Latest / The Sean O'Connell Show / Bill Riley on Utah FB recruiting, Should they focus more on transfers or high schoolers (?), Runnin Utes hosting Oklahoma St tomorrow + m...
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
- 0:05Speaker 1: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one AFM.
- 0:22Speaker 2: You heard the music, you know what it means.
- 0:24Speaker 3: It means.
- 0:24Speaker 2: Bill Riley joins us here on Utah's number one sports
- 0:28Speaker 2: talk Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred. Bill, welcome,
- 0:31Speaker 2: How are.
- 0:32Speaker 3: You couple of things? Sean? Nobody can ever say that
- 0:38Speaker 3: you don't talk about a variety of things in your
- 0:41Speaker 3: opening segment on your show, breast milk to epidurals, to
- 0:49Speaker 3: horrific sports injuries to eyes being gouged out like a
- 0:55Speaker 3: bowling ball. You ran the gamut in the first thirty
- 0:59Speaker 3: two minutes of your show today.
- 1:00Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna take it as a compliment, even
- 1:03Speaker 2: if it's not intended to be one, because.
- 1:05Speaker 3: That was us. I'm not sure it is a compliment.
- 1:07Speaker 3: I'm just out of stating what I listen to do,
- 1:10Speaker 3: and I'm still trying to I'm processing right now. I'll
- 1:13Speaker 3: try to focus on this segment. I'm still trying to
- 1:16Speaker 3: process what I just listened to.
- 1:18Speaker 2: Honestly, Bill, I'm just trying to process whether or not
- 1:21Speaker 2: that was a blackout, stream of consciousness moment that should
- 1:24Speaker 2: have been stricken.
- 1:24Speaker 3: From the record.
- 1:25Speaker 2: But here we are with the voice of the youth.
- 1:27Speaker 2: So we'll talk about the Utes. I want to get
- 1:29Speaker 2: to college basketball games. You're gonna be calling the running
- 1:33Speaker 2: Utes tomorrow. We'll get there in a second. But right now,
- 1:36Speaker 2: it's kind of like this quiet period ish for Utah
- 1:40Speaker 2: football after, let's be honest, a wild and tumultuous several
- 1:44Speaker 2: weeks at the end of the actual college football season,
- 1:48Speaker 2: and now we're settled into like this, all right, what
- 1:50Speaker 2: are they doing? What's happening? And for people who don't know,
- 1:53Speaker 2: there's a lot of recruiting going on right now. Not
- 1:56Speaker 2: for the twenty twenty six class necessarily, because as Morgan
- 1:59Speaker 2: state on this show, they're down to you know, maybe
- 2:02Speaker 2: one or two players they need to add. It's about
- 2:04Speaker 2: laying the foundation for next year. And it's about a
- 2:07Speaker 2: lot of the high school recruiting and I guess some
- 2:09Speaker 2: JUCO stuff, and I just wonder what role you think
- 2:13Speaker 2: this period and that old tradition plays in modern football
- 2:18Speaker 2: for the Utes specifically, because yeah, you still want to
- 2:22Speaker 2: get a nice high school pipeline, but with the transfer
- 2:25Speaker 2: portal being so much more important now and whatnot? Is
- 2:28Speaker 2: it more important than it ever was? Is it less
- 2:30Speaker 2: important than it used to be? What does this particular
- 2:34Speaker 2: time period mean for the utes?
- 2:36Speaker 3: I think it's important, But I think what you're doing
- 2:39Speaker 3: now is, yeah, you're creating kind of your database for
- 2:44Speaker 3: next year, whether that's high school or junior college or
- 2:47Speaker 3: whatever that might happen to be. But you're not taking
- 2:51Speaker 3: as many people as you used to, So you're creating
- 2:54Speaker 3: your pool. And my guess would be over the next
- 2:57Speaker 3: six to nine months, you're whittling that pool down because
- 3:01Speaker 3: we all know, Sean, you're leaving half of your scholarships
- 3:05Speaker 3: if not more, probably in that neighborhood of half to
- 3:09Speaker 3: the transfer portal. If you, let's say you've got twenty
- 3:12Speaker 3: five spots to fill, you're probably leaving twelve or thirteen
- 3:17Speaker 3: or more as maybe portal guys. And then you're gonna
- 3:21Speaker 3: fill that in with quality young high school players and
- 3:26Speaker 3: or perhaps junior college players that could fill those voids.
- 3:29Speaker 3: So I still think it's very important. You cannot live
- 3:32Speaker 3: solely in the transfer portal. You just can't. We saw
- 3:36Speaker 3: Colorado try to do it, and it's now becoming very
- 3:40Speaker 3: clear that that's a failed attempt by Dion Sanders because
- 3:44Speaker 3: he isn't finding generational talents in the portal like he
- 3:48Speaker 3: had with his son and with Travis Hunter. You can't
- 3:50Speaker 3: live solely in the portal. Good schools, good teams, and
- 3:54Speaker 3: I think Utah falls in this category. Find the really
- 3:57Speaker 3: good blend, and that blend's not gonna be fifty to
- 3:59Speaker 3: fifty every year. Some years it might be a sixty
- 4:02Speaker 3: forty high school juke go to transfer portal blend, and
- 4:05Speaker 3: then then maybe in some other years it's sixty forty
- 4:08Speaker 3: the other way. But I don't think you can really
- 4:11Speaker 3: build a foundation for a program with sixty five or
- 4:15Speaker 3: seventy or seventy five percent of your players coming into
- 4:18Speaker 3: your program as portal players, because I don't think that
- 4:21Speaker 3: that's a sustainable model. So back to the original point,
- 4:25Speaker 3: I think it's very important that you do it, and
- 4:27Speaker 3: you're creating kind of your database now of those players
- 4:30Speaker 3: that you like, but you're in years gone by you
- 4:33Speaker 3: might be targeting twenty five players. Now you'll probably whittle
- 4:38Speaker 3: that number down to fifteen to anywhere from thirteen to
- 4:42Speaker 3: seventeen players that you might go after, and maybe that
- 4:46Speaker 3: makes it easier, maybe that makes it harder. I guess
- 4:48Speaker 3: it just depends on the players that you're going after in.
- 4:51Speaker 2: The transfer portal. Specifically, there's the powerful lateral move guys,
- 4:57Speaker 2: the bounce backs, whatever you want to call them. And
- 5:00Speaker 2: then there's the group of five under recruited out of
- 5:03Speaker 2: high school or out of Juco and they end up
- 5:05Speaker 2: at a New Mexico and then they come to Utah.
- 5:07Speaker 2: They end up being great players for you, like we
- 5:10Speaker 2: saw with r D and like we saw obviously with
- 5:12Speaker 2: the starting quarterback Devin dan Pierre. I think for me,
- 5:16Speaker 2: I think Utah should live in that world, even a
- 5:19Speaker 2: little bit more than the powerful latter transfer guys. But
- 5:22Speaker 2: you know, you head a John Henry Daily that is
- 5:24Speaker 2: the opposite example of emphasizing one thing over the other.
- 5:29Speaker 2: Where do you think Morgan Scali and Utah will have
- 5:32Speaker 2: more success if you had to prognosticate over the next
- 5:34Speaker 2: five years, would it be the upward mobility guys or
- 5:37Speaker 2: would it be the I stole him from BYU or
- 5:40Speaker 2: from Colorado or from Arizona State type guys.
- 5:42Speaker 3: Well, it really depends on you know, again, you're you
- 5:47Speaker 3: know what where you want to go to me a
- 5:50Speaker 3: lot of the guys that you're stealing from those programs.
- 5:54Speaker 3: We use the word stealing, grabbing, taking. It's an open market.
- 5:57Speaker 3: Nobody's stealing anybody these caves. Not like your kid apping
- 6:00Speaker 3: these kids in the middle of the night and taking
- 6:02Speaker 3: them from Boulder to Salt Lake City. They're making the
- 6:04Speaker 3: conscious choice to go where they go. I like the
- 6:08Speaker 3: idea of grabbing guys that had high level success at
- 6:14Speaker 3: the Group of five level and bringing them over. You know,
- 6:18Speaker 3: you look like a kid. The two wide receivers Utah had.
- 6:20Speaker 3: The two big receivers that Utah got were high level
- 6:24Speaker 3: producers group of five schools in the mount West Conference.
- 6:27Speaker 3: Kylie Scholz and Braden Pagan. These two guys had elite
- 6:32Speaker 3: level seasons last year in the Mountain West Conference. That's
- 6:36Speaker 3: high level production. I think I would rather do that
- 6:39Speaker 3: the high level production guys from a slightly lower level
- 6:42Speaker 3: than the guys that are making lateral, you know, conference
- 6:45Speaker 3: moves that maybe had lesser production at a Power five school.
- 6:51Speaker 3: I mean, you look at Pagan, you look at Shoals.
- 6:52Speaker 3: These guys were sixty seventy catch guys at the Mountain
- 6:55Speaker 3: West level that were making explosive plays. I think I
- 6:59Speaker 3: would rather have that than a guy that might be
- 7:02Speaker 3: teasing you with a little possibility that maybe played at
- 7:05Speaker 3: a power five sec Big ten, Big twelve school that
- 7:09Speaker 3: maybe had much less production production, maybe they had fifteen
- 7:12Speaker 3: or twenty catches. I don't think it's a bad move
- 7:14Speaker 3: either way. But if I'm picking between the two, I'll
- 7:18Speaker 3: take the high level production at the group of five level.
- 7:21Speaker 3: I mean, you'll do what what Iowa State did a
- 7:23Speaker 3: couple of years ago, Noel and Higgins, who were their
- 7:26Speaker 3: two big receivers who are now both playing in the
- 7:28Speaker 3: NFL and functioning at a high level. Those were two
- 7:32Speaker 3: guys that were Group of four and one double a program,
- 7:34Speaker 3: guys that went to the Big twelve and had huge
- 7:37Speaker 3: numbers with rock Obec. So if I'm going to choose
- 7:40Speaker 3: between them, and again I don't think that there's a
- 7:42Speaker 3: wrong choice. I think I'm going to probably go the
- 7:45Speaker 3: direction of a guy that had major production at may
- 7:48Speaker 3: be a slightly lower level.
- 7:49Speaker 2: I'm interested to see how this shapes that lower level
- 7:53Speaker 2: moving forward, because I think that's going to be the
- 7:55Speaker 2: answer from a lot of people right now, especially with
- 7:57Speaker 2: what Indiana did using a lot of Jmutis, transfers and whatnot.
- 8:02Speaker 2: It's already become a little bit of this, but I
- 8:04Speaker 2: wonder how much more of a I guess Developmental League,
- 8:08Speaker 2: the Mount West Conference, and the Conference USA type situation
- 8:12Speaker 2: becomes as we move forward, adjusting to the demands of
- 8:16Speaker 2: the Power for and Power five.
- 8:18Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna be interesting because we worried about this
- 8:20Speaker 3: a few years ago with one Double A football, the
- 8:22Speaker 3: big skies of the world in places like that, Oh
- 8:25Speaker 3: my gosh, they're going to become, you know, the feeding
- 8:27Speaker 3: and feeding grounds for these big schools. Well, to your point,
- 8:30Speaker 3: a lot of Group of five schools now have kind
- 8:32Speaker 3: of become that. But but that's okay, Sean, because you're
- 8:36Speaker 3: gonna get you know, we talked a lot about the
- 8:38Speaker 3: transfers from Utah that went with with Kyle Whittingham to Michigan. Well,
- 8:43Speaker 3: there were a number of guys that left Utah's program
- 8:46Speaker 3: that were recruited to Utah, but they just couldn't find
- 8:49Speaker 3: their footing from a playing time standpoint. So they've trans
- 8:53Speaker 3: you know, they've gone back the other way and they're
- 8:55Speaker 3: now at Group of five or one Double A school.
- 8:57Speaker 3: So I think that cuts both ways. Yeah, these group
- 9:01Speaker 3: of five schools are gonna lose high end talent, but
- 9:03Speaker 3: they're also going to grab guys that were maybe above
- 9:06Speaker 3: their pay grade in the recruiting cycle and bring them
- 9:09Speaker 3: back to the group of five level. So I think
- 9:12Speaker 3: there's a little bit of you know, a little bit
- 9:14Speaker 3: of movement both ways.
- 9:15Speaker 2: Yeah, don't worry, we were state. For every Jack Kelly
- 9:18Speaker 2: you lose, there's a Sean O'Connell coming your way from Utah.
- 9:21Speaker 2: You're gonna be just fine. It all comes out, Samesis. Anyway,
- 9:28Speaker 2: let's talk a little running utes basketball here Huntsman Center
- 9:32Speaker 2: hosting Utah versus Oklahoma State. The UT's looking again for
- 9:37Speaker 2: a big twelve win here. This is a doable one.
- 9:40Speaker 2: This is a winnable game. What do you need to
- 9:42Speaker 2: see from Alex Jensen's lineup in order to grab another
- 9:46Speaker 2: big twelve win.
- 9:47Speaker 3: Most of it's on the defensive end, Sean, these are
- 9:49Speaker 3: two teams that love to run up and down the floor.
- 9:52Speaker 3: Oklahoma State and Utah love to run up and down
- 9:56Speaker 3: the floor. And if you look at some of the
- 9:57Speaker 3: advanced numbers and the not so advanced numbers, yeah, they
- 10:00Speaker 3: love to run up and down the floor. But they
- 10:02Speaker 3: love to run the one end of the floor much
- 10:04Speaker 3: more than they love to run to the other end
- 10:05Speaker 3: of the floor, if you know what I'm talking about.
- 10:07Speaker 3: So these are two teams that are really good offensively.
- 10:10Speaker 3: Both these teams need to be a little bit better defensively.
- 10:13Speaker 3: I've talked to Alex a few times that they know
- 10:15Speaker 3: what it is. I mean, they've just they've got to
- 10:16Speaker 3: get a little bit better on the defensive end. They've
- 10:18Speaker 3: improved in some areas, like rebounding in some of those areas,
- 10:21Speaker 3: didn't turn the ball over at a high level even
- 10:23Speaker 3: last weekend down in Provo. But you know, you're not
- 10:26Speaker 3: going to win in a league like the Big twelve
- 10:28Speaker 3: or any big power league just trying to go out
- 10:31Speaker 3: and outscore and outrun and gun somebody. I know that
- 10:34Speaker 3: sounds goofy because you've got to outscore them to win,
- 10:36Speaker 3: But you know what I'm saying, you can't just live
- 10:38Speaker 3: on the offensive end that those days are just gone.
- 10:42Speaker 3: You've got to be able to guard a little bit.
- 10:43Speaker 3: So I think Alex is going to implore his guys
- 10:46Speaker 3: to be a little bit better guarding the basketball. And
- 10:48Speaker 3: this Oklahoma State team presents challenges because they pretty much
- 10:52Speaker 3: play with four guards and a big guy and their
- 10:55Speaker 3: four guards can all shoot it and they love to
- 10:58Speaker 3: push the pace, so I you know in Utah loves
- 11:01Speaker 3: to do the same thing too. So I would tell
- 11:03Speaker 3: people that are listening right now, come out tomorrow's four
- 11:06Speaker 3: o'clock game tomorrow at the Huntsman Center. Sean Mooney and
- 11:08Speaker 3: I will have the call pregame beginning at three thirty.
- 11:11Speaker 3: But the tempo and the pace of tomorrow's game between
- 11:14Speaker 3: the US and in Oak State should be pretty fun.
- 11:17Speaker 2: I won't have a chance to talk with you before then.
- 11:20Speaker 2: They take on Arizona State as well, again another winnable game,
- 11:23Speaker 2: and you circle some of these and you highlight them
- 11:26Speaker 2: and say, that's an opportunity for you to stack that
- 11:30Speaker 2: winning experience. Yes, it's great to play in the Big
- 11:32Speaker 2: Twelve Conference and to go up against the league competition
- 11:35Speaker 2: that you're going to see against Kansas and Houston, but
- 11:38Speaker 2: we're all here to see some wins. And Arizona State
- 11:40Speaker 2: is a winnable game and they got one of the
- 11:42Speaker 2: more fiery coaches in the league, so that's always fun
- 11:45Speaker 2: to watch. But I guess kind of the same thing
- 11:48Speaker 2: with Oklahoma State and with Arizona State. If you can
- 11:51Speaker 2: put a too little, you know, win win after win together,
- 11:56Speaker 2: it changes your outlook, It changes your confidence, changes a
- 11:59Speaker 2: little bit momentum. I don't know if it gets you
- 12:00Speaker 2: wins over Kansas or Houston after that, but the outlook
- 12:05Speaker 2: on the season becomes different. If you're beating the teams
- 12:08Speaker 2: on your level in the Big Twelve.
- 12:09Speaker 3: If that makes sense, well that's good, and you had
- 12:11Speaker 3: a It doesn't matter what lead you're in, Sean, You've
- 12:13Speaker 3: got to protect your home floor and winning the As
- 12:17Speaker 3: you mentioned, nothing's a given in the Big Twelve. There's
- 12:20Speaker 3: no given Oklahoma State or Arizona State or wins by
- 12:23Speaker 3: any means. But these are teams that are kind of
- 12:27Speaker 3: you in your realm, in the hierarchy of the conference
- 12:31Speaker 3: right now, good but maybe not great teams. So you've
- 12:34Speaker 3: got to protect your home floor. In Arizona State, it's
- 12:37Speaker 3: a lot the same that Utah, and it also Oklahoma State.
- 12:41Speaker 3: Bobby Hurley teams love to run up and down the floor.
- 12:44Speaker 3: Now they'll probably guard you a little bit more, at
- 12:46Speaker 3: least they will traditionally than say Oklahoma State might. But again,
- 12:50Speaker 3: these are kind of wide open type games and you're
- 12:53Speaker 3: playing them at the Huntsman Center, and you've got a
- 12:55Speaker 3: little altitude in your back pocket. And again, before you
- 12:58Speaker 3: can look for those big breakthroughs against the Kansases or
- 13:02Speaker 3: the Houstons or the Iowa States of the world, it's
- 13:05Speaker 3: the old you got to walk before you can run.
- 13:08Speaker 3: And you know, it's not the same in college basketball.
- 13:11Speaker 3: You can't pull those upsets, because you absolutely can, and
- 13:13Speaker 3: Utah's got firepower enough on the offensive end to do it.
- 13:17Speaker 3: But like you said, you stack those, stack those smaller wins,
- 13:21Speaker 3: and then you know, stack one or two or three
- 13:23Speaker 3: of those, and then you start feeling good about yourself.
- 13:26Speaker 3: And then you've got a little bit of confidence. And
- 13:28Speaker 3: then when you go on the road to play a
- 13:30Speaker 3: team like a Kansas in a week, or you go
- 13:32Speaker 3: on the road to play a school like Iowa State,
- 13:35Speaker 3: or you bring Houston into the Huntsman Center, you feel
- 13:37Speaker 3: a little bit better about yourself. So there are improvements.
- 13:41Speaker 3: For those that have watched this team play over twenty
- 13:43Speaker 3: games this year, you've seen some areas I mentioned, the turnovers,
- 13:47Speaker 3: I mentioned, the playing hard you know I mentioned also
- 13:50Speaker 3: the rebounding has gotten better mostly in a lot of
- 13:53Speaker 3: these games. Those things are coming, but again on the
- 13:56Speaker 3: defense to end is where Alex Jensen will tell you
- 13:58Speaker 3: they've got to make their most improvement. Now.
- 14:01Speaker 2: I'll be in Dubai when you join the show next Friday,
- 14:04Speaker 2: So I want your thoughts on who wins this super
- 14:06Speaker 2: Bowl coming up next weekend.
- 14:08Speaker 3: I think it's probably the Seattle Seahawks. I know that
- 14:12Speaker 3: hurts your NFC West loving heart, but they're really, really good.
- 14:16Speaker 3: The one thing I like about New England is Mike
- 14:19Speaker 3: Rabel is a really good coach and I think the
- 14:23Speaker 3: Patriots defense is really good. And Rabel's one of those
- 14:27Speaker 3: guys he's so detail oriented. Maybe somehow, some way he
- 14:32Speaker 3: finds that edge. I'm still not a complete believer in
- 14:36Speaker 3: Sam Darnold. I know he's played great, and it's this postseason.
- 14:39Speaker 3: I've seen him have some pretty awful games this year too.
- 14:43Speaker 3: But if Rabel can find a way and that Patriots
- 14:46Speaker 3: defense is pretty darn good's that's he's going to have
- 14:50Speaker 3: to make it a rock fight. Because if this game's
- 14:53Speaker 3: not a rock fight, if it's a wide open game,
- 14:56Speaker 3: I don't think the Patriots could beat Seattle. Plus Seattle's
- 14:59Speaker 3: come people playing in that building they played in there
- 15:01Speaker 3: earlier this year. I just I like Seattle in this game.
- 15:05Speaker 3: If it's going to be a Patriots game, it's going
- 15:07Speaker 3: to have to be a low scoring, ugly kind of
- 15:09Speaker 3: a rock fight. But I'm leaning toward the Seahawks. I
- 15:13Speaker 3: think Mike McDonald's done an unbelievable job of a couple
- 15:16Speaker 3: of seasons up there.
- 15:17Speaker 2: Hopefully the Seahawks are practicing on the Niners practice field
- 15:20Speaker 2: to get ready for the game.
- 15:23Speaker 3: Yeah, then there was that part of the open too.
- 15:25Speaker 3: What's whether they practicing next to a nuclear power planned
- 15:29Speaker 3: or under a house of power lines? What's the deal?
- 15:31Speaker 2: Allegedly, it's worse than that. It's that electrical substation that
- 15:36Speaker 2: the electromagnetic field is causing the collagen in their tissues
- 15:40Speaker 2: to break down and make them more susceptible to injury.
- 15:43Speaker 2: Bill it's full on conspiracy.
- 15:45Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I mean you use whatever you need to use,
- 15:51Speaker 3: Sean to justify why the Niners have they been practicing
- 15:55Speaker 3: there for years? I mean when the Chiefs meet them
- 15:57Speaker 3: not once but twice in the Super Bowl, was that
- 15:59Speaker 3: was that a reason? Yeah? It is.
- 16:01Speaker 2: I'm blaming I'm blaming every forty nine Ers loss on this.
- 16:04Speaker 2: Actually they won they haven't won the Super Bowl since
- 16:06Speaker 2: what ninety four? I think that's probably when that practice
- 16:10Speaker 2: field was starting to be used.
- 16:13Speaker 3: Yeah, I still don't understand why they're in Santa Clara
- 16:16Speaker 3: and they're called the San Francisco forty nine ers. What
- 16:18Speaker 3: are they like forty miles from downtown.
- 16:20Speaker 2: It takes so long too, and it's just like it's
- 16:23Speaker 2: like the Salt Lake City Jazz playing in Lehigh.
- 16:26Speaker 3: It's terrible. Oh it's not even Lehigh. I mean, you
- 16:29Speaker 3: know what, the traffic out there. They might as well
- 16:31Speaker 3: be the San Jose Niners instead of the San Francisco
- 16:34Speaker 3: forty nine ers.
- 16:35Speaker 2: It is a lot closer to San Jose. Now you
- 16:37Speaker 2: got me all fired up, Bill, I know I got
- 16:39Speaker 2: to let you go. I appreciate your time as.
- 16:40Speaker 3: Always, Hey, travel safe to the bio. Talk you soon.
- 16:43Speaker 2: That is Bill Riley. The Conversation with Bill Riley brought
- 16:46Speaker 2: to you by our good friends at Handy and Handy
- 16:49Speaker 2: Law Firm. It's a small law firm that gives you
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