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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 9-3-26 · The Sean O'Connell Show

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Happy game day, everybody.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: It is indeed.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Game day for your youth.
• 0:34
  Speaker 5: Thursday, September 3rd in the year of our Lord, 2026.
• 0:40
  Speaker 5: Utah football back in action tonight at Rice-Eccles Stadium. You
• 0:45
  Speaker 5: can listen to the broadcast right here on ESPN 700
• 0:48
  Speaker 5: and 92.1 FM. You can listen to the official pregame
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: right here on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM. You can
• 0:55
  Speaker 5: listen to the drive with Spence Check. It's pushing into that.
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: And of course, the Sean O'Connell show right here for
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: the next three hours, getting you ready as Utah kicks
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: off the 2026 campaign. And that means we are in
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: the final stretch of our predictions for this year. I've
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: asked you over under defensive point totals. I've asked you
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: about the rush defense. I've asked you about the passing offense.
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: I've asked you about the offensive point total. I've asked
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: you about the over under on whoever the leading sack
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: man is. How many sacks does that person get? I've
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: asked you who that person is going to be. Who
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: scores the most touchdowns this year for this Utah football team?
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: I actually think I forgot to ask that one on Twitter.
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: We can have that conversation today. But you got to
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: put all your stuff on record before the season begins,
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: which means you got to do it today. So I'm setting,
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: I'm pushing send. I'm pushing post. It's called post on
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: the tweet right now. Fill in the blank for Utah football.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: Who is the 2026 team MVP offensive player of the year,
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: defensive player of the year breakout star.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I want all of those.
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: If you think the team MVP and the offensive player
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: of the year are the same person, fine.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: You can just give me one name there.
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: If you think the team MVP is going to be
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: a defensive player, you can combine those. I gave you
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: four categories so you could give shout outs to four
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: players here. The breakout star, the definition of breakout star
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: for me is breaking out in a Utah football uniform.
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: So like Braden Pagan can be a breakout star for
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: Utah football. He was a big star for Utah state
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: football already. Kyrie Scholes might fill that San Jose state.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: Ethan day could be a breakout star at North Texas
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: and then be a breakout star at Utah. In my opinion,
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: who do you think your breakout star is? And the
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: people I'm thinking of the precedent I'm thinking of is
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: like John Henry Daly was last year.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: A lot of you, there was a half dozen or
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: more of.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: You that gave me his name heading into the season
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: and said, he is going to be the dude. Cause
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: I asked a lot of these same questions last year.
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: He's going to be the guy. He's going to be
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: your defensive player of the year. He's going to be
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: the guy that surprises everybody. He's the breakout star on
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: this team. I'm thinking the Sione Vockies of the world, Jackson,
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: Benny deserves to be in this conversation. If you don't
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: want to put John Henry Daly there, from last year.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: You go back far enough.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: And Trevor Riley was that guy.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: You go back further than that. And you know, Eric Weddle.
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: Was that guy when he was a true freshman, the
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: breakout star of this 2026 campaign, the defensive player of
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: the year, the offensive player of the year and the
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: team MVP 8 7 7 3 5 3 0 700.
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: I will ask the same question of Eric Weddle. Who's
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: going to join us on the show today. We're moving
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: him from noon to 1230. He has a doctor's appointment
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: or something. Dishing with dev QB one. We're not bugging
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: him on a game day. Radio magic allows us to
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: record interviews earlier in the week and then play them
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: back for you.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: That's what we did with dishing with devs.
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: Just so it, I don't want anyone blaming us if
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: he has like a bad series or something. Oh, he
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: shouldn't have been in studio doing an interview with OC.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: He wasn't okay. Not today at least. So we'll play
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: dish with dev for you at one o'clock. Shahan Jairaj
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: are right off the top. Biggest story in sports is
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: not college football today. The biggest story in sports is
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: the heftiest punishment ever handed down to a professional sports
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: owner in the United States. They threw the book at
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: Steve Ballmer in the Clippers over this Kawhi Leonard salary
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: cap circumvention situation, a suspension for Ballmer, a fine for Ballmer,
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: $ 30 million for him is a fart in the wind, unfortunately.
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: And the NBA knows that. So they decided we're not
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: just going to make this a financial slap on the,
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: not even on the wrist. It's like a slap that
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: hits the very tip of the pinky finger. I saw
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: someone yesterday try to quantify this with Steve Ballmer.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I think that he.
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: Averages $ 300 million per quarter from his dividend payments from
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: one Microsoft investment. which means he's getting $ 1. 2 billion a
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: year just from that, which means $ 30 billion is like
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: 10 days of work for him or 10 days of
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: not working for him.
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: So the NBA decided to hit him where it really
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: hurts and take away five first round draft picks from
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: the Los Angeles Clippers. That cutting the legs out from
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: under an organization that is the NBA saying we are
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: willing to diminish the product of an LA market team
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: in order to discourage this type of behavior in the
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: future Adam Silver and company decided we are taking an
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: aggressive stand and we are doing it right now I
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: cannot tell you how much I love When leadership acts
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: like leadership. I don't even, I honestly don't even think
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: that salary cap circumvention is very uncommon in the NBA.
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: As soon as all this stuff came out with Kawhi Leonard,
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: you heard people talking about their anecdotal stories like, oh yeah,
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: do you remember when so-and-so used to get, you know,
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: a million dollar check every season from the car dealership
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: who's sign has his name on it, but he never
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: actually did anything for them. Like salary cap circumvention is
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: not anything new. You'll hear stories about the fifth or
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: sixth best player on NBA teams, getting sweetheart deals somewhere
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: because they're hooked up. It's the joys of being a
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: professional athlete. I don't think this is out of the norm.
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: I don't think this is uncommon, but What the NBA
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: decided to do was they decided like, look, if, if
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: this is going to be so transparent, so easily found,
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: so out in the open and something that guys like
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: Pablo Torre are going to continue to dig up, we
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: are going to go through the performative punishment that this
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: kind of thing warrants. This is a superstar player. who
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: is being paid above and beyond the salary cap in
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: a league that is supposed to be heavily dictated by
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: the rules of the salary cap. And this is not,
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: it's not really salary cap circumvention that upsets the NBA.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: What this is, is it's luxury tax apron circumvention. The
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: NBA wants you, if you, if you want to overpay
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: your roster, if you want to overpay Kawhi Leonard, They
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: want you to really, really overpay.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: They want you to follow the rules. That's what this
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: is about.
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: A hundred percent. We put the rules in place and
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: we intend for them to be followed. And we are
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: going to hand down a pretty hefty punishment because you didn't.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: We'll talk about it more as the show progresses, but
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: it is a football game day. So we're going to
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: stick with the football stuff for the most part. Our guy,
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: Porter Larson is filling in for James behind the glass today.
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: James will be producing the actual football game tonight is
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: my understanding. So he's putting priority on that, which I
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: cannot begrudge because game day is far more important than
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: the Sean O'Connell show. Even when that Sean O'Connell show
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: happens on actual game day.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: So Porter, how are you, sir?
• 8:38
  Speaker 6: I'm well, Sean, I'm I'm doing well. And the fact
• 8:43
  Speaker 6: that we have football, the fact that the aforementioned NBA
• 8:48
  Speaker 6: decided to have some teeth, in this Clippers deal, both
• 8:53
  Speaker 6: things that I'm, I'm quite ecstatic about.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: So it's a, it's a good Thursday so far.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: Speaker 3 I'm really excited to see what the product
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: of Utah football looks.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Like as a whole.
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: And these teams are generally greater than the sum of
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: their parts, but the parts are so important and they've
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: been the subject of so much speculation in this off season.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: And we have talked about it ad nauseum and really
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: from every angle that I could think of when it
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: came to what is this offensive line going to be?
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: What is this defensive line going to be? What is
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: this defensive backfield going to be? Probably haven't talked about
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: the linebacking core enough because I'm very confident that the
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: linebacking core is going to be solid at the very least.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: Probably could have dove a little deeper into that one. Offensively,
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: I think we give the, Hey, don't worry about that
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: status to the running game in general, which is laughable
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: considering the fact that you have to replace five starters
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: on an offensive line. I think the skill positions capability.
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: of running and who will be tasked with running leave
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: us no doubts. I think the guys opening the holes
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: for those runners, there is some room for interpretation on
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: how optimistic we should be about that. And then of
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: course the wide receiver weapons were like, yeah, they're going
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: to be great. Tight end room is a massive, massive
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: question mark in my opinion. I think we might be
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: heading into a year where your Swiss army knife, not
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: true tight end. Your Hunter Andrews type player is your
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: best tight end. So your best tight end is not
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: really a tight end potentially on this team quarterback room.
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: You're in great shape, special teams, question mark. And we've
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: talked about all of them over and over and over again.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: So I want to do the fun stuff today. The
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: wind total for Utah and Vegas is eight and a
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: half wins. That's the one I'm using. At least there's
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: some books you can find where it's seven and a
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: half wins. I'm going, I'm setting it at eight and
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: a half. I actually flirted with the idea of setting
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: it at nine and a half. And then I had
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: to pump the brakes on my own optimism because I
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: can't at a one side of my mouth, tell you
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: how a nine win season or even an eight win
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: season in Morgan Scali's first year as a head coach
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: is actually like pretty darn good. And then set the
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: number at 10 wins basically. A 10-win season for a
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: first-year head coach.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Is phenomenal.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: And it is also attainable for Morgan Scali in his
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: first year, which makes it so, so enticing. So 877-353-0700.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Tell me who you think.
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: The Offensive Player of the Year, the Defensive Player of
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: the Year, the Team MVP, the Breakout Star is, and
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: tell me over or under 8.5 wins this You know
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: what the schedule looks like. We've talked about it a lot,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: but it's not a real prediction unless you get the
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: prediction out before the season actually kicks off. So I'm demanding,
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: if you listen to this show, that you get on
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: the record, okay?
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: And you know what?
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: I'm going to go even further a little bit, and
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: I'm going to say you have to tell me over
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: 8 1⁄2 weeks, or under eight and a half wins.
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: And then you have to tell me who the losses are.
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: Cause I want this to be a thoughtful prospect for everyone.
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: I want to do this as an exercise. We did
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: this when the schedule was released before we knew a
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: lot about what this team was. We still don't know
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: a ton about what this team is, but Idaho win Arkansas,
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: win Utah state, win at Iowa state, win your first
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: road game. And it happens to be the conference opener.
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: That is an Iowa state team that is replacing their
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: coaching staff and the bulk of their contributors on the field.
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: There's some guys hold those on the roster, but most
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: production is gone. And of course, production at the most
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: important position on the field quarterback where they're actually pretty
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: solid last year, gone off to Penn state back at
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: home against Kansas, October 10th, when.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: We're five and Oh, Utah fans.
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: We're out of the gate, hot on the road in Boulder, Colorado,
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: a team that seemingly averages.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: 165 pounds per player.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: So I joke, but they do have 10 guys that
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: are 175 pounds or lighter on that team by far
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: the biggest number in the big 12. And I haven't
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: gone through every power roster, but I would venture a
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: guess that that is flirting with top for every power
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: roster to have that many guys who are that small.
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: I know it's not about look, winning the battle, getting
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: off the bus, but I think that trends on a
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: roster give you some sort of idea of what the
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: rest of the roster looks like. So now we're sitting
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: at five and Oh, after a win against Kansas at
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: Colorado six and Oh, who October 24th, Houston home game,
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: Salt Lake city. Houston coming off a 10-win season. Houston,
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: very disciplined, well-coached team. A lot of people love Connor Wegman.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure if I do or not, but I
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: think this is one of those places where the BYU
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: game starts to kind of loom on the horizon a
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: little bit, where you're starting to accumulate or a bumper,
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: a bruise here or there, and where just the pure
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: margin for error in college football is almost demands that
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: a hiccup occurs.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Halfway through your season.
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: I'm going to say Houston is an L.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Come at me.
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: If you want to 877-353-0700, you bounce back at Cincinnati
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: on the road.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: You get a win there. You're now to seven wins.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: The over under total is eight and a half. You
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: need two more wins to hit that over. But the
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: final stretch is where things get a lot more interesting
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: for this Utah football team at home against BYU, the
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: Holy war. You, the entire season hinges on this game
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: every year. That is true to a certain extent when
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: you were not in the same conference, You could get
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: away with dropping this one. Obviously, you never want to.
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: But we saw Utah win a Pac-12 championship after losing
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: early in the season to BYU.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: This one is not early.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: This one is not before you figured out who your
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: starting quarterback should be. This is you have a fully realized,
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: actualized team, and now they're either putting their best foot
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: forward or on home field against the rival, who I
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: think at this point is also going to be a
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: top 10 team, most likely a formidable squad with maybe
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: a player or two who's starting to be listed in
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: dark horse Heisman conversations alongside your quarterback. If indeed my
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: predictions are correct, a top 10 BYU team comes to
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: rice echo stadium, Morgan Scali's first year as head coach,
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: Win baby. You're now eight wins. You got to get
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: one more before the end of the season to hit
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: the over for Vegas. You've now beat BYU.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: The massive emotional adrenaline dump of defeating the Cougars and
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: knocking them back out of the top 10 and potentially
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: vaulting yourself into the top 10, or maybe just pass
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: them in the rankings, no matter what the numbers are.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: That is a blessing for about six and a half days,
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: and then you lose at Arizona because, again, there is
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: a natural margin for error when you're talking about teams
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: that have a lot of new, right?
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: And this team has a lot of new on it.
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: For everyone on this Utah football roster, it will be
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: their first win over BYU. It will be not for
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: the coaching staff, obviously, for the players. It'll be the
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: first time that these guys... have defeated, have vanquished the
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: foe to steal the BYU terminology here. And we will
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: be celebrating into the wee hours of November 8th when
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: that happens.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: You will have to pay the piper.
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: Potentially on November 14th in Tucson, so I'm allowing for
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: a loss there. even though I don't want to, because
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: now that gives you two conference losses and you are
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: threatened with being pushed out of the conference championship race.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: As soon as you sustain that second loss, because Texas
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: tech misses Utah and BYU and is very likely, or
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: they have a strong chance of going undefeated in conference
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: play their favorites at all their games. Guess who else
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: is a favorite in every single one of their games?
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: Your University of Utah football team. As of today, they
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: are favorites in every game. Very interesting. I'm giving them
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: a loss at Arizona just because I feel like you
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: got to find a loss somewhere the same way you
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: got to find wins somewhere. Okay, so now this team
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: is sitting at eight and two. You got to get
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: one more win in order to hit that over. And
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: that wind comes after you lose to Arizona. You go
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: to TCU. TCU has barely improved from the embarrassment that
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: they issued all of us in week zero.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: They have athletes, they have speed.
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: This is more of a shootout game than any of
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: us are comfortable with, but Utah sneaks out the wind
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: and you have now hit the over in Morgan Scali's
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: first year as head coach, you're sitting at nine wins
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: and the rest is gravy.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: By the way, West Virginia, In Salt Lake City.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: We'll play.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Here's what we'll do for you, West Virginia.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: We'll play country roads one time while you're in the
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: building so your fans can sing along and they can
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: all look around and be like, wow, these mountains are
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: different than our mountains.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: And you're going to win that game. So I'm hammering
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: the over. We'll start there. I am hammering the over
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: on eight and a half wins. I would be.
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: Jittery and cautious about hitting the over on nine and
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: a half wins because I am looking at this through
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: week one game one. Can't wait to see this thing
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: kind of lenses right now. And there are, there's allowances
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: for the unknown.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: Maybe Cincinnati is a tougher team that we give credit to.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: Maybe Kansas is a tougher team. Maybe Utah state is
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: going to slug it out or Arkansas is going to
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: be much, much better than I have any kind of
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: expectation for, but this schedule could not be friendlier for
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: Morgan Scali in his first year of And I am
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: drinking the crimson red Kool-Aid right now because that is
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: what we all do before the season starts, before we
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: have eyes on any of the warts, any of the flaws,
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: any of the issues that may or may not exist
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: on this Utah football team. I'm hammering the over on
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: eight and a half games. Porter Larson, what say you?
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: I think it's a fair number. I think the expectations
• 20:50
  Speaker 6: on Morgan Scali are high. I don't think that that's
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: a bad thing, and I think that they are high,
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: rightfully so. But any coach in his first year, getting eight, nine,
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: ten wins would be a massive success, and I include
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: eight in that. If you can go eight and four
• 21:08
  Speaker 6: in the Big 12 in your first year at the helm,
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: I consider that a success. Now, when you factor in
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: the schedule OC, which you just very thoroughly went through,
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: You factor in the fact that as of today, Utah
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: is favored in every one of their regular season football games.
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: I don't see a reason why you, if you're a
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: betting man, entertainment purposes only, why you wouldn't hit that
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: eight and a half. Because I think that eight, seven
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: or eight is probably the floor, not the ceiling, not
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: the median, but probably the floor.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Now, injuries.
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: all of the above things that happened during the course
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: of a football season can throw a wrench in all
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: of this conversation. But as we sit today, I think
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: that Utah should get to nine wins. And I think
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: they should get to that over. I would like to see,
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: and I know I don't have the privilege of, of this,
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: but I would like to see what the trenches look
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: like before I really put a stamp on that, because that's, again,
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: I know we talked about it all off season. That's
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: the big question mark, right? What does the offensive line
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: look like? What does Jordan gross have in front of him?
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: And what's the depth of D line look like?
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: You say the trenches, not the trench, not singular because
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: it's both sides. We've, we've been hyper-focused on the offensive
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: line for good reason because the headliners who departed this
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: program into the draft and onto NFL rosters, they, they
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: were the offensive lineman. You lost John Henry Daly and
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: Jonah Lea and Dallas Fakalahi in the transfer portal, and
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: that was painful for other reasons. That was a different animal, right?
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: Logan Fano is on an NFL practice squad right now,
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: helping his brother get his feet wet in Cleveland. I mean,
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: you had really good players on that defensive line, not
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: quite the same level of headliner. obviously as the offensive lineman,
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: but yes, a question there. And I think maybe we
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: haven't been talking enough. Like Carson Cal Fousey's name comes
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: up a lot.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: Jai Mog, his name comes up a lot because the
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: players have been giving it to us. And like, he's
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: a strong candidate for the breakout star of this year.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: The nature of that position in this defense, you actually
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: have to be like 15% better than everyone around you
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: for you to be the star of a defense.
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: Guys like John Penasini, lucky photo name them, right? Guys
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: that played in the NFL, but while they were at Utah,
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: you don't see it as much because they're just eating
• 23:54
  Speaker 6: up blocks and letting Devin Lloyd and chase Hanson kind
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: of clean up behind him.
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: And those guys were like, formidable, nasty football players. I mean,
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: some of the best players that have ever rolled through this,
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: like Sione boy spent 10 years in the NFL, like
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: eight of those as a team captain.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: If you go through the stars of the Fiesta bowl team,
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: he's like the eighth or ninth guy mentioned. And he
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: was a phenomenal, phenomenal football player. He's now a phenomenal
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: football coach. And his genetics are benefiting BYU right now.
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: His son is actually a starting defensive end for Kalani
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: Satake squad at this moment, which is, you know, to
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: the chagrin of every Utah fan, but I digress. We
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: have heard about Jai. We have heard about Carson Kalfusi
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: because he's a mountain of a man and he's bounced
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: back in and out of camp and spring ball with injuries.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: So we're hearing his name for the wrong reasons. and
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: half the wrong and the right reasons, the wrong reasons, because,
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: oh man, he's done an incredible job since coming back
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: from his injury. It's like, yeah, no, but I, I
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: don't want to have that conversation about a player during
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: a football season, right?
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Jam Wallace gets an occasional mention.
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: I want jam Wallace to be what everyone says you
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: can't find in Utah, right?
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: When everyone says the problem.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: With the big 12 conferences right now, the problem with
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: the PAC 12 conference was you can't find these 300
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: pound athletes growing on trees out here in the West.
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: Like you can in the South. You went and you
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: got one. He's a Tennessee transfer, right? And by the way, we've,
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: we got a lot of, we got a lot of
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: guys growing on trees that fit that physical profile.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: They grow on a very specific type of tree here
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: in the West, an Island tree.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: It's a tree on an Island. It's a coconut tree, right?
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: But jam Wallace, like I need you jam Wallace to
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: be the sec lineman that comes in and tears things
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: up in the big 12 conference. Like I don't want
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: you to be that I need you to be that
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: or else I want that narrative to die from here
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: until eternity that, Oh, well, you just don't get those
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: kinds of guys out here.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: We have one.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: We got one. Let's see what he does.
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: Well, and the secret to Utah's defense is you're going
• 26:23
  Speaker 6: to need all of those guys, not just one or
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: two of them. You're going to need Carson Kifusi to contribute.
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: You're going to need Pupu Cepulona to be consistent. You're
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: going to need Lucas Sam Sula, another transfer, Jam Wallace, Mo,
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: Jai Mo, you're going to need all of those guys
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: because that is how Morgan Scali operates a defense. That
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: is how Utah operates. The defense is by rotating those
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: guys in and out so much that they're always fresh
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: and they're always.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Able to eat up a block or two.
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: And we're going to see, obviously Idaho, I think poses a,
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: not a threat, but a little bit of a good
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: litmus for some of that. If, if, Utah can't get
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: a real legitimate push with just four. I don't even
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: want to see a blitz today, to be honest with you, Morgan, Morgan,
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: if you're listening on a game day, which I know
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: you are, I don't even want to see a blitz today.
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: Let's see what you can get with four guys. Let's
• 27:26
  Speaker 6: see the push you can get. Let's see what you
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: can get inside on the pass rush and, and, and
• 27:32
  Speaker 6: the run game with, with those defensive tackles. And then, Hey,
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: when you need to put some pressure on and you
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: need to blitz and conference play and otherwise, then we'll,
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: we'll see how you can apply.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: 84 41 says my heart says over 11 and one,
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: a loss to Arizona. My head says they'll still get
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: over nine and three or 10 and two. I like
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: the heart pick.
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: And that one down in the desert, man, it always
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: gets weird. So I don't, I don't necessarily hate that pick.
• 28:01
  Speaker 7: 63 57.
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: You agree with my picks 10 and two for the
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: youths this year. First loss will come to Houston and
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: then Arizona. I could see 11 and one where we
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: get Houston at home.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Okay. I like your optimism.
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: 31 85 over eight and a half wins. I think we,
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: I think if we lose it's at Arizona, we're going
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: to lose guys.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Utah's got to lose.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Don't say if, if.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: This team loses, Hey, you never know. 8 7 7
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: 3 5 3 0 700. The over under is eight
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: and a half. I also want to know your predictions
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: for player of the year. on the offense player of
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: the year on the defense, the overall team MVP and
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: the breakout star of the year. Also for one tweeter,
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: I need more than two letters for each of your
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: responses to this.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Okay. Let's see if we can team MVP, Ms. Morgan
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Scali team offensive player of the year. DD Devin damp here.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Defensive POI question mark. Breakout star question mark.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I need predictions.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: I gave you the question mark.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Come on, man.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: I love it, though.
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: Keep it coming at Real OC Sports, 877-353-0700. We'll take
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: a quick one here. We'll come back with Shahan Jayarajah,
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: National College Football Insider over at CBS Sports, friend of
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: the program.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: It's a game day, people. ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.
• 29:33
  Speaker 8: The world is love and life are deep maybe 92.1 FM.
• 29:30
  Speaker 7: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Reminder.
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: We've got injury updates all season long coming to you
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: from the Advocates Injury Returnees. If you're injured in an
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: accident that was not your fault, call 801-355-5550 or visit utahadvocates.com.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: Secondary reminder on top of this reminder, the official injury
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: reports are not required of these teams until Big 12 play.
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: So Utah does not have to put out an official
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: injury report against Idaho. There's been a lot of talk
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: about bumps and bruises, about rotation on the offensive and
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: defensive fronts because of those bumps and bruises. You've heard
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: people sort of alluding to this. Coach is talking about it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: It was good to have him back. We're working around
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: so-and-so because he's feeling a twang or a pinch somewhere.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: So we don't have anything super official.
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: This will have to suffice for today because you're not
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: getting an official injury report.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: No questionable, doubtful information.
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: No available, but the advocates injury attorneys will be giving
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: us our injury reports all season long here on the
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: Sean O'Connell show.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: We're lucky enough to be welcome.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: Welcoming again, a great friend of the program, Shahan Jayaraja,
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: national college football insider expert over at CBS sports.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Shahan, how are you?
• 31:12
  Speaker 9: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: Shahan it's a, it's game day here in salt Lake city,
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: as I know you're acutely aware. And you've got a
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: really interesting one for the university of Colorado as well.
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: Week zero games gave us some interesting things.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: We haven't talked about those yet. So I guess we
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: should start there.
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: The TCU North Carolina contest over in Dublin, TCU looks sloppy.
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: The game itself looked pretty sloppy. Obviously North Carolina comes
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: out on top of that one. Was there anything we
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: can infer long-term about Sonny Dyches squad based on that
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: first performance?
• 31:45
  Speaker 9: Well, I think the biggest thing is that this is
• 31:47
  Speaker 9: just a team that's still very messy. And that was
• 31:50
  Speaker 9: something that I think was a real priority for them
• 31:52
  Speaker 9: to try to fix this off season. Of course, you know,
• 31:54
  Speaker 9: their former quarterback, Josh Hoover had pretty significant interception issues.
• 31:58
  Speaker 9: They didn't run the ball at a high level. They
• 32:00
  Speaker 9: had breakdowns in coverage. And when I look at this
• 32:03
  Speaker 9: team and it's, it's week zero, right? It's on the road,
• 32:05
  Speaker 9: it's Dublin, right? But, but I think that they still
• 32:08
  Speaker 9: looked very sloppy, more than 10 penalties missed. in that game.
• 32:12
  Speaker 9: I think really bad situational football, both getting off the
• 32:15
  Speaker 9: field defensively. And of course going over to in the
• 32:18
  Speaker 9: red zone there. So this is just a team that
• 32:20
  Speaker 9: I think has some structural flaws when it comes to
• 32:23
  Speaker 9: just executing in the biggest moments. And look, I mean, again,
• 32:27
  Speaker 9: this is a team that's won 18 games over the
• 32:29
  Speaker 9: past two years. I thought that they were a team
• 32:30
  Speaker 9: that maybe if they cleaned up some of this stuff
• 32:33
  Speaker 9: could be in the big 12 title race. It just
• 32:34
  Speaker 9: doesn't seem like that's happened though.
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: We've got this sort of, you know, subconscious or maybe
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: it's conscious at this point, insecurity in the big 12
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: about how the conference itself stacks up against the other
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: power leagues. And we're not going to catch the big 10.
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: We're not going to catch the sec. We, maybe we
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: could get in that conversation in earnest with the ACC.
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: And it's not like TCU is the flagship brand. And
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: it's not like North Carolina is the flagship brand, but
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: a loss to North Carolina is especially in such an
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: ugly game, is it damaging to the overall reputation at
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: this early in the season?
• 33:16
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I think so. I mean, like you said, there
• 33:18
  Speaker 9: are only so many opportunities that big 12 teams get
• 33:21
  Speaker 9: to play against other power conference opponents. And again, specifically,
• 33:26
  Speaker 9: there's only so many opportunities that you get to win
• 33:29
  Speaker 9: and win emphatically. Like for example, last year, when TC
• 33:32
  Speaker 9: went on the road to a bad North Carolina team,
• 33:34
  Speaker 9: I think it helped them a lot that they were
• 33:36
  Speaker 9: able to go out and have a tremendous performance. And
• 33:38
  Speaker 9: I think that people thought differently about the middle class
• 33:41
  Speaker 9: of the big 12 because of it. And Look again,
• 33:44
  Speaker 9: you know, this upcoming weekend and even starting with today, right?
• 33:46
  Speaker 9: Like Colorado plays against Georgia Tech. I think that's a
• 33:49
  Speaker 9: game that they're going to lose. They would play against Auburn.
• 33:51
  Speaker 9: That's going to, I think, be a huge spot. If
• 33:53
  Speaker 9: they was able to win, I think that that really
• 33:54
  Speaker 9: does help the middle class of the league just a
• 33:57
  Speaker 9: little bit. But last year they didn't. And same deal.
• 33:59
  Speaker 9: I think it hurts. So I think that you have
• 34:01
  Speaker 9: to take advantage of these opportunities. And when you, again,
• 34:04
  Speaker 9: when you play a team like North Carolina, that I
• 34:07
  Speaker 9: still think is probably going to finish bottom five in
• 34:09
  Speaker 9: the ACC. And you have a TCU team that's projected
• 34:12
  Speaker 9: to finish top five in the big 12. I think
• 34:14
  Speaker 9: that it just is a really bad look. And I
• 34:16
  Speaker 9: think that it colors perception of the league. All right.
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: Let's talk about the games on the slate this weekend. Again, we,
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: we focus on the opportunities that the conference itself has
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: to play elevate the stock. And there's, there's not a
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: lot of headlining games here on the week one slate
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: in college football nationally.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: There's not a ton. And with big 12 involvement, there's
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: even fewer.
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: One of those does happen tonight when Colorado takes on
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: Georgia tech. I am genuinely flummoxed. I am confused as
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: to what we are going to see from Dion Sanders,
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: Colorado team this year. I make fun of the fact
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: that their roster has a bunch of guys that are
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: under 175 pounds on it.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: That's mostly tongue in cheek.
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: I think that coach prime was a shell of himself
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: last year because of the health issues. I think that,
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: you know, the best version of him as a coach
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: is a lot better than what we saw last year.
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: I don't know if the personnel that he's got left
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: at Colorado, even if he is great, can do anything
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: with it. How do you see this matchup with Georgia tech?
• 35:20
  Speaker 9: Well, you kind of said it right. Like the biggest
• 35:22
  Speaker 9: thing about this part of the coach primary is that
• 35:25
  Speaker 9: there's just no identity to it. I don't know what
• 35:27
  Speaker 9: Colorado football is. I don't know what we're confident they're
• 35:30
  Speaker 9: going to be good at. I don't know where they're
• 35:32
  Speaker 9: going to build advantages. They have a few good players, right?
• 35:36
  Speaker 9: Julian Lewis at quarterback is, is an intriguing prospect that
• 35:39
  Speaker 9: probably thrown in a little too soon. Deandre Moore coming
• 35:41
  Speaker 9: over at receiver from Texas, but like they're not Shador
• 35:44
  Speaker 9: and Travis Hunter, right? Like they're not Jordan Seton. They're not,
• 35:48
  Speaker 9: whichever players that you want to talk about who kind
• 35:50
  Speaker 9: of helped spur that 2024 team. And I think that again,
• 35:55
  Speaker 9: there's fundamental and structural issue to me is that they
• 35:58
  Speaker 9: have never invested in a long-term build on the offensive line.
• 36:02
  Speaker 9: I think that you can portal and fix most things
• 36:04
  Speaker 9: pretty quickly in college football, but offensive line is a
• 36:08
  Speaker 9: patient position. And when you try to rough the process.
• 36:12
  Speaker 9: I think it costs you. And that's why we're sitting
• 36:13
  Speaker 9: here in year four saying, what is this team going
• 36:16
  Speaker 9: to be on the offensive line? And by the way,
• 36:19
  Speaker 9: you talk about a team that invests on the offensive line.
• 36:21
  Speaker 9: Georgia tech is one of the most physical teams in
• 36:24
  Speaker 9: the ACC. They're a team that bullies you. They're a
• 36:27
  Speaker 9: team that gets after you. I've got a great running
• 36:29
  Speaker 9: back in justice Haynes, who just transferred from, from Michigan
• 36:33
  Speaker 9: over to, to, to Georgia tech. And I think it's
• 36:36
  Speaker 9: going to be one of the most dynamic running backs
• 36:38
  Speaker 9: in the sport this year. So yeah, I think that
• 36:41
  Speaker 9: Georgia Tech is just going to physically bully Colorado's defense,
• 36:44
  Speaker 9: and I don't know that Colorado's going to have enough
• 36:47
  Speaker 9: answers to fight back.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: Because we just talked about the offensive line, I'm going
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: to use this opportunity to segue to Utah playing against Idaho. Now,
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: Idaho I don't think is going to be a massive
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: challenge for any Big 12 team. But it's the first
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: look that we get to see of Morgan Scali's 2026 squad.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: And as you are well aware, that squad replaces all
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: five starters on the offensive line from last year. You
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: did some replacing during the bowl win last year, but
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: first time you got to replace all five at once
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: will happen against Idaho. And you just called it a
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: position of patience. You don't have that luxury at the
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: University of Utah. No offensive line coach, all new personnel.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: What do you think that's going to look like Shahan?
• 37:36
  Speaker 9: Yeah, it's a great question. And you know, I did
• 37:39
  Speaker 9: speak to Morgan Scott about this at big 12 media days.
• 37:42
  Speaker 9: And he kind of said what you said, right? That,
• 37:44
  Speaker 9: that the offensive line unit that played really well in
• 37:47
  Speaker 9: the bowl game last season is the one that'll be
• 37:50
  Speaker 9: at playing this season because everybody participated. And so like, look,
• 37:55
  Speaker 9: I don't think this is going to be a total
• 37:56
  Speaker 9: collapse by any means on the offensive line. But the
• 37:58
  Speaker 9: question is how much of their offensive success last year
• 38:02
  Speaker 9: was the fact that they had maybe the best offensive
• 38:05
  Speaker 9: line in all of college football with two first round
• 38:07
  Speaker 9: picks in, in Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu. I think
• 38:10
  Speaker 9: it was a huge part of it. And It made
• 38:12
  Speaker 9: the offense's job easier, especially for Devin Dampier, that they
• 38:17
  Speaker 9: knew that they were going to have time and that
• 38:18
  Speaker 9: they could run the ball at will. Well, the question becomes,
• 38:21
  Speaker 9: what if they can't run the ball at will in 2026?
• 38:24
  Speaker 9: What if they're good, but not great running the ball?
• 38:27
  Speaker 9: You know, I think back to that tech tech game
• 38:29
  Speaker 9: last year, when obviously they were able to really cause
• 38:32
  Speaker 9: some issues and keep Devin Dampier in the pocket. And frankly,
• 38:35
  Speaker 9: the Utah offense just kind of collapsed under that pressure
• 38:38
  Speaker 9: because I don't think it's going to look like that
• 38:40
  Speaker 9: every week. And again, I think that Utah is still
• 38:42
  Speaker 9: going to have an above average offensive line, but I
• 38:44
  Speaker 9: just wonder what kind of transition it might look like
• 38:47
  Speaker 9: if this is an inconsistent unit instead of a very
• 38:49
  Speaker 9: good unit. To me, I get it, right? Utah has
• 38:54
  Speaker 9: gotten and deserves to have gotten as much credibility as
• 38:57
  Speaker 9: any team in the Big 12 since they've transitioned to
• 38:59
  Speaker 9: this league. But I just don't know if I can
• 39:02
  Speaker 9: put them in that 9-10 win tier before I know
• 39:06
  Speaker 9: that this is going to be an offense that remains dynamic.
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: And that is kind of the question, whether you're going
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: on the Vegas expectation or the expectation... just relative to
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: fan interest and what the schedule looks like. It's so
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: enticing because this is as friendly a schedule as we've
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: seen in recent years for Utah. But we say that
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: with a picture of Utah football in our mind that
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: is consistent, that you can't kind of expect, you know,
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: physical fronts and at least a rudimentary ability. to just
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: get yardage when you need it in those running situations.
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: And you're absolutely right that we don't truly know that
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: about this team yet. We also don't know anything about
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: the offensive or excuse me, the defensive line really, right?
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: You've got some new personnel coming in here, young guys.
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: that are expected to step into larger roles and more
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: so even than the offensive line at the university of
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: Utah defensive line for decades now has been like a
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: guarantee that you're going to have at least one guy
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: who's NFL bound. You're going to have people surrounding him
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: that are above average at the very least college football players.
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: And we think that might be the case with this
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: year's roster. But again, it's an uncertainty.
• 40:17
  Speaker 9: No, it 100 percent is. And I think that, like
• 40:19
  Speaker 9: you said, I mean, this has been a unit that
• 40:21
  Speaker 9: you can set your watch to. I think that defensively.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:24
  Speaker 9: Like, I mean, even again, in my conversations with Kyle
• 40:28
  Speaker 9: Whittingham at media days in the past.
• 40:30
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 40:30
  Speaker 9: He's sort of been like, you know, we know what
• 40:32
  Speaker 9: we're going to be there. And I do think that
• 40:34
  Speaker 9: there's reason to believe that. the Morgan Scali era will,
• 40:37
  Speaker 9: will feature, you know, defensive lines and units that are
• 40:41
  Speaker 9: like that. The question is though, year one, right. When
• 40:42
  Speaker 9: you lose a player like John Henry daily, when you
• 40:45
  Speaker 9: lose a player like Smith Snowden, when you do, you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 9: just have some turnover along the leadership on that side
• 40:50
  Speaker 9: of the ball more than anything else. And so, you know, I,
• 40:53
  Speaker 9: I think again, like, I don't have a ton of questions.
• 40:56
  Speaker 9: I don't have a ton of issues. I think that
• 40:58
  Speaker 9: Utah is just going to continue to figure it out.
• 41:00
  Speaker 9: The infrastructure that they've got there, especially on the defensive
• 41:03
  Speaker 9: side is great. And they brought back the vast majority
• 41:06
  Speaker 9: of their defensive staff, even if they lost some offensive staffers.
• 41:08
  Speaker 9: So I still think that this is going to be
• 41:11
  Speaker 9: a very good unit. But again, like we talked about
• 41:13
  Speaker 9: that Utah defense last year, it was a top two
• 41:15
  Speaker 9: or three unit in the big 12. what's the difference
• 41:18
  Speaker 9: between being top three and let's say top six, right?
• 41:21
  Speaker 9: What's the difference between the offense being top three and
• 41:24
  Speaker 9: being top six, right? I think that that's where you
• 41:27
  Speaker 9: sort of start to compound. And by the way, like
• 41:30
  Speaker 9: you do have kind of an interesting schedule with a Again,
• 41:35
  Speaker 9: this is going to be a team that I think
• 41:37
  Speaker 9: is still going to be quality, but I would not
• 41:40
  Speaker 9: judge Morgan Scully's tenure based solely on this first year
• 41:42
  Speaker 9: for that reason.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: Well, I think that's a problem we're going to have
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: to manage here because like I've known Morgan since we
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: were both students together.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: And I've got this utmost confidence in his ability to
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: be a great.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Head football coach.
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: I don't know if it manifests itself in year one
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: because growing pains should be expected. And I'm trying to
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: simultaneously be optimistic about the season and allow for the
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: fact that like it took Kyle Whittingham some time before
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: he really figured out the head coaching thing.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: It took him a couple of years, right?
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: So from the external perspective, which is so valuable on
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: a day like today where we're all drinking the Kool-Aid,
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: what is a successful first year for Morgan before we
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: kick it off?
• 42:26
  Speaker 9: It's a great question. And, you know, it's funny that
• 42:28
  Speaker 9: you mentioned, right. I was actually just talking with someone
• 42:31
  Speaker 9: about how Whittingham's kind of start because again, he lost
• 42:35
  Speaker 9: 10 games in his first two seasons in a mountain
• 42:38
  Speaker 9: West where obviously he was advantaged and Utah's advantage in
• 42:41
  Speaker 9: the big 12. They weren't advantaged like they were back
• 42:43
  Speaker 9: then and eventually figures it out. And the being, of course,
• 42:46
  Speaker 9: you know, the greatest coach in Utah history. When I
• 42:48
  Speaker 9: look at this Utah team, like again, obviously, you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 9: you expect winning record, you expect being competitive. I do
• 42:55
  Speaker 9: think that some of it is going to come down
• 42:57
  Speaker 9: to like, they just need to be competitive in some
• 43:00
  Speaker 9: of these spots, right? Like if BYU comes to town
• 43:02
  Speaker 9: on November 7th and blows Utah out, like that's going
• 43:06
  Speaker 9: to feel bad, right? Like that's going to be something
• 43:08
  Speaker 9: that I think people are going to struggle with. If
• 43:10
  Speaker 9: you play them close and you lose the close game,
• 43:12
  Speaker 9: I think you're okay. you know, again, month of November
• 43:15
  Speaker 9: at Arizona at TCU, I think that those are obviously
• 43:17
  Speaker 9: really difficult competitive games that, you know, again, could go pretty,
• 43:22
  Speaker 9: pretty difficult. So if, if it's a one in three
• 43:24
  Speaker 9: finish of the year, I think that that will be
• 43:26
  Speaker 9: a little bit of a frustration, but I mean, again,
• 43:29
  Speaker 9: if they're pushing for eight, if they're entering the month
• 43:31
  Speaker 9: of November with at least an outside chance of competing
• 43:34
  Speaker 9: for the big 12 title, if they're at least, you know,
• 43:37
  Speaker 9: competitive in every game that they play, even the ones
• 43:40
  Speaker 9: that they lose, I think that that's going to at
• 43:42
  Speaker 9: least give him a chance to feel good about this
• 43:44
  Speaker 9: first season. This is, this is, I think a situation
• 43:48
  Speaker 9: where you just want to see competent coaching. You want
• 43:51
  Speaker 9: to see what the upside is. You want to see
• 43:52
  Speaker 9: some identity built that maybe is a little different and
• 43:55
  Speaker 9: it's more in Morgan Scali's image than Kyle Whittingham's. But
• 43:57
  Speaker 9: if they come away with eight or nine wins and look,
• 44:00
  Speaker 9: I mean, the schedule is pretty manageable actually overall, especially
• 44:03
  Speaker 9: by the way, if they handle Arkansas in week two,
• 44:06
  Speaker 9: you know, if they can come away with eight solid wins,
• 44:09
  Speaker 9: I think everybody should feel pretty good about that.
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: In that Big 12 title race you just alluded to,
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: we're assuming that Texas Tech will remain the favorite. Their
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: schedule is pretty friendly. I am terrified of what BYU
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: looks like this year. People don't like hearing me say
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: that on the home of the Utes, but that's how
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: I feel. I think Utah, like you said, deserves to
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: be in that conversation until they prove otherwise. Who else
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: is going to be in that conversation when you and
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: I are talking in week eight or nine?
• 44:40
  Speaker 9: Yeah. Texas tech still the favorite to me, BYU kind
• 44:43
  Speaker 9: of the co-favorite there. I think that outside of that group,
• 44:45
  Speaker 9: like Houston, to me is the most interesting team in
• 44:48
  Speaker 9: the big 12. This is a team that last year
• 44:51
  Speaker 9: quality wise, I don't think that they were a quote
• 44:53
  Speaker 9: unquote 10 win team, even though they got to that number. Well,
• 44:56
  Speaker 9: this year, I think that they actually do take that
• 44:58
  Speaker 9: step roster wise towards being there. Of course, bringing back
• 45:01
  Speaker 9: a whole bunch of production on the defensive side of
• 45:03
  Speaker 9: the ball, Amari Thomas, Thomas could be potentially the best
• 45:05
  Speaker 9: receiver in the Big 12. Connor Wigman, I don't think
• 45:09
  Speaker 9: he's outstanding, but I think he's very solid, and that's enough. They,
• 45:13
  Speaker 9: by the way, add McKay Hughes at running back in
• 45:15
  Speaker 9: the transfer portal who rushed for 2,900 yards in two
• 45:18
  Speaker 9: seasons at Tulane for kind of just falling out of
• 45:20
  Speaker 9: the rotation at Oregon. I think it's going to be
• 45:22
  Speaker 9: a huge addition for this team. And again, like you
• 45:26
  Speaker 9: just trust Willie for it seems. I mean, that was
• 45:28
  Speaker 9: always kind of my thing going in as I'm like, look,
• 45:30
  Speaker 9: call me back in year three, right? Obviously it happened
• 45:32
  Speaker 9: in year two that they were already competitive, but I
• 45:34
  Speaker 9: think year three, uh, It is really where I expect
• 45:37
  Speaker 9: them to take yet another step on both sides of
• 45:39
  Speaker 9: the ball. So Houston is kind of that team to
• 45:42
  Speaker 9: me that I think is the biggest threat to But again,
• 45:45
  Speaker 9: like you look up and down this board, I mean,
• 45:47
  Speaker 9: a week ago I would have told you TCU, right?
• 45:49
  Speaker 9: And TCU obviously looks a little messier than what we expect.
• 45:52
  Speaker 9: I think that Kansas state has a pretty manageable schedule
• 45:55
  Speaker 9: and a really intriguing roster on both sides of the ball.
• 45:58
  Speaker 9: I mean, again, if you want to go really far
• 46:00
  Speaker 9: down the board, like I'm intrigued by some of the
• 46:02
  Speaker 9: stuff I've heard out of Baylor this year. I don't,
• 46:04
  Speaker 9: I don't know if they're going to be able to
• 46:05
  Speaker 9: be good enough to be in contention, but I think
• 46:07
  Speaker 9: they're going to be very, very competitive this year. So
• 46:10
  Speaker 9: you can just never really count out anybody in that
• 46:12
  Speaker 9: second or third tier of the big 12. But I
• 46:14
  Speaker 9: think that Houston is kind of my, my, I don't
• 46:18
  Speaker 9: even want to call it a dark horse. Cause I
• 46:19
  Speaker 9: think that there may be even a step above that.
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: I'm going to sneak this one in because I'm fascinated
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: by the soap opera that has unfolded in Provo.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: And I wanted your perspective.
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: Kalani Satake no longer reports to Brian Santiago, who is
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: at least by name, still the athletic director at Brigham
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: young university.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: And you know, there's, seeming seemingly tension that.
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: Goes all the way back to the Kalani Satake conversations
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: with Penn state maybe before that, but that situation aggravated things.
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: And it was kind of boiling to a head while
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: BYU was in football camp. And you know, that players,
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: I don't think are overly distracted by something like that,
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: but for a coaching staff, for an administration, for an
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: athletic department, for a school far from ideal, especially given
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: the massive expectations on BYU football this year. What are
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: your thoughts on the strange happenings with the athletic department
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: in Provo?
• 47:17
  Speaker 9: Yeah, look, it's not great, right? Like, it's a very
• 47:21
  Speaker 9: strange situation. I think that, you know, whenever you talk
• 47:24
  Speaker 9: to people in the industry, one of the things that
• 47:26
  Speaker 9: people point to the most is this idea of alignment
• 47:29
  Speaker 9: and this idea of football coach, athletic director, president, boosters, donors,
• 47:36
  Speaker 9: board of regents all being on the same page. And
• 47:39
  Speaker 9: that's clearly not the case right now. And, I mean,
• 47:41
  Speaker 9: one thing that stands out to me, right, is, like,
• 47:44
  Speaker 9: I've known Kalani Stokke for several years. It is a
• 47:47
  Speaker 9: very weird situation for me for him to have a
• 47:49
  Speaker 9: level of interpersonal conflict with somebody like this. That's just
• 47:52
  Speaker 9: not something that happens very often. And so, again, you know,
• 47:56
  Speaker 9: there's obviously been rumors that he feels like there are
• 47:59
  Speaker 9: things that, you know, weren't delivered that maybe should have
• 48:01
  Speaker 9: been or whatever you want to say. I mean, look.
• 48:05
  Speaker 9: Kalani stocky, very legitimately nearly left last off season.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 48:09
  Speaker 9: He had an incredible offer from Penn state that would
• 48:12
  Speaker 9: have given him the sun, moon and stars. Well, the
• 48:15
  Speaker 9: thing is right. If they have another great year this year,
• 48:17
  Speaker 9: like what we anticipate that they will, like you just
• 48:20
  Speaker 9: have to consider him one of the best coaches in
• 48:21
  Speaker 9: college football. And if you're BYU, I mean, there's, there's
• 48:27
  Speaker 9: a lot of reason to believe, right? Like it's not
• 48:29
  Speaker 9: going to get a whole lot better than what you
• 48:31
  Speaker 9: have with this guy. Who's this perfect representation of the program,
• 48:34
  Speaker 9: this perfect leader of the program, obviously this incredible football
• 48:37
  Speaker 9: coach who's done great things at BYU. Like you, to me,
• 48:42
  Speaker 9: you know, I just feel like you have to find
• 48:43
  Speaker 9: a way to take care of him. You have to
• 48:45
  Speaker 9: find a way to make him happy because I, again,
• 48:49
  Speaker 9: I'm not saying that they couldn't find somebody new, obviously
• 48:51
  Speaker 9: Bronco Mendenhall left and they replaced him with Kalani Sataki,
• 48:54
  Speaker 9: who was an unorthodox hire and it worked, but again,
• 48:57
  Speaker 9: Like you are on such a trajectory right now. I
• 49:01
  Speaker 9: just would be really wary of messing that up.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: But we'll see how they manage things. They, of course,
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: kick off the season Saturday against Utah Tech. So nice
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: little warm-up game for them. And then it's Arizona in
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: week two. That's a tough game, a sneaky tough game
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: in week two. for a team that has, well, both
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: of those teams want to factor into the conference title discussion.
• 49:26
  Speaker 9: Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's a huge opportunity, right?
• 49:29
  Speaker 9: And I think that, like, right now in college football,
• 49:32
  Speaker 9: I mean, the sport is about timelines and the sport's
• 49:35
  Speaker 9: about opportunities. And if you can't maximize your timelines, I
• 49:38
  Speaker 9: think you always are going to regret that.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Shahan, love the work you do.
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: Appreciate you jumping on and lending your thoughts as we
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: get ready to kick off this Utah football season.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Thanks for your time again, sir.
• 49:51
  Speaker 9: Thank you so much for having me.
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: Shahan Jayarajah from CBS Sports. Great, great work from Shahan
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: on the college football front. Reminder that you should, I
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: demand that you do, join Spence Checketts at Wasatch Front Kia.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: He's going to be doing the show from 2 to
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: 6 up there on Riverdale Road in Ogden, 770 West
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: Riverdale Road specifically. It's the annual Labor Day tent sale.
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: Tents go up and prices go up. down, stop by
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: and to win a free TV, they're going to have
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: hot and ready pizzas out while it lasts. And knowing,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: knowing some of the people that haunt those remote broadcasts
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: up in the Ogden area.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Get there early. If you want any free pizza.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: I'm just going to say that Spence check. It's in
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: the drive two to six Wasatch front Kia tomorrow. All right,
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: we'll do a real quick segment to end the hour.
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: And then we've got a daily dump. And then we've
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: got Eric Weddle at 1230. We're rolling on a Thursday,
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: which happens to be a game day on ESPN 700,
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: your home of the Utes.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: Feeling out of the loop?
• 51:05
  Speaker 10: Let's catch up on today's biggest headlines in the Daily
• 51:08
  Speaker 10: News Dump, where we flush out the biggest stories of
• 51:11
  Speaker 10: the day on the Sean O'Connell Show and Utah's number
• 51:14
  Speaker 10: one sports talk, ESPN 792.1 FM.
• 51:18
  Speaker 8: Brought to you by Valley Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Just look for the truck.
• 51:22
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  Speaker 5: the year that you got to get your air conditioner
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  Speaker 5: and your furnace dialed in you might be running both
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: in the same day when the cold weather and the
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: clouds rolled in on these fall Saturdays and Sundays so
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: just you know get on the schedule now letting you
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: know all right little uh schedule update just got a
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: text from our guy Eric Weddle uh he's He was
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: expecting to be finished with an appointment here in about
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: 30 minutes. That is not going to be the case
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: anymore because it's just not. So I think what we're
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: going to do, I'm going to do the daily dump
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: here and then we'll play addition with, with dev at
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: 1230 and then Weddle should be done around one o'clock
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: and we can get him on for the one o'clock segment.
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: So some producing live on air, which I know is
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: wonderful radio for all of you people. But I think
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: in order to fit Devin and Eric Weddle in on
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: a game day Thursday, which of course we want to do,
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: I think that's probably the best way to do it.
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: So a little housekeeping there for you if you're trying
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: to set your clock and figure out when you can
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: hear from the Utah football legend and hopefully future NFL
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: Hall of Famer Eric Weddle. So that's coming still on
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: the show. But right now it's time for the Daily Dump.
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: And before I get into any of the stories here,
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: this is newsworthy in and of itself. It's time to
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: stock up for the weekend at Southern Steer Butcher. Right now,
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: all in-house made burgers, sausages, brats, and hot dogs are
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: 20% off.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: And that's actually a special.
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: They run on Thursdays again, 1705 North Redwood road down
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: in Saratoga Springs. I know it can be a little
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: bit of a hall for people up here in Salt
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: Lake County, but the selection, the quality of the meat is,
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: the service, the fact that you can get pre-made meals
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: if that's what you're looking for that are healthy, good,
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: like real ingredients, not this processed crap that we get
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: sucked into buying because of the convenience. You can get real, wholesome, good,
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: hormone-free food at Southern Steer Butcher in Saratoga Springs, 1705
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: North Redwood Road for affordable prices. And you can do
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: it On Thursdays, you get 20% off on the aforementioned burgers, sausages, brats,
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: and all-beef hot dogs. Also, if you are a Utah
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: fan and you want a little extra, walk into Southern Steer.
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: You're down in Utah County, so make sure you're feeling
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: good about doing this. You're going to throw up the U.
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: You're going to tell them you heard about the deals
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: they have going on on the Sean O'Connell Show on
• 54:09
  Speaker 5: ESPN 700, and they're going to get you an extra
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: 10% off anything you need. from Southern steer. So if
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: you're like me, you procrastinate a little bit. You're not
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: quite ready for the barbecue. You're not quite ready for
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: the tailgate party on game day. They're willing to help
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: you out. 1705 North Redwood road mentioned the show for
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: 10% off at Southern steer butcher. It is the mom
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: and pop grandma and grandpa style old school butcher shop,
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: but with the modern twist with modern technology, with modern convenience,
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: you can't ask for more. 20% off burgers, sausages, brats prime,
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: all beef hot dogs, because it's a Thursday 10% off
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: because you mentioned this show and you say, go youths.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: This is something I, I don't want to be talking about.
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: I know that high school football is happening. We got
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: another Friday night light situation going on tomorrow. I think
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: the JV and the sophomore still play on Thursdays. I'm
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: not sure somebody who's got a kid in school. Tell
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: me if that's when they do it still 877-353-0700. College
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: transfers are hard enough and they'll jade you a little
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: bit against the modern atmosphere in sports. The professionalization of
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: college sports have been hard for some people to deal with.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: And the trickle down is real.
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: And it's happened in all youth sports, and it's happened
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: in all high school sports. And this was a headline that,
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: I mean, I guess it's a couple days old now,
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: but we haven't talked about it yet on the show.
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: And there's a couple local connections here. One, because it's
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: a local high school. A lot of you who pay
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: very close attention to this know that Brody Scheinberg will
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: no longer be the starting quarterback at Davis High School
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: up in Kaysville.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: They've started their season one and two so far.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: He's transferring.
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: And he's transferring to play for Newberry Park High School
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: in California, which happens to be the school that legendary
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: Utah football quarterback Cam Rising coaches at. He's transferring three
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: games into a season. Well, I guess it's now week four.
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: Four games into a season. There's questions about whether or
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: not he's even going to be eligible to play this year.
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: This is a 6'6, 200-pound quarterback who has offers from
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: multiple D1 schools. He's completed 60% of his passes, thrown
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: six touchdowns and two interceptions, 570 yards so far this season.
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: Davis right now is struggling more on the defensive side
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: than anything. They've been outscored 93 and 21, 93 to
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: 21 in the, in the, in the three games that
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: they played so far. And his mom took to Twitter.
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: Cause that's what we do on social media to clarify
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: that her, her.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: Tweet was simple and it came out yesterday.
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: Hubby was transferred back to L.A. Okay, so let's take
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: this at face value and let's say that unexpectedly Mr.
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: Scheinberg is being transferred by his job back to Los Angeles,
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: California to work. There's a strong possibility that it's not
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: within the family's means to say, go ahead and finish
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: out your season here.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: And we'll figure it out on the backend.
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: You know, like I'm trying to think if, if I'm
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: a prominent high school starting quarterback or point guard or
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: pitcher or whatever, it is heartbreaking to have to leave,
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: to have to leave after you've already started a season
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: with your team, even if it's not going.
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: All that well, even if you're one win, two losses.
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: So one part of me, feels really sorry for what
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: this kid might be experiencing. The other part of me
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: lives in 2026 and is just like, well, the announcement, though,
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: is that he's transferring schools before the announcement came that, hey,
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: his dad and his family are moving, right? Like, there's
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: a very simple way to control the optics here, to
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: control the narrative here, if you're the family and you're
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: interested in doing so, where... The headline is Davis is
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: losing a guy who started games for them because dad
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: got a new job and he has to leave. Not
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: this guy lost the game, lost another game. got pulled
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: in the game. And now he's transferring to go play
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: for cam rising.
• 59:15
  Speaker 6: Porter.
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: This is, I want to allow for all possibilities here,
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: but this is unorthodox to say the least. a starting quarterback,
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: even a spot starter, but he's, he's the Spartan starting
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: quarterback that got pulled right then transferring. And then the explanation, Oh,
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: by the way, by the way, dad got a new job.
• 59:50
  Speaker 6: I really am.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Okay. I understand that it's frustrating. Even during a season
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: in high school.
• 59:56
  Speaker 6: I don't know that you should be able to go
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: during a season and go play at another school.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: And he might not be able to. And I think
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: that because it's a different state, he probably will be
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: able to.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 6: If he were going from Davis to corner Canyon, then no,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: like UHSAA would have to step in.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: And I think they rightfully would.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: But ultimately I am more so than a lot of
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 6: folks that I think are frustrated by, current college athletics. I,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 6: I think that if an 18, 17, 16, 19, 25
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: year old kid wants to move the city that he
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: is living in and continue playing the sport that he
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 6: is essentially a professional to do.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: So I'm, I'm on board.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 6: I know that it's not necessarily popular and that kid
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: is probably going to take some heat for it at
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 6: certain times. Um, but I'm, I'm one who is very, uh,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 6: very much a pro freedom of, of transfer guy. Now,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 6: interesting during the season, uh, eligibility stuff comes up and,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 6: and I understand that that's a different part of the conversation. Um,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 6: but yeah, especially even with the college stuff, right? Like, uh,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: do it in the off season. I, I'm willing to
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: concede that, but I, I hate when people like want
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 6: to penalize for transfer or even a transfer, uh, multiple times, right? Like,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: if you are a player in college who wants to
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 6: play at four different colleges, live in four different cities,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: have four different experiences, get paid by four different schools,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: go do it. I'm not going to like that you
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: did it, but I... can't step on your right to
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 6: do so as an American citizen. Ethan day is at
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: his fourth school.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: And we love it. Cause we're in Salt Lake and
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 6: we get him on his fourth school. I mean, that's like,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 6: if he, if he were to transfer from Utah and
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 6: then go bounce around at four different schools, Utah fans
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: would be making fun of him for that.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: You'd feel a different way about it. Now that he's here,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: we're like, Hey, great. We've got a pass rusher.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: It's, it's, it's, it's how I felt this way about
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: the transfer portal before we called it the transfer portal.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: Because I transferred in my college experience. And sometimes you
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: don't know the full story. Sometimes your full story doesn't
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: matter to anyone except you. That's honestly the case in
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: most situations.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: But like, even before like Johnny Paul transferred to the
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: university of Utah, imagine if you never saw him at
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: the university of Utah, that.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: Was before it was cool.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: Cam rising transferred to the university of Utah, right? Darren
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 5: Carrington transferred to the university of Utah. These are all
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: guys that were for whatever reason, On the market. And
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: that was before it was incentivized the way it is now.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: That was before it was like, Hey, I'm making a
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: phone call. We're going to pay you to come here.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: It wasn't such a black and white smarmy gross business
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: at that point, but I've always been kind of okay.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: I do want guardrails. I do want some kind of
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: like transfer portal window. I want all that good stuff.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: I want it to be a little cleaner than it
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: got for a minute.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: And I, I worry, I genuinely worry about this. We had,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: I was at dinner with some friends and my wife
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: last night. We had a conversation about, you know, like
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: a situation that may or may not be getting some massive, massive,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: massive headlines in Provo sooner than later. And we were
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: talking about consequences. And we were talking about when you're
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: focused on young kids, right? My kids are young, young, young.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: I don't have teenagers. I'm not going to pretend I
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: know a thing about raising teenagers or about making sure
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: that I'm setting my teenagers up for success as grown
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: adult humans, but also setting them up for success when
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: they're in the current situation they're in right now. I
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: think that we generally as society are worse at that
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: than we used to be and making sure that kids
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: are like prepared for the real world, even the real
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: world that they live in. their feet are today as
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: a high school junior or senior or sophomore or whatever
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: it is.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: I think we're losing some of that.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: And I, this is the kind of stuff that makes
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: me wonder how much of that we're losing because like,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: if dad really did have to move back to LA
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: and the boss is like, I need you working here
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 5: in two weeks, man. Well, my kid's right in the
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: middle of his football season.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: Don't care.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: Do you want him to have a roof over his
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: head and food on his table? Get your butt here.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: I have nothing to say. Like I shouldn't have even
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: brought that up. Like in that case, keep your family together.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: Kid go with your parents, parents, make sure your kid
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: come with you. High school football is not enough to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: separate your family over, but knowing how a lot of
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: these like scholarship level kids are treating their high school
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: sports right now, I'm.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: Looking at this through a slightly different lens. I'm going,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: wait a minute. This kid's got offers. He wants more offers.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: Is he leaving because he got benched and his team's
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: not as good as he thought his team was going
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 5: to be? Is he going to be eligible like Porter
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: suggests as soon as he lands and cam rising is.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: Just like, Oh wow. Six, six, big arm. I can
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: make you a lot better. Let's go.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: It's a weird deal.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: And I don't know if we're handling it right for
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: these kids. I don't know if like, and I truly
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: don't know. I don't know if a situation like this one,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: it certainly doesn't serve his, his Davis high school teammates,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: but that might not be his priority. And it might
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: not be the priority of his family. And it might
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: not be within like their actual free choice. If you're
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: somebody up there, if you're listening in Davis County, if
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: you're a dart and you can offer any insight here,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: 877-353-0700 love to hear from you. If this kid, is
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: transferring because he got benched, feels kind of bad. If
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: he's transferring because his family has to move back to California,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: I wish you luck.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: Tell your coach, Cam Rising, we said hello. Just a
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: weird story, though.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: And just to be clear, I want to clarify. When
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 6: I say I'm a freedom of transfer guy, that doesn't
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 6: mean I like it, right? My favorite stories of college
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 6: football players are the Terrell Burgesses.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 6: The guys that stick it out and get their shot
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: and then it pays off. My favorite part of those
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 6: those football stories is their loyalty and their stick to itiveness,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: if you will.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 6: I don't like it when guys do that. I just
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: like their freedom to do so, because if I were
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: in a job that isn't football, right. Let's say sports radio.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Let's say you were a producer in sports radio.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 6: And I wanted to, even if it wasn't an offer,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: I just wanted to go try my hand at doing
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: it in Las Vegas.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Or Newbury Park, California.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: I should be able to do that.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Regardless of my job, regardless of my standing, I
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: should be able to do that.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: And that is, I appreciate your principles because you have to,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: if you are principled, you have to appreciate something and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 5: support something, even if it isn't convenient, even like the
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: transfer thing, you have to appreciate, you have to support transfers,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: not just when you get an Ethan day, but also
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: when you lose a John Henry daily, right?
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Like you have to accept both.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 6: It's not the reality of how college football fans who
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: are fanatical.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 6: How they respond or act sometimes on social media with
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 6: parents and the kids themselves, or, you know, how they
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 6: want to respond, but.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: It's just, it's just the reality of, of life, right?
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: And people will wrong you. People will leave you. You
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: got to move along.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: What sucks for Utah fans with the whole transfer portal
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: thing is that you were a destination before we called
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: it the transfer portal. You were the right place, the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: exact right kind of place. for someone to come and
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: improve their football stock, to improve their lifestyle, to improve
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: the self-discipline.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: It was like an obvious, oh yeah, I should go there.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: And you enjoyed that.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: And you benefited from that because you got some of
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: the great players that we ended up talking about just
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: a minute ago. The reason it's hard for some Utah fans,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 5: maybe I think harder for Utah football fans than for
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: like BYU fans and some of these other schools is
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: because Now, because of the money situation, it's not such
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: an obvious, Oh yeah, of course I want to go
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: play for that guy. Who's developed my position group into
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: NFL stars this many times. Like, yeah, of course I
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: want to go do that. Now somebody comes in and
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're still doing that at Utah,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: but look how much money we have here. And then
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: they're like, Oh wait, Arizona state might be better for me.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: That's why we have a hard time with it. The
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: distraction of the pay has made it so that the
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: transfer portal becomes like kind of a yucky thing for
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: us when it doesn't have to be. And hopefully rules
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: will come into play at some point where the playing
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: field is a little bit more even. But you're never
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 5: going to get a truly even one because that's not
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: what college football has ever had, nor is it what
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: they want. As long as we're talking about young athletes,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: we're coming off Davis high school, QB transferred to Newberry park,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: California after three games.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: Did you hear about this?
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: I actually had to like triple Google this to make
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: sure we're not going to get into a lot of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: baseball during football season until we get deep into those
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: major league baseball playoffs. But the, the tigers, yes, the
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: Detroit tigers have reached a $ 4 million pre-agreement with With
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 5: the family of a young man, and it has to
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: be with the family of a young man because he's 12.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: His name is Kevin Sosa.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: And they're effectively buying his rights for $ 4 million. A
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: Dominican prospect. He cannot officially sign anything for another four
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 5: years because, of course, he is a minor. He's not
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: even like a cool, like. Hey, I'm a minor and
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: I'm going to like minor leagues. I'm going to like,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: I'm going to figure out if I can emancipate, but
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 5: he's 12.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 6: I am 12 birth certificate.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: What show is that? I don't remember which one it was,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: but it's the exact same.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: You look at the guy and you're just like, Oh,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: is he really only 12 years old? Apparently I was
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: reading some stuff on him. Apparently he's reliably managing 92
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: and 93 mile an hour pitches while he's at the plate.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: He can hit 92 93 consistently when he's 12 years old.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: That's absurd. My, my daughter is seven.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: Had a nice little RBI on the machine pitch last night.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: Shout out avenues, baseball.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: I cannot imagine in five short years, any pro franchise
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: being like, Hey, we like what we see here.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 6: But also like who, how do you analyze talent at
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 6: that age?
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 6: Clearly.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: People will be better. Some kids hit puberty first, right?
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 6: Like that, those are things that happen, but take for instance, Sean,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 6: when I was like in first or second grade, I
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 6: grew way faster than a few of my classmates. And
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 6: I was like, just, I was killing everyone in the,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 6: on the basketball court. So I played with the grade
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 6: above and was still pretty good with them.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 6: By the time we were in eighth, ninth, freshman, sophomore
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: into high school, the playing field had been evened.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 6: I wasn't like a foot taller than everybody in, in
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 6: doing the thing. So how do you properly analyze someone
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 6: who is 12 and be confident in that to the
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 6: tune of $ 4 million? That is to me, that's absurd.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: I was the third tallest kid in my grade until
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 5: everyone hit puberty. Like what you are when you're 12
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 5: is not what you're going to be when you're an adult.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: Right now you could project, you could do some good things. And,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 5: and the skill of this kid is like insanely impressive
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 5: hitting 90 pluses. It's probably going to translate.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: It's probably going to translate, but it's wild.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 5: And I saw Dallas Braden, you know, the major league
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 5: baseball analyst, I saw Dallas Braden Freaking out about this
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: because what is one of the major problems we have
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 5: in American youth sport right now is every parent out
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 5: there thinks that what they do when their kid is eight, nine,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: 10 years old is going to translate to a scholarship.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: At NIL money when they're young adults.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 6: And also not to jump in, but another huge issue
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 6: with youth sports right now is that we're corporatizing it, right?
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: We're turning camps and, travel ball and all of these
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 6: things into moneymakers. And they used to just be to
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 6: build the kids skill and, you know, have fun.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: Well, and that that's problematic in and of itself.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: The assessment of a major league baseball analyst was like,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 5: this is the kind of thing that makes all of
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: those idiot parents. This is the article that we will
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 5: all cling to if we are the idiot parent.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: Well, the tigers just gave.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 5: A 12 year old 4 million bucks. So of course
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 5: I'm going to pay $ 800 for a season of travel
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 5: ball because $ 800 investment to cash in on 4 million
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: down the road is nothing.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: And it's just like, no, no, that's not how it
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: usually goes.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: But congratulations to the Sosa family, not related to Sammy Sosa.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: By the way, I was going to say, I looked
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: that up as well.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 5: And, you know, like, this is the dream, especially if
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: you're of Dominican descent. Baseball is no longer our national pastime.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: It certainly isn't a Dominican Republic, though. This was reported
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 5: initially by Wilbur Sanchez. They established an informal agreement with Sosa.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 5: He's an elite talent who has already handled fastballs in
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 5: the 91 to 93 mile an hour range. And this
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: $ 4 million signing bonus would make him the youngest international
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 5: player to secure an arrangement of that magnitude.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: No bleep.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: Nobody's handing out $ 4 billion contracts to 12 year olds,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: Detroit tigers. The international signing rules prevent any player of
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: Sosa's age from executing a formal contract. He has to
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 5: turn 16 before signing. And you have to be 17
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: before September 1st of the following year, where then you
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 5: can play in Major League Baseball.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: Goodness gracious.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 5: So my daughter is actually seven and a half now.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 5: So I got four and a half years to get
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 5: her a $ 4 million sports deal.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: Better start working her out more.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: Like I said, we're going to do some flipping around
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: of the schedule. That's your daily dump brought to you
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 5: by Valley Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling. Look for the truck
• 1:15:46
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• 1:15:48
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• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: without even having to pick up a phone. Another reminder
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: that Spence Checketts is going to be at Wasatch Front
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: Kia from 770 West Riverdale Road in Ogden. That'll be
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 5: two to six annual Labor Day tent sale. Great prices
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: on new and used Kias. The tents are going up,
• 1:16:09
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• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: by and enter to win a free TV. And as
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 5: long as it lasts, they will have free pizza out
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 5: there for you. Devin Dampier joined us not on game day.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: Radio Magic allows us to record a conversation. So we're
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 5: going to give you Dish In With Dev, QB1 next,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 5: and then Eric Weddle in the 1 o'clock hour as
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: soon as we can get him. It is a game
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: day here on your home of the Utes and the
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 5: Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM. Time again
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 5: on the Sean O'Connell Show, Dishing with Dev, brought to
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: you by Culligan Water, America First Credit Union, and Valley Plumbing, Heating,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 5: and Cooling.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: Look for the truck with the duck.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 5: It is game week, and QB1 is in studio with us.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: Devon Dampier, how are you, sir?
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: Man, feeling confident, feeling confident. Okay. That's the vibes.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 5: Confident because of how practice has been going, confident because
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 5: of how the team is looking, or confident because you
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 5: got items?
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: Well, first, I mean, we finally get to watch their film.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: We had no clue what they were going to come
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: out in. So now that I get to see that,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: clock them hours in on the film, it builds confidence
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: just to kind of know what you're going against. And,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: you know, I feel like our defense has gave us
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: the best of the best looks when it comes to
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: spring ball and fall camp. So just to have such
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: a high-level defense, it just, you know, it makes me
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: feel very confident going into every game.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 5: By the way, if you weren't paying attention last week,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 5: a heartbreaker Cal Poly came from behind and beat him 38, 34.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: That was crazy. You watched the whole thing.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: I bet that ending was wild, man.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: FCS football. You get some crazy stuff.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 5: Like one of the reasons I love college football even
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 5: more than I love NFL football is because of the
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 5: sloppiness that happens sometimes.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: In the NFL.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 5: You get sloppiness, but it's more common. There's going to
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 5: be something crazy in college football. And then the further
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 5: down you go, it's more and more crazy.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 5: And I feel like we had like four, four FCS
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 5: games last weekend that had like botched extra points and
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 5: crazy come from buying victories and stuff. So it's the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: variability of the lower levels of football that make them
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 5: more enjoyable.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: Even Hawaii was kind of crazy.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: They were coming back and then he had that, that
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 4: scooping score. I was like, dang, but yeah, college football
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 4: is fun. You, uh, I think you just answered the question.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 4: You were watching a lot of week zero games. It
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: sounds like you were dialed in on all the college football. What,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: you know, before you get to play a game yourself, Yeah,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: so I went to a wedding this past weekend.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: A fall wedding.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: Well, a late summer wedding probably. Probably still qualified. Yeah,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: a little late summer.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: Week zero is okay, all right?
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: You can still get married at week zero.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: If you get married on a weekend in the fall
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: after that, it's a party foul.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 4: But at the dinner, after everyone got their speeches in,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: I definitely had Idaho game up the whole time. Had
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: to clock them hours in early.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: Did you have to give a speech at the wedding?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: Have you ever had to do that?
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 5: Have you ever been like a best man or have
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 5: you ever had to speak at a wedding yet?
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: No, but.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 5: You're still young, so you probably haven't had as many
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 5: people in your life get married as some of us
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 5: old folks.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, my best friend at New Mexico, his name's
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: Ever Hunter, he's getting married January 10th.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: He just called me literally yesterday.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, no way.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: He wanted me to be his groomsman.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: That's awesome. Congratulations to him.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: And.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 5: Well done by not making it a fall wedding. You
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 5: don't do it. You don't do fall weddings. All right,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 5: let's get back to football here. So what did you
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 5: see from Idaho on film? Obviously, you know, like I said,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 5: a heartbreaking loss for them. It looked like they had
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: that one in hand and kind of let it slip away.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: But when you're watching all 22 and you're seeing the personnel,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 5: what are you seeing through your eyes?
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: I'll say starting off like you could tell throughout the game,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 4: they got more comfortable just throughout the game. Cause man, they're,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, even Cal Poly, even to, I felt like
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: both teams are kind of getting diced up pretty early
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 4: in the game. Just the high complete and completion percentages.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: I think both quarterbacks were at like 85% in the
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: first half, like just a lot of, not a lot
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: of plays were being made. And then, then we get
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: to that, that second half, you know, I thought they
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: were able to flip that switch and, finally find out
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 4: what they're about. And, um, you know, sadly they didn't
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: come out with the wind, but you know, I definitely
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: think they found their identity. So I believe we're going
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: to go against a good group this week. We got
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: to be on our a game and, uh, do what
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: we do.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 5: A thousand yards of offense in this game, by the way,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 5: between the two teams, almost a thousand yards.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: It was nine, eight, nine 98. I think, uh, Idaho
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: had 482 total yards, 363 in the air.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: Cal Poly had 516 total yards, uh, three 19 through
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: the air and Idaho gave them almost 200 yards rushing.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: And I know that you're not looking at it necessarily
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: through a defensive lens, but, uh, that is, that's showing
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 5: some things. If, if Cal Poly can put up 200
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: yards rushing, I imagine Utah expects.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: To do even better than that.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 4: I'm I'm, I'm when way Sean and Bray know that I'm,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: I'm expecting them to do what they do best out there.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 5: Um, in the past, a game like this one, we
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 5: have seen a lot of running, right? We have seen
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: just like, okay, go impose your will. Big boys do
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 5: your thing. Let's have, let's have a clean game. Let's
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 5: get out of here as quickly as we can. Let's
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 5: get out of this game healthy. Uh, given what you
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 5: know of the game plan so far, should we expect
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: a run heavy game plan?
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 4: You think, um, you know, there's, there's a couple of
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: different friends that they showed and, um, They got different
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: ways of disguising their coverages and whatnot. But, yeah, I mean, again,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 4: the greatness about our offense this year is, you know,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: we allow the defense to pick their poison. You know,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: if you decide to try to man up our receivers,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 4: we're going to make you pay for that. If you
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: want us to start running the ball, if you want
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: us to hand the ball off the way, Sean, you know,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: that's a guy that's going to go get yards. So
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: we try to play it, let the defense let us
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 4: know what we're going to do, and we go from there.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 5: So you, you spent a few years, a couple of
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 5: years with coach Beck and got getting to know that
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 5: process of how we're going to script the opening series
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 5: and things like that. We talked about this last year, right?
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 5: That was a coach that was very open to feedback.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 5: And there was a bit of a collaborative effort there
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 5: with Mac G with Kevin McGiven. What has that process
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 5: been like? This is, I guess the first time you've
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 5: actually had to do it for a game.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, me and McD was laughing about it. I've never
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: had this many plays going into a game, I would say.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: But it's more of a, I mean, it's everything we've ran.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: But he's more, let's run everything and let's do a
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: process of elimination. Let's take out the things I don't
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 4: feel comfortable reading. Some things that I'm not getting to
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: as well are just things like that. We're letting those
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: go and we're sticking with more of, what I feel
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: comfortable with out there. So he also has that feedback
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: aspect of, he wants me to be as comfortable as
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 4: I can being out there and feel comfortable with whatever
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: he calls.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 5: So just to dive into this a little further, when
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 5: you talk about process of elimination, right?
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 5: He's got his whatever 25 that he's like, okay, I
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 5: think these would be good to open things with. And
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 5: you get to go in and be like, ah, I
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 5: don't love that one. And obviously he's the coach. So
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: he could be like, no, we're doing this, but like,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 5: like really dive into this. Is it, From 20 plays
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 5: down to 10? Is it from 50 plays down to 20? Like,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 5: what is that process of elimination like? And is it
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 5: eliminating them by actually running the plays and seeing what
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 5: works or doesn't?
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Like, I think there was about 200 plays
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: on there.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: 200 plays.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: And then. But, I mean, it's all stuff we've ran.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: We've been running this since spring ball.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: So there's different variations of running different plays and how
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: we want to dress up things. So we just figure
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: out we run them in practice. We kind of get
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 4: that feel of the play. And, you know, not everything's result-wise.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: Like if, I don't know, if I miss a pass
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: or someone drops the ball or we don't get a
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: great scout team look, that doesn't mean we're just going
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: to kill the play. But I think there's certain plays
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: that I process better in my mind just when we
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: talk about progressions, who I need to be looking at.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: There goes Rachel.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I think, I think there's certain ways I
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: can just, I process a little bit better with certain calls.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 4: So that's just the things he, he leans on, he
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: leans on my feedback and, I let him know.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 5: Okay, so if there's 200, we're talking about that's the
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 5: whole offensive game plan potentially, right?
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: Though 200 is not just for the opening script, opening series, right?
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You guys are scripting the opening however many plays.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: How many is it?
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: We don't have that done yet.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: We have situational.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: There's always situational plays, and then there's, yeah, that's like
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 4: the 200 open down plays where he can call any
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 4: time in the game.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 5: We narrow those down. Do you enjoy that process? Because
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 5: effectively that's coaching. You are a player who's acting as
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 5: a coach there. You are working the install. Is that
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 5: something you like?
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: Any coach that's willing to have that mutual... I see
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: that as he wants success as much as I do.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 4: He also gets to see how much I want it
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 4: just by how... into what I am. I'm not just
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: letting him figure it out and I'm just going to
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 4: go out there and play. I want him to know
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 4: I'm involved in this process. I want to be great
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: as well. I want our team to thrive. So just
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 4: the amount of conversations we're able to have about that
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: makes me feel really comfortable.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 5: QB1, Devin Dampier is here in studio with us on
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 5: the Sean O'Connell Show. Dishing with Dev is brought to
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 5: you by Culligan Water, America First Credit Union, and Valley Plumbing, Heating,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 5: and Cooling. How would you describe the level of anticipation
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 5: for the whole team, right?
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: You're a captain.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 5: You got your finger on the pulse of the whole thing.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 5: I'm sure guys are calling you and like, Hey, I'm
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 5: going to be wide open. You got to hit me
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: three times here for touchdowns, whatever. How would you describe
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 5: the overall vibe?
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: Overall, I think it's like, it's, it's what we're asking for.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 4: It feels like we needed to come a little bit
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: sooner than where it's at right now. But I mean, it's,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 4: it's finally, we're like, it's not an offense versus defense
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: no more. It's like, that's not the locker room anymore.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 4: It's we're one team. We're about to all go out there. Um,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 4: I was just speaking with John O yesterday. We went
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: to the volleyball game, just like, he's like, man, I'm
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: ready to go out there, get some sacks, get you
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: a pig dev. Like, and you know, that like all camp,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 4: it's been, I'm going to score touchdowns on you.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get a pitch. So now that like, we're.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: Together, like it's fun to for each other. Now, like we're,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: we're fully bonded. So, um, it's a good feeling to
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 4: have going in, going into week one.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 5: I want to say focus on football, but can we
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 5: talk about the volleyball game experience?
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: Can we bring that? Yeah.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 5: I want to, I'm going to leave you the floor
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 5: so you can, but you as a student athlete, you
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 5: love supporting your fellow student athletes. And I got to
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 5: say this, there's a level of humility for even one
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 5: of the most visible athletes in the state. I mean,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 5: like you're, up there with the mammoth players, the jazz players,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 5: like bear Bachmeier, Everywhere you go, everyone knows your face.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 5: But it doesn't mean you get into a Utah game easy.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: Tell the story.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: No, I pulled up, and normally they send us like
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: the must, all the athletes, they give us the must
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 4: pass to an email.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: And, man, I was searching for it.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 4: I found the old email, put in the same one.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 4: I was like, They didn't send me my must pass.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 4: So I'm going to this game. So hopefully they, they
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 4: just see me and was like, you can get in.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 4: We know that was not the case. I got up
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: there and I was like, yeah, my must pass isn't working.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 4: Can I still get in? And they're like, no, no,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: you need to go to the ticket office.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: I was like, for real.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I walk all the way to
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 4: the ticket office. And then they're like, they didn't let
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 4: you in. No, like, Let's tell her to come here.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: Let me tell you why I love that.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 5: Because in that moment, you are faced with the decision
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 5: of whoever that ticket taker is, right? You got to
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 5: be like, you could either comply with their request and
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 5: go to the ticket office, or you could be like,
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 5: do you really not know who I am?
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: And you obviously didn't want to pull that card.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: I hate pulling that card. I'm not, I'm not about that.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not about that life.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 5: I'm glad you didn't because that's the right thing to
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 5: do is to not pull that card.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: Go to compliance. Go, go to the ticket.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 3: It's still hilarious.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 5: And so then the ticket office is like, they should
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 5: have just let you in and they, what they gave
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 5: you a ticket or something.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: They, they, they like, I think they sent the email
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: through and so I could get the must pass.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: I love that. So a shout out to whoever that
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: was playing by the rules. All right. Even QB one
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: doesn't get to get by Scott free. That's fair. All right,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: back to football. I'm glad you've shared that story. Back
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: to football.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 5: So now you've got this situation where you're kicking off
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 5: your season and you're doing it on a short week.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 5: It's Thursday night instead of having to wait until Saturday.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 5: I think coming off an off season, like you said,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 5: everyone's kind of like champing at the bit ready to go.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 3: So maybe a Thursday night's better.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 5: Traditionally, do you like the short week games when you
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 5: got to play on a Thursday or Friday instead of
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 5: a Saturday?
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 4: Well, I would say we're lucky to come off of
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 4: not a game. So Thursday doesn't feel as bad. But
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 4: by coming off of a Saturday and maybe having to
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 4: play Thursday or Friday.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: You definitely feel that. By the way, Idaho has to
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: do that.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 5: They played Friday night, short week, Thursday, turning it around
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 5: against a team that, on paper, is a lot more talented,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 5: a lot.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: Bigger, better.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's definitely a... there's a mindset you got to
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 4: find those weeks for sure. Cause like you, you do
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 4: lose a day of rather you lose a day of
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 4: recovery or you lose a day of preparation. So the
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: coach has to, you know, be wise with what he
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 4: decides to pick between those two. But yeah, that's kind
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: of how that goes.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 5: So you're in the routine, but you're not in the
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 5: routine because a normal game week, right? It gets, it's
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 5: like really regimented the way you go from a Saturday
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 5: to a following Saturday and, And because it's a Thursday
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 5: and you're coming off of camp and all that stuff, it's,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 5: it's just a little bit different for this one.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: Does it interrupt your personal rhythm at all?
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 5: Like, do you have this thing where like, I know
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 5: my seven day plan or my, I guess it's more
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 5: of like a sixth. I know after Sunday, what my
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 5: Monday is going to look like all the way into
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 5: the following game week. And because this is a Thursday
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 5: night game is, is it drastically different for you personally?
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 4: Um, Scali kind of, he made the week where, uh,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 4: It felt like we moved the days, if that makes sense.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 4: We made that Friday feel like Monday, made the Saturday
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 4: feel like Tuesday.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, that makes sense.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: I feel like we got back into the rhythm of
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 4: when I was here last year, kind of that rhythm
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: of the Monday, Tuesday, and the days leading up to
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 4: the game.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of conversation coming out of the Week
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: Zero games about fan attendance. I don't know if you
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 5: saw the USC crowd. There was nobody there. You were
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 5: watching that Stanford game. There's never anybody at Stanford. Kel,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 5: those California sports fans are earning a bad reputation, but
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 5: they're earning it. What do you expect the atmosphere to
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 5: be like night game? Bryce Eccles. It is not the
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 5: most exciting matchup that you guys are going to face
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 5: this year, but it is the season opener.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 4: It's hard with the internet. I mean, people do just
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 4: get to sit down and yeah. host at their houses
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 4: and stuff like that. So, you know, there, there's a
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 4: bit of that taking over, but, um, I, that's why,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 4: you know, I've, I've chose to be here. I think
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 4: we're one of those States that we prioritize being at
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 4: the game. We have fans that, that want to be
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 4: there for us, uh, and just enjoy being in that atmosphere.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, you don't get that same feeling through the
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 4: TV that you get actually being at Rice Eccles. So, um,
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 4: I'm glad we got a fan base that shows up. Uh, yeah,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 4: it is Idaho. So, uh, uh, I guess that's what
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 4: I've heard from fans are like, it's Idaho game.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: We want to come to the Arkansas game.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 4: So whatever, whoever's there was ever there. I'm, I'm very
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 4: grateful for whoever comes through. Cause you know, we, we
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 4: hear it and we definitely, uh, Love that from, from
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 4: our fans.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 3: Go to both. Go to all of them. Please.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 5: You get six games this year, seven, you get six
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 5: or seven home games a year.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 3: And we wait 200 days for the season to come
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: back and.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 5: We're trying to make it and then make it, you
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 5: can get out there. You have nothing better to do
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 5: on a Thursday night. My, my oldest daughter actually is
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 5: really mad because she wanted, she's like the youth are playing. I,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 5: bring me to the game.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: And I was like, no, it's your bet.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: Halftime.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 5: You should be in bed. And I'm working technically. She's like,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 5: she's all mad about me not taking her to the game.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 5: So I would too. If she's only seven school night, dev,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 5: I don't care, man.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: I don't care. I hate when people are like, you're
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: playing idle. I'm like, what does that mean?
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: Like be at the game. We need you.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: We need you.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 3: Indeed.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: Everyone should be at the game.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 5: Um, The night game atmosphere is usually better, but you
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 5: do have to wait all day to play the dang game.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 3: Do you prefer a morning kickoff, afternoon kickoff, night kickoff?
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 4: I'm definitely a, like a perfect game for me is like,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 4: I want to say it's when the first half there's
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: light and.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: Then you come out of halftime and it's dark.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: So whatever time in that normally is, is like, I
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 4: feel like it's like four, five, five o'clock.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 5: Well, thankfully, this is so early in the season, you'll
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 5: get that on Thursday night. It'll still be light. Yeah,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 5: but it'll still be light. It'll still be light in
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 5: the first half. Then you'll go in and it'll be dark.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: That is, you get the two atmospheres in one.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 3: That is nice. The perfect day game.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: Perfect combo.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 3: In the night game. All right.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 5: Do you have any personal numbers goals that you want
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 5: to hit in this game? And we haven't really had
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 5: that conversation about the season, where I know it's all
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 5: about winning.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 3: I know that you got to do what, say the
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 3: right thing.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 5: But you have your own personal goals on how many
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 5: touchdowns and how many interceptions and things like that, I imagine.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 3: Do you write those down? Do you vision board that stuff?
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of it's envision things.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 4: I would say a stat that I'm holding myself to.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 4: I want to be 90% completion. That's where I feel
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 4: like I need to be this year.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 5: 90% completion would be an NCAA record.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: Whoa.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 4: If you don't strive to have those type of goals,
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 4: I don't know what we're doing.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 3: I love that that's the goal.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 4: But, yeah, I definitely think just finding ways to find
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 4: our receivers, get them the ball, at least give them
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 4: a chance to catch the ball. That's been a huge
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 4: priority for me going into this season, especially just on
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 4: the deep balls. Like, if I don't feel like overthrowing them,
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 4: just honestly giving them a chance. Like, we got so
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 4: many playmakers out there where, Um, I feel comfortable throwing
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 4: those 50, 50 balls and every ball needs to be
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 4: exactly perfect right over the shoulder.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 4: Um, there's times where, you know, you just put the
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 4: ball where only they can get it and, uh, good
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 4: results come out of that.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 5: You got guys that can, that can run to space.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 5: If you're throwing that ball into empty green, you know,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 5: they can get under it.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: There's, we got different, uh, what's the word? Different archetypes
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: on the field.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 4: Some of them I throw over his shoulder. Some of
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 4: them I, let them slow down and go jump for it.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 4: There's certain, certain, like they're all comfortable with, you know,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 4: they're different ways of catching the ball. So always try
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 4: to adjust to them in some type of way of
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 4: how I deliver that pass.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about Tobias Merriweather for a second?
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 5: He came in last year and fair or unfair, everybody
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 5: was just like, that's the dude. Look at him, him
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 5: coming off the bus. That's what a wide receiver is
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 5: supposed to look like. And I know the results for,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 5: for the offense, for him, for you, for everyone, we're
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 5: not what anyone was looking for. And honestly, we were
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 5: very harsh in the media, the fan base, everyone was
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 5: like real critical.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 3: And it was almost quietly. He decided not to go anywhere.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 5: He came back, he put in the work coaching staff
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 5: is just like, Hey man, he's putting in the work.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 3: He's doing a good job. Hey, he had a really
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 3: nice spring. Hey, he had a pretty good camp.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 5: And Now I think people are like ready to give
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 5: it another chance with Tobias. I know that's stupid and
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 5: it's unfair and fans, fans will get to dictate that
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 5: kind of stuff, but he.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 3: Does have all those physical tools, right?
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 5: What is your relationship and your chemistry like with a
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 5: guy now that you've had you know a season and
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 5: an off season to play together.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah no me and toby we're we're great friends even
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 4: outside of this we hung out a couple times uh
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 4: throughout this summer just being together uh watched the soccer
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: games together we were on the boat together like uh
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 4: you know that's my guy so I'm happy that, you know,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 4: he decided to stick it out with us. He decided
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 4: to stay. He came off of a tough injury. He
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 4: had to wait a long time to get back on
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 4: the field. But as soon as he got back, I mean,
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 4: you could feel his presence. You know, he took his
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 4: leadership to the next level this year. He's earned to
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 4: be on the leadership council, just past voting of the team.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 4: Think he's doing all the right things. You know, on
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 4: the field, you know, that speaks for himself. But just
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: off the field, you know, I think he's, taking those strides.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 4: He's learning to feel comfortable with who he is, you know,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 4: regardless of what the media is saying about him or, um, what,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 4: what goes against them.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: You know, he's, he's being his, his self.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 5: We're recording this interview with dev earlier in the week.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 5: It's not game day. We're not asking QB one to
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 5: do this on game day, even though we're playing it
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 5: on game day, everybody.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 3: Radio magic. Uh, we're coming right.
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 5: We're three of your starting offensive linemen from last year
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 5: as of today are on active NFL rosters. And one
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 5: is on a practice squad. So, I mean, that is
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 5: a testament to what you had in front of you
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 5: last year. And I know we've talked a lot about
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 5: the old line and how you believe in the guys
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 5: you have this year. But when you look at that,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 5: do you look back and in hindsight, do you appreciate
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 5: even more the level of protection and the level of
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 5: talent you had in front of you?
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 4: Man, I, I knew those boys, like, you know, I'm,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 4: I'm very happy about their football accomplishments, but man, I
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 4: knew those guys so much deeper than that. So, um,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 4: it's great for me to know that, you know, they've
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 4: been able to hit those goals that, you know, they've
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 4: been working for so long, especially, um, I would say
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 4: have a stronger relationship with, uh, Jaron and, and Caleb,
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 4: just Caleb from Arizona.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: Um, just being able to see each other's faces.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 4: Growing up and, you know, he got here and did
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 4: that and, Jaron being the center, that's who I have
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 4: the most conversations with. You know, we're always on the
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 4: same page. So I'm just happy, you know, those guys
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 4: are able to live their dreams. Saw him and Spence
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 4: took a picture after a game.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, it's great to see. It's great to see.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 5: Really cool to see those guys and all the other
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 5: former youths getting their opportunities in the NFL. It was
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 5: actually kind of sobering. I was going through the cut list, right,
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 5: the guys that got waived. and not just Utah guys,
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 5: but guys from the Big 12 Conference, the Pac-12 Conference
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 5: before that, reading the names of these dudes that are
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 5: being cut from NFL rosters is effectively the same people
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 5: when you read an all-conference list after a college year.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 5: And these are the dudes getting cut. It's a sobering thing. Like, oh,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 5: that guy isn't even on the 53-man roster? That's just
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 5: how tough it is now in high-level football. And I
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 5: know it's like that in college, but NFL, it's like
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 5: a harsh reminder, I guess, that even if you're great,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 5: it might not be great enough.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's something Coach Scali preaches, just to be
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 4: the most valuable way you can. Like, we try to,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, Scali pushes for no one to just be
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 4: a singular offense player, defense player. Like, we find ways
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 4: to put you on special teams and, you know, just
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 4: make value of yourself because that's kind of what that
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 4: 53 roster becomes.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: It's like.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 4: If you're a receiver that can punt return, if you
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 4: can go block two, if you're also a good person
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 4: on the sideline, when you're not in, you're making people
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 4: better around you. Like, that's what it all comes down to.
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 4: So just guys finding ways to be more than just
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 4: a player, you know, that's huge for that next level.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 5: When is the last time in your life that you
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 5: played defense or special teams?
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: Oof.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, I played quarterback punt, so we can call
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 4: it that.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 2: You punted? Yeah.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was tough.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 3: In high school, you punted?
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: Huh?
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: No way. Dude, I was tough. I'm telling you, dude,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: it started up. I was hard.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 3: If you had to, could you still do it? Like,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 3: real punting, no.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 4: But, like, the quarterback punts, they always work because it's
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 4: like four down, everyone's down, and then you just punt
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 4: it off.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: And it just, it just rolls.
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 5: What was your putting average? If I find it and
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 5: look it up, like what do you think that number was?
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: I thought it was like 50, 50.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 3: No, it wasn't.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 9: Dude.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: I thought it was good.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 4: Like seriously, I'm going to look, I remember being like
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 4: top in the state at a, at a certain point.
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 3: Did you play like, what about in little league? Cause.
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: Little league. I did everything.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 5: Cause like, Guys like you, it's like, all right, that's
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 5: the best athlete on the field, so he's the quarterback
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 5: and he's the starting middle linebacker or free safety or
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 5: whatever else. When did they come to you in high
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 5: school and be like, no, you can't play defense anymore?
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 4: Kind of after my freshman year when I became a backup. Otherwise,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 4: I started off at running back, went to quarterback, played receiver,
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 4: played safety and corner during those times.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: I played outside linebacker.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 4: I didn't play to everything at this point besides D-line. But, yeah,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 4: by freshman year of high school, that was kind of
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 4: like when it was like, all right, well, now that
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 4: you're back up for varsity, you're no longer able to
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 4: play defense on freshman ball.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 5: We might have a conspiracy developing here. Evan Dampier did
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 5: not record any high school punting statistics during his career
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 5: at Saguaro High School is what the Google AI says.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's what they're putting up. Speaker 3 0 N
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: a go to Twitter.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: I'm good.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: He's got it. We'll find it. We'll find what has
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: got it.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 5: I believe you, the AI don't trust AI ladies and gentlemen,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 5: when you type in, in the Google search and then
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 5: the AI overview comes up, it's almost always wrong.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: All right. So don't believe it. Believe what Deb says.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 3: Can you give me a prediction on Utah, Idaho?
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: Um, no.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: No prediction. We're just going to go out there and
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: go do what we do. All right. We'll see what
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: that turns out to be.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 3: All right. Dev will leave the predicting to all of us.
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 5: Spoiler alert, we are predicting a big win, so please
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 5: make me look smart.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: Okay. All right. We'll do what we do.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 5: Dishing with Dev brought to you by Culligan Water, Valley Plumbing, Heating,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 5: and Cooling, and America First Credit Union.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 3: Good to see you, sir. Good luck. Stay healthy. Have fun.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 3: We'll see you on Thursday night.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: It's always great.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 3: That's Devin Dampier. Great stuff as always. And you know what?
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 5: Even if you're the starting quarterback, doesn't mean you get
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 5: into a volleyball game easily. They're serious about the tickets
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 5: this year at the university of Utah. Do not show
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 5: up on Thursday night without your must pass and think
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 5: you're going to talk your way in.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 5: Get there, get there early, support this team and be
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 5: at the game.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 3: You heard Devin. You have to do what he says.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 3: Lots left to get.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 5: To here on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 7: This is the Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 7: best inside of your youths. Let's get back to OC
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 7: from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, welcome to our number three on the Sean O'Connell show.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 3: It is a game day.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 5: Utah kicks off the season against Idaho tonight at Rice-Eckel Stadium.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 5: You heard from Devin Dampier. He wants you to get there.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 5: Morgan Scali wants you to get there. Our next guest,
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 5: he also wants you to get there. Legendary Ute, longtime
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 5: NFL veteran, Super Bowl champion, head coach, of the Rancho
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 5: Bernardo Broncos, who are 2-0, baby, after a demolition of
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 5: the Brawley Wildcats.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 3: Eric Weddle is our guest. E-Dub, welcome back.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 4: What's up?
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: What's up, my brother? Sorry for the change of times
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: and messing everything up, but you know how doctor's appointments
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: can go, and glad I'm done with it.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 3: All good.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 5: Happy to move the schedule around a little bit for
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 5: the legend. let's talk about the win over Brawley 44
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 5: to zero.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 3: Easy work.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, well, I wanted to see better football
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: play from, from our offense, defense, and that's what we
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 2: got out of that. And it always helps when two
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: of the best players on the other team don't suit
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: up because of the injury. So we'll take it. And
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: proud of, proud of the bunch, proud of, you know,
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: we talked first game, some of the mistakes in play
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 2: that was not to our standard, and Gage came back
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: and did well offensively, 17-20 for 230 and three tubs.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: That's an efficient day, and that's the expectation and what
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: we need offensively at the quarterback position, and didn't get
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: much work on defense, which is a good night.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 5: And now it's Torrey Pines coming up on Friday. I
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 5: guess that's tomorrow night. What do we know about Torrey Pines?
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: Shoot, man.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: Torrey's, you know, one of the better programs in San Diego.
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: I think we're both top 10 teams as of right now.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: And so they're 2-0. We're 2-0. You know, it's a
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: good opportunity to see where we stack up. And see
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: who's real and who's not, and continue the momentum that
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: we've built. So it's going to be a tough game,
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: close game. Got to do the correct things. Got to
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: take care of the football. Got to handle their physical nature. Like,
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: they play hard. They're physical. Got to handle the front
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: and the stunts that they do. But I like our guys.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: I like our athletes. I like our scheme. And we
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: stay ahead of the chain. I think we put up
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: some points. and our defense is going to suffocate them.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: So let's go get it done.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 3: Let's go. All right.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 5: Let's talk about what we really bring you on here for.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 5: A little Utah football kicking off the season tonight. Morgan
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 5: Scali's first year as the head coach begins with the
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 5: Vandals of Idaho.
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 3: And, look, they're 0-1.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 5: They're coming off a Friday night loss to Cal Poly, 38-34.
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 5: It'll come from behind victory for the Cal Poly Mustangs
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 5: in that one.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 3: And now we're going to be.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 5: Watching this and expecting Utah to make it look relatively efficient,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 5: relatively clean, relatively easy. What is efficient enough, clean enough
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 5: for Eric Weddle to feel good coming out of whatever
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 5: the result is tonight?
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I want to see just an energized
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: group that takes on the persona of their head coach
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: and the vision. So I think you're going to see that.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: I think you're going to see a connected team. a
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: group that is excited for plays to be made and
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: excited for guys to be on the field. And ultimately, like, operation,
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: getting in and out of the huddle, no pre-snap penalties,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: good form, good sound tackling, no bust in the secondary.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: Things that we expect good football teams to do, I
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 2: want to see that tonight. And I want to see
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 2: a shellacking. I don't want to see them have any hope.
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: I want to have it 50-0 at halftime, and then
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: get some other guys some work.
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 5: We keep hearing about rotation on the offensive line. They're
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 5: going to test out some things on the offensive line,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 5: and this is certainly the type of game that you
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 5: can do that in, or we hope this is the
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 5: type of game that you can do that in. Now,
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 5: some of it sounds like maybe bumps and bruises accumulating
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 5: through camp. has interrupted some plans here or there. But
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 5: it's not something you see a lot of, or you
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 5: certainly don't hear coaches acknowledge that, hey, we're going to
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 5: play around with our starting offensive line and with the
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 5: true ones.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 3: What do you think that looks like?
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, do you want to see three, four series
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 5: in a row before you watch a guy change out?
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 5: Or how does Jordan Gross play with that, you think?
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it shows that guys have earned playing time.
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: And the five best needs need to be figured out.
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: And at this point that they just, they're not ready
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: to solidify that starting five. So, Hey, let's continue to compete.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: Let's go get in a live game atmosphere and go
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: see how that, how each guy performs and then move around.
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: And it may take a couple of games. I mean,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: I don't really know, but I think that's really where
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: you get the gist of it, of the movement and
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: continuing the development of these guys and see who, shakes
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: it out, and who's the best guy for the job.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 5: The Vegas over-under on Games 1 for Utah this year
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 5: is set at 8.5, and I've decided I'm going to
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 5: hammer the over. I look at the schedule, I go
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 5: game by game, and I think that this is probably
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 5: at least a 9-win season, at least on paper. And
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 5: even if it is an 8-win season, that's a really
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 5: solid year in your first year as a head coach.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 5: I know Morgan has higher standards for himself than 8
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 5: or 9 wins. He wants more than that. But, you know,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 5: I haven't had anyone say anything, take the under. I
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 5: haven't heard anyone yet, because we're all fanatic at this point, say, yeah,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 5: I think this is a seven or eight win year.
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 5: I mean, the way it lays out, how optimistic are
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 5: we in the full season outlook from the weddle standpoint?
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, this championship season starts tonight, baby. And, you know,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 2: I'm biased. And that's okay. And I think and believe
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: that this team is going to do special things this year.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: I just feel it. I can see it. I can
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: sense it. And I'm going to be there every step
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: of the way. So every week I expect us to win.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: And in the playoffs, I expect us to win. So,
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: you know, over or under eight and a half, if
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: I was a betting man, I'd put a lot of
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: money on the over. Honestly, I see 11 or 12 wins,
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: 13 wins going to the playoffs this year. That's just
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 2: my expectation.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 5: It was interesting talking to some people, I guess, what
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 5: was it, Tuesday for media availability, getting some final thoughts
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 5: from guys as it was the last time we were
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 5: going to see them. All off the record and all
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 5: coaches and folks in the support staff, feeling really optimistic.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 5: I had one guy say, you know, I'm actually higher
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 5: on this team than I was on last year's team.
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 5: And everyone was pretty high on last year's team for
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 5: obvious reasons. Cause on paper, you had all this production returning.
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 5: You had these projected high draft picks and things like that.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 5: So that was really interesting for me to hear someone
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 5: who's been in the building, been close to it all.
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 5: And really seen year after year of Utah football say,
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 5: I'm actually higher on this year's team than last year's team.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 5: I'm not ready to make that leap myself, but I
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 5: think it, It says a lot about the atmosphere that
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 5: Morgan has created, the confidence that runs all the way
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 5: through the program, and that, of course, is what you
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 5: talk about, a product of the head coach.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, when you apply position group by position group, we've,
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 2: for the most part, the most important positions outside of
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 2: the offensive line, which outside the building is a question mark,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: but inside the building is the expectation of high-level football.
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 2: So you go like quarterback, Devin's going to be a
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: year better after a really good season last year. Then
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: you look at the receiving corps. Have we upgraded or
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 2: stayed the same as the receiving corps? I think everyone
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 2: can say that we've upgraded there. So that's a net positive.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 2: And then you go around to each other position group.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: Like secondary, I think it's a positive. Another year better
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: with the depth and the youth that we have there.
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: You know, some of the D-line linebackers, you can– You
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: could say maybe a wash, but I think the grand
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: scheme of things, the new leadership, new vision, I'm more confident,
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: like those guys say as well. The most important position
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: is a quarterback who had a really good season last
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: year who's only going to get better and a new
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: offensive coordinator with new ideas and new visions. Therefore, yeah,
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: how can you not be confident about this team?
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 5: We had Colton Swan on for coordinator's corner, and I've
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 5: known him since my Weber State days. Love me some
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 5: Colton Swan. Excited for him to have this opportunity to
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 5: call a defense. I mean, you know this better than
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 5: I do. There hasn't been a lot of drastic change
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 5: on this defense for like 30-plus years now. It's all
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 5: cut from that same cloth, and each guy that has
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 5: taken over, Coach Witt, Coach Anderson, Kalani, Morgan, they've all
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 5: had their little flavors and twists that they put on it.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 3: What do you expect out of Colton Swan?
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, when I talk to Coach Swan, it's
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 2: just be him. Like, you're not Morgan. Morgan's a very unique,
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 2: special play caller. So don't try to be like him.
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 4: Be you.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: You work hard. You care about the kids. You're a
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: great coach. Like, if the situation arises that you tend
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 2: to be different, then be different.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 4: Be you.
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 2: Be confident. inspire confidence in the players, especially in situational
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 2: football where those calls need to be talked through. Why
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: are we calling this? These are the reasons why, et cetera,
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 2: et cetera. So I'm pumped for them. We've waited a
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 2: long time for this opportunity, and I expect great things
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 2: from our defense this year.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 5: Eric Weddle is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell Show,
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 5: talking all things football here for a couple more minutes
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 5: as Utah gets ready to kick off the season tonight
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 5: against the Vandals of Idaho. From an individual player perspective,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 5: when you're going up against a matchup tonight, whatever position
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 5: you play for this University of Utah football team, tonight
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 5: you're probably going against someone who's going to give you
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 5: their best look but might be an inch or two
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 5: shorter than what you're going to face for most of
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 5: the year. Might be 10 or 15 pounds lighter. Might
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 5: be a half step slower. How do you stay disciplined
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 5: and make sure you're the best version of yourself, even
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 5: if the competition might not demand the very best version
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 5: of yourself?
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it starts from the top
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: and the head coach and coordinators and position coaches really
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: explaining and identifying what is our expectation, what is the
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 2: standard of how we play football here. And I don't
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: think that deviates from the opponent. It may just be
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 2: a shorter time, but every chance, every rep is a
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 2: chance for you to show what you're about, right? the
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: eye in the sky doesn't lie and I know it's
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: kind of corny to say that but it's true every
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 2: time a rep is played on Friday Saturday night Thursday
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 2: night that is your resume you have to answer to
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 2: that and so for me it didn't matter who we
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: were playing uh My name is on that play, and
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: I'm representing the University of Utah. So I'm going to
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: try to go out there and destroy whoever's across from
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 2: me and put my best foot forward. Yeah, a mistake's
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: going to happen. That's football. But I'm not going to
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 2: go out there unprepared because this opponent is not up
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 2: to our standard. No, I'm going to make him feel
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 2: what we're about and get in and get out.
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 5: Do you have your eye on a potential breakout star
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 5: for this year? We're putting final predictions out because we
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 5: kick off tonight, right? I'm asking people, team MVP, offensive
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 5: player of the year, defensive player of the year. But
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 5: the one that intrigues me most is the guy that
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 5: kind of comes out of the shadows that maybe we're
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 5: not talking about enough. Is there someone on your radar
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 5: that you think could be this year's breakout star?
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not. I'm not 100%
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 2: sure of the name, but the guy that played like
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: the rhino tight end.
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah. Let me tell longer.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: I think there's going to be an expanded role for
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 2: him within the team. So that could be an unsung hero,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: whether it's offense, special teams, or even defense for that matter.
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 2: And so his name comes to mind. I think all
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 2: the newcomers have an opportunity to make huge impacts. And
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 2: then who's, like, maybe a guy like Rabbit who's kind
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 2: of been in and out when he's on the field.
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 2: He's played great. I want to see, like, a full
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 2: season of what he can really bring to our team
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: and how dominant he can be and how his play
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: and his physicality can really transform a defense. So he
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 2: kind of stands out to me. I want to see
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: Benny be a year better and really can he ascend
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 2: into a guy that could be a first-day player first,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: second day draft pick at the next level. Like I
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: want to see that growth. And I know he's worked
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 2: really hard at it. So it was a couple, a couple,
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: and we're going to go as far as those quarterback
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: take us, especially dead. So, and I think he's ready
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 2: to have a, an all, all American type season.
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 3: I did ask this question.
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 5: The response from at least one person was, I think
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 5: that Jackson Benny is going to be the second coming
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 5: of Eric Weddle. I think he could have that kind
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 5: of an impact on this team. Now, Obviously, we saw
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 5: him a little bit on offense last year. I don't
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 5: know what that's going to be like this year. I
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 5: don't know what kind of crossover situation we're going to
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 5: get with Benny or with anybody else. But, you know,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 5: people are starting to compare that young man to you.
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 3: So what do you think of him?
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: Geez, I mean, I could only hope and dream that
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: he'll be better than me, not only in college and
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: in the NFL. I think he's a more explosive, taller guy.
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 2: longer version of me, which is kind of crazy because
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: I was like an explosive dude, but he's way faster
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: than me. I don't know about the quickness, but you
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: could probably say it's on par. But like the physical
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: just explosiveness attributes, just on another level now, can you
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 2: match that with the mind and the instinct and all
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 2: the other stuff? That'll be to be determined, but he's
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: already shown that he can be a difference maker. And so,
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: and I know how hard he works. I know this
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 2: had his first baby. Like he's going to be focused.
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: He knows the big picture and I can't wait to
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 2: support him. So Hey, shoot for the stars, babe. Don't
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 2: be better than that old 32.
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 5: Good luck to anyone trying to be better than that one.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 5: We talked about this as a possibility. Moving on to
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 5: the NFL here with Eric Weddle as our guest on
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 5: the Sean O'Connell show. We talked about this as a possibility.
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 5: We speculated on it. You thought it was going to happen.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 5: I thought it was going to happen. Now it has
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 5: officially happened. Aaron Donald signed. He's going to play for
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 5: the Rams. are they going to work it in slowly,
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 5: kind of like you did when you came off the
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 5: couch to help make a run at that Super Bowl?
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 5: Is it hit the ground running? He's had a lot
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 5: longer to work out and get ready than you did
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 5: in that case. How do you envision this reintegration of
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 5: one of the all-time greats?
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not paying him $ 20 million to sit on
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: the bench, so he's going to be in there, I expect. Now,
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 2: will he be playing 50 snaps out the gate? Probably not, but...
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 2: I expect to see, I mean, this is going to
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: be really crazy to see two years off at that
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: position leaving, you know, he was still one of the
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 2: top guys at his position. How's he going to handle
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 2: just the physical nature of that position? How are you
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 2: going to handle like week six, taking on double teams
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 2: and freaking having 800 pounds falling on you? It's like,
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 2: How's he going to handle and recover is my point.
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 2: I thought the big hiccup would be, like, would he
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 2: be willing to play for just, you know, money is
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: all relative, but, like, if it was just, like, $ 5 million, like,
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 2: would you be willing to do that? But now it's
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 2: what it is. It's like, of course you're going to
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: come back then. You know, that's a crazy amount of money.
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's potentially going to be making what he
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 2: was two, three years ago, so. from what I've heard
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: and talked to, he looks like AD of AD. It's
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 2: more so you're coming back for 18 weeks plus. How's
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: the mind and body going to hold up through that process?
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 5: If you're a safety in that defense or you're a
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 5: linebacker in that defense, how much does AD and Miles
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 5: Garrett and company up front change what you're doing on
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 5: the back end?
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just The shot clock, like we talk
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 2: about having a shot clock for quarterbacks, and you want
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 2: to be on time, you want to be in rhythm,
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 2: knowing that if you hold the ball at that level,
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 2: you're sacked. It's like one, two, three, check down, right? One, two, three. Well,
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 2: now you're like, you got four legit rushers. So majority
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 2: of the time, if you're an offense coordinator, you have
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: to either chip or seven-man protection, which just limits what
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 2: you could do offensively. And that gives you opportunity after
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 2: opportunity to go make plays in the secondary. So I
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 2: would just be teething of being able to play in
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 2: the defense like that with those guys up front. I mean,
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: I would be getting so many gimme picks off tips
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: and overthrows. So hopefully they get a bunch of them
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: because it's now or never for the Rams.
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 3: Well, it feels like they're pushing all the chips down.
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 3: to the center of the table.
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 2: Like they're, they do it every year though. So that's
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 2: what you got to love the Rams.
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 3: Maybe they really do.
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 5: They're not, there's a lot of teams that are like
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 5: building for three years from now. The Rams don't play that.
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 2: They don't. And what's crazy is I think 2027, they
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: have not 80 million in cap space. And then 2028,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: they have like 200, obviously they're going to restructure and
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 2: extend a bunch of guys, but they know what they're
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: doing over there, man. They're, they're playing ahead of the
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: game than everybody else. And they've got to maximize staff
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: and then, shoot, by the way, preseason looks like they
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: got the guy they wanted when everyone else didn't like
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: the pick.
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 3: I was just about to say that, right?
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 5: I mean, you can only judge so much on the preseason,
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 5: but if you're judging by what is available, it looks
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 5: like that first-round quarterback selection, when a lot of people
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 5: were scratching their heads about it, might have been the
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 5: right move.
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like,
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going to trust Les Snead and Sean, before I
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 2: trust anybody else, talking about quarterbacks and offensive play. And
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 2: I think we're always too quick to cut these quarterbacks
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 2: short on what they are and what they can become.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 2: You need really a three- to four-year run of seeing
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 2: what they are. And I think they've– we'll see. But
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 2: I think they wouldn't have picked a guy if they
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 2: didn't believe that he's going to be the guy– take
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 2: over and continue to win in the future.
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 5: Well, go smash Torrey Pines tomorrow night, and we'll talk
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 5: with you next week. We'll also see you next week because,
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 5: of course, Ring of Honor induction will be in that
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 5: Arkansas game.
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be there. All the Weddell crew will be up
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 2: there except Silver. She will be flying to Italy for
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 2: World Championships for Team USA, so we'll have to bring
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 2: a picture and put her on my shoulder or something
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 2: when we We're out there at midfield or wherever we're doing.
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 2: I really don't know what's going to happen on Saturday.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: I'm there, baby.
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 5: I'll be there. We'll put your pretty face on the
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 5: big screen. That's all the people need to see, all right?
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 5: We'll talk to you before then, but see you soon, man.
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 2: You got it, bro.
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 5: That's Eric Weddle, the Utah football legend, Super Bowl champion,
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 5: and right now 2-0 as the head coach of the
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 5: Rancho Bernardo Broncos with his own son, Gage, playing quarterback
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 5: and safety for him. 44, nothing. The Brawley wildcats, which
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 5: by the way, now in Utah, I don't know if
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 5: I should ask them. I don't know if the rule
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 5: is the same in California. If you're up by 44 points,
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 5: it's a mercy rule.
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 3: They end the game. That's right.
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 6: Our guide, Chad informed us of that reminded you of
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 6: that informed me of that rule. I that's, that's crazy. They,
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 6: they can end after three quarters. If that's the case,
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 6: it's pretty wild. I'm not sure I like it that much,
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 6: but whatever you're saving some wear and tear, I guess
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 6: on the kids.
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 5: Here's the thing though, when you're up 44, nothing, or
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 5: you're down 44, nothing. That's when the kids who don't
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 5: get to play, get to play, right? Everyone only gets
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 5: their 10 games of high school football per season, unless
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 5: you make it to the playoffs and hopefully have a
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 5: deep run. But you get like 30, 40 games of
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 5: high school football if you're lucky. And that's if you're
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 5: a good player. If you're not, those are the times
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 5: you get to go in.
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 3: I'm just trying to figure out why you would be sensitive.
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 6: So that's not at the high school level, but you
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 6: personally would be sensitive to that sort of thing.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 5: I have really great lifelong friends who that was them
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 5: in high school.
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 3: They didn't get to play, right?
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 5: With those guys, if we were down by a lot
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 5: of points, I don't know how many times we were
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 5: down by 44, but we were down plenty when my
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 5: high school career. If those guys never got to play
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 5: and they were just standing there on the sideline in
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 5: a clean uniform, that would suck.
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 3: And even though.
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 6: You were the guy who did get to play in
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 6: the high school level, I'm sure your college experience makes
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 6: you think, helps you see that perspective too, for the
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 6: high school kids.
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: I legitimately would get mad.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 5: Like, even though it was totally absurd, of course they
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 5: weren't ever going to put us in.
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 5: But like, there were a couple of games during that
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 5: Fiesta bowl season where I was just like, why don't
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 5: you let me like, just put all.
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 3: Walk-ons on the kickoff team or something.
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 5: We're, we're gonna, we're winning this game. The only game
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 5: that anyone was worried about was air force. Basically, I
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 5: guess a and M a little bit first game of
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 5: the season, but every other game was just like, yeah,
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 5: we're going to win.
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 3: We're smashing these guys.
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: So like, why not?
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 5: I remember being there just like, you could put me in,
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 5: in the Fiesta bowl. I could like somebody on the
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 5: kickoff team or somebody like Tommy Hackenbrook.
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 3: You've already done enough.
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 5: Just run off. I'll run on urban's leaving. Anyway, it
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 5: doesn't matter. You, you were all about player safety, right?
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 5: as a, as a walk on.
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 3: I called on, Hey, these guys are going to get hurt.
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 3: It's going to get hurt.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: Put me in.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 3: I'll get hurt for you. I don't mind. That's all
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 3: I was good for on those teams. Oh man.
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 5: Look, we've got a lot of really great options for
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 5: hooking you up with tailgate food and tailgate. Your tailgate
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 5: beverage headquarters has to be Smith's. My local Smith's is
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 5: the one in the avenues on six. It is like
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 5: I know a lot of you folks are out there
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 5: now and you're using apps, which you should use the
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 5: Smith's food and drug app. Um, and you prefer to
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 5: have the grocery pickup, or maybe even you order your
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 5: groceries to be delivered to your front door.
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 3: I have not there yet. I have a really good time.
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 5: Every time I walk into the clean, friendly environment of
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 5: my neighborhood Smith and I wander, I have my system.
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: I know exactly.
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 3: I had it.
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: I walk in, I had left.
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 5: I make my loop through the produce section. I'm going
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 5: from the organic veggies to the organic fruits, then I'm
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 5: making my way over to the bakery section. Then it's
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 5: along the deli counter and to the seafood. Is there
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 5: a special on salmon today? Oh, no, there's not. Oh,
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 5: maybe there is. What about these Tomahawk steaks? Am I
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 5: going to splurge? Am I going to grab one today?
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 5: I have my own route through Smith's, but the crown
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 5: jewel when it comes to football season is those beverage aisles.
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 5: They've got everything you need to make your tailgate party,
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 5: your barbecue, exactly what it needs to be. They have
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 5: the app you can use. They have discounts in store.
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 5: They've got the fresh values and always, always, always. There's
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 5: a great offer at Smith's. My wife refuses to drink
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 5: soda out of a two liter that's poured into a cup.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: She won't.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 5: There's a different taste. There's a different vibe. The carbonation
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 5: ratio is what she claims is the problem there. I
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 5: am on the opposite end of that spectrum. I want
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 5: mine from the big jug. She wants hers out of
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 5: a can. I want mine out of a big jug.
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 3: Guess what?
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: You go to Smith's. Everyone's happy.
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 5: And now the thing, because of the dirty soda trend
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 5: is right in that same aisle, the coconut cream, the
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 5: mango stuff. The syrupy mix-ins. Smith's has it. And you've
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 5: got a Smith's in your neighborhood. Head on over. Stock
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 5: up before the game tonight. Stock up before every game
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 5: for the whole season. Tell them OC sent you. Where
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 5: did Devin Dampier appear on the power rankings of the
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 5: top quarterbacks, according to CBS Sports?
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 3: We'll give you that next. It's the Sean O'Connell Show
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 3: on ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 10: You're listening to The Sean O'Connell Show, your source for
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 10: the best youth football coverage.
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 7: Here's O.C. from the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 7: at 92.1 FM.
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: I hope you're feeling ready for football season.
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 2: I am.
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 3: James is.
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 5: Porter, who produced the first couple hours of the show,
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 5: he is. Morgan Scali in the Utes are.
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 3: Maybe you don't have tickets. Maybe you don't have season tickets.
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 5: I've got a great place for you to watch the
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 5: game if you can't actually make it up to Rice
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 5: Echo Stadium. It's Kitty Corner, right across the street here
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 5: from our Broadway studios. A little place called Gracie's Gastropub.
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 5: 326 Southwest Temple. GraciesSLC.com if you want to look up
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 5: any of the specials or the stuff they have going
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 5: on all during the week. But it is a perfect
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 5: place to watch football games on a Thursday night, on
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 5: a Saturday night, Let's see this weekend, the opening weekend
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 5: of college football. You've got Thursday games, Friday games, Saturday,
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 5: Sunday and Monday games. And of course, then the NFL
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 5: is also going to be kicking off. If you're a
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 5: Lions fan, they are the Lions home bar here at Gracie's.
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 5: So they're they're one pride as if they've got their
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 5: own fan viewing room for the one pride group. Watch
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 5: your favorite NFL team, if it's not the Lions, because
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 5: they've got 27 different TVs. Most of those, if not
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 5: all of those, during football season are going to be
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 5: tuned to football. And tonight, it's going to be all Utes.
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 5: So head on over to Gracie's. Tell them OC sent you.
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 5: Take advantage of the delicious food. Great menu over there.
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 5: J-Frame Company. These are people I've known since I was
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 5: in college myself. Head on over to Gracie's. and tell
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 5: them you heard about it on the Sean O'Connell show.
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 5: They're going to take extra special good care of you.
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 5: Gracie's Gastropub, 326 South, West Temple, gracieslc.com. If you do
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 5: have a ticket, grab dinner there, then head up to
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 5: the game.
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 3: All right, the.
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 5: CBS Sports list of top quarterbacks in the college football realm.
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 5: The power rankings of the quarterbacks heading into this 2026
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 5: season have several Big 12 guys, kind of where we
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 5: talked about the ESPN list as well. Outside of that
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 5: top 10, I'm a little bit frustrated with how much
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 5: the whole conference is being slept on, not just anyone
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 5: from the university. CBS has Noah Fafita ranked as the
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 5: top Big 12 quarterback at number 13. Drew Mesta maker
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 5: coming off his 4,300 yard season at, at North Texas
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 5: at Oklahoma state. Now he've got, he comes in at
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 5: number 15 in their rankings, bear Bachmeier at 18, Connor
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 5: Wegman at 20 and Devin Dampier at 21. And they
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 5: only go down to the top 50. So Devin Dampier,
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 5: the 21st most regarded quarterback by CBS.
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: Sports feels low.
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 3: Get it right.
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 6: All three of those 18 to 21 guys feel a
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 6: little low. I think in particular, Devin and bear, I,
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 6: I really think people are sleeping on bear too much down,
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 6: down in Provo. Oh, see like, this is a guy he,
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 6: of course, as a true freshman, he didn't look like
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 6: a Heisman trophy contender, right? He didn't look like a
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 6: guy who could win a game with his arm, but,
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 6: They won 11 regular season games, 12 games overall with
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 6: him as a true freshman. You got to think that
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 6: maybe not this year. Maybe he's not all world this
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 6: year as a passer, but you got to think he's
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 6: going to improve in that regard. They're going to rely
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 6: on him a lot more in that regard, even with
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 6: LJ Martin back.
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know.
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 6: I feel like they're sleeping on Bear, and they're certainly
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 6: sleeping on Devin.
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 3: Listed higher, you've got.
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 5: Dante Moore at number one, Arch Manning at two, Trinidad Chambliss,
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 5: Darian Mensah, Julian Sayen rounding out the top five. Odds
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 5: on Heisman Trophy favorite CJ Carr is number six on
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 5: the CBS Sports list. Jaden Maiava at USC at seven,
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 5: Josh Hoover, the former TCU guy now at Indiana, is eight.
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 5: Kevin Jennings from SMU at nine. Byron Brown from Auburn
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 5: at ten.
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 9: Double.
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 5: Sam Levin at 11, Gunnar Stockton at 12, then Noah Fafita. No, sorry,
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 5: you're wrong about this, guys. Also too low, the Cal quarterback,
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 5: Jaron Kiabe-Sangapolite. This kid is a problem. Now, I don't
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 5: know if Tosh Lapoi is a good coach. He's a
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 5: great recruiter. I don't know if he's a good coach,
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 5: but Jaron is an awesome player. He's either going to
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 5: love the fact that he stayed at Cal and... The
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 5: momentum carries forward, or he's going to be like, why
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 5: didn't I leave when I had the chance? But he's
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 5: a great player. James, you were really excited. I want
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 5: a little transparency here. James tried to get us an
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 5: NBA guest today to talk about the Kawhi Leonard situation.
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 5: I wasn't able to record at the time this person
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 5: needed to record before the show, so that one's on me.
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: But we'll get him on another time, maybe next week.
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 5: We talked about it like very briefly at the beginning
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 5: of the show, the, the NBA coming down hard on
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 5: the Clippers. And this is after we felt like we
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 5: talked about some findings in investigation, internal investigation. They're like, yeah,
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 5: there's nothing that a hundred percent links Steve Ballmer to
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 5: salary cap circumvention. And I thought he was going to
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 5: get off Scott free instead, $ 30 million fine. And much
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 5: more importantly, a five, Five draft pick penalty for this
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 5: Clippers team.
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, boy, was ESPN sources wrong on that one. And
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 6: you saw that was the ESPN article. Ramona Shelburne was
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 6: one of the people on that article. And then you
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 6: saw later in that day, I think right after our
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 6: show ended, OC, the Athletic came out with kind of
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 6: a counter article where their NBA sources said, that's.
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 3: Not exactly true.
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 9: What?
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 3: ESPN reported.
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 6: And it turns out the Athletic and their sources were
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 6: a lot more accurate than ESPN and their sources. I
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 6: am so glad that that's the case, OC, because I
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 6: had quite the letdown when we saw that ESPN article
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 6: come out. And yes, it was a lot more It
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 6: seemed a lot more realistic because you're talking about one
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 6: of the richest people in the world, not just one
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 6: of the richest people in America and the richest owner.
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 3: In the NBA. And money is power in a lot
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 3: of ways.
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 6: It would have made sense if that power and influence
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 6: would have helped him get away with this, talking about
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 6: Steve Ballmer. I'm glad that it didn't because this was...
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 6: according to Pablo Torres reporting, according to Wachtell Lipton's report,
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 6: which is now public. This was pretty egregious salary cap circumvention,
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 6: and Steve Ballmer, his business CEO, Gillian Zucker, and Lawrence Frank,
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 6: the president of basketball operations, had their fingerprints all over this,
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 6: as did Mitch Frankel and Dennis Robertson, Kawhi Leonard's representation.
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 6: So I think justice was served. I would have liked
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 6: just my only quibble with it. I would have liked
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 6: Kawhi's contract to be voided because I don't care if
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 6: he is not personally linked to this thing. The people
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 6: representing him were, and I don't know if you know
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 6: what the mean you would represent.
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 5: He's pretty personally linked to it because he's the one
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 5: getting the money.
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 6: He's not necessarily documented as saying, hey, I want this.
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 6: But I don't know if people know anyone who's going, yeah, well,
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 6: Kawhi is fine.
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 3: He wasn't part of this. Okay.
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 6: Do you know what the word represent means? It means
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 6: that when that if a person's representing you, they are
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 6: you in in those terms.
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 2: So.
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 6: I feel like he got off a little too easy,
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 6: but the main thing is that Balmer and the Clippers got,
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 6: here's the thing, got.
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 3: What they deserved.
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 5: The NBA had to thread this needle where they are
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 5: punitive to the rule breaking without also shooting themselves in
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 5: the foot by running a foul of the players union,
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 5: by running a foul of a superstar level player, by
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 5: running a foul of a franchise that had nothing to
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 5: do with any of this.
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 3: If you void the Toronto trade, Toronto is hurt by that. Yeah.
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 5: And Toronto's upset by that. And so what they did
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 5: is they found a solution that punishes Balmer and the Clippers.
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 5: Maybe let's, let's Kauai off a little too lightly, but
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 5: what you want in basketball and NBA basketball is you
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 5: want great players on the floor and that's what they're,
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 5: they're doing with this. So, yeah, I, I like that
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 5: we are seeing this now where these leagues and it,
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 5: It was so rare for so long where real punishment
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 5: would come down, especially on powerful people or on things
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 5: that was always kind of considered like, ah, this is
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 5: just going to happen. There's not a lot you can
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 5: do to fight against this. Now these things are being,
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 5: they're being really, really punitive, heavily punitive. The, the NCAA
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 5: and the sec and the big 10 and the big
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 5: 12 right now, instead of allowing the, NFL players to
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 5: come back into college football and just saying, ah, you
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 5: know what? We're going to lose these legal cases anyway.
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 5: They're like, no, that we're actually drawing a line in
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 5: the sand here. If you do this, We're going to
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 5: enforce these rules. We're going to suspend your coach for
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 5: half a season. We're going to fine you. We're going
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 5: to make this a thing that you don't survive doing again.
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 5: And you probably have a hard time if you're the
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 5: Clippers surviving losing these first five round draft picks.
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 3: That's really rough.
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 5: And Ballmer, by the way, is the richest NBA owner.
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 5: So the NBA fine, the $ 30 million fine is inconsequential.
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 5: It is the picks and it is diminishing the product
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 5: on the floor, his basketball team that actually hurts the
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 5: rule breaking. And that's hopefully to turn enough moving forward.
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 5: You like to see, you like to see the NBA
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 5: regrow a little teeth here.
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 3: I do love that. As I said, and the other
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 3: thing is stay tuned.
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 6: Eyeball emoji, because Wachtell Lipton's report, in the executive summary, OC,
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 6: I don't know if you had a chance to look
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 6: at that. They said, we are continuing to receive information.
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 6: So the investigation is ongoing because they continue to receive
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 6: information from people about the Clippers and Kawhi and salary
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 6: cap circumvention. There probably won't be additional penalties, but Pablo Torre,
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 6: maybe Wachtell Lipton publishes more findings later. It's going to
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 6: be more, more tea. That's going to come out on this.
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 6: That's that'll be fun to follow.
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 5: Before we get out of here, I'm going to take
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 5: one last break. Your final chance to send in your
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 5: predictions for team MVP, offensive player of the year, defensive
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 5: player of the year and breakout star for this Utah
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 5: football team. I'll read some of the responses we have
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 5: already at real OC sports. Your text at 8 7
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 5: 7 3 5 3 0 7 100. Final predictions next
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 5: on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 3: You tuned to the.
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 7: Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 7: 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 3: 877-353-0700. Text in your predictions.
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 5: Defensive player of the year, offensive player of the year,
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 5: team MVP, breakout star on this team.
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 3: You can tweet at me also at ReloSeaSports.
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 5: Spence Checketts is going to be live from Wasatch Front
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 5: Kia tomorrow. 770 West Riverdale Road. It's the annual Labor
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 5: Day tent sale. Tents go up and prices go down.
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 5: Free pizza and a chance to win a TV. Stop
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 5: by during the broadcast. Tell them Mosey sent you. Final
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 5: segment of the show brought to you by our friends
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 5: over at Advanced Window Products, 801-850-9100. $ 2, 500 off, 10 windows
• 2:26:08
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• 2:26:12
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• 2:26:18
  Speaker 5: All right, James, do you have a... you were doing
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 5: other things during the start of the show when we
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 5: talked about MVP, offensive player of the year, defensive player
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 5: of the year, breakout star. They can all kind of
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 5: be the same. Some of our responses have given offensive
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 5: player of the year and MVP to Devin Dampier, defensive
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 5: player of the year and breakout star to Nate Ritchie.
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 5: Pagan has been given some offensive player of the year
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 5: nods on the text line.
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 3: What do you say?
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 6: I might, I guess I'll do the obvious thing and
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 6: go quarterback for the offensive player and MVP.
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 6: And then let's see, breakout, breakout star. There's so many
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 6: good candidates for this. Daniel Bray comes to mind. As
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 6: you mentioned, I also consider Daniel Bray as a guy.
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 5: Cause he kind of like, he had some breakout moments
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 5: almost last year, but.
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 3: Comfort game out.
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 3: Like I think this could be a massive year for him.
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 6: Hunter Andrews comes to mind out of that tight end
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 6: Rhino situation. Um, I think another good candidate would be,
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 6: someone on the defensive side, maybe Pupu, who came on
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 6: a little bit as a freshman in the defensive tackle rotation.
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 6: I think I'll go with Bray, though, because he was
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 6: just so electric in the games that he did have
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 6: some production in. The BYU game comes to mind for sure.
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 6: Down in Provo, he had that go-ahead touchdown that made
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 6: us all believing that, okay, Utah's ended this short losing
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 6: streak in the rivalry game. And then, of course, Bear
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 6: Bachmeier had more to say about it down the stretch.
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 6: So I think I'll lean Daniel Bray. Larry Simmons is
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 6: another guy that I really like that could be a
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 6: breakout guy. But I'll lean Daniel Bray there.
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 3: I like that. Larry Simmons.
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 4: Oof.
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 5: Wouldn't that be wonderful if we were talking about a
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 5: wide receiver being the guy who really stirs things up
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 5: for the University of Utah? That would indicate great health
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 5: for this program. My breakout star, look, breakout star for me,
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 5: Cyrus Polu. I keep hearing things from coaches and other
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 5: players on the defense. I think that obviously John Newhall
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 5: has already impressed people. Trey Reynolds got captain nod, which
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 5: is massively important. He's a good breakout candidate. He could
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 5: be a great breakout star candidate. I mean, his teammates
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 5: have a lot of love for him. Cyrus Polo is
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 5: an incredibly talented guy that is starting to get that
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 5: sort of momentum from everything we're seeing and hearing, seeing
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 5: very little hearing more of it. So Cyrus Polo is
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 5: going to be my breakout star for the year. My
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 5: prediction for the breakout star of the year, the.
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 3: Defensive player of the year.
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 5: Is for me going to end up being one of
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 5: the safeties and it's Jackson. Benny's the most versatile guy
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 5: in that room. So I'm going to say Jackson Benny's
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 5: your defensive player of the year, offensive player of the
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 5: year and MVP. You're going Devon damp here for both
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 5: of these. I think we are set for a monstrous
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 5: year with dev.
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 3: I didn't, I didn't give a defensive player year player
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 3: of the year.
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 1: I just realized.
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 6: Probably Jackson Benny might've been what I said, but just
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 6: another guy that I was thinking of just to be
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 6: a little different is John O'Hall. He, Seems like a
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 6: guy who broke out last year and is poised to
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 6: have a big year as a linebacker this year.
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 5: One of the strangest reveals to me was when John,
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 5: who was asked about being a captain, he said, I've
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 5: never been a captain before.
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 3: That is weird. Cause he's, he's an awesome player.
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 5: And John, who hauled never having been a little league
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 5: high school captain in football.
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 3: And now he is a power division one football team.
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 3: Kind of cool.
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 5: The Drive with Spence Checkets is next, and he's here
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 5: in our Broadway studio.
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 9: Hi, Spence.
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 8: Excellent. Devin Dampier interviewed today. James, can you turn my
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 8: headphones up just a little bit? It is every week, but.
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 8: Perfect. I thought the conversation you had, and you're the
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 8: perfect guy to walk everyone through this, about the install.
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 8: That was really fascinating. How many plays are scripted? What's
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 8: your input? And then his kind of relationship with Kevin
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 8: McGiven juxtaposed to Jason. And, you know, whether it's Morgan
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 8: or Kevin McGiven. Oh, by the way, what was the nickname,
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 8: Kevin McGiven? They call him Mac G. Mac G.
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 8: It sounds like Kevin McGiven's rapper name.
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 8: What would your hip-hop name be if you decided, like,
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 8: I'm going all in on the rap game?
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 3: Mayonnaise.
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 8: Let's workshop that. DJ mayonnaise. I thought, no, I, in fact,
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 8: it was one of the, I haven't done this in
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 8: a while. Uh, I had to, uh, obviously on a
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 8: day like today, I record the TV show and I
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 8: sat in my car to hear the end of the conversation.
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 8: So it was really good for listeners who didn't get
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 8: that on game day. Fascinating insight. And the, the walking
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 8: line I was going to say with Morgan and Kevin,
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 8: everybody is that he is growing and maturing as a
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 8: leader and a person. I think sometimes we forget the
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 8: prefrontal cortex of most of these young men aren't fully formed.
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 8: He sounds different this year than he did last year.
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 8: Is that, would you agree as the guy that's interviewing him?
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 5: His countenance, everything about him. Like, I think he's a
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 5: little bit more comfortable. I think the health is a
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 5: big part of that. I think he's very confident. He's
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 5: fully actualized as the started quarterback for this team.
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 3: He's happy in his life.
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 5: It seems like, you know, he's, he's being compensated in
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 5: a way that is he deserves. And I think all
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 5: of that matters in the modern sort of landscape of
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 5: college football. And yeah, you can catch that the videos
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 5: up on the YouTube channel now, uh, cause we pre-recorded that.
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 5: So we had to roll it out, you know, in steps, but, uh, go,
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 5: if you didn't get a chance to listen to it today,
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 5: addition with dev, uh, he's, he's a really insightful guy.
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 3: He's really great.
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 5: And he did give us a look into, you know,
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 5: scripting the plays and putting a game plan together. It
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 5: is just against Idaho, but, that process is going to
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 5: repeat itself 11 more times this year.
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 8: I love that you asked him like how many plays
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 8: do we have scripted? And he's, he said, we haven't
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 8: figured that out yet. I don't, I don't believe him,
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 8: but I ignored it. I think he was going to,
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 8: at the time we recorded. Oh, that's right.
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 3: Cause we had to record it on Monday.
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 5: At the time we recorded like Monday afternoon is when
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 5: they would have sat down and been like, all right,
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 5: what are we doing here? But yeah, he's like, he's like,
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 5: I got about 200. I'm like, no, I'm talking about
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 5: like the opening series, like your first eight, Yeah. But yeah, like,
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 5: and the, the interesting thing for that, for me with
• 2:33:17
  Speaker 5: that is it's very dependent on the quarterback, the quarterback's
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 5: mastery of a playbook, the quarterback's relationship with a coordinator,
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 5: because I remember, I mean, not to bring up old
• 2:33:30
  Speaker 5: stuff that hurts when we had Travis Wilson in an
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 5: in-studio interview. When the first time I was working for
• 2:33:36
  Speaker 5: ESPN 700 and he was a fourth year starter and
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 5: And I was like, okay, you go up to the
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 5: line of scrimmage, you see this, what do you do?
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 5: He was not allowed to change plays at the line
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 5: of scrimmage as a senior.
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 5: So like there were some issues offensively and with trust
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 5: between the coordinator and the quarterback in that type of situation.
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 5: So I always dive in when you, like we used
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 5: to do with cam rising with McKay Bernard, when McKay
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 5: replaced cam rising.
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 5: And especially with quarterbacks, you want to know how collaborative
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 5: is the effort is the, is the coach saying you're
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 5: going to run what I tell you to run? Or
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 5: is he going to say, what do you think works here?
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 5: Because the guys seeing it, I mean, they're the ones
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 5: who have to execute.
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 8: I don't know that I'm super surprised that Travis wasn't
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 8: allowed to change plays at the line.
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 8: That sounds horrible, but Devin's earned it. That's the point, right? Like,
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 8: I think if you're an offensive coordinator or coach, You
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 8: need to see the quarterback earn the right to do
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 8: the thing. And Devin answered every question all of us
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 8: had a year ago. And I would imagine he answered
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 8: every question Morgan had. And, you know, not to underscore it,
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 8: because all of these lists are coming out. Preseason lists,
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 8: top quarterbacks in college football, top coaches, whatever. There was
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 8: one that was released today where Devin, I think, 19th, 20, 20.
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 8: And then Bryce Underwood, like 24 or something.
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 8: He was like three or four spots ahead of Bryce Underwood. Now,
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 8: that's a list that certainly could be debated. But I
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 8: don't know about you. I was quite convinced after what
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 8: Devin did under Jason a year ago that he was
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 8: high speed ahead to Michigan. I thought we might hear
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 8: that he was the first player announced. And I'm not
• 2:35:20
  Speaker 8: knocking on Bryce Underwood. The kid's a hell of a talent.
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 8: But I just want to underscore what a big deal
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 8: it was for Utah football that Devin Dampier is back
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 8: under center after what we saw last year.
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 5: Sorry, 21 was Devin Dampier. So, 21, Devin Dampier. 22,
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 5: John Mateer. Remember when everyone was like, bring Mateer and
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 5: Arbuckle to Utah. Didn't happen, obviously. Bo Pribula, who is
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 5: great in Week 0 for Virginia. Then Bryce Underwood. Then
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 5: Rocco Becht, who went from Iowa State to Penn State.
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 3: So, yeah.
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 5: And obviously, we talked about this. Wegman at 20. Bear
• 2:35:52
  Speaker 5: Bachmeier at 18. No Big 12 quarterbacks in the top 10.
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 5: This is CBS Sports List.
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 8: Is Bear the highest-rated Big 12 quarterback?
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 2: No, no.
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 3: 13 on their list.
• 2:36:04
  Speaker 8: Well, look, man, I woke up this morning, and it
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 8: did have that Christmas morning feel. I don't give a
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 8: rip that it's Idaho. I just want to be up there.
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 8: I'm excited just to be around all these fans, and
• 2:36:16
  Speaker 8: I would encourage people to view it as a celebration
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 8: that Utah football is back.
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 3: It is indeed.
• 2:36:22
  Speaker 5: You could have the drive with Spence checkups for the
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 5: next couple of hours.
• 2:36:25
  Speaker 3: Or one hour. For one hour.
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 8: Pre-game coverage, Utah football at three.
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 5: So for the next 54 minutes, you get Spence.
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 2: Indeed.
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 3: What a day.
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 8: That's enough of Spence. Let's be honest. You got to
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 8: be tired of me for four hours every year. 54
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 8: minutes is enough of me.
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 5: Anything over 53 and a half minutes can get toxic.
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 3: So you got to be careful.
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 3: You got to inoculate yourself.
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 8: It's all about balance, Sean.
• 2:36:51
  Speaker 1: We're your home of the youths. It's a game day.
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 3: Enjoy it, everybody. We only get seven home ones this year.
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 5: It's the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.