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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 8-26-26 · The Sean O'Connell Show

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Sean O'Connell show on a Wednesday. Glad
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to have you with us. It's going to be a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: fun one today.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: We keep prognosticating and predicting what Utah is going to
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: do statistically as football season approaches eight days away now
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: from kicking it off. Sammy Moore is going to stop
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: by in about half an hour. We're also going to
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: check in with Antonio Morales. Antonio was responsible for the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: top programs of the last 50 years article that have
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: not won a national championship. So we're going to get
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: into all that. And the latest and greatest of breaking
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: news as it comes out. Let's have a discussion today,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: if you'll indulge me, in how important cohesiveness is when
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: it comes to leadership in college athletics. We're seeing down
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: in Provo right now potentially a disconnect between the athletic
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: director and the head coach, and that disconnect has to
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: extend on some level to the financial arm of the
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: athletic department. as convoluted as those structures are now in
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: college sports, what you need is everybody pulling on the
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: same rope. You need your NIL fund, your revenue share fund,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the leadership there to understand the needs of the athletic
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: department as a whole, the athletic department as a whole
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: to understand the needs of its component parts, football being
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: the main driver, men's basketball being second. Depending on which
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: campus you're on, it could be women's basketball, softball, gymnastics,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: track and field, whatever, could be kind of that third option.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: There are some places where it's baseball. I guess volleyball, potentially,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: if we're talking.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: About the right school.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Right now we have, I mean, yesterday we were discussing
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: and ranting about the boomerang players. Shout out to whoever
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: that was again, who gave us the term boomerang instead
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: of bounce back.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: We like boomerang much better. Yeah. That was, uh, that
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: was Lauren.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Good.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I email shout out Lauren. Good. I Lauren.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Um, we like boomerang player better, right? So yesterday there,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the big 10 was making decisions on how to penalize
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: bringing boomerang players onto a roster.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: The sec was making the same decisions.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: The big 12 and the ACC are going to make
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: their own announcements. on their stance on the matter. College
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: football is in this really weird state of flux that
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: nothing actually sticks. The last three, four, five, six years,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: you've had these massive changes and a hopeful settling, but
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: then the sediment gets kicked up again five seconds later.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: And then, okay, that settles down, and oh, now there's
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: something else. Oh, okay, that one's going to settle down. Oh,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: now there's something else. And in all of this, leadership,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: being on the same page, is more important now than
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: it ever has been. And I'm not living in this
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: world of sunshine and rainbows where I expect an athletic
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: director and a head football coach or an athletic director
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and a university president and a head basketball coach to
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: always be on the same page about everything. But it
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: helps when you get your messaging right and when you
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: understand the stance on the ground all the way up
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: to the office. The SEC held a vote yesterday on
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: whether or not to approve or disapprove of boomerang players.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: And according to reports, the decision to disallow was voted
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: upon by In unanimous agreement, 16 to 0. Hey, we
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: are not going to accept this, which is fine and expected,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and I think the best outcome for college football, except
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: that vote was coming down from the powers that be,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: from the chancellors, the presidents at LSU, while their head
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: coach is actively pursuing boomerang players in the portal.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And actively recruiting those guys out of the portal.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Now, we're insulated from it because this is at LSU, okay?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: But it's an indicator, it is a dog whistle for
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: bigger problems in college sports where the universities themselves are
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: voting on something That on the same day, I mean,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: in real time, those conversations, I could imagine they're happening
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: at the same time. Or Lane Kiffin's on a phone
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: call with somebody. Hey, you know what? We're going to
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: get injunctions for this. I know the Louisiana district judge
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: who's going to allow this. and we're going to get
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: a temporary restraining order, and everything's going to be fine.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: So why don't you head from Cleveland down here to
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Baton Rouge? Why don't you go from Seattle down here
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: to Baton Rouge? I know you had a great game
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a couple of sacks there.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: That was preseason, doesn't count. Why don't you get in
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: a U-Haul and grab your stuff and head on over
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: here to Baton Rouge? That phone call is happening at
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: the same time that some stuffed shirts are sitting in
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: a conference room saying, we all disagree that or we
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: all agree that this is bad for college sports, right?
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: We all have decided that we don't want to flirt
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: with this. And the decision is made to vote in
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: accordance with what the big 10 has already announced as
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: of last evening, what the sec, you know, what Tennessee
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: is going to do, what Florida is going to do.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: All right. You know what? We're going to punish this.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And the penalties are severe, right?
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: The Big Ten and the SEC, I guess it was
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the SEC kind of copycatting the Big Ten, which gives
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: me a perverse pleasure that just comes from having watched
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: the SEC dominate for so long and being at the
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: top of the heap for so long. It's fun to
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: watch them squirm and have to play copycat and have
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: to be second fiddle.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know why, but it is.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: The Big Ten announced that, hey, if you allow boomerang
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: players to come onto your roster, if you recruit boomerang players...
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: The penalty is 50%.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Of the games. Your head coach is going to be suspended.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: 50% of your operating budget for basketball, for football, for softball. I,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know what kind of boomerang situation there is
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: in softball right now.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe someone from the Utah talents is getting phone calls.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: No talents players allowed on a Tennessee's roster. Okay.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Ball Malone doesn't want to lose anybody to wait. Where
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: does she, where is she coaching in college now? UCF big,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: big 12. Hasn't big 12. Hasn't ruled on it yet.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: OC.
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Coach bear Cindy bomb alone. If she ends up recruiting
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Utah talents back to the UCF nights.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Now we know there's potentially a vote coming in the
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: big 12 as well.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Coach bear would never do that. She would never do anything.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So unethical.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: The, the, the point is the penalties are harsh punitive.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: excessive in the eyes of some people and LSU's chancellor,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: president King, whatever they call them down there in Baton
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Rouge said, yes, I will approve this. I will get
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: on board with this while his own football program is
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: committing the violation that is punishable by a 50% suspension
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: of your budget and your head coach's availability to coach games.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Your grace. How do you feel about your head coach
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: doing this?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Well, it would be, if they're a king, they're a
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Mardi Gras king down there in Louisiana, right?
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: No, no, no. Game of Thrones, Your Grace stuff. It's
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: got to be kind of a Creole accent if you're
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: going to do it. Okay, yeah.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, so channel your inner gambit from X-Men. And give
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: me the Creole accent. Do you know what that sounds like?
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I'll work on that. Ed Orgeron?
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Okay. Just, James.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: Your grace.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Pull up an AI engine of sorts. Go Tigers. I
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: got to say that to get the Ed Orgeron.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: It's the only way you could get your Ed Orgeron
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: impersonation working.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Your grace. You got to say. What do you think
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: about this?
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: You got to gargle some broken glass and gravel, and
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: then you got to say, go Tigers.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And then you're almost there. Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: So the SEC, and by the way, I think it's
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: important for me to state, this is what is best
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: for college sports. This is a continuation of the conversation
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: we had at the top of the show yesterday. This
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: is the best thing to do for college sports. Disallowing
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: professionals from coming back to compete at a lower level
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: of professionalism, because it isn't amateur anymore.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: It's the right thing to do. You should not.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: play in an NFL game pre-season or otherwise, and then
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: come back onto campus and steal somebody else's spot, take
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: somebody else's roster limit. Because remember, it's not about, it's
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: not about who, how many scholarships you have anymore. it's
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: not about how many walk-ons you can allow it's you've
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: got 100 spots 105 spots and everyone's getting paid it's
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: the it's another place where two things can be true
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: at the same time right oc like so many people
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: for a long time have said it is wrong that
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: players have such transfer restrictions, obviously not be able to
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: make any kind of money given how much revenue their
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: teams are generating for the NCAA and for their schools.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it's also true that pro shouldn't play college sports, right?
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: It's also true that there should be some reasonable restrictions
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: on player movement in college, because one, is it not
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: also true, even though we have completely abandoned it, if
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: we ever cared about it, we completely abandoned any care
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: about the academics. It's also true that, Hey, like moving
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: around schools every year, that's not going to help you
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: get your degree. And that's, that should be important too, right? Like,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: all those things are true. People like the representatives for
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: these players, coaches like Lane Kiffin and every coach in
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: the country that wants to better their roster and use
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: any edge that they can.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: That's, you know, somewhat legal.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: They would probably be telling you right now, well, aren't
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: you for, aren't you for players getting paid? Aren't you
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: for more players rights in college football? Like, Obviously, all
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: of us would say, yes, we are, but this is
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: still wrong. There still needs to be some reasonable regulation
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: on this, and right now that's not what we have.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: It's a reflection of a lot of other things that
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: have happened in society as of late where– It really is.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Don't worry, James. I'm not going to get political here.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: But it's– this excessive permissiveness, this you've got to accept everything,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: everything is okay, like let everyone live their truth– The
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: truth is the truth. And the truth is, like, it's
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: better for college sports to not have professionals, seasoned professionals,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: or even, like, borderline professionals who have explored that opportunity,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: who have been turned away from the pro leagues, who
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: have exhausted their eligibility.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't get to Sue and get your way with everything.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Speaker 2, I even think like we talked about Trinidad shambles.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: This'll be, is this going to be a sixth year
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: of NCAA football that he's going to have?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Or is it going to be a seventh year? Speaker 3,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: What was it?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Kim McCormick, the Oregon slash Miami tight end. He played
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: nine years. He van Wilder this whole thing. And that look,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I get it. When guys have a plague of injuries,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I feel sympathetic.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: We saw that with Cam Rising.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: He played seven years of college football, but three of
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: those were lost to injury and one because he transferred
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: before the automatic transfer rule. And at the end of
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the day, you should be allowed to play your four years.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Now you're five years. And I think we're going to
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: get a situation because right now the rule is you
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: got five years consecutively from the time you turn 19
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: or you graduate high school. The exceptions for that are
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: going to be rewinding all the way back to the
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: old exceptions, right? Church service will interrupt that. Military service
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: will interrupt that, right? So there's going to be a
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: time when a bunch of people are complaining that once again,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: BYU and to a lesser extent, Utah and Utah State
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: and Stanford usually has a few return missionaries.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: There's going to be coaches complaining like, hold up, hold up,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: hold up.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: I thought we did this universal thing where you had
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to be done playing by the time you were 23
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: or 24.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: That guy's 25 with three kids. Why is he playing? Right.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: There's going to, these fights will be repicked and BYU
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: will be at the center of a controversy in the
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: next year or two because of that, because everyone else
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: is feeling like, hold on a second. I thought we
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: were leveling the playing field here. I will say this
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: until Indiana one with a bunch of older players last year,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: there's not one person coach that, GM that said it's
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: better if you have a bunch of older guys. Otherwise,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Alabama would have been doing this for 30 years. Alabama
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: would have been sending people on church missions with whatever
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: faith that they were attached to and having them come
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: back two years later. If that were considered an advantage
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: in college sports in the 1990s or the early 2000s,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: BYU would not have been the only team.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: With a bunch of 24 year olds on it.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, yeah, like BYU would have been more
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: of a national power than they've been Utah, which until
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: recently has had a lot of LDS and return missionaries
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: on the roster. Still have some, but not, not near
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: as many. They would have been a lot more of
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: a national power to BYU. In years past.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Because they already use this Utah state.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: If age was an advantage that meant that much in
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: college sports, then your point stands. Our local universities would
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: have had a significant edge over everybody else. It wasn't
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: thought of that way. It's not going to be thought
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: of that way. I don't think in the next couple
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: of years, but there's plenty of lawyers out there who
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: are going to look at it and say, wait a second.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: So my guy got injured for three years, and that
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: guy was two years on a church mission. My guy
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: doesn't get to play. That guy does?
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: No.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And then we're going to have this whole thing again.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But it's why the cohesiveness of the messaging and why
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: the same-page mentality for really everyone in the sport, which
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: is near impossible to achieve now, is so important for
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: competitive balance, is so important for harmony, is so important
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: for– Thank goodness we have in just a couple of
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: days real games being played, and I won't be coming
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: on and ranting about these rule changes and injunctions against
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: rule changes and things like that for the next at
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: least 12 weeks. Well, at least I hope I won't.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: But right now, so Big Ten came down and announced this, right?
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: And Indiana brought back two of their best players from
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: last year. Arizona brought back two of their best players
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: from last year, not as professional bounce backs, but as
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: guys who did not have a fifth year of eligibility.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: And then they said, all right, I'm getting a fifth
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: year of eligibility.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Is someone going to tell Kurt Cignetti, you can't have
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: that guy or you can't have those two guys right
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: now that will require a temporary restraining order. I think
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: they'll get it because it's not what the big 10
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: just decided on. It's not individuals that signed pro contracts
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: and then came back. It's guys who thought they were graduating,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: hoped that they would get a pro contract, and didn't, right?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: They already had agents from their college days and things
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Somebody could tell Brent Brennan in Arizona the same thing.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: They're leading rusher from last year back and their best
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: defensive lineman from last year. Back on Arizona, quietly. Because
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: those individuals were like bubble-type players and... didn't get the
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: look that they wanted to, didn't have the pro day
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: or the combine that people expected them to. So their
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: cup of coffee in the NFL was not ever granted,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: but they're back. Are we going to extend this? Hey,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: you were a pro, but now you're not good enough
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: to be a pro. And so you can't come back.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Are we going to extend that for all the guys
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: who was just an eligibility question? as much as all
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: of us at the university of Utah in the university
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: of Utah circle wanted for Alex Jensen to be able
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: to get this W and just hold on to the
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: fact that, Hey, Noam Yakov, man, super legit player. had
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: opportunities to go a lot of different places. He chose
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: the University of Utah. This is fantastic. We all wanted
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: that win to stay with this basketball program. So desperately
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: in need of one, especially on the player personnel front.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: But if you take off your crimson colored glasses and
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: you look at it, what it is, it's a guy
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: who's played four years of professional basketball. So when the
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: NCAA says, no, I'm not allowing this, You kind of
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: have to be like, well, I guess it makes sense
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: because four years of pro basketball is a lot of
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: pro basketball, even if it is European, even if it
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: is an Israeli league. Now, your reasonable acceptance of that
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: is going to fly out the window when you look at, again,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: LSU just signed today an Israeli big man who's 7'3,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: who's been playing pro basketball in Israel. Oh, is it
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: interesting in no Miyako? He's also Israeli.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Maybe the problem is he's not seven foot three.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: What is the, why you got difference here? BYU has
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: got the Jackson Kohler thing going on. Arizona's got a guy.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Kentucky's got a guy. There's a book, right? So if
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you're Utah.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And you look at your case in a vacuum, you're
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: probably like, ah, man, we tried. We took a swing.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: The upside was there. It was worth the time, the energy,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: the effort, and the money we spent on this.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: We'll accept that. When you look at it in a vacuum,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: you can be reasonable about it, but you don't live
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: in a vacuum. You live at a place where your
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: conference opponents are going to be allowed to have former
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: pro players on their roster. Where you played against a
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: team last year who had pro players on their roster. Now,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: is it one of those situations where if Jackson Kohler
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: ends up not being good at BYU for some reason,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: we're like, okay, it's fine.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But he's going to be good.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: He's not going to be like this Abdul Ahmed guy
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: that they had last year.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Kohler is a proven product in the college level. Oh, see,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: like he didn't do much in for the jazz summer league,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: but he's a double digit score, almost 10, almost double
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: digit rebounder for Michigan state, like for a, a nearly
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: blue blood program in, in college basketball.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: He's one of the best big men in the big 10.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you this.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: There's at least one BYU basketball, fan that listens to
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: this show, Texas every now and again.
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Resident BYU fan, Darren, shout out to you. 877-353-0700.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: If you're out there listening or anyone else is out
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: there listening, as if you're a Utah basketball fan, the
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: university has not decided to pursue any kind of legal
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: intervention so that Noam Yakov can play at the university
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: of Utah to our knowledge, right? If the sec is
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: going to do it and the big 10 is going
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: to do it. And maybe even BYU in your conference
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: is going to do it. Would you support the university
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: of Utah seeking help from a judge or from a
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: district court from somebody to give a temporary restraining order
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: against the NCAA or against the big 12 conference or
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: against whatever. Maybe you won't have to, maybe Brett, your
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: mark is like we said yesterday, maybe he's.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Sitting in his office and he's going, could I finally
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: do something to get an edge over the big 10?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's the right way to do it,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: but maybe, maybe he's talking to the university presidents and
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: chancellors in the big 12 and saying, Hey, if we
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: can be the only landing spot for these individuals and,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: That'll give our teams some kind of competitive advantage.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. Yeah.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: And he's been enough of a he's behaved like enough
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: of a wild card OC that my tongue in cheek
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: suggestion that that might happen or that maybe maybe that's
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: what's something he should do yesterday when I made that
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: tongue in cheek yesterday. he's behaved like enough of a
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: wild card that that might just happen.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I doubt it.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: it'd be the right thing to do. I don't think
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: it's the right thing to do.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I also think that the Big 12 can't get away
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I think that the big 10 and the sec and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: the other powers that are more influential would just be like,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: all right, fine. We're not playing you guys then, right?
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: They were not going to schedule you. We're going to
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: boycott you. You're not going to be allowed at a
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: place at our party anymore because what they're going to do,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: what they're willing to do in the sec and in
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: the big 10 with their own member institutions is to
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: suspend those head coaches for half of the year and
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: to find them aggressively and to pull voting rights from
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: that university to and that athletic department on conference-level issues.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: You lose your head coach for half a year. In
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: the SEC's case, you lose 50% of the operating budget
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: for your football team or your basketball team or your
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: softball team or whatever, and you lose voting rights when
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: everyone else gathers at the table and is talking about
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: the future of college athletics and your place in it
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: and their place in it.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: And they say, all in favor? You don't get to vote.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: It's the three abstained kind of situation.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: It's unanimous with some left out. Interestingly enough, the Big
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Ten doesn't have identical language on the actual fine. on
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: the financial penalty with the sec, but the way that
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: it stands in both cases is that you get hit
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: from a leadership standpoint and you get hit from a
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: financial standpoint and you get hit from a voting influence standpoint,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: moving forward, you're, you're sanctioned aggressively by the league. We
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: also saw this. This was the thing that we saw
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: with the ghost transfer rule. And what did it do?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: It got rid of ghost transfers. It effectively ended the,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: the trend that it trend is too strong of a word.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: It ended, closed the loophole for the ghost transfer thing.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: It was the first enforcement proposed in many, many years
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: in any league that I think did what it was
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: intended to do. Remember when the NBA for now, remember
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: when the NBA came out and they're just like, we're
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: so anti flopping that we're going to impose player fines
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: for flopping. And then like Dwayne Wade paid five grand
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: one year because he flopped too much. And Shea Gilgis-Alexander
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: still exists. And now we have Shea, who is everyone's
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: favorite guy to point out that flops too much. And
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Joel Embiid, his now teammate Jalen Brown, called him out
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: for flopping too much in their playoff series.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't do anything.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: I do, as an aside, I do love the college,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: what NCAA men's basketball has done with flopping, where they
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: make it a technical foul. Like, we deemed you flopped.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: It's two free throws for the other team. I don't
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: know why the NBA can't do something like that.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: That would be equally, that'd be more punitive in the NBA.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: And, of course, the technical fouls thing, if you get
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: too many technical fouls, that then results in a suspension.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: And it's probably too punitive to be, to be fair OC,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: but like the reason the NBA doesn't do it, the
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: problem pretty quickly. The reason the NBA doesn't do it
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: is because the players association would never.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Agree to it. They have to have the players agree
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: because the players would just be like, wait a minute.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So if I flop 10 times and get 10 technical fouls,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: then I lose money.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Nah, man. Cause I'm suspended. No, not college college.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: And as we've illustrated, as you've illustrated the last couple
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: of days, especially college basketball, they don't have to... The
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: NCAA can just be like, unilaterally, we're putting in this rule.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: There's no players association they have to bargain with to
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: put in rules.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Football, you do those things.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Nowadays, you might get enough lawyers to say, actually, that's
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: not going to stand. Basketball, that's not happening. So the
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: SEC seems they're going to be a little more punitive
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: financially than the Big Ten, right? Interestingly enough, the fine
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: print doesn't really talk about overseas professionalism. That's going to
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: be something that has to be incorporated here. That's going
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: to still remain a gray area because the Big Ten
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: sanctions and the SEC sanctions are mentioning the NBA, the WNBA,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the G League, the NFL specifically.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: So.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: If you're a pro basketball player in China, if you're
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: a pro black basketball player in Australia, New Zealand, in Israel.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Are the rules going to be different?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Is it going to be the sliding scale that has
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: existed in NCAA circles for the last decade or so?
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: All of these things are going to have to be
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: addressed at some point. Um, our resident BYU fan said, Hey,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I kind of zoned out when you talk about this
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: type of stuff, because the goalposts are in a different
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: place every single day and none of it makes any sense.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And you're right.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: It's, it's starting to feel a little bit like doing
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: radio in the COVID era. I was doing PAC 12
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: radio at the time and it was one of the most,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: it was a bizarro world twilight zone experience. frustration where
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: you would come on the air. We would literally come
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: on the air on a Monday and it'd be like, okay,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: so Cal versus Oregon state this weekend.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Here's how it looks. This is going to be crazy.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: They're only playing six games this year. This is really important.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And then we come on the air on a Wednesday
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: and we'd be like, okay, so we talked about it
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: on Monday, but that game's not going to happen now
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: because Cal had a contact tracing, and they have to
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: suspend their entire team. They don't have enough of an
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: offensive line because somebody tested positive for COVID reports are
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: that nobody is actually sick. No one actually feels bad,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: but we can't play the game anyway.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It was just weird thing that you had to move
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: the goalposts to go along with this text every single day,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: every single week, because college sports didn't know what they
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: were doing.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Relative to the whole COVID thing.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: We've entered that realm of absurdity with this eligibility stuff.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: And before the eligibility stuff, it was the transfer stuff.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: And before the transfer stuff, it was the, can you
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: pay stuff? And somewhere in between all of that, it
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: was the, okay, we decided you can transfer during this
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: window and we can, you can get paid, but you
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: can only get paid if we approve the way you're
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: getting paid and the reason you're getting paid. Oh, and
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: by the way, we don't have enough employees to figure
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: out if you should get paid or not. So now
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: we're going to stop you from getting paid and, wait,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: the universities are still going to pay you because they
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: have a legal agreement that they have to pay you
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: and they can't wait on us. Like all of this
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: happened in the last nine months of college sports. Uh, 42, 34,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: which trips me out every time because the, Those are
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: the last four of my phone number as well.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Hold on.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: This guy says he's a BYU fan. Marriott School of
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Business graduate. No, it doesn't say BYU fan. I'm not
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: texting my own show. Although I should maybe to increase engagement.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I'm the other BYU fan that always listens. Good show,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: by the way. Thanks for saying that. Feels there's a
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: big difference between four years of professional basketball and a
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: few summer league games. However, I'm totally fine if both
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: can play this year. He's right about there is a
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: huge difference between that.
• 30:24
  Speaker 6: Is there?
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, so if you play in Israeli basketball, okay, in
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Israeli pro league, there are 16-year-olds that play in that league, right?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, Noam Yaakov was a 16-year-old playing in that league.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Is that anything close to an NBA basketball game?
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: No.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Is it anything close to an NBA summer league game?
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Still no.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: From a talent standpoint, but when you're talking about four
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: years versus a handful of games.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Look, yes, but also no. Because what are we doing here?
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: We're talking about moving goalposts.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: The pro leagues that exist in some of these other countries,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: first of all, I can only speak from a novice
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: perspective on what the true value of the top Israeli
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: players is.
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: Okay?
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Are they as good as what Jackson Kohler played against
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: in the Big Ten the last couple of years? Probably not, right?
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Are they as good as what he played against even
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: for a couple of games in an NBA Summer League?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Certainly not. Is four years comparable to two weeks ever?
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Not really, right? But what we're talking about here is
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: an apples to pineapples comparison. It's basketball. It's pro basketball,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: but no one has ever confused a pineapple for an apple.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: No one is ever going to confuse NBA anything with Israeli.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Pro league anything.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: It's just like, and again, I'm, I'm not even informed
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: enough on how good that league is to tell you
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: whether or not four years in it is even equivalent
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: to like junior college ball.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: It might be way better than that. It might be
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: as good as our best high schools here are in
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the United States. So if we're talking about an absolute
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: ruling on, Hey, you cannot play pro basketball at all,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: which is what the big 10 and the sec have done.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: They said, no, you sign a contract. You cannot play.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: You go and you flirt with these teams. You do
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: this thing. You don't withdraw your name from a draft.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: You are done in college sports. That is an absolute line.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: And they're going to pull your coach for half the
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: games if he recruits you. Okay, that's aggressive. I appreciate
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: how definitive and punitive it is. And now you're going
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: to do it with a Greek.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: League or an Israeli league.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Or an Egyptian league or a New Zealand league. I,
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: I really don't know if we're talking about anything close
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: to comparable.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: And just to add more context to it, you remember
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Tavernari, former BYU player. He was on with us
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: during the BYU basketball season last year. And he mentioned overseas.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: There are, junior level contracts and there are senior level
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: contracts and yes you're getting paid both way in both
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: instances so technically you're a professional player but the junior
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: level are those high school age kids playing against other
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: high school age kids in these pro league academies the
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: senior level are the grown men playing you know they're
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: equivalent to the nba right And so there's that that
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: comes into play here, too, as we as we try
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: to go through, wade through all the nuance. I don't
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: know the nature of Noam Yakov's contract the last couple
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: of years, but I'm going to guess if he's been
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: in that league since he was 16, it was probably
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: not a senior level contract.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: And that is what that was kind of the line
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: that the NCAA had always drawn up until this point
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: is like, OK, junior level contracts don't count as pro.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: you're still, you can still be considered an amateur. You
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: can still play college basketball. So if Luca had wanted
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: to come play for the university of Kentucky, I think
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: he could have.
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: That's kind of silly because he's Luca, right? But do
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: you treat someone who's not Luca who played in the
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: exact same team as Luca the same way that that's
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: what we're talking about here.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: There's no uniformity in the enforcement.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I appreciate the text though, because it's important to say this.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: 42 34 says, however, I'm totally fine. If both can
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: play this year, meaning he's saying, if, if my team
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: can have a pro player, your team can have a
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: pro player too. And that that's where some of this
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: argument is going to come in because Lane Kiffin at
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: LSU is going to go, hold on a minute.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I'll accept this.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: As long as nobody else has one of these boomerang players,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: because that was his whole argument in the first place.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: If I don't sign them, somebody will.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: We're overdue.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: We've got to take a break. Sammy Mora from Ute
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Zone is going to join us on a Ute Zone Wednesday.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: That's next on ESPN 700 and 92 on FM. And
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: if you don't love me.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Now, you'll never love me.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN 700 and 92 on FM.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the sean o'connell show welcome in on
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: a ute zone wednesday our good friend sammy mora utah
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: insider over there at ute zone hi sammy.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: How are you i'm doing a lot better now that
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: i haven't been bumped for your show in favor of
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: morgan scally wow.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Airing a grievance here and you know what i'll own
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: that we uh We had Morgan Scali on as the
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: head coach of the program last week, and Sammy had
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: already agreed to come on, and we had to tell
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Sammy that she was bumped. So, you know what?
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I guess.
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: Hey, I'm just teasing. Morgan's one of the few people
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: that I would be, like, okay with it. If it was, like,
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: some random Joe Schmo, I would be more offended. But, Morgan,
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: I'm fine. I'm fine.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, so for Morgan, you accept it. For the coordinators,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: would it be okay?
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll take the coordinators. I'll take Devin, but that's
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: where I draw the line.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: So, like, if I'm like, hey, Sharif Shah is coming on,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: you're like, uh-uh, no.
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: Oh, no, no, no. Sharif also gets a pass. Like,
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: any of the coaches get a pass. Certain players, or
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: not certain players, all the players get a pass. But
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: if it's, like, Dave from the corner store, then I'm
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: going to be a little bit upset.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: We would never do that to you, Sammy.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: Come on.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: You know that. All right, so.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: College sports continues to be insane as we are eight
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: days away from Utah kicking off its season. We had
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to catch up with Morgan Scali last week.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: He seemed like he was pleased with the progress in camp. Obviously,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: they wrapped up camp over the weekend. You were up
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: there every day getting sound, talking to people. From what
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: you were able to see, the limited amount, and what
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: you were able to glean from your conversations, was this
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: first camp under Morgan Scali the success that it needed
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: to be?
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: I think, yeah. Even Morgan said yesterday during his scrum
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: that he felt it was successful. They figured out the
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: depth at certain positions. They stayed injury-free. They established the
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: leadership of this team with captains and a leadership council.
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: So I think it was a success. I know that
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: people are still a little bit worried and a little
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: bit skittish about the offensive line and the defensive tackle room.
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: But I honestly think that Deep down, I think these
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: coaches know who's going to start, but they're just trying
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: to not show their hand, which honestly, in one aspect,
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: I'm okay with. Because I know people are like, well,
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: you work in sports media. You should want to know
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: every little thing that happens. But on the other hand,
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: I like to be surprised. I like to go to
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: a game and not know what every single play on
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: the call sheet is. I like to be surprised. kind of,
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: it's like a, it's like a journey. I like to
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: be surprised. I like to just ride the flow of
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: the game and stuff. And so I think they know
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: exactly who all 22 starters are going to be, but
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: they're just not showing their hand, which I'm okay with.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: So the number one question has been the starting five
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: on the offensive line, right? And we had Morgan on, uh,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: we talked to Devin, we talked, Hey, do you know
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: who it's going to be? Do you feel like you
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: have a five that you could put out there? And
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: then Jordan gross comes out and says, you know what?
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: We might actually have 10 guys that I trust to play.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: That's 10 is too many.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Almost Sammy.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Like now I'm wondering how genuine he's being in that assessment,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: but you just said, you think they know exactly who
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: the starting five is on the offensive line because you think,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: you know, who all 22 starters are, who would those
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: guys be?
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: Well, I want to talk about the gross thing, and
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: then I'll answer your question. I think he was mainly
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: referring to he has two starting. He has two lines.
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: He has his ones, and he has his twos, which
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: I think is good because the goal for this team
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: is to be up big again last year, big, up, big,
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: up again, big this year, like they were last year.
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: And I think that having those two, those two starting fives,
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: I think are, is a good thing. I think that the,
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: that helps because especially you're not going to be in
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: that position again next year where you're like, Oh gosh,
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: we need to find all five starters. If you have
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: guys that are getting experienced, but yeah, My take has
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: been and continues to be that I think the starting
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: offensive line is Zeroway Williams, Soleto Amoyai, Alex Harrison, Keith Olsen,
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: and Cedric Jefferson. That's been my take since the beginning
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: of camp. There were a couple of days in camp
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: where I was like, eh, there might be some flexibility
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: at the guard spots. but then, and the, and Jefferson
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: at tackle, but like now I just, I just, my
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: confidence is kind of building on that. But also like,
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: if I'm wrong, I'm not going to be one of
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: those people that like gets really upset and defensive about it. Like,
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: I'm going to admit it. Like, obviously we just see
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: a small, small, small snippet of what actually happens during
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: the week. And, you know, my, my 20 minutes that
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: I get to see is, is nothing compared to what
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: Morgan and, and McGiven and, and Jordan has seen during
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: this time, but that's been my take on the offensive line.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: And I'm, I'm still rolling with it until I improved.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, a couple other big bodies have been a major
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: topic of conversation throughout camp.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: And I think we'll remain.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: So during the season, semi Talanga and Sione Motuapuaka, the rhinos,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: at least we think it's just going to be those
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: two that get the bulk of those touches as the
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: rhino backs. It seems like they're, role could expand even
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: further than we gave it credit.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: They were talking about it at camp. They were talking
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: about it at practice yesterday.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Kevin McGibbon gave those guys credit for their development, not
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: just as lead blockers, effectively. So what can you tell
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: us about the Rhino packages and how big a part
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: of this offense they're going to be?
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: I think we're starting to get a clearer picture on
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: what their role is. I mean, Morgan's talked about how
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: he wants to see the ball handed off to them.
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: I don't think Morgan would say that if that's not
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: in the cards. You have Luke Wells and McGiven saying
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: that they're going to have an expanded role this fall,
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: which I think leads to more receiving the ball, more
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: rushing the ball, less just blocking, like we saw last year.
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: I know Sammy had a couple of receptions last year, but...
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: that role looks to be increasing this year I don't
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: know exactly what the packages look like I don't know
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: exactly what a play for them is going to entail
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: but I do think that we'll see them a little
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: bit more and a little bit in different situations than
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: we did last year um semi said that his personal
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: goal is to score four touchdowns this year and I
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: don't think he would have given us that number if
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: there's not a sizable package that's built out for both
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: him and Sione.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Sammy Moore is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell Show,
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: talking all things Utah football, as the season is right
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: around the corner. Week zero games this weekend, and of course,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Thursday night, Utah against Idaho to kick off the season.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: You alluded to this. We talked about it on the
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: show yesterday.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: They did vote on and name their captains, and it's
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: an interesting year because you have a couple of guys
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: who have obvious leadership qualities and a good relationship with
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: their teammates, but aren't exactly like all-world producers, at least
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: in terms of returning production. Lance Holdsclaw, we always thought,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: was probably going to be voted a captain. I was
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: a little bit more surprised by Trey Reynolds. Love seeing
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: that because, obviously, he's a guy who's paid his dues.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: He's put in the work, special teams and backup role,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: and now he's a first-year full-time starter and already a captain.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I think that's a big testament to the value he
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: presents to this team in the locker room.
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Trey, I would say Trey and Nate Ritchie were
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: the two that kind of surprised me a little bit.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: But we've heard so much about Trey over the last
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: few weeks as just a leader. I think it was
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: Morgan said last week or the week before that Trey
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: is one of those guys that... He wants to make
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: sure that everybody around him is doing what they need
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: to do and that he's really stepped up in that
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: area of the season. So looking back on it, it's
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: not that big of a surprise, but I was surprised,
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: you know, landfill fall wasn't on here. Jackson Benny wasn't
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: on here to a certain extent. I would even say
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: someone like Scooby Davis wasn't on the, on the captain's list,
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: but I get it. These guys are the ones like, again,
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: it goes back to we're only seeing a small drop
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: in the bucket compared to these coaches. And again, this
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: was voted on by the members of the team. So
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: if anyone knows who is leaving this team the best way,
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: it's the guys on the team. And Morgan even said
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: yesterday that there's not one guy who has voted to
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: either the captain's group or the leadership council that was
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: kind of like, eh, I don't really know if I
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: feel that way or if I agree with it. Like,
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: every single guy on this list, according to Scali, deserves it.
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, it's one of those things where
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: I think we on the outside just kind of have
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: to accept it and roll. Like, it is shocking that
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: guys like Lance aren't on there, but at the end
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: of the day, we don't know what's truly going on
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: inside that facility with practices. But, you know, Lance was
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: on that. He is on that leadership council, so at
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: least he's still in that leadership role. Okay.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: The.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: The sack masters for this year's team. I put a
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: poll out. We're trying to predict who's got what, what
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: kind of production we're getting out of players, et cetera,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: et cetera.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: I've been doing some over-unders. I'll give you yesterday's also.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: We'll start with that one, and then I'll get to
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: the guys who I think, you know, just to prep you,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you who you think the leading
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: sack man is on this year's team. But the O
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: block for the offensive line, brand new group, as we've
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: already talked about. I set the over-under at 19.5 sacks
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: surrendered by this group in the upcoming season. Last year
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: was 14. You had two first-round tackles, obviously. You had
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: experience in between those tackles. You had excellent guys on
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: the offensive line. You had a mobile quarterback who was
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: hampered by injury and not as escapable as normal. So
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: last year was 14. Given that context... Over or under 19.5
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: sacks surrendered for this Utah team. By the way, 19
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: or fewer is top five in the Big 12 Conference.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: It's top 27 in the country. More than that, and
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: you're falling out of the top five in the conference,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: and you're out of the top 25 range nationally.
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: I'm going to say under, but it's not going to
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: be by... a lot. I think it's going to be
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: in that like 16 or 17 range. I, I think
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Solito Amoyai and Keith Olson are two of the most
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: underslept on guards, probably in the big 12 conference. Like
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: the two of them are so extremely good at blocking that,
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: that interior of that offensive line. And, you know, Zaraway and,
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: and Cedric are, I I'm optimistic about the two of them.
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: I've heard some really, really, really encouraging things about both
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: of them from people I've talked to over the last
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: couple of weeks. So I think it's going to be lower,
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: but it's like under, but I don't think it's going
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: to be like 10. I think it's probably going to
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: be like 17 or 16.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Now to the sack question. Who is the sack leader
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: on this Utah football team in 2026? My options on
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: the poll, and you could add somebody else if you want.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Lance Holdsclaw currently leading the vote. Cash Dillon is in
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: second place. I put Paul Fitzgerald on there because a
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: healthy Paul Fitzgerald has a better single-season sack total than
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: anyone else on this list.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was at Utah State, but it was a
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: great year.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: He has not been 100% healthy at Utah. And then
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I put Ethan Day as the fourth option. And, of course,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: you can always say otherwise. and tell me who that is.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: So holds claw, Dylan Fitzgerald, Ethan day, who leads this
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: team in sacks?
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: See my, my head is saying like Lance, but my
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: like gut is telling me Ethan, Ethan, just there's things
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: that in okay. Brechterfield said this week that really stood out.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: Like he said that like, you can't tell that Ethan
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: has never, that he's coming from the G five rings.
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: Like he is wired in a way that makes it
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: seem like he's always played at the P four level.
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: And I just think that he has what it takes
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: to be the sack leader, but I also feel that
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: Lance also has that same capability. And the thing is,
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: both of those guys are very different pass rushers. Lance
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: is more of the speed guy, and then Ethan's more
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: of that power guy. So I think it's one of
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: those things where it's like, on one hand, I can
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: see it going Lance, I can see it going Ethan,
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: but I can also see it being Cash or Paul.
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: There's just so much... unknown about this end room but
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: I don't think that's like a bad thing that it's
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: so unknown I think it's more of a okay well
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: we have four guys that we think are more than
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: capable of doing this it's just a matter of who
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: is it that gets the light clicked on first when
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: we get into live game action but I know that's
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: kind of the biggest non-answer I could have given you
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: but my it's between Lance or Ethan in my in my.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Brain this year okay which uh which week zero game
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: are you going to be sure to watch this weekend
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: which one has the most.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Interest for you.
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: Um, I mean, well, I can watch Idaho on Friday
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: night and get a nice early scout in, which is
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: nice for me. Um, kind of like Morgan talked about,
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: but I also like that, that TCU North Carolina game
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: is kind of interesting for me. Uh, I'm trying to
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: think of what else is on the, on the schedule
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: for this weekend.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: But that's kind of it. Honestly, there's, I mean, USC
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: is playing there. There's, there's not a, it's not a
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: great lineup. This is, this week zero, which it never is.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: But, but yeah, the pulled it up.
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: I think that, that North Carolina TCU game and the
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: Idaho game are probably going to be the two that
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: I want. idaho is kind of up in the air
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: i'll probably be at a high school football game so
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: i might not be able to watch all of it
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: so i'll probably watch like a rerun or a highlight
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: cut up but yeah week zero week zero games are
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: usually not my like my thing like i like to
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: get an early taste on football but like there's never
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: a game on the week zero schedule that is like,
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I need to watch it.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: You're not grinding Weber state tape this weekend. I don't know.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: It's kind of messed up.
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, Hey, I, I did tell Spence that I'm
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: a football sicko and I, I am, but like, there's
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: a time and a place and you know, it's a
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: long season.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: So Weber state North Northern Colorado on Friday night, right
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: before Idaho Cal Poly. So All you sickos out there,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: that's your local interest lineup on the Friday night of
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: week zero.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Sammy, you're the best. Thanks so much again for your time.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: We'll chat again soon.
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: Thanks, OC.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Sammy Mora from Ute Zone.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: If you're not already subscribed to Ute Zone now with On3,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: you should be. The whole crew over there does a
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: really good job giving you Utah content and keeping it
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: fresh every single day. Big ups to Sammy Mora for
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: once again hopping on with us. And Ute Zone also has,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: you know, you can be a message board genius by
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: subscribing to Ute Zone, too.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: If you aspire to be one of those guys. I
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: don't encourage that.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: I don't encourage that. No, it's a community, though. It's
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: not just content. It's a chance for you to connect
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: with other Utes fans online, which is a great spot
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: for that.
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: I'm going to extend the question I just asked Sammy
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: to all of you.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: 877-353-0700.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Who is Utah's sack leader this coming season? Sean O'Connell Show,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: ESPN 700, 92 on FM. You're listening.
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: To the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch Hyundai Studio
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: of ESPN 700 and 92 on FM.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: All right, a couple of sack-related stats here. Questions for you.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: 877-353-0700 at Real OC Sports. The over-under today, seven and
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: a half sacks for Utah's leading sack man this coming season.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: Are you going over or under seven and a half?
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: The top three guys in the conference were all 10
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: and above last year. Romello, Height, Jack Kelly, John Henry Daly,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: David Bailey. So top four guys. Height and Kelly tied
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: with 10. John Henry Daly was second. David Bailey had
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: 14 and a half sacks. Everyone else in the conference
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: had seven or less. So four guys in the Big
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: 12 Conference, more than seven and a half last year.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Everyone else in the conference, even really good players, with
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: fewer than that. Utah obviously hit the over with their
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: guy last year. Go to 2024. Van Fillinger had six
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: sacks and was Utah's leading sack man in 2024.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: So it seems to go kind of like.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: Every other year where you have double digits, not double digits,
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: not so over under seven and a half sacks for
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: whoever Utah's leading sack man is. And maybe the more
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: important question, who is going to step up? Who is
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: going to be that guy? I put the poll question
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: out on Twitter. Lance Holtzclaw, Cash Dillon, Paul Fitzgerald, Ethan Day,
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: and if you have an other, I want you to
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: tell me who the other is. The only other I
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: could see would be Ellis, Christian Ellis, shocking us, but
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: he's a stand-up linebacker.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know how much he's going to, well, he's
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: listed as one.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know how much he's going to line up
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: out on the edge and rush the passers this year.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe he will.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: He's more of an interior linebacker, or has been more
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: of an interior linebacker, which, of course, two of his
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: brothers are excelling at in the NFL. And then his
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: immediate older brother is more of a pass rush guy.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: That would be the only other I could imagine. You
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: go tell me, or tell me on the text line, 877-353-0700,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: who leads Utah in sacks this season? And by extension,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: does that person have over or under seven and a
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: half sacks on the year? We will revisit this question
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: a little bit later on. Reminder to all of you,
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: you should already have this number in your phone, 801-850-9100.
• 53:56
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• 54:21
  Speaker 1: But we've got these.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Aluminum frames or we've got some janky nylon frames or
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: vinyl frames that don't really look that great. Just give
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: them a call, 801-850-9100. They'll come out there. They will
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: deal with you honestly. They will tell you what's working
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: on your house, what's working with energy efficiency, what's working
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  Speaker 1: 801-850-9100, advancedwindows.com. As always, tell them OC sent you.
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  Speaker 2: Need replacement windows or you're just kind of questioning whether
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• 55:05
  Speaker 2: the only call that you need to make.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: 801-850-9100.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: We'll come back with Antonio Morales of The Athletic talking
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: about all things college football, including... his article on the
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: top teams to not win a national championship in the
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: last 50 years. Remember, Utah was number nine on that list.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: We'll get into all of it with Antonio in three minutes.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: It's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: This is the Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: best inside of your youths. Let's get back to OC
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN 792.1 FM. Welcome
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: back to the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Welcome in Antonio Morales, National College Football Insider over at
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: The Athletic. We got about 25 minutes on the show
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: out of a great article he put out about the
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: best programs of college football's last 50 years who have
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: not been able to get over the hump and win
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: a national championship. Utah, as a program, came in ninth
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: on that list in the scoring criteria. Excited to talk
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: to Antonio about that and much more. Antonio, welcome to
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: the show. How are you?
• 56:27
  Speaker 6: Hey, doing well. Thanks for having me. Just getting ready
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: for the season to start on Saturday. It's going to
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: be a fun week zero slate. That'll take us into
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: week one. I'm looking forward to it.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're looking forward to it as well. Interesting Big
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: 12 matchup, or I shouldn't say Big 12 matchup. Big
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: 12 showcase opportunity, TCU and North Carolina in Dublin. And
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: obviously here in the Big 12 and Big 12 country,
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: you know, there's this kind of like trepidation. There's this, hey,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: are we Are we the third-best conference in the country?
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: Are we the fourth-best conference in the country? Can we
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: sneak in there in the top two?
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Probably not.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: But how important is that game from the Big 12's
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: perspective in your mind?
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: I think you want– especially it's against an ACC school.
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: So it's one of the worst probably ACC programs in
• 57:15
  Speaker 6: North Carolina right now. If you're the Big 12. And
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: there's a lot of decent buzz about TCU this year
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: in dating Craig, the Harvard transfer they have at quarterback.
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: So if you want to kind of prove yourself and
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: assert yourself as the third best conference, you don't want
• 57:30
  Speaker 6: to lose a game to one of the lower half
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: of the ACC-type programs. So I don't think TCU will lose,
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: but it's certainly a game you want to win.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: I want to.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: I want to pick your brain a little bit about
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: the article that came out in The Athletic, and obviously
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: you were the mastermind behind where you did grade out
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: kind of the top programs that have not won a
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: national championship in the last 50 years.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: What sparked this as an idea? Why did you want
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: to do this piece?
• 58:01
  Speaker 6: I think it was just interesting. Last year, Indiana, obviously
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: one of the most losingest programs in the history of
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: college football. And they came in and won the national title.
• 58:10
  Speaker 6: But I was just thinking about how many programs they
• 58:16
  Speaker 6: skipped kind of in line that had been competitive for
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: the national title over the past 20, 30 years, like Wisconsin, Oregon,
• 58:26
  Speaker 6: other schools like that, Virginia Tech, TCU, schools that haven't
• 58:30
  Speaker 6: won a national title in recent history that have just
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: been on the cusp. but never quite got there. And
• 58:36
  Speaker 6: Indiana just kind of raced by them. And so that
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: was one reason. And so some national title claims that
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: were happening in the spring that I found pretty funny.
• 58:48
  Speaker 6: It kind of made me want to look at national championships,
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: who's won them, who hasn't, and kind of rank who
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: the best programs without them are.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: So Oregon came in number one on that list.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: And Oregon is a team that, we're very familiar with
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: here in Salt Lake city, you know, Utah and Oregon
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: developed a nice little, back and forth in some championship
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: games and some big time games when they were both
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: members of the PAC 12 conference. I did radio for
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: six years with a former Oregon duck, right? So Oregon's
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: been kind of part of the Utah football fabric for
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: a little bit of time here. And it's fascinating to
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: watch this team with all those financial resources and all
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: this great track record in recruiting and still chasing right
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: and I think that's kind of the point of why
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: they're number one on your list they have not yet
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: won that national title but they've been oh so close
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: and in that conversation for really a couple of decades
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: now when you look at what Dan Lanning's got on
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: his roster this year on his coaching staff this year
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Uncle Phil Phil Knight is getting older and spending more
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: and more to try to see his ducks achieve greatness
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: before he's done. Is this a year that you could
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: see Oregon finally getting off of your list and finally
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: taking home a national championship?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know if they will, but I think
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 6: they're certainly capable of it. I feel like I believe
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: in Oregon more now than I did during the Chip Kelly,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: Mario Cristobal years. Chip Kelly years, I just didn't believe
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: they had enough along the line of scrimmage to get
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: it done. And Mario Cristobal years. I just, I think
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 6: Mario Cristobal is a better coach now, a better head
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 6: coach now than he was at Oregon. We saw him
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: go into Utah. I remember 2021 where they played Utah
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: twice and got creamed both games. They got smashed pretty
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: good in both times. So I didn't think the staff
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: was there for them to win the national title yet.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 6: I just, I think Dan Lanning's put pretty much everything
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 6: together except winning the national title. Obviously they're the number
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 6: one seed and ran into a juggernaut Ohio State team
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 6: two years ago. And last year they had two losses
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 6: and they're both the national championship team in Indiana. So
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 6: I think they have the recipe this year, the quarterback, receivers,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 6: running backs, defensive line, the back end of the defense.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: I think the one question I do have is the
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: offensive line. I believe they lost three starters last from
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: that group last year. And we've seen that take down
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 6: preseason teams, preseason, like top 10 teams over the past
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: few years where people kind of overlook the offensive line.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: We saw that with Texas last year where they had issues.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: So that's one area I kind of want to keep
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: an eye on. But I think overall, it's probably the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: best roster that Dan Lanning's had since he's been at Oregon.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: So our Utes, we're the home flagship home of Utah football.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Our Utes come in at number nine on the list
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: and A lot of the accrual of points in your
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: system has happened over the last 10, 15 years, I
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: guess 20 years for the University of Utah. And I
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: know you pay a lot of attention to roster construction,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: and that's something that matters so much in today's era
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: of college football. Based on what you know on your
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: scoring criteria and how these Utah teams were able to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: kind of like place themselves at number nine on your
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: list and your knowing what they're up against now with
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: BYU spending the way they're spending Texas tech, spending the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: way they're spending the big 10, the sec, et cetera.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Can Utah stay kind of where they're at?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: One of these perennially respected top 25 level teams, or
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: are they in trouble when it comes to, you know,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: making sure that they have the player personnel necessary to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: keep themselves in that conversation? Because before they were always
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: a player development team, they'd get these two-star athletes and
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: turn them into four or five-star producers, NFL draft picks.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Now you've got to pay those guys, even if you
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: are the one that develops them, and they don't have
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: the resources that some of these other teams do. So
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: do you think Utah can stay where they're at nationally?
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to be more difficult.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 6: I'm not saying they can't do it, but I just
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: think it's going to be harder for the reasons you said.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 6: In the past, in the Pac-12, it's not like Utah
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 6: was the most resourced school in In the league, they're
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 6: always fighting an uphill climb against the likes of USC, Oregon, Washington,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: schools like that, but like you said, they're able to
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 6: keep their players for three or four years, and by
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 6: the time they matured, they're able to beat those programs
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 6: and give them a run for their money. Obviously, they
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 6: won the Pac-12 twice, and that's just more difficult to
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: do in today's day and age when you have basically
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: free agency every season, and then also you have schools
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 6: like Texas Tech who are spending an enormous amount of
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 6: money every year on their roster and BYU is obviously
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 6: spending a lot and so I think it's going to
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 6: be more difficult coaching stability helps Utah a lot of
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 6: the time so we'll see what Morgan Scali does I
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 6: think when I was writing that story just like man
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 6: just like Urban Meyer obviously bolted over that two-year stint
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 6: kind of laid the foundation and then Kyle Whittingham really
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 6: took it over and sustained that excellence. So it's going
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 6: to be a lot of pressure on Morgan Scali to
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 6: try to do that. I'm interested to see how it
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 6: goes this first year with the coaching staff and the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: quarterback situation and all that they have going on. I
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: know there's a lot to replace on the offensive line,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 6: but I feel like the DNA of the program is
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 6: still there. I'm kind of curious to see. how Morgan
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 6: Scully approaches it. He's obviously somebody who was on that
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 6: 0-4 Fiesta Bowl team. So he knows what it takes.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 6: I'm just curious to see how he executes.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: Antonio Morales is our guest here on the Shot O'Connell Show,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: National College Football Reporter over at The Athletic. Of course,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: the biggest story in college football this week has not been, hey,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: week zero games are coming up. Thankfully, we will have
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: those to talk about soon enough, but it's been these
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: boomerang bounce-back players trying to get off of an NFL
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: roster or out of an NFL minicamp or training camp
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: and back onto a college football roster.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this mess?
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: And, you know, the Big Ten and the SEC have
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: already come down with their decisions. It's expected that we
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: get similar announcements from the ACC and the Big 12
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: any minute now. But your thoughts on the latest drama
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: in roster construction in college football?
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 6: I found being on a preseason NFL roster and being
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: in the transfer portal at the same time, I just
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 6: found it incredibly lame. I wasn't a fan of it
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: at all. I think I compared it to some Uncle
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 6: Rico's trying to come in and play college football. Definitely
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: not a fan of that, I just think. once you
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 6: leave college and declare for the NFL and you're on
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 6: an NFL roster, your college playing days are done. And
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: it's just funny that it's always Lane Kiffin. It seems like,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 6: I think all the taboos that go along with college football,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: he's been involved, like he's been involved in trying to
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 6: like reject them or expose them or exploit them. This
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 6: off season, you have a coach who left during a
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 6: playoff run and The tampering stuff with DeMond Williams at Washington,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 6: which everyone assumed LSU was pretty involved in. And then
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 6: now you have NFL players coming back to play college football.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 6: So there's all these things where you're like, oh, there's
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 6: no way that'll happen. They've all been pretty well-connected to
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 6: Lane Kiffin. So he's managed a way to kind of
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: try to find that gray area.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: To do all this stuff.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: And this is another kind of eye roll example of it.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: And the SEC and Big Ten came out pretty hard
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 6: with their rules against that stuff yesterday. So we'll see
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: what the next step is of it. But it's obviously
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 6: not a fun thing to have to focus on as
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: games are approaching.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: And obviously it becomes these super boring conversations about like
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: injunctions and temporary restraining orders and district judges and all
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. And of course, the proposed solution
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: to all of this has been You know, federal legislation
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: has been a Protect College Sports Act or some equivalent
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: thereof that now it seems like even the big boys
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: and even the powers that be in college football are
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: behind getting something done here.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Do you think we ever do?
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: Or because, you know, you're dealing with really four major conferences,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: two that are more powerful than the others. Notre Dame
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: has something to say there. And American politics are obviously
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: a mess all the time. do we ever get federal
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: intervention on this? Are we going to keep having more
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: of these stories to talk about?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: I think for a couple of years, we're going to
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 6: have a few more of these stories to talk about.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: I think the obvious end point is like, we'll see
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 6: what happens when these TV deals expire for these conferences
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 6: around the early 2030s and kind of see what happens
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 6: there in terms of maybe a potential breakaway and these
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: guys form their own leagues or anything. And, And I
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 6: think that's obviously the next kind of realignment wave that
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 6: we'll see. And maybe they'll just make their own rules
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 6: and break away from the NCAA. So it's fascinating to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 6: watch unfold. All the legislation stuff kind of bores me.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 6: I don't want to read about it or hear about
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 6: it until something is done. I'm not really into the
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 6: minutia of how, but this is going to happen on
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: Friday and this deadline and then nothing comes of it.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 6: So I'm kind of waiting to see, you know, when
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 6: something actually happens instead of all this talk and all
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 6: this bluster about something potentially happening.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: This is a pulling an old headline out.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: It wasn't that long ago, but it feels like it
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: was two years ago because of how fast the news
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: cycles move these days. But what do you think happens
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: with Brendan Sorsby's football career? Obviously he couldn't play Texas
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: tech this year. The NFL said, no, thank you on
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: a supplemental draft. He's eligible to go into next year's draft. Uh,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: what do you think happens with Brendan Sorsby?
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 6: Uh, obviously next year's draft, he'll be a hot topic
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 6: next year. Um, but, uh, me and Sam Khan, my
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: colleague at the athletic, we had, uh, we have this
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 6: project every summer. This is the second year we've done
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: it where we have to rank all 138 FBS starting quarterbacks.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 6: And so, uh, There's a lot of film watching from
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 6: May to July for me this year. I remember watching
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 6: Brendan Sorsby.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: I watched a.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: Few games of Brendan Sorsby this past year. One of
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 6: them was Arizona, and I watched that game, and I
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 6: thought Noah Fafita was the better quarterback when I watched
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: the two play. Noah Fafita didn't get anywhere near the
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 6: hype that Brendan Sorsby did, but you just hear about
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 6: the traits and all this other stuff with Brendan Sorsby.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: It's like, okay, that's great, but you want to see
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 6: that translate onto the football field, I think he's still
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: a very raw player. And what I'm worried about now
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 6: for him, aside from the off the field issues, what
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 6: I'm worried about now for him, for him as a
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 6: football players, when you don't play for a year and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 6: you're really raw, it's like, that's just so basically a lost,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 6: a lost period because you need, he needs the reps
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 6: and he needs that experience. And he's not going to
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 6: get that this year. And he's probably not going to
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 6: get it next year in the NFL draft. I don't
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 6: know where he'd go. I don't see a team sending
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 6: a first round pick on him. So, and second round
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 6: picks aren't going to be like for sure starters. So
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: it's going to be a while before he gets the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 6: reps and the experience and the snaps that he needs.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 6: I think that's going to be a detriment to him
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 6: going forward.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: Utah had a weird offseason right at the end of
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: the season, obviously, with Kyle Whittingham making a retirement decision,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: deciding he didn't want to retire. University effectively saying, we
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: need you to retire. He ends up at Michigan, and
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: he takes coaches and players with him. And it ended
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: up being a pretty ugly divorce instead of a ride
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: off into the sunsets and you're our hero kind of
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: an ending to Kyle Whittingham's tenure.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: And I'm still bummed about that.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: Now, a lot of my listeners get mad when I
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: mention his name, but I'm a glutton for punishment. So
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: I'm curious about what the Michigan product looks like with
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: Kyle Whittingham. What do you think the Wolverines can achieve
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: in his first year in Ann Arbor?
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 6: I think the floor is extremely high. obviously throwing more
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 6: stuff was a mess last year at Michigan, right? He
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 6: was doing whatever he was doing in DMs and talking
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 6: to other females and stuff like that. That got him
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 6: in trouble. And Michigan still won nine games, and they
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 6: were in the playoff mix until the final week of
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 6: the regular season. So that was with a dysfunctional coaching
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: staff or head coaching situation. I think, obviously, Kyle Whittingham
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 6: will bring a baseline level of competence to that coaching situation,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 6: to that program. And I think the floor is really
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 6: high for them, but obviously a lot is going to
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 6: depend on what they get out of Bryce Underwood, who's
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: their five-star phenom quarterback who came in last year, but
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 6: kind of underwhelmed and disappointed. So I think there's a
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 6: lot of pressure on Jason Beck and what he can
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 6: do with Underwood if he can unlock him. We saw
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 6: what he did with Devin Dampier last year. And, uh, and, and, uh,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 6: Bert Ficklin. So I'm kind of curious to see what
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: he does with Bryce Underwood and how he tries to
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 6: unlock that five-star potential because it was kind of underwhelming
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 6: last year and disappointing considering I think Bryce Underwood, I
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: think the rumor was he was getting around $ 10 million, um,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 6: over the course of his career for, um, his time
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 6: at Michigan NIL slash rev share wise. We didn't really
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 6: see that five-star potential. There was a little bit of flash,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 6: but it wasn't truly there. So I think that's the
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 6: main thing that will kind of determine the trajectory of
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 6: Cal Whittingham's first season at Michigan. But I think the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 6: floor should be really high. Obviously, he brought John Henry
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 6: Daly and Smith Snowden to kind of bolster that roster
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 6: and some of the defensive– personnel that they've had so
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 6: i'm kind of curious to see kind of how it
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 6: goes and i think the coaching staff should be great
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: uh jay hill at the coordinator um the schedule's hard
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 6: believe they have oregon and ohio state um this year
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 6: in penn state so um i think it'll be really
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 6: interesting really fascinating to see how that one.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: Goes is the big 12 a one bid league in
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: a 12 team college football playoff do we just have
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: to get used to that.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: I think it depends.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 6: BYU has the big opportunity this year to play Notre
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 6: Dame and say they go 11-1 and they have a
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 6: win against Notre Dame. I think that's a big feather
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 6: in their cap in terms of non-conference win that they
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 6: didn't necessarily have last year. I think it really depends
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 6: on how the schedule plays out and who beats who
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 6: and what happens in the other leagues. The SEC is
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 6: in the nine-game conference schedule now. So if a team
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 6: goes 9-3, will they be left out over, say, an
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: 11-2 Big 12 team that maybe lost? One of those
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 6: two losses came in the Big 12 title game. I
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 6: don't know if that will happen. So I think it
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 6: really depends on what plays out elsewhere across the country.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: A lot of these heavyweights in the Big 10 this year, too,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: are playing each other.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: Indiana plays Ohio State. And Oregon plays Ohio state as well.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 6: So you're going to feel like a lot of crossover
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: that we haven't seen in the past couple of years.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 6: So I think we'll see more losses than usual from
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 6: some of these juggernauts. And I think that could open
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 6: the door for, for a second bid to the big 12.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: Last thing before I let you go and maybe we'll
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: have you on mid season and your answer would be
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: revised at that point. But just because we're about to
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: start this whole thing off, who is going to win
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: the national championship?
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 6: I think I'll go with Georgia right now. I know
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 6: the SEC, it's been a while since they won a
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: national title. I think they'll be due at some point.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: And I just trust Kirby Smart. I know they haven't
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 6: had the best playoff luck, the best playoff fortune in
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 6: the past few years. Their starting quarterback, Carson Beck, got
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 6: hurt two years ago before the playoffs. And last year
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 6: they ran into like a generational trend at Chambliss performance.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 6: but I think they'll have things break right this year
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 6: and they'll end the SEC's drought of national championships.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: Antonio, appreciate you giving us some time today, sir. Keep
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: up all the great work at The Athletic. We use
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: your stuff for material on the show all the time,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: so thank you.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 6: All right, thanks for having me.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: Antonio Morales, go follow him on Twitter at Antonio C. Morales,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: National College Football Insider over at The Athletic. So, I
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: realize that summer is coming to a close and I
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: have not spent really any time boating, fishing, golfing with
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: my old buddies, with the old crew.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: Like the high school friends, the elementary school friends, the
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: college buddies.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: I've done a.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: Terrible job of it this year. I have a solution though, right?
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: I'm not a great golfer. I'm actually a really terrible golfer.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: And it's hard to get people together. But if I
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: send out an invitation and say that I want to golf,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: it's such a rare thing that I know my friends
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: are going to show up and that's how I'm going
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: to fix this problem.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to call them.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say, Hey, I got us some tee
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: times at Stansbury park golf course. Let's go golf. And
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: boom problem solved because golfing with me, they all get
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: a great laugh and If you're actually a good golfer,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: you're still going to enjoy the course. And the best
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: thing about it is no crowds. Pace of play is perfect.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: You're not stuck behind two foursomes that are drinking too
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: much and going too slow and talking too much crap.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: Great greens, great rates.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: They really have it all out there at Stansberry Park,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: and it's surprisingly quick to get to. Hop on the I-80,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: head out west to Tooele County, and play yourself around.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: During the weekdays, it's $ 45 for 18 holes. On the weekends,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: it's only $ 50 for 18 holes. Stansberrypark.gov slash golfcourse to
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: book your tee time. That is stansberrypark.gov slash golfcourse to
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: book your tee time. Call the old high school buddies.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: Call your college roommates. You haven't seen them in a while.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: You don't know what happened with Joe's divorce. You don't
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: know what happened with John's job. Get out there on
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: the golf course. Break some bread. Have some fun. And
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: hopefully your round will go better than mine because I'll
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: be spraying balls all over the place.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: But that's because I'm a bad golfer. You're not.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: So go enjoy Stansbury Park Golf Course and explore Tooele County.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Daily Dump coming up next on the Sean O'Connell Show.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: It's ESPN 700 and 92 on FM.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: Feeling out of the loop? Let's catch up on today's
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: biggest headlines in the Daily News Dump, where we flush
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: out the biggest stories of the day on the Sean
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: O'Connell Show and Utah's number one sports talk.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 7: ESPN 792.1 FM.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: Brought to you by Valley Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling. Just
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 4: look for the truck with the duck.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Look for the truck with the duck here on the
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  Speaker 2: Sean O'Connell Show. They can handle your plumbing needs, your
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  Speaker 2: drain cleaning needs, your vent cleaning needs, your air conditioner,
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• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: right there on their their online tool the little portal
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: on the web you don't even have to pick up
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: the phone we talked about this at the beginning of
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: the show lsu continues to try to like stockpiled talent
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: on these boomerang players while also uh the school administration
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: the university president voting in accord with his sec compatriots
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: and saying yeah we are going to disallow this and
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: they're just trolling everybody now lsu basketball announced the signing
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: of a seven foot three inch big man named gilad
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: levy or levi he's been playing pro basketball in israel
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: And in Spain. And that's probably going to be a problem.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: But the explicit language in the SEC's ruling on bounce
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: back players is specific to the NBA WNBA in basketball.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: So maybe just maybe this guy ends up playing in
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: a way that Noam Yakov is not being allowed to play.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: But LSU continues to troll us all. And on one hand,
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: you got to kind of respect it, that they're just
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: leaning into being the bad guy there.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, I don't respect it at all.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: We've talked about the WNBA and the WNBA's kind of
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: having their moment and some mismanagement of that moment and
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: some leaning into the soap opera situation, I think maybe
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: a little too much, at least on some fronts. But
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: you have to give credit where it's due. The league
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: is getting a lot of attention from And the Indiana
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: Fever-Chicago Sky game, which was a rematch where there was
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: maybe some soap opera antics expected. Sophie Cunningham had run
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: a foul with Dijon A. Carrington and all these things.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: There had been some hard fouls between them. And the rematch,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: so to speak, obviously Caitlin Clark is involved here. The
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: rematch is the highest rated game since the opening weekend of.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: Of WNBA basketball. The average rating.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: Was. 3.3 million viewers. That is a big number. That
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: is a huge number. For a regular season basketball game.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: A regular season WNBA game. The only two games in
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: the history of the league. That were more watched than that.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: Was the first ever WNBA game. And. the third ever
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: WNBA game on the same opening weekend. So for all
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: of the criticism of leadership and the poo-pooing of the
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: way that certain things are being handled, if people are
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: watching your product, your product is in a good place.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that this is a rating that,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: as part of a startup league myself, the PFL has
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: been battling for eight years now to try and get
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: a number like this. Now, we're not a major network television.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: We are on regular cable, at least on ESPN most
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: of the time, but 3.3 million viewers is massive. 3.3
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: million viewers is more than basically any combat sport is
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: getting on the equivalent of a regular season game. It's
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: better than baseball is doing in almost every case. This
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: is a huge deal for the WNBA, and you've got
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: to give credit where it's due. Because you could easily
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: just scroll on past a regular season game in any
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: sports league.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: We do this with NBA games all the time.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: This was a premier matchup, premier players, and maybe some
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: tomfoolery expected. Not delivered, by the way. Nothing happened. And
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: viewers tuned in, so... I guess good on you, WNBA.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: That's great news for a league that a lot of
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: people are being critical of.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: For the first time since 1997.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: It peaked at 3.82 million viewers. The New York Liberty
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: versus the LA Sparks in the inaugural weekend, so a
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: New York versus LA matchup, I don't remember who was
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: on that New York Liberty team, but that was like
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: Lisa Leslie and company on those LA Sparks. That was
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: a 5 million viewer type experience. And then the Charlotte
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: Sting and Phoenix Mercury had 3.59 million views. Also, those
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: were on NBC. This one was on NBC and Peacock.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: So the combined rating, I guess, was 3.3 million viewers.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: Caitlin Clark had eight three-pointers and scored 37 points. The
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: Fever won 113-90. Kelsey Mitchell had 30 points in that one.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: Pretty impressive stuff. No word from Ennis Cantor on whether
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: he's impressed with the rating or not. I'm sure we'll
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: get something. I'm sure we'll get something from it. I'm
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: sure he has something to say about it, yeah. Um,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: we like to think that, you know, the Utah fan
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: base is as wild, crazy, raucous, loud as any in
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: Already the Delta center as an NHL barn is getting
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: a reputation for being a raucous atmosphere for being loud
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: when the jazz are humming. Remember what that's like when
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: the jazz got good things going, obviously it's a really
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: loud place. Uh, rice echo stadium, raucous atmosphere. You go
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: down to Lavelle Edwards stadium in a good situation, right?
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: Good team night game. That Notre Dame game is going
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: to be loud and crazy. Still sports fans in Utah.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: Can't hold a candle to this type of thing. There's
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: a Dutch club that has banned its own fans from
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: traveling to away games. They won't let their own fans
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: come with them to away games and because the fans
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: are too rowdy and too insane.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: They almost, they almost set their own.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: Grandstand, their own stadium on fire, because this is something
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: that European sports definitely have over American sport. People bring
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: like road flares and handheld fireworks into.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: The games all the time.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: Even indoor, even like basket, like Serbian basketball games, there's
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: smoke bombs and road flares indoors at these games.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: All the time.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: And it creates this like really haunting, insane, apocalyptic type
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: atmosphere when you've got flames and smoke hanging over this
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: crowd of insane, loud, raucous fans. So, I mean, I
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: understand why they want to do it. It looks really cool.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: It sounds really cool. But when you almost light your
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: own stadium on fire, the team has to step in
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: and say, all right, all right, fans, no more of this.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: We've seen soccer hooliganism in Europe go absolutely insane.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: There's been some major violence.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: There's been like racial abuse and things like that, that
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: at one point had, I think.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: But correct me if I'm wrong. It was in Italy.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: Fans were not allowed into the games for a portion
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: of the, of the season in Italy, in a couple
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: of stadiums that you just had to play in an
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: empty stadium.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: I think that, I think that's right. We've had, it
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: was only friends and family.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: That fans banned because of, like you said, the hooliganism
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: that just people misbehaving too many people misbehaving at these
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: soccer stadiums. I'm sure it's happened at the basketball arenas, too.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: We just it's just not as big a deal globally.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: So we haven't heard about it as much. But the
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: same kind of hooliganism with the like they. bring the
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: road flares and the fireworks to soccer stadiums in Europe too.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: They're bringing them inside. They bring them inside.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: I actually, we went in, I was, we did a
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: fight in Lyon, France, and we went to a pro
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: basketball game in Lyon, France. And it was, and there
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: was like one person who had fireworks, which if it's everybody,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: it kind of makes sense. If it's just you a
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: little bit crazy, maybe you shouldn't have brought that. Maybe
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: you made like, Then you're just the bad kid in
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: school who can't sit still. And the teacher's like, you
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: got to go to the principal's office. Do they, that
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: brings up a good question though. What's the fight atmospheres like?
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: Is it anything similar in the fights? I got to
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: tell you this. It's really sad. It makes me really
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: upset to have to admit this. So we've done, we've
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: done fights in Spain. We've done fights in Germany, in Berlin.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: We've done, events now, I think six total events in France,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: a couple in Paris and a couple in Lyon, one
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: in Nantes, which is a city no one's ever heard
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: of in France. We've done a couple in Belgium, in Brussels, Belgium,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: and the European sports fans are lunatics. They're so passionate.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: They're so loud. They're so crazy. It's just an atmosphere
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: that American, like, the American audience for our fights don't
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: even come close to matching it. The Europeans over there
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: and like, you want to say, oh man, well, that's
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: just because it's fights. So they don't get as many fights.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: I went to a rugby world cup game. I've told
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: this story before. It was Uruguay versus Namibia. They were
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: the two worst teams in the tournament.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: There were probably only 10,000 fans total from those two
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: nations that had actually made the travel and owned the
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: jerseys and stuff and like showed up. 10,000, probably too many.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: It was probably like 5,000. The stadium was still full
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: and it was still loud and people were still going
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: crazy just for the sport itself.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: Not even for their favorite team. They were just being loud.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: I think there's something weird about European culture where it's
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: the only time they ever get loud and express themselves
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: that way.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: It might be true. It's kind of like here in Utah, right?
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: It might be true.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: Like there's maybe a repressed sort of thing because of
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: the formality of European culture. that they just go bananas
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: when it comes to sports like we do. Nobody here
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: ever says a loud word or a bad word or
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: a harsh word until you're in a Utah jazz Jersey
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: sitting in the eighth row at the Delta center.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: And then you're cursing up a storm, right? Swear words
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: or otherwise. Absolutely.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: And your neighbor's looking at you just being like, where
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: did you learn that language?
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know, man. You might be right about that.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe it is.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: Something to do with the way things are every day
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: in contrast with, okay, I can, I can let.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: Loose at the stadium. People. It's the only explanation I
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: can come up with. Cause it's, it's so true.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: Having, you know, mentioned, mentioned before having, having lived in,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: in Europe, it's, uh, a lot more refined. I should,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: I might say in everyday life, of course, didn't, didn't
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: get a chance to go to any, uh, sports events
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: in Hungary, but I would imagine it's not that different
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: from any other European place. You never cheated and went to, like,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: a water polo game or something? No, and unlike the
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: missionary stateside, you have, like, the Mormon nights in most
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: of the states at the major league games, baseball or otherwise.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: They didn't have Mormon night in Hungary, unfortunately.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, too bad. Couldn't make it out there.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: Speaking of missionaries, did you see, so do you know
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: who the streamer I show speed is?
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: You know who that guy is? He's like a very
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: famous streaming star.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: He started to do some crossover stuff in sports.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: It's the only reason I know who he is. Yeah, sure.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: But he, um, your closet, uh, streaming fan. Thank goodness.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: That has not been a curse of my life yet
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: on his feed this week. And I think he just
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: streams his whole life, which is crazy, but he was
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: doing a giveaway where if you could pick up this,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: like cube of metal. You had to like, just use
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: one hand and pick it up. I don't know how
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: much it weighs. It's like slick on the sides. It's
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: like this, this challenge that nobody can do sword in
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: the stone challenge. It's like one of these things. If
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: you could pick it up with one hand, you win $ 10, 000.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: He's just giving away $ 10, 000 and like a hundred people
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: tried it and failed. And then some random missionary, they're
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: like at a gas station.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: Let's go. And some random Australian missionary came over and
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: just picked it up. He's like, Is it like that?
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: He's like, good day. He's like, how about that, mate?
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: How much Vegemite can I buy with this? Yeah. So
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: that's amazing.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the rules are when you're on
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: your mission of getting like a Venmo from a streamer
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: for 10 grand is getting paid. I don't know. I,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: unfortunately I never had that, uh, never had that challenge
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: on my mission. That's a, that's amazing though. I, speaking
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: of Australia, that, craziness with the, you talking about how
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: crazy European sports fans are. You ever see those videos
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: of darts in Australia, dude. And that's for like darts. Okay. I,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: I was in Newcastle, England for fights. Our fights were
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: on a Saturday night. I'm sitting in kind of the,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: the hotel, like courtyard on a Friday night. And suddenly
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: I Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people come walking
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: past from the train station, walking through the hotel just
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: because of like the position it was walking through this courtyard.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: And they're dressed in like Halloween costumes. It was not Halloween.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: It was late November or something. And I was like,
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: what's going on here? And they're all, you know, half
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: of them are already a little bit loose.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: Having enjoyed some time at the pub previous. They're wearing, like,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: full-on Big Bird costumes. They're wearing chicken suits. I'm like,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: where are all these people going?
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: So did you follow them?
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: And the hotel guy's like, I don't know. Finally, there's
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: a group of lads, right? Probably, like, college age. I'm like, hey,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: what is this? Where are you guys going?
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's the Dots, mate. We're going to the Dots.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, there's darts tonight. And I was like, okay,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go, I'm going to go buy a
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: ticket and I'm going to watch these darts because it
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: was going to be crazy.
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, there were thousands of people at the end
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: of the day, like comic con fan X cosplay.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: But for darts, I'm like, okay.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: So I walked up to the venue window and it's
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: probably like a, the equivalent of like the, uh, the
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: Maverick center or whatever, you know.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: It's pretty big.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: But it's not gigantic. Maverick sent a mate. And I
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: was like, hey, I'd like a ticket. And they laughed.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: They're like, been sold out forever, mate. Like, well, why
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: is there even a ticket window open?
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: A will call. I was like, oh, all right.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: Well, mine's under this name. So I tried. I tried because, like,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: you know, the people we work with over there, They
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: manage events and all this kind of stuff. So I
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: was like, okay, try to name drop. So I called
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: one guy who's connected, right?
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: I called him. I'm just like, Hey, can you get
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: me into the darts? And he's like, uh, I got you.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: Hang on.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: Just stay where you are. And in 15 minutes, I'll
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: have you a ticket.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: So I, I hang out. I'm talking to people like, Oh,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: are you coming in? I'm just like, I don't have
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: a ticket yet. They're trying to get me a ticket.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: Every single person that had their tickets were just like, Oh,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: we wish we had an extra one for you.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: There's nothing better. Guy calls me back and it's just like,
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: I tried. Oh my God. I could not get you
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: a ticket. I was like, what?
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, I called the network, like the head
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: of the network. Who's televising these things, whatever it was
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: like BT sport or whatever. He's like, I called that guy.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: I used to work with him. He doesn't have a ticket.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: He can't get you an extra ticket. I'm like, what
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: the bleep? And it's for darts.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: It was for darts.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: And some of those videos, uh, the ones I've seen
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: were like an Australian dart league. The color announcer, the
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: color analyst, if you will, and the play-by-play guys are like,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: it's the.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: Most surprising thing I've ever seen.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they really play it up.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: And that just, to your point, we don't have anything
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: close to that for even our bigot, for NFL games,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: for college football games, as far as atmosphere.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: I guess it's a long way of saying, guys, we've
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: got to.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: We got to step it up as sports fans. We're
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: not burning down our own stadiums and being banned from
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: away games. We're not making it impossible for people to
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: go watch checkers.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: Like, come on. We're not borderline criminals every time that
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: we're cheering for sports. Come on, guys. All right.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: Daily dump brought to you by Valley plumbing, heating and cooling.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 2: Look for the truck with the duck and tell them
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: OC sent you.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: ESPN has put out a list of their top 100
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: players in college football.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: How many Utes made the list? I'll tell you next
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: on the Sean O'Connell Show. ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 4: You're listening to the Sean O'Connell Show, your source for
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 4: the best Utes football coverage. Here's O.C. from the Murdoch
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 4: Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: Top 100 players of ESPN put out.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: College football players, I should say. How many Utes made
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: the list, James?
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 9: Hmm.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: Top 100 in all of college football.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: Zero.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 5: Zero.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: Dang it.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: How many non-FB, or excuse me, non-Power 4 players you
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: think made the list?
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: Is it also zero? It's one.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: One. And he's listed as number 100. New Mexico linebacker,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: Jackson Eck is the number 100 player on ESPN's list.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give you another crack at guessing in
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: a completely unfair context. How many big 12 players made
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: the ESPN top 100 list?
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: Big 12 players.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: Three.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 4: More.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 6: 10.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: More. 25.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: 13.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 7: It's 12.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: 12.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's basically Baker's Dozen. dozen there you go
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: i nailed it how many of those 12 players do
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: you think come from texas tech university.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: Seven Six, six. Okay. They're not, they're not the entire
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: big 12. All right.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: So number 98, Adam trick transferred into Texas tech. He
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: is number 98 on the list. Ben Roberts, who was
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: the defensive player of the game in the big 12
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: championship last year.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: He is number 94 on the list. Trey white, another
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: incoming transfer from San Diego state. He is number 83
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: on the list. Terrence Carter jr. He is number 66
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: on the list. Bryce Pollock is number 27 on the list.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: A.J.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: Holmes Jr. is number 25 on the list. Defensive tackle
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: for Texas Tech. He is the highest ranked Big 12
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: player on the list.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: Anybody from BYU? Any Bear Bachmeier? L.J. Martin came in
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: at number 58. Just him, though.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: No bear Bachmeier. Interesting. Uh, no. No legend. Glasker. No
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: Isaiah Glasker.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 4: Hmm.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: It feels like they're sleeping on the big 12 and those,
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm glad LJ Martin made it. That's the,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: that would seem like a giant omission for him not
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: to be a top 100 player. But I said to,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: I guess two for Utah football players. Cause I thought
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: Devin Dampier and way Sean Parker would be on the list.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: That surprises me that not one of those two are
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: on there.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: Not mentioned. Here's the LJ Martin blurb. Notable stats, 236 carries, 1,305 yards,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: 12 touchdowns.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: His postseason ranking after 2025, they do a preseason top
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: 100 list, a postseason top 100 list. He was ranked
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: number 69 last year, so this is 11 spots higher.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: Martin could have tested his luck at the NFL draft
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: after being named a big 12 offensive player of the
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: year in 2025, but opted to return for a final
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: season in Provo. He rushed for 1305 with 12 touchdowns
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: and average five and a half yards per carry a
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: year ago, 2,541 career rushing yards. He could make a
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: run at 4,000 yard mark by the end of the season.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: Josh Hoover, former big 12 player. Now at Indiana, he
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: came in at number 55, and this one is going
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 2: to sting. I'm going to mention it. Utah fans, prepare yourself.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: There is a former Ute on the list, on the
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 2: top 100 list. Do you want to take a crack
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: at who that is? John Henry Daly. Number 20 on
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: this list. The 20th best player in the country. How
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: good is he with the torn Achilles, though? Is he
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: still top 20? Well, apparently he's ready to go. I
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: guess he's healed, but I just, I'll believe that when
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: I see it.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, see, look, I am. It's not outside the realm
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: of possibility.
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: If it was a straightforward tear in the Achilles, we
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: have seen guys, most notably Terrell Suggs come back from
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: this very, very quickly. And obviously big body guy.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: Plays the same position.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: I think probably plays the same position with a little
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: bit more torque, even on the lower body than John
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: Henry Daly, and he was good even after. So there's
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: a possibility that John Henry Daly does not skip a
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: beat here. The blurb on him emerges as one of
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: the top pass rushers at Utah, followed Coach Kyle Whittingham
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: and others to Ann Arbor, 11.5 sacks, 17.5 tackles for loss,
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: two forced fumbles in 11 games before suffering a ruptured
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: Achilles tendon. Still finished second nationally in sacks per game
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: and third in tackles per loss per game. That's the blurb.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: That's our guy, Adam Rittenberg, who wrote the blurb. 24
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: solo tackles, 11 and a half sacks, two force fumbles,
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: 17 and a half tackles for loss for John Henry Daly.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: They've got him ranked number 20 nationally among all players
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: on the list. The total list of big 12 talents
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: is Adam trick from Texas tech, Caleb Hawkins running back
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 2: from Oklahoma state, Ben Roberts from Texas tech, Number 84,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: Cam Cook from West Virginia. Number 83, Trey White from
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: Texas Tech. Noah Fafita came in at number 81, the
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: Arizona quarterback. Shadre Hurst from Houston at number 69. He's
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: an offensive lineman, a transfer from Tulane. He is an
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: NFL player. He's going to be really, really good for Houston.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: Terrence Carter Jr. from Texas Tech. I already mentioned at 66,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: LJ Martin. At 58, Drew Mestemaker, the incoming Oklahoma State quarterback,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: is number 32.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: So Oklahoma State has two players, but Utah's got zero.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: And BYU's got one.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: Haven't you heard, OC? Oklahoma State's the new Indiana. That's
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: another thing. Can we not just anoint teams that... This
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: is like the outlier of all outliers, what Kurt Cignetti
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: and Indiana have been able to do the last two years,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: especially last year when the national championship.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: The next time a, a top group of six head
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: coach goes to a power, a lowly power for program.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: They're going to be Indiana. Like, come on.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: We have to wait and see before they do it.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: And mess to make her great talent. His coach did
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: a great job at North Texas with him, but that
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean they're going to be a good team in
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 2: the big 12 yet.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: Come on. Um, Bryce Pollock from Texas tech, AJ Holmes jr.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: From Texas tech. And this is bothering me.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: So 8 7 7 3 5 3 0 700. If you,
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: if he's AJ Holmes, is he also AJ Holmes jr.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: Because AJ usually means whatever Anthony jr. Right.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: Aaron jr. Arthur jr. So is that redundant to be
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: an AJ and then a jr.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: Unless the J is for, like, James or Jeffrey or something,
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 2: but you're right. When you're a junior and you go
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 2: by A.J. or D.J.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: Or something, the J is typically junior. That's junior.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: Right? So is that what he's listed as, A.J. Holmes Jr.? A.J.
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: Holmes Jr. So is he Anthony Jones? Jones, Holmes, Jr., Jr.? A.J. Jr.?
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: Or is he Anthony? Is the A.J., is it really
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: an A.J.? I guess is the question. Is his dad
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: also A.J.? Is the better question. If dad is also A.J.,
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: then you can be A.J. as well.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: Is that all it is?
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: Is your name just two letters, or is it initials?
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: It's like the Homer J. Simpson thing. You ever saw
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: that episode? Well, Ed, There's lots of people. My grandpa,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: his middle name was just a letter.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: It was just K. Wait, what?
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 8: Really?
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: Just a letter? It was just Ellis K. Cheney. Shout out.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: Not K-A-Y? Not K-A-Y, just K. Can you... James, get
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: to the bottom of this. What was the K for?
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: Did the K signify anything? I'm going to have to
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: do some investigative reporting. Was he a big baseball fan
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: and he wanted it to be a strikeout K?
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'll... Maybe I'll call Pablo Torre. Help me investigate this.
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: Forward or backward K? It's regular K.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, regular K. So it's not a baseball player. Not
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: a strikeout-looking kind of a K. That would be pretty sweet, though.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: That would be pretty sick. I know a family.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: Their youngest.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: Well, I think he's their youngest. They gave their son
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: the middle name V.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 4: So.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: Shout out to the Kents, now living in Oregon, former cop,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: former fighter here in Utah. Their youngest boy, Finnegan the Kent,
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: because they wanted it to sound like Robert the Bruce.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 2: They wanted it to sound like, you know, a royal title.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: It's like Amon Rao St. Brown. His dad put the
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: saint in their last name. His dad's name is John Brown.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: The kids, he was just like, they're St. Browns. His
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: name is John Brown.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: He didn't change his own name to St.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: Brown. He named his children Equanimous, Amun-Ra, and Osiris, St.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 4: Brown.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 2: I think he didn't like growing up with a common name.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 2: I think that must have been what it was. And
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: if you watched the receiver show on Netflix that Amun-Ra
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: was featured in, he talked about how names signified power
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: and importance to his dad. And probably what's behind that
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: is like, I just hated being John Brown.
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: Probably.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: That's probably what's behind all that bodybuilder. But he, he
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: was like, names are important. You got a powerful name.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: You're going to be a powerful person. That's his, that
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: was his belief. And look, I mean, is Osiris in
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: the NFL? I think he's the only one who's not.
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: Okay. So two of his three kids, NFL players, and
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: they all play. I think it worked out. They all
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: played high division one football.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: Like major Division one football.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 5: St.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: Brown's.
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 2: I feel like almond raw is the best one. Like
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: what's your name? Almond raw.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: So if you're Osiris.
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: Aren't you mad because isn't Amun-Ra higher on the Egyptian
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: god scale than Osiris? I have to look it up.
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: I think you're right, though. I think Amun-Ra is like
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: the Egyptian Zeus, if I'm not mistaken. Osiris is one
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: of the more important ones, too. We're going to have
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 2: to look this up. And we're going to have to
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: get John Brown on and be like, hey, did you
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: not like one of these? Because Osiris is older, if
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken. Like you thought the younger kid needed
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: the even more powerful name. We'll get to the bottom
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: of this. Anyway, that's the top 100 list. Zero Utes
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: on the ESPN top 100 players list. One former Ute
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: in John Henry Daly and six Texas Tech Red Raiders
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 2: of the 12 total big 12 players on the top 100.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: Six of them from Texas Tech. LJ Martin from BYU,
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: the in-state player on there. We'll start our number three next.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: I want to reiterate a question and add a couple
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: of wrinkles to it. We're talking, we're projecting out stats
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 2: for the Utah football team this season. Sacks, leading sack leader,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: and individual sack stats. Get your texting fingers ready.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: I want to hear from you. 877-353-0700 on the Sean
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: O'Connell Show. ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 4: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 4: Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 9: All right, we have some Utah practice sound.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: James went up to post-practice availability, gathered some sound for us.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: We're going to play that for you here in about
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: 15 minutes. We'll start with Morgan Scali. If there's time,
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: we'll get to some of the players as well. You
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: can find all the gathered sound at ESPN700Sports. com and on
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: the ESPN 700 app in the on-demand section. My over-under
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: questions for today are about one of the sexier stats
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: in all of college football. We're, of course, talking about
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: sacks on the defense. Massively disruptive, drive killers for an
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: opposing offense, and sort of a health indicator for Utah's defense.
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 2: the really, really good years of Utah defense, with rare exception,
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: you've had a premium pass rush. And in a lot
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 2: of cases, you've had a premium pass rusher. I'm asking you,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: will Utah have a pass rushing leader over or under
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: seven and a half sacks on the season? I wanted
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: to put it at nine and a half, but Double-digit sacks.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: There were four guys in the Big 12 Conference last
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: year that achieved double-digit sacks.
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 6: Four.
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: Utah had one of them in John Henry Daly. He
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: had 11.5. You go back to two years ago, Van
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: Fillinger led the Utah defense with six.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: By the way, shout out to Van Fillinger. I don't
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: know if anyone saw this.
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know if he already took part in or
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: he is taking part in some weird bull riding challenge.
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: Did you see this James? I did not, but shout out.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: There's like this, it's like a social media thing where
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: they're letting guys like these big burly dudes. There's, I
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: know like van was doing it and a guy who
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: trains at my gym and young.
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: Kid, former Utah football walk on just a tank of
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: a young man. He's like six, three, two 50 of muscle.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: And he was going to do it too.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about the company, but I saw
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: a little interview when I was doom scrolling one day,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: we got to check with the Porter Larson. If he's
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: giving any like coaching here, because he's a guy who's
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: actually done some of that stuff, which is.
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: The coolest thing ever.
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: But back to the topic at hand, I have a
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: poll question up right now. Who will be Utah's sack
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: leader this coming season? And because you could put four
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 2: options on there, the four that I chose were Lance Holtzclaw,
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: Cash Dillon, Paul Fitzgerald, Ethan Day. You could also throw
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: the other at me. Right now, Holtzclaw has 56% of
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: the votes. Cash Dillon is in second with 25. Paul
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: Fitzgerald not getting any love. He's at 5%. Ethan Day
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: is at roughly 13%. Paul Fitzgerald has the most productive
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 2: single season of all those guys. When he was at
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: Utah State, he had an eight sack season. It was
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 2: pretty darn good. Holtzclaw started to really break out later
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: at the end of last year. Cash Dillon, obviously a
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: really high quality player. Both of those guys obviously playing
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 2: behind or in rotation with one of the best sack
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: men in the country.
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, there's a lot of wrinkles to this.
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: As a team, how many.
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 2: Sacks will Utah football have this season? I'm setting the
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 2: over-under at 28.5. Right now, 72% of people think that 7.5
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 2: sacks for the individual sack leader is a no-brainer. And
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: I'm an idiot, so I didn't put the poll option
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: up on the team sacks. And I have to reconstruct
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: the tweet here.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 3: Ah.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: But the question still stands. 877-353-0700.
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: How many sacks will Utah football have as a team
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 2: this year? Over, under 28 and a half. James Peterson,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: what say you? Man, it feels like a no-brainer to
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 2: say the over, but they lost so much out of
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: their sack production by losing one guy, really. and John
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 2: Henry Daly, so I can see why it's viable to
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 2: put it at under 30 sacks. But it just feels
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 2: like Utah, don't they always get over 30 sacks, with
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: the exception of a few years, I guess? I mean,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say over because it feels very attainable,
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 2: even though they don't have a lot of returning sack production.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 2: Last year, they had 34 sacks. I bet 2024 that they,
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 2: that was, might've been, might've been a year. They were
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: under 30. They had 24 the year in 2024, 24
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 2: sacks below the standard for Utah football. In 2023, they
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: had 36 sacks.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. See, like they just in 2022, they had 41
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: sacks in 2021. They had 42 sacks. The 2020 season
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't count, but... Yeah, they only played five games. It's
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: going to be low. They had 10. In five games.
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: Two per game. What's that?
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: It's a 42 in 2021. They played 13 games. So
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 2: the over-under here... About three per game. The over-under here,
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: I set deliberately pretty low... pretty far below the Utah standard,
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 2: but think of all of the change.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. New coach and okay. Brechterfield new players. Effectively.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: You've got guys that like Lance holds club. We all
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: love Lance holds club. Lance holds club has one and
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: a half sacks.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 2: He has no proven production. He's been a great personality,
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: obviously very well-spoken and that has endeared him to us.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 2: And he came from a power for school to Utah
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: and He had that talent coming out of high school.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: We need to see him put it together, and this
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: year might be the year. If you hit the over
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: on 28 and a half, so you've got 29 or
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 2: more sacks, you're right in the middle of the pack nationally.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: You are a top 50 team nationally. Like BYU last
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 2: year had 30 sacks. They were one of the best
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 2: defenses in the big 12. They were one of the
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: better defenses, total defenses in the country. It wasn't necessarily
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 2: because of their team sack ability, their team pass rush.
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 2: Jack Kelly had 10 sacks himself, but they didn't really
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: fill in the blanks around him necessarily from a pass
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 2: rush perspective. It feels on some level like, yeah, of
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 2: course you're going to get better than that.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: But are you?
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 2: Because a big part of what drove the total up
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: over 30 last year was one guy having 11 and
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 2: a half. He had almost a third of the team's sacks.
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 2: And if you have a standout pass rusher... You can
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: probably bank on this. So there's a lot of ways
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: to look at this question. Do I believe Ethan day
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: is going to be double digit sack, man? Do I
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 2: believe Lance holes closet, double digit sack, man? If the
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: answer to either of those is yes, you got a
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: good chance of going over 30. If you think both
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 2: of those guys or two of any, then you're going
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 2: to probably have 40 sacks. The leading team in the country,
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: the leading pass rush in the country last year was
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 2: Miami who had 50 sacks. Indiana had 46, Oklahoma had 45.
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 2: A & M, Western Michigan, both had 43. Texas Tech
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 2: was the top of the Big 12 last year. They
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 2: had 41 sacks on the year. That's not surprising at all.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 2: That defensive line was scary. And Utah was number two
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 2: in the conference last year. So Arizona State tied with Utah.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: They were 34.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 2: So you look at 2025 and you say, all right,
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: This year should be what last year was. Or you
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 2: look at 2024 and say, we're probably closer to that.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: In that case, you would be taking the under here.
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: And your answer on the individual sack total for the
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 2: leading sack man is probably going to influence how you
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 2: answer the team sacks question. Because if you believe there's
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 2: an individual pass rusher who's seven and a half or higher,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: who's eight sacks or better, then you're you're probably more
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 2: confident that this team will generate enough pass rush to
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: get up over 30, to get up over 29, whatever.
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: This is kind of like the passing yards numbers I
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: was putting out there because if you hit the over
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 2: on some of these totals, I think you have a
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 2: really healthy season. If you're flirting with the under on
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: things like yards per catch, touchdown passes, total passing yardage,
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: Now we're talking about a couple of games where you
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: obviously underperformed, where things maybe got a little bit more difficult.
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 2: And sacks is one where you need production, but you
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: also need production at the right times. If you have
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: six sacks in the game against Idaho and you have
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 2: no sacks in the game against BYU, that's a problem
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: for your season.
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, we saw this in 2024, bringing up 2024.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: Van Fillinger was the.
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 2: Team's leading sack leader, he was the nation's leading sack
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 2: leader through four games.
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: And then it stopped. And again, one for the rest
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: of the year.
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: And then he couldn't keep up the pace for various reasons.
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 2: I think playing hurt was one of them. So absolutely
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: timing matters. It doesn't matter if you're near the top
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 2: in your conference as a team or as a player
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 2: near the top of the nation in those categories in sacks.
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: Through three games. Where are you? Where are you in
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: the middle of conference season? Where are you against BYU?
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 2: Like you say, according to the internet, the record for,
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: for sacks at a single season for the university of
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: Utah was 55 where they led nationally. And that's when
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: Nate orchard had 18 and a half sacks.
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: Gosh.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 2: And, And Hunter Dimmick opposite him had double-digit sacks also. Yeah,
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: he had two double-digit sack guys, and one of them
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 2: darn near got 20 sacks. I remember you saying this
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 2: now a couple years ago, O.C., at the start of
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: the show. Didn't you say that 40 is around the
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 2: number that Utah has gotten in their best seasons ever,
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: in the Kyle Whittingham era anyway, and Urban Meyer in
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: 2004 too? it was the forties kind of the, the
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 2: number that you say, okay, this defense is a championship defense.
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: I think that's where you average out your, okay, this is,
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: this is the kind of team that they need to be.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: This is the kind of defensive pass for us that
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: they need to be less than that. And by the way,
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: it doesn't have to come from your defensive ends. Like
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 2: I put defensive ends on there as your leading individual,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: because that's the nature of the position.
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's who you expect.
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: That's, basically the job of the end is to pressure
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: the quarterback and get sacks. If you can generate team
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 2: sacks by having, you know, like three of your defensive
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: ends in that rotation around six, seven, see what I did.
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then, you know, you got done by you.
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 2: You got like a Trey Reynolds who adds five. You
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 2: have a corner who adds two or three more. Maybe
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 2: you find, you know, Christian Ellis, if it's in the blood.
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: So if he has the blitzing acumen or even the
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 2: standup pass rushing acumen of his brothers, then you could
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: probably flirt with that and do some of that from
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 2: a scheme standpoint where you're just like, all right. I mean,
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 2: technically on this down, you're the Sam backer and the
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 2: quarterback doesn't know if you're going to drop back into
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 2: coverage or if you're going to rush off the end,
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 2: but We know you're good at this, so go throw
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: a spin move and get a sack. If you can
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 2: manufacture these things with simulated pressures and scheme pressures and
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: stunts and all that kind of stuff, it doesn't matter
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: if you have a Nate Orchard or a Hunter Dimmick
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 2: or a Jonah Ellis or a Kylie Fitz or any
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 2: of these guys who've done a really, really good job
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: of rushing the passer in recent years for the University
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 2: of Utah football team. But it goes a long way
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 2: if you have one guy who takes double-digit sacks and
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 2: makes them part of his contribution to the team. I
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 2: feel like 2021 might be one of those years that
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 2: you're talking about where I think Mika Tafua was the
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 2: leading defensive end, if I'm not mistaken, as far as
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 2: a sack leader from that position. But they got to
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 2: 40-plus sacks that year also because, not because they had
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 2: an incredible, as good as Tafua was, he wasn't, necessarily
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: incredible individually that year for them, but you had guys
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 2: like Devin Lloyd who are doing everything else that he
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: did being the game wrecker. He was also almost got
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 2: 10 sacks by himself. So the, you know, sacking quarterback
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: by committee, if you will, from the linebacker spot and
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: getting good production, if not great production from your rotation
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 2: of defensive ends, that's also a proven, uh, good formula
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 2: for you for Utah football. Derek says, honestly, I think
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: we break 30 and Holtzclaw and Day will both have
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 2: double-digit sacks.
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: Incredible.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: If you have two double-digit sack men, you're getting more
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 2: than 30. You're probably pushing 40. Yeah, I mean, that's
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 2: probably disappointing if you only get 30 as a team,
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 2: if you have two double-digit sack men, but it would
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 2: be awesome if Utah was able to get two guys
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 2: in double digits for sure. The other thing that is
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: worth noting, you have to talk about here, right? Is
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 2: this is what defensive coaches and this is what defensive
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 2: minded coaches and the GMs that they're working for or
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 2: that work for them. When you go into a season
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 2: and you don't have returning sack production, you go into
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 2: an off season and it's like John Henry Daly left
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 2: and you would have been exploring this because of his injury. Anyway,
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: you're going to who are we going to bring in? Who,
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: who are we going to add that has past rushing
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 2: production two years ago, you brought in Paul Fitzgerald because
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: he had eight sacks at Utah state. And you're just like, okay,
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: we can get this guy in our weight room. We
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: can get this guy with our coaches and we can
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 2: make him even better than that. And maybe he could
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: be a 10 sack guy, or at least he'll bring
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: that production straight across. Unfortunately, injury has prevented him from
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 2: doing that in a Utah football uniform.
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 5: Cash.
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: Dylan is, I'm actually surprised at how many people are
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: just kind of like sleeping on cash. Dylan is, I
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: get it. Ethan day. He's an exciting player. He's really disruptive.
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 2: He's going to create a bunch of havoc plays and
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be sacks. He's like, I could
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 2: see him being in that seven sack range, but also
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 2: with four force fumbles and an interception and things like that.
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 2: I think his versatility is going to be a big
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: thing for the university of Utah, but this is what
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: keeps you up at night. If you're Colton Swan, because
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 2: your defensive backs, I think are more than good enough
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 2: this year. If you have a pass rush, there is
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: not a group of defensive backs in the country that
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 2: can cover consistently for four and a half or five seconds.
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 2: Those people don't exist. And if they do exist, they're
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 2: at LSU. They're at Notre Dame this year. Texas tech
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 2: has a bunch of guys they brought in and paid
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 2: a bunch of money to, if they don't have a
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 2: pass rush, those it's not possible. Wide receivers are, win
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 2: that battle because they know where they're going. The only
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 2: thing that equalizes is pass rush. Every quarterback in college football,
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 2: if you give him five seconds is going to find
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 2: somebody open because receivers are good enough to get open.
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 2: Pass rush is one of the most important things for
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 2: Utah to establish. And you can't wait until week six.
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 2: It has to happen. I want however many sacks you
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 2: have against Idaho. I want you to have that same
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 2: number against Arkansas and against Utah state more against Utah state.
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: They give up a lot of sacks. Let me ask
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: you this.
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 2: OC is someone who's been through fall camp before as
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 2: a player, a Because you're not tackling as much, particularly
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: the pass rush is not– when they get home, they're
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: not taking down the quarterback. How much can you really
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: know in practice before the games have started how good
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 2: your pass rush is going to be? Is it possible
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 2: or is it really like let's see what happens when
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 2: the game starts?
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: We have these– they're.
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 2: Beating their individual assignment on– offensive line, but we'll see
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 2: if they can take guys down once the, once the
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 2: lights are on.
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: That's a great question.
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: And it's honestly, I think that is more quarterback dependent
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 2: than it is anything else because in an ideal scenario,
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 2: in a, in a more common or typical scenario, right?
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 2: If you win your battle in the rush, you should
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 2: get the quarterback down. Like bear Bachmeier is really hard
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 2: to bring down. Okay.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: Williams used to be very hard to bring down Sam Darnold.
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: Actually, when you played against Sam Darnold, like he was
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: so hard to bring down there, there are guys that
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 2: are much better at staying upright. Devin Dampier, there's going
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 2: to be guys that Utah plays this year that that
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 2: defensive end or that blitzing backer, they win their individual battle.
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 2: They get around their block, and they're still not going
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: to get the sack because of who the quarterback is.
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: So it's one of those.
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: Things that even though you don't get to practice taking
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 2: the quarterback down during camp, you do get to practice
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 2: that during the week of game prep. Sorry, scout team quarterbacks,
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 2: you're not protected. No red Jersey for you. You at
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 2: least get to wrap that guy up. You at least
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 2: get to thud on that guy. So it's a good question.
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 2: I think the answer to the question is heavily dependent
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 2: on the quarterback you're rushing against because some of those guys,
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 2: like some of them are like a Donovan McNabb or
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 2: a Ben Roethlisberger where they're just so damn big.
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: It's hard to bring them down.
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 2: And it felt like Roethlisberger never got sacked. And some
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 2: of them it's because, well, there's, there's probably three versions
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 2: of this. There's the quarterback who gets the ball out
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 2: of his hand fast enough that you don't, you don't
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 2: get the sack because of that. There are quarterbacks like
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 2: Ben Roethlisberger who are just bigger than you. and can
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 2: shrug off your, cause you're coming off balance a little bit, right?
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 2: You're around the edge, you're bending and you're getting a
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 2: hand on them and trying to like use one grip
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 2: to pull them all the way down.
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: Doesn't work all the time. Cause some of them are
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: too strong.
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 2: And then there's guys like Devin, like Pat Mahomes, like
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 2: Lamar Jackson, where they have that Spidey sense and you
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 2: win your matchup and you go to gather to make
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 2: the tackle, but they're gone.
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're just elusive. You can't touch them. So that's
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: another thing. You're finished. Winning a pass rush is a pressure,
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: not a sack. It's a nice little stat.
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: Which pressures matter, too. Those are disruptive, too, if you
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 2: do it right. Winning your rep against the offensive lineman,
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 2: that's a pressure. Finishing that rep, that's a sack. And oftentimes,
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 2: that's a fumble.
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: And that is the most disruptive, a strip sack fumble
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: is the most disruptive play a defense can make. Shout
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: out to Jack Sawyer. Strip sack fumble touchdown. Let's go.
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: You find a way to bring it back to Ohio
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: State every time.
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: I think of that every time I think of strip
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: sack now because it was such an incredible play. That
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 2: was one of the best plays an individual can make
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 2: in college football.
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: At those high stakes too, college football playoffs, semifinal, let's go.
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 2: All right, we're going to give you Morgan Scali's sound
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 2: from practice yesterday. It's the Sean O'Connell Show on Utah's
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 2: number one sports talk, ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: The world is, the world.
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 8: Is love and life.
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 4: You're listening to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 4: Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM. The day's done,
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 4: so he gets.
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 6: High on fire.
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 2: All right, if you're in the Saratoga Springs area this evening,
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 2: you'll find me at Southern Steer.
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: I got to head down there.
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 2: I got to grab myself some meats, doing a little
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: weekend barbecue with some friends, and I'm going to go
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 2: get some ethically sourced, clean meats to feed not only
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 2: my family, but the families of those people.
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: Close to me.
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 2: 1705 North Redwood Road in Saratoga Springs, Dan and Aubrey
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 2: Gunther have set up An old neighborhood butcher shop with
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 2: a modern twist. All the great technology of the modern
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 2: day with the atmosphere, the friendliness, the recommendations, and the
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 2: better product, the clean, healthy meat of your grandparents' era.
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: All-natural chicken, boneless pork chops, black Angus ground beef, thick steaks.
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: If you want them cut thin, fine.
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 2: You like your skirt steaks, you want something for some
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 2: carne asada, maybe a little tri-tip. Southern steer can handle
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 2: all of it for you. If you're looking for exotic meats,
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 2: you want some ostrich, you want a little bit of elk.
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's some exotic goat out there that you've been
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 2: dying to try. Tell them that's what you want. They
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 2: will find it for you. Join the Southern steer rewards club.
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 2: They've got daily savings on different items. They've got weekly
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 2: savings on different items and they've got the full meal combos.
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 2: If you don't want to go through the whole rigmarole
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 2: of what am I going to cook tonight? What am
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 2: I going to do for the sides? I need to
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 2: give the kids some veggies. They don't like to eat veggies.
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to cook veggies. I don't know
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: how to season the veggies so they taste good. Just
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 2: let Southern Steer handle it. Right now, three full meal combos.
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 2: They call it the Mealtime Combo. $ 59 for everything you
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 2: need for three complete meals. So for $ 20 a meal,
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 2: you're feeding the entire family clean, healthy food.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: That is meat. That is sides. That is everything.
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 2: You just have to throw it in the oven or
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 2: throw it in the air fryer or throw it in
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: the microwave if that's how you want to do it.
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: If you're doing a barbecue and you need an appetizer tray,
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 2: you need a sampler, maybe you just need to stop
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 2: by and see what the selection looks like. Grab some
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 2: barbecue sauce, a marinade, a rub. Southern Steer really does
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 2: have it all. Get there this weekend. I'm going to
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 2: be there tonight. 1705 North Redwood Road in Saratoga Springs.
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 2: Southern Steer Butcher for the best beef, chicken, pork, and
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 2: much more.
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 2: Post-practice media availability. Morgan Scali spoke with the gathered folks.
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 2: James Peterson caught the sound for us. Morgan, what are
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 2: your biggest takeaways now that whole camp is wrapped up?
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 4: Um.
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 3: Injury-free for the most part we got some bumps and
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 3: bruises guys that still need to get some rehab in
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 3: but we'll be ready to go for game one and
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 3: feel Very good about where we're at in terms of
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 3: depth chart stuff like that stuff.
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 2: I will talk to you guys Is.
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: There about one week out from the start of the season?
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 5: Just what is the biggest thing left to do?
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 3: Odds and ends with some situational stuff And, you know,
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 3: obviously now it turns from our behavior, our culture, now
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 3: to studying opponent killing. And so, you know, with Idaho,
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 3: you're looking at Iowa State on the defensive side of
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 3: the ball.
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: You're looking at Grand Valley on the offensive side of
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: the ball. You're trying to get any sort.
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 3: Of information you can get from where these coaches are
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 3: coming from. The good news is they'll be playing on Friday.
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 3: So we'll get a really good.
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 4: peek at that but.
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 3: Uh just making sure you guys understand how to study
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 3: film the right way there is a process to going
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 3: about it and you really have to teach them okay
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 3: so when i control down first and second down this
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 3: is what you're looking at these are the cuts that
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 3: you need to to look at and just screwing them
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 3: up on that.
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 7: So much more opponent.
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 4: Work right now. Looking back at fall camp, did you,
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 4: we're ending it, did you accomplish what you wanted to
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 4: accomplish in fall camp?
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 5: Yes, 100%.
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 3: We got depth figured out. We stayed, for the most part, injury-free.
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 3: and we established our leadership.
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: So that'll be, I don't know, has it been announced?
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 7: Fantastic. You can see it's a big one, right?
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 3: You've got a big leadership council, and that's, I think, just,
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 3: you've got a lot of guys getting a lot of votes.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 7: That's a good thing.
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 3: That's a good thing. There's not one guy in that group,
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 3: whether it be from the captain group or the leadership
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 3: council group.
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 6: I don't know.
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 1: Those guys are compelling.
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 4: They're bringing others with them.
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 3: It's a really solid group.
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about the defense? Really good.
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 3: May not know why but um you know i good
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 3: to have carson back the past couple days and you've
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 3: had a couple guys that were dinged up and we've
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 3: had to rotate and do some stuff but really like
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 3: the progress of those guys and uh there you know
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 3: there may be a couple others that show up.
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 2: You talked about wanting to improve red zone efficiency during
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 2: camp at one point.
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: How has that been now that camp's over?
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 3: I'm glad I said that because maybe they got butt
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 3: hurt or something because it's been fantastic since then.
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: So maybe they thought I was calling them out.
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 7: Man, really good the.
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: Next couple days. That was fantastic. So McGillin is a competitor.
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 7: Maybe he heard that and was like, okay.
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: That was good. Yeah, we cleaned some stuff up for sure.
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 3: Have you noticed a different energy yesterday and today now
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 3: that it's not fall camp and it's more into that
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 3: game mindset?
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, school starts.
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 3: So you get school starting and you've got an academic
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 3: schedule and guys are going to school. We were practicing
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 3: more in the morning during fall camp than you're practicing
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 3: in the afternoon. So it's just making sure those guys
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 3: bring the same energy regardless.
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: Of what time of day you're practicing.
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 3: And, you know, thought for the most part we got
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 3: what we wasn't a real today was our more physical
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 3: practice kind of plan for the first day of school
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 3: being something that you get it okay let's get let's
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 3: get started with.
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 7: Some opponent work nothing too taxing today was a grinder.
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 2: For me Morgan you guys have one of the more
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 2: unique players in college football and semi I guess what
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 2: can you bring to this team oh.
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 3: Man well you talk about the safeties being versatile this
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 3: is a guy that can play smash-mouth football.
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: He can block on the edge.
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 7: He can run routes.
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: He can catch the ball.
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 3: Um obviously in high school he was a defensive tackle
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 3: so there's a lot that this guy can do the
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 3: guy i don't want everyone to sleep on is.
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 8: That guy is you know just as valuable as semi
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 8: is and um for the exact same reasons just the
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 8: versatility of what we're able to do with with.
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 3: Him and so can't say enough about those guys plus
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 3: the fact that the team guys they're guys that were
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 3: recruited at one position asked now to play a different
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 3: position and didn't bat.
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 7: An eye doing it I love those guys love it
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 7: because I didn't do that I was asked to move
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 7: to safety I was like what no wish.
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 3: I had thought about that sooner with tackling that's been
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 3: like a reoccurring topic going back to spring how have
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 3: you assessed the team in that area.
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 7: As you guys approach the season uh.
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, I mean, spring ball was one that, you know,
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 3: we've got more tackling in the spring ball than we
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 3: ever have.
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: Fall camp was.
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 3: Tackling early on, but you're trying to mix it in
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 3: and trying to get to the party healthy.
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 7: You know, there's some.
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 3: Guys that we certainly trust, and then other guys, if
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 3: you feel like they need continued tackling work, that's going.
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 7: To be more in a controlled setting.
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: We'll scout new players, but you've got to do it.
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 7: You've got to do it.
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: This is, you know, we don't go out there on
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: Saturdays and play tag.
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 2: Great stuff from the gathered media, including James and, of course,
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 2: Morgan Scali. Camp Scali, even if it's not technically camp,
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 2: this is a game prep practice. But still, coverage is
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 2: brought to you by Cenex, LJBR, Beer Bar, Citroen, Cooperman,
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 2: Big O Tires, Sound Warehouse, your Utah Toyota dealers, right
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 2: here on your home of the Utes on ESPN 700
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 2: and 92.1 FM. Yeah, camp's technically over, but don't be
• 2:19:51
  Speaker 2: surprised if you see new Sound on our Camp Skelly
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 2: landing page before the first game. Everything before the first
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 2: game is basically camp. We'll give you as much as
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 2: we can whenever we can.
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 2: Four passes to the Utah State Fair coming up September
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 2: 10th through the 20th at the Fair Park. I've got
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 2: a trivia question for you. What have we been talking
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 2: about today, guys? What's been a theme? What's been a
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 2: major question on the show? Think about that. You'll probably
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 2: get the answer right when we ask it next. It's
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 2: ESPN 700 and 92 on FM.
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 4: This is the Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 4: best inside of your youths. Let's get back to OC
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 4: from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 and 92
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 4: on FM.
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 2: Four tickets to the Utah state fair, September 10th through
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 2: the 20th at the fair park. If you could answer
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 2: this question, the Utah defense was able to generate how
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 2: many sacks in the 2025 season, the total defensive sack
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 2: production for the university of Utah was In 2025, 877-353-0700.
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 2: Tell me how many sacks Utah got on their opposition
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 2: last year. And I will give you a family four
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 2: pack to the Utah state fair coming up at the
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 2: fair park from September 10th through the 20th. Interestingly enough, the,
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 2: the two teams that played the most games in the country, uh,
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 2: ended with the most sacks. Miami and Indiana were the
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 2: top two sack teams in the land, but Miami was
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 2: number four in sacks per game. So even though they
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 2: played like three more games than Utah did, four more
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 2: games than a lot of teams did on their way
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 2: to a national championship, Miami had a sacks per game
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 2: rate of 3.13 sacks per game, 50 total sacks per
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 2: For the Miami hurricanes last year. But the trivia question
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 2: is how many sacks did Utah's defense get in 2025?
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, their sacks, total sacks ranking and their sacks
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 2: per game ranking were identical. When you break the sex,
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 2: when the, the sack stats get broken down, they were
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 2: 23 in total sacks. They were 23 in sacks per game.
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 2: Let's see where they were in sack yardage.
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 6: 16th.
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: In sack yardage so even better when it comes to that.
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 2: Advanced window products offering twenty five hundred dollars off ten
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 2: windows or more when you call them today eight zero
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 2: one eight five oh ninety one hundred do it now
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 2: do it during the drive with spence jackets but uh...
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 2: tell me heard about it on the s p n
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 2: seven hundred when you do i spent.
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 10: Hello sean how are you great how are you i'm
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 10: good uh... i know the number will not say it
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 10: will wait for the winter.
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: We have the correct number, so you can say it.
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 7: Did you do an over-under for the season today?
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: I did. What is it? 29.5.
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 10: That's perfect, because I was thinking anything north of 30
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 10: feels like you'd be in a good spot, because they
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 10: were second in the conference last year, right?
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: They were, yes.
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: With 34.
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 10: Can they get to 30? I mean, did John Henry
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 10: Daly have 11?
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: 11.5.
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 7: 11.5.
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 4: 11.5.
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 7: Who's going to be that guy this year?
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 2: Well, that's also a question on the, on the poll
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 2: today on the old tweet machine at real OC sports,
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 2: Lance holds claw Ethan day, Paul Fitzgerald cash. Dylan, is
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 2: it somebody else that's not playing defensive end or that
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 2: is playing defensive end that we haven't talked a lot
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 2: about so far. And you know, asking for one of
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 2: those guys to be a double digit sack man, Paul
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 2: Fitzgerald has the most in a single season of all
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 2: those four guys.
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: He had eight at Utah state. What now? Three seasons ago.
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 2: He hasn't stayed healthy with the university of Utah, but
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 2: can he get to that level? Lance Holtzclaw, who everyone
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 2: is so incredibly high on, I think his best is
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 2: a sack and a half. Uh, Ethan day was a
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 2: seven sack guy at North Texas and cash.
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: Dylan was four and a half sacks.
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 7: I want it to be cash Dylan. Cause I just
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 7: think that's a bad-ass name.
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 2: That would, if you, if you get like 12 sacks
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 2: and your name is cash, there's a lot of things
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 2: we can do with that from an IL front.
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 7: Cash Dylan.
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 10: You can either be a bad-ass football player, like a
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 10: lead singer of a rock band.
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 10: When I first heard this kid's name, when they were recruiting,
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 10: I'm like, dude, I want Cash Dillon to play for Utah.
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 7: Because that's just a cool name to say.
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: Cash with a K.
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, it makes it even cooler. And also, we're
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 10: in Utah. Of course, it's Cash with a K. You've
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 10: got to switch up the letter at some point.
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: K-Y-A-J-S-H, Cash.
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 7: What's the deal with names in our state? Like, oh,
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 7: we had a daughter.
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 10: Her name is Mackenzie, and we're spelling it with a
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 10: Q-U or something.
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's because there's so many kids, and
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 2: you've got to try to differentiate somehow.
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 7: You know what? That's it. You just summarized a question
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 7: I've had for years.
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: I really think that's what it is.
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 7: Okay. There are too many children.
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 10: So even if we name you the same, we're going
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 10: to spell it differently so you can stand out on
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 10: your own.
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: Yes. I like that.
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 7: Cash Dillon with a K. Yeah. 34 is a big number.
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 10: I mean, every time I sit down to like do
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 10: a little prep and then compare what we could see
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 10: this year to what we saw last year. I'm kind
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 10: of re-reminded that last year's team was so much better
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 10: than I think most people consider, just because we lost
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 10: to BYU and Tech, the two big teams we needed
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 10: to beat.
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 7: We were unable to do that.
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 10: But you look at the offensive line numbers, 4.3 yards
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 10: per carry before contact is so beyond stupid. Led the
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 10: country in that stat. That's by far my favorite stat
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 10: from that offensive line.
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: It's a great stat.
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's awesome.
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 10: And then you see the sack totals, and you're like,
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 10: that's a lot of sacks. 34 sacks is a lot
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 10: of sacks. Second in the conference. And, you know, with
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 10: all the love that the skilled position players get, because
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 10: they're the players that everybody knows, without the trenches last year,
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 10: it's a problem. And I'm still approaching this with a
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 10: tremendous amount of questions. I think more didn't sound. I
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 10: was listening to it on the way in today.
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 10: was was good but for all the conversation understandably so
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 10: because in this meeting you look for stories in the
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 10: stories of people want to hear about and talk about
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 10: the whit thing was such a big deal and morgan
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 10: as a first-year coaches so intriguing none of this matters
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 10: without players none of this matters if if these guys
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 10: are ready to go i was actually thinking about this
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 10: to the.
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 7: Prism of um.
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 10: so the s e c in the big ten have
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 10: introduced guidelines it's not a ban on pro players but
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 10: they're threatening programs with serious sanctions yeah and punishments if
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 10: like the daquan cook kid who got cut by cleveland
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 10: and lane kiffin said come play for me uh and
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 10: lane today is arguing the legislation was put in place
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 10: after he made the addition i guess there are two
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 10: players on lsu's roster if the big 10 and the
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 10: sec straight up ban pro players from playing in those
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 10: conferences should the big 12 be like hey Come.
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: Play over here.
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 2: Well, reporting out there is that the big 12 already
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 2: held their vote and they're just drafting the language now.
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 2: And every team said, no, no to the pro players.
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 2: I I think that we, we talked about that possibility.
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 2: It would make you the outlier. The problem is the
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 2: big 12. You can't afford to be the outlier because
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 2: if the, if the sec and the big 10 say
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 2: no to something, and then you say yes, they're like
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 2: the big brothers that can slap you and say, we said.
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: No, yeah, that's true. We're not playing you.
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: We're not playing against you. We're not scheduling out a
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: conference games.
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 2: You don't get to be part of our club where
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 2: we have an automatic access for your conference champion to
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 2: the college football playoff. The problem is they can punish
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 2: the big 12. The big 12 can't punish the sec
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 2: and the big 10.
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: Nope. Nope.
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 10: It just trying to find a way to get the
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 10: big 12 to live in that same cul-de-sac and adding
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 10: a couple of, Tight ends have been cut from the Browns.
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 7: Probably.
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: It's probably not it.
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 7: It's man. It's such a wild time.
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 10: Like the Nami Yakoff story for Utah basketball. I was
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 10: even doing more digging last night after the show, because
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 10: when I saw the news, because I said this on air,
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 10: I'm not sure I said this to you. When I
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 10: had Alex Jensen on the show a couple of months
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 10: ago off Mike, he's like, I love my point guard.
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 10: And it's this Yakov kid who was probably going to
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 10: be the best player on that Utah basketball roster.
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 7: And he's awesome.
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 10: I mean, if you've seen any tape on him, he's
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 10: a pro. Like he was nearly drafted this year, barely
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 10: on the outside.
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 7: And he's 21. He's never played any college basketball.
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 10: And they're telling the walking line that I saw is he,
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 10: they were saying he developed in Europe.
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 7: Give me 10 minutes.
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 10: I can pull up 50 players that are playing college
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 10: basketball this year that developed in Europe.
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 7: Like, Where's the consistency? I think that's the only thing
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 7: people want.
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: We were trying to figure out, like, how do you
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: draw an equivalency?
• 2:29:20
  Speaker 2: Because he's played four years of pro ball, like high-level
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 2: pro ball, but it's in Israel.
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: So the highest-level league in Israel is that.
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 2: the Missouri valley conference is that the sec it's good basketball.
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: Is that the big 10, right?
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 2: Like there's, there's so many different ways that you have
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 2: to slice this onion when it comes to basketball, especially
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 2: because it's like, all right, well, he spent one year
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 2: in New Zealand, but that's fine.
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: We're going to let him play. Oh no. He's been
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: four years in Israel. That's too much for us. He's ineligible.
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: This guy, BYU had.
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 2: A guy last year that was in the G League,
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 2: and he stunk for BYU. And now you got this
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 2: Jackson Kohler kid who was.
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: There's literally pictures of him wearing the Utah Jazz Mountain jersey.
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah, he was on the summer league team. He was
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 7: on the summer league team.
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 2: And it's like, okay, but are a couple of summer
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 2: league games equivalent to.
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: a season, a half a season, 10 games in Israel.
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 2: Like it's really hard with basketball, especially to say what
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 2: equates to what.
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: And that's where you draw your line.
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 2: So interestingly enough, the language in the big 10 sanctions
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 2: and the sec sanctions is specific to the WNBA, the
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 2: NBA and the G league doesn't really include Icelandic pro basketball.
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: So we'll see.
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 10: It is tough because then you get into these false
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 10: parallels at times where Like the Jackson Kohler kid who
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 10: just committed to play for BYU played four years under
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 10: Tom Izzo at Michigan State. I would argue four years
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 10: at Michigan State under one of the best college basketball
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 10: coaches and potentially one of the best college basketball conferences
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 10: is a better developmental process than four years in Israel.
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 6: Honestly.
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think anyone would dispute that.
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 10: And also Jackson's 23, Yakov's 21. You know, in the
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 10: college football ecosystem, one of the things that I think
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 10: that you're trying to avoid is sometimes your freshmen are 17,
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 10: 17 or 18. And look, in the pros, the gap
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 10: between a 25-year-old second-year player and a 32-year-old vet, it
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 10: doesn't matter. But at that stage of both intellectual and
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 10: physical development, the gap between 17 and 24, 25 is
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 10: massive and could be dangerous. You don't have the physical
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 10: danger in basketball that you have in football. But it's just,
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 10: this continues to be one thing, and it's so exhausting
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 10: because I've talked about it for years. Everybody is now
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 10: reaping the issues that were put in place by not
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 10: having leadership see around corners 10 to 15 years ago.
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 10: And as I've said, if I've said it once, I've
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 10: said it a million times. Ed O'Bannon filed his lawsuit
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 10: in 2008.
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 7: That was 18 years ago.
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 10: And anybody that followed that story saw that door crack
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 10: open and said this could have far-reaching ramifications if you
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 10: don't get in front of it. And they ignored it.
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 10: And in 2026, we're still dealing with a fallout.
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 2: If they had ignored it completely, I think that would
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 2: be criminal enough. What bothers me more is that somebody
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 2: forced them to look around the corner that you're referencing. Mm-hmm.
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 2: And instead of being like, all right, let's plan some
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 2: contingencies here. They said, we're just going to hire lawyers
• 2:32:43
  Speaker 2: and squash this. The arrogance necessary to say, no, these
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 2: dumb kids are always going to take their medicine and
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 2: we're going to always have all of these billions. And
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 2: that's how it's forever going to be. Somebody literally put
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 2: a lawsuit in front of them like, hey, this is coming.
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 2: And eventually there's going to be a groundswell of support
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 2: for this. And you better do something about it. And
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 2: instead of being like, oh, guys, look, we hoped it
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 2: would never happen, but now it's happening.
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: They were just like, no, we'll just have better lawyers.
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 10: And ultimately, you know, it's just the way life works.
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 10: Change happens slowly and then all at once. So when
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 10: the Supreme Court threw Mark Emmerich and the NCAA out
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 10: of court and said, you are a serial antitrust violator.
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 10: Go figure it out. There was nothing in place. to
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 10: protect these products and we're still trying to deal with
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 10: it today and really it became a reality five or
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 10: six years ago that's enough time to have more in
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 10: place than they have now and it's just it's it's
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 10: unfair and yes we're the home of the youths and
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 10: i want alex to succeed more than anyone you know
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 10: alex finally finds the guy that he thinks can at
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 10: least get them to respectability in conference nobody's saying go
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 10: beat houston or arizona the tech like that's not realistic
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 10: but this was going to be their best player And
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 10: we're left to stomach that you're telling me four years
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 10: in Israel is better development than four years playing for
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 10: a top-shelf coach in one of the best conferences in
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 10: college basketball. It doesn't make sense. It's not consistent, and
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 10: it's unfair. It's just tiring to yell about all the time.
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 2: All of which he was paid for, if I'm not mistaken.
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: Or eligible to be paid for. Handsomely. Who got more money,
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: Noam Yacob or Jackson Cole?
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 6: Text in.
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: Let that be the decision.
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 7: Text in.
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 3: 877-353-7000.
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: Zero seven hundred. Thanks for listening to the Sean O'Connell show.
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 2: Big one tomorrow. We will have Devin Dampier edition with Dev.
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 2: We will have Eric Weddle. It's going to be a
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 2: fun show on a Thursday as that starts the first
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 2: weekend of college football. It's an FCS for Thursday and Friday,
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 2: but still it's college football. Sean O'Connell show ESPN seven
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 2: hundred ninety two on FM.