Speaker 2: Siegal's going to go on as to talk a little
1:45:06
Speaker 2: NBA Connor Niki, who is the Utah Royals GM for
1:45:13
Speaker 2: some soccer talk brought to you by our friends over
1:45:15
Speaker 2: at beer Bar, and then we will finish the show
1:45:19
Speaker 2: with Jay Lenalchen, who we got our wires crossed a
1:45:23
Speaker 2: little bit on the timing of that conversation earlier in
1:45:25
Speaker 2: the show, Utah Talon's outfielder, maybe maybe we're gonna get
1:45:31
Speaker 2: hurt to close out the show, So we're gonna try.
1:45:38
Speaker 2: The NBA had things kind of on hold a little bit,
1:45:43
Speaker 2: holding the breath, figuring out what's gonna happen once Lebron
1:45:47
Speaker 2: James makes his decision, and of course, Lebron James, twenty
1:45:51
Speaker 2: two time All Star, forty two years old, going to Philadelphia,
1:45:56
Speaker 2: it throws the whole NBA orbit out of whack a
1:46:03
Speaker 2: little bit, right, Everything gets a little off kilter when
1:46:05
Speaker 2: you're talking about a player of this magnitude. So now
1:46:08
Speaker 2: that everyone knows where he's going, and Contavio's called well,
1:46:12
Speaker 2: Pope is joining and all that like, now the rest
1:46:15
Speaker 2: of the league gets to figure out what's going on.
1:46:18
Speaker 2: The league gets to start announcing schedules and television slots
1:46:21
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. But that is the
1:46:24
Speaker 2: gravity of Lebron James, and it is the one thing
1:46:29
Speaker 2: that as optimistic as we are about what the Utah
1:46:32
Speaker 2: Jazz are going to be moving forward, it is one
1:46:35
Speaker 2: thing that I don't think we will ever truly understand
1:46:38
Speaker 2: or have. I think that it's going to be really
1:46:40
Speaker 2: difficult now impossible for the Utah Jazz to ever be
1:46:44
Speaker 2: that much of a factor or have a player who's
1:46:48
Speaker 2: that much of a factor on the rest of the
1:46:49
Speaker 2: league's decision. It feels like it feels like it just
1:46:54
Speaker 2: isn't possible. Even Carl and John weren't that way. But anyways,
1:47:00
Speaker 2: as promised, we welcome Brett Siegel from Clutch Points NBA
1:47:05
Speaker 2: Insider to join us and talk a little NBA.
1:47:08
Speaker 1: Brett, Welcome to the show. How are you.
1:47:10
Speaker 13: I'm doing well. I appreciate you having me today.
1:47:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for giving us some time. I'm hindsight's always
1:47:17
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Did you think that Philadelphia was the place
1:47:20
Speaker 2: Lebron James was going to end up?
1:47:23
Speaker 13: It was always an option. It was kind of one
1:47:25
Speaker 13: of those that when you talk with people around the
1:47:27
Speaker 13: especially a summer league, they always got brought up. It
1:47:30
Speaker 13: was fourteens, It was Cleveland, Miami, Golden State, and Philly,
1:47:33
Speaker 13: but Philly was always the last one people had mentioned it,
1:47:35
Speaker 13: just kind of throwing there, like, yeah, there's still any
1:47:37
Speaker 13: skuy relationships around the board. Tyres Maxie played with show
1:47:40
Speaker 13: Umbeat on Team USA. He has obviously the relationship with
1:47:44
Speaker 13: Mike Gainsey and then Bob Myers as well, who played
1:47:47
Speaker 13: a heavy factor in this between the respect that Rich
1:47:49
Speaker 13: Paul and Lebron both have for Bob Myers, and that
1:47:53
Speaker 13: respect is mutual both ways, but it was never at
1:47:56
Speaker 13: the forefront of the conversations. It was always is he
1:47:58
Speaker 13: going to go back to Cleveland or Miami or is
1:48:01
Speaker 13: he going to go join stephan Draymond and kind of
1:48:04
Speaker 13: ride out into the sunset with them. And so once
1:48:06
Speaker 13: the seventy six Ers got Jalen Brown, that really kind
1:48:09
Speaker 13: of changed the calculus year because Lebron and everybody else
1:48:12
Speaker 13: is looking at this team saying, hey, they could be
1:48:15
Speaker 13: the best team in the East this year just with
1:48:17
Speaker 13: mb Brown and Maxi if they're healthy. And then you
1:48:19
Speaker 13: have VJ. Edgecomb entering his sophomore year with the seventy
1:48:23
Speaker 13: six ers. All of a sudden, if you have Lebron
1:48:24
Speaker 13: James to the mix, that may make them the best
1:48:27
Speaker 13: team in the NBA, not just the East. And so
1:48:29
Speaker 13: that's ultimately what this decision was. It was one that
1:48:32
Speaker 13: he made to go win another championship at the end
1:48:35
Speaker 13: of his career, whether that's this year, in year twenty four,
1:48:38
Speaker 13: whether that's next year, in year twenty five, Lebron James
1:48:41
Speaker 13: envisions himself winning a championship with the Philadelphia seventy six ers,
1:48:45
Speaker 13: and it would be his fourteenth that he would win
1:48:47
Speaker 13: a championship with. That'd be more NBA history for him.
1:48:49
Speaker 13: And that's just another riter of what this decision was.
1:48:54
Speaker 2: I thought he was going to go to the Warriors,
1:48:55
Speaker 2: not that I have any special insight. It just seemed
1:48:58
Speaker 2: to make sense that he and Stephan would want to
1:49:00
Speaker 2: kind of write off into the sunset together.
1:49:02
Speaker 1: Not the case.
1:49:03
Speaker 2: Fine, so he goes to Philadelphia. And for me, like
1:49:07
Speaker 2: the Embiid health is always such a wild card with
1:49:10
Speaker 2: Philly that I mean, maybe you can still win a
1:49:13
Speaker 2: championship if he misses half a season or whatever. Unfortunately
1:49:17
Speaker 2: he's missed half of his career. Does that factor in
1:49:22
Speaker 2: here at all? Because Lebron James is a massive addition
1:49:25
Speaker 2: even at his age. Is this insurance for Philadelphia even
1:49:29
Speaker 2: if Embiid is out Now they can play obviously a
1:49:32
Speaker 2: very different lineup, but they can survive in Mbiid absence
1:49:35
Speaker 2: that maybe they wouldn't be able to had they not
1:49:37
Speaker 2: gotten Lebron.
1:49:39
Speaker 1: How do you see that being a part of this.
1:49:42
Speaker 11: Well.
1:49:42
Speaker 13: Getting Jalen Brown and Lebron definitely helps that if Joel
1:49:46
Speaker 13: Embiid is still dealing with the proms. But one of
1:49:49
Speaker 13: the biggest things that happened to these conversations behind the
1:49:51
Speaker 13: scenes was that Embiid told Lebron James that he is
1:49:54
Speaker 13: healthy and that he is ready to go, and we'll
1:49:56
Speaker 13: see what happens there. Because we're talking about a guy
1:49:59
Speaker 13: that has played ninety six games over the course of
1:50:02
Speaker 13: the last three years. It's an average of what thirty
1:50:05
Speaker 13: two games over the last three seasons each year, and
1:50:08
Speaker 13: that's just not going to work for the seventy six ers.
1:50:10
Speaker 13: This guy needs to be on the court in order
1:50:12
Speaker 13: for them to be a championship level team. And we've
1:50:14
Speaker 13: seen it at times that when he is healthy and
1:50:16
Speaker 13: he's playing at that MVP level, this is a team
1:50:19
Speaker 13: that could make some noise in the East. Just unfortunately
1:50:21
Speaker 13: this past year, after they beat the Celtics, he wasn't
1:50:24
Speaker 13: healthy for that next series. They got steamrolled. And then
1:50:27
Speaker 13: they go out and they make these big additions. They
1:50:30
Speaker 13: had two top to fifteen talents in the league in
1:50:32
Speaker 13: Lebron James and Jalen Brown. This offseason, so significant development
1:50:36
Speaker 13: for the Philadelphia seventy six Ers to have all these
1:50:39
Speaker 13: all star players playing together and on paper, this is
1:50:42
Speaker 13: a team that should be in the NBA Finals this
1:50:45
Speaker 13: upcoming season. Whether or not they can, well, it's going
1:50:47
Speaker 13: to come down to health. Not only is Joel Embiid
1:50:50
Speaker 13: going to be the big question mark for them, but
1:50:52
Speaker 13: can Lebron James stay healthy going to the East Coast
1:50:55
Speaker 13: and playing for the Philadelphia seventy six Ers. Will he
1:50:57
Speaker 13: always be available? Can Tyree's ma actually stay on the
1:51:00
Speaker 13: because he dealt with some injuries last year.
1:51:02
Speaker 6: But again, it's all.
1:51:04
Speaker 13: About that elephant in the room of ken Joe Ellenbid's
1:51:07
Speaker 13: knee health to stay to the point that he can
1:51:10
Speaker 13: remain on the court, and right now we just don't
1:51:12
Speaker 13: have an answer to that. It's been the biggest concern
1:51:15
Speaker 13: and one of the biggest injury storylines over the last
1:51:17
Speaker 13: two years in the league, and that's going to continue
1:51:20
Speaker 13: this year, especially with the spotlight fully on them.
1:51:22
Speaker 2: I saw you wrote about this already, but bringing to
1:51:25
Speaker 2: our audience, if you don't mind, what is everyone who
1:51:27
Speaker 2: thought they were going to get Lebron James or hope
1:51:29
Speaker 2: they were going to get Lebron James do now, because
1:51:32
Speaker 2: there's nobody else out on the market that is Lebron James.
1:51:35
Speaker 2: And if you've been preserving a roster spot and maybe
1:51:38
Speaker 2: some minimal salary cap space and things like that, what
1:51:41
Speaker 2: do you do.
1:51:43
Speaker 13: So let's start with the Miami Heat, because there's a
1:51:45
Speaker 13: team that pretty much already made their big splash this offseason,
1:51:48
Speaker 13: and that was trading for Jannis Antetokumpo before the NBA Draft.
1:51:52
Speaker 13: Getting that deal done something that they thought was possible
1:51:55
Speaker 13: at the trade deadline in February. Milwaukee ultimately held off
1:51:58
Speaker 13: until this offseason, and those two sides come together to
1:52:01
Speaker 13: make this trade. So Giannis is now the featured star
1:52:03
Speaker 13: in Miami, next to Bam out of Bio, next to
1:52:06
Speaker 13: Andrew Wiggins on a team that has high championship aspirations
1:52:10
Speaker 13: in the East. They're not done making moves just yet.
1:52:12
Speaker 13: They have twelve players under roster right now and they
1:52:15
Speaker 13: still have about half of their non taxpayer mid level
1:52:18
Speaker 13: exception left. They're currently waiting to see what other talent
1:52:22
Speaker 13: could become available. Is Klay Thompson going to be a
1:52:24
Speaker 13: potential buyout option for them? Because if he does get
1:52:26
Speaker 13: bought out, by the Mavericks, which doesn't seem like a
1:52:28
Speaker 13: possibility right now. The Mavericks and Clay have not talked
1:52:32
Speaker 13: about that that buyout option yet. He has not approached
1:52:36
Speaker 13: them about it and the Mavericks are strictly looking to
1:52:39
Speaker 13: trade him. But if he was to be bought out,
1:52:41
Speaker 13: Miami would be a very top suitor for him, looking
1:52:44
Speaker 13: to get him on the rest of their non taxpayer
1:52:46
Speaker 13: mid level exception. But this is a team that is
1:52:49
Speaker 13: going to be hard capped at the first apron They
1:52:51
Speaker 13: have about ten million dollars in wiggle room left to
1:52:54
Speaker 13: fill two roster spots. Other names that have come up
1:52:57
Speaker 13: for them DeMar DeRozan, Bradley Beal. But again, and what
1:53:00
Speaker 13: are those guys going to be willing to take? Will
1:53:02
Speaker 13: they take minimum contracts? Are they going to want part
1:53:04
Speaker 13: of that mid level exception. That's why there's currently a
1:53:06
Speaker 13: waiting game for Miami because there's a pecking order of
1:53:09
Speaker 13: what kind of players they want to pursue, especially with
1:53:11
Speaker 13: Klay Thompson being at the forefront of those discussions. Staying
1:53:14
Speaker 13: in the easy look at the Cleveland Cavaliers, they're going
1:53:17
Speaker 13: to be getting a deal done with James Harden sometime
1:53:20
Speaker 13: within the next week or two. It's kind of very
1:53:22
Speaker 13: similar to this Draymond Green situation where they have a
1:53:25
Speaker 13: deal lined up. It's just a matter of when they
1:53:27
Speaker 13: want to agree to that and ultimately what that money's
1:53:30
Speaker 13: going to be in some stipulations about guaranteed money down
1:53:33
Speaker 13: the line. But James Harden will be remaining with the
1:53:36
Speaker 13: Cleveland Cavaliers next to Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jared Allen.
1:53:40
Speaker 13: This core is staying together. Whether or not they can
1:53:43
Speaker 13: make another move to add a guy like Jonathan Cominga
1:53:46
Speaker 13: in a sign and trade by giving up either Max
1:53:48
Speaker 13: Strus or Demis Shuter, that's the big question. There's certainly
1:53:51
Speaker 13: a suitor for Jonathan Cominga, but so are the Los
1:53:53
Speaker 13: Angeles Lakers, and that's a team that has been going
1:53:56
Speaker 13: after Cominga heart is just up to up to Cominga
1:54:00
Speaker 13: his camp and where they can get the most money
1:54:02
Speaker 13: at this time. So that's another hold up in the
1:54:04
Speaker 13: free agency market there for the Cavs. And then the
1:54:07
Speaker 13: big question mark is the Golden State Warriors, because this
1:54:09
Speaker 13: is a team that has been involved for multiple stars
1:54:12
Speaker 13: over the course of the last year and a half,
1:54:14
Speaker 13: even dating back to last Aussee. They've been trying to
1:54:16
Speaker 13: get Jan Sante Tokunpo. They've been trying to get Lebron
1:54:19
Speaker 13: for years. They tried to get Anthony Davis in trade
1:54:22
Speaker 13: talks with Washington Wizards. There were minimal talks about Jalen
1:54:26
Speaker 13: Brown at the trade deadline, and the Warriors called the
1:54:30
Speaker 13: Celtics again before the NBA Draft to see if there
1:54:33
Speaker 13: was any change in interest there, but the Celtics were
1:54:35
Speaker 13: interested in doing a deal unless the Warriors were going
1:54:37
Speaker 13: to empty all their future draft picks. So this is
1:54:40
Speaker 13: a team that has Stephen Curry and when they're fully healthy,
1:54:43
Speaker 13: Jimmy Butler can come back from his ACL injury and
1:54:45
Speaker 13: play well. On paper, this is a team that should
1:54:48
Speaker 13: be in the Western Conference championship equation. But the problem
1:54:51
Speaker 13: is they just have not been able to remain healthy
1:54:54
Speaker 13: and there's just so many question marks about where the
1:54:56
Speaker 13: scoring is going to come from outside of Steph especially
1:54:59
Speaker 13: since Jimmy Butler will not be available until the absolute
1:55:02
Speaker 13: earliest around Christmas. We don't have a definitive timeline of
1:55:05
Speaker 13: when he's going to be back yet, but that's just
1:55:07
Speaker 13: the earliest kind of timeline of where people are looking
1:55:10
Speaker 13: as maybe he could be back for Christmas, maybe it
1:55:12
Speaker 13: would be early January or so. But they're not going
1:55:15
Speaker 13: to be adding another big star this offseason, something Warriors
1:55:18
Speaker 13: fans don't want to hear. But they have clean books
1:55:21
Speaker 13: past the twenty six twenty seventh season, and if we
1:55:24
Speaker 13: know anything about Joe Lacup and the way that he
1:55:26
Speaker 13: handles business, he's always going to be star hunting. So
1:55:29
Speaker 13: they're setting themselves up to make that next move. It's
1:55:32
Speaker 13: just a major question mark of what that next move
1:55:33
Speaker 13: is going to look like down the line.
1:55:37
Speaker 2: Who helped themselves most with the personnel moves, Like who
1:55:40
Speaker 2: had the most upward mobility comparing last year's roster to
1:55:44
Speaker 2: this year's roster based on the moves we've seen even
1:55:47
Speaker 2: you know this Philadelphia, the Miami. I mean, there's some
1:55:50
Speaker 2: big fish that we're out there that are now playing
1:55:53
Speaker 2: in new spots.
1:55:54
Speaker 13: Well, we definitely have to give the Philadelphia seventy six
1:55:57
Speaker 13: ers a round of APPLAUSEA Like Gainesy, first time president
1:56:00
Speaker 13: of that organization, was just hired and to be able
1:56:03
Speaker 13: to make the moves that he did, not only getting
1:56:06
Speaker 13: Lebron James, but pulling off a trade that nobody thought
1:56:09
Speaker 13: was possible of dealing Paul George and two first round
1:56:12
Speaker 13: picks to go out and get Jaylen Brown, who was
1:56:13
Speaker 13: in the MVP conversation this offseason. He got Anthony Simons
1:56:17
Speaker 13: for less than half of the taxpayer mid level exception.
1:56:20
Speaker 13: He got Dean Wade on a nine million dollar contract
1:56:23
Speaker 13: from Cleveland. He came over with Mike Dasey, So just
1:56:26
Speaker 13: an all around fantastic job to build this roster from
1:56:30
Speaker 13: one that nobody was really looking at. In the championship mix,
1:56:33
Speaker 13: it looked very incomplete. They didn't really have a password.
1:56:35
Speaker 13: With Paul George eating up all that cast space, they
1:56:38
Speaker 13: move him, They add Jalen Brown, Lebron, James, Dean Wade,
1:56:41
Speaker 13: Anthony Simons. It's just a loaded roster that Philly has
1:56:45
Speaker 13: right now, and it's just championship or bus expectations for them.
1:56:48
Speaker 13: That's kind of what Philly's looking at, and that's why
1:56:51
Speaker 13: there's so much hype around them, not just because they
1:56:53
Speaker 13: have Lebron, but because of those other pieces. And then
1:56:56
Speaker 13: you can look at Lebron's former team and the Lakers
1:56:58
Speaker 13: the way that they've completely altered this roster with nine
1:57:01
Speaker 13: new faces so far around Lukadancic and Austin Reeves. He
1:57:05
Speaker 13: had guys like Walker Kesler in that sign and trade
1:57:07
Speaker 13: Quinton Grimes, who's going to be a really good scorer
1:57:09
Speaker 13: off the bench for them. On sexon another good score,
1:57:12
Speaker 13: he had Cameron Carr, who is a rookie that played
1:57:14
Speaker 13: really well in Summer League. And then, like we were
1:57:16
Speaker 13: mentioning before, if they're able to go out and add
1:57:18
Speaker 13: a guy like Jonathan Kaminga to fill that spot that
1:57:21
Speaker 13: really hot Cha Mirror is leaving behind he left for
1:57:23
Speaker 13: the Los Angeles Clippers, but you can get another dynamic forward,
1:57:26
Speaker 13: an athletic forward and wing who's a slasher and cut
1:57:30
Speaker 13: around offense. Luka, Doncis and Austin Riez are gonna be
1:57:33
Speaker 13: able to find him. And maybe that is the best
1:57:34
Speaker 13: spot for Jonathan Comga to finally become what he believes
1:57:38
Speaker 13: he can be in this league. So really nice job
1:57:41
Speaker 13: by both Philly and Los Angeles. There's some other moves
1:57:44
Speaker 13: that you can point to throughout the league. I think
1:57:46
Speaker 13: one of the more underrated moves was the Hornets retaining
1:57:49
Speaker 13: Kobe White to be their point guard after they traded
1:57:52
Speaker 13: LaMelo Ball to the Minnesota Timbols. And I think that
1:57:55
Speaker 13: the Hornets are definitely a team to be reckoned with it.
1:57:57
Speaker 13: They have a really good vision for their future. But overall,
1:58:00
Speaker 13: this league has seen improvements for a bunch of the teams,
1:58:03
Speaker 13: and I think that's going to be a very exciting season. Obviously,
1:58:06
Speaker 13: the Spurs and Thunder are going to be at the
1:58:08
Speaker 13: top of the championship equation, and rightfully so. Those are
1:58:10
Speaker 13: the two best teams in the NBA, and then the
1:58:12
Speaker 13: defending champions in the New York Knicks. But it's really
1:58:16
Speaker 13: wide open. This is anybody's race to be had right now,
1:58:19
Speaker 13: and we'll see what happens over the course of the
1:58:21
Speaker 13: twenty six to twenty seven season. I think it's going
1:58:23
Speaker 13: to be a really fun year.
1:58:25
Speaker 2: What do you think the Utah Jazz could be with
1:58:27
Speaker 2: an overhauled roster? With not fully overhauled. I got what
1:58:30
Speaker 2: they traded away Walker Kessler, they drafted Darren Peterson obviously,
1:58:35
Speaker 2: and I say overhauled because we expect to see their
1:58:37
Speaker 2: best players play next year, which has not been a
1:58:39
Speaker 2: thing as of late. So what do you think the
1:58:42
Speaker 2: Utah Jazz can do in terms of upward mobility?
1:58:46
Speaker 13: I was definitely high on this team when they first
1:58:49
Speaker 13: enter free agent, I thought that was going to be
1:58:50
Speaker 13: a four done conclusion of bringing Walker Kessler back, but
1:58:53
Speaker 13: that's just a price that they didn't want to pay.
1:58:55
Speaker 13: They didn't want to have this long term money tied
1:58:58
Speaker 13: down where they would then have to make this decisions
1:59:00
Speaker 13: about some of these young guys like Kante George, like
1:59:04
Speaker 13: Ace Bailey when his contracts up, and now their first
1:59:07
Speaker 13: first frown picked, Aaron Peterson went his contract. They wanted
1:59:10
Speaker 13: to have flexibility moving forward and not tie themselves down.
1:59:13
Speaker 13: So it does make sense from that perspective why they
1:59:16
Speaker 13: got rid of Walker Kesler, but losing him leaves a
1:59:19
Speaker 13: big hole in their front court. Obviously, they brought back
1:59:21
Speaker 13: Yusuf Nrikic, they do have Jaron Jackson Junior. But I
1:59:25
Speaker 13: just really like the idea of having all this size
1:59:27
Speaker 13: to go and combat the Thunder and the San Antonios first,
1:59:31
Speaker 13: who are two big teams in the West, and then
1:59:32
Speaker 13: you look at some of these other rosters. The West
1:59:35
Speaker 13: is dominated by big guys, and you can go down
1:59:38
Speaker 13: the list with like Jogitch Rudy Gobert from the Minnesota
1:59:40
Speaker 13: Timberwolves being the defensive anchor that he is. You need
1:59:43
Speaker 13: to have size as a team, and so losing Walker Kessler,
1:59:46
Speaker 13: I think is really going to hurt them early on.
1:59:48
Speaker 13: But I am interested to see how this guard parent's
1:59:51
Speaker 13: going to work for the Jazz. I think Kante George
1:59:53
Speaker 13: took that next step that the Jazz and their fans
1:59:56
Speaker 13: wanted to see last year, and now you add a
1:59:58
Speaker 13: guy like Darren Peterson who can even elevate Keiante's play
2:00:01
Speaker 13: more while also being a factor at a score next in.
2:00:05
Speaker 13: I think that this Tanda, this duo is going to
2:00:08
Speaker 13: be very formidable in the Western Conference, and it's something
2:00:11
Speaker 13: that a lot of people aren't talking about right now.
2:00:13
Speaker 13: I think that the Jazz are going to take a
2:00:15
Speaker 13: step forward this year. I just don't know if it
2:00:17
Speaker 13: can be fully into that playing picture and be a
2:00:20
Speaker 13: playoff team in the West, just because of how many
2:00:23
Speaker 13: competitive teams are out there. But you have to be
2:00:25
Speaker 13: optimistic about this team's future.
2:00:28
Speaker 2: Darren Peterson is like the same as with Ace Bailey
2:00:32
Speaker 2: last year. We came into the pre draft process and
2:00:35
Speaker 2: it was like, Oh, he's not going to work out
2:00:36
Speaker 2: in Salt Lake, He's not going to do the flirtation
2:00:39
Speaker 2: with the Utah Jazz. And then you can read into things.
2:00:42
Speaker 2: You can infer whatever you want based on that. I
2:00:46
Speaker 2: think we learned our lesson last year a little bit
2:00:48
Speaker 2: with Ace Bailey, who ended up being a really awesome
2:00:51
Speaker 2: player for this team, great young talent that we expect
2:00:54
Speaker 2: to develop even more, did not seem to have any
2:00:57
Speaker 2: issue with ending up here in Salt Lakes. And then
2:01:01
Speaker 2: there was that same cycle of speculation with Darren Peterson
2:01:04
Speaker 2: that hopefully will also be a big nothing burger. But
2:01:07
Speaker 2: there's an insecurity we have here in Salt Lake City
2:01:10
Speaker 2: about kind of the place that this city, in this
2:01:13
Speaker 2: community has among NBA players and where they want to be.
2:01:17
Speaker 2: And everyone's got a podcast now and they're always like, Oh,
2:01:20
Speaker 2: what's the worst road trip? Oh it's Salt Lake City.
2:01:22
Speaker 2: Oh it's Oklahoma City, It's whatever. How much does that
2:01:25
Speaker 2: matter these days? Where these guys are making the money
2:01:27
Speaker 2: that they're making and they can live wherever they want
2:01:29
Speaker 2: in the off season, and I guess it when they
2:01:32
Speaker 2: have an option to go wherever they want in free agency,
2:01:34
Speaker 2: I guess it could become an issue here. But for
2:01:37
Speaker 2: these young players, is Salt Lake City a place where
2:01:40
Speaker 2: you can come and thrive?
2:01:42
Speaker 13: I haven't ever heard from any of these young guys
2:01:45
Speaker 13: that have been drafted by the Jazz that they don't
2:01:47
Speaker 13: like being They always talk highly of the area, They
2:01:50
Speaker 13: talk highly of the organization and everybody that's involved in it,
2:01:54
Speaker 13: from the ages to ownership. So it's a really well
2:01:58
Speaker 13: run organization in Salt Lake City's place to be and
2:02:01
Speaker 13: we even saw it with Walker Kessler. He said multiple
2:02:03
Speaker 13: times he did not want to leave Salt Lake City,
2:02:05
Speaker 13: but it just came down to the price for him,
2:02:07
Speaker 13: and ultimately the Jazz did agree to that signing trade.
2:02:10
Speaker 13: They got a slew of assets back and it was
2:02:12
Speaker 13: kind of an offer that they couldn't really turn down.
2:02:14
Speaker 13: But in Darren Peterson's case, this is a guy that's
2:02:17
Speaker 13: entering the NBA with a chip on his shoulder. He
2:02:19
Speaker 13: fully believed that he should have been the number one
2:02:22
Speaker 13: overall pick, and the Jazz fans are gonna love seeing
2:02:25
Speaker 13: that because every single night he's going to be bringing
2:02:28
Speaker 13: fire and he's going to be looking to prove all
2:02:30
Speaker 13: his doubters wrong, especially even after last year with how
2:02:33
Speaker 13: his freshman season at Kansas played out, where so many
2:02:36
Speaker 13: people were criticizing him for missing games even though he
2:02:39
Speaker 13: was dealing with those cramping issues and the health concerns.
2:02:42
Speaker 13: Now he's had a full summer to rest up. He
2:02:44
Speaker 13: looked really good in Summer League. I talked to him
2:02:46
Speaker 13: a little bit behind the scenes in the tunnel, and
2:02:49
Speaker 13: pretty much every answer that I got from him is
2:02:51
Speaker 13: that he's just determined to prove everybody wrong. And I
2:02:54
Speaker 13: feel like that really fits the mantra of what the
2:02:57
Speaker 13: Jazz had built with Will Hardy as their coaches. This
2:02:59
Speaker 13: is just a team that wants a chance and they
2:03:01
Speaker 13: want to prove that their team that can stand with
2:03:04
Speaker 13: the big dogs in the Western Conference. And I think
2:03:06
Speaker 13: that we're going to see that this year. Think they're
2:03:08
Speaker 13: going to surprise a lot of people, and they're definitely
2:03:10
Speaker 13: going to improve from that twenty two win mark during
2:03:12
Speaker 13: the twenty six twenty seven season.
2:03:14
Speaker 2: When it's all said and done, what's the resolution of
2:03:17
Speaker 2: the salary cap circumvention accusations in the Kawhi Leonard situation.
2:03:24
Speaker 13: So we'll start with the circumvention. I assume you're talking
2:03:27
Speaker 13: about Gary Trent correct, I'm.
2:03:30
Speaker 2: Talking about the Clippers and the accusation that Kawhi Leonard
2:03:36
Speaker 2: was given extra money outside of his NBA salary as
2:03:43
Speaker 2: a way of kind of keeping him in La Okay.
2:03:46
Speaker 13: Got it so with Kawhi Leonard, that investigation seems to
2:03:50
Speaker 13: be wrapping up at this time. Adam Silver in his
2:03:53
Speaker 13: press conference that Summer League, at the Board of Governor's
2:03:56
Speaker 13: press conference, he told all of us that they could
2:03:59
Speaker 13: be radically end the investigation and put everything to a
2:04:03
Speaker 13: stop now. But the problem is the investigative firm wouldn't
2:04:07
Speaker 13: have sufficient findings. So the nine ten months that have
2:04:11
Speaker 13: been spent kind of going through all this, it would
2:04:14
Speaker 13: be for a waste. And Adam Silver doesn't want that
2:04:16
Speaker 13: to happen. He wants to see this through and he
2:04:19
Speaker 13: wants results, whether they find something that Kawhi and the
2:04:22
Speaker 13: Clippers did wrong, whether it's nothing, and everybody can move
2:04:25
Speaker 13: on from this and put it behind them. But Adam
2:04:27
Speaker 13: Silver wants a conclusion. He said that he wants this
2:04:30
Speaker 13: done the summer, and I do expect that within the
2:04:32
Speaker 13: next two to three weeks we're going to have some
2:04:35
Speaker 13: type of answer of what's going to happen here, whether
2:04:37
Speaker 13: it's going to be fines, whether it's going to be
2:04:39
Speaker 13: a Kawhi Leonard type suspension, but this trade will be
2:04:43
Speaker 13: going through. It's just the hold up, right, now is
2:04:45
Speaker 13: that the Raptors and the Clippers mutually agreed to not
2:04:48
Speaker 13: finalize yet until a decision is made. Because let's say
2:04:51
Speaker 13: Kawhi Leonard is going to be suspended for fifteen or
2:04:53
Speaker 13: twenty games, and that's the worst case scenario for Toronto.
2:04:57
Speaker 13: Maybe this trade gets altered where a draft is then
2:05:00
Speaker 13: either protected or it goes back to Toronto and the
2:05:03
Speaker 13: Clippers don't get as much. That's kind of why there's
2:05:06
Speaker 13: this hold up right now and why it hasn't been
2:05:08
Speaker 13: fully finalized yet, but it will be going through. Brandon
2:05:11
Speaker 13: Ingram and Grady Dick have already been with the Los
2:05:14
Speaker 13: Angeles Clippers and their training staff. They're working out with
2:05:16
Speaker 13: them in Las Vegas. Kawhi Leonard has been with Toronto
2:05:20
Speaker 13: and he's been up there in Canada with them. So
2:05:24
Speaker 13: this is a trade that is going through. As far
2:05:26
Speaker 13: as the cap circumvention, I mean I even mentioned Gary
2:05:29
Speaker 13: Trent Junior, that's another thing that the league is looking
2:05:32
Speaker 13: into where they're going to be hard cracking down on
2:05:35
Speaker 13: these types of deals that are made and if a
2:05:37
Speaker 13: player takes a discount, the NBA is going to look
2:05:40
Speaker 13: into that. If a player gets more money than they
2:05:42
Speaker 13: should have like Gary Trent going from a minimum deal
2:05:45
Speaker 13: and now he's going to be making I think it's
2:05:47
Speaker 13: fifteen or sixteen million dollars per year. They're looking into
2:05:50
Speaker 13: that because was that a deal that was agreed upon
2:05:53
Speaker 13: a year ago when he originally took a minimum contract
2:05:56
Speaker 13: to help the Bucks with their cap situation. So make
2:06:00
Speaker 13: these very seriously. They're going to investigate pretty much any
2:06:04
Speaker 13: type of deals that happen like this, and they're gonna
2:06:07
Speaker 13: really look to I don't want to say punish the
2:06:10
Speaker 13: Clippers in Kawhi Laer, but they want to get it right.
2:06:12
Speaker 13: They don't want this to kind of stand out and
2:06:14
Speaker 13: be a blueprint for other players to then get paid
2:06:17
Speaker 13: on the side by taking discounts for their team to
2:06:19
Speaker 13: help them build a championship contender. They want parody in
2:06:23
Speaker 13: this league and they want the vision to be clear
2:06:25
Speaker 13: to everybody that there's no wrongdoing going on behind the scenes.
2:06:29
Speaker 13: And that's why Adam Silver and the NBA has taken
2:06:32
Speaker 13: their time with this investigation. They're letting everything play out.
2:06:35
Speaker 2: I felt like the San Antonio Spurs were a little
2:06:38
Speaker 2: ahead of schedule this year, made it all the way
2:06:40
Speaker 2: to the NBA Finals of course, there were some questions
2:06:43
Speaker 2: about how clutch Victor Winbinyama came up down down the
2:06:46
Speaker 2: stretch and things like that. It's easy to forget because
2:06:50
Speaker 2: how dominant he is, how young he is also, but
2:06:53
Speaker 2: the San Antonio Spurs, I imagine, are going to be
2:06:55
Speaker 2: a big problem for everybody for a lot of years.
2:06:59
Speaker 2: How long do you think I think it takes before
2:07:00
Speaker 2: they get all the way over the hump. Is that
2:07:02
Speaker 2: a team that's ready to win a championship even this year?
2:07:04
Speaker 2: Potentially they are.
2:07:06
Speaker 13: I think that within the next two to three years,
2:07:08
Speaker 13: the Spurs are going to be winning their first championship.
2:07:10
Speaker 13: It could even happen this year. Maybe they get past
2:07:13
Speaker 13: the thunder again and they use their championship experience from
2:07:16
Speaker 13: a year ago of being in the NBA Finals to
2:07:18
Speaker 13: overcome that help. But there's several things that factor into
2:07:21
Speaker 13: their first finals appearance. Obviously, Darn Fox did not have
2:07:24
Speaker 13: a good series, and I'm one that was very critical
2:07:27
Speaker 13: of it and pointing out certain things that he just
2:07:30
Speaker 13: did not play well against the Knicks. And yeah, he
2:07:33
Speaker 13: was injured, he had the high ankles frame. Maybe that
2:07:35
Speaker 13: factor in a little, but that was the first time
2:07:37
Speaker 13: he's really been in the playoffs other than that one
2:07:40
Speaker 13: series that he had with the Kings, and then you
2:07:42
Speaker 13: can go up and down this roster. This was really
2:07:44
Speaker 13: their first playoff experience together and to be able to
2:07:47
Speaker 13: go on the run that they did make the NBA
2:07:49
Speaker 13: Finals and have tired legs at the end. Yet it's
2:07:52
Speaker 13: kind of an excuse, but every championship team through the years,
2:07:56
Speaker 13: and especially these young teams had to get their first
2:07:59
Speaker 13: two experience it before they finally got over the mp
2:08:02
Speaker 13: Every superstar talent like Victor Wenbinyama, who's been labeled as
2:08:05
Speaker 13: a generational type talent, had to get their first and
2:08:08
Speaker 13: experiencing mosing before actually winning a title. I mean, Lebron
2:08:12
Speaker 13: James did it with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He made the
2:08:14
Speaker 13: finals and didn't get over that hump at first until
2:08:17
Speaker 13: he ended up going to the Miami Heat and he
2:08:19
Speaker 13: won a championship there. So it's just kind of part
2:08:22
Speaker 13: of the learning in the building stage for Wenbanyama and
2:08:24
Speaker 13: the Spurs. Maybe they get back to the finals this year,
2:08:27
Speaker 13: maybe they don't, but regardless if they do or don't,
2:08:30
Speaker 13: they're going to have that fire and that passion to
2:08:33
Speaker 13: want to win a Championship when Victor Wenbinyama has talked
2:08:35
Speaker 13: about it, even when when they lost Game five to
2:08:37
Speaker 13: the Knicks, he made it very clear that he's not
2:08:39
Speaker 13: going anywhere and he's going to work even harder to
2:08:42
Speaker 13: make sure that he gets back to the NBA Finals.
2:08:44
Speaker 13: So I think that their addition at Tobias Harris is
2:08:46
Speaker 13: only going to help. I think that he's a very
2:08:48
Speaker 13: good season veteran in this league, and he's a very
2:08:51
Speaker 13: good culture fit for their locker room. Guy's going to
2:08:53
Speaker 13: hold these younger players accountable. That's something that they didn't
2:08:56
Speaker 13: have in the playoffs and in the NBA Finals. So
2:08:58
Speaker 13: I really like the Spurs. I think they're right there
2:09:00
Speaker 13: with the thunder and we'll wait and see how this
2:09:02
Speaker 13: Western Conference is going to play out.
2:09:05
Speaker 2: Brett offseason is always like kind of a misnomber now
2:09:09
Speaker 2: with pro sports. But you get to enjoy the rest
2:09:11
Speaker 2: of this NBA offseason now that the dust is settling some.
2:09:14
Speaker 13: Of course, I'm thrilled to death that there's no Olympics
2:09:18
Speaker 13: in this August.
2:09:20
Speaker 6: We can put that on the.
2:09:21
Speaker 13: Back burner until twenty twenty eight. There's no long restricted
2:09:25
Speaker 13: free agency type stuff playing out. Really like it was
2:09:28
Speaker 13: last year with Jonathan Kamanda, Josh Giddy, Quentin Grimes all
2:09:31
Speaker 13: waiting until training camp. But sometime in August we're going
2:09:35
Speaker 13: to get a resolution to Jalen during a Paine Watson.
2:09:37
Speaker 13: But it's not as relevant as it was last year
2:09:40
Speaker 13: in terms of everything that was happening with those guys
2:09:42
Speaker 13: and all these trade talks and all the trades that
2:09:45
Speaker 13: were to be made are done at this point, I'd
2:09:47
Speaker 13: be kind of surprised if we're going to see another
2:09:49
Speaker 13: big move made. So it's just about getting those last
2:09:51
Speaker 13: few contracts done and then that's it for the summer
2:09:54
Speaker 13: and we can wait until training camp starts in September.
2:09:58
Speaker 2: Well, it's right around the corner and we'll look forward
2:10:00
Speaker 2: to it. We'll have you back on discussing when those
2:10:02
Speaker 2: things open up.
2:10:03
Speaker 13: Brett, thank you, I appreciate it.
2:10:05
Speaker 1: Take it easy, NBA.
2:10:07
Speaker 2: Inside of Brett Siegel there with great information all up
2:10:10
Speaker 2: and down those topics. Big thanks to him for hopping on.
2:10:14
Speaker 2: Connor Aniki is going to join us next. Utah Royals.
2:10:17
Speaker 2: GM Soccer Talk is brought to you by our friends
2:10:20
Speaker 2: at Beer Bar. They've got a game tonight against Washington
2:10:24
Speaker 2: and a special kind of special feature coming up this
2:10:29
Speaker 2: Sunday as well Sunday NWSL trying to grab a little
2:10:34
Speaker 2: bit of a Sunday presence in broadcasting. We'll talk about
2:10:37
Speaker 2: all of it with the GM of the Royals. Next,
2:10:40
Speaker 2: it's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred and
2:10:42
Speaker 2: ninety two one FM.
2:10:52
Speaker 9: Sean O'Connell Show, You were Home of the Best inside
2:10:55
Speaker 9: of your us. Let's get back to oc from the
2:10:58
Speaker 9: Murdoch Chevrolets to of DESPN seven hundred ninety two one half.
2:11:03
Speaker 2: Am Sean O'Connell's show here on ESPN seven hund I
2:11:09
Speaker 2: think I think Connor Ronicky is going to join us,
2:11:12
Speaker 2: the Utah Royals General Manager.
2:11:14
Speaker 1: Maybe not.
2:11:17
Speaker 2: We'll answer the phone if the phone call comes in
2:11:21
Speaker 2: the question of the day on the show here. Because
2:11:23
Speaker 2: we don't have a live show tomorrow, well Bill Riley's
2:11:26
Speaker 2: gonna be hosting the show tomorrow and then Friday we
2:11:29
Speaker 2: don't have a live show. We're back on Monday when
2:11:32
Speaker 2: football camp starts. But I don't want your answer to
2:11:35
Speaker 2: come from Morgan Scalley for Monday, all right.
2:11:39
Speaker 1: I don't want Colton Swan telling you.
2:11:41
Speaker 2: Who the breakout defensive star on this football team is
2:11:44
Speaker 2: I don't want Kevin mcgiven being like we're gonna give
2:11:46
Speaker 2: send me tell long a fifteen touches a game. I
2:11:51
Speaker 2: want you, as a fan to use your predictive abilities
2:11:54
Speaker 2: and tell me who you think the breakout stars are
2:11:57
Speaker 2: on this Utah football team eight seven seven three five
2:12:00
Speaker 2: zero seven hundred offensive and defensive. If you have an
2:12:04
Speaker 2: opportunity to think it out, who is going to be
2:12:09
Speaker 2: the breakout star for Utah's offense? Who's gonna be the
2:12:13
Speaker 2: breakout star for Utah's defense? And these are people that
2:12:16
Speaker 2: did not have big years last year. The Lance Holtzklaws,
2:12:20
Speaker 2: who we saw little flashes from, the Daniel Brays, who
2:12:23
Speaker 2: we saw little flashes from, Trey Reynolds, who finally got
2:12:27
Speaker 2: into the starting lineup a little bit and was a
2:12:30
Speaker 2: rotational player, a meaningful rotational player. Who of those people
2:12:35
Speaker 2: is going to be a breakout star? Eight seven seven
2:12:37
Speaker 2: three five three zero seven hundred are at real oc sports?
2:12:42
Speaker 2: Pagan can't be it all right, he was too productive
2:12:45
Speaker 2: at Utah State. Shoals can't be the breakout star. He
2:12:48
Speaker 2: was too productive at San Jose State. Those guys I
2:12:51
Speaker 2: think are gonna be awesome. And hopefully will star for
2:12:53
Speaker 2: the university. But I don't consider that a breakout because
2:12:56
Speaker 2: we've already seen them be primary guys on a call
2:13:00
Speaker 2: football field, even if it's at a slightly lower level.
2:13:03
Speaker 2: So sending in those responses will give some of the
2:13:06
Speaker 2: reaction next after this segment. But right now, Soccer Talk
2:13:11
Speaker 2: brought to you by friends over at beer Bar, the
2:13:12
Speaker 2: best place for you to watch MLS soccer NWSL soccer.
2:13:17
Speaker 1: They were great for World Cup soccer.
2:13:20
Speaker 2: We're having a little chat with Utah Royals GM Connor Ronicky,
2:13:23
Speaker 2: who's kind enough to join us here on the show. Connor, welcome,
2:13:26
Speaker 2: How are you.
2:13:27
Speaker 6: I'm doing well?
2:13:28
Speaker 1: How are you doing all right? Tonight?
2:13:30
Speaker 2: Game tonight against the Washington Spirit, seven o'clock at America
2:13:35
Speaker 2: First Field.
2:13:36
Speaker 6: Is that right, that's correct? Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
2:13:41
Speaker 2: I took the family out a couple of weekends ago
2:13:43
Speaker 2: to it was when Gotham was in town, if I'm
2:13:47
Speaker 2: not mistaken, and you know, the atmosphere is great. That
2:13:51
Speaker 2: was not the result that the team was looking for, obviously,
2:13:54
Speaker 2: But when we see this, this moment that women's sport
2:14:00
Speaker 2: having and that the WNBA getting a ton of attention,
2:14:02
Speaker 2: and NWSL getting a ton of attention, and we just
2:14:05
Speaker 2: had our own Utah Talons softball team win a championship
2:14:11
Speaker 2: in their inaugural season here. How how much talk on
2:14:16
Speaker 2: like a maybe not a daily basis, but at least
2:14:19
Speaker 2: weekly basis is there in maintaining this, in not only
2:14:23
Speaker 2: riding this wave, but making sure that the wave continues,
2:14:26
Speaker 2: the energy and generation of the wave, I mean, because
2:14:29
Speaker 2: you're carrying the load for an individual franchise but also
2:14:33
Speaker 2: these leagues finding a firmer foothold in American sport.
2:14:37
Speaker 1: How much of that is a part of your job
2:14:39
Speaker 1: on a regular basis.
2:14:41
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's a huge part of what we're doing.
2:14:43
Speaker 6: And I think the biggest thing is being able to
2:14:45
Speaker 6: see all the success and the investment that I think,
2:14:48
Speaker 6: you know, the country the world is having, but certainly
2:14:51
Speaker 6: the people of Utah are having in women's sports. It's
2:14:53
Speaker 6: just important for us to be putting a good product
2:14:55
Speaker 6: on the field. To your point, like, it doesn't mean
2:14:58
Speaker 6: that we're winning every single game, but that the game
2:15:00
Speaker 6: the people are coming out to they're having good experiences.
2:15:02
Speaker 6: So that's you know, cohesion across the business side, the
2:15:05
Speaker 6: game presentation side, and then obviously for us, bringing in
2:15:08
Speaker 6: the right players, the right coaching staff, the right the
2:15:10
Speaker 6: support staff to be able to come and perform. And
2:15:13
Speaker 6: I think for the last two years we've been trying
2:15:16
Speaker 6: to build something, you know, as we've re entered the NWSL,
2:15:19
Speaker 6: and this season feels like we're getting the momentum that
2:15:22
Speaker 6: people have just been working so hard for and the
2:15:24
Speaker 6: people of Utah have really shown out because of that,
2:15:27
Speaker 6: and I think are continuing to and we feel like,
2:15:29
Speaker 6: you know, we have more hypes to be able to reach.
2:15:31
Speaker 6: But for us, it's always been about how do we
2:15:33
Speaker 6: create an environment and an experience that people go to
2:15:37
Speaker 6: and win or lose, rain or shine. They feel like
2:15:39
Speaker 6: I want to be a part of that, and I
2:15:40
Speaker 6: want to be able to keep coming back. And so
2:15:42
Speaker 6: I think that you know, we had the Gotham Game
2:15:44
Speaker 6: three one loss that hopefully people felt like we played
2:15:47
Speaker 6: good soccer, it was a fun experience. They come back.
2:15:49
Speaker 6: And then the next week we beat Orlando Pride for
2:15:51
Speaker 6: the first time in the club's history one MIL at home,
2:15:54
Speaker 6: and that's a fun experience for a different reason. And
2:15:56
Speaker 6: so this week we have you know, Trinity Robin's coming
2:15:58
Speaker 6: into town, so Smith comes into town on Sunday with Portland,
2:16:02
Speaker 6: and you know, these are big name stars US women's
2:16:04
Speaker 6: national team players that are coming to play at and
2:16:06
Speaker 6: we're competing with them. We drew to both of those
2:16:09
Speaker 6: teams away and now they get to come to our
2:16:11
Speaker 6: house in front of our fans, and for us to
2:16:13
Speaker 6: be able to come on and put on a show
2:16:15
Speaker 6: I think is really important. So it's just about having
2:16:18
Speaker 6: the right things on titch to be able to invite
2:16:20
Speaker 6: people to keep coming back and ride that wave.
2:16:22
Speaker 1: Like you were saying, look, there's.
2:16:25
Speaker 2: You know you need you need your full roster to
2:16:27
Speaker 2: be healthy. That wasn't the case against Gotham as much
2:16:30
Speaker 2: as possible. Roster construction is fascinating to me in every sport.
2:16:34
Speaker 2: I'm a relative soccer novice, and obviously even more so
2:16:38
Speaker 2: in the NWSLUH. So the mechanisms for transfer and for
2:16:43
Speaker 2: you know, like like RSL has their academy system and
2:16:46
Speaker 2: builds up these homegrown prospects, and then in the NWSL
2:16:50
Speaker 2: is as you're trying to put a championship product on
2:16:54
Speaker 2: the field, what are some of the mechanisms that we
2:16:57
Speaker 2: need to be I need to be aware of as
2:16:59
Speaker 2: someone who follows the kind of stuff in every sport.
2:17:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a great question. The end of you saw,
2:17:05
Speaker 6: I think really models itself pretty closely to the European market.
2:17:09
Speaker 6: So to your point, it's mostly transfers where we're paying
2:17:12
Speaker 6: cash for players to their clubs to be able to
2:17:15
Speaker 6: come and join us. There are certainly trades within kind
2:17:18
Speaker 6: of within the league, and then there are some youth
2:17:22
Speaker 6: mechanisms where you're basically out of college, you're a free agent,
2:17:25
Speaker 6: and so then we're just competing with other teams to
2:17:27
Speaker 6: be able to bring players in. But it's really expansive,
2:17:31
Speaker 6: and if you look at our team in the way
2:17:32
Speaker 6: that we've built it out, we have players from the
2:17:34
Speaker 6: Japanese national teams for them and national team Mexican national team,
2:17:38
Speaker 6: US women's national team, so we have we've created a
2:17:42
Speaker 6: pretty diverse group that plays the way that we want
2:17:44
Speaker 6: to play. But it's largely international transfers, Intra league moved
2:17:48
Speaker 6: and then college free agency are kind of the three
2:17:52
Speaker 6: main ones I would say that we're using to build
2:17:54
Speaker 6: out our group philosophically.
2:17:56
Speaker 2: Is there any place where you are like over in den,
2:18:00
Speaker 2: I mean, are you someone who's obviously heavily involved in
2:18:04
Speaker 2: this who's like, we got to build the young prospect,
2:18:06
Speaker 2: it's got to be these college players.
2:18:08
Speaker 1: We've got to build the roster that way, or is
2:18:10
Speaker 1: it you know, thirt on all three main.
2:18:15
Speaker 6: I think that for us right now, we're probably over
2:18:19
Speaker 6: indexing on the international piece. We have a lot of
2:18:22
Speaker 6: international players who've been able to come in and that's
2:18:24
Speaker 6: a really cool thing. Like we have the Women's World
2:18:26
Speaker 6: Cup next year, and if you start following the Royals
2:18:28
Speaker 6: right now, you'll get to see those players playing in
2:18:30
Speaker 6: the World Cup. I think the way that we like
2:18:32
Speaker 6: to play is a very kind of build through the thirds.
2:18:36
Speaker 6: We like to play with the ball at our feet,
2:18:38
Speaker 6: and there's a lot of European Asian teams that play
2:18:42
Speaker 6: in that way, and so we've found being able to
2:18:44
Speaker 6: bring players in that can play that way, you're going
2:18:47
Speaker 6: to have to look internationally to be able to do that,
2:18:49
Speaker 6: and so it's created this really cool ecosystem for us
2:18:52
Speaker 6: where we have really strong American players, but then we
2:18:54
Speaker 6: also have, you know, these players that have come from
2:18:56
Speaker 6: all around the world who are able to play the
2:18:58
Speaker 6: way that we want to play. And so I would
2:19:00
Speaker 6: say right now that's where we're at. But certainly to
2:19:02
Speaker 6: the future, looking to you know, kind of even though
2:19:05
Speaker 6: Along and I would say that philosophically has just been
2:19:07
Speaker 6: about how do we compete now and then let's look
2:19:09
Speaker 6: to the future. As you know, we were kind of
2:19:11
Speaker 6: able to establish ourselves.
2:19:14
Speaker 2: Tell me about this Kopatana walk that's happening with the
2:19:18
Speaker 2: Portland Thorns match.
2:19:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it should be a really good turnout, and
2:19:24
Speaker 6: I think that we have a lot of Yeah, we
2:19:27
Speaker 6: try to just do a lot with all of our
2:19:30
Speaker 6: different matches, just to be able to have theems, to
2:19:31
Speaker 6: be able to bring in different folks and be able
2:19:33
Speaker 6: to you know, just make it a fun to the
2:19:35
Speaker 6: game presentation point. I think that it's just been really
2:19:39
Speaker 6: important for us to make sure that, you know, as
2:19:42
Speaker 6: much as the average Utah Roads fan is able to
2:19:44
Speaker 6: come through, it's really important. But we also just want
2:19:47
Speaker 6: to make sure that, you know, we're also doing fun
2:19:49
Speaker 6: things that highlight people in our community and folks in
2:19:52
Speaker 6: our community who you know, can can find ways to
2:19:56
Speaker 6: come and celebrate and participate with the group. And so
2:19:58
Speaker 6: we're really excited about that Portland and some of the
2:20:00
Speaker 6: events that we have going on there.
2:20:03
Speaker 2: Before I let you go, we already mentioned kind of
2:20:06
Speaker 2: the top of this conversation, how the women's professional athletics
2:20:10
Speaker 2: is getting a lot of push right now and it's
2:20:13
Speaker 2: fascinating to watch, and the WNBA, I think, has been
2:20:16
Speaker 2: given the at least the broadcasting space to kind of
2:20:19
Speaker 2: lead some of that charge. Basketball and soccer are very
2:20:23
Speaker 2: different sports, they have very different places in American culture.
2:20:26
Speaker 1: Your league and the WNBA are obviously very different.
2:20:29
Speaker 2: But is there anything that NWSL can take from what
2:20:34
Speaker 2: is going on within with the WNBA, where like they're
2:20:37
Speaker 2: having these great moments, there's also some controversies, you're getting criticism,
2:20:41
Speaker 2: you're also getting praise. Is there is there anything that
2:20:44
Speaker 2: you can glean from that?
2:20:48
Speaker 6: Yeah? Absolutely, I think there's always things to be able
2:20:50
Speaker 6: to take. I think one of the things I really
2:20:52
Speaker 6: admire about the WNBA, and part of it, to your
2:20:54
Speaker 6: point of basketball versus soccer and just the roster sizes
2:20:57
Speaker 6: and things like that, is just how they in the
2:20:59
Speaker 6: WNBA really highlight the individuals and the stories of the people.
2:21:03
Speaker 6: And to your point, sometimes that's for good and sometimes
2:21:06
Speaker 6: you know, there's things that are rough to come along
2:21:08
Speaker 6: with that, But that's true of any professional sports, certainly
2:21:10
Speaker 6: in America, and so we understand that as we grow,
2:21:13
Speaker 6: and you know, as our players' profiles grow, as our
2:21:15
Speaker 6: team's profiles grows, that we're gonna, you know, you're going
2:21:19
Speaker 6: to deal with some of those things. But I think
2:21:21
Speaker 6: with the WNBA, you know a lot of people can
2:21:23
Speaker 6: name players right off the top of their head that
2:21:25
Speaker 6: you know, have had big impacts in the sport, big
2:21:28
Speaker 6: impacts in college, whatever it may be. And I think
2:21:30
Speaker 6: for us, just being able to tell the individual stories
2:21:32
Speaker 6: of the players that we have on our roster is
2:21:35
Speaker 6: just incredibly important because we want people to come and
2:21:37
Speaker 6: support the team, but we also want them to know
2:21:39
Speaker 6: the players and not just know how they are on
2:21:41
Speaker 6: the field, but also who they are off it, and
2:21:44
Speaker 6: their personalities and what drives them. And I think WNBA
2:21:47
Speaker 6: just does such a phenomenal job with that, and I
2:21:49
Speaker 6: think NWSL is doing a good job with that. But
2:21:51
Speaker 6: I always think that there's room to grow. And I
2:21:53
Speaker 6: think certainly if you look at our marketing work and
2:21:55
Speaker 6: what we're doing with the Royals, I think that you know,
2:21:58
Speaker 6: if you're watching our socials and doing things like you
2:22:00
Speaker 6: can really start to get glimpses of, you know, who
2:22:02
Speaker 6: our players are as people, their personalities and their people
2:22:05
Speaker 6: we're supporting. Our players are genuinely incredible and just like
2:22:08
Speaker 6: the best people, such good role models for our community,
2:22:12
Speaker 6: for girls and boys growing up playing soccer, to be
2:22:15
Speaker 6: able to look to these players. It just I genuinely
2:22:18
Speaker 6: could not speak more highly of this group, and so
2:22:21
Speaker 6: we want to just keep highlighting them as individuals the
2:22:23
Speaker 6: people that they are, and I think WNBA is doing
2:22:26
Speaker 6: such a good job of that.
2:22:28
Speaker 2: Connor can't tell you how much I appreciate your time today,
2:22:31
Speaker 2: Enjoy tonight, enjoy the weekend, and we'll talk again soon.
2:22:34
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, thank you so much, really appreciate it. We'll
2:22:37
Speaker 6: looking forward to to continue to listen in and yeah,
2:22:40
Speaker 6: stand in touch.
2:22:42
Speaker 2: It's Connor Roniki, who is the Utah Royals GM. They're
2:22:45
Speaker 2: in action against the Washington Spirit seven pm at America
2:22:49
Speaker 2: First Field. Also Sunday, August second, So this weekend it's
2:22:54
Speaker 2: the Portland Thorns and they're going to have a low
2:22:57
Speaker 2: Rider live music halftime celebration. Uh it's gonna be fun.
2:23:02
Speaker 2: So little Latino theme to the Sunday night game. Excuse
2:23:06
Speaker 2: me that, Yeah, the Sunday game at America First Field.
2:23:09
Speaker 2: Get out there this week if you have an opportunity
2:23:11
Speaker 2: to do so. One last segment, James, what do we
2:23:14
Speaker 2: know about Jaylen? Jaylen is joining us? All right, we
2:23:20
Speaker 2: have another one of our Utah Talents Championship players joining
2:23:25
Speaker 2: us here on the other side. We'll close out the
2:23:28
Speaker 2: show with Jaydelen Alchin, who was the MVP of this
2:23:32
Speaker 2: championship run for the Utah Talents. Sean O'Connell show wrapping
2:23:37
Speaker 2: it up next on ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
2:23:40
Speaker 2: one FM.
2:23:44
Speaker 9: You were listening to a Sean O'Connell show, your source
2:23:47
Speaker 9: for the best utes football cover reach. Here's OC from
2:23:51
Speaker 9: the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred at ninety
2:23:55
Speaker 9: two to one am.
2:23:58
Speaker 2: Final segment of the show brought to our friends at
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Speaker 2: have a guest to close out the show. Don't always
2:24:29
Speaker 2: have that. Jalon Alchin joins us from the Utah Talents Uh,
2:24:34
Speaker 2: the leading hitter on the team this year, the MVP
2:24:38
Speaker 2: of the Championship Series, and of course the Utah Talents
2:24:41
Speaker 2: their first year in Utah one at all.
2:24:43
Speaker 1: Jalen, Welcome to the show.
2:24:46
Speaker 3: Hi, thank you for having me.
2:24:47
Speaker 1: Appreciate you giving us some time. Has it sunk in
2:24:50
Speaker 1: yet that you guys are league champions?
2:24:52
Speaker 2: I mean it happened just this past weekend, and sometimes
2:24:55
Speaker 2: it takes a minute to really absorb the impact.
2:24:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm still in the settling down environment
2:25:03
Speaker 3: right now. It's kind of crazy that it all happened.
2:25:06
Speaker 3: I feel like it happened so quickly, and now we
2:25:09
Speaker 3: kind of just dispersed and kind of go our own
2:25:12
Speaker 3: ways for a little bit. But it definitely was a
2:25:14
Speaker 3: great experience, and just being able to go back to
2:25:18
Speaker 3: back with the Talents has been something that we kind
2:25:21
Speaker 3: of hoped for in the beginning of the season and
2:25:23
Speaker 3: then just worked our way through it and got.
2:25:25
Speaker 11: What we wanted.
2:25:27
Speaker 2: So you had a great year at the plate, but
2:25:30
Speaker 2: got even hotter in the Championship Series. Five hundred right
2:25:34
Speaker 2: in the championship series. So to what do you attribute that?
2:25:38
Speaker 2: Was it like just in a groove? Did you do
2:25:40
Speaker 2: extra study on the pitching matchups? Cause if you're in
2:25:44
Speaker 2: five hundred, you're well above the pace.
2:25:46
Speaker 13: You know, I appreciate it.
2:25:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say the night before the first game, I
2:25:54
Speaker 3: kind of sat down, and I want to say I
2:25:57
Speaker 3: spent an hour hour and a half just going through
2:25:59
Speaker 3: my whole year year of film of my own ATPATS
2:26:02
Speaker 3: and then going into the film of the pitchers that
2:26:05
Speaker 3: we were planning on facing in the next two to
2:26:07
Speaker 3: three games. So I kind of just sat there in
2:26:10
Speaker 3: the hotel room studying my own film and then going
2:26:13
Speaker 3: into the game. I feel like I always wanted to
2:26:17
Speaker 3: compete for another inning, compete for another pitch, So once
2:26:21
Speaker 3: it was over, I was like, wait, don't we have
2:26:23
Speaker 3: another game tomorrow? But no, like we won it all.
2:26:26
Speaker 3: So it was fun just keeping the momentum throughout the
2:26:29
Speaker 3: game and just building off of each other's energy too.
2:26:34
Speaker 2: You had some familiarity, if I'm not mistaken with Dunky,
2:26:37
Speaker 2: with your home field because of your time in the
2:26:39
Speaker 2: PAC twelve.
2:26:40
Speaker 6: Is that right?
2:26:42
Speaker 4: Yes?
2:26:42
Speaker 3: So I was able to play here previously, both at
2:26:46
Speaker 3: University of Washington, and I didn't get the chance to
2:26:51
Speaker 3: come during my UCLA year. But yeah, I've visited here
2:26:54
Speaker 3: a few times from the University of Washington, but being
2:26:59
Speaker 3: in a professional.
2:26:59
Speaker 11: Set is a whole different world.
2:27:01
Speaker 3: And it was just the most amazing atmosphere and the
2:27:05
Speaker 3: fans showing up this year has been amazing.
2:27:09
Speaker 2: So I mean that's kind of what I was getting
2:27:12
Speaker 2: to here, because for whatever reason, today, we've talked a
2:27:15
Speaker 2: lot of professional women's sports. We've had you on, We've
2:27:18
Speaker 2: had a couple of your teammates on, we just had
2:27:20
Speaker 2: the GM of the NWSL team here in Utah. We've
2:27:24
Speaker 2: been talking a little WNBA, and obviously women's professional sports
2:27:28
Speaker 2: are finally getting some exposure, finally getting their due, finally
2:27:32
Speaker 2: getting a little bit more attention, and Athletes Unlimited is
2:27:36
Speaker 2: taking advantage of this. And you're in your second season,
2:27:39
Speaker 2: first year obviously settled down at the arena here in Utah,
2:27:43
Speaker 2: but you've been part of this league and you've been
2:27:45
Speaker 2: part of the growth of the sport that I think
2:27:47
Speaker 2: is trying to capture some of this moment, and I
2:27:50
Speaker 2: just want to get your thoughts on kind of like
2:27:52
Speaker 2: the responsibility of that. You got to be a good player.
2:27:56
Speaker 2: You got to do the first thing first and go
2:27:59
Speaker 2: out and get hits and catch fly balls and all that.
2:28:02
Speaker 2: But it seems like everyone we talked to there's also
2:28:06
Speaker 2: a sort of extra homework where you've got to build
2:28:09
Speaker 2: this thing, and you got to be an ambassador in
2:28:11
Speaker 2: the community, and you've got to probably sign autographs in
2:28:14
Speaker 2: ways that maybe other players in other sports don't have
2:28:16
Speaker 2: to pay as much attention to. How do you view that,
2:28:20
Speaker 2: how are you taking it in and what do you
2:28:22
Speaker 2: think the future looks like?
2:28:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the future looks bright from where we
2:28:29
Speaker 3: are right now, and the growth of it and just
2:28:33
Speaker 3: the growth that we've had from this year to this
2:28:35
Speaker 3: year or last year to this year has been exponential.
2:28:38
Speaker 3: I mean, part of it is signing autographs for until
2:28:43
Speaker 3: the last person gets the ball signed, and just staying afterwards.
2:28:48
Speaker 3: Sometimes we're there for maybe up to an hour, just
2:28:51
Speaker 3: talking through and like getting to know the fan base
2:28:54
Speaker 3: and seeing frequent faces like oh, we came to the
2:28:57
Speaker 3: game last weekend, we'll be here again tomorrow. Just having
2:29:00
Speaker 3: that connection with our fans and just we're able to
2:29:04
Speaker 3: build our energy off of them too. When it comes
2:29:07
Speaker 3: down to the two strikes, like having the crowd get
2:29:10
Speaker 3: involved in that, and then at the end of the game,
2:29:13
Speaker 3: if we win, we get the crowd involved too, and
2:29:15
Speaker 3: we do a U coach here with them. So I
2:29:19
Speaker 3: think it definitely is as much as we're buying into
2:29:23
Speaker 3: the growth of it, like we're also wanting to buy
2:29:25
Speaker 3: into our home, and being gracious enough to allow us
2:29:29
Speaker 3: to be here and like allow us to continue to
2:29:32
Speaker 3: grow in this city. It's been amazing and I think
2:29:35
Speaker 3: we've had great feedback from both sides, and just continuing
2:29:39
Speaker 3: to grow, like within our community and just being involved
2:29:43
Speaker 3: in our community, I feel like does take us a
2:29:45
Speaker 3: long way, and I'm just grateful for the opportunity and
2:29:48
Speaker 3: enjoy every second of like the autographs afterwards, and just
2:29:52
Speaker 3: being involved in that aspect.
2:29:55
Speaker 2: So when you guys were heading into the Championship series,
2:29:58
Speaker 2: we looked up what the rings looked like from the
2:30:02
Speaker 2: first championship and those are just pretty sweet hardware. It's
2:30:06
Speaker 2: a good looking championship ring. Do you know anything about
2:30:10
Speaker 2: the design on the second? Who gets to be involved?
2:30:13
Speaker 2: It usually takes like months and months for those things
2:30:15
Speaker 2: to actually get minted and handed out, but you know,
2:30:19
Speaker 2: when you're collecting a championship ring, that's like, that's the
2:30:22
Speaker 2: cherry on top of the championship cake. So do you
2:30:25
Speaker 2: know what those rings? That process is going to look like?
2:30:30
Speaker 3: Getting the rings this year, I really had no idea
2:30:33
Speaker 3: what it was going to look like. So getting them
2:30:35
Speaker 3: at Donkey was special within itself, but it was an
2:30:37
Speaker 3: absolute surprise to what they looked like. I know that
2:30:41
Speaker 3: our GM coach Lisa is involved in it and a
2:30:45
Speaker 3: lot some of our coaching staff, and then we also
2:30:48
Speaker 3: had one of our players, Sharpe Lossios, get involved in
2:30:52
Speaker 3: the design of it. So I really don't know what
2:30:55
Speaker 3: it's going to look like next year, but I'm really
2:30:57
Speaker 3: excited for what's to come of it and what new
2:31:01
Speaker 3: sayings we might have in it, or what just the
2:31:04
Speaker 3: overall looks going to be of it.
2:31:06
Speaker 1: So what's the goal for you in this offseason?
2:31:09
Speaker 2: It's such a sprint of a season, it's so condensed,
2:31:13
Speaker 2: and you got a long time off as far as
2:31:15
Speaker 2: the AUSL goes. What do you want to improve on
2:31:18
Speaker 2: before next year? What's the main goal in that regard?
2:31:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, thankfully I'm I'm involved with the All Star Cup
2:31:27
Speaker 3: this year, so I'll have one more month of softball
2:31:31
Speaker 3: until the end of August. After that, I think sticking
2:31:36
Speaker 3: to the training that I do have. I live close
2:31:39
Speaker 3: enough to UCLA, so being able to kind of be
2:31:42
Speaker 3: close to coach Lisa in that aspect and just train
2:31:45
Speaker 3: with them, train with her individually and separately, and then
2:31:50
Speaker 3: I mean, hopefully more softball. I'm looking into potentially going
2:31:54
Speaker 3: into the international pool, so we'll see where that leads.
2:31:58
Speaker 3: I still got to do some hard work on that one.
2:32:01
Speaker 3: So I think just enjoying the time for a little
2:32:04
Speaker 3: bit of no softball, but knowing like when it's time,
2:32:07
Speaker 3: it's go time, It's go time.
2:32:10
Speaker 2: Jaydelyn, congratulations on the success on the MVP of the
2:32:14
Speaker 2: Championship Series on such a great year, especially at the plate,
2:32:17
Speaker 2: and we hope we get a chance to talk to
2:32:19
Speaker 2: you before next season rolls around.
2:32:21
Speaker 3: Thanks for your time, awesome, Thank you so much for
2:32:23
Speaker 3: having me.
2:32:25
Speaker 2: Jason Alchin is indeed the MVP of the Utah Talents
2:32:29
Speaker 2: Championship run and we'll be collecting another ring for back
2:32:36
Speaker 2: to back Utah Talents Championships, So congrats to her. Big
2:32:40
Speaker 2: thanks to her her teammates who joined us on the
2:32:42
Speaker 2: show today. Okay, I've been told that Porter Larson and
2:32:47
Speaker 2: Craig Bowler. Jack Bowler is gonna be feeling he's hosting
2:32:51
Speaker 2: the drive. That's that's the plan. Oh see, it's amazing. Yeah,
2:32:57
Speaker 2: gonna be gonna be a fun drive coming up now.
2:33:00
Speaker 2: And uh you got you got PFL duties to get
2:33:03
Speaker 2: to hero see. So Bill Riley tomorrow, that's right, should
2:33:07
Speaker 2: be a great end of the week here on ESPN seven.
2:33:09
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a fun.
2:33:10
Speaker 2: End of the week, Bill Riley tomorrow, and then we're
2:33:13
Speaker 2: back Monday, roll in on Utah football camp starting the
2:33:19
Speaker 2: long national nightmare is over. College football is back, baby,
2:33:22
Speaker 2: we were states already practicing.
2:33:25
Speaker 1: Let's go have a great weekend. Everybody.
2:33:28
Speaker 2: Tune in on Saturday night for a PFL action from
2:33:33
Speaker 2: Long Island, New York. Got a world title fight in
2:33:36
Speaker 2: the lightweight division. Got the return of Dakota Ditchiva, the
2:33:39
Speaker 2: best female fighter on the planet right now, it's gonna
2:33:42
Speaker 2: be a fun one. We'll see you on Monday. It's
2:33:44
Speaker 2: the Sean O'Connell Show. ESPN seven hundred ninety tw