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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 10-28-26 · ESPN 700 & 92.1 FM | Utah's #1 Sports Talk

0:01
Speaker 1: Happy Hump Day, everybody! Welcome to the Sean O'Connell Show
0:08
Speaker 1: on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
0:24
Speaker 2: Always happy to be here with you, have you here
0:26
Speaker 2: with us.
0:27
Speaker 3: The text line is open at 877-353-0700. You can tweet
0:35
Speaker 3: at me at RealOCSports. Our YouTube feed is temporarily compromised today,
0:43
Speaker 3: I think, but we'll figure it out at some point.
0:50
Speaker 3: We're going to attempt to potentially pull off a live Yeah,
0:57
Speaker 3: we will have Kevin McGibbon on today in about 15 minutes.
1:03
Speaker 3: We usually prerecord our Coordinator's Corner, brought to you by
1:08
Speaker 3: Mountain Home Services.
1:09
Speaker 2: Today we're going to do it live.
1:10
Speaker 3: The schedule for Utah football is slightly different this week
1:14
Speaker 3: because the away game at Cincinnati Conference Realignment gifted us
1:20
Speaker 3: many of these inexplicable non-regional games.
1:25
Speaker 2: And a trip to Cincinnati, Ohio is one of those
1:28
Speaker 2: where you're like, what?
1:31
Speaker 3: So it's an Eastern Daylight Time game. Cincinnati is two
1:37
Speaker 3: hours ahead. So, you know, Utah is going to adjust
1:40
Speaker 3: their travel schedule to do it. We're going to get
1:42
Speaker 3: a chance to interview Kevin McGibbon here in about 15
1:45
Speaker 3: minutes for Coordinator's Corner, which is.
1:47
Speaker 2: Always a great conversation.
1:49
Speaker 3: And, of course, much more interesting and much more exciting
1:52
Speaker 3: to talk about when the Utes are seven and Oh,
1:55
Speaker 3: one of the final undefeated teams in power for football
1:58
Speaker 3: and in college football in general, currently in control of
2:02
Speaker 3: things in the big 12 conference. Although I shy away
2:04
Speaker 3: from talking too much about that because at the end
2:08
Speaker 3: of the day, there's so much football left to play.
2:12
Speaker 3: What we haven't probably talked about enough is that there,
2:14
Speaker 3: there are six top 25 teams in the big 12
2:17
Speaker 3: conference right now. And there are, three or four who
2:21
Speaker 3: still have a fairly realistic possibility of making it to
2:25
Speaker 3: a college football playoff. I was having this conversation. I
2:31
Speaker 3: went to the, uh, the Utah mammoth game last night
2:34
Speaker 3: with a couple of, with my lovely wife and a
2:36
Speaker 3: couple of our old, my old high school friends. It,
2:39
Speaker 3: by the way, one of the elite experiences that you
2:42
Speaker 3: can have in life is when you have friends who
2:47
Speaker 3: you knew, like, elementary school, middle school, high school, whatever.
2:51
Speaker 3: And then they marry each other.
2:54
Speaker 4: Right.
2:55
Speaker 3: So, you know, both the husband and the wife equally,
2:58
Speaker 3: you have childhood memories with the husband and the wife,
3:02
Speaker 3: both in a married couple.
3:03
Speaker 2: That's real.
3:04
Speaker 3: That's the good stuff right there, people. So shout out
3:08
Speaker 3: to the Shreves. It was great to go to the
3:10
Speaker 3: game with you. And he's a big BYU fan. And
3:14
Speaker 3: we were talking about, about the possibilities of all the
3:18
Speaker 3: different permutations of how things could shake out for the
3:22
Speaker 3: Big 12 Conference.
3:23
Speaker 5: Can we resend this shout-out since he's a big BYU fan?
3:28
Speaker 2: No, no, no.
3:29
Speaker 3: He gets a pass on that because he's been one
3:32
Speaker 3: since childhood. And we actually had a conversation about how
3:38
Speaker 3: that happens to people, right?
3:43
Speaker 2: And as a parent.
3:44
Speaker 3: sometimes as a big brother, as an uncle, as a grandparent, whatever,
3:47
Speaker 3: you have this unimaginably significant power of deciding in a
3:55
Speaker 3: lot of ways who your kids are going to root for,
3:57
Speaker 3: who your grandkids or who the children of your life.
4:00
Speaker 2: Are going to root for. We were talking about one
4:04
Speaker 2: of our other friends.
4:06
Speaker 3: He took his boys and one of these other boys
4:09
Speaker 3: whose parents are kind of unaffiliated when it comes to
4:13
Speaker 3: their fandom. took one of the other boys to a
4:16
Speaker 3: random Cougars game. And now that child is cursed forever
4:20
Speaker 3: with the love of the Cougars because his first live
4:23
Speaker 3: game happened to be a BYU game. And that atmosphere,
4:27
Speaker 3: when you're 10 years old or whatever it is, that
4:30
Speaker 3: atmosphere will just suck you in, man.
4:33
Speaker 2: So anyway, that's a random aside.
4:35
Speaker 3: We were, we were talking about all of the different
4:39
Speaker 3: possibilities for the big 12 to have.
4:41
Speaker 2: Multiple teams in in the college football playoff.
4:44
Speaker 3: And it's something that I find myself getting caught up in.
4:48
Speaker 3: Even while the intellectual part of my brain tells me
4:52
Speaker 3: you have no reason to believe that a 12 team
4:55
Speaker 3: college football playoff will offer that level of access to
4:58
Speaker 3: a big 12 conference, even in a year where everyone
5:02
Speaker 3: else is cannibalizing themselves in a way that, you know,
5:05
Speaker 3: we've typically characterized as a big 12 or a pack
5:07
Speaker 3: 12 trait. Miami gets treated like they are not an
5:15
Speaker 3: ACC team.
5:16
Speaker 2: Okay.
5:16
Speaker 3: Miami is, and Clemson would, if they were still great,
5:20
Speaker 3: would be treated the same way. So Miami, let's pretend
5:23
Speaker 3: Miami is an SEC team because eventually someday they will be.
5:27
Speaker 3: And reputation wise, they already are. So Miami gets treated
5:32
Speaker 3: somewhere in the middle of like SEC slash Notre Dame independent, right?
5:38
Speaker 3: They are viewed as important to college football. They are
5:41
Speaker 3: viewed as significant to the landscape of college football, and
5:45
Speaker 3: they are given the benefit of the doubt in ways
5:48
Speaker 3: that even other ACC teams are not and never will.
5:51
Speaker 3: The remainder of Miami's schedule is North Carolina, Notre Dame.
5:56
Speaker 3: That's a road game. They're in South Bend. That's the
5:58
Speaker 3: same day as the Holy War. That is a big
6:00
Speaker 3: reason why you're being put at 10 a.m.
6:03
Speaker 2: In my opinion. Game day is probably going to go there.
6:07
Speaker 3: Instead of coming back to Salt Lake City for the
6:10
Speaker 3: Holy War, despite it being, I think, inarguably the most
6:13
Speaker 3: significant Holy War from a ranking standpoint that's ever been played.
6:18
Speaker 2: Imagine if it were the last game of the season. Oh,
6:21
Speaker 2: my goodness.
6:22
Speaker 3: And we knew definitively whether or not it was win
6:26
Speaker 3: and you're into the conference championship game like the old
6:28
Speaker 3: Mountain West days, like when you weren't deciding who was
6:32
Speaker 3: going to the game, but you were deciding who wins
6:34
Speaker 3: the conference championship.
6:35
Speaker 2: Wouldn't that be glorious? Shoulda, coulda, woulda.
6:38
Speaker 3: Miami's got North Carolina, Duke, Virginia Tech, Boston College. The
6:43
Speaker 3: Notre Dame game being the lone exception, Miami should win out.
6:49
Speaker 3: Should is a terrible word to use in college football
6:52
Speaker 3: because it's still college football. Miami, undefeated right now, is
6:56
Speaker 3: just like Utah. They have a mulligan built in. And
6:59
Speaker 3: if they take that mulligan against Notre Dame, it's not
7:02
Speaker 3: even a mulligan. It's It's a quality loss and it's
7:04
Speaker 3: not going to hurt them. And so the ACC, they.
7:07
Speaker 5: Can still be undefeated in the ACC, make it to
7:10
Speaker 5: the championship game and win.
7:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:12
Speaker 3: So the ACC are could potentially like what's best for
7:17
Speaker 3: the ACC conference, honestly, is what happened last year where
7:20
Speaker 3: Miami is not your conference champion, but still gets into
7:23
Speaker 3: the college football playoff.
7:24
Speaker 6: Right.
7:25
Speaker 3: I don't think that there's any team in the big
7:27
Speaker 3: 12 that gets that treatment in a normal year, but
7:31
Speaker 3: BYU is not having a normal year because they played
7:33
Speaker 3: Notre Dame and they beat Notre Dame.
7:35
Speaker 2: So BYU, I think.
7:37
Speaker 3: Has access to the college football playoff, even if they're
7:39
Speaker 3: not in the big 12 championship game, depending on how
7:43
Speaker 3: things shake out this weekend, next weekend and beyond for
7:46
Speaker 3: the Cougs and a refresher for all of you, they've
7:49
Speaker 3: got Arizona state coming to Provo this weekend and The
7:54
Speaker 3: sun devils will be playing their third string quarterback.
7:56
Speaker 2: Okay.
7:58
Speaker 3: Now BYU is down a defensive back. They're banged up
8:03
Speaker 3: a little bit in their secondary. They have some injuries
8:07
Speaker 3: piling up. There's still no LJ Martin, but they should
8:11
Speaker 3: be able to get the job done against Arizona state.
8:13
Speaker 2: The Utah game, obviously incredibly tough.
8:16
Speaker 3: Baylor is at the moment, rudderless interim coach, Dave Miranda
8:20
Speaker 3: has already been fired. The rumor mill surrounding what happens
8:24
Speaker 3: there is anywhere from Lincoln Riley coming back to Texas
8:29
Speaker 3: or a New Mexico coach climbing the ladder and getting
8:33
Speaker 3: into the power four. They've got a road game against Kansas,
8:37
Speaker 3: and then they've got Cincinnati who, depending on what we
8:40
Speaker 3: see from Cincinnati this weekend, may or may not be
8:42
Speaker 3: a much more threatening game than we ever gave it
8:44
Speaker 3: credit for. But BYU's schedule, I don't think that a
8:48
Speaker 3: two-loss BYU game not in the conference championship game gets
8:55
Speaker 3: into the college football playoff, but we'll see Utah's got
9:01
Speaker 3: their Mulligan built in, but we haven't talked enough about
9:04
Speaker 3: the fact that conference wise conference record wise, Arizona has
9:09
Speaker 3: one loss. Texas tech has one loss. Oklahoma state has
9:13
Speaker 3: one loss. So there's a strong possibility that that you
9:21
Speaker 3: have a one loss team versus a two loss team
9:25
Speaker 3: in the conference championship game. And if that one loss
9:29
Speaker 3: team or, or it could be BYU and Utah, depending on.
9:35
Speaker 2: How things shake out.
9:36
Speaker 3: If I don't even want to utter these cursed words,
9:40
Speaker 3: but if BYU finds a way to win at Rice
9:42
Speaker 3: Eccles stadium and they're a one loss conference team and
9:45
Speaker 3: Utah's a one loss conference team and like Arizona, then
9:50
Speaker 3: gets beat by either Texas tech or Utah, but not both.
9:56
Speaker 3: Then now Arizona has potential to be in the conference championship.
10:00
Speaker 4: Game.
10:00
Speaker 3: If Texas tech is the team that beats Arizona, then
10:04
Speaker 3: the Texas tech red Raiders, the rest of their schedule
10:07
Speaker 3: is decently favorable. However, Arizona is a tough game. Oklahoma
10:13
Speaker 3: state is a road game for the red Raiders.
10:15
Speaker 2: So when I.
10:16
Speaker 3: Say I don't, think that everything's going to shake out
10:20
Speaker 3: exactly how it is right now in the big 12 conference.
10:23
Speaker 3: I still think that we're talking about a scenario in
10:26
Speaker 3: which multiple teams having access to the college football playoff
10:31
Speaker 3: is probably unlikely despite the quality of the big 12
10:36
Speaker 3: conference right now. There is almost an inevitable round of
10:43
Speaker 3: cannibalization coming up with the way that these schedules work out.
10:49
Speaker 3: Our hope is that Utah finishes the season undefeated. It
10:52
Speaker 3: is not a requirement for them to make it into
10:55
Speaker 3: the college football playoff if they can win the Big
10:57
Speaker 3: 12 championship game. There's also a possibility that you could
11:02
Speaker 3: be a a two loss or maybe even a one
11:06
Speaker 3: loss team. If Texas tech gets there, you know what
11:09
Speaker 3: together you could be a one loss team and still
11:11
Speaker 3: miss the conference championship game and be on the outside
11:15
Speaker 3: looking in and be in kind of BYU's category last
11:17
Speaker 3: year where they had an incredible season, but ultimately it
11:20
Speaker 3: was just a pat on the back and a thumbs
11:23
Speaker 3: up and a see you later. So I I'm worried that,
11:27
Speaker 3: because if you remember this time last year, and even
11:30
Speaker 3: as they started to put out the college football playoff
11:32
Speaker 3: rankings and We were having conversations about, oh my gosh,
11:35
Speaker 3: the message being sent right now is you're sitting here
11:39
Speaker 3: at like 10.
11:42
Speaker 2: 11, 12.
11:43
Speaker 3: You're sitting here at 12, 13, 11. And there's this
11:48
Speaker 3: flirtation with an idea that if you guys win, if
11:51
Speaker 3: you keep winning, yeah, we have to guarantee the group
11:54
Speaker 3: of five gets their team in. James Madison or whoever's
11:57
Speaker 3: going to get in. Boise State or whoever's going to
11:59
Speaker 3: get in.
12:00
Speaker 2: You get... you get that team in.
12:03
Speaker 3: So you got to be ranked kind of inside the
12:04
Speaker 3: top 11, not the top 12, but Hey, look what
12:08
Speaker 3: we're doing here. This, this committee is telling you. And
12:11
Speaker 3: then they were just holding their cards. They were slow
12:14
Speaker 3: playing everybody. They were check, check, check, check, raise. Now
12:19
Speaker 3: I'm all in on everybody else, not the big 12 conference.
12:23
Speaker 3: So I'm having a hard time balancing being excited that
12:27
Speaker 3: this big 12 conference is so competitive and has right
12:31
Speaker 3: now six top 25 teams and is starting to push
12:35
Speaker 3: back on this narrative of control and of quality only
12:39
Speaker 3: existing in the sec and the big 10. I'm trying
12:45
Speaker 3: to balance that with actually believing that Utah BYU and
12:52
Speaker 3: Texas tech could all be in the college football playoff.
12:54
Speaker 3: Because I'll tell you, if we were, if we were
12:56
Speaker 3: discussing an sec conference right now that has six ranked
13:00
Speaker 3: teams and a bunch of those with one loss and a,
13:05
Speaker 3: and at least one of those undefeated, like, like the
13:08
Speaker 3: big 10 is that right now, raise your hand.
13:10
Speaker 2: If you think the big 10.
13:13
Speaker 3: Feels like they are guaranteed three teams in the college
13:15
Speaker 3: football playoff, when they've got UCLA, Ohio state, and Indiana,
13:21
Speaker 3: all in the top 10. They've got Northwestern of all
13:26
Speaker 3: teams in the top 25, along with Wisconsin, but Northwestern
13:30
Speaker 3: is a one loss team right now.
13:32
Speaker 2: Northwestern. Can I, They have access to the college football playoff. Potentially.
13:38
Speaker 3: If you're looking at, they've got five big 10 teams
13:42
Speaker 3: are ranked in the top 25 right now.
13:45
Speaker 2: One less than the big 12, by the way. Correct.
13:47
Speaker 3: And which is wild to think of the ACC has
13:50
Speaker 3: got three Notre Dame obviously is up there and the
13:55
Speaker 3: sec has, you guessed it a bunch. They've got, I
14:00
Speaker 3: got nine, nine in the top 25. So with nine
14:03
Speaker 3: top 25 teams right now, it's.
14:05
Speaker 5: Been that way every week, by the way, sec nine,
14:07
Speaker 5: and then big 10 and big.
14:09
Speaker 3: 12 events, six or five. The sec has six. Anyway,
14:14
Speaker 3: no one defeated teams. They've got seven and one Kentucky
14:17
Speaker 3: and six in one Georgia.
14:19
Speaker 2: Okay. They've got a bunch of two loss teams. All
14:22
Speaker 2: of those top 25 ranked teams.
14:24
Speaker 3: The sec is looking at this nine ranks right now,
14:27
Speaker 3: 12 T we're going to get it. probably four, maybe
14:31
Speaker 3: five in the college football playoff this year. And they
14:34
Speaker 3: don't have to look around and be like, but those
14:35
Speaker 3: two losses take you out of it. The big 12,
14:37
Speaker 3: you have to do that. The ACC, you have to
14:40
Speaker 3: do that. So I'm having a hard time with that reality,
14:43
Speaker 3: especially in this year where like the big dogs, the
14:46
Speaker 3: people that are these, these sec programs and big 10
14:49
Speaker 3: programs that are supposed to be untouchable clearly are not,
14:56
Speaker 3: but it's a fun place to be assessing the, where
14:59
Speaker 3: the big 12 actually stacks up Boise state, by the way,
15:03
Speaker 3: as we've become familiar with is the highest ranked group
15:06
Speaker 3: of five team because the PAC 12, the new version
15:10
Speaker 3: of the PAC 12 is a group of five squad.
15:14
Speaker 3: It's a weird thing to say. Well, we're going to
15:20
Speaker 3: get Matt G. Kevin McGibbon is going to join us
15:22
Speaker 3: here in just a couple of minutes. Maybe right now,
15:25
Speaker 3: James is Attempting contact as Utah sits atop the Big
15:32
Speaker 3: 12 Conference right now. Of those six ranked teams in
15:35
Speaker 3: the Big 12 Conference, Utah is the highest ranked. And
15:40
Speaker 3: at least for now, with plenty of football left to play,
15:43
Speaker 3: has the inside track to both the conference championship game.
15:49
Speaker 2: And potentially college football playoff beyond.
15:51
Speaker 3: But you got to take it a week at a time,
15:53
Speaker 3: which is exactly what this Utah football team is doing.
15:56
Speaker 3: And this week it is the bear cats of Cincinnati.
16:00
Speaker 3: We'll do a little bit of education on what a
16:03
Speaker 3: bear cat actually is when we get a, when we
16:05
Speaker 3: get a chance to, but right now we're talking offense
16:08
Speaker 3: coordinators corner brought to you by mountain home services. And
16:11
Speaker 3: this week it's the offense. Kevin McGibbon is kind enough
16:14
Speaker 3: to join us on the show. Mac G how are you, sir?
16:17
Speaker 6: Doing good. How are you guys doing?
16:19
Speaker 2: Doing all right.
16:20
Speaker 7: 7-0.
16:21
Speaker 2: Tell me what's the best thing about 7-0 right now, Coach?
16:26
Speaker 6: Oh, wow. Haven't had to see Morgan too mad yet,
16:30
Speaker 6: I guess, maybe. You know, it always makes life easier
16:37
Speaker 6: when you come off a win. You know, and so
16:40
Speaker 6: being here and not having to face that adversity yet
16:46
Speaker 6: is pretty good, so.
16:48
Speaker 3: there was a lot of narrative about whether or not
16:51
Speaker 3: your team was tested heading into a game against the
16:54
Speaker 3: top 15 Houston squad. And you know, all you can
16:58
Speaker 3: do is beat the teams in front of you, but there's,
17:00
Speaker 3: I think some validity to the fact that the S
17:03
Speaker 3: the schedule gets tougher in the second half of the
17:05
Speaker 3: season for Utah. And so maybe it felt like the
17:08
Speaker 3: first big test. Maybe it felt like you were facing
17:10
Speaker 3: an equal and statistically Houston and Utah were very similar
17:14
Speaker 3: coming into these games, but, but tell me how it
17:16
Speaker 3: was preparing for Houston and then going out and seeing
17:18
Speaker 3: you guys execute the way they did, knowing that they
17:21
Speaker 3: were probably a better team than any of the ones
17:23
Speaker 3: you had faced in the six weeks previously.
17:26
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think there was, there was a lot of really,
17:31
Speaker 6: really focused practices, a lot of energy and, I think
17:36
Speaker 6: players understood what was at stake. I think we got
17:39
Speaker 6: a little bit of a wake-up call the week before
17:41
Speaker 6: playing Colorado because that was a close game and we
17:46
Speaker 6: didn't feel like we performed at our best. There were
17:50
Speaker 6: some learning moments coming out of that game that we
17:52
Speaker 6: had to apply just to be better, period, regardless of
17:54
Speaker 6: who we were playing. We put a lot of good
17:57
Speaker 6: preparation on Houston and I think the kids kind of
18:02
Speaker 6: took it to heart with some of the naysayers and
18:04
Speaker 6: wanted to go out there and prove that we belong
18:07
Speaker 6: to this level and can compete.
18:12
Speaker 3: We overuse in sports media, I know I'm guilty of this,
18:15
Speaker 3: halftime adjustments. And you hear guys who are like, actually
18:19
Speaker 3: in football, I'd be like, man, I've never adjusted anything
18:21
Speaker 3: at halftime in my life. But this was a tale
18:24
Speaker 3: of two halves for your offense. All those other previous games,
18:28
Speaker 3: you've been off to a hot start, and that didn't
18:31
Speaker 3: happen against Houston. Of course, things really got going after
18:35
Speaker 3: the halftime break. So tell me what that tale of
18:38
Speaker 3: two halves looked like from your perspective.
18:41
Speaker 8: Yeah, the.
18:43
Speaker 6: There was pretty good ball movement going on in the
18:47
Speaker 6: first half. A couple of third down situations that we
18:51
Speaker 6: got out of with some miscommunications and some lack of
18:55
Speaker 6: execution had a turnover on a drive that I think
18:59
Speaker 6: that's the first take that we were starting to sustain
19:02
Speaker 6: that drive, pushing the ball down the field and then
19:06
Speaker 6: came away with no points in the two-minute at the
19:09
Speaker 6: end of the first half. But did a really good
19:12
Speaker 6: job fighting out of a backup situation, getting it down
19:15
Speaker 6: to where we can take a shot at the end
19:16
Speaker 6: zone with six seconds left, knowing that we're trying to
19:18
Speaker 6: preserve time for a field goal. And so my message
19:21
Speaker 6: to them at halftime was, you know, I didn't think
19:24
Speaker 6: the score was indicative of what they were doing, moving
19:28
Speaker 6: the ball and just need to go out and capitalize on,
19:31
Speaker 6: on some situations and be able to finish some of
19:34
Speaker 6: those off. And, you know, and so, you know, the
19:38
Speaker 6: kids weren't even phased when I saw them in the
19:40
Speaker 6: locker room, they were, they were, They were extremely dialed
19:43
Speaker 6: in and really looked unflappable in that moment, which was
19:47
Speaker 6: good to see because they hadn't been in that moment yet.
19:49
Speaker 6: And then there were some schematic adjustments that we had
19:52
Speaker 6: to make with just some things Houston was doing, in
19:55
Speaker 6: particular to the run game and with some of the
19:57
Speaker 6: protections and things like that where we had to You know,
20:02
Speaker 6: go back to a little bit more gap scheme, playing
20:04
Speaker 6: a little bit more, you know, some of more of
20:06
Speaker 6: our option wrinkles, you know, getting Deb more involved as a,
20:11
Speaker 6: as a reader. And then, and then a lot of
20:12
Speaker 6: things he could, he just kind of took upon himself,
20:15
Speaker 6: you know, when he took the game over and, you know,
20:18
Speaker 6: just went through his process when I called passes really quickly.
20:23
Speaker 6: And so decided he needed to use his feet to
20:26
Speaker 6: get us back on track, which was definitely what we needed.
20:31
Speaker 3: That was going to be my next question. Was that
20:33
Speaker 3: something that you as a coaching staff decided, or was
20:36
Speaker 3: that Devin Dampier just recognizing the green grass in front
20:40
Speaker 3: of him, or I imagine some balance to that?
20:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think a big part of it was his
20:46
Speaker 6: preparation going in. And, you know, with the defensive scheme,
20:53
Speaker 6: there was a lot of lift and carry where the
20:57
Speaker 6: they had wall players that were carrying verticals. And so
20:59
Speaker 6: a lot of people that were getting depth and turning
21:01
Speaker 6: their back away from the quarterback, you know, and so,
21:05
Speaker 6: his ability to recognize that and, you know, also to
21:09
Speaker 6: pre-snap diagnose the coverage and where he needed to take
21:11
Speaker 6: his eyes. And so, you know, it wasn't a lot
21:13
Speaker 6: of fulfilled progressions going on, you know, but he got
21:15
Speaker 6: his eyes to a spot that he thought should be there.
21:18
Speaker 6: And then if it looked muddy, then he was very decisive,
21:22
Speaker 6: you know, but took enough time to let things lift,
21:24
Speaker 6: to kind of let things sort out in front of
21:26
Speaker 6: them and, and then made some of those decisions to go.
21:29
Speaker 6: And I, and I thought, yeah, I thought it was appropriate,
21:31
Speaker 6: you know, but I think it was also part of
21:33
Speaker 6: him just taking over the game, putting the team on
21:36
Speaker 6: his shoulders and, and said, okay, I'm going to, I'm
21:39
Speaker 6: going to Willis to victory here.
21:41
Speaker 3: Speaker 2 I mean, this is probably a dumb question
21:44
Speaker 3: to ask, but how, how nice is that to have
21:47
Speaker 3: a guy who's capable of doing it? Because there's a
21:50
Speaker 3: lot of quarterbacks that are technically proficient. And I don't
21:54
Speaker 3: know that their coaches and their coordinators truly trust that like,
21:58
Speaker 3: he's always going to make the right decision. He is
22:00
Speaker 3: capable of putting a team on his back and doing that. You,
22:03
Speaker 3: you do have that. So you could call a great game,
22:06
Speaker 3: but hopefully Devin, can you make it even better? And
22:10
Speaker 3: I don't know how common that is in college football.
22:12
Speaker 3: You have that luxury.
22:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. And it is a, it is a luxury,
22:18
Speaker 6: you know, you know, and I would say, I would
22:23
Speaker 6: say up to this point, just with the, with the
22:25
Speaker 6: offensive scheme and philosophy, you know, where he's, he's really
22:30
Speaker 6: tried hard to master that and, and really tries hard
22:34
Speaker 6: to apply it in the games and doing the right thing,
22:36
Speaker 6: distributing the ball appropriately and things like that. You know,
22:40
Speaker 6: but I don't know that I had really seen him.
22:43
Speaker 6: I mean, seen him make a lot of plays, but
22:44
Speaker 6: I don't know if I had really seen him flip
22:46
Speaker 6: that switch like that before. And, you know, with my
22:51
Speaker 6: experience with him, but I, but I told him after
22:52
Speaker 6: the game, I was like, hey, you've got to get
22:54
Speaker 6: on the headset and tell me when you're ready to
22:56
Speaker 6: take this thing over because I need to call it appropriately.
23:02
Speaker 6: And he's been awesome and made a ton of plays,
23:05
Speaker 6: and he's running the offense really well. But there was
23:08
Speaker 6: kind of a different level to his mindset. And so
23:14
Speaker 6: I started to kind of pick up on that and
23:15
Speaker 6: then started to try to call it appropriately based on
23:19
Speaker 6: what his mindset was.
23:20
Speaker 3: I probably asked you about this before, but one of
23:22
Speaker 3: my favorite things about getting to know Devin and, and
23:25
Speaker 3: talking to him about mistakes that he does make is
23:28
Speaker 3: that he's got that short memory and that he just
23:31
Speaker 3: kind of like, he doesn't let it kill him.
23:33
Speaker 2: Right.
23:33
Speaker 3: He throws, throws a pick where he got hit on
23:35
Speaker 3: the first one. The second one, you know, a lot
23:38
Speaker 3: more about playing the position that I do. was just
23:40
Speaker 3: kind of boneheaded. It looked like it was just like
23:42
Speaker 3: a bad decision. And when you would like to have
23:44
Speaker 3: back and he, he gets over it and he goes
23:48
Speaker 3: out and he makes the next play. And that seems
23:49
Speaker 3: like such a crucial thing for a quarterback to be
23:51
Speaker 3: able to do.
23:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think there can be,
23:56
Speaker 6: there can be a snowball effect. And as we know,
23:59
Speaker 6: you know, football is a game of momentum and you know,
24:02
Speaker 6: and so anytime you let those things compound, you know, that's,
24:06
Speaker 6: what can cause a lot of those momentum shifts. You know,
24:10
Speaker 6: so I think the quarterback's ability to respond to, and
24:13
Speaker 6: not just to dig you out of a rut, but just,
24:15
Speaker 6: you know, to make sure they have a level of consistency.
24:18
Speaker 6: And I think it's been a big part of what
24:20
Speaker 6: coach Scali has instilled with the, you know, with the
24:24
Speaker 6: growth mindset of the players, you know, talk about it
24:27
Speaker 6: every day that, They're going to make mistakes. They're going
24:30
Speaker 6: to grow from them. I tell them every day that, hey,
24:34
Speaker 6: this is a learn and apply system. You know, you're
24:36
Speaker 6: not always going to be perfect. You know, we just
24:38
Speaker 6: got to make sure we're making the right decisions most
24:41
Speaker 6: of the time and that we're not doing things that
24:44
Speaker 6: are going to lose us football games. You know, and
24:46
Speaker 6: so there were a couple of those situations we'd like
24:49
Speaker 6: to have back that you'd consider critical errors. But, you know,
24:52
Speaker 6: right now he's doing a lot more to win us
24:54
Speaker 6: football games than he is lose.
24:57
Speaker 3: Remained a close game into the crucial moments, of course.
25:01
Speaker 3: And that's kind of what we expected in this one
25:03
Speaker 3: is number 10 versus number 14.
25:05
Speaker 2: At least those are the rankings at the time.
25:07
Speaker 3: And you got to find that moment like you did
25:10
Speaker 3: against Colorado the week previous where somebody is going to
25:14
Speaker 3: make a play and it happened to be. the defense
25:17
Speaker 3: that had to do it. Did you, did you even
25:19
Speaker 3: get to watch it live coach? I know that half
25:21
Speaker 3: the time your, your head's buried in the playbook and
25:23
Speaker 3: things like that. Did you get to see Jackson Benny
25:26
Speaker 3: sack in real time?
25:29
Speaker 6: I did. I did not see it. So my, my
25:33
Speaker 6: head was down on call. She tried to trying to
25:36
Speaker 6: figure some things out. And then, and then I just
25:39
Speaker 6: heard a bunch of people erupt on the headset and,
25:41
Speaker 6: and So then I kind of looked up to see
25:44
Speaker 6: the aftermath because obviously I had a call ready. But yeah,
25:50
Speaker 6: what a big-time play by that kid. Great call by
25:55
Speaker 6: Coach Swan. And that was really to finish that thing off.
25:59
Speaker 6: I thought Swan.
26:02
Speaker 6: Was really masterful in the way he handled the end
26:06
Speaker 6: of that game to get those guys off the field
26:08
Speaker 6: and some of the things that he dialed up. Obviously,
26:13
Speaker 6: we were able to capitalize on some of that stuff,
26:15
Speaker 6: but let us figure ourselves out because we were playing
26:19
Speaker 6: such great defense throughout against a really, really good offense.
26:23
Speaker 6: Then we finally found our footing. I felt like we
26:26
Speaker 6: probably could have got a separation even earlier than that
26:30
Speaker 6: on the It would have been our third drive after
26:33
Speaker 6: we had scored two consecutive, and we were driving down
26:35
Speaker 6: again and then had the pick on first down. But, yeah,
26:41
Speaker 6: needed a big-time play in that moment. Then defense came through,
26:45
Speaker 6: and then we were able to capitalize the score off
26:46
Speaker 6: of it with a short field.
26:48
Speaker 3: Well, I feel sad you didn't get to watch it
26:49
Speaker 3: in real time because it was one of the more
26:51
Speaker 3: special moments that we've had in recent years at Rice-Eckel Stadium.
26:54
Speaker 2: But then you've got to have that play ready.
26:56
Speaker 3: Was there any conversation about, hey, let's take some time
26:59
Speaker 3: and not score right away here?
27:02
Speaker 6: Um, you know, so we're, we're really big into the,
27:06
Speaker 6: into analytics. Um, you know, Joe Durazi does some in-game
27:10
Speaker 6: stuff for coach Scali and gives me some information and,
27:14
Speaker 6: and things like that. But I think, you know, when,
27:16
Speaker 6: when you, when you get into that situation, you know,
27:22
Speaker 6: you're kind of talking like you're guaranteed you're going to score. And,
27:26
Speaker 6: and I don't know that you can always look at
27:27
Speaker 6: it like that. You know, um, when you, you know,
27:31
Speaker 6: it's kind of when you run your first play, it's like, okay,
27:33
Speaker 6: are they letting us score because they want to get
27:35
Speaker 6: the ball back with enough time. But that wasn't the
27:38
Speaker 6: case either on that, on that first play. And so,
27:41
Speaker 6: you know, it happened to be that the first place score,
27:42
Speaker 6: but I think the appropriate thing was, was the decision
27:46
Speaker 6: that coach Scali made and told us, is it okay,
27:49
Speaker 6: go ahead and score and then kick the PAT to
27:53
Speaker 6: make it eight points. And, you know, and so I
27:57
Speaker 6: think those decisions were, were appropriate.
27:59
Speaker 7: Yeah.
28:00
Speaker 3: And obviously it worked out exactly the way that your
28:03
Speaker 3: team needed it to. And I fully understand this thought
28:06
Speaker 3: process that, that Morgan explained to us and saying like,
28:09
Speaker 3: I'm going to, I'm going to trust my defense to
28:11
Speaker 3: get me that stop. Like Houston would have to have
28:14
Speaker 3: two scoring plays to even tie it if we're up
28:17
Speaker 3: by eight.
28:17
Speaker 2: So let's, let's do it that way.
28:20
Speaker 6: And I think with the, and I think with Morgan
28:22
Speaker 6: and the game flow, because the defense had been playing
28:24
Speaker 6: so well in that game, you know, maybe, maybe a
28:27
Speaker 6: different scenario if that's like a, you know, a 50
28:30
Speaker 6: to 48 game or something like that. You know, you
28:33
Speaker 6: might not feel good about that.
28:35
Speaker 7: Sure.
28:36
Speaker 3: A couple more minutes on coordinator's corner, Kevin McGiven, giving
28:39
Speaker 3: us some time here, brought to you by mountain home services.
28:42
Speaker 3: So now you're seven and Oh, number six ranked team
28:44
Speaker 3: in the country. And you've got this weird spot where
28:48
Speaker 3: you've got, you got to travel to the Eastern time
28:51
Speaker 3: zone against the team.
28:52
Speaker 2: That's also coming off a huge win.
28:54
Speaker 3: Against Cincinnati and look, they can score points, but they've
28:58
Speaker 3: got some defensive vulnerabilities.
28:59
Speaker 2: It appears. What do you see in from Cincinnati bear
29:02
Speaker 2: cats on film?
29:04
Speaker 6: Yeah. You know, I think some, some good players running
29:08
Speaker 6: around back there, you know, they've, they've got some speed
29:10
Speaker 6: and some length and you know, you know, I would
29:13
Speaker 6: say a defense that is, is kind of opportunistic. I
29:18
Speaker 6: would say the, Playing with a little bit of confidence,
29:21
Speaker 6: I felt like it was a little bit more confident
29:22
Speaker 6: group playing against Texas Tech, or at least it grew
29:25
Speaker 6: throughout that game, especially as they were competitive. And then
29:32
Speaker 6: it looks to me over time that they've just gotten
29:34
Speaker 6: more comfortable with their scheme. They're able to mix looks
29:36
Speaker 6: up a little bit more than some of the other games.
29:40
Speaker 6: And there's a little bit of flavor of the week
29:41
Speaker 6: depending on who they play and what they have to defend.
29:45
Speaker 6: And then we have to look back at some of
29:48
Speaker 6: the things that have caused us issues the last couple
29:50
Speaker 6: of games with Houston and Colorado that we've been trying
29:55
Speaker 6: to address and say, okay... you know, Cincinnati saw this
30:00
Speaker 6: stuff works, you know, or, or slow things down or,
30:03
Speaker 6: or give us problems. And so, you know, we got
30:05
Speaker 6: to make sure that those things are handled as well
30:08
Speaker 6: in case they show up again.
30:10
Speaker 3: Everybody recognizes these, we call them trap games, right? The
30:14
Speaker 3: look ahead spot or the emotional letdown after a night game,
30:18
Speaker 3: a blackout game with a exciting win against Houston and
30:22
Speaker 3: everyone around college football knows that they're there, but how
30:26
Speaker 3: do you actually avoid the pitfalls?
30:27
Speaker 1: Right?
30:28
Speaker 3: It, BYU knew this was coming when they played against UCF,
30:31
Speaker 3: and they still found a way to lose to UCF.
30:34
Speaker 3: And it's just like, man, there's a gap, it appears, Coach,
30:38
Speaker 3: between knowing it's a problem and being able to solve
30:42
Speaker 3: the problem.
30:42
Speaker 2: So how do you go about it this week?
30:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I think a lot of it, you know,
30:48
Speaker 6: going into yesterday, even into practice, was, you know, the
30:51
Speaker 6: coaching staff maybe having to drive the energy a little
30:54
Speaker 6: bit from the get-go when we met with the players.
30:58
Speaker 6: you know, it was, it was a lot about, okay,
31:02
Speaker 6: we need to be different. You know, there's, there's one,
31:05
Speaker 6: there's a reason why there's only one champion and it's
31:08
Speaker 6: because that team has figured out a way to be
31:09
Speaker 6: different and everybody else had kind of settled for average
31:12
Speaker 6: or they let complacency settle in and they thought they
31:16
Speaker 6: were just going to show up and it was going
31:18
Speaker 6: to happen for them just because it had happened seven
31:20
Speaker 6: times previously or whatever. Um, you know, but, but I
31:23
Speaker 6: think the, I think they understand where we need to,
31:26
Speaker 6: where we need to improve that, you know, even the
31:28
Speaker 6: last couple of games have been hard fought battles and,
31:31
Speaker 6: and everything didn't look the way we needed it to
31:34
Speaker 6: look to, to finish this thing out the way we
31:36
Speaker 6: want to. And, um, and so very focused practice yesterday, very,
31:41
Speaker 6: very intentional. And so I, I think I like what
31:44
Speaker 6: the mindset was in terms of.
31:46
Speaker 2: Our kickoff times.
31:48
Speaker 7: Sorry.
31:48
Speaker 3: Kickoff times have been a, uh, extensive topic of conversation
31:53
Speaker 3: heading into last week and now this week. And of
31:57
Speaker 3: course next week, do you have any thoughts, any preference
32:00
Speaker 3: one way or another on when you, your games kickoff?
32:07
Speaker 6: I think everybody would like to play at like one
32:09
Speaker 6: o'clock on Saturday. And so, but yeah, I haven't had
32:13
Speaker 6: too many of those, but I will, I will tell
32:16
Speaker 6: you this just having been around it for the first
32:18
Speaker 6: time is, rise cycles at night is electric and you
32:23
Speaker 6: know so i i really enjoy those those games at
32:26
Speaker 6: night it um it has a little bit of an
32:29
Speaker 6: effect the next day and going into monday when you
32:32
Speaker 6: have those when you have those late nights and early
32:35
Speaker 6: mornings and and you got to kind of recover as
32:38
Speaker 6: the week goes on when you have those late games
32:40
Speaker 6: and try to get used to different different schedules surrounding
32:45
Speaker 6: meetings and practice and walkthroughs and stuff like that so
32:48
Speaker 6: it's a little bit tough to get into a routine,
32:51
Speaker 6: but you know, I think that's probably the mark of a,
32:54
Speaker 6: of a championship program as well as you just got
32:57
Speaker 6: to adapt and roll with the punches.
33:01
Speaker 2: Are you a Halloween candy guy?
33:03
Speaker 3: Is it, will you be taking a tax out of
33:05
Speaker 3: whatever candy is being handed out or collected at the
33:08
Speaker 3: given household?
33:11
Speaker 6: Um, I, uh, I will not be, but I don't
33:14
Speaker 6: even know if there's going to be candy. My wife
33:18
Speaker 6: usually will hand out something, you know, like pencils or
33:21
Speaker 6: something like that, where kids have got to be creative
33:24
Speaker 6: with it.
33:25
Speaker 2: Okay. You're one of those houses, Coach. I hope nobody
33:30
Speaker 2: eggs you or something.
33:31
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, the word gets out that what we're handing out,
33:35
Speaker 6: and you don't see kids, you know, late into the night.
33:39
Speaker 3: Oh, well go enjoy things in Cincinnati coach. Congratulations on
33:43
Speaker 3: everything that's happened so far. Appreciate you giving us time
33:46
Speaker 3: as always go Utes.
33:48
Speaker 6: Absolutely. Thank you.
33:50
Speaker 2: Kevin McGibbon.
33:51
Speaker 3: That's Mac G his team, his offense undefeated so far
33:56
Speaker 3: this year, taking on a Cincinnati squad in Cincinnati. Of
34:01
Speaker 3: course that look defensively on paper numbers wise, there are
34:06
Speaker 3: some vulnerabilities.
34:07
Speaker 2: They've got athletes.
34:09
Speaker 3: But scheme-wise and execution-wise, there's some holes, and I think
34:14
Speaker 3: that this could be a big day for the Utah
34:15
Speaker 3: offense coming on Saturday. Big thanks to Kevin McGibbon for
34:19
Speaker 3: joining us. That conversation, Coordinator's Corner, brought to you by
34:22
Speaker 3: Mountain Home Services. Coordinator's Corners are usually on Friday, so
34:26
Speaker 3: we will replay that on Friday as well. Today is
34:29
Speaker 3: a Ute Zone Wednesday. Dan Sorensen is going to join
34:32
Speaker 3: us next. It's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700
34:35
Speaker 3: and 92.1 FM.
34:38
Speaker 2: This is my recital. I think it's very vital to
34:41
Speaker 2: rock around.
34:42
Speaker 8: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
34:45
Speaker 8: Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
34:48
Speaker 2: Dan Sorensen.
34:49
Speaker 8: Dan Sorensen.
35:00
Speaker 3: The brains, the brawn behind Ute Zone on a Ute
35:03
Speaker 3: Zone Wednesday brought to you by Mountain Home Services. New
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Speaker 3: them you heard about it on the Sean O'Connell Show.
35:19
Speaker 3: Dan Sorensen, welcome back to the program. How are you?
35:22
Speaker 7: I'm doing well.
35:24
Speaker 4: How are you doing?
35:25
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, man.
35:27
Speaker 3: Utah is 7-0 and passed the first big test of
35:31
Speaker 3: the season. There's plenty more still to come. Did it
35:34
Speaker 3: look the way you thought it would look against Houston?
35:37
Speaker 4: Speaker 4 0 No, actually look, I was expecting a,
35:41
Speaker 4: a shootout, a little bit akin to what Houston had
35:45
Speaker 4: when they played Oklahoma state. And so we got a
35:47
Speaker 4: little bit of that shootout in the third quarter, but,
35:51
Speaker 4: but yeah, the, the, the defenses for both teams really
35:54
Speaker 4: showed up and showed out in the first half and,
35:57
Speaker 4: and they did some nice things in the second Utah's
35:59
Speaker 4: defense did more nice things. And, and really just watching
36:05
Speaker 4: Devin Dampier take over and making it the Devin Dampier
36:09
Speaker 4: show is, was the difference in the game. So I look,
36:13
Speaker 4: I expected Utah to squeak one out, but it did
36:17
Speaker 4: not come in, in the, in the form factor that
36:20
Speaker 4: I was expecting. Yeah.
36:21
Speaker 3: I also thought it'd be a high scoring game because
36:23
Speaker 3: they were the two highest scoring offenses in the conference,
36:26
Speaker 3: but tells you what I know about football. What do
36:29
Speaker 3: we learn about? I mean, the team is still learning
36:31
Speaker 3: about itself, obviously. What are we learning about Utah as
36:34
Speaker 3: not only did they beat a top 15 team and
36:37
Speaker 3: they did it with college game day in town.
36:39
Speaker 2: We'll get to that here in a second.
36:41
Speaker 3: But also, you know, like you did it in a
36:43
Speaker 3: way where you didn't score on the opening drive of
36:45
Speaker 3: the game this time. And you didn't score any points
36:47
Speaker 3: in the first half this time. And you needed to
36:50
Speaker 3: have a good third quarter. And that's been kind of
36:52
Speaker 3: a sleepy quarter for the team in every other game
36:55
Speaker 3: this year. When they're doing things for the first time
36:58
Speaker 3: halfway through a season or they're doing things differently, what
37:01
Speaker 3: are we learning about this team as they win a
37:03
Speaker 3: game like this one?
37:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I think the biggest takeaway is that Morgan Scali,
37:09
Speaker 4: he harps all the time about the culture of the program,
37:13
Speaker 4: the RSMB culture, where if you live it on the
37:18
Speaker 4: practice field and in the film room and in your
37:21
Speaker 4: life off of the field, the results are going to
37:24
Speaker 4: show up. on the field. And I think that we're
37:27
Speaker 4: starting to see that the real manifestation of that look
37:31
Speaker 4: that the whole narrative before this game was that Utah
37:35
Speaker 4: hadn't played anybody. And it was true. They hadn't played
37:37
Speaker 4: anybody with a, a winning record and they'd had some
37:41
Speaker 4: lapses in certain games. And so a lot of people
37:44
Speaker 4: looking at the seat top team as, as a little
37:46
Speaker 4: bit of a paper tiger or certainly is untested. And
37:50
Speaker 4: I think that against Houston, they showed that that narrative
37:54
Speaker 4: isn't necessarily the right narrative. And we saw a toughness
38:00
Speaker 4: against Houston that was really good to see and welcoming
38:04
Speaker 4: on both sides of the ball, really, in terms of
38:08
Speaker 4: guys manning up and putting a hat on the guy
38:10
Speaker 4: across from them and owning their responsibilities and showing some
38:15
Speaker 4: physical dominance, especially in the trenches. We saw a team that,
38:19
Speaker 4: that had some adversity. Look, you, you look at that
38:23
Speaker 4: third quarter. So Utah goes down, you know, they're, they're
38:26
Speaker 4: down three, nothing at the half. They'd had the two
38:28
Speaker 4: minute drill and they missed the field goal. And so
38:31
Speaker 4: all of that momentum that they might have went away.
38:34
Speaker 4: They Houston goes in, they score on the first drive.
38:37
Speaker 4: And that first drive is usually really critical in, in
38:40
Speaker 4: setting the tone for the rest of the half. And
38:43
Speaker 4: so all All of a sudden you cause down 10
38:45
Speaker 4: points and they haven't touched the ball, you know, in
38:49
Speaker 4: 25 minutes of real time or 30 minutes of real time,
38:53
Speaker 4: because there was halftime and, and that eight minute drive
38:56
Speaker 4: that Houston had to open up the half and go
38:59
Speaker 4: up 10, nothing. And then Devin, Dan, Dan Pierce steps
39:03
Speaker 4: in and he makes it. He, he decides he's going
39:07
Speaker 4: to take this team and put them on his shoulders
39:10
Speaker 4: and do what needs to happen to, to, to go
39:14
Speaker 4: out and get the win. And so they drive the
39:16
Speaker 4: field and score that touchdown. That's arguably the most important
39:20
Speaker 4: drive of Devin vampire's career and showing what, what this
39:25
Speaker 4: team is made of, what he's made of as a leader.
39:29
Speaker 4: And then you just saw the use continue to punch.
39:32
Speaker 4: So every time that they faced adversity or something went
39:35
Speaker 4: that wasn't going their way, a bad penalty.
39:41
Speaker 7: A.
39:42
Speaker 4: Missed tackle, a missed coverage, they were able to recover
39:46
Speaker 4: both offensively and defensively and do enough. to, to take
39:50
Speaker 4: the lead and keep the lead. And then, you know,
39:53
Speaker 4: at the end of the game, you get, you know,
39:55
Speaker 4: the great teams, they make the right play at the
39:59
Speaker 4: right moment. And we saw that with Devin on the
40:01
Speaker 4: offense and leading them down the, to, to score the
40:05
Speaker 4: two touchdowns to put them ahead. And then of course
40:08
Speaker 4: the sack, right? Jackson, Benny, perfect blitz dial up, perfect
40:12
Speaker 4: execution on that. You know, you force that running back
40:15
Speaker 4: to make a choice in terms of who he's going
40:17
Speaker 4: to block. and Jackson comes home and, and, and is
40:22
Speaker 4: there to, to, to pick up the fumble and it's
40:25
Speaker 4: game over for all intents and purposes. So I love
40:28
Speaker 4: the resiliency. I love the toughness. Look, Utah may not
40:33
Speaker 4: go undefeated this year. They've got it. They've got a
40:35
Speaker 4: shot at it. Sure. But I have no doubt in
40:38
Speaker 4: my mind that this team Every single game, regardless of
40:43
Speaker 4: whether they're blowing the opponent out or they're facing adversity,
40:47
Speaker 4: that this team is going to man up, toughen up
40:51
Speaker 4: and show out and give their best. And I think
40:53
Speaker 4: that's what we saw against Houston.
40:57
Speaker 3: We've talked a lot about the timing and the perfect
41:00
Speaker 3: execution of that Jackson Benny blitz.
41:02
Speaker 2: That was the biggest play of the game. No doubt.
41:05
Speaker 3: But then Houston gets the ball back with two minutes
41:09
Speaker 3: to drive down. And I mean, Connor Wegman is very
41:11
Speaker 3: capable of doing that. He's very capable of executing and
41:14
Speaker 3: getting a two-point conversion and setting the game into overtime
41:18
Speaker 3: if the defense can't get a stop. And Colton Swan
41:21
Speaker 3: on that ensuing Houston drive stayed aggressive. What does that
41:25
Speaker 3: say about his belief in those pressures? What does it
41:30
Speaker 3: say period? Because there's two schools of thought there that
41:34
Speaker 3: you can just say, all right, let my DBS do
41:36
Speaker 3: what they do. We'll rush for, or I can, I
41:39
Speaker 3: can heat this quarterback up knowing how experienced Wegman is
41:42
Speaker 3: and how he's good at handling some of those situations.
41:46
Speaker 2: What'd you think about Colton Swan's end of game scenario?
41:50
Speaker 4: Look, I love that he stayed aggressive. We've seen in
41:54
Speaker 4: past years Utah have the lead and go into more
41:57
Speaker 4: of a prevent look, don't let anything over the top.
42:00
Speaker 4: And there's the joke that the only thing that prevent
42:03
Speaker 4: defense wins is defense. is the, is the game, right?
42:07
Speaker 4: It prevents the wind. But I look at that and
42:11
Speaker 4: that last drive and we went still had a couple
42:14
Speaker 4: of throws. There was that long throw over the top
42:16
Speaker 4: that got them down the field and into the twenties,
42:19
Speaker 4: I think the 23 year, the 26 where they had
42:20
Speaker 4: first and 10. and ample time to, to, to get
42:27
Speaker 4: in and score a touchdown and try to tie this
42:29
Speaker 4: thing up and that series. So once Houston gets the
42:33
Speaker 4: big play and they've got, they've got the ball relatively
42:38
Speaker 4: deep in Utah territory, Swan dials up four consecutive blitzes,
42:43
Speaker 4: bringing them from different parts of the field. And Houston
42:48
Speaker 4: doesn't complete anything on those. The last one, the fourth down,
42:51
Speaker 4: you know, the, the, the ball went into the end
42:53
Speaker 4: zone and it was, you know, two feet above the
42:55
Speaker 4: guy's head and And, and I just really love the
43:00
Speaker 4: gutsiness of Swan and what he did to dial up
43:04
Speaker 4: those blitzes to, to basically put it on his player's shoulders.
43:08
Speaker 4: I trust you. I trust you that you're going to
43:10
Speaker 4: go execute. Let's make this guy uncomfortable. Let's force this
43:14
Speaker 4: guy to make a perfect play to beat us. And
43:17
Speaker 4: he wasn't able to do it. Utah gets the ball
43:19
Speaker 4: back and they're able to kneel, kneel it out for
43:21
Speaker 4: the rest of the game. I thought it was, I
43:24
Speaker 4: loved the approach I love the calls. I love the
43:28
Speaker 4: execution and I hope to see more of it.
43:32
Speaker 3: You got a double wham with triple whammy right now,
43:34
Speaker 3: got to travel to the Eastern time zone. You're coming
43:37
Speaker 3: off an emotional victory and it's a look ahead spot
43:41
Speaker 3: because the rivalry game is next week. How does Utah
43:46
Speaker 3: avoid that triple kiss of death against the Cincinnati team?
43:49
Speaker 2: That is also coming off a huge win.
43:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, this is a much tougher matchup than we
43:57
Speaker 4: would have guessed before the season or even a couple
43:59
Speaker 4: of weeks ago, you know, Cincinnati, they've been a little
44:02
Speaker 4: bit up and down in conference play where, you know, they'll, yes,
44:06
Speaker 4: they had the big win over Texas tech who, you know, look, there,
44:09
Speaker 4: there are a lot of chinks in the armor for
44:10
Speaker 4: Texas tech, as much money as they're spending. And of
44:13
Speaker 4: course they've got their billionaire benefactor having meltdowns on social media,
44:18
Speaker 4: If you're not a tech fan, it's probably pretty entertaining
44:21
Speaker 4: to watch, but, but it was a big win for Cincinnati.
44:25
Speaker 4: So they're going to come off in a emotional high there,
44:28
Speaker 4: but look, it's tough to travel. It's tough to win
44:31
Speaker 4: on the road. Cincinnati has been great at home. but
44:35
Speaker 4: most of their, their failures this season have come on
44:38
Speaker 4: the road. And so, and that stadium is not an
44:42
Speaker 4: easy place to play. They went a lot of games there.
44:44
Speaker 4: Scott Satterfield's a pretty strong coach. He knows that, you know,
44:48
Speaker 4: Cincinnati got their butts whooped last you're in Utah. And,
44:52
Speaker 4: and so there's going to be some motivation there. It's,
44:55
Speaker 4: it's going to be less than the source of these stuff, but,
44:58
Speaker 4: but there there'll be motivation to, to prove themselves. And,
45:01
Speaker 4: and they've got some really good playmakers. They've got a
45:04
Speaker 4: great backfield, a cold tab, you know, had a marvelous
45:07
Speaker 4: game against, you Texas tech. And he's one of the
45:12
Speaker 4: premier backs in the league. And, and the brand pains
45:16
Speaker 4: is the other guy, you know, he's got, he's creeping
45:19
Speaker 4: up on 500 rushing yards, JC French, the quarterback, he
45:22
Speaker 4: can run it a little bit. And so it's going
45:24
Speaker 4: to be a run heavy offense. Utah is going to
45:26
Speaker 4: have to, to once again, stop the run and try
45:29
Speaker 4: to make them one dimensional, try to make JC French
45:33
Speaker 4: beat them with his arm. And, and, and he's shown
45:37
Speaker 4: to be a capable quarterback. It's one of the more
45:39
Speaker 4: surprising things about the big 12 is there are a
45:41
Speaker 4: lot of good quarterbacks in this league. And we didn't
45:43
Speaker 4: necessarily expect as many of them to step up as
45:46
Speaker 4: they have, but it's, The matchup is favorable enough for Utah. Look,
45:51
Speaker 4: Cincinnati's defenses as the kids say mid, right. And it'd
45:56
Speaker 4: be in literally like statistically in college football, they're, they're
45:59
Speaker 4: middle of the road and pretty much everything that they do.
46:03
Speaker 4: They've got a couple of really nice players and guys
46:05
Speaker 4: that will hurt you if you're not careful, but by
46:08
Speaker 4: and large, this is a defense that you should be
46:10
Speaker 4: able to move the ball on. And, and they should
46:14
Speaker 4: be able to put up a lot of points, Eastern
46:16
Speaker 4: time zone, notwithstanding, but this is a tough league to
46:19
Speaker 4: win on the road in. And this team, once again,
46:22
Speaker 4: they have to come in focused. They have to come
46:25
Speaker 4: in ready. They can't for a second, think about what's
46:27
Speaker 4: going to happen on November 7th, because if they lose
46:30
Speaker 4: this game, a lot of the meaning of that game
46:33
Speaker 4: gets taken away and they want to stay in the
46:35
Speaker 4: driver's seat. So I think we're going to see once again,
46:38
Speaker 4: a focused team that's living its culture and I expect
46:43
Speaker 4: them to come out with a win. I think it's
46:45
Speaker 4: going to probably be a little bit gnarly at times,
46:48
Speaker 4: and fans on X or the U-Zone message boards are
46:53
Speaker 4: going to be freaking out a little bit, but Utah's
46:56
Speaker 4: a better team than Cincinnati is. The opportunity is right
47:00
Speaker 4: for them. And once again, it's another opportunity to show
47:04
Speaker 4: off that thesis that Morgan Scali has, that culture rules all.
47:08
Speaker 4: And if you have the right culture and the players
47:11
Speaker 4: are actually living it, that the results are going to
47:13
Speaker 4: speak for themselves. But yeah, but this is by no
47:16
Speaker 4: means a gimme.
47:17
Speaker 2: I would be remiss if I didn't ask your thoughts
47:21
Speaker 2: on a 10 a.m. Holy war.
47:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't love that, mostly because I don't like
47:29
Speaker 4: getting up early on Saturday morning. It limits my Friday
47:31
Speaker 4: night opportunities. Look, I get the fact that the conference
47:40
Speaker 4: would want to take the premier game in the league
47:45
Speaker 4: and put it at a noon Eastern time slot where
47:49
Speaker 4: everybody can see it. These are two teams that, assuming
47:53
Speaker 4: they both win this coming weekend, they're still in prime
47:57
Speaker 4: slots for potentially making the college football playoff. The league
48:03
Speaker 4: wants to showcase what they're going to do.
48:05
Speaker 7: Um, day games.
48:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, they are different than night games. The atmosphere is different. Um,
48:12
Speaker 4: I don't know what Utah fans need to, uh, to
48:15
Speaker 4: do to kind of get in that night game state
48:17
Speaker 4: of mind, you know, extra coffee, extra Mountain Dew, extra
48:21
Speaker 4: diet Coke, like whatever your poison of choice is, you know,
48:25
Speaker 4: make sure you're loading up. Uh, uh, I, I do
48:28
Speaker 4: think that, uh, frankly, for my purposes, we cover so
48:31
Speaker 4: much recruiting. The 10 a.m. kickoff does screw up some
48:34
Speaker 4: of the recruiting efforts. Utah wanted to bring in a
48:36
Speaker 4: lot of guys from out of state, and these guys
48:38
Speaker 4: are playing on Friday nights, and so getting them into
48:41
Speaker 4: Salt Lake City in time for the game isn't necessarily
48:45
Speaker 4: in the cards, and so we're going to see that
48:47
Speaker 4: hurt a little bit on the recruiting front because you
48:49
Speaker 4: want to showcase your crowd in its best moments. Of course,
48:52
Speaker 4: they did that against Houston, and that was nice, and And,
48:57
Speaker 4: you know, and I know that the fans don't love
48:58
Speaker 4: the morning games, especially like we're in Utah, big families,
49:02
Speaker 4: everybody's playing, you know, some sort of a little league
49:05
Speaker 4: soccer or, or little league football or something like that.
49:09
Speaker 4: So I look, there might be a lot of, a
49:12
Speaker 4: lot of forfeits in those, in those little league games as,
49:16
Speaker 4: as people are coming to the game. But at the
49:19
Speaker 4: end of the day, I do think that the crowd's
49:21
Speaker 4: going to show up. They're going to show out. This
49:23
Speaker 4: has the potential to be the biggest and most impactful
49:27
Speaker 4: from a national prestige and rankings and playoffs. standpoint, holy
49:33
Speaker 4: war game that we've ever seen. And there are two
49:37
Speaker 4: teams that match up pretty well against each other. So
49:39
Speaker 4: it should be a dog fight. And so I just
49:42
Speaker 4: think that Utah fans, especially right. Like what we know
49:47
Speaker 4: it sucks. You don't want to get there at 10.
49:48
Speaker 4: You'd rather spend the day getting hyped up, but get
49:52
Speaker 4: over it and bring your best self. Cause this team
49:56
Speaker 4: fuels off of what you do and how you cheer and, and,
49:59
Speaker 4: There's an opportunity right in front of them to really
50:03
Speaker 4: make a splash to, and to get back on the
50:05
Speaker 4: winning side of that rivalry, which is something that I
50:08
Speaker 4: know that every Utah coach and player and fan desperately
50:12
Speaker 4: wants to see happen.
50:13
Speaker 3: Speaker 2, looking forward to this weekend, looking forward to
50:17
Speaker 3: next weekend, even more Dan and appreciate you giving us time.
50:21
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.
50:22
Speaker 4: Well, thanks for having me on. Have a great day, man.
50:25
Speaker 3: That is Dan Sorenson at youth zone. It's a youth
50:28
Speaker 3: zone Wednesday here. on the Sean O'Connell Show. Okay, quick break,
50:33
Speaker 3: quick hot lunch. A great comeback in the World Series,
50:37
Speaker 3: but arguably the second biggest comeback that happened in sports
50:40
Speaker 3: last night. James will tell you why on the Sean
50:42
Speaker 3: O'Connell Show, ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
50:52
Speaker 8: You're listening to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
50:55
Speaker 8: Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
51:05
Speaker 2: The hot lunch.
51:06
Speaker 3: We're talking comebacks on the hot lunch. You probably watch
51:09
Speaker 3: the Rays keep themselves alive.
51:12
Speaker 2: Extra innings in the World Series.
51:17
Speaker 3: But maybe you didn't watch the greatest comeback last night
51:20
Speaker 3: because that apparently happened in a random rec league basketball
51:23
Speaker 3: game where James Peterson led the charge on it.
51:28
Speaker 2: How many points were you down? Oh, see. It was incredible.
51:32
Speaker 2: It was 41-17 at halftime.
51:36
Speaker 4: Embarrassing?
51:37
Speaker 2: It was embarrassing.
51:38
Speaker 5: The other team couldn't miss and we couldn't put anything in.
51:43
Speaker 5: We looked like the Jazz out there turning the ball
51:45
Speaker 5: over every time we had a chance to do something
51:48
Speaker 5: with it. I will say this. There's hope for basketball
51:54
Speaker 5: in the Salt Lake Valley. The Jazz are not giving
51:56
Speaker 5: you that hope, but give me that.
51:59
Speaker 2: Which is our team name.
52:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, give me that. I was not part of the
52:03
Speaker 5: naming of the team, but I don't mind it either.
52:05
Speaker 2: Okay, it's fine. It's a fine name. Yeah.
52:10
Speaker 5: We will fill in that void of hope that the
52:13
Speaker 5: Jazz are not filling.
52:14
Speaker 2: Okay.
52:16
Speaker 5: So it's 41-17 at halftime, and I'm joking around like
52:20
Speaker 5: we got them right where we want them, guys. And
52:22
Speaker 5: then we had someone's girlfriend, wife, significant other, came around
52:28
Speaker 5: that time to watch, and someone joked, you got a
52:33
Speaker 5: halftime speech for us?
52:34
Speaker 2: And she's like, play hard. And I'm like, I'm inspired.
52:39
Speaker 5: And we make this flourishing comeback.
52:46
Speaker 2: We force overtime. I'm talking trash.
52:50
Speaker 5: I'm being super obnoxious to the other team trying to,
52:53
Speaker 5: because we're down the whole time. I'm telling guys that, like, yeah,
52:57
Speaker 5: This guy's handles terrible. Yelling at, yelling at people. I
53:00
Speaker 5: come in the game and I'm like, Hey dude, I'm
53:04
Speaker 5: sorry about obnoxious. I'm being, he's like.
53:07
Speaker 3: You can't apologize after your trash talk, James.
53:10
Speaker 5: There's a guy who looked like, who looked and played
53:12
Speaker 5: like Kelly Olenek. He's shooting clutch free throws. I'm like, Oh,
53:15
Speaker 5: Lennox going to miss this. Oh, Lennox going to brick.
53:17
Speaker 2: And then he did. So it worked.
53:20
Speaker 5: You can't apologize. Then listen, man. I, I was annoyed
53:25
Speaker 5: at how, how obnoxious I was being. So I'm like,
53:28
Speaker 5: I don't want these guys to want to fight me after.
53:31
Speaker 5: So we force overtime, and then we're up the whole overtime.
53:36
Speaker 5: I end up getting an incredible offensive rebound on a
53:39
Speaker 5: free throw that kind of seals the thing, slip through,
53:42
Speaker 5: tip it a couple of times, get fouled, hit two
53:44
Speaker 5: clutch free throws. It's what I do, OC, okay? We
53:47
Speaker 5: end up winning by five. After the game, we're like,
53:52
Speaker 5: How did that just happen? Did we really just do that?
53:55
Speaker 2: And we did. We did. 24-point comeback, win by five.
53:59
Speaker 2: Hold the opponent.
54:01
Speaker 5: I don't remember what their team name was, but hold
54:03
Speaker 5: the opponent to 18 points in the second half.
54:07
Speaker 2: So, I mean, you tell me.
54:09
Speaker 5: Rays attempting to be the first team in World Series
54:13
Speaker 5: history to come back from 3-0, and they had a
54:16
Speaker 5: little extra innings comeback after Cooper Pratt representing the The
54:22
Speaker 5: LDS faithful well with what looked like was going to
54:26
Speaker 5: be the World Series clinching home run for the Brewers,
54:28
Speaker 5: rookie shortstop. Rays end up getting five straight base runners
54:35
Speaker 5: and scoring two runs to win the game in 12 innings.
54:39
Speaker 5: Is that a better comeback or what we saw, what
54:43
Speaker 5: like 10 people saw? And millions of others are hearing
54:46
Speaker 5: about right now at Mill Creek Community Center. Those 10
54:49
Speaker 5: people will never forget.
54:51
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that.
54:52
Speaker 5: And everyone listening right now will never forget where they
54:55
Speaker 5: were when they heard that incredible comeback.
54:58
Speaker 3: More memorable sports moment in the last five days in
55:02
Speaker 3: the state of Utah. Jackson Benny's strip sack or James
55:06
Speaker 3: Peterson and Gimme Dad's comeback.
55:08
Speaker 8: Yeah.
55:08
Speaker 2: I'm putting it on the pole right now.
55:09
Speaker 5: Specifically my offensive rebound on the free throw that clinched
55:12
Speaker 5: the game specifically that one.
55:15
Speaker 7: Yes.
55:16
Speaker 3: When I think of the most memorable plays, it's always
55:18
Speaker 3: an offensive rebound always.
55:21
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was riding an incredible high last night.
55:23
Speaker 2: I get home.
55:24
Speaker 5: Don't even know what's going on in the world series.
55:25
Speaker 5: I'm like the game's still on. And it was an
55:29
Speaker 5: awesome ending to the world series game too.
55:32
Speaker 3: Not as awesome with the Utah mammoth last night against
55:35
Speaker 3: the Minnesota wild. We'll we'll talk about that. Zao Asian
55:39
Speaker 3: Cafe hooking you up with the hot lunch. I highly recommend.
55:44
Speaker 3: I did the natural chicken and the rice bowl. The
55:47
Speaker 3: next order, all right, here's what we're doing next, people.
55:51
Speaker 3: We're going to go Mongolian beef with the yakisoba noodles.
55:56
Speaker 3: Instead of the green curry, I think I'm going to
55:58
Speaker 3: go teriyaki. The chili lemongrass, I need to know exactly
56:03
Speaker 3: how spicy that is. I'm going to have to go Tuesday.
56:06
Speaker 3: Zao Asian Cafe. I'm going to have to do the
56:08
Speaker 3: pinky dip and just see, because I don't want something
56:11
Speaker 3: that's overly spicy. So Zao, we'll figure out exactly how
56:15
Speaker 3: spicy that is. And then when it comes to the toppings, corn, carrots, cilantro,
56:21
Speaker 3: pickled onions, and of course, optional guac.
56:25
Speaker 2: It's all of them. Peanuts, crispy onions as the garnish,
56:29
Speaker 2: all of it.
56:30
Speaker 7: All right.
56:30
Speaker 3: Maximize that Zao Asian Cafe bowl. And tell them OC
56:36
Speaker 3: sent you.
56:37
Speaker 5: The great thing about Zao, too, is not only is
56:39
Speaker 5: it really tasty, it's kind of.
56:42
Speaker 2: I don't know.
56:42
Speaker 5: I haven't looked in the nutrition facts, but looking at
56:45
Speaker 5: the ingredients and stuff, it feels like it's kind of
56:48
Speaker 5: a healthy option for you, too.
56:49
Speaker 3: It's definitely a lot healthier than most of your fast
56:52
Speaker 3: casual or fast food options. So if that's something that's
56:57
Speaker 3: important to you right now... Zao Asian cafe. We're going
57:00
Speaker 3: to be giving away Zao about it, a free lunch
57:04
Speaker 3: on the Zao Asian cafe. Uh, that'll be topical trivia
57:08
Speaker 3: at the end of the show up next. Uh, it's,
57:11
Speaker 3: we've been trying to make this happen. We're, we're probably
57:14
Speaker 3: the last people welcoming him in the market to the show.
57:17
Speaker 3: Shreyas Lada, the new Salt Lake Tribune jazz beat writer
57:21
Speaker 3: joins us on the other side to talk about a
57:23
Speaker 3: jazz team that, man, they got some bad news and
57:26
Speaker 3: some things to figure out all at once. ESPN 700
57:29
Speaker 3: and 92.1 FM.
57:36
Speaker 6: This is the.
57:37
Speaker 8: Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the best inside of
57:40
Speaker 8: your youths. Let's get back to OC from the Murdoch
57:43
Speaker 8: Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM. I'm hot
57:46
Speaker 8: and sweet from my head to.
57:48
Speaker 2: My feet, yeah. All right, it's long overdue.
57:58
Speaker 3: Happy now to welcome in Shreyas Lada, the new Salt
58:02
Speaker 3: Lake Tribune jazz beat writer to the Sean O'Connell Show.
58:05
Speaker 2: Shreyas, welcome. How are you, sir?
58:08
Speaker 3: Good, how are you?
58:09
Speaker 7: Thanks for the warm welcome.
58:11
Speaker 2: How is Salt Lake City treating you?
58:12
Speaker 3: I know that it's not like a lot of other
58:15
Speaker 3: places in the country. Have you found it to be
58:17
Speaker 3: to your liking so far?
58:19
Speaker 7: Yeah, I've liked it a lot. People are really nice.
58:23
Speaker 7: I like the downtown area quite a bit. I've never
58:27
Speaker 7: lived anywhere out west this far, so I'm still getting
58:30
Speaker 7: used to a lot of things. It's different. It's certainly
58:35
Speaker 7: different than Kansas. It's different than Georgia, where I mostly
58:38
Speaker 7: grew up, and it's been different than any of the
58:40
Speaker 7: stops I've lived at in my career.
58:41
Speaker 3: Okay, now I won't pretend to be unbiased, but I
58:44
Speaker 3: believe that the Mountain Time Zone... is elite for sports viewing. Now,
58:48
Speaker 3: I guess it depends on the sport, but you know,
58:51
Speaker 3: East coast, every game starts way too late. Central, I
58:55
Speaker 3: guess is not that different than the mountain time zone,
58:57
Speaker 3: but how have you found that adjustment? Because, you know,
59:00
Speaker 3: there's an hour difference, at least from your last stop
59:02
Speaker 3: in Kansas.
59:04
Speaker 7: I love it. You know, especially on a Sunday, you know,
59:07
Speaker 7: I wake up, uh, go to the gym, get a
59:11
Speaker 7: breakfast burrito, and then I sit and watch eight hours
59:14
Speaker 7: of NFL football from 11 a.m. until like 8 or something,
59:18
Speaker 7: or 8.30, and I'm like, oh, wow, I still got
59:20
Speaker 7: a couple hours in the day. It's nice.
59:23
Speaker 2: Yes, it's elite.
59:24
Speaker 3: People always, we're the flyover time zone. People forget that
59:28
Speaker 3: Mountain Time is... It's a great time to be awake
59:30
Speaker 3: and to be alive and be watching sports. Let's talk
59:33
Speaker 3: a little bit about this Utah jazz team. And obviously
59:36
Speaker 3: you knew on the beat, but you've got a little
59:39
Speaker 3: bit more experience with one of the most important players
59:41
Speaker 3: on this roster than the rest of us having covered
59:43
Speaker 3: Darren Peterson at Kansas. And I want to rewind a
59:48
Speaker 3: little bit, go back to, you know, that sort of
59:52
Speaker 3: complicated relationship, the media and Darren Peterson and the way
59:56
Speaker 3: he was covered and, played out at Kansas. I, we
59:59
Speaker 3: were watching him from a big 12 perspective, never know,
1:00:03
Speaker 3: not knowing at that point that he was going to
1:00:04
Speaker 3: be a Utah jazz man. And I was trying to
1:00:07
Speaker 3: figure out what the relationship with him and bill self was,
1:00:10
Speaker 3: what the relationship with him and basketball was, how much
1:00:13
Speaker 3: he really loved the game. And obviously you've, you've written
1:00:17
Speaker 3: a lot about this and you've taken a deep dive
1:00:18
Speaker 3: into it. So I wanted to Give an opportunity for
1:00:21
Speaker 3: our listeners who maybe haven't read the stuff for you
1:00:23
Speaker 3: to explain, like, kind of that miscommunication and, of course,
1:00:28
Speaker 3: the real relationship Darren Peterson has with the game of basketball.
1:00:33
Speaker 7: You know, I think it was a really difficult year
1:00:36
Speaker 7: for Darren in a lot of ways. It was probably
1:00:39
Speaker 7: the most difficult year of his basketball life. You know,
1:00:43
Speaker 7: he just was never fully healthy. Anytime at Kansas, I'd
1:00:47
Speaker 7: heard about the cramping a month or two after it happened,
1:00:50
Speaker 7: but it's one of those things where you don't want
1:00:52
Speaker 7: to be wrong in injuries, right? And you want him
1:00:55
Speaker 7: or his parents or his agent to say something about it.
1:00:58
Speaker 7: I think the way it was handled, if they could
1:01:01
Speaker 7: redo it, they'd probably do things differently. Keeping a lot
1:01:05
Speaker 7: of the media in the dark and letting things go
1:01:08
Speaker 7: out the way it did, I think, wasn't great. Kansas
1:01:11
Speaker 7: didn't do a great job. Peterson's camp didn't do a
1:01:13
Speaker 7: great job. But the idea that he doesn't care about
1:01:16
Speaker 7: basketball or he didn't care, it was completely untrue. I
1:01:20
Speaker 7: think there was just a lot at stake for him.
1:01:23
Speaker 7: He was the consensus number one coming into the year.
1:01:25
Speaker 7: And for a while there, you know, he was the
1:01:32
Speaker 7: guy until mid-February when AJ's playing 40 minutes a game
1:01:36
Speaker 7: and Darren can't finish the game. You know, so... He's
1:01:41
Speaker 7: a supremely talented basketball player, a great kid. I say kid,
1:01:46
Speaker 7: but he's not that much younger than me. But I
1:01:51
Speaker 7: think what happened at Kansas was just the worst possible
1:01:54
Speaker 7: scenario for him in that year. And I think we're
1:01:59
Speaker 7: seeing the real version of Darren Peterson, personality-wise and everything else,
1:02:04
Speaker 7: play out in Salt Lake. So.
1:02:08
Speaker 3: We've heard projections of him being the next Kobe Bryant.
1:02:13
Speaker 3: We've heard talks about how he's going to be the
1:02:15
Speaker 3: best player that this Utah Jazz franchise has had since
1:02:19
Speaker 3: John and Carl. I think it's unfair to do that
1:02:22
Speaker 3: to a guy who's still a rookie, but very obviously
1:02:25
Speaker 3: he has some of those tools.
1:02:27
Speaker 2: Very obviously he's.
1:02:28
Speaker 3: Got an elite basketball sense and the athleticism to go
1:02:31
Speaker 3: with it. When we talk about where he's at now
1:02:34
Speaker 3: versus his ceiling, how much growth and upward mobility is
1:02:38
Speaker 3: there in his game as we watch his career progress?
1:02:42
Speaker 7: I think there's a ton of growth. I think there's
1:02:44
Speaker 7: a ton of upwards mobility. Like we haven't even seen
1:02:47
Speaker 7: a fraction. I think of what Darren can become, you know,
1:02:50
Speaker 7: the shots aren't falling right now, but you can see
1:02:53
Speaker 7: the flashes of what, a player he is, you know,
1:02:56
Speaker 7: he's getting to his spots. He's doing what he wants defensively.
1:02:59
Speaker 7: He can improve. I think there's some moments where, you know,
1:03:02
Speaker 7: he's been over helping on defense and then having to
1:03:04
Speaker 7: go back and he gets burnt a little bit, being late,
1:03:08
Speaker 7: going back on three pointers. Like I like the comp of,
1:03:14
Speaker 7: you know, hopefully a little more defensively minded. Devin Booker
1:03:19
Speaker 7: is a good comp. I don't think Kobe's fair to him,
1:03:22
Speaker 7: but he just gets to his spots. And as one
1:03:24
Speaker 7: of his favorite players is Booker. And I think people
1:03:27
Speaker 7: think Kobe because of some of the way he plays,
1:03:30
Speaker 7: but Kobe had this unworthy athleticism and verse that I
1:03:34
Speaker 7: think just Darren doesn't have. And that's okay. Darren is
1:03:37
Speaker 7: a little, you know, taller guard than Kobe was. And yeah,
1:03:41
Speaker 7: he works very, very hard to be a good basketball player.
1:03:46
Speaker 7: He is a great work ethic like Kobe did. And that's,
1:03:49
Speaker 7: I think the only way the comp goes besides, you know,
1:03:52
Speaker 7: the mid range game a little bit, but I think
1:03:55
Speaker 7: he's going to be a special basketball player. I just
1:03:56
Speaker 7: think it's going to take time. And I think he's
1:03:58
Speaker 7: figuring things out because this Utah jazz team has three
1:04:02
Speaker 7: guys that who are better than him right now and
1:04:06
Speaker 7: above him in the pecking order, scoring-wise, between Jaron, Lowry,
1:04:10
Speaker 7: and Keontae. And I think there's this feeling from some
1:04:15
Speaker 7: people like him or our Darren Peterson fans or whatever
1:04:21
Speaker 7: that he needs to chuck up 30 shots a game.
1:04:23
Speaker 7: That was never going to happen in Utah. And I
1:04:27
Speaker 7: think him being surrounded by good basketball players is going
1:04:30
Speaker 7: to make him a better basketball player in the long run.
1:04:34
Speaker 3: When you mentioned that pecking order, no disagreement for me,
1:04:37
Speaker 3: but how long until Darren Peterson is expected to climb
1:04:42
Speaker 3: and to be a guy that's now your second option
1:04:44
Speaker 3: or eventually your first option? That's why they drafted him
1:04:47
Speaker 3: where they drafted him.
1:04:49
Speaker 7: You know, I think it just depends, right? Like it's,
1:04:51
Speaker 7: it's on him to take the reins of when does
1:04:54
Speaker 7: he become the guy, the jazz are trying to determine
1:04:56
Speaker 7: that if he is a guy, if he can become
1:04:59
Speaker 7: the guy, is he the number one option on a
1:05:01
Speaker 7: contending team in a playoff team? Is it in six months?
1:05:05
Speaker 4: Is it a year?
1:05:06
Speaker 7: Is it two years? I think it's, we're going to
1:05:10
Speaker 7: see the flash of him being second or third on
1:05:13
Speaker 7: the pecking order, you know, by the end of the year,
1:05:15
Speaker 7: I think if all goes right, Darren is third, like
1:05:20
Speaker 7: firmly third on that pecking order by the end of
1:05:22
Speaker 7: the year. And even if he isn't, I'm not super
1:05:25
Speaker 7: worried about it because like we talk about the Leafs
1:05:28
Speaker 7: guys have made between year one and two, look at
1:05:30
Speaker 7: Ace Bailey and how much better he looks on both
1:05:33
Speaker 7: ends of the court after one year, one off season.
1:05:37
Speaker 7: And it's something I've talked to about Will Hardy and
1:05:40
Speaker 7: Allison Ainge and different people in the front office is
1:05:43
Speaker 7: like the development of stars, like to become a superstar,
1:05:48
Speaker 7: to become a top 15, top 20 guy in the league.
1:05:52
Speaker 7: It usually doesn't happen until year three or four. Like
1:05:55
Speaker 7: you see guys become that good until year three or four.
1:05:58
Speaker 7: A good example of that is Jason Tatum, Caleb Brown.
1:06:02
Speaker 7: You know, you're seeing it even with Keontae going from
1:06:07
Speaker 7: year two to three, he became, you know, a near all-star.
1:06:12
Speaker 7: that development I think takes time and everyone wants things
1:06:17
Speaker 7: to happen tomorrow, but he's 19 years old and he's
1:06:22
Speaker 7: figuring things out and he's overthinking at times. And he's
1:06:26
Speaker 7: told me, you know, he's like, I worked too hard to,
1:06:30
Speaker 7: you know, be indecisive is the word he used, but
1:06:33
Speaker 7: he's like, I'm not worried about it. It's game three
1:06:35
Speaker 7: of 82. He said after the Pelicans game. So just
1:06:38
Speaker 7: give him time. And, and I think, his work ethic
1:06:42
Speaker 7: and his just, you know, basketball talent went out. And
1:06:46
Speaker 7: once the shots, you know, start falling, I think jazz
1:06:50
Speaker 7: fans are going to be really, really excited about what
1:06:51
Speaker 7: he can become.
1:06:53
Speaker 3: Salt Lake Tribune jazz insider Shreyas Lata is our guest
1:06:56
Speaker 3: here on the Sean O'Connell show talking all things Utah jazz.
1:06:59
Speaker 3: We've started with Darren Peterson, but now you get to
1:07:02
Speaker 3: some of the more veteran guys. And the unfortunate news is,
1:07:08
Speaker 3: You've got a couple of injuries, one that's significant. Jaron
1:07:11
Speaker 3: Jackson Jr. is going to be out for a couple
1:07:13
Speaker 3: of months now. Lowry Markkinen sounds like a relatively minor sprain,
1:07:18
Speaker 3: but it is on the shooting wrist. And as you
1:07:21
Speaker 3: ask these young players to kind of grow into themselves,
1:07:25
Speaker 3: for me it becomes a lot more difficult when they're
1:07:27
Speaker 3: not with the team that they're actually supposed to be with,
1:07:30
Speaker 3: when they don't have the guys like Triple J and
1:07:33
Speaker 3: Lowry on the court to help them. How big are
1:07:36
Speaker 3: those two injuries, especially so early in the season for
1:07:39
Speaker 3: the Utah Jazz?
1:07:41
Speaker 7: I think it's really difficult, right? Like, this team is
1:07:44
Speaker 7: trying to figure out how to play defense and build
1:07:47
Speaker 7: winning habits, and Jaron is the guy that's been to
1:07:50
Speaker 7: the playoffs before, a guy that is a big part
1:07:52
Speaker 7: of their defense. It's a guy they traded for that
1:07:55
Speaker 7: didn't get to play a lot of games last year
1:07:57
Speaker 7: with the core that they've built, and they just have
1:08:00
Speaker 7: a lot of new pieces. It's really, really, really... is hard.
1:08:05
Speaker 7: And it candidly sucks for jazz fans because like they
1:08:09
Speaker 7: haven't been able to see him, what this team is
1:08:11
Speaker 7: fully healthy on both ends of the court. And you
1:08:14
Speaker 7: see flashes of really good play, but they just, you know, it, it, it's,
1:08:18
Speaker 7: it's hard on the flip side. If with Darren being out,
1:08:22
Speaker 7: you'll see guys like Darren and John fan ACE have
1:08:26
Speaker 7: to take up the offensive load. And it's also on
1:08:28
Speaker 7: them to be a little better defensively. And you're hoping
1:08:31
Speaker 7: Lowry is back sooner rather than later because he's such
1:08:34
Speaker 7: a great offensive player. And he is one of the
1:08:37
Speaker 7: vets in the locker room to make them have the
1:08:41
Speaker 7: opportunity to build some continuity because hopefully in two weeks,
1:08:45
Speaker 7: Nurk is ready to come back and Lowry's back by
1:08:48
Speaker 7: then or if not earlier. And, you know, you feel
1:08:51
Speaker 7: a little better about what this team can be. It's
1:08:53
Speaker 7: really hard to build continuity if guys are getting injured
1:08:58
Speaker 7: and rotations are being impacted. But I do think there
1:09:02
Speaker 7: are some positive things that can come out of a
1:09:04
Speaker 7: really difficult situation like Jaron missing this much time. I
1:09:07
Speaker 7: think it's going to make Ace and know, Darren and
1:09:10
Speaker 7: Keontae have to step up offensively and defensively. And I
1:09:15
Speaker 7: think hopefully make them better in the long run. So
1:09:18
Speaker 7: when Jared does come back and Lowry is healthy and
1:09:20
Speaker 7: nerve is healthy, this team looks that much better.
1:09:23
Speaker 3: Speaker 2 you mentioned already ace Bailey a couple of times,
1:09:27
Speaker 3: and obviously, you know, he's not quite the headline bringer
1:09:31
Speaker 3: because he's not the highly drafted rookie anymore, but he
1:09:34
Speaker 3: is in his second year as a highly drafted rookie
1:09:37
Speaker 3: and a guy that similar to Darren Peterson, there was
1:09:40
Speaker 3: a certain narrative following him as he came to this franchise,
1:09:44
Speaker 3: and he's done nothing but, as far as we can tell,
1:09:47
Speaker 3: work hard, be a good teammate, be a professional about
1:09:51
Speaker 3: being a member of this Utah Jazz team, and we're
1:09:54
Speaker 3: starting to see the payoff from that. I guess similar
1:09:58
Speaker 3: to what I was asking you about, Darren Peterson, as
1:10:02
Speaker 3: Ace Bailey progresses towards his ceiling, how does it change
1:10:06
Speaker 3: his role with the Utah Jazz?
1:10:09
Speaker 7: The hope is that Ace Bailey and Darren Peterson are
1:10:14
Speaker 7: the guys. In some combination, they're a one and two
1:10:18
Speaker 7: on a championship contender or a playoff contender or a
1:10:21
Speaker 7: two and three or one and three or whatever. Who knows?
1:10:24
Speaker 7: It's about finding that one. And H Bailey has taken
1:10:29
Speaker 7: a significant step forward defensively, especially he looks a lot better.
1:10:33
Speaker 7: They're putting them on the guys like Tyra, Tyra Jerome,
1:10:37
Speaker 7: who was averaging 34 a game until, you know, having
1:10:40
Speaker 7: to come in and play ACE and the Utah jazz, this, uh,
1:10:45
Speaker 7: past couple of days and you're seeing him feel more
1:10:49
Speaker 7: confident offensively. He's crashing the boards. He's just playing like
1:10:53
Speaker 7: an excellent winning basketball player. And he talked about wanting
1:10:57
Speaker 7: to be a two-way star and stud. He has these
1:11:01
Speaker 7: amazing athleticism and gifts that I think Darren doesn't even
1:11:04
Speaker 7: quite have. The ceiling on Ace Bailey is hard to
1:11:08
Speaker 7: put a ceiling on him because he's it's up to
1:11:12
Speaker 7: him almost to continue to see how he develops.
1:11:14
Speaker 6: Right.
1:11:15
Speaker 7: And also see, you know, what this team looks like,
1:11:19
Speaker 7: not now, but three, four years from now is a
1:11:21
Speaker 7: guy like Lowry and Jerry Jackson. So there is eight
1:11:24
Speaker 7: going to be more on ball. If they're gone, like,
1:11:27
Speaker 7: is he going to have more of an offensive load
1:11:29
Speaker 7: because he's ready for that? You know, point of his career.
1:11:33
Speaker 7: That's questions and things they're still figuring out. And I
1:11:37
Speaker 7: think ACEs development alongside Darren's are probably the two most
1:11:42
Speaker 7: important things to watch if you're a jazz fan in
1:11:45
Speaker 7: the next two years, because if they are really good
1:11:48
Speaker 7: basketball players, if they become stars, well, then the jazz
1:11:53
Speaker 7: are in a really, really good position, I think, to
1:11:56
Speaker 7: make a run deep in the playoffs in a couple
1:11:58
Speaker 7: of years. it depends on how good these guys look.
1:12:03
Speaker 7: And I know it's easier said than done, but winning
1:12:06
Speaker 7: real basketball games, isn't just going to be based on
1:12:09
Speaker 7: Lowry and Darren's great play. They're going to have to
1:12:12
Speaker 7: do it behind Darren and ACE. If they wanted to
1:12:15
Speaker 7: come a real title contender in my mind.
1:12:20
Speaker 3: I know there's a lot of basketball left to play, but,
1:12:22
Speaker 3: but what's going wrong in these early outings for the
1:12:26
Speaker 3: Utah jazz? I mean, It's not fair to think that
1:12:30
Speaker 3: they're just going to completely 180 and be an instant
1:12:33
Speaker 3: playoff contender. And maybe they maybe they do end up
1:12:37
Speaker 3: making the playoffs, but they don't look like that right now.
1:12:40
Speaker 3: At first it was, you know, getting out rebounded and
1:12:43
Speaker 3: then turnovers. What's going wrong with this Utah Jazz squad?
1:12:49
Speaker 7: I think it's just guys haven't played together. You know,
1:12:51
Speaker 7: like this is a really new team pulled with a
1:12:53
Speaker 7: lot of new faces. They're still figuring out rotations. We'll
1:12:58
Speaker 7: still trying different things, trying to figure out how we
1:13:01
Speaker 7: want to play with who guys are trying to figure
1:13:04
Speaker 7: out their role of what they can be or some
1:13:07
Speaker 7: can become defensively. Like you can see them have some
1:13:11
Speaker 7: good moments, but they're still not there yet. You know,
1:13:14
Speaker 7: it's just too many open three pointers. Offensively, there's this
1:13:18
Speaker 7: over dribbling reliance sometimes that it's leading to turnovers. You know,
1:13:23
Speaker 7: guys like I see a Collier and Keontae, Keontae has
1:13:26
Speaker 7: looked really, really great offensively, especially sharing and playmaking. But
1:13:30
Speaker 7: there are moments where they over dribble or they're a
1:13:32
Speaker 7: little out of control. To me, I've been really encouraged
1:13:36
Speaker 7: by their play. And I know I sound like I'm
1:13:38
Speaker 7: coping and I know jazz fans don't want to hear
1:13:40
Speaker 7: it because they've lost basketball games, but like, They almost
1:13:44
Speaker 7: beat a grizzly team that hasn't lost this year down
1:13:46
Speaker 7: for rotation. Bigs last night, they kept up with Luca
1:13:52
Speaker 7: and Austin Reeves the other night when Luca dropped 52.
1:13:56
Speaker 7: And I had a big part of that was the
1:13:57
Speaker 7: jazz just didn't defend him. Well, then another part of
1:14:00
Speaker 7: it was Luca was making everything, no matter who defended
1:14:03
Speaker 7: him and who put the head in his face and
1:14:04
Speaker 7: who did what. It's going to take time. It's going
1:14:08
Speaker 7: to take time to change losing habits into winning habits.
1:14:12
Speaker 7: It's going to take time for these guys to figure
1:14:14
Speaker 7: out their role and what they can do, how they
1:14:17
Speaker 7: play together. I, my hope for this team was never
1:14:22
Speaker 7: a definitive playoff seed. The hope was they can be
1:14:25
Speaker 7: a play in team. I don't think that's out of
1:14:27
Speaker 7: the question. It just becomes so much harder now because
1:14:30
Speaker 7: Jaron Jackson is, He's missing the amount of time he is.
1:14:33
Speaker 7: And Nurk is out. And we don't know how long
1:14:36
Speaker 7: Lowry's out and if Jackson Hayes is back and all that.
1:14:39
Speaker 7: But it's about showing good habits to become a winning team.
1:14:47
Speaker 7: More so than just winning basketball games on the backs
1:14:50
Speaker 7: of Larry and Jared Jackson. You want the young guys
1:14:53
Speaker 7: to look like they can understand what it takes to
1:14:57
Speaker 7: win and develop and hopefully go on a run somewhere
1:15:01
Speaker 7: this season when everyone's fully healthy.
1:15:06
Speaker 3: Wemby, you have not covered the NBA extensively before. Is
1:15:10
Speaker 3: this your first time in the building with Wemby?
1:15:14
Speaker 7: I got to see him in the preseason, but yeah,
1:15:17
Speaker 7: this is the first time watching Wendy. You know, I,
1:15:20
Speaker 7: I was watching him in pregame and preseason and I
1:15:23
Speaker 7: had a office member in the jazz and we were
1:15:26
Speaker 7: just talking and he was like, he's unreal. He's an alien.
1:15:28
Speaker 7: And he is like, it's just nuts watching him warm
1:15:30
Speaker 7: up and how skilled he is at that light and
1:15:33
Speaker 7: how difficult he makes things for opponents and his ability
1:15:36
Speaker 7: to shoot over everybody and kind of do whatever he wants.
1:15:39
Speaker 7: He just changes the game. The best way to describe
1:15:44
Speaker 7: it is he's a once-in-a-generation type NBA player. And the
1:15:48
Speaker 7: Jazz are going to have their hands filled with him today, certainly,
1:15:53
Speaker 7: especially if they are missing Lowry and if they are
1:15:56
Speaker 7: missing Jackson Hayes. So it should be a ton of fun.
1:16:00
Speaker 7: I'm really excited to see what they try to do
1:16:02
Speaker 7: and how they force him to make him if they
1:16:05
Speaker 7: can make him uncomfortable. And I bet you will see
1:16:07
Speaker 7: some ACE Bailey on Wendy at times. And I'm excited
1:16:09
Speaker 7: to see that matchup at different times because ACE seems
1:16:12
Speaker 7: to have taken the liking to being the guy who
1:16:14
Speaker 7: can stop the best offensive player.
1:16:18
Speaker 3: Well, we'll adjust these expectations as the season progresses, but
1:16:23
Speaker 3: is this jazz team, a play in team, a playoff team,
1:16:27
Speaker 3: and also ran an outside looking in like they've been
1:16:29
Speaker 3: for the last several years.
1:16:32
Speaker 7: That's a really hard question because it's, I don't know
1:16:35
Speaker 7: what the Jesse myths, right? Like we're, we're trying to
1:16:38
Speaker 7: figure out what they are, but they just don't have
1:16:40
Speaker 7: any continuity from last year. But on top of that,
1:16:44
Speaker 7: like there's so many young guys and they also have injuries. Like,
1:16:48
Speaker 7: I think if fully healthy, like Karen comes back and
1:16:51
Speaker 7: come back sooner or later and, and Lowry and Jackson
1:16:54
Speaker 7: Hayes are playing within the next week, they can be
1:16:56
Speaker 7: a play in team. But I think there's going to
1:16:58
Speaker 7: be really some moments of ugliness at this point in
1:17:01
Speaker 7: the season, just because they're playing some really good teams.
1:17:04
Speaker 7: Like you're playing the Spurs, you're playing the undefeated trailblazers
1:17:07
Speaker 7: on Saturday. Then you, you know, have to travel to,
1:17:12
Speaker 7: to play the Spurs again, then New Orleans and Dallas,
1:17:15
Speaker 7: like these are all good basketball teams and you're playing
1:17:18
Speaker 7: it on the road soon. It's going to be hard
1:17:21
Speaker 7: and it's going to be the honest, it's going to
1:17:22
Speaker 7: be on the young guys. And there's going to be
1:17:23
Speaker 7: some moments of brilliance and some moments of like, man,
1:17:26
Speaker 7: they're just not there yet. My prediction before the season
1:17:30
Speaker 7: was the plan. I think it's slightly lower than that.
1:17:33
Speaker 7: Maybe right outside the plan with the Jaron Jackson injury.
1:17:36
Speaker 7: But Who knows? Maybe they find something and they got
1:17:41
Speaker 7: a little run. And I think there's going to be
1:17:42
Speaker 7: a point in January, hopefully, where they win five straight
1:17:45
Speaker 7: games in a row because things are just clicking.
1:17:50
Speaker 3: Shreyas, appreciate you giving us some time today. Look forward
1:17:53
Speaker 3: to many more of these conversations as the season continues.
1:17:56
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.
1:17:58
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
1:17:59
Speaker 7: Thanks for having me.
1:18:00
Speaker 3: Shreyas, a lot of the new jazz beat writer over
1:18:03
Speaker 3: at the Salt Lake Tribune used to cover Kansas. Oops
1:18:07
Speaker 3: and football over there. And obviously knows Darren Peterson very,
1:18:10
Speaker 3: very well. Or as well as anyone can. Daily Dump
1:18:17
Speaker 3: is coming next, including some really significant news about, I think,
1:18:22
Speaker 3: inarguably the best studio show in all of sports inside
1:18:27
Speaker 3: the NBA.
1:18:29
Speaker 2: CSPN 700, 92 on FM. Feeling out of the loop?
1:18:38
Speaker 8: Let's catch up on today's biggest headlines in the Daily
1:18:40
Speaker 8: News Dump, where we flush out the biggest stories of
1:18:43
Speaker 8: the day on the Sean O'Connell Show and Utah's number
1:18:47
Speaker 8: one sports talk, ESPN 790. to you by Valley Plumbing, Heating,
1:18:53
Speaker 8: and Cooling. Just look for the truck with the duck.
1:19:05
Speaker 2: Ernie is leaving.
1:19:08
Speaker 3: Terrible news if you're Bert from Sesame Street or if
1:19:12
Speaker 3: you are an NBA fan who watches Ernie on Inside
1:19:17
Speaker 3: the NBA with Shaq and Chuck and company.
1:19:22
Speaker 2: He says it's time.
1:19:23
Speaker 3: He says he's going to step away after this season
1:19:26
Speaker 3: on Inside the NBA. Remember, we almost lost Inside the
1:19:32
Speaker 3: NBA completely, and for once, the network's We're like, you
1:19:36
Speaker 3: know what, we need to make sure that even though
1:19:38
Speaker 3: TNT and the NBA aren't going to continue their relationship,
1:19:41
Speaker 3: that we give the fans what they want and we
1:19:43
Speaker 3: keep this thing alive. And so there were buyouts and
1:19:47
Speaker 3: contract releases and things like that.
1:19:49
Speaker 2: And it was in the best interest of NBA fans.
1:19:53
Speaker 3: And Ernie is, I don't know who else could do
1:19:58
Speaker 3: that job with the kind of aplomb that he does.
1:20:03
Speaker 3: because you've got these three massive personalities. Sometimes they're bickering
1:20:07
Speaker 3: like children and Ernie manages, handles it as well as anyone.
1:20:11
Speaker 3: He's got such an eye and an ear for when
1:20:15
Speaker 3: you got to let the guys go for when you
1:20:16
Speaker 3: got to step in for when it's time to interrupt them.
1:20:19
Speaker 3: So you can go to break any notes, a relationship business.
1:20:23
Speaker 3: So like he obviously has real friendships with all those guys.
1:20:26
Speaker 3: He's very well respected. It's a loss for the broadcast,
1:20:30
Speaker 3: for the NBA, for everybody, but, If that show continues,
1:20:34
Speaker 3: what a massive opportunity for whoever gets to step into
1:20:37
Speaker 3: his role.
1:20:38
Speaker 5: It really is. I have someone, my guess is who
1:20:43
Speaker 5: it might be, but just to add to what you
1:20:45
Speaker 5: were talking about, his feel for how to work with Shaq, Chuck,
1:20:51
Speaker 5: and Kenny. Kenny the Jetsmith's been with Ernie on Inside
1:20:57
Speaker 5: the NBA since the late 90s, so that's about a
1:21:00
Speaker 5: 30-year period. relationship on TV anyway, with those two. And
1:21:05
Speaker 5: then Chuck came in after he retired a few years later.
1:21:08
Speaker 5: So that's a 25 plus year relationship with those three.
1:21:11
Speaker 5: Shaq's been there since he retired of like 2011, 2012,
1:21:14
Speaker 5: whenever he stepped in there. So that's about 15 years.
1:21:19
Speaker 5: Like that's a result of just all that time together.
1:21:24
Speaker 1: Right.
1:21:25
Speaker 5: And that's one of the things that I loved about
1:21:29
Speaker 5: how TNT handled that show. One of the things we're
1:21:31
Speaker 5: not seeing with ESPN right now, giving up on, on
1:21:38
Speaker 5: talent too early, giving maybe, maybe that's the wrong way
1:21:44
Speaker 5: to characterize it. Making talent changes too often. It's not
1:21:48
Speaker 5: just ESPN. We see it in local markets too. Like
1:21:52
Speaker 5: you need time to make good Television. You need time
1:21:56
Speaker 5: to make good media. You need time to make good radio.
1:21:59
Speaker 5: And if you don't give your talent enough time to
1:22:01
Speaker 5: establish themselves, you don't get anything near as good as
1:22:05
Speaker 5: what Ernie Johnson has been able to deliver with those
1:22:07
Speaker 5: three massive personalities, as you said, on Inside the NBA.
1:22:11
Speaker 5: And now for the guy, my guess is who's going
1:22:14
Speaker 5: to take over for him. I think it's Adam Lefkoe.
1:22:17
Speaker 5: He's TNT studio anchor. He when TNT still had the NBA,
1:22:24
Speaker 5: he did the, it wasn't called inside the NBA, but
1:22:26
Speaker 5: he did the studio show with Shaq and D Wade
1:22:30
Speaker 5: was on that one. And Candace Parker was for a while. So,
1:22:34
Speaker 5: and he's filled in for, for Ernie, I think sometimes
1:22:37
Speaker 5: on inside the NBA. So he already knows those guys
1:22:41
Speaker 5: pretty well. I'm going to guess that it's probably him.
1:22:45
Speaker 2: Whoever it is.
1:22:46
Speaker 3: It's always tough to follow the legend, but what a
1:22:49
Speaker 3: great opportunity. Although I wouldn't be surprised to see with
1:22:53
Speaker 3: this decision, you know, one or multiple of the remaining
1:22:58
Speaker 3: three be like, yeah, you know, if I'm not working
1:23:00
Speaker 3: with Ernie, then maybe it's time to turn the page
1:23:03
Speaker 3: and do something different.
1:23:04
Speaker 2: Who knows?
1:23:04
Speaker 3: I don't know what anyone's contracts look like.
1:23:06
Speaker 6: I don't.
1:23:07
Speaker 2: We'll see right now. It's about Ernie is leaving. That's
1:23:10
Speaker 2: a bummer.
1:23:10
Speaker 3: But congratulations to him on an absolutely phenomenal career capped
1:23:14
Speaker 3: off with, you know, iconic status of inside the NBA.
1:23:19
Speaker 2: And yeah. I guess fare thee well, my friend.
1:23:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, hopefully this doesn't break up the show completely, but
1:23:27
Speaker 5: you could see that certainly happening, but we don't need
1:23:29
Speaker 5: to talk about that right now because they have a
1:23:32
Speaker 5: whole season. Ernie's sticking around for the rest of the season,
1:23:34
Speaker 5: and right now he's the only one who's announced this.
1:23:37
Speaker 3: The update on the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries conversation,
1:23:43
Speaker 3: the WNBA Finals, Game 6 being moved up to 10.30 a.m.
1:23:49
Speaker 2: Mountain Time, 12.30 local. On Thursday, they're.
1:23:53
Speaker 3: Using the same arena as the Atlanta Hawks. The changeover
1:23:57
Speaker 3: means that the celebration, if there is one, for the
1:24:00
Speaker 3: Valkyries will be moved to an adjacent practice court. Journalists
1:24:05
Speaker 3: covering the game will have to do their interviews.
1:24:08
Speaker 2: Not on the floor, and it's just going to be
1:24:10
Speaker 2: a weird deal.
1:24:12
Speaker 3: And everyone in and around the WNBA is now crying
1:24:16
Speaker 3: foul and up in arms over the fact that It's
1:24:21
Speaker 3: not being, this is a finals game. It's a championship
1:24:24
Speaker 3: potential ceiling game. And it's not being given the place
1:24:27
Speaker 3: that it quote unquote deserves. And really, unfortunately what you
1:24:32
Speaker 3: deserve is what you negotiate for and what you get.
1:24:35
Speaker 3: And that that's in every business. And I've learned that
1:24:38
Speaker 3: lesson the hard way many times, but Atlanta apparently sent
1:24:44
Speaker 3: a notice a couple of months ago, like, Hey, there's,
1:24:49
Speaker 3: going to be potential conflicts with the WNBA final schedule
1:24:53
Speaker 3: if the dream make it. And nobody really thought it
1:24:57
Speaker 3: through because that's not the Hawks' responsibility.
1:24:59
Speaker 2: They're not.
1:25:02
Speaker 3: Interested necessarily in what the dream are doing on a
1:25:05
Speaker 3: serious level with their schedule. And when you're projecting and prognosticating, hey,
1:25:10
Speaker 3: this might happen, it's harder for teams to take it
1:25:14
Speaker 3: into account. It's a really bum deal. We've talked about it.
1:25:18
Speaker 3: But It's a problem that hopefully will be rectified with
1:25:22
Speaker 3: better decision-making in the future. And in this particular case,
1:25:26
Speaker 3: it's going to be rectified by them sharing the arena
1:25:30
Speaker 3: in the future. So those, those dates will not be
1:25:33
Speaker 3: scheduled concurrent to one another. It will be planned around.
1:25:37
Speaker 3: There's a lot of, a lot of folks on one
1:25:40
Speaker 3: side of the argument saying like, oh, well, the Hawks
1:25:42
Speaker 3: should just move their game. The Hawks should get out
1:25:44
Speaker 3: of the way. And that's honestly, honestly, It's not realistic.
1:25:51
Speaker 3: The other thing, and I saw an interesting piece on
1:25:53
Speaker 3: this here is the dream had their own home arena
1:25:56
Speaker 3: this year and it was too small.
1:25:58
Speaker 2: It was deemed to be too.
1:25:59
Speaker 3: Small for the finals and they wanted to sell an
1:26:03
Speaker 3: extra roughly 10,000 tickets to the finals games over what they,
1:26:07
Speaker 3: they can have at their normal home arena.
1:26:10
Speaker 2: And the breakdown was pretty sobering.
1:26:13
Speaker 3: Like all of this firestorm, all this craziness was was
1:26:16
Speaker 3: potentially so the owner could make another $ 250, 000 because you're
1:26:23
Speaker 3: not paying a ton of money for even a WNBA
1:26:28
Speaker 3: finals ticket. If the tickets average, even a hundred dollars, right? 10,000
1:26:36
Speaker 3: times a hundred is a million dollars. It's an owner
1:26:41
Speaker 3: who already is wealthy saying, I want to make an
1:26:43
Speaker 3: extra million bucks. And because of that, the players are
1:26:48
Speaker 3: going to be asked to sacrifice the right treatment, the
1:26:53
Speaker 3: right media coverage, the right opportunity to celebrate on a floor. Now, again,
1:26:59
Speaker 3: if you're a dream owner, you're like, well, the only
1:27:02
Speaker 3: one who's going to close it out on this floor
1:27:03
Speaker 3: is the away team anyway. So I don't care if
1:27:05
Speaker 3: they get what they're supposed to have. And it just
1:27:08
Speaker 3: becomes this like big, ugly media story because of a
1:27:11
Speaker 3: lack of planning and foresight and attention to the details.
1:27:16
Speaker 3: And in this case, the detail being like, all right,
1:27:18
Speaker 3: what is the cost basis difference? What is the profit
1:27:21
Speaker 3: difference between doing it at a regular arena and doing
1:27:26
Speaker 3: it at the Hawks arena? And even if he only
1:27:29
Speaker 3: had to do that for one game, what we're seeing
1:27:32
Speaker 3: now is it probably would have been better to have
1:27:34
Speaker 3: done it for just the one game at the smaller arena,
1:27:37
Speaker 3: but it is what it is at this point.
1:27:40
Speaker 5: Yeah. I, I tend to, find fault with the NBA
1:27:47
Speaker 5: in this more than more than with anybody else and
1:27:51
Speaker 5: I'll say it I'll say I say that because the
1:27:55
Speaker 5: NBA owns the WNBA and the NBA makes the schedules
1:28:00
Speaker 5: for all their teams right we we heard a little
1:28:03
Speaker 5: bit more about that when Adam Silver said publicly hey
1:28:06
Speaker 5: LeBron do you want to do you want to choose
1:28:08
Speaker 5: a team already? It was like early, it was almost
1:28:10
Speaker 5: mid August, right? When he said that you want to
1:28:12
Speaker 5: choose a team already so we can make our schedule.
1:28:15
Speaker 5: So we, we got a little insight on that based
1:28:18
Speaker 5: on those comments. So the WNBA or the NBA, which
1:28:22
Speaker 5: owns another professional basketball league.
1:28:26
Speaker 7: Yes.
1:28:26
Speaker 5: Of course you can't predict that any two particular teams
1:28:29
Speaker 5: are going to be in the finals, but like maybe
1:28:31
Speaker 5: the hawks owner doesn't own the dream he doesn't but
1:28:35
Speaker 5: the nba has nba is the one that makes the
1:28:38
Speaker 5: schedule i i i don't think that i agree with
1:28:41
Speaker 5: you and other people have said the hawks have no
1:28:43
Speaker 5: obligation to do to adjust anything the nba could have
1:28:47
Speaker 5: done something two months ago they could have to make
1:28:50
Speaker 5: sure that there would be a place for their other
1:28:56
Speaker 5: team here in a different league, but it's still their team,
1:29:00
Speaker 5: the Atlanta dream so that they wouldn't have to play
1:29:02
Speaker 5: in a 3,500 seat arena in the finals, which by
1:29:04
Speaker 5: the way, would be frankly embarrassing. And you, I don't
1:29:07
Speaker 5: think you should embarrass your team like that. Even if
1:29:09
Speaker 5: that's not their home arena going into the playoffs.
1:29:12
Speaker 3: What's more embarrassing for the league, a small arena or
1:29:16
Speaker 3: being shoot off the court so that the boys can play.
1:29:19
Speaker 2: They shouldn't.
1:29:20
Speaker 5: They, I mean, both things are very embarrassing, but at
1:29:25
Speaker 5: least they're in front of it, a, a, proper crowd
1:29:30
Speaker 5: in this case.
1:29:30
Speaker 3: Until the, then that crowd is also shoot out of
1:29:33
Speaker 3: the building. So the boys can play. It's bad all around.
1:29:36
Speaker 3: They're not shoot during the game though. Like this is
1:29:39
Speaker 3: a bet. This is a terrible situation.
1:29:41
Speaker 5: It's better than playing in 3,500 in front of 3,500
1:29:43
Speaker 5: people in your potential championship clinching game. And the NBA
1:29:48
Speaker 5: should have, could have, I believe that they probably could
1:29:51
Speaker 5: have prevented this two months ago.
1:29:53
Speaker 2: I you're you're, I think you're absolutely right.
1:29:57
Speaker 3: I think that the main issue that we're seeing here
1:30:03
Speaker 3: with the WNBA is that.
1:30:08
Speaker 2: They want.
1:30:11
Speaker 3: To be treated and viewed on the same level as
1:30:15
Speaker 3: a league and a sport that has been around for
1:30:18
Speaker 3: 50 years longer than they have and has had 70
1:30:22
Speaker 3: more years of real attention. And it sucks. The problem
1:30:30
Speaker 3: doesn't solve itself. People have to be in. And according
1:30:35
Speaker 3: to the dream, they were advocating for themselves. And we're saying, hey,
1:30:38
Speaker 3: we sent a letter. And if there's more you can
1:30:41
Speaker 3: do beyond that, I hope you do it next time.
1:30:45
Speaker 3: But it's a really unfortunate situation with the WNBA finals.
1:30:49
Speaker 3: And these owners only have their own pocketbooks in mind.
1:30:54
Speaker 3: And we have to remember that. because they're not doing
1:30:56
Speaker 3: what is right by the players in more situations than
1:31:00
Speaker 3: not for sure. This coming out in college football world,
1:31:04
Speaker 3: Dante Moore, who started the season as one of the
1:31:08
Speaker 3: like top quarterbacks in the country at the university of Oregon,
1:31:12
Speaker 3: not likely to return this season after a concussion on
1:31:16
Speaker 3: what was deemed to be a dirty illegal hit.
1:31:19
Speaker 2: Um, He could have gone to the draft last year.
1:31:23
Speaker 3: He probably would have been a top five quarterback taken
1:31:25
Speaker 3: in the NFL draft last year, decided to come back
1:31:27
Speaker 3: to Oregon. That has not worked out on any front.
1:31:35
Speaker 3: Very unlikely he's going to play for the rest of
1:31:37
Speaker 3: the season at Oregon. Kind of a wasted year of
1:31:41
Speaker 3: football for him. I still don't know if these contracts
1:31:45
Speaker 3: in college football have offset language when it comes to
1:31:49
Speaker 3: your NIL deals and the reported $ 7 million that he's
1:31:53
Speaker 3: being paid to play there. Is he, is he actually
1:31:57
Speaker 3: going to get it? So huge bum deal for him.
1:32:04
Speaker 3: On the other hand, he's not the only quarterback who's
1:32:07
Speaker 3: out for the season. Kamarian Taylor, who unlike Dante Moore
1:32:12
Speaker 3: was not hyped up and talked about preseason burst onto
1:32:17
Speaker 3: the scene for Mississippi state. was one of the great
1:32:20
Speaker 3: stories in college football because everyone immediately was just like,
1:32:23
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, this kid's so incredible.
1:32:25
Speaker 2: He's not going to stay at Mississippi state.
1:32:27
Speaker 3: And he was like, I absolutely am going to say
1:32:29
Speaker 3: at Mississippi state, you people don't realize this is my life.
1:32:33
Speaker 3: He loves the school so much now, whether or not
1:32:35
Speaker 3: he ever transfers, like let the kid be what he
1:32:38
Speaker 3: wants to be, but he's been, he was a great story.
1:32:40
Speaker 3: And now he is out for the season for Mississippi state,
1:32:43
Speaker 3: which they had a chance to pull off some upsets and,
1:32:48
Speaker 3: caused some.
1:32:48
Speaker 2: Trouble in the sec with him. They have no such
1:32:51
Speaker 2: chance without him.
1:32:53
Speaker 3: I mean, he is, I think one of the top
1:32:54
Speaker 3: 10 overall players in all of college football and in
1:32:58
Speaker 3: crazy dynamic, very exciting. All I like the Pat white,
1:33:02
Speaker 3: the Michael Vick, that kind of style of college football.
1:33:05
Speaker 3: And now he's out for the rest of the year.
1:33:07
Speaker 3: So sorry, Mississippi state, you don't get invited to the party.
1:33:12
Speaker 3: This one, a funny story in the daily dump brought
1:33:14
Speaker 3: to you by our friends over at Valley plumbing, heating,
1:33:16
Speaker 3: and cooling.
1:33:17
Speaker 2: The San Francisco 49ers.
1:33:19
Speaker 3: Had their company Halloween party, and one of their employees
1:33:24
Speaker 3: put out a video on everyone's costumes and people dancing
1:33:29
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. And you remember there was the
1:33:32
Speaker 3: news story of the guy in the Bay Area who
1:33:35
Speaker 3: was faking out women specifically, pretending that he was a wide.
1:33:41
Speaker 2: Receiver for the San Francisco 49ers.
1:33:43
Speaker 3: He had a bunch of pictures of him in a
1:33:46
Speaker 3: Niners uniform with a Niners helmet. And he was scamming
1:33:49
Speaker 3: women into giving him money and like giving him dates.
1:33:55
Speaker 3: We'll say that the family friendly way, giving him dates
1:33:58
Speaker 3: because he was a San Francisco 49ers player. And it
1:34:03
Speaker 3: turns out that he was not, he never was. He
1:34:06
Speaker 3: was just like a dude that was good at faking it.
1:34:09
Speaker 3: And somebody at this, the actual San Francisco 49ers Halloween party,
1:34:15
Speaker 3: came dressed as that guy, as Dajon Love.
1:34:18
Speaker 7: Incredible.
1:34:19
Speaker 3: Incredible, incredible costume. Do we know which player it was?
1:34:23
Speaker 3: It was an employee.
1:34:25
Speaker 2: It wasn't a player. It was an employee party. Gotcha.
1:34:27
Speaker 3: Ticket guy, whatever. Just absolutely fantastic costume choice. And I'm
1:34:33
Speaker 3: not like, I don't ever put any thought into a
1:34:35
Speaker 3: Halloween costume. Nine times out of ten, I don't wear one.
1:34:38
Speaker 3: But that's a win. If you can pull that off,
1:34:43
Speaker 3: I acknowledge great creativity on that front. I just told
1:34:46
Speaker 3: you about the college football injuries. Anthony Edwards, Ant-Man, is
1:34:50
Speaker 3: also out for two months. He and Jaron Jackson Jr.
1:34:53
Speaker 3: can be on the knee injury train together. Now, that's
1:34:57
Speaker 3: a Western Conference team. That's their best player. They're still
1:35:01
Speaker 3: very talented.
1:35:01
Speaker 5: They just traded for LaMelo Ball at the end of
1:35:04
Speaker 5: the offseason, right? But there's the silver lining. For the Jazz,
1:35:09
Speaker 5: they're going through. Some injury, an injury to one of
1:35:13
Speaker 5: their important players, but also another Western conference team might
1:35:17
Speaker 5: have a slide down as far as the slide down
1:35:20
Speaker 5: the standings. And they anticipated because Anthony Edwards is out.
1:35:24
Speaker 5: So the little silver lining there, but it's still a
1:35:27
Speaker 5: lot of work to do for the jazz to make,
1:35:29
Speaker 5: to take advantage of this kind of thing.
1:35:33
Speaker 6: Maryland.
1:35:33
Speaker 2: I love this. You see this story. This is amazing.
1:35:36
Speaker 2: I love this.
1:35:38
Speaker 3: Maryland, the university of Maryland who just fired their coach.
1:35:42
Speaker 3: is offering a free tuition raffle for students who stay
1:35:46
Speaker 3: until the fourth quarter of Saturday's football game against Illinois. Now, Maryland, Illinois,
1:35:53
Speaker 3: you probably would have to pay me the cost equivalent of,
1:35:57
Speaker 3: of a semester of tuition in order to sit through
1:36:00
Speaker 3: that game. It would be for the upcoming 20, 27
1:36:04
Speaker 3: spring semester. And it's for in-state tuition. So the value
1:36:07
Speaker 3: is like 6,000 ish dollars. between 5,500 and 6,000. The
1:36:13
Speaker 3: only way you can win it though, is you got
1:36:15
Speaker 3: to be in the building. You have to, you have
1:36:17
Speaker 3: to stay till the fourth quarter.
1:36:18
Speaker 5: Speaker 0 5,000 It didn't say I, when I read this,
1:36:21
Speaker 5: I misread it. I thought it said to stay like
1:36:24
Speaker 5: for the whole game. It just says until the fourth quarter.
1:36:26
Speaker 5: So they must be drawing the raffle at the beginning
1:36:29
Speaker 5: of the fourth quarter or something.
1:36:30
Speaker 3: If they're smart, they'll draw it like at the two
1:36:34
Speaker 3: minute timeout at the end of the fourth or like,
1:36:38
Speaker 3: of the media timeouts right before that.
1:36:41
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:36:41
Speaker 2: That's what you should do.
1:36:43
Speaker 3: This, this gives off the vibes that BYU with their,
1:36:48
Speaker 3: if you attend volleyball games, we'll give you better football tickets.
1:36:51
Speaker 6: Yep.
1:36:51
Speaker 3: Like please attend, please attend the major difference here is
1:36:56
Speaker 3: of course is at BYU. You don't have to do
1:36:58
Speaker 3: that for football games. You don't have to do that
1:36:59
Speaker 3: for basketball games at Maryland.
1:37:02
Speaker 2: Oh, painful.
1:37:03
Speaker 3: And the crazy thing about it is Maryland plays in
1:37:08
Speaker 3: the same conference as Michigan and Ohio state and Iowa
1:37:14
Speaker 3: and Wisconsin and all these places where you can have
1:37:18
Speaker 3: a pretty bad team. Like Nebraska can suck and their
1:37:23
Speaker 3: stadium will be full. What are the people will be
1:37:26
Speaker 3: fighting over tickets. They've had sellouts since the forties. Is
1:37:30
Speaker 3: that what I heard?
1:37:30
Speaker 5: Like the Nebraska and they haven't been good for over
1:37:34
Speaker 5: 25 years in Nebraska.
1:37:36
Speaker 3: I mean, competing in that conference, recruiting against other teams
1:37:41
Speaker 3: in that conference, the, the Baltimore, the DMV area has
1:37:44
Speaker 3: a lot of really good players.
1:37:46
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:37:47
Speaker 2: Maryland doesn't get them anymore.
1:37:49
Speaker 3: If they ever did, because they don't have the NIL
1:37:52
Speaker 3: stuff that these other schools do.
1:37:54
Speaker 2: And that by itself, imagine, right? You get your offer
1:37:59
Speaker 2: to Maryland. Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to have
1:38:02
Speaker 2: my first offer. I'm a kid from Bethesda.
1:38:05
Speaker 3: And I'm going to go to the university of Maryland maybe,
1:38:07
Speaker 3: but I'm also going to take a trip to camp
1:38:09
Speaker 3: Randall in Wisconsin. They haven't been great as of late,
1:38:12
Speaker 3: by the way, having a better year right now.
1:38:15
Speaker 7: Yeah.
1:38:15
Speaker 2: Having a much better year this year.
1:38:17
Speaker 3: Like, but it's not like Wisconsin is in their glory days,
1:38:20
Speaker 3: but imagine you get invited to the Maryland game and
1:38:24
Speaker 3: then you get invited to a Wisconsin home game. I'm
1:38:26
Speaker 3: not even talking about Ohio state. I'm not talking about well,
1:38:30
Speaker 3: maybe Michigan is not a good one to bring up
1:38:32
Speaker 3: right now. I'm not talking about Ohio state. I'm not
1:38:35
Speaker 3: talking about Indiana who for some reason is now in
1:38:39
Speaker 3: that conversation.
1:38:41
Speaker 2: And you're just like, Oh wait, I can't go to Maryland.
1:38:45
Speaker 3: Because at Maryland, they have to bribe kids to stay
1:38:48
Speaker 3: until the end of the game. At Wisconsin, that same
1:38:53
Speaker 3: fourth quarter, they're playing jump around and everybody in the
1:38:57
Speaker 3: stadium is on their feet and going bananas. It's just
1:39:01
Speaker 3: an uphill battle. It's an impossible climb for teams like Maryland.
1:39:05
Speaker 3: And we're so, so lucky that when you talk about
1:39:08
Speaker 3: the University of Utah, when you talk about even your
1:39:11
Speaker 3: in-state rival, BYU.
1:39:14
Speaker 3: You are years and years removed from this being the case.
1:39:18
Speaker 3: Like Utah football would have to be pretty bad for
1:39:22
Speaker 3: a decade plus for them to even be in the
1:39:25
Speaker 3: same conversation as Maryland.
1:39:27
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't know that we're as diehard as Nebraska. Okay.
1:39:31
Speaker 2: There's other things to do in the state of Utah.
1:39:33
Speaker 2: Not so much the case in Nebraska.
1:39:36
Speaker 3: I don't know that you're, you're going to get the
1:39:38
Speaker 3: same kind of like loyalty as some of these places
1:39:41
Speaker 3: where it is the only thing in town to do,
1:39:45
Speaker 3: but Utah and or BYU would have to be pretty
1:39:49
Speaker 3: bad for a decade before you had to come up
1:39:52
Speaker 3: with a promotion like this.
1:39:54
Speaker 2: Sorry, Maryland. I feel bad for you. Oh, look, there
1:39:56
Speaker 2: it is right there on the TV. Oh, it was
1:39:59
Speaker 2: Nate Hobbs. It was the, he was the player.
1:40:01
Speaker 3: The custom Jersey's amazing too. Like what, what a great
1:40:09
Speaker 3: Halloween costume.
1:40:10
Speaker 2: You love it.
1:40:11
Speaker 5: Shout out to the students, by the way, who might
1:40:13
Speaker 5: have a chance to get their semester paid for it
1:40:16
Speaker 5: just by going to a football game.
1:40:18
Speaker 3: I want to know how many actually show up and stay. Like,
1:40:20
Speaker 3: I hope that we get the followup story on. There were,
1:40:25
Speaker 3: there were 12 people in the raffle. Oh man.
1:40:31
Speaker 2: Great stuff.
1:40:32
Speaker 3: That's the daily dump brought to you by our friends
1:40:34
Speaker 3: at Valley plumbing, heating, and cooling. We've still got Between
1:40:37
Speaker 3: the Pipes with Adrian Denny coming in the 1 o'clock hour.
1:40:40
Speaker 3: One last break here in hour number two. It's the
1:40:42
Speaker 3: Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM. You're
1:40:44
Speaker 3: listening to the.
1:40:48
Speaker 8: Sean O'Connell Show, your source for the best youth football coverage.
1:40:52
Speaker 8: Here's O.C. from the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700
1:40:56
Speaker 8: and 92.1 FM.
1:41:01
Speaker 3: Real quick before we get to Adrian Denny and Between
1:41:04
Speaker 3: the Pipes, talk a little hockey.
1:41:06
Speaker 2: I have to be fair about something.
1:41:07
Speaker 3: We talked about the Pat McAfee situation in the University
1:41:11
Speaker 3: of Utah, and I'm not going to spend much more
1:41:12
Speaker 3: time on it, but I will say this. To be
1:41:18
Speaker 3: fair to the offending party here, which I consider to
1:41:22
Speaker 3: be Pat McAfee himself, It is fascinating to see in
1:41:29
Speaker 3: the last 28 hours or so of social media, the
1:41:35
Speaker 3: absolute like economy that this man has put himself at
1:41:39
Speaker 3: the center of ESPN is in a situation now where
1:41:44
Speaker 3: they have to do anything and everything that Pat says.
1:41:46
Speaker 3: I already told you that Utah's in that kind of
1:41:49
Speaker 3: a situation as well, because you got to be a
1:41:51
Speaker 3: good partner for ESPN and hope that game day wants
1:41:53
Speaker 3: to come back here.
1:41:56
Speaker 2: It's bananas because.
1:42:00
Speaker 3: As this story progressed, of course, it started out being
1:42:03
Speaker 3: just kind of like Pat versus Utah and the local
1:42:06
Speaker 3: fan base, the local media paid close attention to it.
1:42:10
Speaker 3: I don't think that there's a single sports publication that
1:42:16
Speaker 3: abstained from putting out a take on this. ESPN's got something,
1:42:21
Speaker 3: Barstool's got something, Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, Everyone's got something,
1:42:27
Speaker 3: some think piece or commentary and every yay. Who like myself,
1:42:31
Speaker 3: who's got a podcast or a radio show or a
1:42:35
Speaker 3: locked on, whatever everybody is. is talking about it. Everybody
1:42:39
Speaker 3: has a take on whether or not this should have happened,
1:42:43
Speaker 3: how it should have played out, who's right, who's wrong.
1:42:46
Speaker 2: I saw a tweet this morning of a guy who
1:42:47
Speaker 2: was like, I wrote this piece two years ago.
1:42:49
Speaker 3: It's basically a hit piece on Pat McAfee, and I
1:42:54
Speaker 3: thought I might be wrong about it, but now I
1:42:56
Speaker 3: know I'm right. It's wild the way that the butterfly
1:43:02
Speaker 3: effect of an innocuous social media video A couple of
1:43:08
Speaker 3: goofy kids saying the word corny and one girl who
1:43:14
Speaker 3: I agree, bad look, didn't like the million dollar kick.
1:43:19
Speaker 3: The butterfly effect of what that has created, this insane
1:43:21
Speaker 3: hurricane centering around, more importantly, the personality that is Pat
1:43:28
Speaker 3: McAfee and his interaction with the University of Utah, which
1:43:31
Speaker 3: is secondary here, is just absolutely insane. So I think
1:43:37
Speaker 3: it's in order to be fair, even though I thought
1:43:39
Speaker 3: the whole thing was, I think to be fair to
1:43:43
Speaker 3: all parties involved, it's important to acknowledge that like that
1:43:49
Speaker 3: dude has an impact, has an effect that I think
1:43:52
Speaker 3: is singular and unique to only him right now. Even
1:43:57
Speaker 3: if it was Stephen A. Smith, it would be different.
1:44:00
Speaker 3: It would be handled differently. And it's, it blows my mind.
1:44:07
Speaker 3: Of course, we were going to talk about it. Of course,
1:44:10
Speaker 3: like KSL is going to have something on it. Of course,
1:44:13
Speaker 3: the Salt Lake Tribune is going to have something on it.
1:44:16
Speaker 3: But the athletic.
1:44:17
Speaker 2: Needs to write a piece. Sports Illustrated does. CBS needs
1:44:23
Speaker 2: to have something on it. Bananas.
1:44:28
Speaker 3: I won't tell you what to go see, what to
1:44:29
Speaker 3: go read, because I think it's kind of overblown now.
1:44:32
Speaker 2: Now everyone is blowing out of proportion.
1:44:35
Speaker 3: Like Pat blew something out of proportion, and now all
1:44:38
Speaker 3: of us are blowing all of this out of proportion?
1:44:41
Speaker 2: Probably myself included, but I'm just fascinated by the whole thing.
1:44:48
Speaker 3: All right, so we got some news earlier this week
1:44:51
Speaker 3: that the Holy War is going to kick off at
1:44:53
Speaker 3: 10 a.m. All right, so that changes a couple of
1:44:56
Speaker 3: things for you because now your schedule on game day
1:45:00
Speaker 3: is drastically different, and what you're not going to be
1:45:02
Speaker 3: able to do... You're not going to be able to
1:45:05
Speaker 3: go down to 1705 North Redwood Road in the morning
1:45:09
Speaker 3: or the early afternoon and stock up on your meats,
1:45:12
Speaker 3: on your sides, on your sauces, on your rubs. You're
1:45:16
Speaker 3: not going to be able to walk in and tell
1:45:18
Speaker 3: Dan and Aubrey Gunther, hey, neighborhood butcher shop with a
1:45:21
Speaker 3: little bit of a modern twist here. I've decided I'm
1:45:23
Speaker 3: going surf and turf for my holy war menu. I
1:45:27
Speaker 3: need some of those bone-in ribeyes.
1:45:29
Speaker 7: All right.
1:45:30
Speaker 3: I'm going to grab some wings because, of course, we
1:45:32
Speaker 3: all want wings. I'll grab a half dozen of the
1:45:35
Speaker 3: armadillo eggs. And I'm going to go into the case
1:45:39
Speaker 3: over on the left side of your location down there
1:45:42
Speaker 3: on Redwood Road, 1705 North in Saratoga Springs. I'm going
1:45:45
Speaker 3: to grab myself a bunch of those fresh lobster tails
1:45:49
Speaker 3: that you have in there. And I'm going to go
1:45:51
Speaker 3: surf and turf. for my guests that are coming over
1:45:54
Speaker 3: to pregame for the Holy war. You can't do that anymore.
1:45:56
Speaker 3: You got to go breakfast now.
1:45:57
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:45:58
Speaker 3: So instead you're going to go with the things like
1:46:01
Speaker 3: the pork belly and the thick sliced bacon and the
1:46:05
Speaker 3: specialty items that they have down there.
1:46:06
Speaker 2: They're going to fit into your breakfast menu, but here's
1:46:08
Speaker 2: the thing.
1:46:09
Speaker 3: They're going to have whatever you need because that's what
1:46:11
Speaker 3: they do at Southern steer.
1:46:16
Speaker 2: 801-895-3101.
1:46:18
Speaker 3: Make them your headquarters, your one-stop shop for all things tailgate,
1:46:23
Speaker 3: watch party, barbecue. Nobody does it better. You're not going
1:46:26
Speaker 3: to get cleaner meat anywhere. You're not going to get
1:46:29
Speaker 3: a better price anywhere. You're not going to get better treatment,
1:46:32
Speaker 3: better service anywhere. You're not going to get recipes direct
1:46:35
Speaker 3: from the source like you can at Southern Steer Butcher.
1:46:38
Speaker 3: 1705 North Redwood Road, 801-895-3101. Tell them OC sent you.
1:46:44
Speaker 3: I promise they're going to take great care of you.
1:46:46
Speaker 2: They do it for me. They'll do it for you.
1:46:48
Speaker 2: Southern steer in Saratoga Springs. We go between the pipes
1:46:53
Speaker 2: with Adrian Denny.
1:46:55
Speaker 3: Maybe he can explain why the mammoth were in the
1:46:58
Speaker 3: penalty box all night last night in a loss to
1:47:01
Speaker 3: the Minnesota wild. It's the Sean O'Connell show on ESPN
1:47:04
Speaker 3: 700 and 92.1 FM.
1:47:10
Speaker 8: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
1:47:13
Speaker 8: Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
1:47:33
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show.
1:47:35
Speaker 3: Welcome into Between the Pipes. Adrian Denny, our Utah Mammoth insider.
1:47:40
Speaker 3: joins us to talk all things mammoth hockey. This conversation
1:47:43
Speaker 3: brought to you by Valley plumbing, heating and cooling and
1:47:46
Speaker 3: our friends over at Aladdin industries. Adrian, good to see
1:47:49
Speaker 3: you here in studio again. How are you doing?
1:47:52
Speaker 2: Good, Sean.
1:47:52
Speaker 9: Thanks for having me in guys headed out for six
1:47:56
Speaker 9: straight next home game, by the way, two weeks from tomorrow.
1:48:01
Speaker 9: So some road games coming up tough one last night
1:48:03
Speaker 9: with Minnesota.
1:48:05
Speaker 2: Heard you talking about penalties. There were a few.
1:48:08
Speaker 7: Yeah.
1:48:09
Speaker 3: Uh, I was like, Adrian probably spent a couple of
1:48:12
Speaker 3: minutes in the penalty box last night.
1:48:14
Speaker 2: Everyone else was having a party in there.
1:48:15
Speaker 9: That's what I said to Mike Fulta is like, we'll
1:48:17
Speaker 9: be along for the postgame edition of hockey night.
1:48:19
Speaker 2: In Utah.
1:48:20
Speaker 9: If we don't get thrown into the penalty box, which
1:48:23
Speaker 9: fortunately a ref refs didn't see what we did. So
1:48:27
Speaker 9: we're able to get away with it.
1:48:29
Speaker 3: A late goal for Cooley ends up preventing this from
1:48:32
Speaker 3: being a shutout, but it just, You had too many penalties.
1:48:38
Speaker 3: They had a lot of trouble in the first two periods,
1:48:40
Speaker 3: especially generating real scoring opportunities. At one point, I think
1:48:45
Speaker 3: the shots on goal differential was almost 20. It was
1:48:51
Speaker 3: a weird game. We'll start with the penalties. What was
1:48:54
Speaker 3: going on? I don't mind a little bit of physical play.
1:48:57
Speaker 3: I love when there's multiple fights, but the Mammoth were
1:49:01
Speaker 3: on the wrong end of that.
1:49:03
Speaker 2: When it comes to a differential standpoint.
1:49:06
Speaker 9: I think you can look at the Boston game and
1:49:08
Speaker 9: draw some similarities here to the matchup. And the Mammoth
1:49:14
Speaker 9: just kind of lost things emotionally, lost their composure, just
1:49:19
Speaker 9: kind of lost the plot. And head coach Andre Turney
1:49:24
Speaker 9: said yesterday after morning skate, you know, looking back at
1:49:27
Speaker 9: that Boston game, that's a game that we would have
1:49:30
Speaker 9: done it again. We probably would have put Liam O'Brien there.
1:49:33
Speaker 9: into the lineup. So they did for, for Minnesota, what
1:49:36
Speaker 9: they saw as a similar matchup, but you know, OC the,
1:49:39
Speaker 9: the wild were coming in. It was going to be
1:49:41
Speaker 9: a game where the winner left in first place. They
1:49:43
Speaker 9: were wrapping up a five game trip and listening to
1:49:46
Speaker 9: them before the game. They've really wanted to be three,
1:49:48
Speaker 9: one and one.
1:49:49
Speaker 2: On the trip.
1:49:50
Speaker 9: And they came out good first five minutes, but Malcolm
1:49:53
Speaker 9: makes seven big early saves. So he gets engaged into it.
1:49:57
Speaker 9: And then you got to the second and 10 seconds
1:50:00
Speaker 9: in just started a, great to the penalty box, six
1:50:03
Speaker 9: minor penalties in that period for Utah.
1:50:06
Speaker 2: They didn't like a lot of the calls.
1:50:09
Speaker 9: And we heard that from bear after the game talking
1:50:13
Speaker 9: about Clayton Keller, getting a additional two minutes tacked on
1:50:17
Speaker 9: for abusive officials. They thought Minnesota was going down pretty easy.
1:50:23
Speaker 9: But we always talk about controlling the controllables and adjusting
1:50:28
Speaker 9: to the standard of officiating. I'm not sure they're, was
1:50:31
Speaker 9: a standard, but they didn't like how the game was
1:50:35
Speaker 9: officiated and they just weren't able to get on track.
1:50:39
Speaker 9: And you're going to the third period. It's one nothing
1:50:42
Speaker 9: because they finally scored on their fifth power play. Like
1:50:45
Speaker 9: you can kill penalties, but the second, the second you
1:50:49
Speaker 9: start getting into the range of a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
1:50:53
Speaker 9: shorthanded situation, the probability just is not on your side of,
1:50:58
Speaker 9: being able to, to continue to get through those, especially
1:51:00
Speaker 9: against Minnesota team that had the seventh best power play
1:51:04
Speaker 9: going into the game. But yet still, you weathered the
1:51:08
Speaker 9: storm in the first, got some big saves from Fumalka,
1:51:10
Speaker 9: which the team's been looking for penalties in the second,
1:51:13
Speaker 9: it's one, nothing going to the third. And then they,
1:51:15
Speaker 9: they do score early in the third, of course, on
1:51:18
Speaker 9: the two minute penalty that the Keller got for abusive officials,
1:51:23
Speaker 9: tough turnover in front of the net, made it three,
1:51:25
Speaker 9: nothing Cooley on that extra attacker, which really OC was
1:51:29
Speaker 9: just some intensified six on five practice, which nobody's going
1:51:34
Speaker 9: to decline for, for the mammoth, which they were able
1:51:38
Speaker 9: to do for the last three minutes. So, so hopefully
1:51:41
Speaker 9: that's something next time they get a six on five
1:51:43
Speaker 9: and they're down by a goal, they can take some
1:51:46
Speaker 9: of that two minutes and 44 seconds that they played
1:51:48
Speaker 9: without a goalie and turn it into something. But yeah,
1:51:51
Speaker 9: just the, the, the composure, the emotion, the stuff that
1:51:58
Speaker 9: has been really good in 90% of the games this
1:52:02
Speaker 9: year and the stuff I think you take from the
1:52:04
Speaker 9: Vegas series last year and you're like, okay, we need
1:52:06
Speaker 9: to be better here, just was more of a Boston
1:52:09
Speaker 9: level than it had been in really the other 10,
1:52:14
Speaker 9: 11 games that they've played pretty well in.
1:52:17
Speaker 3: Do we know what the franchise record is for penalty
1:52:20
Speaker 3: minutes in a single game?
1:52:21
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I have that right here, actually. Let me
1:52:24
Speaker 2: pull that up.
1:52:25
Speaker 4: I got that.
1:52:25
Speaker 2: Spreadsheet um great that we have this this resource with
1:52:29
Speaker 2: adrian denny.
1:52:30
Speaker 9: Um most penalty minutes in a game um looks like
1:52:37
Speaker 9: 30 at the rangers on uh october 4th.
1:52:41
Speaker 3: Okay so um so 29 last night flirting with that
1:52:45
Speaker 3: same territory.
1:52:47
Speaker 9: Yeah that rangers game didn't seem as as intense as
1:52:51
Speaker 9: that but I'll.
1:52:52
Speaker 3: Give you a James Peterson bonus point if you know
1:52:55
Speaker 3: the NHL all-time record for most penalty minutes in a
1:53:00
Speaker 3: single game.
1:53:01
Speaker 2: For one team? For one team.
1:53:06
Speaker 9: I've seen some numbers from back in the day, so
1:53:09
Speaker 9: I think I can ballpark this.
1:53:11
Speaker 7: 260.
1:53:11
Speaker 2: 213 by the Philadelphia Flyers. It was Philly versus Ottawa
1:53:14
Speaker 2: in 2004, interestingly enough.
1:53:15
Speaker 3: 419 total penalty minutes between the two teams. So it
1:53:27
Speaker 3: was a two 13 for Philly and two of six
1:53:30
Speaker 3: for Ottawa in that March 5th, 2004 game.
1:53:34
Speaker 2: That's not that long ago.
1:53:36
Speaker 3: That's not that long ago, but man, that must've been
1:53:39
Speaker 3: a really ugly game. That's you know, we make that joke,
1:53:42
Speaker 3: went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.
1:53:45
Speaker 3: That game must've looked like that must've been a really
1:53:47
Speaker 3: long game too.
1:53:51
Speaker 2: Penalty minutes. Last night was long.
1:53:53
Speaker 3: So when I'm going on as a fan, going on
1:53:56
Speaker 3: the tickets, right, you got to get a babysitter. And
1:54:00
Speaker 3: too many whistles, you start to get to, man, we
1:54:03
Speaker 3: said that we were going to be home. We got
1:54:04
Speaker 3: to get going. It's a bad deal when you get
1:54:07
Speaker 3: that many whistles. Did you feel that last night? Was
1:54:10
Speaker 3: that the situation last night? That was the situation last night.
1:54:14
Speaker 3: Too many dang whistles. Too many stoppages.
1:54:16
Speaker 9: I thought, you know, as we're going into postgame and
1:54:20
Speaker 9: Get off the air, Mike. It does kind of seem
1:54:24
Speaker 9: a little later than usual. The three fights, Liam O'Brien,
1:54:29
Speaker 9: first game, fought. Mikhail Sergeyev fought for the first time
1:54:32
Speaker 9: since 2023.
1:54:34
Speaker 2: That's the level of tension in the game.
1:54:40
Speaker 9: And Vinny Trochak fought for the first time as a
1:54:43
Speaker 9: member of the Mammoths. So Utah leads the NHL in fights,
1:54:48
Speaker 9: by the way. They're up to eight.
1:54:51
Speaker 3: Well, now that you got McBain and O'Brien both in
1:54:55
Speaker 3: the lineup, they're going to probably.
1:54:57
Speaker 2: Lead the league all year.
1:54:58
Speaker 9: Mackenzie Weeger might want to fight you for not including
1:55:01
Speaker 9: him in that list. Sorry, Mackenzie.
1:55:05
Speaker 2: All right.
1:55:05
Speaker 3: So, look, you don't overreact to anything. This is a
1:55:10
Speaker 3: Utah team that we've seen some really nice things from,
1:55:12
Speaker 3: but as they head out on this big road trip
1:55:15
Speaker 3: that you just mentioned, Job one to clean up. What
1:55:19
Speaker 3: is the first thing that this team needs to address?
1:55:22
Speaker 3: Because it's not going to be as easy off home ice.
1:55:25
Speaker 9: I think they did it Saturday against Tampa Bay. They're
1:55:29
Speaker 9: down 3-1. They're down 4-2. They're trying to work through
1:55:34
Speaker 9: some struggles. And you have Anders Lee on the bench,
1:55:39
Speaker 9: who from what we hear, the eight-year captain with the Islanders,
1:55:44
Speaker 9: just kind of had a calming effect. And he went
1:55:47
Speaker 9: out with Barrett Hayton and Kyler Yamamoto and kind of
1:55:50
Speaker 9: got the game turned around. And before you know it,
1:55:52
Speaker 9: the mammoth had scored two goals in less than three
1:55:55
Speaker 9: minutes and we were tied and they played a good
1:55:57
Speaker 9: third period, got to overtime, kind of got Corral Vimalca
1:56:00
Speaker 9: into a little bit of a groove. So it was,
1:56:03
Speaker 9: it was just kind of the, the composure when, when
1:56:07
Speaker 9: things weren't going well to be able to stay focused,
1:56:13
Speaker 9: not try too hard, not, try and overcompensate for what
1:56:19
Speaker 9: wasn't going well. So Saturday night, we saw Exhibit A
1:56:24
Speaker 9: of how you want to handle it. And last night,
1:56:28
Speaker 9: we saw the exact opposite. So you know it's there.
1:56:33
Speaker 9: You go back to the Vegas series, and I think
1:56:36
Speaker 9: just kind of the same thing. We saw it with
1:56:40
Speaker 9: Logan Cooley. It just, when things get heated, when.
1:56:46
Speaker 9: Adversity hits it's it's just the ability to stay cool
1:56:50
Speaker 9: and we we've seen it at times this year and
1:56:54
Speaker 9: we've seen it at times where it just just goes
1:56:57
Speaker 9: goes south and for me when you're when you're captain
1:57:01
Speaker 9: in a second period that's going south gets um a
1:57:07
Speaker 9: penalty for abusive officials you fired a puck after a
1:57:10
Speaker 9: whistle right i'm like oh no that's not good I
1:57:14
Speaker 9: didn't didn't know that they'd seen it because I thought
1:57:16
Speaker 9: the the referees right there might have more of a
1:57:19
Speaker 9: reaction to it on the ice. But they kept their
1:57:22
Speaker 9: cool and just casually walked up to the timekeeper, turned
1:57:26
Speaker 9: their mic on and announced it.
1:57:32
Speaker 3: This team right now, they're in second place and, you know,
1:57:37
Speaker 3: we're going on this long road trip.
1:57:38
Speaker 2: How many points did they need to bring back from
1:57:40
Speaker 2: the road?
1:57:42
Speaker 9: I think this is a trip, if you come back
1:57:43
Speaker 9: with six split on the road, longest trip of the year.
1:57:47
Speaker 9: You've played 13 of 19 away from home. It catches
1:57:52
Speaker 9: up with you. I think a split's more than acceptable.
1:58:00
Speaker 9: You start off in Pittsburgh. You just beat him they
1:58:02
Speaker 9: haven't lost since utah beat him going to philly they've
1:58:06
Speaker 9: they've kind of fought at toronto i thought toronto looked
1:58:09
Speaker 9: pretty good oc because of austin matthews when when you've
1:58:14
Speaker 9: got a star like that you can kind of carry
1:58:18
Speaker 9: and then montreal playoff team ottawa playoff team i think
1:58:23
Speaker 9: come back with 6 12 points you're you're um one
1:58:28
Speaker 9: of my favorite words, OC that I didn't realize it was.
1:58:32
Speaker 9: And then Mike Folta points out, you know, he's going
1:58:35
Speaker 9: to use one of my favorite words, tickled pink. If
1:58:38
Speaker 9: you get, I think you're tickled pink. If you get
1:58:40
Speaker 9: six to 12, but, oh, see, you look at the
1:58:42
Speaker 9: game last night, the mammoth, when they were able to
1:58:47
Speaker 9: keep it five on five, stay out of the penalty box.
1:58:49
Speaker 9: They outshot Minnesota 18 to seven, because the first 40
1:58:55
Speaker 9: minutes of the game, when you're, When you're five on five,
1:59:00
Speaker 9: you can use that to generate momentum. You have a
1:59:04
Speaker 9: good shift from Keller, Schmaltz, and Kraus. You get a
1:59:07
Speaker 9: scoring chance. You don't score. You roll out Cooley, Trocek,
1:59:10
Speaker 9: and Gunther. They keep the puck in the offensive zone,
1:59:12
Speaker 9: and you're rolling, and you've got the puck, and they don't.
1:59:16
Speaker 9: And that's how you generate momentum, and that's how you
1:59:19
Speaker 9: create offense, score goals, draw penalties.
1:59:21
Speaker 2: That's how Utah has been successful.
1:59:24
Speaker 9: Power play has been really good too, but they just
1:59:27
Speaker 9: didn't have any opportunities really to generate any kind of
1:59:30
Speaker 9: momentum in the first 40 minutes because Minnesota came out
1:59:33
Speaker 9: with the hot start, and then the second period was
1:59:35
Speaker 9: all penalties. They couldn't get to what they do well,
1:59:38
Speaker 9: and that's go out and grind, and that's how they
1:59:40
Speaker 9: got back into it on Saturday and forced the game
1:59:44
Speaker 9: to overtime against Tampa Bay because you got guys like
1:59:46
Speaker 9: Anders Lee, Barrett Hayden, and Kyler Yamamoto just out there working.
1:59:51
Speaker 9: In the second period, Liam O'Brien didn't play a second.
1:59:53
Speaker 9: because it was all penalty killing. So when you're penalty
1:59:57
Speaker 9: killing like that, only half of your team's killing penalties.
2:00:00
Speaker 9: The other half is on the bench cold. So the
2:00:04
Speaker 9: penalty killers are worn out, and.
2:00:07
Speaker 2: The other team is.
2:00:10
Speaker 9: Able to key in, and when they're on five on
2:00:15
Speaker 9: fours for over half of a period, the percentages are
2:00:19
Speaker 9: just against you.
2:00:21
Speaker 3: We saw Connor Hellebuck make his devil's debut. He was
2:00:26
Speaker 3: a big story, attached at least for a moment with
2:00:30
Speaker 3: the Utah Mammoth as a potential possibility. And Hellebuck shaved
2:00:35
Speaker 3: 17 and got the win. And I need to talk to, like,
2:00:40
Speaker 3: we didn't know where he was going to go a
2:00:42
Speaker 3: week ago. And he already got the custom mask done
2:00:45
Speaker 3: and everything like that. The turnaround time on Saturday. on
2:00:49
Speaker 3: getting a beautiful piece of artwork like that is actually
2:00:51
Speaker 3: pretty quick. When you know people, I guess, you know,
2:00:54
Speaker 3: the right people when you're, when you're team USA's goaltender
2:00:58
Speaker 3: stuff moves a little faster.
2:01:01
Speaker 2: I guess it does.
2:01:02
Speaker 9: Cause I mean, even in the NHL, OC goalie gets
2:01:06
Speaker 9: traded mid season, takes a little time to get his
2:01:10
Speaker 9: pads and the, the mask painted. Like, I guess, guess
2:01:16
Speaker 9: the guy, uh, Like, and these painters like are legit artists.
2:01:21
Speaker 9: Like it takes time. You can't just, you know, slap
2:01:24
Speaker 9: some AI on a, on a mask. Like these, these
2:01:29
Speaker 9: guys are, you know, legit talented painting these things.
2:01:37
Speaker 2: It was traded four days ago. I need 877-353-0700.
2:01:41
Speaker 3: If you want to paint a mask. For us here
2:01:46
Speaker 3: in the studio, I'll get the mask. You just paint
2:01:48
Speaker 3: it for us.
2:01:49
Speaker 9: And we're going to need it by end of day tomorrow.
2:01:55
Speaker 2: I'll give you until Friday.
2:01:58
Speaker 3: We need it by Friday so you can match this
2:02:01
Speaker 3: artist that did Connor Hellebuyck's. We're off to a start now.
2:02:07
Speaker 3: We're not quite to that 20-game mark here for the
2:02:09
Speaker 3: Utah Mammoth.
2:02:11
Speaker 2: Are they on pace? Are they where they need to
2:02:13
Speaker 2: be as they go on this road trip?
2:02:16
Speaker 9: I think so. They would have won last night. They
2:02:19
Speaker 9: would have been in first place. So you're teetering there
2:02:23
Speaker 9: knowing that the schedule this year is a lot like
2:02:26
Speaker 9: last year. And I don't know that the expectations internally
2:02:31
Speaker 9: are that much different because of the schedule. Utah was
2:02:35
Speaker 9: a game above 500 last year at Christmas. And then
2:02:38
Speaker 9: they came out of it and the home games added
2:02:41
Speaker 9: up and the schedule kind of softened a little. And
2:02:44
Speaker 9: that's when they were there to make their move I
2:02:47
Speaker 9: don't think internally, if the Mammoth are in a similar situation, Thanksgiving, Christmas,
2:02:55
Speaker 9: that there's any level of something unexpected there. Because you
2:03:02
Speaker 9: go on a five-game trip in October, that's one thing.
2:03:04
Speaker 9: But to do it again two, three weeks later, it
2:03:09
Speaker 9: will catch up with you. The good thing is there's
2:03:11
Speaker 9: no back-to-backs on this trip. It's kind of spread out,
2:03:15
Speaker 9: which kind of lengthens how long they're going to be away,
2:03:19
Speaker 9: which is another thing that kind of takes its toll.
2:03:22
Speaker 9: But I think, you know, maintaining a playoff spot, you
2:03:27
Speaker 9: always want to be above the line. But the thing
2:03:29
Speaker 9: for Utah last year, they were in a playoff spot
2:03:31
Speaker 9: at Thanksgiving, at Christmas, at the Olympic break. And those
2:03:36
Speaker 9: were benchmarks that they said that they wanted to hit.
2:03:38
Speaker 9: And I think this year you're in the exact same
2:03:41
Speaker 9: spot you were last year because the schedule is another
2:03:44
Speaker 9: thing that's, kind of slanted, more road heavy, really road
2:03:51
Speaker 9: heavy early on.
2:03:56
Speaker 2: Who's the best player on the team right now? I
2:04:04
Speaker 2: like the question. I mean, I assume it's going to change.
2:04:09
Speaker 2: Guys are going to streak. Guys are going to go
2:04:11
Speaker 2: into slumps.
2:04:14
Speaker 9: Lee Hayton and Yamamoto is the best forward line.
2:04:16
Speaker 2: That's a given.
2:04:18
Speaker 9: We all had that on our bingo card preseason. Sergeyev
2:04:21
Speaker 9: and Wieger have been a top defensive pairing. You're without
2:04:25
Speaker 9: John Marino, so there's a big D out of there.
2:04:29
Speaker 9: Vinny Trocek has been really, really good. He had two
2:04:32
Speaker 9: points in the first six games. Now he's got five
2:04:34
Speaker 9: in the last seven. He's been the best in the
2:04:37
Speaker 9: NHL in the face-off circle over the last three games.
2:04:44
Speaker 9: Schmaltz has cooled off a little bit. Keller's cooled off
2:04:47
Speaker 9: a little bit. Cooley and Gunther aren't off to the
2:04:49
Speaker 9: starts that they were last year. Kyler Yamamoto, if you
2:04:58
Speaker 9: want one guy, might have been your best player in
2:05:02
Speaker 9: the playoffs. Could be your best player right now. He
2:05:08
Speaker 9: was a point a game until last night. He's got
2:05:10
Speaker 9: seven points in. in eight games, but definitely Lee Hayden
2:05:14
Speaker 9: and Yamamoto three most impactful.
2:05:16
Speaker 2: Forwards looking for six points on the road trip.
2:05:23
Speaker 3: According to our hockey experts, Adrian Denny, we'll we'll hold
2:05:27
Speaker 3: them to that.
2:05:27
Speaker 2: We'll help them being the Utah mammoth.
2:05:30
Speaker 9: The big thing about this OC, same thing for the
2:05:33
Speaker 9: five gamer, the start of the year, you won in Columbus.
2:05:37
Speaker 9: So then you got four games left and you you've
2:05:43
Speaker 9: lessened kind of your magic number of where you want
2:05:46
Speaker 9: to be. Mammoth came back with three of five on
2:05:49
Speaker 9: that trip, but getting that first one to Columbus meant
2:05:51
Speaker 9: they had to split the rest of the way. So
2:05:53
Speaker 9: you win in Pittsburgh tomorrow, win two of the next five,
2:05:57
Speaker 9: and you come back with my magic number of six.
2:06:02
Speaker 3: Big thanks to Adrian Denny for coming in for Between
2:06:06
Speaker 3: the Pipes, brought to you by our friends... at Aladdin
2:06:08
Speaker 3: Industries in Valley Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling.
2:06:11
Speaker 2: Great to see you, my friend. My pleasure. Thanks for
2:06:13
Speaker 2: having me.
2:06:15
Speaker 6: All right.
2:06:16
Speaker 2: You know how much I love interaction on the show? Tweets, texts.
2:06:24
Speaker 3: JackMormon69 on Twitter. I didn't think that that would be...
2:06:29
Speaker 3: the Twitter handle that I was reading for great content
2:06:32
Speaker 3: here on the show, but just gave me something that
2:06:34
Speaker 3: I think is informative about my evaluation of, of, of
2:06:39
Speaker 3: a way Sean Parker's game and his, I think we're
2:06:41
Speaker 3: drastically different. And I want to talk about that next,
2:06:45
Speaker 3: because there's this thing that happens. There's a disconnect between
2:06:49
Speaker 3: fan expectations and player performance sometimes, but it's not all
2:06:54
Speaker 3: it's truth being in the eye of the beholder. Occasionally,
2:06:58
Speaker 3: So we'll get to that next on the Sean O'Connell Show,
2:07:00
Speaker 3: ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
2:07:03
Speaker 2: I'm being haunted.
2:07:08
Speaker 8: You're listening to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
2:07:12
Speaker 8: Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
2:07:26
Speaker 3: All right, we're going to give away a free lunch
2:07:28
Speaker 3: at Zao Asian Cafe in Topical Trivia coming up next.
2:07:35
Speaker 2: I put a video out.
2:07:37
Speaker 3: I retweeted a video from the Utah football program about
2:07:43
Speaker 3: an hour ago, maybe a little longer than that. Showing
2:07:49
Speaker 3: Way Sean Parker throwing a really.
2:07:53
Speaker 2: An incredible block out of Daniel Bray carry.
2:07:55
Speaker 3: Now Bray only got three carries in the game, but
2:07:57
Speaker 3: it was a great block by way.
2:07:58
Speaker 2: Sean Parker.
2:08:00
Speaker 3: And it's just a snapshot of, for me, how good
2:08:03
Speaker 3: of a player that guy is, even when he doesn't
2:08:05
Speaker 3: get the ball in his hands consistently. And one, one
2:08:10
Speaker 3: of our listeners, one follower on, on social media said
2:08:15
Speaker 3: he didn't do anything against Houston makes me worried. He'll
2:08:17
Speaker 3: disappear against good teams. And my pushback on that is, well,
2:08:21
Speaker 3: he scored the go-ahead touchdown, arguably the most important touchdown
2:08:24
Speaker 3: of the game. He had another important play that was
2:08:26
Speaker 3: wiped out by a penalty on Al Harrison. And I
2:08:30
Speaker 3: think that way Sean had a solid game, even though
2:08:33
Speaker 3: if it wasn't, it wasn't his best game. He averaged 3.6
2:08:37
Speaker 3: yards of carry on 14 carries.
2:08:41
Speaker 2: Under 50 yards.
2:08:43
Speaker 3: Although He was almost near that 100-yard total yard mark,
2:08:47
Speaker 3: but it wasn't the way Sean Parker game, okay? And
2:08:51
Speaker 3: now this is the second one where it hasn't been
2:08:53
Speaker 3: the way Sean Parker game. And the continued pushback, and
2:08:57
Speaker 3: I love a good discourse on Twitter, respectful on both fronts,
2:09:00
Speaker 3: I think.
2:09:02
Speaker 2: And the response was, okay, he scored a TD.
2:09:05
Speaker 3: I'm saying he didn't make enough plays because of his
2:09:07
Speaker 3: lack of production and only averaged 3.6 yards per carry.
2:09:10
Speaker 3: If you're giving him a letter grade for his performance,
2:09:12
Speaker 3: what would you give? I'd give him a C- at best,
2:09:14
Speaker 3: and that's not going to cut it. And look, I
2:09:18
Speaker 3: don't disagree that we want Weishan to have consistently better
2:09:22
Speaker 3: games than this.
2:09:23
Speaker 2: But I was like, all right, let me be realistic.
2:09:25
Speaker 3: Let me think about who's a running back that I
2:09:29
Speaker 3: would be happy if Weishan had that kind of a season.
2:09:33
Speaker 3: And a guy who I think is like upper echelon
2:09:37
Speaker 3: good for Utah running backs in history is.
2:09:40
Speaker 2: Devante Booker.
2:09:41
Speaker 3: Can we, can we settle on Devante Booker being not
2:09:45
Speaker 3: the best running back in Utah football history, but being
2:09:48
Speaker 3: a guy that if you have a Devante Booker on
2:09:50
Speaker 3: your team, that's really good for your offense. Can we
2:09:53
Speaker 3: settle on Devante Booker being a great baseline?
2:09:57
Speaker 7: Sure.
2:09:57
Speaker 5: I mean, way Sean has compared himself to Devante Booker,
2:10:01
Speaker 5: which on himself, because he's trying, they come from the
2:10:04
Speaker 5: same high school. So I think that way Sean would
2:10:06
Speaker 5: take that as a huge compliment.
2:10:08
Speaker 2: Okay.
2:10:08
Speaker 3: So, and I would too, if I were a running back,
2:10:10
Speaker 3: because I think Devon, I mean, Devante played on Sundays.
2:10:13
Speaker 2: I love me some Devante Booker.
2:10:15
Speaker 5: He's in the Heisman conversation for one, at least one
2:10:18
Speaker 5: year there.
2:10:18
Speaker 3: He was like,
2:10:47
Speaker 3: Had 1,500 rushing yards,
2:10:50
Speaker 3: 10 rushing touchdowns, 300 receiving yards, two receiving touchdowns.
2:10:55
Speaker 2: Was this the 2014 season? The 2014 year. First team all-conference.
2:11:00
Speaker 7: Okay?
2:11:01
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, let me see if there
2:11:04
Speaker 3: were any games that year where Devontae was kind of like...
2:11:09
Speaker 3: absent or disappeared a little bit in the run game.
2:11:12
Speaker 3: Cause that was, again, that's a 1500 yard season. That's
2:11:17
Speaker 3: first team all conference here. Have we seen better.
2:11:20
Speaker 2: Years than that from a Utah running back?
2:11:22
Speaker 8: Yes.
2:11:23
Speaker 3: But is that something where if you've got that guy
2:11:25
Speaker 3: in your offense, that's a winning formula for you?
2:11:28
Speaker 7: Certainly.
2:11:29
Speaker 3: Now the fair caveat I will put on this is
2:11:32
Speaker 3: 2014 from a team perspective is not as good as
2:11:36
Speaker 3: what we hope this year ends up being in for
2:11:39
Speaker 3: Utah football. So there, there are some rough equivalencies here.
2:11:44
Speaker 3: They ended up winning nine games that year at the
2:11:46
Speaker 3: university of Utah. If I said James, this first team,
2:11:51
Speaker 3: all conference back 1500 plus total rushing yards. How many
2:11:58
Speaker 3: games do you think Devante Booker went under a hundred
2:12:02
Speaker 3: yards total and under four yards per carry? How many
2:12:06
Speaker 3: games of a 13 game schedule did Devante Booker not
2:12:11
Speaker 3: reach a hundred yard rushing milestone and not reach at
2:12:15
Speaker 3: least four yards per carry, which both of those were
2:12:17
Speaker 3: the case for way Sean Parker against.
2:12:20
Speaker 5: Houston and You mentioned a pack. There's been another game
2:12:24
Speaker 5: this year, at least he was under, he was well
2:12:26
Speaker 5: under a hundred yards, but he wasn't under three point nine.
2:12:29
Speaker 7: Okay.
2:12:29
Speaker 2: Gotcha.
2:12:32
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, 1500 divided by 13, that's over a
2:12:34
Speaker 5: hundred yards per game on average.
2:12:36
Speaker 2: So I imagine I wouldn't guess more than one. Was
2:12:39
Speaker 2: it just the one?
2:12:42
Speaker 3: And that's where things get funny when you say, I
2:12:44
Speaker 3: need way Sean to give me a hundred yards per game,
2:12:47
Speaker 3: at least. And I need way Sean to be over
2:12:49
Speaker 3: five yards per carry. At least if I'm going to
2:12:52
Speaker 3: accept that as a performance from way, Sean, that's not
2:12:56
Speaker 3: factoring in what he does without the ball in his hands.
2:12:59
Speaker 2: Okay.
2:13:00
Speaker 3: The Michigan game, a win for Utah in 2014.
2:13:06
Speaker 2: Devante Booker. And again, it's not apples and apples.
2:13:10
Speaker 3: Devante Booker against Michigan had 11 carries for 34 yards, 3.1
2:13:16
Speaker 3: yard average, no touchdowns in that game.
2:13:19
Speaker 2: Okay. That's a win for Utah in that one. All right.
2:13:25
Speaker 3: Against USC 24, 21 victory for the university of Utah.
2:13:32
Speaker 3: Devante Booker had 26 carries for 102 yards. So he
2:13:34
Speaker 3: went over a hundred yards, but 3.9 yards, So that
2:13:43
Speaker 3: was the offense continuing to feed him, even though he's
2:13:47
Speaker 3: only averaging 3.9, which on paper and in at least
2:13:54
Speaker 3: the opinion of it's not was one fan who expressed it,
2:13:57
Speaker 3: but a lot of people want more from white way,
2:14:01
Speaker 3: Sean Parker than 3.9 yards per carry.
2:14:04
Speaker 7: All right.
2:14:04
Speaker 2: 37 carries.
2:14:08
Speaker 3: This is against Arizona state, Arizona state beat Utah in 2014,
2:14:16
Speaker 3: 37 carries for 146 yards for an average of 3.9 yards.
2:14:21
Speaker 3: So under four yards per carry, almost 150 yards for
2:14:25
Speaker 3: the game under four yards to carry.
2:14:28
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
2:14:28
Speaker 3: But that again, that is the workload. That is the workload.
2:14:32
Speaker 3: That is the offense saying, we need you.
2:14:34
Speaker 2: To do this.
2:14:35
Speaker 5: That's saying all due respect to Travis Wilson, Devante Booker's
2:14:40
Speaker 5: the guy that's going to win us this game on offense,
2:14:42
Speaker 5: not Travis Wilson and the receiver.
2:14:43
Speaker 3: And unfortunately he was not able to do so even
2:14:46
Speaker 3: on 37 carries. Now the next game, and this one
2:14:51
Speaker 3: is a loss for Utah against Oregon.
2:14:56
Speaker 2: Devante.
2:14:56
Speaker 3: I think this is when Devante was maybe a little
2:14:58
Speaker 3: bit Sore from a 37 carry game.
2:15:03
Speaker 2: You would imagine can't blame him for being that way.
2:15:05
Speaker 3: 18 carries for 65 yards, 3.6 yards per carry. Now
2:15:10
Speaker 3: he did have a monster receiving game and scored a touchdown.
2:15:14
Speaker 2: In through the air.
2:15:17
Speaker 5: So over a hundred in that game, so over a
2:15:19
Speaker 5: hundred all purpose yards, which is all what way Sean
2:15:22
Speaker 5: Parker's been able to do this year.
2:15:24
Speaker 3: And, and admittedly not against Houston, but And then the
2:15:27
Speaker 3: next game, this is a win for Utah 20 to
2:15:32
Speaker 3: 17 against Stanford. Devante Booker, 17 carries 58 yards.
2:15:39
Speaker 2: Is that two so far? How many?
2:15:42
Speaker 3: Well, this is, we are, we are now on game
2:15:46
Speaker 3: number five where he didn't have four yards of carry.
2:15:49
Speaker 2: Okay. But it, and, and all of those were under
2:15:51
Speaker 2: a hundred yards.
2:15:52
Speaker 7: No, no, no.
2:15:53
Speaker 2: Because we had 150 yards. We had 150 yard game,
2:15:54
Speaker 2: but that's not.
2:15:57
Speaker 3: That's not a, when way Sean goes for 3.9 yards
2:16:01
Speaker 3: of carry, he only gets 14 carries or 13 carries.
2:16:07
Speaker 3: If he, if he averages four yards of carry, if
2:16:10
Speaker 3: your offense averages four yards of carry, that's a touchdown.
2:16:14
Speaker 6: Yeah.
2:16:15
Speaker 3: You just keep going. The first down first down after
2:16:18
Speaker 3: three plays.
2:16:18
Speaker 8: Yeah.
2:16:19
Speaker 2: Right. And you just keep going.
2:16:21
Speaker 1: Right.
2:16:22
Speaker 3: So what I'm, what I'm trying to illustrate here is
2:16:25
Speaker 3: We have these simplified numbers targets that we need our
2:16:29
Speaker 3: running back to have. You need your wide receiver to have.
2:16:31
Speaker 3: You need your quarterback to have. The stat that matters
2:16:35
Speaker 3: is the final score. Way Sean Parker was not asked
2:16:39
Speaker 3: to be the driving force of the offense against Houston.
2:16:42
Speaker 2: And it's not because he's not good. It's not because
2:16:44
Speaker 2: he's not capable.
2:16:46
Speaker 3: It's because Houston was solid against the run. Maybe way
2:16:50
Speaker 3: Sean wasn't at his very best. He had to find
2:16:52
Speaker 3: ways to affect the game in other aspects. He didn't
2:16:56
Speaker 3: have his best receiving game either. Although his most important
2:16:59
Speaker 3: catch was wiped away. And I appreciate the feedback from
2:17:03
Speaker 3: anybody who wants to give feedback on the show or
2:17:06
Speaker 3: wants to give feedback on Twitter. It is critically important though,
2:17:11
Speaker 3: that you, as a fan, that I, as an observer,
2:17:14
Speaker 3: that everyone who watches a football game is doesn't look
2:17:17
Speaker 3: at way Sean Parker getting tackled behind the line of
2:17:20
Speaker 3: scrimmage or getting tackled after a yard and a half
2:17:23
Speaker 3: and saying, he's not good enough today. If way Sean
2:17:29
Speaker 3: Parker was given 37 carries in the game against Houston,
2:17:34
Speaker 3: then way Sean Parker has a 150 yard day. Does
2:17:40
Speaker 3: that serve the university of Utah football team and help
2:17:43
Speaker 3: them win that game? probably not maybe because it was
2:17:48
Speaker 3: a low scoring game. and it takes away a couple
2:17:51
Speaker 3: of possessions from Houston. If he's continuing to pound the rock,
2:17:55
Speaker 3: does that serve to the sustainability of his dominance over
2:17:58
Speaker 3: the course of the season?
2:17:59
Speaker 2: I think probably not.
2:18:02
Speaker 3: But I brought up Devontae Booker's numbers because Devontae and
2:18:06
Speaker 3: Weishan both caught the ball out of the backfield very well.
2:18:09
Speaker 2: Both have impacted.
2:18:10
Speaker 3: There's been several games where Weishan was the leading receiver
2:18:14
Speaker 3: already this year for the University of Utah in football games.
2:18:17
Speaker 3: He scored more touchdowns this year in four games than
2:18:21
Speaker 3: he did all of last year, right? I started this
2:18:25
Speaker 3: wanting to be like, let me push back on you
2:18:27
Speaker 3: and say, no, you can't say way.
2:18:28
Speaker 2: Sean's not good enough. I believe you have to stop
2:18:31
Speaker 2: saying way.
2:18:32
Speaker 3: Sean's not good enough, but I also want to make
2:18:34
Speaker 3: sure that we look at things correctly as observers, as,
2:18:38
Speaker 3: as fans of this Utah football team. And when you
2:18:41
Speaker 3: set your expectations, there are going to be games. And
2:18:44
Speaker 3: this isn't the only one where way Sean Parker is
2:18:47
Speaker 3: not going to average six and a half yards of carry.
2:18:51
Speaker 3: What you want is for his season average to be
2:18:54
Speaker 3: about six yards a carry. If he goes 5.9, if
2:18:58
Speaker 3: he goes 5.1, that's a solid, solid year.
2:19:02
Speaker 2: That's an incredible year.
2:19:05
Speaker 3: If Devontae Booker, in a season where he was the
2:19:08
Speaker 3: first team all-conference running back in a Pac-12, where your
2:19:12
Speaker 3: team was only 9-4, so you're not playing in a
2:19:15
Speaker 3: conference championship game, right? You're not, like, he was called
2:19:19
Speaker 3: the best running back ever or one of the two
2:19:21
Speaker 3: best running backs in the conference and had 1500 yards
2:19:24
Speaker 3: and 10 touchdowns. And it was a really, really good year.
2:19:28
Speaker 3: Devante Booker in that year. And I could do this
2:19:30
Speaker 3: with any other running back. You want to, we could
2:19:33
Speaker 3: go to Matt Asiata. We can go to Eddie wide.
2:19:35
Speaker 3: We can go back to Marty Johnson and there's going
2:19:38
Speaker 3: to be days. There's going to be games, especially against
2:19:41
Speaker 3: teams that are going to sell out against the run
2:19:43
Speaker 3: where they're Way Sean Parker is not going to be
2:19:48
Speaker 3: the guy that has five yards plus per carry and
2:19:51
Speaker 3: a hundred yards on the ground. Even a first team
2:19:54
Speaker 3: all conference running back from admittedly from 2014 in a
2:19:58
Speaker 3: much different conference. And when the goals were definitely different
2:20:02
Speaker 3: and when your season success is not fully the same.
2:20:05
Speaker 3: So I'm not pretending this is a total apples to
2:20:07
Speaker 3: apples comparison, but yeah, If I get me a Devante
2:20:10
Speaker 3: Booker season out of way, Sean Parker, as a coach,
2:20:14
Speaker 3: as a teammate, as a fan, I'm a thousand percent happy.
2:20:18
Speaker 3: And just because he only had 3.9 yards per carry
2:20:22
Speaker 3: against Houston, I'm not going to criticize him.
2:20:25
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say he's not good enough.
2:20:26
Speaker 3: If Kevin McGiven had decided to give him 30 plus
2:20:29
Speaker 3: carries and he goes for four yards of carry, there's
2:20:32
Speaker 3: probably two touchdowns in there as well.
2:20:34
Speaker 2: It changes the landscape of the game. The most important
2:20:36
Speaker 2: thing about.
2:20:37
Speaker 3: This version of Utah football, is you have a guy
2:20:41
Speaker 3: who is every bit as good as maybe better than
2:20:44
Speaker 3: Devante Booker.
2:20:45
Speaker 2: And you don't need him to be your offense.
2:20:48
Speaker 3: You don't have to have him win you the football
2:20:51
Speaker 3: game because you've got a quarterback that can do it.
2:20:55
Speaker 3: You've got maybe a backup quarterback that can do it.
2:20:58
Speaker 3: You've got a couple of backup running backs that really
2:21:01
Speaker 3: help mix things up. You got a better wide receiver
2:21:03
Speaker 3: room than that 2014 team had by a long stretch
2:21:05
Speaker 3: and The tight end is back involved in a way
2:21:09
Speaker 3: that it wasn't back in 2014. So I'm looking at
2:21:15
Speaker 3: this and I'm saying, give way Sean Parker, the credit
2:21:19
Speaker 3: he deserves in a game where he goes under a
2:21:22
Speaker 3: hundred yards, all purpose only scores one touchdown. I throw
2:21:26
Speaker 3: up only as the air quotes there, he's got to
2:21:30
Speaker 3: affect the game in other ways.
2:21:31
Speaker 2: And he did that. That is an all conference running
2:21:34
Speaker 2: back way.
2:21:34
Speaker 3: Sean Parker would have to disappear for the rest of
2:21:39
Speaker 3: the year to not be in a very serious consideration
2:21:42
Speaker 3: for all conference. Now there's some guys with big numbers.
2:21:45
Speaker 3: Cam cook at West Virginia is their whole offense. His
2:21:49
Speaker 3: totals are going to be crazy and they're going to
2:21:51
Speaker 3: outpace everyone. I haven't checked Aiden Flores numbers at Iowa
2:21:54
Speaker 3: state as of late LJ Martin. When he comes back
2:21:57
Speaker 3: into the BYU lineup, he's going to have some big numbers.
2:22:01
Speaker 3: don't do this thing as a fan, as a listener,
2:22:04
Speaker 3: as a watcher of Utah football and say, oh, that
2:22:07
Speaker 3: guy only had 40 yards today. Oh, that guy only
2:22:09
Speaker 3: had six is Braden pagan, a great player for this
2:22:12
Speaker 3: Utah football team. Is it, can we agree that he's
2:22:17
Speaker 3: a huge addition to this Utah football team?
2:22:20
Speaker 2: What was his day against Houston? was pretty quiet. He
2:22:24
Speaker 2: was quiet.
2:22:25
Speaker 4: Yeah.
2:22:25
Speaker 3: Is bird Ficklin still a massively important player on this offense?
2:22:29
Speaker 2: Why did he only get one touch against Houston?
2:22:31
Speaker 3: It's not because he disappears against good teams as is
2:22:34
Speaker 3: being suggested on Twitter about way Sean Parker it's because
2:22:38
Speaker 3: the offensive game plan changed as the game progressed. If,
2:22:43
Speaker 3: if Devin, Dan pier isn't there and can't run the football,
2:22:48
Speaker 3: and way Sean Parker is still not getting yardage. If
2:22:53
Speaker 3: he's given 25 carries and his average goes down instead
2:22:57
Speaker 3: of up, then we can have that conversation. Let's evaluate
2:23:03
Speaker 3: these things the correct way. If Devante Booker in a
2:23:05
Speaker 3: first team, all conference season went six of 13 games,
2:23:11
Speaker 3: not even averaging four yards per carry. It is not
2:23:14
Speaker 3: realistic or okay to expect five yards of carry and
2:23:18
Speaker 3: every single game from way Sean Parker.
2:23:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
2:23:22
Speaker 2: And don't the best offensives have lots of options, right?
2:23:28
Speaker 5: And I think that's what you were getting to, to, in,
2:23:31
Speaker 5: in picking Devante Booker specifically to compare him to, not
2:23:35
Speaker 5: just because those numbers would be incredible. If that's what
2:23:38
Speaker 5: way Sean Parker ends the season with the, with Devante
2:23:41
Speaker 5: Booker's numbers in 2014 in particular, but also because Devante
2:23:45
Speaker 5: Booker was the offense and, And it's a drastically different
2:23:50
Speaker 5: situation so far this year under Kevin McGiven, where they
2:23:55
Speaker 5: have all kinds of options to the point where you
2:24:00
Speaker 5: were just saying, Wayshawn Parker can have, what do you have,
2:24:03
Speaker 5: 30-something yards last week? I'm not sure he got over
2:24:07
Speaker 5: 40 yards rushing.
2:24:08
Speaker 7: And Hagan.
2:24:10
Speaker 5: I don't even know what his stats was, but I
2:24:12
Speaker 5: think he had seven yards. If I'm not mistaken, pagan
2:24:15
Speaker 5: had seven receiving yards. And like, those are your best
2:24:19
Speaker 5: two players on offense so far, but not named Devin
2:24:22
Speaker 5: Dampier probably.
2:24:23
Speaker 6: Right.
2:24:24
Speaker 2: My, my concern, right.
2:24:27
Speaker 3: When I look at what happened last week, because this
2:24:30
Speaker 3: is the best team you have played by a significant stretch.
2:24:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:24:33
Speaker 3: My concern is a 13 carries 47 yards for way
2:24:37
Speaker 3: Sean Parker.
2:24:37
Speaker 7: Okay. Okay.
2:24:38
Speaker 2: So 47 yards. Speaker 0 Pagan had, oh, I was wrong.
2:24:42
Speaker 2: He had two catches for 37 yards, 37.
2:24:45
Speaker 3: Speaker 2 So he has two catches under 40 yards
2:24:49
Speaker 3: receiving no touchdowns. Parker has under 50 yards rushing under
2:24:54
Speaker 3: 13 carries is all he had. He had some receiving
2:24:57
Speaker 3: yards in there too. He had 93 total yards. So
2:25:00
Speaker 3: are we also are also, are we going to say way?
2:25:02
Speaker 3: Sean's got to be over a hundred yards. And if
2:25:04
Speaker 3: he only has 93, now it's a bad game for him.
2:25:07
Speaker 3: Significantly worse. Like it's really not. We just, and yet
2:25:10
Speaker 3: you still win the game. Winning the game is the
2:25:13
Speaker 3: thing that matters. And if you ask for way, Sean Parker,
2:25:17
Speaker 3: here's a text coming in that says way. Sean Parker
2:25:19
Speaker 3: should have 140 all purpose yards rushing.
2:25:22
Speaker 2: Per game. Okay.
2:25:23
Speaker 3: He's very capable of that. And this pressure is a
2:25:26
Speaker 3: privilege as Morgan Scali said, right? So you want him
2:25:31
Speaker 3: to have 140 yards. There were 420 yards total in
2:25:36
Speaker 3: this game. You want way Sean Parker to have a
2:25:39
Speaker 3: third of your offense. If way Sean Parker is a
2:25:42
Speaker 3: third of your offensive production, every game, guess what teams
2:25:45
Speaker 3: are going to do. If that's your only option, way
2:25:48
Speaker 3: Sean Parker is one third of your total offense. Guess
2:25:51
Speaker 3: what happens? Teams try to take way Sean Parker away.
2:25:54
Speaker 3: Team spy way Sean Parker way Sean Parker gets overworked,
2:25:58
Speaker 3: whatever it is. I will not stand for any way
2:26:01
Speaker 3: Sean Parker slander on this show.
2:26:04
Speaker 2: He's the best player on the football team.
2:26:06
Speaker 3: Even in a slow day for way Sean Parker, he
2:26:09
Speaker 3: was huge in this game against Houston. Don't do the
2:26:13
Speaker 3: thing where you say, Oh, Devin damp here only had
2:26:17
Speaker 3: 204 yards passing.
2:26:19
Speaker 2: He won you the game.
2:26:21
Speaker 5: And you're going to hear, I mean, you heard today,
2:26:24
Speaker 5: Kevin McGiven talk about that, that he got to a
2:26:26
Speaker 5: point where he, basically had to say to Devin, you're
2:26:30
Speaker 5: going to take over this game.
2:26:32
Speaker 3: And then Devin did awesome stuff. Thank you for the tweet.
2:26:36
Speaker 3: Thank you for the pushback. Thank you for saying like, well,
2:26:38
Speaker 3: hold on. I want more from way. Sean Parker.
2:26:41
Speaker 6: Yes.
2:26:42
Speaker 2: I want a unicorn ride to the moon.
2:26:45
Speaker 4: Okay.
2:26:45
Speaker 3: You're going to get great games from way. Sean, you're
2:26:48
Speaker 3: going to get 200 yard games from way Sean. And
2:26:50
Speaker 3: when you get a 93 yard game from him, you're
2:26:54
Speaker 3: going to say, thank you, sir, may I have another?
2:26:56
Speaker 3: Because he is helping you win the most important game
2:26:59
Speaker 3: of the year.
2:27:00
Speaker 5: And as I said on Monday's show, OC, I just
2:27:03
Speaker 5: think that it cannot be overstated. Numbers-wise, the kind of game,
2:27:10
Speaker 5: it looked subpar numbers-wise in certain ways for Devin Dampier
2:27:15
Speaker 5: on the stat sheet and for Wayshon Parker on the
2:27:17
Speaker 5: stat sheet, and yet they get in clutch time they
2:27:23
Speaker 5: get your two most important scores of the game. They
2:27:26
Speaker 5: help you win that game. Like that is, I don't
2:27:29
Speaker 5: care what the stat sheet says at that point. If
2:27:32
Speaker 5: you're able to do that in a game that looks subpar,
2:27:35
Speaker 5: otherwise you have what.
2:27:37
Speaker 2: It takes to be a winning player. And that's what you, needs.
2:27:42
Speaker 2: Thank you.
2:27:42
Speaker 3: Jack Mormon, 69 for putting that in the credible Twitter handle.
2:27:47
Speaker 2: What the shout out to you?
2:27:49
Speaker 3: We will give away a free lunch at Zao Asian
2:27:52
Speaker 3: cafe and topical trivia.
2:27:54
Speaker 6: Next.
2:27:54
Speaker 2: It's the Sean O'Connell show on ESPN, 700 and 92
2:27:56
Speaker 2: on FM.
2:27:59
Speaker 8: This is the Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the
2:28:03
Speaker 8: best inside of your youths. Let's get back to OC
2:28:06
Speaker 8: from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN 792.1 FM.
2:28:13
Speaker 2: I want to feed you.
2:28:16
Speaker 3: I've got a Zao Asian Cafe free meal card for
2:28:19
Speaker 3: this question.
2:28:20
Speaker 2: 877-353-0700.
2:28:21
Speaker 3: Wayshawn Parker was the major topic of discussion in our
2:28:26
Speaker 3: last segment, thanks to Jack Mormon, 69 Instagram account. Yeah,
2:28:33
Speaker 3: that was, that's the, that's the, the Twitter handle. 877-353-0700 way.
2:28:40
Speaker 3: Sean Parker averages. How many yards per carry on the
2:28:44
Speaker 3: season right now? Not in the Houston game right now.
2:28:49
Speaker 3: What is he averaging on the season? Yards per carry
2:28:51
Speaker 3: for way, Sean.
2:28:52
Speaker 2: 877-353-0700.
2:28:53
Speaker 3: Final segment of the show, Crosstalk, brought to you by
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Speaker 3: our friends at Advanced Window Products, 801-850-9100. For the best
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2:29:05
Speaker 2: 10 windows or more.
2:29:07
Speaker 5: Hi, Spence.
2:29:08
Speaker 7: That's on.
2:29:16
Speaker 3: I've never seen a grown man struggle to open a
2:29:19
Speaker 3: can of soda.
2:29:20
Speaker 10: That actually hurt my ring or my pointer finger. And
2:29:23
Speaker 10: it's not soda.
2:29:24
Speaker 7: Sorry.
2:29:24
Speaker 2: What is it? Monster energy. I was waiting for the
2:29:27
Speaker 2: big voice guy.
2:29:28
Speaker 6: Yeah.
2:29:29
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, you found my burner account. Yeah.
2:29:32
Speaker 7: It's just.
2:29:33
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you for interacting with the show. Did you
2:29:36
Speaker 2: say Jack Mormon 69? Correct. Moving on.
2:29:42
Speaker 10: I like the way that you broke that down coming in.
2:29:47
Speaker 10: We do this thing, I think it's fantasy football driven.
2:29:51
Speaker 10: It might be prop bet player driven these days on sportsbooks,
2:29:56
Speaker 10: where you look at the box score and you analyze
2:29:59
Speaker 10: the stats instead of watching the game. And then you
2:30:02
Speaker 10: jump to a conclusion, oftentimes with a jump to conclusion map,
2:30:06
Speaker 10: if you're an office space fan, about whether or not
2:30:09
Speaker 10: the player had a good game. Your Devontae Booker numbers
2:30:12
Speaker 10: blew my mind. No part of me would have guessed
2:30:15
Speaker 10: that he had six games. What was it, under 100
2:30:18
Speaker 10: yards and less than four yards per carry? Was it
2:30:22
Speaker 10: six games with those numbers?
2:30:23
Speaker 7: Yes.
2:30:23
Speaker 2: No part of me would have guessed that.
2:30:26
Speaker 10: So as we talk about on the show every day,
2:30:30
Speaker 10: the only job you have is to figure out what
2:30:33
Speaker 10: you need to do to guard your yard, whatever cliche
2:30:37
Speaker 10: you want to use, maximize what you've been asked to
2:30:40
Speaker 10: do to win the football game. And way Sean Parker
2:30:43
Speaker 10: this year by Morgan Scali and Kevin McGiven zone admission
2:30:47
Speaker 10: has taken such a step up in things other than
2:30:51
Speaker 10: individual stats, pass protection, being able to throw a block
2:30:55
Speaker 10: when he needs to. How many of Devin's lanes during
2:30:59
Speaker 10: that third quarter drive, the change, the entire game were
2:31:01
Speaker 10: as a result of Houston honing in on trying to
2:31:04
Speaker 10: stop way, Sean, I can promise you this. If Kevin
2:31:08
Speaker 10: McGiven thought putting the ball in Weishan's gut 25 times
2:31:11
Speaker 10: was the best chance for them to win that game,
2:31:13
Speaker 10: he would have done it. He obviously saw something that
2:31:16
Speaker 10: Houston was trying to do to key in on Weishan
2:31:21
Speaker 10: that allowed Devin Dampier the space he needed to make
2:31:23
Speaker 10: the plays that he made in order to score that
2:31:26
Speaker 10: touchdown and ultimately win the football game. The basketball equivalent
2:31:30
Speaker 10: of this currently in our market is Keontae George, where
2:31:34
Speaker 10: if you don't watch a jazz game, And you see, okay,
2:31:36
Speaker 10: final score is this or whatever. And you look at
2:31:38
Speaker 10: the box score and you see that Keontae had 28
2:31:41
Speaker 10: points and nine assists and five boards.
2:31:45
Speaker 2: Like, well, at least Keontae did his job.
2:31:47
Speaker 10: Where if you're watching the Jazz play this year, the
2:31:51
Speaker 10: issues with Keontae continue. I'm watching him lose a player
2:31:55
Speaker 10: on a backdoor cut or not chase his assignment along
2:31:59
Speaker 10: the baseline that leads to a wide open corner three.
2:32:02
Speaker 10: or not fight over a screen or hedge when he's
2:32:05
Speaker 10: supposed to lay back or play and drop when he's
2:32:10
Speaker 10: supposed to blitz or whatever it is. I think Keontae
2:32:13
Speaker 10: George has a chance to be a really good player
2:32:14
Speaker 10: in this league, but he has to learn that you
2:32:17
Speaker 10: have to play on both sides of the floor or
2:32:19
Speaker 10: else you're not going to be an all-star level guard.
2:32:22
Speaker 10: So to look at Weishan's stats and then draw the
2:32:24
Speaker 10: conclusion that he's not doing enough is not really understanding,
2:32:28
Speaker 10: I think, the overall game plan. And only Kevin McGivin
2:32:31
Speaker 10: and Morgan Scali knows what that is.
2:32:33
Speaker 2: But when.
2:32:35
Speaker 10: The offensive coordinator joins your show, you do coordinator's corner,
2:32:39
Speaker 10: or if you listen to Way Sean Parker's teammates, all
2:32:42
Speaker 10: that kid has done this year is whatever it takes
2:32:45
Speaker 10: that day to win a football game. And if that's
2:32:47
Speaker 10: not 25 rushes or eight catches out of the backfield,
2:32:52
Speaker 10: I still think he's top 10 in college football as
2:32:53
Speaker 10: far as receiving yards for a running back. There's an
2:32:57
Speaker 10: argument to be made that he's been the best player
2:33:00
Speaker 10: on the team all year long, and that includes what
2:33:02
Speaker 10: happened against Houston.
2:33:02
Speaker 3: 6.3 yards per carry is what his season average is.
2:33:10
Speaker 2: Which would be, I mean, that's more than what you
2:33:13
Speaker 2: would want.
2:33:14
Speaker 3: 6.6 is what he averaged last year. He's going to,
2:33:17
Speaker 3: it's probably going to be in that neighborhood this year.
2:33:19
Speaker 3: If you end up finishing this season with six yards
2:33:22
Speaker 3: of carry, that's an outstanding season for way Sean Parker.
2:33:25
Speaker 2: That'll put them over a thousand yards.
2:33:27
Speaker 3: But the stat that everyone on this Utah team is
2:33:30
Speaker 3: looking for is the one in the wind column.
2:33:34
Speaker 2: And that's it. And that's it.
2:33:35
Speaker 3: And like Devin, Dan Pierre is going to be probably
2:33:40
Speaker 3: the sixth most productive passing quarterback in the big 12 conference.
2:33:43
Speaker 2: Maybe way.
2:33:44
Speaker 3: Sean is probably going to be the seventh most productive
2:33:48
Speaker 3: running back in the big 12 conference. But if this
2:33:51
Speaker 3: team finishes in the top two and is in the
2:33:54
Speaker 3: conference championship game and has an opportunity for the college
2:33:58
Speaker 3: football playoff, there's not going to be one person, you, me,
2:34:02
Speaker 3: anybody saying, Hey, Gosh, I really wish he had more
2:34:05
Speaker 3: 100-yard games.
2:34:07
Speaker 10: Well, and if you're an NFL scout, if you're a
2:34:09
Speaker 10: scout looking at a college prospect, the stats are not
2:34:14
Speaker 10: the first thing you look at. You're going to talk
2:34:16
Speaker 10: to the coaches. Does the kid do what you ask
2:34:18
Speaker 10: him to do to win games? Is he a complete back?
2:34:22
Speaker 10: And way Sean is as complete of a back, Sean,
2:34:24
Speaker 10: as maybe we've ever had here. He can run it.
2:34:27
Speaker 10: He can catch it. He's good in pass protect. He's
2:34:29
Speaker 10: willing to block. He's a good teammate. The kid just
2:34:31
Speaker 10: wants to win. So if you're trying to analyze whether
2:34:36
Speaker 10: or not he's an NFL player, you're going to call
2:34:38
Speaker 10: Coach McGiven and Coach Scali, and you want to know
2:34:40
Speaker 10: what this kid is about as far as what he
2:34:43
Speaker 10: does every day in practice to establish the good habits
2:34:47
Speaker 10: that he needs. And then does he do, does he
2:34:49
Speaker 10: understand what you're asking him to do? And is he
2:34:51
Speaker 10: physically capable of doing it? Whit talked about that all
2:34:54
Speaker 10: the time while he was here. He's a winning football player.
2:34:58
Speaker 10: And when he has the opportunity, as the game plan mandates,
2:35:02
Speaker 10: to be the focal point of the offense. We see
2:35:05
Speaker 10: that he produces, but this is an offense right now.
2:35:07
Speaker 10: We're going to talk about it today on the show
2:35:09
Speaker 10: with Cincinnati coming up. Cincinnati is really good on the ground.
2:35:12
Speaker 10: You got to make JC French kid beach through the
2:35:14
Speaker 10: air with Utah. You have to pick your poison. They
2:35:18
Speaker 10: can do both at this point. And Cincinnati's run defense
2:35:21
Speaker 10: has not been great. It was better last week. They've
2:35:24
Speaker 10: only stacked the box 39 times. That's a hundred and
2:35:28
Speaker 10: 112th in college football. Utah is, I think is 82nd
2:35:31
Speaker 10: stacking the box. So if Cincinnati doesn't stack the box
2:35:34
Speaker 10: this weekend, Weishan's going to get his 25. If they
2:35:36
Speaker 10: try to stack the box against Weishan, Devin and Braden
2:35:39
Speaker 10: Pagan and Craig Whittemore and everybody else will make him pay.
2:35:41
Speaker 2: It's a balanced attack right now. Stay tuned for the drive. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, wait,
2:35:47
Speaker 2: you had another parking question.
2:35:48
Speaker 4: Sorry.
2:35:49
Speaker 10: So we talked a few weeks ago about backing into
2:35:52
Speaker 10: parking spaces and whether or not that is socially acceptable.
2:35:54
Speaker 10: We both agreed that it is so long as you
2:35:57
Speaker 10: are not making people wait.
2:35:59
Speaker 7: Yeah.
2:35:59
Speaker 10: For you to back up your jacked F one 50
2:36:01
Speaker 10: or wherever, whatever, whatever the hell it is. What's the
2:36:04
Speaker 10: best truck. And again, you have truck energy, the best truck.
2:36:09
Speaker 8: Yeah.
2:36:09
Speaker 10: Like if you had to, what's like, so truck guy
2:36:12
Speaker 10: out there, it wants to be like ultimate truck guy.
2:36:15
Speaker 2: What is he buying? I don't, I have no idea.
2:36:17
Speaker 2: Probably like F three 50 Lariat. James, any insight here
2:36:21
Speaker 2: on Porter?
2:36:22
Speaker 4: We'll know.
2:36:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:36:24
Speaker 7: I don't know.
2:36:24
Speaker 2: I mean, are you, Probably F something.
2:36:28
Speaker 3: Ford or, but then there's the right, like now we're
2:36:31
Speaker 3: going to get people texting us that are.
2:36:33
Speaker 2: Just like, my Tacoma is the best truck. I think
2:36:35
Speaker 2: you're going to get those people. Silverado, baby. Like, I
2:36:38
Speaker 2: don't know. Is that how truck guys sound?
2:36:40
Speaker 7: Yeah.
2:36:40
Speaker 2: Okay.
2:36:41
Speaker 10: I've, I've, I've made the question too long. Here's my
2:36:43
Speaker 10: question as a result of what happened today.
2:36:46
Speaker 2: Okay. Went to get my haircut. Got to keep it tight.
2:36:49
Speaker 2: Got to get the hair. It's not, it turned out
2:36:50
Speaker 2: well because he's wearing a hat, but I wear a
2:36:52
Speaker 2: hat every day.
2:36:53
Speaker 7: You know this.
2:36:53
Speaker 4: Okay.
2:36:54
Speaker 10: How many chances do you get to parallel park while
2:36:58
Speaker 10: somebody is waiting for you?
2:36:59
Speaker 2: It's two. It's two max.
2:37:00
Speaker 7: Two.
2:37:01
Speaker 2: Okay.
2:37:02
Speaker 10: This lovely young lady, I'm sure she's a wonderful girl,
2:37:05
Speaker 10: was really having a tough time.
2:37:07
Speaker 2: And it wasn't like I could drive around her.
2:37:09
Speaker 7: Okay.
2:37:10
Speaker 2: It was right here. I had to wait. Five opportunities.
2:37:16
Speaker 2: And then she just punted and drove away. The ultimate
2:37:18
Speaker 2: miss after five. Oh, gosh, the poor thing. I felt bad.
2:37:22
Speaker 3: Her heart was racing, looking at that rear view mirror,
2:37:26
Speaker 3: you probably not hiding your feelings on your face.
2:37:29
Speaker 10: I was, there was a stern look, certainly, but five
2:37:33
Speaker 10: chances for this young lady to parallel park. And then honestly,
2:37:37
Speaker 10: on the fifth, I was kind of rooting for her.
2:37:39
Speaker 10: I'm like, let's get this one done. You got it
2:37:41
Speaker 10: this time, girl. And then in her Jetta or whatever
2:37:43
Speaker 10: the hell it is, she just drove away.
2:37:45
Speaker 7: Wow.
2:37:46
Speaker 10: So we can agree that, okay, two things. You're allowed
2:37:50
Speaker 10: to back your obnoxious truck into a parking spot so
2:37:53
Speaker 10: long as somebody is not waiting for you. And you
2:37:55
Speaker 10: get two chances to parallel park while somebody is waiting
2:37:58
Speaker 10: for you to get it done.
2:37:59
Speaker 6: Yeah. Okay.
2:38:00
Speaker 2: That's all.
2:38:02
Speaker 3: Glad we've solved the world's parking problems. Stay tuned for
2:38:05
Speaker 3: The Drive. Sean O'Connell's show will do again tomorrow on
2:38:07
Speaker 3: ESPN 700 and 92 on FM.