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3 Guys Before The Game - Spring Fling Football (Episode 545) · 3 Guys Before The Game

• 0:10
  Greetings everyone. Nice to know that you survived the eclipse. Everyone's back.
• 0:20
  That was that was tight one that touch and go welcome. In its episode
• 0:26
  number five hundred and forty five of three Guys before the game, this is
• 0:30
  our Let's see what did I say it was? This was our spring football
• 0:35
  fling or spring fling. Football fling and football are together after spring? Okay,
• 0:40
  something like that. Oh do you hear that voice? For those of
• 0:44
  you just listening and not watching, Oh yeah, he's back. See him
• 0:49
  about as often as an eclipse. I come to work every eclipse, whether
• 0:55
  he needs to or not ready to go. The Senator is here. Boy,
• 1:00
  what a weekend he had. Woll you about that? Three Guys Before
• 1:04
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  of rewards off of that. Go for good times, go for Gomart and
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  go get your Gomart rewards card. Three guys also brought to us by Lou
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  Wendel Marine Sales in Saint Albans. They sell family fund. After last week's
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  kind of cold ish weather, I think we're past. I think we're done.
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  Huh you think so? I think I think we're past. That hurdle
• 2:46
  by last week was nasty. Yeah it was. It was. And guy
• 2:50
  I knew got sick, real sick last week too. Three guys is brought
• 2:53
  to us by Lou Wendell visit them at lou wendelmarnsales dot com. You know,
• 3:00
  you think, Senator, if you take a week's vacation, you're going
• 3:02
  to want to be at one hundred percent health, bouncy, just jumping around.
• 3:07
  Some guys don't have that luxury. Some guys remain on their back the
• 3:13
  entire week that they're gone. I was down. Have any idea where you
• 3:16
  got it? No, I thought I. I was quizzed about that by
• 3:22
  my spouse. I said, I don't know, but I just got and
• 3:23
  I don't handle sickness terribly well frankly, and so I was just down.
• 3:30
  It was. It was an over the counter med three nap a day extended
• 3:34
  viewing of Ted and Lasso sickness. Had you not gone through Lasso in its
• 3:39
  entirety before you were doing a rewatch? No, it's his first time.
• 3:43
  What do you think? I like it a lot? Yeah? Yeah,
• 3:46
  it's got all you know what it has it it's got a sports angle that
• 3:49
  you enjoy, got a lot of heart. Oh yeah, got a lot
• 3:52
  of heart. So I enjoyed. Yea. It's not just it's not just
• 3:53
  overly sarcastic or cynical and Uh, yeah, we're enjoying it, enjoying it
• 3:59
  a lot. Yeah. That In the Morning Show, The Morning Show,
• 4:02
  Jennifer Anderston in about a morning never mind going you've seen what you've seen the
• 4:08
  whole last time. I don't watch TV. I watched The Lasso is the
• 4:10
  only thing I've ever watched the last thirty years, Reese Witherspoon in The Morning
• 4:15
  Show. Exactly, I haven't seen it, but I know you're tomah good,
• 4:18
  senator. How are you fine physically good? Great? Sure, sure
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  great. Nothing came out of the weekend. No, didn't get hurt at
• 4:28
  camp. Nope. Camp. So you always have bemoaned the fact that a
• 4:33
  lot of schools missed when you came out from high school. You attack Eldon
• 4:39
  Miller, who not Tom Davis. Well, Tom offered but in a full
• 4:43
  scholarship. But right, but so the but you did receive a tombamarca right
• 4:47
  at Drake Dwayne Banks, the Iowa baseball coach, all walk on, No
• 4:50
  one will give me any money. So Neil Brown extended you a full scholarship
• 4:56
  to fantasy camp this weekend. You accepted. He didn't miss Coach brown on
• 5:01
  it recognize talent? Did you entertain other offers, or just took the first
• 5:05
  time from dream School. There you go, dream School hashtag dream school.
• 5:10
  He made the offer, I took it right on the spot, on my
• 5:12
  visit, on your visit, please please respect my decision. Fill us in.
• 5:17
  That did have in all seriousness, had a great time. So Football
• 5:20
  Westream Football and the Country Roase Trust hosted their first ever fantasy camp over the
• 5:26
  weekend. It was really it was a lot of fun. We'll talk about
• 5:29
  the on field stuff in a minute, but I thought the neatest part was
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  not only access to Neil and the assistance and the staff that were around,
• 5:36
  but they brought back four great former players, Bruce Irvin, Avon Coburn,
• 5:42
  Karl Joseph, and David Sills. And they not only were around and we
• 5:46
  did a question and answer with them, but they they interacted. They were
• 5:49
  there the whole weekend at lunch with us and moving about. So you really
• 5:53
  got a chance to talk to those guys. And that's that's four dudes,
• 5:57
  right, not only great players, ever, every one of them. It
• 6:00
  was fantastic to talk to them and interact. So they were great. So
• 6:03
  I thought that that was probably the highlight for everybody is getting to see gat
• 6:08
  and see those folks, and after that, did the did the offer then
• 6:12
  come after that for you to be well, I was already in yeah,
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  So it was one of those recruiting visits where I was already committed, but
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  just there to okay, to finalize. Okay, so it's there, But
• 6:21
  you know, did they gave everybody a tour of the facilities, which are
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  just jaw dropping. I've said this many times, hop, I mean we've
• 6:28
  been over in that facilities building how many times over the years. Unrecognizable to
• 6:31
  what you would remember. They could drop you at Arkansas, at UCLA,
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  at USC and you'd recognize it as much as you'd recognize the West Virginia building.
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  Incredible what they've done with the inside of that building, no question about
• 6:43
  that. So we'll talk more about that coming up a little bit later on.
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  Spring football is going on and getting to the point now where you're gonna
• 6:53
  get some significant scrimmages that will be behind closed doors and at the point right
• 7:00
  now, but the basic theme is that so far, so good. You
• 7:04
  talk and you hear from the coaches, and they seem to be content with
• 7:09
  what they're seeing, both on the field and just chemistry, culture or a
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  couple of the words that continue to be kicked around. So that's what it
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  is in spring, that's what you hope for. No great drama this particular
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  year. You don't have a massive quarterback battle. You don't have a massive
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  running back battle. You know who those dudes are, and you share carries
• 7:30
  and we get that receivers. They were all out there last season in diapers.
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  They might elevate to training pants this year, but they had the three
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  babies out there at times last year. Those guys are all growing up and
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  then the newcomer. So so far, so good from football time now for
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  Hoppies. Obvious observations, hoh soon to be having a sponsor. It'll have
• 7:53
  a sponsor here pretty soon. And would you like to care to make some
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  obvious observation. One of the things that Garrett Greed has talked about in the
• 8:00
  off season was getting better, right, improving working on his footwork or working
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  on his delivery, and just being better. Brad last year, in twelve
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  games, he completed fifty three percent. I don't want to get in spreadsone
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  stats here, but some of it is he completed fifty three percent of his
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  passes last year, it was last in the league. So I looked at
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  the other quarterbacks in the league, and I took out I took out Dylan
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  Gabriel, I took about took out Quinn Uwers. I mean they completed seventy
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  percent of their passes. That's really that's the aberration. The average was about
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  sixty two to sixty four percent completion of everybody else in the league. So
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  I even went below that. What if Garrett Green could improve from fifty three
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  percent to sixty percent, that's seven percentage points. He's fair hot, center,
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  would you agree to I'd be a fair keep going seven percentage points.
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  That's a thirteen percent increase, you get it, I mean seven percentage points,
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  but it's a thirteen percent increase over fifty three percent. You follow me,
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  yes, okay, So then apply that to his numbers from last year.
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  So if he improves by thirteen percent, and this is just running numbers,
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  it doesn't exactly quite this way, if he had thirteen percent more completions,
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  he'd go from one forty seven to one sixty six. So that's you
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  know, plus it's plus nineteen, right, it's nineteen more completions. You
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  know roughly roughly to a game. Okay, maybe they come at critical times,
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  right, or maybe one game you don't complete as many. Maybe another
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  game you complete four more than you do, but maybe some of those are
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  at critical times. So nineteen more completions. What if you improve touchdown passes
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  by thirteen percent, that's from sixteen to eighteen to more touchdown passes. What
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  about yards per game? If you improve by thirteen percent, you go from
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  two hundred and twenty six yards. I think that if you improve just thirteen
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  percent and you can improve on completion percent, you can improve on number of
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  completions, touchdown passes, and yards, that's another win. Okay, that's
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  another win, or maybe another win or two. That's another couple first downs
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  that you don't otherwise get. And at fifty three percent, that's not all
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  on him, because there were drop passes, there were defensive plays, there
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  was pressure, those kinds of things. So other people get to play too.
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  But if you can improve your output at the quarterback position, which he
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  is striving to do by thirteen percent, I think you can equate that to
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  see how that can translate to another win or to this coming season. So
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  I think the biggest thing there is what you just said about the receivers.
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  To me, the more I look at this team, this is going to
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  be a really fun spring in summer. Because I started to make some notes
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  here about what to talk about for spring football. You don't realize how much
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  there is to talk about. This is unbelievable, the amount of different things
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  we can get into with some optimism and some hope and some improvement. So
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  Garrett is about as low on the list as I can get for people that
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  I'm wondering about this spring. Because I'll say it again, he was elite
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  last year. That wasn't just a good season for Western quarterback. It wasn't
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  just a good big twelve season. That was a national level dude. And
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  if some of those completion numbers go up a little bit and you keep everything
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  else static, but what do I always say? You can't just assume everything
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  moves forward. But I'm excited to watch what he does after now knowing the
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  offense for a year, after reading defenses for a year, I think there's
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  a chance for him to take a big step forward. But it's the receivers
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  catching the ball and catching balls that aren't exactly on the money that I think
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  is where the difference comes in, because that's the thing that I think was
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  missing last year. There were still drops, there were still balls that were
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  overthrown, Yes, but you didn't get to And here's the example, Tony,
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  you saw it. We were standing right there watching it. That catch
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  Rodney Gallagher made a couple weeks ago in practice, hoppy was it would have
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  stacked up as the best catch you saw all of last season. So how
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  many of those are in there? Is that happened a couple times as Treylon
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  Ray makes some more catches, does Clement? I think this receiver group has
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  a chance to really take a massive step forward. That might be the part
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  of the offense where we come back during the season or afterwards and go,
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  how about those receivers. Never mind Jayden Bray, who's coming along the Oklahoma
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  State transfer. I think those young guys, the Ray, Gallagher is the
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  missing Hoddy Clement, those three are really talented. I think they have a
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  chance to massively jump up. Understanding how to run routes, understanding how to
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  set up the defensive back and cut the other way. I think that's what
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  helps Garrett's accuracy, maybe more than anything that he personally does, although he's
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  working like crazy on those passes. I think that receiver room could be really
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  really fun. When you were out there Saturday watching practice, how the balls
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  zip out pretty good? Yeah, I mean Garrett's arm is fantastic. I
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  mean it zips and those guys are catching it. And I think Nico's arm
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  looks demonstrably stronger. I think he looks excellent as well. That's probably we
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  won't talk about that until the time comes in which Nico has to start a
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  game and then wins, and then we'll gush about how great that is.
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  That was a good get for for Neil Brown to keep a homping it back
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  up like that, that can step right in and play if and when Garrett
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  goes down, and given Garrett's style, that's always something you worry about.
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  But I thought the quarterback room has looked tremendous in the limited time I've seen
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  them. Mm hmm. And as you said, I think you're right,
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  So you could make You could talk a lot in the spring season about receivers,
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  offensive line and you know, the not a massive rebuild, but replacing
• 13:24
  people and plugging new people in. You can have that conversation running backs super
• 13:30
  interesting. Like if your big topic is who's your third that means you're in
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  a pretty good position tight ends and Cole Taylor's sitting down this spring, but
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  you've got the development there. And then defense, you could do the whole
• 13:41
  same say, well, we're going to spend some time on defense because I
• 13:43
  got I got ten guys we got to talk about defensively. Excuse me stay
• 13:46
  on the offense for a second, because I think offensive line becomes the number
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  one question here because I get the sense that early on we're we're too quickly
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  going. Zach Fraser was awesome, They'll be okay. Zach Fraser was awesome.
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  Capital a all caps, well you could make you could make the case
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  he's the best center ever at West Virginia. So that's Gisam centers. That's
• 14:09
  really hard. That's a group. We've talked about this many times. You
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  lead power five and rushing five penalties a game, only forty six penalty yards
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  a game. That was about as good of offensive line performance as you can
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  get. They were elite elite. Never mind Doug Nester's gone, He's going
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  to get a chance to play in the league too. You can't gloss over
• 14:26
  the changes that are coming on that line. So to me, the question
• 14:28
  becomes, what's the line look like? Asking it to be the best Power
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  five rushing attack in America is probably asking too much. But where does it
• 14:37
  stack up? Is it still really really good? Is it just good?
• 14:41
  You've got a bunch of guys that have played, but Brandon Yates in a
• 14:43
  new position, Chique our guy from the last podcast now starting every game,
• 14:46
  Nick Malone who was invaluable, and all three of those guys were very,
• 14:50
  very good last year. But now you're asking them to play all the snaps
• 14:54
  and then beyond that, the next layer, these young guys that we've been
• 14:56
  hearing about now for a year or two that there's a lot of potent,
• 15:00
  there's potential pros. How do they mix in? Is there a drop off
• 15:03
  when they come in? So the performance of the offensive line is still going
• 15:07
  to drive this team? Agreed, So I think it's fair to say the
• 15:11
  offensive line isn't going to be as good as last year's. You have to
• 15:13
  say that it would be impossible to get there out Okay, So to your
• 15:16
  point, so then where does it go to? Is it still a top
• 15:22
  twenty five rushing offense in the country, you'd take that today or does it
• 15:26
  significantly fall back? My lean is that it'll be a good quality offensive line,
• 15:31
  so too. And we probably didn't. We probably didn't give last year's
• 15:37
  line enough credit while it was happening in front of our eyes. Is not
• 15:41
  It was unbelievable the performance they turned in. But so here's the question.
• 15:45
  Okay, so it comes back a little bit because you lost the best of
• 15:48
  all time at one of the positions, at the most important position. Okay,
• 15:50
  fine, but if your passing game then steps forward and you're more dangerous
• 15:54
  there, you might end up in the same place. You might not have
• 15:58
  to be the number one rushing team in America to get similar results. That's
• 16:02
  what you're trying to juggle there, is Okay, that's fine. We got
• 16:04
  other guys now learning new positions. Fine, guess what, we now have
• 16:07
  receivers that didn't know exactly what they were doing last year and it hadn't even
• 16:11
  come close to their full potential. So I think that's the give and take
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  right there. And then again, Garrett's just going to be an eraser on
• 16:18
  some mistakes. There's going to be guys that are blitzing off the corner that
• 16:22
  you miss your simon, or you miss your block, or somebody turns around
• 16:25
  way can you say that thing? Hoppy? It's such intricate play. It's
• 16:26
  amazing. There's not more mistakes than what happened. But when mistakes happened,
• 16:32
  Garrett Green can erase those just by taking off. So I can't wait to
• 16:34
  watch this offense. I think it's got a chance to be outstanding. Again.
• 16:38
  Let's jump over to defense, because I think that's the part. If
• 16:41
  you're really digging down this spring, you can kind of take the offense and
• 16:45
  set it aside and figure it's going to be really good. Right second year
• 16:48
  for a quarterback, all that talent, skill, positions, experience line,
• 16:52
  you should have high expectations for that offense. How about defensively? If you
• 16:57
  talk to those guys, they're excited about some individuals. The Brown mentioned index
• 17:02
  is starting to rock up some numbers. Let's look at a couple. You
• 17:04
  want to did he take you to a side at all during fantasy can and
• 17:07
  give you any like whisper any Bron mentioned the BMW. Bron mentioned whisper,
• 17:14
  Well, those would be private conversations that I'm not going to divulge. Well,
• 17:17
  keep those What do we do is keep those between ourselves. But did
• 17:21
  he Okay, you don't have to tell me what he said, But did
• 17:22
  you get a b BMW bron mentioned whisper? Are you the are you the
• 17:29
  Neil Brown whisperer? Had no time? Did he come to you? Did
• 17:33
  he give you this one? Hey, I'm just telling you what. Take
• 17:34
  a look at thirteen over there? Sixteen. Well, let's talk about some
• 17:37
  guys. Okay, so could this maybe be something he said? But you're
• 17:41
  not going to say that he said it. Now. There's a lot of
• 17:44
  people over in that building, so you're saying this is fresh fruit. No,
• 17:48
  I'm just saying, let's talk about some guys. I mean, you
• 17:49
  don't have to be over in the building to know what I'm about to say
• 17:52
  to you. Is this good stuff? Well? I think it is.
• 17:55
  I think it's a good conversation starter. Okay. The fact of the sheer
• 17:59
  numbers I'm about to give you, I think that makes it a great conversation.
• 18:02
  All right, Hoppy and il Jode, go ahead, you ready,
• 18:04
  Let's start at the cornerback position. The BMI is really high on Aiden Garnes
• 18:11
  transfer from Duquine. How many times he keep coming up, lots lots great
• 18:15
  speed. Hoppy quote from Neil the other day this was public can run stride
• 18:19
  for stride with EJ. Who's as fast as anybody will play against EJ.
• 18:22
  Horton receiver. So they love Aiden Garnes. And we've seen that profile work
• 18:29
  here, have we not. Alonzo A Die came in lower level, elevated
• 18:33
  up was really good. Charles Woods came in lower level, elevated up,
• 18:36
  was really good. Beanie A. Bishop Hello. I know he came directly
• 18:40
  from Minnesota, but before that lower level elevated up turned into an All American.
• 18:45
  So that profile defensive back wise, has really worked. Aiden Garnes is
• 18:48
  getting mentioned a lot. They like him at the corner. Did you eye
• 18:52
  him up this weekend, Garnett Hollis? Did you eye up Garns? Do
• 18:57
  you like him? He looked long, look like Garnett Hollis one of the
• 19:02
  Northwestern transfers. Familiar, also very very good. Neil thinks he's an NFL
• 19:07
  player. That's two corners right there, hoppy two corners, position of need.
• 19:12
  Two corners really good. Now go to the linebacker position, because this
• 19:17
  is the one to watch if, in my opinion, that's been a position
• 19:21
  going back years, Guys that it seems like when West Virginia gets an injury
• 19:25
  trouble, it almost always is the linebackers. How many different seasons have we
• 19:30
  watched the team limp to the finish line just trying to plug holes at linebackers?
• 19:33
  Right, you're trying to bring safety downs and aren't big enough Back in
• 19:36
  the old Gibbie days, you did that a few times. Last year you
• 19:38
  had just had injury after injury at that position. This year it feels and
• 19:42
  again you don't know what's going to happen on that front, but you've got
• 19:45
  some dudes. When Trey Lathan returns right as a freshman All American, he
• 19:49
  was headed for a monster season. Then just look at a couple of guys.
• 19:53
  Ben Cutter got a ton of experience. Yes, Katon Buiser played a
• 19:56
  big role, so he can mix in there. But then that Josiah Trotter
• 20:00
  is a guy we probably haven't talked about enough because he got injured last year.
• 20:03
  Of course early he's a dude. He's a dude. I think he's
• 20:08
  going to step right in and make some place. Well, they pencil him
• 20:11
  in as a potential starter last year before he got hurt as a true freshman
• 20:15
  hobby. Yeah, he gets it. He's impressing. He's impressing. Read
• 20:19
  Karaco, former four star recruit that went to Ohio State that's now coming in.
• 20:23
  Neil described him as as hungry. You like talented guys that are hungry,
• 20:29
  right, which would make sense. A guy that didn't play as much
• 20:30
  as he wanted to Ohio State is getting a fresh start here for a chance
• 20:33
  to come in and play. Read careco. So there's some linebackers right there
• 20:37
  that you feel like you've got some depth, maybe for the first time,
• 20:41
  and I mean I don't know how many years. So that's encouraging, all
• 20:45
  right. Now, go along the defensive line, because pass rushers in particular
• 20:49
  are in high demand. They have got to find some guys that can pressure
• 20:52
  the pass rusher. So there's guys that we already know about. Shawn Martin.
• 20:57
  Shawn Martin continues, that's not the first time we've stood next to Seann
• 21:02
  Martin. Tony he is a massive individual, large human. He is.
• 21:06
  They don't make a lot of humans like him hoppy, and he's had a
• 21:08
  good spring so far through the first couple of weeks. So there's a pass
• 21:12
  rusher in Shawn Martin that hopefully he turns into what everybody foresaw him being when
• 21:18
  he came out of high school. Bluefield here. But then the two guys
• 21:21
  to watch with the new guys, and we've talked a lot about them,
• 21:22
  Ty French the Gardner Web transfer and TJ. Jackson the Troy transfer, both
• 21:27
  have really impressed over there and could be difference makers if they can translate up
• 21:33
  to this level hoppy and get pressures on the quarterback. And then you've got
• 21:37
  good defensive backs and oh, by the way, you have good linebackers.
• 21:38
  That defense has a chance to really take a step forward this year. And
• 21:41
  it was really good early last year. Remember it won Westford to you some
• 21:45
  games early before that offense figured out what it was doing and got everybody healthy
• 21:48
  and started to take over down the stretch. I'm excited to watch his defense.
• 21:52
  There's some individuals there that you should really be keeping an eye on.
• 21:55
  Where where are things with the portal? Now? Are you going to get
• 21:59
  portal to all after spring? Yeah? Both ways, there will be guys
• 22:03
  that will leave, yes, because that always happens. Right. Two things
• 22:06
  guys are going to see maybe they weren't getting enough STAPs in spring, it
• 22:08
  didn't go exactly if they wanted and or for some of your good guys,
• 22:12
  you're gonna get teams coming out of the spring that are desperate that looked at
• 22:15
  their roster and went, you know what, we do not have X.
• 22:19
  So then they have already combed rosters and they're going to start, which is
• 22:23
  technically illegal, I realized, but there's gonna be some contact made with some
• 22:27
  offers put forth. So yeah, you're gonna have to hang onto your portal.
• 22:30
  But also guess what else happens. You can other guys are going to
• 22:33
  come out of spring practice at Alabama, at Clemson, Ohio State and go,
• 22:36
  you know what this in when I thought it was, it seems and
• 22:37
  again there's some time to there's time remaining, but it seems like West Virginia
• 22:42
  remained remarkably stable in the off season. It did, but that is the
• 22:51
  bell curve of the portal. After getting absolutely pillaged a couple of years ago
• 22:56
  and use losing six defensive starters, you're right, West Virginia has solidified itself.
• 23:02
  It's fortified itself a much more better position to kind of retain the guys
• 23:07
  that you want to retain. And obviously you're always way before the portal ever
• 23:11
  started, I'm talking forever ago, guys were going to leave after spring ball
• 23:15
  when they realized most of the time but was to drop down a division or
• 23:18
  level so that they could play. But so you're always going to have that.
• 23:22
  But it's the guys that you want to stay that you don't obviously,
• 23:26
  those are the ones you don't want to look it. But so far you
• 23:29
  haven't been like a couple years ago where you just got plucked. No,
• 23:32
  as I've said many times on that show, some of that plucking was was
• 23:34
  circumstances that will not repeat themselves. Those were those were those were rare circumstances
• 23:40
  that that weren't going to be a consistent pattern. It was a it was
• 23:44
  almost a one off event. You also have heard me say many times,
• 23:47
  the market's going to level itself out right, it's going to settle down into
• 23:51
  a place that you can manage. And then you went out and won,
• 23:53
  and you and you've got the culture where you want it for right now,
• 23:56
  so that's easier to retain. And then also here's what you have too,
• 24:00
  Hopey, let's just be honest about this. You've got some leverage. If
• 24:03
  you're Neil Brown, you've got some guys coming in saying you got to give
• 24:06
  me more, You got to give me more. And he has the luxury
• 24:07
  now saying that's what I have for you. If that's not good, go
• 24:11
  ahead and test the market. And then when you test the market and leave,
• 24:14
  I'm backfilling with guys that might have been better than what left do and
• 24:17
  that didn't exist two years ago. And part of that's because the market's maturing
• 24:21
  a little bit, and West Virginia now has a handle on what the market
• 24:25
  is. You know what you have via the trust in terms of dollars.
• 24:27
  You know from a personnel standpoint. Now you've been scouting the whole season,
• 24:33
  so when it hits, you know exactly what you're looking for. So the
• 24:34
  whole operation has stabilized a little bit. And that's not just West Virginia.
• 24:38
  I mean that specifically is West Virginia, but the whole market's starting to stabilize
• 24:42
  all over now. People, Okay, we got it. What are the
• 24:45
  rules, let's play, But I got them. I got to understand how
• 24:47
  to do it now. It's just so that helps you. Yeah, it's
• 24:48
  becoming more and more professional The NC DOUBLEA has come out now and again always
• 24:56
  a West Virginia connection. The head of the NC Double A, Charlie Baker,
• 25:00
  saying that the NCAA is not going to oppose the basic decision that came
• 25:07
  out of the federal court in Wheeling during the Raquon Battle situation, and it's
• 25:12
  going to open the door for transfer as much as you want to transfer.
• 25:17
  Well, the only thing you can't do now is play at one school one
• 25:21
  semester and then go to that school and be eligible to second semester. Other
• 25:25
  than that, you can transfer four times. That's going to be the rule.
• 25:29
  Well, so do we need any more to underscore how wild this has
• 25:33
  become? And that's the rule right now. That's not a new rule.
• 25:37
  He's only saying that because they're not going to go challenge it in court,
• 25:40
  is why. Because they were going to lose it. They've already lost once,
• 25:41
  they were going to lose again, right, So that's where it is.
• 25:44
  So yeah, until the collective bargaining comes in and you put some parameters
• 25:48
  in place, it's going to be this. But West Virginia's in a better
• 25:51
  position. That doesn't mean you're not going to have a loss somewhere in the
• 25:53
  portal that we come in and go, oh, wish you didn't, But
• 25:56
  okay, you know what you're dealing with now, and as long as you
• 26:00
  know what your salary cap is and what positions you need, you can manage
• 26:03
  it a little bit better. And then when you win. Oh, by
• 26:06
  the way, does that help? Sure? Yeah, because if guys wanted
• 26:08
  to, okay, go ahead, try to thanks for being with us,
• 26:11
  go ahead, and then you go bring other players in on top of it.
• 26:15
  That's where they are right now. WVU defensive line coach Andrew Jackson has
• 26:18
  done a really good job with that group since coming on board, and earlier
• 26:22
  this week he met with reporters and one of the things I think you guys
• 26:26
  would all agree that this staff didn't feel they had down enough when they first
• 26:33
  got here was physicality. And Andrew Jackson addressed physicality coming out of practice earlier
• 26:40
  this week and it has done a oneint eighty well physical I've had very talented
• 26:45
  groups here. This is the most physical group I have, you know,
• 26:48
  going against Zach Frasier all those years for some of the guys that have been
• 26:52
  in the room, Doug Nester, Wyatmolin and just those guys spurring competition and
• 27:00
  then just pointing out good examples of defensive line plan how physicality can overcome a
• 27:03
  lot of things on tape, I think those guys have really truly embraced it,
• 27:06
  and we've done a great job just building that, you know, as
• 27:10
  an example on defense in general. You know, just just you know,
• 27:12
  not appearing to be soft and being able to put your hands on people and
• 27:15
  your shoulder pads on folks too. So this thing, this thing is always
• 27:19
  a build, right. And what he's saying there is this when you finally
• 27:23
  stabilize this program and got the guys you needed, the Mileams, the Nesters,
• 27:30
  the Frasers, they set a new stand. Yes, they built a
• 27:33
  foundation. Now you feed those guys as a result that played against them got
• 27:38
  better. So in a perfect world, this just continues to build and build
• 27:44
  and build and build great programs, get a culture that is just everyone knows
• 27:48
  as they come in this is how we do things here. I really believe
• 27:51
  that when Neil first got here there was none of that. No, every
• 27:55
  everyone was pointing into a different direction. He had to corral it all and
• 28:00
  say this is what the normal is, this is what we're doing and Frasier
• 28:04
  and all of those guys well should always be credited with setting the new normal.
• 28:10
  And so you've you've he's built the program. He's established, as you
• 28:14
  said, Tony, the new normal. You having Garrett Green, you have
• 28:17
  a great leader. You have a leader that you have somebody that people follow.
• 28:21
  Okay, so now you're now you're in a pretty good shape. I
• 28:25
  mean, consider where you were a year ago. I mean you you knew
• 28:27
  a year ago like, you're close here, you could you could be very
• 28:30
  close, and they did, in fact complete that circle. Now complete,
• 28:36
  but they finished the circle to get to the next level. So you head
• 28:40
  into this year much more optimistic than you were ago. It's a one eighty
• 28:45
  in regard to where we were emotionally. Let's face it, a year ago,
• 28:49
  everyone was going like this, flip a coin, is it gonna Is
• 28:52
  this gonna work or not work? If it doesn't work, everything is getting
• 28:56
  blown up. That was it. That was the reality. It's it's no
• 29:00
  one even thinks that now because they go in they go, okay, we
• 29:03
  were boost up. Win nine. You win a bowl game, it changes
• 29:07
  the entire complexion of your off season in your program. Now the next hard
• 29:11
  part is okay, now do something comparable to that again, then you really
• 29:15
  start going. The culture discussion is massive. The culture stuff can't be overstated.
• 29:21
  And I know sometimes even I poo poo that when coaches start on that
• 29:26
  because you're okay, I mean, go handle your business. Stop with the
• 29:29
  culture stuff. It's always the culture stuff, but you really can't win without
• 29:32
  it. Hoppy, I mean, Tony, you just said it a minute
• 29:33
  ago. Fraser and those guys should be credited for a long time for that.
• 29:37
  That's really true. And as you watch this younger group of linemen grow
• 29:41
  up and take the reins here, I think that's what you have to point
• 29:45
  back to. Zach arrives as a freshman, really talented and very very good.
• 29:49
  But who's he looking at in the room? All due respect everybody that
• 29:52
  was there, but not really you look around and who was Zach supposed to
• 29:56
  model himself after? Okay, Then Zack becomes a sophomore, and now he's
• 30:00
  going into a second year starting and then he's a junior. Well, now,
• 30:03
  all of a sudden, who's the room looking at? And Zach Fraser's
• 30:06
  in there working his butt off, handling his business extra film. Nobody's watching
• 30:10
  more film than Zach. What Jaqui Hubbard tell us the other day, Right,
• 30:12
  all those guys are now elevated up, even if Fraser never said a
• 30:17
  word. And then you add Nestor into the mix, who's a professional level
• 30:21
  guy. And then oh, by the way, here comes Wyatt Milam growing
• 30:23
  up. So now suddenly that room and then Remac mixes in, and then
• 30:26
  you've got a great dude in Yates, and you've got Jaqui Hubbard, and
• 30:30
  suddenly that room that's a pretty damn good room. Right, Nestor is easy
• 30:33
  to be around, Fraser easy to be around, Jaquah Hubbard's smiling, Wyatt
• 30:37
  Milam is a great dude. That's a good culture based room. And that
• 30:42
  unit becomes your best unit. Well, what's everybody else on the team now
• 30:45
  have to do hard to be a jack leg when you got that group running
• 30:48
  things right. And so the jack legs now have to be a little bit
• 30:52
  more quiet and they get a little smaller piece of that locker room and they
• 30:55
  can't infect the locker room anymore because the best unit is your best guys,
• 31:00
  and they're standing. Is that right? Is that right? Here's what we're
• 31:02
  going to come on come on with it. And so that's how that culture
• 31:04
  starts to flip, and that leads directly to wins. It's not just in
• 31:08
  sports, it's in everyday life. It's in business. Right. Yes,
• 31:12
  you get the right people in your business that have the right mindset and it
• 31:17
  translates to everyone else or those that don't buy in, they go away.
• 31:22
  An example, because if the boss or the coach has to come into that
• 31:25
  meeting room and you walk into the meeting room and everybody's got their feet up
• 31:27
  on the desk and their grab ass and they're jacking around and you've got to
• 31:30
  straighten them out every single day. Guess what, that unit's not going to
• 31:33
  be successful. Well, like coaches will always say, if I've got a
• 31:37
  coach effort, I got no shot. I got a coach effort, right,
• 31:42
  I look at here, look at this company over the courts forty years
• 31:47
  Dale Miller comes in. You come in obsessive compulsive work effort, no,
• 31:52
  seriously obsessive compulsive work ethics. And everyone sees that. Jeff Jenkins comes in
• 31:59
  obsessive compulsive work ethic. It just it trickles down. If you don't get
• 32:02
  you if you're not riding that right wave, then you're you're gonna go bye
• 32:07
  bye. And everyone looks at that and that they know that's the standard.
• 32:10
  But then those people have to individually get on their horse and go, and
• 32:15
  if they don't, it's not gonna work. It's just not going to work.
• 32:17
  So you can see it, but you better do it and be held
• 32:21
  accountable to it or it's not gonna matter. But you've got to be driven
• 32:23
  by people that want to do the work and put the work in, and
• 32:27
  that's when your culture starts to flip. And then the other part is that
• 32:30
  you get a result. Yeah okay, so it reinforces the good culture.
• 32:35
  You like, why am I doing all this stuff? And you know,
• 32:37
  Fraser's on my why am I doing all this? Oh? You're winning?
• 32:40
  Oh okay. So the actions produce the results to see, this is how
• 32:47
  it work. And then that continues the story, right because then as the
• 32:50
  leader of the coach, you can go in and you say, hey,
• 32:52
  hey, freshman lineman, you want me tell you about Zach Fraser. You
• 32:54
  want to tell me how that can boom? Then that continues the story.
• 32:59
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  Gomart. Did you as a camper did you pull the traditional uh football guy?
• 34:04
  As a I don't know if you played offense or defense during this camp.
• 34:07
  Did you look you look down your nose at the special teams performers?
• 34:10
  No, that was part of the camp. Did you treat you treat them
• 34:14
  with respect. There was an opportunity to punt and kick for the campers.
• 34:20
  Yes it was. Actually it was a punt passing kick competition. Did you
• 34:22
  do? Do you kick or field? Now? You know what I did?
• 34:24
  So here So are we going into this? Now? You want to
• 34:27
  talk about fancy camp for a minute? I mean, I guess you want
• 34:30
  to hold what do you got? No? I think we get into it.
• 34:31
  But here here's the hoppy. You'll appreciate this. Yes, is there
• 34:35
  comes a point in your life, a seminal moment, seminal moment, when
• 34:40
  the competitiveness that you either once had or still had has to take a backseat
• 34:46
  to what age should bring you, which is wisdom and understanding, yes,
• 34:52
  and being self actualized enough or soft that I don't need to run out there
• 34:55
  and try and run a sub nine flat forty with the potential risk of an
• 35:01
  injury that causes weeks of inconvenience. So you didn't do the forty. So
• 35:07
  the first event up. Ryan Neeland was the one that did the on field
• 35:10
  stuff. He ran the on field so did a tremendous job. You got
• 35:15
  a little coaching in him at DNA for right. His granddads used to coach
• 35:17
  over here at the college. Does a great job. So Ryan's out there,
• 35:21
  he's getting everybody gone, and first up was the forty yard dash.
• 35:22
  Hob Okay. Now remember I'm the same guy that pulled a hammy last year
• 35:27
  pitching batting practice in softball. Like, I know my limitations. Now I'm
• 35:30
  well past my prime. Okay, So the forty yard dash is up first.
• 35:36
  So Ryan says, Brett, come on, you're up. I said,
• 35:38
  absolutely not a I'll due respect, Ryan, I will not be running
• 35:43
  it. You have a lot of credit to my guy CJ. Donaldson,
• 35:46
  who's standing right next to me. Yeah, CJ says in my ear,
• 35:51
  tell him you're deferring to the second half. Just defer it to the second
• 35:52
  half. It's not a coin flip. It was, I said him out
• 35:57
  not doing it about Bruce Servan, what did he say was chirping, Bruce
• 36:00
  is still competitive. I got a good Bruce serving story. He'll hit you
• 36:02
  right in the face. Well, yeah, still competitive. So that's what
• 36:06
  I'm saying, you've got to work through. There's there's a lot of people
• 36:08
  out there that there's some encouragement to do all of the things. Did some
• 36:12
  of the campers run, well, some of them did. Did anyone get
• 36:15
  hurt? Yeah, my got Charlie might have had a groin issue. Third
• 36:19
  runner out of the gate might have had a groin issue. He's a tough
• 36:22
  sob though. He did every drill from there on out with a pulled groin.
• 36:24
  Well football player, gamer, Yeah, did you throw? I threw
• 36:32
  through? How'd you do? Okay? Didn't hit the net right on target?
• 36:36
  Just left it short. Oh, this is not distance. This has
• 36:37
  hit the We're working on the net in the corner like the fade, fade,
• 36:40
  the old faded faith. See why I hate fade? Get out there
• 36:44
  trying to throw the fade. Can't throw the faith? Leave it short?
• 36:45
  Did did run a pass? Pattern? Ran a fade? I'm probably not
• 36:50
  the ideal guy for the faith. Austin, you got that picture that I'll
• 36:52
  show you the effort I gave. Gave great effort, effort. Who threw
• 36:57
  it? That looks like that Mohem was throwing to me? Okay, it
• 37:01
  looks like it was are too far ahead? Well, Jaheim overestimated my speed.
• 37:05
  I wasn't. There was a lot slower than what I think. He
• 37:07
  where's the I tay? I give you credit because obviously you put a move
• 37:09
  on the defender. There's no defender there. Well, there was no defender.
• 37:15
  See Ryan Neiland in the back thinks I have it. He got it.
• 37:17
  So Jahim can throw the ball, Well, he got a lot.
• 37:21
  Here's the thing, like Niko is a very capable backup. I think you
• 37:24
  gotta put a little half back passing there for Jehem White. He can throw
• 37:28
  it. Yeah, I might put a little tackle pass in there for Wyatt
• 37:30
  milem Milam might have on the high school could have been a major league baseball
• 37:35
  player, could have been a major league baseball I remember him when he was
• 37:39
  young. Absolutely, I'm being serious. You want to he was elite as
• 37:44
  a freshman in high school. He was throwing on as a freshman in the
• 37:46
  he got I think it was into his sophomore year. He got it up,
• 37:49
  he told me in ninety one ninety two, as a six six lefty,
• 37:52
  perfect for I mean, seriously, he would have been Now he's gonna
• 37:55
  make a ton of money as an NFL player. He he absolutely could have
• 37:59
  been a Majorague baseball I mean he was a leadal lead so you don't see
• 38:01
  any tackles that can take the ball and say where's the net? Okay,
• 38:05
  I got it. I'm just gonna drop it in there. He was very
• 38:07
  good. You think Neil might pull out something in there for him. I
• 38:09
  don't know how you get the tackle to throw the ball, but I might
• 38:12
  line him up, line him up as a position or titles run him.
• 38:15
  I want him throwing it, not catching it. I understand he can,
• 38:19
  yeah, but he can line up as a tight end. You can't.
• 38:21
  Don't get too clever by half now, like I have to tackle, pass
• 38:24
  it and fool everybody. Don't let him pay. If he wants to just
• 38:27
  stop back in shotgun and take the stap, he can do it. He
• 38:29
  couldn't just like fake the pass and run it. No, just throw it.
• 38:31
  He's got a great arm. Okay. So that's the other part of
• 38:35
  in all seriousness about the camp. I'll give you a couple more things here,
• 38:37
  but the culture, the guys that were out there that were that were
• 38:40
  working with the trust, that were their current players. I mean you're talking
• 38:45
  about Milam and Garrett and Trotter and Clement and Jaheem White and c J and
• 38:51
  Sean Martin. I mean all the guys that we just talked about that are
• 38:53
  going to play, and they're out there interacting and great dudes and talking to
• 38:58
  you. I mean, he's he's got a nice culture bill right now.
• 39:00
  So you didn't complete the pass, you didn't do the forty, you didn't
• 39:07
  catch the fade. Right, let's go to the highlights. Go to the
• 39:09
  highlights. Well, I don't know if there were a lot of highlights on
• 39:12
  the field. I declined to catch the punt. Really well, we didn't
• 39:16
  have a helmet. I thought, my luck, I'll miss it. I'll
• 39:19
  hit me the nose. I broke a nose one. Oh my god,
• 39:22
  you could have at least tried to catch the punch. I'll just tell you
• 39:23
  right now, what do you want to put on the line that you won't
• 39:27
  catch the punt. I didn't say I would, But at least I would
• 39:30
  not have thought about putting a helmet on. Good, we're gonna go.
• 39:32
  I would never have thought about putting a helmet on right into this. Now
• 39:36
  he's gonna have to go catch a punt. Yeah, you gonna challenge the
• 39:38
  guy that killed a boar. You might not. You might not get your
• 39:40
  hand on the ball. I didn't say I could catch it. I said
• 39:44
  I wouldn't ask for a helmet. Well, you should, you should ask
• 39:46
  for a helmet, but you wouldn't ask for a helmet to catch a punt.
• 39:49
  No, Kirchible should definitely ask for a helmet. You would misjudge that
• 39:52
  so badly and then your noses in play. Well, I think in fairness
• 39:59
  there is no fairness. You don't want to be out there trying to catch
• 40:00
  it either, So I just go ahead and back down on the conversation.
• 40:04
  Here's what I'm going to say is that you were going. The point you
• 40:07
  were making is where I am anyway at my age, like I still go
• 40:10
  out and exercise and run, and my head is saying stage that I can
• 40:14
  do this. My body is saying what do you do? And you can't
• 40:16
  do that. You can't do that, So it becomes and you don't recover
• 40:20
  it. There's just yeah, you can't do it. It's aging, right,
• 40:22
  you know. I'm not saying oh, but it's aging. It just
• 40:24
  is what it is. And you and also you don't do it every day
• 40:28
  like pac Man Fox should be catching the punts. I don't need to be
• 40:30
  back there catching the punt. It would have been fun, though. I
• 40:32
  think you could have you could handle a punt. Maybe also may get hit
• 40:37
  right in the face and your noses down. You would not have got hit
• 40:38
  the face. You would have got your hands on it. May it might
• 40:43
  have broke a finger. This is the risk reward there. Well, I
• 40:46
  enjoyed watching everybody else do. I'm not doing it. No one sneered at
• 40:50
  you, like kneeled and look at you or anything like that. Neil Neil's
• 40:52
  recruiting at that particular one. Yeah, they all sneered at you. So
• 40:55
  I'm saying some point, you got your self action, don't you. You
• 40:58
  do you do? That's you you were showing. I think you were demonstrating,
• 41:01
  yeah, self self awareness. Self Actually, if you're self actualized,
• 41:06
  none of this bothers. You didn't yourself. I mean, you taught me
• 41:08
  all you want. I'm not still not catching them. I'm not gonna run
• 41:09
  the forty. I think when you were throwing the fade, that would have
• 41:12
  been good. If Bruce Irvin had come come off the corner at you.
• 41:15
  Well, then I did mile them in front of me to pick up the
• 41:17
  plps, and you guys weren't in. Did you put pants on? Well,
• 41:22
  yeah we did. We did put the uniform on. Excuse me,
• 41:24
  we did put the uniform on and I wasn't gonna do it. Didn't do
• 41:29
  it. They this was this really was maybe the highlight for everybody in there.
• 41:32
  You put the uniform, you went, you went in the room like
• 41:35
  the recruiting room, and they had all the uniforms lined up, and they
• 41:37
  had helmutch for you, and they had jerseys that the pants said, the
• 41:39
  gloves, the whole thing. You could put the full uniform on and then
• 41:42
  immediately head over to the areas where where you see all the recruits with their
• 41:45
  hands the picture and then they're doing they get your picture made. The best
• 41:50
  part of it was my guy Ashton, Ashton and his mom and dad were
• 41:53
  there. Ashton immediately puts the uniform on. I think we got a picture
• 41:58
  of Ashton and his dad here. He puts the full uniform on. He's
• 42:01
  in he's a six year old. Oh, a little guy. He puts
• 42:05
  the full uniform on and goes immediately to the there's a stairwell with all the
• 42:08
  graphics where you can get in and do the do the posing. He didn't
• 42:14
  need any direction. He just stepped out and had it. I mean he
• 42:16
  stepped in pointed, gave you gloves, gave you this. Then they have
• 42:21
  a a small room that's like done up like a real coal mine, so
• 42:23
  you can get like a coal mine background, and there's a there's a real
• 42:27
  pick axe in there. Ashton goes in, just picks the pick axe up,
• 42:30
  puts it over his shoulders. He's exactly what to do. He's six
• 42:35
  six now he did all the drills. Well, sure about six different times
• 42:38
  Ashton was locked in? Did he get offered? If he didn't, he
• 42:43
  should have. He was totally douted. So I went ahead just for the
• 42:46
  sake of this show. I wasn't gonna do it, but you got it.
• 42:49
  Yeah, kirchivill ill like to see this. Yes, I'm putting the
• 42:52
  I'm putting the uniform on, all right, put the picture. What's your
• 42:57
  number? Eighty four? Now I did Zach Fraser tribute. Okay, you
• 43:00
  got the gloves on and a coal mine. It's good. That's good stuff.
• 43:04
  It looks like a baller a Graphic's pretty cool. That is rad.
• 43:07
  How commits to WVU? Getting pads on our is an easy hop. It's
• 43:12
  two or three person. John back to your old days. You imagine you
• 43:15
  imagine telling coach kneeling. Hey, coach, when you have your recruits come
• 43:20
  in, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna put the uniform on
• 43:22
  them, coach, We're gonna put do what we're gonna put the uniform that
• 43:24
  we're gonna put him in a picture near a coal mine. Like you talk
• 43:29
  about how recruiting has changed. Now, that's the part that the NCAA just
• 43:31
  outlawed, right, that those photo shoots are now yeah, no longer.
• 43:36
  Really, Yeah, it's pretty cool though that Wait a minute, that's the
• 43:39
  rule you can't violate. And that's the really can't violate. No pictures in
• 43:43
  a makeshift. You can pay somebody a million dollars, but you can't take
• 43:45
  a picture and from the coal minding pictures. Gosh, why is that some
• 43:51
  schools don't have cameras? Is that really? That's really the case? But
• 43:57
  they so, I thought, I thought the trust and the football staff did
• 43:59
  a great job of just giving you the experience. What's a recruiting visit,
• 44:01
  Like, here's the tour, here's everything you get, here's the go dress
• 44:06
  up and all the gear. It's great, well done. It looks like
• 44:08
  fun, fun. Three guys before the game, brought to us by Lou
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  of stuff we talking about? When what are I'm talking about? Talk about
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• 45:27
  Lou Wendelmarine Sales dot Com. One more from Fantasy Camp. We talk a
• 45:31
  lot up here, guys about do you like it? Do you love it?
• 45:35
  Or do you live it? Yeah, I'll give you a livet real
• 45:37
  quick. Bruce Irvin sure. So he's played what eleven twelve seasons now twelve
• 45:43
  in the NFL and by the way, could walk right now into training camp
• 45:45
  more ready, go plans on radio, plans on doing that. I chatted
• 45:49
  with him Friday. Doesn't want to do training camp. Wants to play a
• 45:51
  full season. Said no training camp and he wants out of that. If
• 45:53
  somebody will call him after training camp, get in, He'll played full seat.
• 45:55
  But he wants to play in September, he does, but not in
• 45:59
  August. So as we were leaving practice Saturday, Hop I've watched Bruce.
• 46:04
  He was with that. They were doing a one on one defensive lineman against
• 46:08
  offensive lineman drill, just one on one, and Bruce is not only watching
• 46:12
  the drill. He was in the front of the team pack, like in
• 46:15
  the very front and like like issuing to get to get in, like like
• 46:22
  totally dialed in. Not what else is going on today? Do I have
• 46:25
  a contract? Are the are the Raiders calling? Not? I mean,
• 46:29
  all he was worried about was what was happening in that one on one situation.
• 46:34
  He was totally like, talk about a football guy, Tony. He
• 46:37
  was a football guy just sitting there on a practice in April rain, coming
• 46:40
  down and wanting to watch two college freshmen go at each other. And he
• 46:44
  was like Jones in to get in. I'm in. That's that's living it.
• 46:47
  That's not even loving it, that's living the thing. Pretty remarkable.
• 46:52
  God's playing league twelve years. He doesn't have doing if he doesn't want that's
• 46:54
  to play that long in a league at that position, You kidding me?
• 46:58
  And then be still ready to go. Sitting there and April watching it was
• 47:00
  I was just I was blown away by the engagement of him. I don't
• 47:04
  think that was Carl Joseph. I was just gonna. I don't think you've
• 47:07
  spoken enough about the Silent Assassin. Carl Joseph. He was awesome. All
• 47:10
  those guys were great. David Sill's just tremendous. Avon's perspective was really fun
• 47:15
  because he hadn't played here in twenty years, believe it or not, twenty
• 47:19
  years forty three, Hoppey s Avon Cobrin's forty three years old and he was
• 47:23
  Is he still the leading rusher? Yeah all the time. Yes. So
• 47:27
  you talk about the changes that have taken place over there. It was fun
• 47:30
  to watch with Avon and talk to Avon because he was more like like me,
• 47:34
  right old guy, like oh my gosh. So that that was pretty
• 47:37
  well. But Carl Joseph was first of all, can walk right into a
• 47:40
  training camp right now and play. I mean he is put together, no
• 47:44
  wonder. He could deliver some hits, but couldn't have been more eloquent in
• 47:49
  his speaking, could gave great stories and insight, not just to the Fantasy
• 47:53
  campers, but then he spoke to the team on Saturday morning and was just
• 47:57
  excellent with those guys, as all four of those pros were. I just
• 48:00
  thought as need of an experience as it was for the Fantasy campers, and
• 48:02
  it would in my opinion, worth it just for that part of it to
• 48:07
  be around the current and former players and Neil and the staff is well worth
• 48:10
  the experience for somebody. But then for those former for those current players to
• 48:15
  see those four guys sitting up there and know what they went through, and
• 48:17
  then to hear him talk that was that was invaluable, Absolutely invaluable. But
• 48:22
  Carl, Carl was excellent. Carl explained how you assassinate people. I was
• 48:25
  going to say, if he had an nil deal when he was still here,
• 48:30
  I would like him. I would go with like an orthodonist, because
• 48:32
  he would just absolutely rework your teeth. He would smash you. He is
• 48:36
  the silent assassin, like he is so chill, so quiet. He's not
• 48:40
  a loud guy at all. But I mean, obviously he just was a
• 48:43
  bulk. He's stage. He considering to continue to go. Yeah, I
• 48:47
  think he'd like to. He'd like to keep billing. He's been in what
• 48:50
  six I think six? I think he played parts of six seasons. Yeah,
• 48:54
  he's a dude. He was tremendous. Those are you know, here's
• 48:58
  the last thing and the one on I keep saying last thing. What tremendous
• 49:01
  ambassadors for this program though right, Avon made his home here, now makes
• 49:07
  his home here. Never left, came said, well, left for Canada
• 49:09
  to play up there and coach and now back Bruce Irvin here two years just
• 49:14
  says this, this is home. Sill's loves coming back. Carl Joseph considers
• 49:19
  it his third home, Haiti where he's from Florida, where he lives,
• 49:22
  and he says this, I say this is home. I feel like I'm
• 49:24
  home when out here it's life changing for a lot of these guys. Life
• 49:28
  change. I called under by the way, hoppy, Oh did you Friday?
• 49:30
  I stopped over to the reception. Totally unfair, attacked by Tony again,
• 49:35
  I said, Undra, we were sitting there at this little reception Friday
• 49:39
  and Avon was there and I saw, oh you didn't. Yeah, So
• 49:44
  I shot a video and I said, I said, hey, Andre,
• 49:49
  it's me and Avon. What's up? What's up? Listen? Avon's gonna
• 49:52
  teach these guys how to run with the football. If they had a fumbling
• 49:57
  drill set up, then we would have you come over, Oh, senate
• 50:00
  to him. Harsh said it to him about maybe thirty minutes later, got
• 50:06
  the call Tony totally unfair. But you know what U He reached out again
• 50:15
  to me Saturday, and because I said come on down here, you know,
• 50:19
  because I thought he was up home and he went back to Valdosta,
• 50:23
  Georgia this weekend and he was there to present scholarships that he has funded in
• 50:31
  the honor of his grandmother. Oh my, so that's kind of stuff he's
• 50:36
  doing. Andrew would be great for the fantasy camp for the importance of getting
• 50:38
  your degree and working if football is not in your future. Goods as successful
• 50:44
  as he has been, well, yeah, he could tell you how.
• 50:46
  I mean, he played a little bit of pro football, took the money
• 50:49
  on his release from Jimmy Johnson, who tried to run the tried to tried
• 50:53
  to cut him without paying him. I told you that story. So he's
• 50:57
  with the Cowboys. He's with the Cowboys, he gets hurt. Jimmy Johnson
• 51:00
  calls him into his office and says, Okay, we're going to have to
• 51:02
  cut you, and Under says, okay, you can cut me, but
• 51:07
  you gotta pay me because you can't cut a player who's injured. So he
• 51:13
  got what he would tell you was probably a good chunk of seed money.
• 51:17
  That's how he came back here Harrison County, Bridgeport, got into financial services,
• 51:22
  and the rest is history. So Jimmy Johnson tried to go back door
• 51:25
  on but undernew the rule. Good job, Andrew. Yeah, so yeah,
• 51:30
  there you go. All right, a couple of other things. We'll
• 51:34
  do some pops on this. Kim Caledwell, the former Kim Stevens, now
• 51:42
  the head women's basketball coach at Tennessee, put that into perspective, Senator.
• 51:51
  A remarkable meteoric rise, not too unlike Joe Mizula's fair Now, Joe ends
• 51:58
  up at one of the most storied professtional franchises in all of sports. Kim
• 52:01
  ends up at one of the top couple of women's basketball brands, where thirteen
• 52:07
  months ago she was in Glenville working with that winning Natties. It's a remarkable
• 52:13
  ascension to go what she did at Glennville, just tremendous success. We've documented
• 52:16
  that. To go to Marshall this past season, have an historic season for
• 52:20
  the Herd, and then one year of that and you're on to Tennessee.
• 52:24
  Not just a power fiver or a big job to the Tennessee women's basketball program.
• 52:30
  Just a remarkable rocket ship that she has been on over the last couple
• 52:34
  of years. I'm thrilled for her. She's tremendous. I think she's a
• 52:37
  wonderful coach, and this is a great opportunity with massive shoes and expectations.
• 52:42
  This is a really hard program to manage. But I can't wait to watch
• 52:45
  her in this league. Everything you said, and to build on the expectation.
• 52:50
  I mean, they fired a coach who played for Pat Summit, who
• 52:53
  won twenty games and got to the Sweet sixteen twice. Yeah, so the
• 52:58
  expectations are three the roof and I'm not sure unrealistic. I'm going to stay
• 53:01
  not through the roof. They're unrealistic. I'm not sure that there's still sort
• 53:05
  of have this aura of Pat Summit. They're like, you need to be
• 53:08
  successful as Pat Summitt. And guess what, nobody will be successful anymore as
• 53:12
  Pat. Someone was. Not to take anything away from her, but how
• 53:15
  much has the women's game evolved since Pat Summitt was the coach. There are
• 53:20
  a lot more good teams now than there were back then. Again, in
• 53:24
  the world different, it's a different world. So it's an incredible challenge but
• 53:28
  also an incredible opportunity thrilled for. And now you've got to be a Tennessee
• 53:31
  fan. Hope she has great success. Yeah, and she and you take
• 53:34
  that one hundred times out of one hundred. All due respect to Marshall,
• 53:37
  you just take if you're off for the Tennessee job as a women's basketball coach,
• 53:38
  you got to take it, even with those expectations, because you know
• 53:42
  what else you have at Tennessee got money, You have every available resource to
• 53:45
  you. And here's what I Here's what I can't wait to watch is what
• 53:50
  that system and that way of playing does with not only nil money, because
• 53:54
  you've got the money now to go get players, but you also can pick
• 53:57
  up the phone and literally call any player you want. Like you can be
• 54:00
  at good Division one jobs and you still can't call every player and get their
• 54:05
  ear. And you're at the University of Tennessee. She can call any player,
• 54:07
  anybody that's available. She calls and says, I'm m Tennessee, like
• 54:12
  to talk to you, Okay, gotcha. So I'm fascinated to watch how
• 54:15
  that does so massive expectations, unrealistic expectations given where the world is, but
• 54:20
  unlimited resources as well to go in and try and do something there. I
• 54:23
  can't wait to watch her. Yeah, it's that. The analogy with Missoula
• 54:29
  is similar. Mec All they do is turn out massive coaches how about Jared
• 54:35
  Calhoun. He left the MEC, left Fairmont State and I was a head
• 54:37
  coach and Utahs State. If you want to get to the highest level of
• 54:42
  sports, you just go through the MEC. Don't forget Heyward high Smith Wheeling
• 54:45
  Jesuit at the time, former MEC basketball player. There be in the NBA
• 54:49
  play in the NBA finals. Yeah, it's got to THEBC. MEC's where
• 54:52
  it starts. Yeah, where futures are starting. It's the it's the current
• 54:57
  day version of the MAC for football wo Commissioner IOWA and for me the commissioner
• 55:01
  of that league. Breed Dames. You probably build on that, won't he
• 55:04
  He should? He will? They should do a little They should do a
• 55:06
  little institutional ads on that and say here, here's where our people go it
• 55:09
  want to get to the top, start here. It was It was interesting
• 55:14
  too lots of times, Bred you come from this side. When coaches leave,
• 55:17
  the university doesn't say anything, right, they don't put out a release.
• 55:21
  Marshall did. Congratulations she had great success here. Wish are all the
• 55:25
  best quotes from the ad quotes from the president of the university, and that
• 55:30
  I think that helps your coaching higher. You go out and you're looking for
• 55:32
  somebody and go, I'm sorry, we lost our coach. She went to
• 55:35
  Tennessee. That helps you. Yeah, I think it does too. I
• 55:37
  think that's a smart branding move to go ahead and try and hulk onto that
• 55:40
  and ride it and say to the next coach. Because here's the reality situation.
• 55:44
  Guys, We've talked about this a million times. Your coaches just aren't
• 55:46
  staying ten in fifteen twenty years anymore. Now one, as we've seen,
• 55:50
  that's Marshall's got to be bummed out by that. I get that. But
• 55:53
  for the next Okay, go get the next coach in, Go hire another
• 55:57
  good coach. And also, they're taking over a program that just won twenty
• 56:00
  plus games and went to the NCAA tournament, So you're not taking over a
• 56:05
  dumpster fire. You guys ready for a little healing, Sure, I'll be
• 56:09
  you ready for a little healing. I mean after the after the week that
• 56:12
  you had last week, you probably need a little Yeah, probably need a
• 56:15
  little time now for text Jewel Healing brought to us by our website, Episode
• 56:30
  eight hundred dot com, where you will have the opportunity to take a look
• 56:34
  at all of the many items that we provide for you, the listener from
• 56:38
  apparel, pats, pullovers, teas, fluffy slippers, coffees, popcorns,
• 56:51
  got it all, Hankyes, hankys. We don't have yet coming, so
• 56:55
  maybe the fall collection ready to go out for allergy season. It's right,
• 57:00
  we say we missed, we missed, missed, miss pollen. All right,
• 57:05
  here we go from the text line, Hello, three guys. I
• 57:08
  was at the introduction ceremony of coach Devrees at the Coliseum. It was great
• 57:13
  to meet you, guys. I wanted you two to know that I was
• 57:17
  the one who texted you a few months ago about my brother Terry Vodhoffer,
• 57:22
  who was the captain of the nineteen seventy one Mountaineer football team Ego senator.
• 57:27
  Yeah yet, oh yeah, yeah you remember, huh. He was the
• 57:30
  guy that send us the video where the team entered old Mountaineer Field and then
• 57:34
  beat the living snot out of each other. Yeah again. I was nine
• 57:37
  years old at the time, and I remember that vividly. My passion for
• 57:42
  college football has followed through. I've now attended games in sixty three of one
• 57:46
  hundred and thirty one current Division One stadiums. My goal before I dies to
• 57:52
  attend the game at all one thirty one. Wow. My last comment is
• 57:57
  I wish I would have showed you the hankies which I had in my pockets
• 58:00
  that day, both of them clean. One in my right pocket, look
• 58:04
  hop one in my right pocket was white. See the picture, the left
• 58:07
  pocket red. I've carried that one for nearly twenty five years, that being
• 58:15
  one of my dad's hankies. He passed away April of fourteenth, nineteen ninety
• 58:19
  nine. Forty two year coal miner, never missed one day of work.
• 58:24
  That is a fact my hero in life. Hope to meet Hoppy someday so
• 58:29
  we can share hanky stories. David Scott voitd Hoffer, Moundsville, West Virginia,
• 58:34
  by way of Smithfield, Pennsylvania. Love that story. It's nice,
• 58:37
  got that constrate minder of his dad. Yeah, well done. Stunning announcement
• 58:43
  there though, that he would like to meet you someday, once again proving
• 58:46
  that you are oftentimes distant from the people who love you. The event was
• 58:52
  at eleven a m Eastern and Lord knows you never miss your show. Lord
• 59:00
  knows that fair retort. Greetings, gentlemen, just finished listening to the Jaque
• 59:07
  interview. What a great representative for the program in university. I wanted to
• 59:10
  share you a quick story about Jiquay last year at the Penn State game.
• 59:15
  We're underneath the stadium. After the game teams leaving. My kids and my
• 59:20
  neighbors' kids were standing there watching the players as they came out of the locker
• 59:22
  room. They grabbed some food and then they got out of the bus.
• 59:25
  While many of the guys smiled and said hi, Jacquey stopped and talked with
• 59:30
  us for a few minutes. He may not want to share this, but
• 59:32
  it was hilarious. He grabbed a smoothie from the table and handed it to
• 59:37
  one of our kids. They loved it. Play the picture unsolicited. They
• 59:42
  also gave my daughter a pair of his gigantic gloves. They're probably displayed at
• 59:45
  home today. After a difficult loss, he made time to make those kids
• 59:49
  smile and gave them a memory that will last for a lifetime. Were forever
• 59:52
  Jaque fans underneath the stadium. That's how they hands food out to get on
• 59:57
  the bus, and they will, as kids will never forget that. Right
• 1:00:00
  on brand, Tony, right on brand for him. Yeah, Mike,
• 1:00:04
  writes in three guys, I received your thank you note for the honeybell oranges
• 1:00:08
  that you received from hal Groves. We hope you enjoyed them. A long
• 1:00:12
  time listener now living and working at he's the contact director there for hal Groves.
• 1:00:17
  So while you were going to Vero Beach, Florida, by the way
• 1:00:21
  of South Charleston, so happy. There's an orchard down there named hal Groves,
• 1:00:29
  and they sent us a box of oranges and they were like he said,
• 1:00:31
  they're called honeybells. They've got this little cute little top on these oranges.
• 1:00:37
  I gave one to Jaquei. He texted me later in the day said
• 1:00:38
  that's the best orange I've ever eaten in my life. Yes, he did.
• 1:00:45
  Bob and Beaver. Who is that from? Mike sentness? Yeah,
• 1:00:49
  thank you? If he works at hal Groves. Yeah, hey, Mike,
• 1:00:52
  if they've got like surplus and that stuff goes spoil or anything like that,
• 1:00:54
  feel free since a couple of cases, we'll take care of him for
• 1:00:57
  you. We're really worried here about Skurve and so we eat a lot of
• 1:01:00
  citrus. Thank you, Vitamin C from where hal Groves Beach, Florida,
• 1:01:06
  just like it sounds h A L. E. Hale Groves unbelievable. Oranges
• 1:01:10
  Bob and Beaver Pennsylvania writes, this is my real name and a real place.
• 1:01:15
  I'm familiar. Hey, three guys, I laughed out loud in my
• 1:01:17
  in my car when Jaqua Hobbard's that team up north comment came out as someone
• 1:01:22
  living in midst of Panthers fans. That was tremendous. I'm looking forward to
• 1:01:27
  Tony's food courts this fall and episode eight hundred. Are we doing that again?
• 1:01:32
  Oh? Yeah, we're doing it. I say we. I didn't
• 1:01:35
  do anything, but no, you were there. You'll always have our respect
• 1:01:38
  for being there as long as you were and coming up. That was great.
• 1:01:42
  Matter of fact, Brad, I think you could say this weekend we
• 1:01:44
  did a test kitchen for the food court. When't you say? Yeah,
• 1:01:47
  we did test a little bit. We did. I did some place.
• 1:01:50
  Do you cooked? Yeah? I did? What'd you mean? Uh?
• 1:01:53
  It was Final four subs? Oh, final four subs? I always have.
• 1:01:59
  I don't and say always for years I did made subs on the final
• 1:02:04
  four day, So I took it to a different level this year, made
• 1:02:07
  the sub rolls myself. Really Yeah, and what hell we'll get together.
• 1:02:13
  Yeah, yeah, thanks for inviting me down. I'm gonna invite you.
• 1:02:15
  You're sick. You got all kinds of germs crawling all again the bread.
• 1:02:21
  You were close to getting an invite. Then I talked to you that one
• 1:02:22
  day he went and I went like, hey, hop, how are you.
• 1:02:25
  I hope you feel better. That's why I called you. You were
• 1:02:29
  going to get an invite. Would have been nice to turn down, like,
• 1:02:30
  no, I'm sick. I turned it down for you. I'm listening
• 1:02:36
  to you now. You sound like you need a couple packs of Marlboroughs.
• 1:02:37
  I mean, what are we doing? You hear them over their senator I
• 1:02:43
  do? I mean, gosh, call that white place. Get a chest
• 1:02:46
  x ray. I did get one. In fact, I got a chest
• 1:02:50
  x ray. Food was very good. His bread was very good. I'm
• 1:02:52
  glad you enjoyed it. One of the people you also had some rev keV
• 1:02:55
  barbecue there, didn't you get? One of the people there attacked me unfairly?
• 1:02:59
  Who Loman's wife went after me hard? I think she was right.
• 1:03:06
  She attacked me and then wrote me a text the next day continuing her theme.
• 1:03:12
  What was what was the attack? What was it about Brad. You
• 1:03:15
  tell it, because he won't be all he'll tell it. Then I'll give
• 1:03:19
  I'll give the real story. Go ahead, let me find a text from
• 1:03:22
  her, so I get this on Sunday. I thoroughly enjoyed the sausage after
• 1:03:27
  church today. I enjoyed it more today than I would have yesterday because I
• 1:03:31
  was too full to appreciate the flavor of it. In my opinion, if
• 1:03:35
  you want to serve that much food, you will need to make it a
• 1:03:37
  two day event. Call it the Tony food Fest. And instead of eating
• 1:03:42
  as much food as you possibly can in two hours, That way people can
• 1:03:45
  watch you prepare the food like an artist and not be yelled at to eat
• 1:03:49
  more. Just my opinion. Thank you again. So she says the yell
• 1:03:53
  at people and tell him to eat more than they want. That's really about
• 1:03:58
  his spot on of a text describe, I mean, what happens is I've
• 1:04:00
  ever heard. I mean, she couldn't be more accurate. Now you know,
• 1:04:02
  I'm right in there eating as much as I possibly can. I was
• 1:04:04
  miserable, couldn't sleep all night, had terrible heartburn, had to sleep sitting
• 1:04:08
  up for a while. I mean, it was totally about went down,
• 1:04:12
  couldn't sleep, got two hours of sleep, So she's one hundred percent right.
• 1:04:15
  But it was excellent did sobs sausage and peppers and pork barbecue. But
• 1:04:21
  but you had in one angry guest, one sick guest. Sounds like that
• 1:04:26
  wasn't sick. That's how he rolls. He knew what was coming. Came
• 1:04:31
  in said, I haven't eaten all day. Ready, let's go. Don't
• 1:04:35
  worry about me. Well, I certainly didn't. You couldn't answer the call.
• 1:04:42
  You couldn't answer, Oh old iron lung, hoppy text her. I
• 1:04:45
  was like I was out of town. I wore my efforting shirt to the
• 1:04:49
  Savannah Bananas baseball game yesterday. Unfortunately was hidden under a sweater because it's so
• 1:04:55
  cold. I love the interview with your quay, Please make that, please
• 1:05:00
  effort the making of a I never minded it shirt. I giggled all day
• 1:05:04
  along about the interview. You guys are great MJ and Savannah. I never
• 1:05:09
  minded it, Texter. I just want to correct the record. Sport management
• 1:05:15
  is in the College of Applied Human Science, is not the Business College.
• 1:05:19
  The program has many successful graduates, including the current GM of the San Francisco
• 1:05:25
  Giants. I have no recollection of saying that. Who said it was the
• 1:05:29
  sport of management was in the business college. But the way that they changed
• 1:05:31
  the numbers of the schools and this schools now this school and I can't keep
• 1:05:35
  track. I don't know, I can't find I don't remember by saying it.
• 1:05:40
  Okay if we did. But by the way, don't need to tell
• 1:05:42
  us who the current GM and the giant says, that'd be Pete Patula,
• 1:05:45
  former intern of mine. Can you hire him? Intern? Yeah? Work
• 1:05:49
  for you? Is go very efficient running the Papa John's halftime shootout before he
• 1:05:54
  went on to run a successful Major League Baseball franchise. Negotiate this two hundred
• 1:06:00
  million dollar contract, but first let me remember my days. Hire Pete.
• 1:06:05
  All Pete, can you go handle the Kroger shopping cart shootout? Well?
• 1:06:11
  Thank you? Can you roll these T shirts? Now? Pete's the gem
• 1:06:13
  of the Giants, and I'm talking to you, two clowns. He passed
• 1:06:16
  you by the lot. Didn't even see him, went by you so fast,
• 1:06:21
  Scopes, senator and in your best rock voice, the dean who has
• 1:06:27
  returned to the studio. We're about halfway through the open transfer window for the
• 1:06:30
  basketball team and have only seen about half the roster enter the portal. Particularly
• 1:06:35
  interesting, since the three guys line has been at one and a half for
• 1:06:40
  guys to stay, one might think it would be better to enter the portal
• 1:06:44
  sooner than later. Thus the question does slow walking their departure give the players
• 1:06:48
  any leverage with WV to possibly incentivize them to free up their spot, paying
• 1:06:55
  a severance to encourage them to move on. No, you can't do that.
• 1:07:00
  You can't do that. No, hey, we'll give you a ten
• 1:07:03
  grand leave. Now, you can't do that. TC Brad. Hoppy mothman
• 1:07:12
  having a kerch of al is memorialized by an artist in Charleston. There he
• 1:07:17
  is, Mothman having a hoppy brass. There you go, Brian in Mount
• 1:07:23
  Pleasant, South Carolina. The last time someone brought your name up on the
• 1:07:29
  show, you weren't here. I said, I don't know where he is.
• 1:07:30
  I said, maybe we got to put it on an amber alert.
• 1:07:33
  And this guy says, Tony, Amber alerts are for kids. Our friend
• 1:07:36
  Hoppy would technically be in silver alert. A silver is activated when an elderly,
• 1:07:43
  developmentally or cognitively impaired person has gone missing, is determined to be at
• 1:07:46
  risk me driving down a highway whatever, whatever color it needs to be.
• 1:07:56
  Oh boy, we can't keep track of them. From Pinehurst. Following the
• 1:08:01
  WVU Iowa game, the general take was that the referees ESPN were not in
• 1:08:06
  control of the of the overcome of the refs just got lost in the Let
• 1:08:12
  me use this again. Following the West Virginia Iowa game, the general take
• 1:08:17
  was that the referees, the NCAA, that ESPN were not in control of
• 1:08:23
  the outcome. The refs just got lost in the moment. After watching Iowa
• 1:08:30
  Yukon, is the take still the same? Pete from Pinehurst? No,
• 1:08:38
  I thought the referees did a nice shot in that game. That was a
• 1:08:45
  Brad and I were texting back and forth on that call, and Brad sent
• 1:08:48
  me a slow mode text two points one. It was the right call.
• 1:08:54
  Okay, it was the right call. The only question is the age old
• 1:08:59
  question, do you make that call at that point in the game? Blah
• 1:09:00
  blah blah. But it was the right call in my opinion, was absolutely
• 1:09:05
  the right call. As someone that owns a Yukon National Championship ring from women's
• 1:09:11
  basketball, I can say that was the right call. She did three things
• 1:09:15
  the Connecticut player. She was moving, In fact, she chicken winged,
• 1:09:17
  brought the arm out, which you can't do, and her legs and her
• 1:09:21
  legs were wider than shoulders. It's a foul. Happened to come at a
• 1:09:25
  critical moment. But if you don't call that, then it's too big of
• 1:09:29
  an advantage for Connecticut. It was a foul. I don't care who wins
• 1:09:32
  that game. Rick Buker for ESPN did a really good breakdown on Twitter,
• 1:09:39
  and he's played the game, written the game, as ref the game as
• 1:09:43
  well, And you're right, technically that was a moving screen. Her her
• 1:09:49
  base was wider than her hips, She made movement, initiated contact his whole
• 1:09:56
  and she brought the elbow up. I gave three points. All three of
• 1:09:58
  those are accurate. His whole thing was where he disagrees with you guys.
• 1:10:02
  He didn't think that an advantage disadvantage, that it was going to be a
• 1:10:11
  disadvantage. So truly it was Rabby Marshall completely out of her where she was
• 1:10:15
  going. He thought she took she He thought that she took a bad angle
• 1:10:19
  to get through and through floiled her arm zone but anyway, disagree, okay
• 1:10:24
  if if the and Rick's not the definitive source on that, So it's one
• 1:10:28
  person's, one person's opinion, if you come because it was the screen to
• 1:10:31
  set up a shot at the end of the game, at the end of
• 1:10:34
  the game, to free the shooter, to free the shooter, which was
• 1:10:38
  Paige Backers. So if Paige Beckers had made the shot, then then you
• 1:10:42
  got to come back to advantage disadvantage. Next, what was it giving Page
• 1:10:45
  Beckers an advantage for the shot? It's really not even debatable. Next,
• 1:10:53
  it was a movie screen. It was a moving screen. You can't.
• 1:10:55
  I mean, I get it, I get it. It's horrifically unfortunate that
• 1:11:00
  happened. I would have loved to see her get a shot, to see
• 1:11:01
  what you would have done with it. I thought. I thought Gino had
• 1:11:04
  a very interesting response. Yeah, I guess we have to work on her.
• 1:11:10
  Since we got called four times, I guess we have to work on
• 1:11:12
  it. Probably does you know, Geno is one of my favorite people in
• 1:11:15
  the world. I know you You would imagine that the greatest women's basketball coach
• 1:11:17
  of all time is getting screwed by the officials. That's what summer, claiming
• 1:11:20
  yeah, I thought at first, I thought, at first, big call,
• 1:11:25
  you don't make that there. Then when you sent me that video,
• 1:11:27
  I thought, that's why I give that official a lot of credit, as
• 1:11:29
  much as we get on officials to he saw it in real time or see.
• 1:11:31
  I don't remember which official made the call on a good call. I
• 1:11:34
  don't particularly close. I no, I know, I don't have a problem
• 1:11:39
  with it, And to be quite honest with you, it doesn't look as
• 1:11:42
  blatant when you're looking at it straight ahead if you look at it from behind.
• 1:11:45
  Yeah, I mean it's blatant where the official was. But let me
• 1:11:47
  just say this about this peak Pinehurst, which is not your name. If
• 1:11:53
  you, if you, but you you're the your question the way you wrote
• 1:11:56
  it, I think you're in your you're applying that I said, I don't
• 1:12:01
  think that the fix was in. I think if you're implying at all that
• 1:12:05
  that was a call that they made just to get the eye win there,
• 1:12:09
  I still would go for ten thousand years, I'm not buying that, because
• 1:12:13
  again, you were in essence, then the conspiracy was against the greatest women's
• 1:12:16
  basketball coach of all time. That's who's not getting calls because of an agenda.
• 1:12:19
  You're gonna change anyway. Here we go, Tony. I know that
• 1:12:27
  long texts are a no no, but I felt a need to send it
• 1:12:30
  in as an example of what the Mountaineers mean to people from this state.
• 1:12:34
  It's just one example from many that others could share. My dad was a
• 1:12:39
  retired coal miner of thirty two years, and when I was just a young
• 1:12:43
  boy in the mid seventies, he'd wake me up at three a m.
• 1:12:46
  And on the rear Saturday that he was not working, we'd had them in
• 1:12:50
  a Roe County to go squirrel hunting. He had an old silver transistor radio
• 1:12:55
  that he would wrap with a flannel cut from an old jacket for camouflage that
• 1:13:00
  he would find an old oak tree. I would sit on one side and
• 1:13:03
  he would sit on the other, with the radio between us to listen to
• 1:13:06
  the game while we waited for the occasional squirrel to show. The crispness and
• 1:13:12
  smell of fall with all the colors always reminds me of those wonderful times.
• 1:13:17
  He instilled in me that flying WV is bigger than all of us and means
• 1:13:21
  so much more to such a small state. He lost his battle with cancer
• 1:13:26
  during halftime of the Alabama game and twenty fourteen in a hospital bed in Beckley.
• 1:13:30
  We were down twenty to seventeen, but he still had enough in him
• 1:13:34
  to tell me got him right where we want him. He never predicted a
• 1:13:41
  losing season ever. This is the type of story I wish all new coaches
• 1:13:46
  here could hear Keith from Cole City. That's a great Yeah, that's an
• 1:13:53
  all time great one. That's and I think that's There are a lot of
• 1:13:56
  stories like that. Nels. I'm I'm gonna say that. Bring that over
• 1:14:00
  to that new basketball coach. Oh, take that over to how good I
• 1:14:05
  say, because I don't I think those help Texter. So I'm headed to
• 1:14:13
  Phoenix for a vacation, going through Cleveland. We didn't think about it at
• 1:14:16
  the time, but the flight's totally booked with people going to the final four
• 1:14:20
  NC State Purdue fans. I strike up a conversation with an NC State fan
• 1:14:26
  and he tells me I'm a West Virginia fan. He says, my dad's
• 1:14:30
  a huge West Virginia fan. He'd be talking your ear off about right now.
• 1:14:33
  His dad grew up in Charleston. I'm big Lee Avenue. Of course
• 1:14:35
  he did about fifteen minutes from me. Always connection Texter Sean from Raleigh.
• 1:14:43
  I'm kind of glad that women's basketball season is over all. The controversy,
• 1:14:47
  pettiness, flat out idiocy. It was exhausting over the weekend and it left
• 1:14:53
  me with a raging case of the red ass. I feel like I heard
• 1:14:58
  something. Don't you all have have something on episode eight hundred dot com for
• 1:15:01
  that? It sure would come in handy. I love me some low hanging
• 1:15:06
  fruit. Have a great week and we were talking about that. I thought
• 1:15:10
  it was a great couple of weeks for women's basketball. Well, I enjoyed
• 1:15:15
  it. For the West Virginia law there was a lot of There was a
• 1:15:17
  lot of stuff back and forth, and it was, you know, speaking
• 1:15:23
  of Connecticut, your girl Tarasi senator, you know, down playing Kaitlyn Clark,
• 1:15:30
  a lot of shade, a lot of shade being thrown all over the
• 1:15:31
  place. Hop on this stuff. Welcome to the world today. Yeah,
• 1:15:34
  start, I just wants to complain about everything text or how remarkable few weeks
• 1:15:40
  fore the best remarkable and what historic few weeks and what coach Daley said about
• 1:15:45
  Caitlyn Clark, right, after they won the national championship. That was that
• 1:15:50
  was top shelf stuff there. Yeah, yep. I do think that The
• 1:15:56
  question now is how well is Kaitlyn Clark the popularity translated into into the pros.
• 1:16:00
  I mean, clearly it don't have an impact, There's no question about
• 1:16:02
  that. But attendance at the WNBA started out in nineteen ninety six, nineteen
• 1:16:09
  ninety eight, something like that, at about ten thousand, and it has
• 1:16:12
  been steadily declining, solely but steadily declining. Took a big dip during covidnounced
• 1:16:16
  back up last year was like sixty six hundred. Okay, So I mean
• 1:16:20
  it's it's going to be a bump. But I think it's difficult to translate
• 1:16:25
  because at Iowa, at a college, at major university, you have a
• 1:16:29
  built in that's built in. I mean, there are decades of people who
• 1:16:33
  are fans of that university who then when there's a reason given, want to
• 1:16:38
  come back and be part of the experience. I'm just not sure you have
• 1:16:41
  that same level of commitment at the WNBA. Yeah, I disagree. I
• 1:16:44
  think I think it pops. And here's why, because it's built around the
• 1:16:46
  NBA model where stars matter and you go to watch stars, doesn't matter where
• 1:16:50
  you are. The Phoenix Mercury also disagree with you. They have already put
• 1:16:55
  out graphics and social media fires to sell tickets to Harassi's Phoenix Mercury team against
• 1:17:01
  an unnamed, unspecified individual for the Indiana Fever. They have like a silhouette
• 1:17:08
  with the number twenty two in there. They're already selling tickets. She hasn't
• 1:17:11
  been drafted by the Fever yet, and the Phoenix Mercury are capitalizing on that.
• 1:17:15
  I think you're going to as this show becomes national and it's immediate.
• 1:17:19
  That's the other thing. She's going to be tired, right, How exhausted
• 1:17:23
  must she be at drafts next week? So the Fever take her. Tickets
• 1:17:27
  are going to start being sold, and she's playing here in just a couple
• 1:17:29
  months. You don't have to wait till next basketball season. I think early
• 1:17:31
  on, at least these first few months, it's going to pop tremendously well.
• 1:17:34
  And as she hits these new markets that she hasn't been in yet,
• 1:17:38
  I think there's going to be a ton of kids at those games. I
• 1:17:41
  think there's an early one year at least bump for their attendance now where it
• 1:17:44
  goes from there, who knows. But this is a this is a massive
• 1:17:46
  story. I think it's going to draw her, right, I think it's
• 1:17:48
  I think it's a good point about it is a continuation because there's no lag
• 1:17:53
  yep. But does it have the long term staying power? We'll say,
• 1:17:56
  yeah, that's hard for anything to have long because again, the WNB is
• 1:18:00
  kind of you know, the attendance has leveled off, but they need they
• 1:18:02
  need stars. They need stars, and there's been great players that have come
• 1:18:06
  in, but they haven't captured the attention like the Caitlin Clark has. And
• 1:18:12
  then can you keep that riding which then showcases some of the other stars.
• 1:18:15
  Yeah, that's that's true. And what you got in this tournament was you
• 1:18:17
  got other stars that were highlighted because people are watching more more people are watching
• 1:18:21
  the game. Correct, So Angel Reese, a name that's already known,
• 1:18:25
  is elevated up. Juju Watkins at usc Page Becker's it elevates up. So
• 1:18:29
  you know those names. But Caitlin Clark brought you to the TV set exactly
• 1:18:33
  later today, we'll find out if the women's championship game outdrew the men,
• 1:18:40
  Well, it could happen for those of us who couldn't stay up till midnight.
• 1:18:42
  Yeah, hey, three guys, I had like pleasure eight Yeah,
• 1:18:46
  I had the pleasure to be a part of family Day with the WVU football
• 1:18:49
  team at Mylon Pushcar Stadium this past Saturday. Other than seeing my son practicing
• 1:18:55
  with the team, the highlight of the day was catching up with Brad.
• 1:18:59
  Oh here's photographic proof. Don't let the beard fool you. Brad still has
• 1:19:02
  me by a couple of years. Enjoy and appreciate all you guys do.
• 1:19:08
  Let's go mountaineers Brandon and Barrickville. And then there's a family. Yeah yeah,
• 1:19:15
  so it's Brandon Flower, former mountaineer Brandon Flower, and that's his son
• 1:19:19
  Nate, played at Fairmount Senior as a kicker for the WV team, one
• 1:19:24
  of the specialists. Yeah, outstanding. And of course his wife, whose
• 1:19:29
  brother was Scott Moore, one of the former mountaineers as well. So it's
• 1:19:31
  a family of two former mountaineers in it. We had a pretty bizarre situation
• 1:19:36
  last week, Senator and I high level three guys meeting over there at Mountaineer
• 1:19:44
  Roasting having coffee with Dave, our business manager, and a high level official
• 1:19:51
  from Google. Excuse me, Yeah, lot going on the Google while you
• 1:19:57
  were down. We had a lot going on. Yeah, thank you for
• 1:20:00
  carrying on. So a young man, we're at a table. Young man
• 1:20:02
  walks in, takes a seat at the bar, brings his laptop computer,
• 1:20:09
  puts his laptop computer down. So I happened to be gazing over but looking
• 1:20:15
  at his stuff from a distance. It doesn't matter if from a distance you're
• 1:20:19
  still looking at his stuff. Well when what's on the screen is me and
• 1:20:26
  him, Oh and you, I went, would you look at that?
• 1:20:30
  So this young fella is watching three Guys before the game. He's got earbuds
• 1:20:33
  in and he's watching it. And I said that, I said, look
• 1:20:36
  at this dude's watching three guys? Did you freak him out? Walk over?
• 1:20:41
  And yeah? Of course of course that was Blake from Nitro. So
• 1:20:45
  there he is right there, Brad student and occupational therapy. Wonderful young man.
• 1:20:49
  Excellent. He just walked over and just like yeah. We just went
• 1:20:54
  up to them and said, yo, man, what's up? Walk home
• 1:20:56
  and go three guys' lives. We did, and he said, oh stunning
• 1:21:00
  surprise. No, Hoppy, No, he didn't say that. I just
• 1:21:02
  made that. But we always ask what we always ask people when they come
• 1:21:08
  to us and say they listen, The question is what why why are you
• 1:21:12
  listening to this? What do you like? And he does, I mean
• 1:21:15
  this guy's I mean he's an occupational therapist, right, he's in there,
• 1:21:18
  and he said, they do my homework. Listen to you guys, how's
• 1:21:21
  he do that? How do you? How does he do homework and listen
• 1:21:25
  to Kids are like that. Nowadays they can multitask by it. They do
• 1:21:28
  a lot more generations. Yeah, generation. But anyway, it was great
• 1:21:30
  to see him, and he listens. He likes to listen to the old
• 1:21:33
  episodes when he drives back home, so it was good to see him.
• 1:21:36
  So it was kind of it was a first for us. We looked at
• 1:21:40
  uh, we looked at the computer and said, he's watching us. So
• 1:21:45
  thanks Blake. Yeah, re stocked some shelves while I was over there to
• 1:21:49
  put our game day grind out. You work every place you go. Randy
• 1:21:57
  from State College rights in. I've not texted in a while, and until
• 1:22:00
  recently, I did not know why. Although I listened to the show faithfully,
• 1:22:04
  I just was not inspired to write in retrospect I think I was in
• 1:22:10
  a bit of depression. The basketball season wasn't shaping up as I had hoped.
• 1:22:15
  Although the team expended a lot of energy, the results just were not
• 1:22:17
  there. I couldn't help myself to think about what Bob Huggins would have done
• 1:22:23
  with that team. Wishful thinking, I know, but it was hard to
• 1:22:28
  watch. I'm guessing a lot of Mountaineer Nation felt the same. Fast forward.
• 1:22:32
  Last several podcasts have been great. You've lifted me from the doldrums.
• 1:22:38
  Football and basketball men and women are all pointed up. I'm excited for the
• 1:22:43
  possibilities. Just wanted to know how much your efforts are appreciated, even the
• 1:22:48
  Halftimer. Okay, the three of you are fabulous. I love the show.
• 1:22:56
  It's a great thing about sports. Move forward. Yeah, just like
• 1:23:00
  a Just like a lint, three guys will always be there in every corner.
• 1:23:04
  Texter, does it seem Coach Devrees will continue the tradition of letting alumni
• 1:23:11
  players headquarter their off season training out of the university facilities. I think it's
• 1:23:17
  probably a TBA. That's probably a TBA. Obviously, you gotta let the
• 1:23:25
  when you got a new homeowner, you gotta let the new home owner go
• 1:23:28
  in there and set up his house to be surprising if they didn't. Though,
• 1:23:32
  that's a bit overtime, is to have those guys around overtime. Overtime,
• 1:23:35
  I think so. M here's a food tip from a Texter quick tip
• 1:23:43
  for Jaque and the scrambled eggs. He said he'd been eating a lot of
• 1:23:46
  eggs lately. Mix those up in a bowl, pop those in the microwave
• 1:23:51
  for a couple of minutes or so. Says they come out nice and fluffy
• 1:23:56
  and doesn't stick to the bowl like it does the pan. So there you
• 1:24:00
  go. Jaqui was doing hard boiled eggs, though not scrambled. Same thing.
• 1:24:03
  So it's hard boiled eggs. You can't discussion. I told you about
• 1:24:06
  that. When I tried to do hard boiled. What happened? I blew
• 1:24:09
  the microwave open. Lucky I survived. It exploded. Wait a second,
• 1:24:16
  you said, you don't mean the door actually opened. Oh yeah, because
• 1:24:23
  you thought you could hard boil them by putting them in the microwave. I
• 1:24:26
  did. I did, and the door blowed up. Oh my gosh,
• 1:24:29
  that's a stunning yak by you. That a major major, I mean,
• 1:24:32
  guy that doesn't see that's out of character. What was that? Sounds like
• 1:24:38
  a scene from Dumb and Dumber. It was I've told you that I had
• 1:24:43
  him, and I was in the kitchen and now I thought, you can
• 1:24:49
  probably do this. I didn't even I don't know, and it was happening,
• 1:24:53
  and I was away from the microwave, like the micro and that thing
• 1:24:56
  shot open spam and just shot eggs like a crossed the kitchen right against the
• 1:25:00
  refrigerator everything. If I if i'd have been in front of it, i've
• 1:25:04
  been. It took an hour to clean that up. Yeah, what a
• 1:25:11
  miss. That's you know something, Come into work. That's way out of
• 1:25:15
  character. Come into work. Karen wasn't around to check that with. She
• 1:25:19
  was around, but she was just like not paying attention. And you didn't
• 1:25:23
  ask You were unsure, that's see. I thought you would have asked,
• 1:25:27
  can I hard boil these in the microwave? And you would have gott an
• 1:25:29
  emphatic no, major fail, majorail. Come into work. You hear the
• 1:25:32
  word no, what happened? We lost hoppy? Excuse me? The back
• 1:25:39
  of is gone. What happened? Car accident or anything like that? Now
• 1:25:44
  I got killed by an egg hard boil leg took him down, hit him
• 1:25:48
  right in the chest, got a hard boiled because it couldn't get hard boiled
• 1:25:53
  in the microwave. Tried the best they could to get that heart started again,
• 1:25:56
  but it hit him right. Boom. He's gone. Good thing.
• 1:25:59
  You weren't here when we were talking to Joy about that. Yeah, really
• 1:26:03
  has got to figured out. He knows how to do it. He's got
• 1:26:05
  a cold water bath, missus spring drills, egg injury, d NP,
• 1:26:21
  sweet mercy. Oh boy, all right, we've accomplished a bunch of nothing
• 1:26:28
  good to be back? How long you are? Like you think we might
• 1:26:31
  see it too in a row? Or how's that going to the next show?
• 1:26:36
  We're figuring it out. I'll probably be here. I got an idea
• 1:26:40
  on summer series too. I gave it to him. I'll share with you.
• 1:26:45
  I think I told you too. You told me I have a little
• 1:26:48
  bit different idea. I think it's a good idea, but I have an
• 1:26:50
  idea. I'm sorry you might stop working I got I'm not here enough to
• 1:26:58
  have legitimate input, save like if this were like a vote, like you
• 1:27:01
  get a hoppy gets half a vote? Sorry, hop you lost two to
• 1:27:05
  a half sorry thanks to our producer Austin Right. Three guys before the game.
• 1:27:11
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• 1:27:57
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• 1:28:00
  Yeah. Subscribe on YouTube's wherever, on wherever you get your podcast on
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  Apple'll just subscribe every time we get a new one in. We'll do that
• 1:28:08
  thing. Thursday, we'll see We'll see ef afriting on that Monday. We'll
• 1:28:15
  be back. We'll be around. Thanks for listening, See you, h
• 1:28:23
  m hmmmm.