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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 11-2-26 · The Sean O'Connell Show

0:17
Speaker 1: Happy Monday, everybody! Welcome to the Sean O'Connell Show on
0:21
Speaker 1: ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM. Fun show lined up for
0:26
Speaker 1: you today. Ari Temkin, then the Morgan Scali weekly press
0:30
Speaker 1: conference and Zach Moss, the Utah football legend, the NFL veteran,
0:36
Speaker 1: the sideline reporter right here on our radio broadcasts, all
0:41
Speaker 1: of that talking about an undefeated, a still undefeated Utah
0:47
Speaker 1: football team coming off a massive win last 49, 25
0:52
Speaker 1: against the Cincinnati bear cats. Utah scored 42 points in
0:57
Speaker 1: the first half.
1:00
Speaker 2: Had kind of a slow second half.
1:02
Speaker 1: Human nature does take over even for this Utah football team.
1:06
Speaker 2: Tell me what you love.
1:07
Speaker 1: Tell me what you hate about that performance. 8, 7, 7, 3, 5, 3, 0, 700.
1:13
Speaker 1: Devin Dampier, 22 of 29 for two 63 touchdowns. He
1:18
Speaker 1: did throw one interception that was returned for a touchdown.
1:21
Speaker 1: So you don't love a pick six from QB number one,
1:24
Speaker 1: but again, this, the game had been salted away and
1:31
Speaker 1: Devin didn't play in the fourth quarter. Way Sean Parker,
1:35
Speaker 1: seven carries for 82 yards and a touchdown. Daniel Bray,
1:40
Speaker 1: eight carries for 75 yards and a touchdown. The Cincinnati
1:45
Speaker 1: Bearcats have some defensive woes, and Utah's offensive line made
1:50
Speaker 1: them look like.
1:52
Speaker 2: Silly ninnies. It was bad. 268 yards on the ground, and.
1:59
Speaker 2: The Hunter Andrews game.
2:01
Speaker 1: I feel like a genius people because I asked bill Riley,
2:05
Speaker 1: the voice of the Utes on Friday, we've had like
2:08
Speaker 1: kind of a, we've had a couple of Devin Dampier games,
2:10
Speaker 1: a couple of way Sean Parker games. We had a
2:13
Speaker 1: big breakout for Braden pagan, right? You had a Ricky
2:16
Speaker 1: Johnson kind of like, Hey, welcome to the party type game.
2:20
Speaker 1: Is there anyone else who's going to get that? And
2:23
Speaker 1: Hunter Andrews, It was your turn against Cincinnati. Five catches,
2:27
Speaker 1: 112 yards, and two tutties for the running back slash
2:33
Speaker 1: tight end slash slot receiver slash fullback. Hunter Andrews occasionally
2:41
Speaker 1: will take a direct snap maybe. 266 yards through the
2:48
Speaker 1: air for this Utah football team. Defensively, especially in the
2:52
Speaker 1: second half, they gave up way too much. Coltab for
2:56
Speaker 1: Cincinnati continues to be a great player on a not
2:59
Speaker 1: great team. Coltab is only a junior. And I guess
3:06
Speaker 1: now that means you have two more years of eligibility.
3:10
Speaker 1: What are we going to call the fifth year of eligibility?
3:13
Speaker 1: Has anyone figured that out?
3:18
Speaker 2: Raise your hand. Text me. Are we going to call
3:22
Speaker 2: them fifth year seniors?
3:23
Speaker 1: Are we going to call them Super seniors, what are
3:26
Speaker 1: we going to call the guys who are on their
3:27
Speaker 1: fifth year of eligibility now that everyone gets five years
3:30
Speaker 1: of eligibility? Anyway, Coltab is going to probably be somewhere
3:35
Speaker 1: else next year. Cincinnati, rough one. Utah improves to 8-0.
3:39
Speaker 1: The Bearcats fall to 5-3. And front of mind for
3:45
Speaker 1: all of you and for me and for everyone, we
3:48
Speaker 1: are now starting off the best week on the sports
3:52
Speaker 1: calendar in our home state. Every single year. It is
3:57
Speaker 1: Holy war week, Utah, BYU. And it happens to be,
4:00
Speaker 1: and we said this last year, by the way, and
4:03
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a tentative. I think it
4:04
Speaker 1: might be, it is definitively the highest ranked Holy war
4:09
Speaker 1: that has ever been played. It is perhaps the most
4:11
Speaker 1: consequential rivalry game that has ever been played. The only
4:15
Speaker 1: thing that could make it a bigger deal is if
4:17
Speaker 1: we had the full picture in front of us and
4:20
Speaker 1: it was being played in rivalry weekend, but yeah, The
4:23
Speaker 1: soon-to-be-departed Big 12 commissioner, Brett Yormark, apparently doesn't want the
4:28
Speaker 1: Holy War played during rivalry week, so we get it
4:31
Speaker 1: November 7th. The good thing about that is we don't
4:33
Speaker 1: have to wait any longer. The bad thing about that
4:35
Speaker 1: is these teams are expected to then turn around and
4:39
Speaker 1: play great football after that. We'll be talking about it
4:43
Speaker 1: all week. We'll be talking with former Utes and former Cougs.
4:46
Speaker 1: We'll lean into the former Utes. We're It is the
4:53
Speaker 1: best year, the best week of the year, excuse me,
4:56
Speaker 1: every single year for me. I think for you also,
4:58
Speaker 1: especially when your team is undefeated and is right now
5:04
Speaker 1: kind of surprisingly heavy favorite in this game.
5:09
Speaker 2: Five and a half, all the way up to five
5:11
Speaker 2: and a half.
5:13
Speaker 1: Number three versus number seven in the AP rankings. And
5:18
Speaker 1: tomorrow night, tomorrow afternoon, evening, we will get the college
5:22
Speaker 1: football playoff rankings, the first one of the season, and
5:26
Speaker 1: these will be top 10 teams in that ranking as well.
5:29
Speaker 1: So both in the AP and in the college football
5:34
Speaker 1: playoff ranking, this will be a top 10 matchup.
5:38
Speaker 2: Between Utah and BYU.
5:40
Speaker 1: But before we completely turn the page off Cincinnati and
5:43
Speaker 1: move on to the Holy war and boy, are we
5:45
Speaker 1: going to dissect this one? We're going to overthink it.
5:48
Speaker 1: We're going to rethink it. We're going to underthink it.
5:50
Speaker 1: We're going to talk too much about it. We're going
5:52
Speaker 1: to worry about the jinxes. We're going to get superstitious
5:55
Speaker 1: and then just a little bit stitious.
5:57
Speaker 2: It's going to be a mess of a week here
5:59
Speaker 2: on the Sean O'Connell show.
6:01
Speaker 1: But before we do that, let's talk a little Utah, Cincinnati.
6:09
Speaker 2: I have to say, the mild, and they were mild,
6:14
Speaker 2: the mild.
6:15
Speaker 1: Concerns that a lot of Utah fans carried into a
6:18
Speaker 1: potential look-ahead spot were completely unwarranted. We have to give
6:23
Speaker 1: Morgan Scali, his coaching staff, and especially this team credit
6:27
Speaker 1: for being mature beyond their years for playing like they've
6:32
Speaker 1: been there before, for being a group that acts incredibly experienced,
6:36
Speaker 1: even when they're not incredibly experienced for taking what a
6:40
Speaker 1: defense gives them for exploiting some opportunities on the defensive
6:45
Speaker 1: side of things. The pick six streak, the 23 season
6:49
Speaker 1: pick six streak is kept alive by our guy, Scooby Davis,
6:54
Speaker 1: JC French. Didn't look him off and threw a ball,
6:59
Speaker 1: dangerous ball that got taken back to the house. Two
7:02
Speaker 1: defensive scores in this one. Rabbit Evans with the scoop
7:04
Speaker 1: and score touchdown as well. Ethan Day was the guy
7:08
Speaker 1: who wrangled that ball carrier in the backfield. You saw
7:13
Speaker 1: it looked like Utah almost turned over Cincinnati in the
7:20
Speaker 1: ensuing possession as well, but the knee was down.
7:23
Speaker 2: On that one.
7:24
Speaker 1: When Elijah Ellis was taking the ball away in any case,
7:26
Speaker 1: it was a beautiful first half performance for the university
7:30
Speaker 1: of Utah.
7:31
Speaker 2: Didn't really leave a whole lot to be desired.
7:32
Speaker 1: There were a couple of couple of big plays that
7:35
Speaker 1: Cincinnati left on the table. That's something that Utah's got
7:39
Speaker 1: to clean up a bear. Bachmeier is a better quarterback
7:43
Speaker 1: than JC French. He has some of the same tendencies
7:45
Speaker 1: in like getting overly fixated on a particular receiver. And
7:49
Speaker 1: that French did that same thing. And Utah should be
7:52
Speaker 1: glad of it because there were a couple of guys
7:54
Speaker 1: that there were free runners in that defensive backfield.
7:59
Speaker 2: So that's something it's honestly, it's kind of the perfect.
8:02
Speaker 1: Game where the result never really in doubt after the
8:06
Speaker 1: first quarter, but you're not congratulating yourself too much. You're
8:11
Speaker 1: not coming back to Salt Lake city and feeling yourself
8:14
Speaker 1: and pat yourself on the back and just like, oh yeah,
8:16
Speaker 1: nobody can touch us because we're You made some potentially
8:21
Speaker 1: costly mistakes in this game. You just had built a
8:24
Speaker 1: big enough cushion that it wasn't a big problem.
8:26
Speaker 2: So what'd you love? What did you hate from that game?
8:31
Speaker 1: 877-353-0700. Cal says, love the first half. Extending the pick
8:37
Speaker 1: six streak. Didn't love the second half performance. When I
8:41
Speaker 1: watch the games, I like to try and see if
8:42
Speaker 1: the next play is a run or pass. They did
8:44
Speaker 1: an awesome job Saturday of making it difficult to detect
8:46
Speaker 1: what they were going to run that play.
8:48
Speaker 2: I hope they bring the whole kitchen on Saturday. I
8:51
Speaker 2: promise you that they will.
8:53
Speaker 1: I promise you that Mac G, that Kevin McGiven, is
8:57
Speaker 1: going to have a fully masterminded idea of what he
9:00
Speaker 1: wants to do game plan-wise.
9:02
Speaker 2: Now, the question is going to be.
9:07
Speaker 1: Whether or not you play it honest and straight or
9:11
Speaker 1: you just like get real creative because BYU's defense, especially
9:16
Speaker 1: is fast enough that they could cause you problems in
9:19
Speaker 1: that department. Defense was unreal says JP.
9:29
Speaker 2: In the first half. Yeah.
9:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, the human nature element, even this Utah team,
9:35
Speaker 1: despite their maturity is not immune to, to the whims
9:39
Speaker 1: of human nature. Now, I think a concern that we
9:42
Speaker 1: can have about an undefeated team. And let's be honest
9:45
Speaker 1: with ourselves. You gotta really start to nitpick on what
9:49
Speaker 1: concerns you have when you're one of the three undefeated
9:51
Speaker 1: teams remaining in the country. But one of the big
9:54
Speaker 1: concerns that you have to have is I don't think
9:57
Speaker 1: we have seen this Utah football team, even at eight,
10:00
Speaker 1: no put together a full four quarters of clean football
10:06
Speaker 1: of great execution of like maximized performance. And perhaps it's
10:11
Speaker 1: unrealistic to ever expect that from a college football team,
10:15
Speaker 1: but the standard is high for a reason. And that
10:20
Speaker 1: pressure that Morgan Scali talks about being a privilege is
10:23
Speaker 1: there because of the performances that they have given us
10:25
Speaker 1: so far this year.
10:28
Speaker 2: Even still, I think that.
10:32
Speaker 1: Both offensive and defensive issues have shown themselves at different
10:37
Speaker 1: times in games. Even in the Utah State game, we
10:39
Speaker 1: didn't give up a point. There was a slowdown. There
10:43
Speaker 1: was like, hey, what's going on here? There was a
10:46
Speaker 1: potential momentum shift. Those things matter a heck of a
10:50
Speaker 1: lot more in a rivalry game against a top 10
10:53
Speaker 1: team like BYU. There were moments in the Houston game
10:58
Speaker 1: where you left some things on the table. Thankfully, there
11:01
Speaker 1: were some moments in the Houston game where the Cougars,
11:04
Speaker 1: that version of the Cougars, left things on the table
11:06
Speaker 1: as well. And that was still an incredibly great, that
11:10
Speaker 1: was an awesome win for Utah football. for BYU to
11:17
Speaker 1: come into Rice Echo Stadium, 10 a.m. kickoff, and win
11:22
Speaker 1: this game, they are going to have to take advantage
11:24
Speaker 1: of some of those sleepy moments, those lulls.
11:29
Speaker 2: Utah can't afford to have them.
11:30
Speaker 1: So if there's a concern to be found after a
11:35
Speaker 1: 49-25 victory, it's that we're still not seeing a full
11:40
Speaker 1: four quarters of dominance. a full four quarters of let's
11:44
Speaker 1: take you behind the woodshed and whoop that act, right?
11:49
Speaker 1: There's still a little bit of the pernicious nature of
11:54
Speaker 1: we're fine, we're good here. I drank too much in
11:58
Speaker 1: the halftime break and now my belly's sloshing a little bit.
12:01
Speaker 1: I got to wait until that settles. Jay says, I
12:05
Speaker 1: absolutely hate the third quarter hangover. I know it's second
12:09
Speaker 1: and third string when we're winning, but come on. This
12:12
Speaker 1: has been going on all season. They need to keep
12:14
Speaker 1: the gas for 60 minutes this week.
12:17
Speaker 2: Don't let up.
12:17
Speaker 1: I actually, no, it wasn't the second stringers in the third. Like,
12:22
Speaker 1: I think that, I think that this coaching staff, I
12:26
Speaker 1: don't think I know this coaching staff is a lot
12:29
Speaker 1: more sensitive and aware of those issues than we are.
12:33
Speaker 1: And I think that even though it was 42 to
12:35
Speaker 1: six and you could very easily say starters go relax
12:39
Speaker 1: for a little while, uh, The decision was made to, no,
12:43
Speaker 1: let's keep our foot on the gas pedal. Your starters
12:45
Speaker 1: stayed on the field. And it was your starters who
12:51
Speaker 1: bogged down.
12:54
Speaker 2: Now, when.
12:56
Speaker 1: A perhaps a maybe momentum swing started to take place,
13:00
Speaker 1: it was also starting caliber players that scored the insurance touchdown,
13:05
Speaker 1: the only touchdown of the second half that kind of like,
13:09
Speaker 1: sealed the coffin airtight for Cincinnati. It was already pretty
13:14
Speaker 1: much done, but that absolutely put it away. Those were
13:18
Speaker 1: still starters you had on the field. So yeah, you
13:21
Speaker 1: can't give them that excuse that, well, it's the second
13:24
Speaker 1: string guys. First of all, this team goes at far
13:27
Speaker 1: enough down on the depth chart where you're always rotating enough,
13:32
Speaker 1: especially on the defense that you can't, you can't give
13:35
Speaker 1: any like, all right, you're not a true starter.
13:37
Speaker 2: It's okay.
13:38
Speaker 1: If you screw up, no, Because those guys are playing
13:41
Speaker 1: a lot for the University of Utah. I mean, they've
13:43
Speaker 1: even rotated on the offensive line. The third quarter hangover is,
13:52
Speaker 1: I think it's just like a trait of this team.
13:55
Speaker 2: But how do you survive it?
13:56
Speaker 1: Well, in the Cincinnati game, it's 42 first half points.
14:02
Speaker 2: None of us are counting on that against BYU.
14:07
Speaker 1: Taylor cramp says I'm worried about being too lackadaisical with leads.
14:12
Speaker 1: You saw that with dev and the D in the
14:14
Speaker 1: second half, they've got to, they've got to evaluate it internally. I,
14:21
Speaker 1: I don't even know that I'm looking at it and saying, Oh,
14:22
Speaker 1: these guys are playing lackadaisical defense or lack.
14:26
Speaker 2: I think dev's not taking it seriously. I don't, I
14:29
Speaker 2: don't see that. I just think that.
14:32
Speaker 1: There is a slowdown and I don't think it's a
14:36
Speaker 1: lack of effort. I think it's a subconscious thing more
14:40
Speaker 1: than anything else.
14:40
Speaker 2: 84 41 says, love seeing someone new step up nearly
14:46
Speaker 2: every week. Hunter Andrews having that game was incredible to see. Absolutely.
14:49
Speaker 4: Yes.
14:51
Speaker 2: One of the questions I.
14:52
Speaker 1: Have for this week is, is there still somebody like
14:56
Speaker 1: is it is Utah BYU when Larry Simmons cements himself
15:01
Speaker 1: as like a true contributor on this team as like
15:03
Speaker 1: a I mean, if you do it against BYU, you're
15:05
Speaker 1: a legend forever. Daniel Bray last year, that's when we
15:09
Speaker 1: really started.
15:10
Speaker 2: To see Daniel Bray.
15:13
Speaker 1: And BYU is exactly the kind of team that a
15:16
Speaker 1: Daniel Bray might be a little bit more effective even
15:19
Speaker 1: than a way Sean Parker, because he's got more of
15:22
Speaker 1: that burst. He's got more true breakaway speed. His top end,
15:27
Speaker 1: I think is a little bit, a little bit better.
15:31
Speaker 1: And BYU is this, you know, they're a physical team.
15:34
Speaker 1: They're good Well, they were a good tackling team. We'll
15:36
Speaker 1: talk about them as the week progresses. I think Daniel
15:40
Speaker 1: Bray being able to run past guys might be more
15:43
Speaker 1: important this week than way Sean Parker being able to
15:46
Speaker 1: run through guys because with Glasker and Uluwabe and Sarah,
15:52
Speaker 1: like that's hard, but I'm with you. 84 41. Love
16:00
Speaker 1: seeing someone new step up. Will it be someone new?
16:04
Speaker 1: against BYU or will it be way Sean and Benny
16:09
Speaker 1: and Braden pagan. That's why you brought him here. Sam
16:17
Speaker 1: says OC and James with your mark leaving with this
16:20
Speaker 1: being number three versus number seven, no better time than
16:23
Speaker 1: the present to put the Holy war back where it belongs.
16:25
Speaker 1: Rivalry week to end the season. No real Cincinnati takes
16:30
Speaker 1: result was never in doubt.
16:32
Speaker 2: Fair Sam.
16:33
Speaker 1: And yes, absolutely. The, the new commissioner, whoever that is.
16:39
Speaker 1: And yes, I will be taking nominations and we'll take
16:43
Speaker 1: donations for the campaign. If you want to support the
16:46
Speaker 1: new commissioner should absolutely do this, come in and say,
16:51
Speaker 1: all right, here's what we have left in the big
16:53
Speaker 1: 12 conference before realignment decimates us again. We have a
16:59
Speaker 1: Territorial Cup rivalry game, which is actually sneaky awesome. Arizona
17:03
Speaker 1: and Arizona State are going to play either the first
17:06
Speaker 1: game of the year every season or the.
17:08
Speaker 2: Last game of the year every season. That's it.
17:12
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, yeah, we'll get on board with that.
17:16
Speaker 1: Baylor and Houston, kind of an okay rivalry game. We
17:20
Speaker 1: can put that somewhere else. Let Baylor and Houston be upset.
17:23
Speaker 2: About it, okay?
17:25
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State, They don't have bedlam anymore against Oklahoma, but
17:30
Speaker 1: I would like to re spark that thing.
17:35
Speaker 2: To the complaint of everyone in the sec.
17:37
Speaker 1: Who's now playing nine conference games.
17:39
Speaker 2: I want bedlam week one of every season. Okay.
17:43
Speaker 1: If I'm a commissioner, I'm standing on a mountaintop and
17:47
Speaker 1: there's only a few places that have mountaintops in the
17:49
Speaker 1: big 12 conference.
17:50
Speaker 2: So it's gotta be here or Boulder.
17:52
Speaker 1: And I'm going to say, I want bedlam back, even
17:57
Speaker 1: though it's not a conference game anymore.
18:00
Speaker 2: We need bedlam and let the sec complain about it.
18:03
Speaker 2: I will still.
18:06
Speaker 1: Bang that drum and I'll go down through all of
18:09
Speaker 1: the perceived rivalries. Farmageddon. Let's go farmageddon. We're going to,
18:14
Speaker 1: what we're going to do. You decided to take this
18:16
Speaker 1: overseas one time. So we're going to go play this
18:19
Speaker 1: in farming communities all over the world.
18:22
Speaker 5: All right.
18:23
Speaker 2: Where's the biggest pineapple farm? You know what? We're taking
18:26
Speaker 2: this one to Hawaii. All right.
18:28
Speaker 1: What crop are we focused? Where are we getting our
18:30
Speaker 1: mangoes from? We're playing this one in the Philippines, people,
18:34
Speaker 1: whatever it is.
18:35
Speaker 2: Farm again.
18:35
Speaker 1: We're playing it. We're just making sure that it's a
18:38
Speaker 1: showcase game. Who wants their tulips? We're playing farm again
18:43
Speaker 1: in Amsterdam.
18:44
Speaker 2: Let's go. All right.
18:46
Speaker 1: And when we get, well, I'm going to go through
18:47
Speaker 1: all the rivalries and we get to the rivalry game.
18:49
Speaker 1: That is the Holy war. I'm going to say this
18:52
Speaker 1: is being played in the final week of the season.
18:54
Speaker 1: And it's probably going to have conference title implications. And
18:57
Speaker 1: we're going to force it on to like, even if
19:00
Speaker 1: we have to put it on like Netflix. So it's
19:03
Speaker 1: by itself. We will pay as the big 12. We
19:06
Speaker 1: will rent the time slot. We're going to give this
19:10
Speaker 1: damn game.
19:10
Speaker 2: It's due. So yes, job one for the new commissioner,
19:14
Speaker 2: Sam should be that.
19:16
Speaker 6: It's a great speech written by campaign manager, Taylor Cram,
19:19
Speaker 6: by the way, shout out to Taylor writing that speech.
19:23
Speaker 2: You just did 67.
19:25
Speaker 1: 85 says love that the pick six street continues hated
19:29
Speaker 1: the third quarter.
19:29
Speaker 3: Lol.
19:30
Speaker 1: There, I think a lot of people are going to
19:32
Speaker 1: hate that third quarter lull. Sam says, does dev still
19:37
Speaker 1: have another year of eligibility?
19:38
Speaker 2: What are the odds?
19:38
Speaker 1: He gets drafted, moves on versus coming back next year. Look,
19:42
Speaker 1: I think dev, I think dev is going to get paid.
19:49
Speaker 1: six plus million dollars next year. I, I, I doubt
19:55
Speaker 1: that it's going to be in the NFL. I think
19:57
Speaker 1: that there's going to be a lot of rec. He's
19:59
Speaker 1: certainly probably going to explore that possibility. I think Devin Dampier,
20:05
Speaker 1: when you look at his numbers this year and when
20:07
Speaker 1: you look at the performance of the team and you
20:09
Speaker 1: look at the plays being made, did you see the
20:10
Speaker 1: graphic they put up.
20:13
Speaker 2: During the Cincinnati game?
20:16
Speaker 1: That Devin Dampier is now on 15 straight games having
20:19
Speaker 1: accounted for multiple touchdowns for more than two touchdowns. So
20:23
Speaker 1: for three or more touchdowns with his feet or with
20:26
Speaker 1: his arm, did we see that graphic? He's on 15
20:29
Speaker 1: straight games. Raise your hand if you know Who in
20:34
Speaker 1: college football has a longer streak of three touchdown games
20:38
Speaker 1: than that?
20:39
Speaker 2: It's nobody.
20:40
Speaker 1: It's the longest active streak in division one football. If
20:45
Speaker 1: you think that his agent is not already getting phone
20:49
Speaker 1: calls from Ann Arbor and from Southern California and from
20:56
Speaker 1: Oklahoma and all these places, you're out of your mind.
21:00
Speaker 1: Arizona State was flirting with the idea of spending a
21:03
Speaker 1: lot of money to try to get Devin to.
21:07
Speaker 2: Tempe last year.
21:11
Speaker 1: Devin Dampier, I think, is going to make five minimum,
21:16
Speaker 1: probably six or seven million dollars in college football next year.
21:20
Speaker 2: My desperate hope.
21:23
Speaker 1: Is that there is somebody in Salt Lake City who
21:26
Speaker 1: who recognizes after he's given you an 11-1 season, a
21:31
Speaker 1: 12-0 season, a Big 12 championship game appearance, whatever it is,
21:35
Speaker 1: whatever the final result is, my sincere hope is that
21:38
Speaker 1: there is somebody who has the means that one of
21:42
Speaker 1: the families with their names on buildings has a sit
21:45
Speaker 1: down and realizes what an incredible kid you've got playing
21:49
Speaker 1: quarterback at your university and says, absolutely not.
21:53
Speaker 2: We are not going to let him go to Miami.
21:55
Speaker 2: No chance. and writes the check necessary.
21:59
Speaker 1: And I begrudge anyone involved in that conversation, zero, trying
22:04
Speaker 1: to get max money, but that's what I think is
22:06
Speaker 1: going to happen. Let's stay focused on the now. He
22:09
Speaker 1: does have one year of eligibility left after this. Mike says,
22:14
Speaker 1: this team just can't seem to play four quarters. Yeah,
22:17
Speaker 1: sometimes that can be an issue, and I think that
22:19
Speaker 1: might be an issue for this team. How many second
22:23
Speaker 1: string players played during the second half?
22:26
Speaker 2: A lot of them, all of them. But most of
22:28
Speaker 2: them was in the fourth quarter.
22:30
Speaker 7: Yeah.
22:30
Speaker 6: It was that last potential scoring drive of the game
22:35
Speaker 6: was as everyone who watched saw it was Bert Ficklin
22:38
Speaker 6: quarterbacking and a lot of the second and third string
22:41
Speaker 6: on offense at the very least.
22:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:43
Speaker 1: This is a good text coming in about managing garbage
22:47
Speaker 1: time and it can be tough. It's, it's not the
22:53
Speaker 1: easiest thing. to get the guys coming out of half.
22:58
Speaker 1: The game is basically over at 42 to six, but
23:02
Speaker 1: you can't treat it that way as a player. You
23:04
Speaker 1: can't as a coach, you can't. And you have to
23:08
Speaker 1: battle the little, the little angel and devil on your shoulder.
23:12
Speaker 1: That's like, go out and play just as hard as
23:14
Speaker 1: you did in the first half. Cause you think that's
23:16
Speaker 1: what you're going to do, but it, it doesn't always
23:19
Speaker 1: work out that way. Howard says it seemed like they
23:27
Speaker 1: were just trying to get out of town without injury.
23:29
Speaker 1: Also didn't see way Sean play in the second half.
23:34
Speaker 2: I a hundred percent. That's on the mind of the
23:36
Speaker 2: coaching staff.
23:37
Speaker 1: When you're up 42 to six and you've got the
23:40
Speaker 1: Holy war coming, you're like, how do we escape this
23:43
Speaker 1: building without somebody twisting an ankle? Cade says, listen, it
23:51
Speaker 1: wasn't perfect. When did we get so entitled? We get
23:53
Speaker 1: to complain. The Utes are a.
23:54
Speaker 2: Wagon and eight. No, we get to whoop on TDS
23:57
Speaker 2: this week. Does it get much sweeter? I don't care
24:00
Speaker 2: how it happens. As long as it gets done. Let's go.
24:03
Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. That is correct.
24:07
Speaker 1: We have, we have not earned it. The team has
24:10
Speaker 1: earned us the ability to nitpick.
24:12
Speaker 2: And this is the result.
24:14
Speaker 1: Where we say, well, why don't you play all four
24:16
Speaker 1: corners when you have 42 things?
24:18
Speaker 2: How dare you? This is what we do. All right,
24:21
Speaker 2: it's fine.
24:22
Speaker 1: It's just for conversation, people. The truth of the matter is,
24:28
Speaker 1: you're the number three ranked team in the land right now.
24:32
Speaker 1: This is the highest ranking since the end of the
24:36
Speaker 1: Sugar Bowl year. Since you beat Alabama, you've never been
24:41
Speaker 1: ranked higher than this. It was not on my bingo
24:46
Speaker 1: card that Utah would achieve this in Morgan Scali's first season.
24:51
Speaker 1: And you know, what's crazy is that with BYU and
24:55
Speaker 1: then Arizona, and then a big 12 championship game potentially,
24:59
Speaker 1: and then a college football playoff appearance, potentially we might
25:03
Speaker 1: be watching the best season in Utah football history unfold
25:07
Speaker 1: right now.
25:11
Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy to think? We're along for the ride.
25:15
Speaker 2: We're having some fun.
25:16
Speaker 4: 877-353-0700.
25:16
Speaker 2: 6272.
25:17
Speaker 1: Utah needs to play better in the second half if
25:23
Speaker 1: they want to beat the Cougars.
25:24
Speaker 8: Agreed.
25:25
Speaker 2: Now, I will say this.
25:29
Speaker 1: If Utah had not even once this year played better
25:33
Speaker 1: in a second half than they did in the first half,
25:36
Speaker 1: I might be getting a little bit squirmy about this situation.
25:40
Speaker 2: But against Houston, if you remember.
25:43
Speaker 1: Utah, zero points in the first half, goes into halftime down, trailing.
25:49
Speaker 1: A lot of us up at Riceco Stadium being like,
25:52
Speaker 1: what's going on here?
25:53
Speaker 2: They came out in the second half.
25:55
Speaker 1: Devin Dampier puts the team on his back on that
25:57
Speaker 1: third quarter drive. They really start humming. The defense makes huge,
26:03
Speaker 1: huge plays in the second half. Colton Swan gets into
26:07
Speaker 1: his bag and you close it out. Like the team
26:10
Speaker 1: is capable of doing it. This team, if we are
26:13
Speaker 1: ready to define this team eight games into a season,
26:17
Speaker 1: and I don't think we are yet, but if we're
26:19
Speaker 1: ready to try to start describing them, they are a
26:23
Speaker 1: team that rises to the occasion. This is a team
26:26
Speaker 1: that answers the bell. That's what we know about this
26:29
Speaker 1: team so far that when you've got to do it,
26:33
Speaker 1: you do it. There were a couple of scenarios, even
26:36
Speaker 1: against Kansas, where you're just like, what's going on here?
26:38
Speaker 1: Are they staging a comeback? And you make the play.
26:41
Speaker 1: Against Houston, you made the necessary plays. Against Cincinnati, Devin
26:48
Speaker 1: told us, post-game, he said, look, we took it personally.
26:52
Speaker 2: We didn't get the job done in the first half.
26:54
Speaker 2: We wanted to start fast, and they started as fast
26:57
Speaker 2: as you possibly can.
26:58
Speaker 1: 42 points and a half is like you can't ever
27:01
Speaker 1: expect more than that. The defense scored for you. I mean,
27:05
Speaker 1: this was a beautiful game. We just got a little
27:07
Speaker 1: salty about how it ended. But what really matters is
27:11
Speaker 1: that it ended with you winning by four scores. If
27:17
Speaker 1: you play that level of first half football against BYU,
27:23
Speaker 1: you're going to win by three scores.
27:26
Speaker 2: If you combine that.
27:28
Speaker 1: With how you played in the second half against Houston,
27:32
Speaker 1: if you really put together your first full game, And
27:36
Speaker 1: why not against BYU? Then you're going to win by
27:40
Speaker 1: three scores. The problem is this BYU team and the
27:45
Speaker 1: nature of this rivalry is that every wart, every wrinkle,
27:50
Speaker 1: everything that we don't like there being on film will
27:53
Speaker 1: be attacked in this game. And it's true for both teams.
27:58
Speaker 1: Bear Bachmeier threw some balls against Arizona state that if
28:02
Speaker 1: they're thrown against Utah, are six the other way. There
28:05
Speaker 1: were three passes where Bear Bachmeier was just like, I've
28:09
Speaker 1: got the best arm in the world. Watch this rifle pass.
28:12
Speaker 1: And he threaded a needle, and Arizona State just doesn't
28:16
Speaker 1: have the horses to make him pay for it. Utah does.
28:21
Speaker 5: Right?
28:21
Speaker 2: Rabbit Evans is gone for six on at least one
28:24
Speaker 2: of those throws.
28:26
Speaker 1: That changes this whole thing. Both of these teams have
28:29
Speaker 1: to worry about that this week. Oh, and what a
28:32
Speaker 1: glorious place to have to worry about it. Rice Eccles Stadium,
28:35
Speaker 1: 10 a.m., full house. You're waking up early or you're
28:39
Speaker 1: staying up all night, but you're in your damn seats, people.
28:43
Speaker 1: As soon as this thing kicks off, it's loud, it's crazy.
28:46
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's wet. I don't care if
28:48
Speaker 1: it's ugly.
28:49
Speaker 2: This is the game.
28:51
Speaker 1: This is a program-defining moment for both teams.
28:56
Speaker 2: And you get it on your home field, on ABC.
29:00
Speaker 1: The highest ranked Holy war ever coming off a demolition
29:03
Speaker 1: of Cincinnati and unblemished. There is no better situation. You
29:10
Speaker 1: could find yourself in as a Utah fan than this.
29:13
Speaker 1: So by all means, nitpick and worry, but make sure
29:17
Speaker 1: in the back of your mind, you're remembering that nobody
29:21
Speaker 1: has it better than you in college football right now.
29:23
Speaker 1: There is no fan base that That can even compare
29:26
Speaker 1: to it with the exception of Miami. You're in the
29:29
Speaker 1: Miami boat right now. You guys get to look across
29:34
Speaker 1: the country at one another with a little head nod.
29:36
Speaker 1: We'll see you first game of the season next year.
29:38
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see you in the college football. playoff if
29:40
Speaker 1: things go right. But isn't it pretty cool?
29:43
Speaker 2: Here we are.
29:45
Speaker 1: Top 10 matchups. In their case, the top five matchup.
29:48
Speaker 1: Let's bleep and go. Ari Temkin next. More of your reaction.
29:54
Speaker 5: 877-353-0700.
29:57
Speaker 2: It's the Sean O'Connell Show on a Monday, ESPN 700
29:59
Speaker 2: and 92.1 FM. I can feel it coming, yeah, tonight.
30:09
Speaker 9: You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
30:12
Speaker 9: Chevrolet studio of ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM. Oh, Lord.
30:26
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell show here on ESPN
30:29
Speaker 1: 700 and 92 on FM home of the Utes.
30:34
Speaker 2: Spence check.
30:34
Speaker 1: It's in the drive are live at virtual dugout. That'll
30:38
Speaker 1: be in the Lehigh today, 90 North 500 West. You
30:43
Speaker 1: could enter to win a signed Utah Utes football from
30:46
Speaker 1: Devin damn peer and check out the baseball simulator cages.
30:50
Speaker 2: It's newly opened today.
30:52
Speaker 1: Book now experience the future of baseball at virtual dugout
30:55
Speaker 1: where Spence is going to be today. Utah comes off
31:00
Speaker 1: a big victory on the road at Nippert. 49-25 and
31:07
Speaker 1: they are now ranked number three in the country. They
31:09
Speaker 1: are 8-0 and they welcome the BYU Cougars this weekend
31:13
Speaker 1: for the Holy War. Ari Temkin is kind enough to
31:17
Speaker 1: join us here to talk all things Big 12 and
31:19
Speaker 1: especially these Utes.
31:20
Speaker 2: Ari, welcome. How are you, sir?
31:23
Speaker 10: OC, I'm great, buddy.
31:24
Speaker 11: How are you?
31:24
Speaker 2: You know, we're fired up.
31:26
Speaker 1: It's a great day when you're covering an undefeated team
31:29
Speaker 1: and a rivalry week. It's just, it's a lot of
31:32
Speaker 1: fun right now here in Salt Lake City. What did
31:34
Speaker 1: you see from the Utes that impressed you most on Saturday?
31:38
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, my God, 42-7 at halftime, it's sort
31:43
Speaker 10: of more of the same what we've seen all season
31:45
Speaker 10: where we were wondering how good this team was and,
31:48
Speaker 10: you know, questioned whether it was the opponents or what, but,
31:52
Speaker 10: you know, look, they have found when you go eight, no,
31:54
Speaker 10: you got to find ways to win. And I thought
31:57
Speaker 10: this was more of what we had kind of seen,
31:59
Speaker 10: you know, during the early part portion of the year
32:04
Speaker 10: when they just were a dominant force and, you know,
32:07
Speaker 10: there there's the second half and I don't think we
32:09
Speaker 10: can completely dismiss and diminish the second half, but you're
32:13
Speaker 10: at 42 to seven halftime, you know, the natural, uh, uh,
32:18
Speaker 10: approach is to probably take the, take your foot off
32:20
Speaker 10: the gas a little bit. And I think that's what
32:21
Speaker 10: they did. But I mean, we see an opportunistic, we
32:25
Speaker 10: see so many ways on offense that they can beat you.
32:28
Speaker 10: And like, I think they've sort of settled into an
32:31
Speaker 10: offensive identity that is not, you know, it's not kitschy.
32:35
Speaker 10: It's not, um, you know, it's not a bunch of
32:39
Speaker 10: trick plays. It's just really difficult formations to manage. I
32:44
Speaker 10: think that more than anything is what hurt Cincinnati's defense.
32:48
Speaker 10: Cincinnati's defense has kind of been feast of famine this year,
32:51
Speaker 10: and it felt like watching that game in the first half,
32:55
Speaker 10: like they were just guessing and guessing incorrectly based on formation,
32:59
Speaker 10: based on personnel packages, and based on pre-snap motion. And
33:03
Speaker 10: that's what you're getting with this Kevin McGiven offense.
33:10
Speaker 5: The.
33:11
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
33:12
Speaker 11: The.
33:15
Speaker 1: The weapons we have seen emerge week by week. We've
33:20
Speaker 1: seen Devin Dampier use his arm, his legs. We've seen
33:23
Speaker 1: way Sean Parker and several different roles. And, and this
33:27
Speaker 1: last week, excuse me, Hari on the voice Hunter Andrews
33:32
Speaker 1: comes out of almost nowhere and has a five catch
33:34
Speaker 1: 112 yard day with two touchdowns on top of it. Uh,
33:40
Speaker 1: the question we're asking here in Salt Lake is, is
33:42
Speaker 1: there still somebody or some position where even against BYU,
33:50
Speaker 1: they're suddenly going to be the flavor of the day?
33:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:54
Speaker 10: And by the way, I hate when that happens to
33:55
Speaker 10: me and you just can't get it out. You know,
33:57
Speaker 10: like you just cannot get rid of that feeling in
33:59
Speaker 10: your back or throat.
34:00
Speaker 12: And it's like, somebody help me, please. For the love
34:02
Speaker 12: of God, the worst, the absolute worst. I mean, look,
34:08
Speaker 12: this is, this is what elite teams do is, you know, they,
34:12
Speaker 12: they have to adjust to what defense are trying to
34:14
Speaker 12: do to them and defense are trying to take away. And,
34:17
Speaker 12: you know, if there's games where teams try to take
34:20
Speaker 12: away way, Sean Parker, we saw Devin Dampier being with
34:23
Speaker 12: his legs.
34:23
Speaker 10: If there's games where, you know, they're not going to allow,
34:26
Speaker 10: you know, weapons down the field to win, then, then
34:30
Speaker 10: suddenly Hunter Andrews emerges at the tight end position. So
34:33
Speaker 10: I think very smart offenses and very smart, you know,
34:38
Speaker 10: offenses schematically are self-scouting and looking at their biggest strengths
34:43
Speaker 10: and weaknesses week to week and figuring out what teams
34:45
Speaker 10: are going to try to do to them in order
34:47
Speaker 10: to kind of be ready to, to take it on.
34:50
Speaker 10: And I mean, what was it like going into the
34:52
Speaker 10: game Hunter had like, I mean, he basically like tripled
34:56
Speaker 10: his complete season output in one game with his five
35:00
Speaker 10: for one 12 and two touchdowns. Um, And look, this
35:03
Speaker 10: was a dominant machine in the first half of this
35:06
Speaker 10: football game, where they scored in all four possessions. They're
35:11
Speaker 10: up 42-7. They were just completely and utterly destroying Cincinnati
35:16
Speaker 10: and Cincinnati as well, and especially at Nippert Stadium. I mean,
35:18
Speaker 10: the thing about Utah that's probably the most underrated aspect
35:22
Speaker 10: is they've gone on the road and had some very
35:24
Speaker 10: impressive road showings. I mean, this was a team a
35:26
Speaker 10: week ago in Cincinnati that you know, beat Texas tech
35:30
Speaker 10: and looked very, very good. I mean, they've gone on
35:32
Speaker 10: the road and beat Iowa state, Oklahoma state, one of
35:35
Speaker 10: the road this past week and lost at Iowa state
35:37
Speaker 10: and Utah. I mean, there wasn't much suspense in that game.
35:42
Speaker 10: You know, they obviously have a win over Houston. So
35:46
Speaker 10: to me, it's, it's the wins that they've gotten, where
35:49
Speaker 10: they've gotten them, how they've gotten them. They're so multiple
35:52
Speaker 10: and look, BYU needs LJ and Martin back. I think
35:56
Speaker 10: they've been surviving. They obviously didn't against UCF, but this
35:59
Speaker 10: week they certainly did. They're just not getting enough production
36:03
Speaker 10: from their running backs, which puts a ton of the
36:05
Speaker 10: load on Bear Bachmeier. And I think there's a shot
36:08
Speaker 10: that LJ can come back this week, but we're right
36:10
Speaker 10: in that four- to six-week window right now.
36:13
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about that.
36:14
Speaker 1: So I was having dinner down in Provo last night.
36:18
Speaker 2: My wife's family's from there.
36:19
Speaker 1: All her cousins are BYU people. And we're expressing our
36:24
Speaker 1: mutual angst over the upcoming game. And obviously Utah has
36:28
Speaker 1: been playing better when you compare in its apples and oranges.
36:31
Speaker 1: But if it matters, the last two showings for Utah
36:35
Speaker 1: have been more impressive than the last two showings for BYU.
36:38
Speaker 1: And I think that everyone settles on the same conclusion
36:41
Speaker 1: that like, they're just not the same team without, last
36:44
Speaker 1: year's offensive player of the year in the big 12 conference,
36:46
Speaker 1: which by the way, very few teams could be right
36:49
Speaker 1: when they don't have their best player. Arizona state held
36:52
Speaker 1: this BYU team to 47 yards rushing. That's just not
36:56
Speaker 1: going to be enough against Utah. That's all that the
36:58
Speaker 1: Cougars can get. But even if you do have LJ
37:00
Speaker 1: Martin back, I mean, how much are you going to
37:03
Speaker 1: run him coming off of an injury timeout coming off
37:07
Speaker 1: of what we're told is like he had a surgery
37:09
Speaker 1: as far as I'm aware. So even if he is back,
37:13
Speaker 1: How much can BYU expect from him?
37:17
Speaker 10: Right. No, I mean, it's a great question, you know,
37:20
Speaker 10: and I think Kalani basically said after the game that,
37:26
Speaker 10: you know, that he's thinking more long-term and, you know,
37:30
Speaker 10: that LJ wants to come back. So they're gonna have
37:32
Speaker 10: to kind of balance sort of the long-term thinking with,
37:34
Speaker 10: you know, a guy who's chomping at the bit.
37:36
Speaker 3: To get back.
37:37
Speaker 10: I mean, how would Utah look without way Sean Parker?
37:40
Speaker 10: That's kind of the way that I feel about it. Now,
37:43
Speaker 10: Daniel Bray is a way better option more than anything
37:48
Speaker 10: that BYU has right now. They've just needed to get
37:52
Speaker 10: production from the running back position and haven't. It's a
37:56
Speaker 10: lot to ask Bear Bachmeier every week to be throwing
38:00
Speaker 10: it and running it and basically be 90% to 95%
38:04
Speaker 10: of total production, but that's pretty much what it's been.
38:06
Speaker 10: It's the reason they lost to UCF. you know, because
38:09
Speaker 10: they just can't get anything going from their running game.
38:11
Speaker 10: And again, like they survived against Arizona state, but same,
38:16
Speaker 10: you know, same story, different game. And so, I mean,
38:20
Speaker 10: I think, look, LJ Martin's return is going to be
38:22
Speaker 10: huge whenever it happens. Certainly this week would be a
38:25
Speaker 10: welcome site because I'm not sure that quite honestly be
38:28
Speaker 10: why you keep it close just because of how ineffective
38:30
Speaker 10: that running game has been without him. But I think
38:33
Speaker 10: the threat of LJ is pretty significant to hero. See,
38:37
Speaker 10: just like, him being in a lineup and regardless of
38:40
Speaker 10: how many snaps he plays, like you now have to
38:42
Speaker 10: account for him in a way that you don't have
38:43
Speaker 10: to really account for the running game at all. I mean, it's,
38:46
Speaker 10: it is truly unbelievable how poor and big of a
38:51
Speaker 10: drop off it is. And, you know, I bet you
38:53
Speaker 10: Sataki and the BYU and the BYU offensive staff are,
38:57
Speaker 10: are surprised with, you know, how bad they've been at
39:00
Speaker 10: that position without allergy. I mean, look, you're losing an
39:03
Speaker 10: NFL running back. Like you're going to take a step back.
39:05
Speaker 10: But the degree to which they've taken a step back is,
39:08
Speaker 10: you know, is really difficult to comprehend considering, like, if
39:11
Speaker 10: they could just get anybody to step in, you know,
39:14
Speaker 10: it would be huge. Arizona State, on the other side
39:16
Speaker 10: of that, like, they found a true freshman, Carday Mack,
39:19
Speaker 10: who's been a godsend. And he's not even, the only
39:21
Speaker 10: reason why he's in the lineup is because his mother
39:24
Speaker 10: asked Kenny Dillingham if her son was going to play
39:27
Speaker 10: against Hawaii, and now he's broken out. And so it's like,
39:29
Speaker 10: you look at this BYU team, you're like, wow, you
39:31
Speaker 10: really haven't found anybody, you know, whether it's Tonga or
39:34
Speaker 10: MOA or, or Brex that can really be the productive
39:38
Speaker 10: back that you need them to be. you know, it
39:41
Speaker 10: is a hundred percent. I mean, look, going into the
39:43
Speaker 10: Notre Dame game, it was a reason why you thought
39:45
Speaker 10: that they would, they would lose because it's all on
39:47
Speaker 10: bear and they won despite that, but it's just not sustainable.
39:50
Speaker 10: We saw that in UCF and, you know, and again,
39:53
Speaker 10: we saw it in a near loss at Arizona state.
39:56
Speaker 10: And what was really just one of the worst offensive
39:58
Speaker 10: showings between two teams that we've seen a long time
40:00
Speaker 10: in the big 12.
40:01
Speaker 1: All right, Tim can for another couple of minutes here
40:03
Speaker 1: on the Sean O'Connell show, talking all things, big 12,
40:06
Speaker 1: we'll stay focused on this Utah BYU matchup that's coming
40:09
Speaker 1: up this weekend. One fascinating aspect here has always been
40:14
Speaker 1: the crossover, right? The incest of these two teams where
40:18
Speaker 1: it's like, I played here, but I coach here and
40:20
Speaker 1: I coached here. And now I'm coaching at the, in
40:23
Speaker 1: the opposite side of things. And there was for many years,
40:26
Speaker 1: an intimate familiarity, not only with the personalities, but with
40:30
Speaker 1: their tendencies, Aaron Roderick and, and Morgan Scali when Scali
40:35
Speaker 1: was the defensive coordinator, They practiced against one another for years.
40:39
Speaker 1: They played in game. They coached in games together. They
40:41
Speaker 1: coached in games against one another. I think there's some predictability,
40:45
Speaker 1: no matter how hard you try for there not to
40:46
Speaker 1: be that comes with that.
40:49
Speaker 2: Same thing.
40:49
Speaker 1: When, when we're talking about the offense versus the defense, right?
40:52
Speaker 1: Like Jay Hill is somebody that spent most of his
40:56
Speaker 1: career at the university of Utah. So when you're, when,
41:00
Speaker 1: even when you're Jason Beck calling and an offense against him,
41:04
Speaker 1: like you have, the expertise of Kyle Whittingham and knowing
41:08
Speaker 1: Jay Hill's tendencies and what he likes to do. Now
41:10
Speaker 1: you've got new coordinators. Roderick is still there. Papinga is
41:14
Speaker 1: doing the defense for BYU. Colton Swan and Kevin McGiven
41:19
Speaker 1: are new coordinators for the BYU side to deal with.
41:23
Speaker 2: And the same is true for Colton.
41:25
Speaker 1: Swan to have to deal with Aaron Roderick in a
41:27
Speaker 1: way that he's never had to as a coordinator before.
41:30
Speaker 1: And especially for McGiven to have to call an offense
41:33
Speaker 1: against Papinga when you knew what you were getting from
41:37
Speaker 1: the previous guys. I'm very fascinated by that. How much
41:41
Speaker 1: do you think it changes the game that these guys
41:43
Speaker 1: don't know each other quite as well as the last,
41:46
Speaker 1: I don't know, 15 iterations of this rivalry game?
41:50
Speaker 10: It is a great point. And it is, it's always
41:53
Speaker 10: remarkable to me just how, as you mentioned, like sort
41:56
Speaker 10: of incestuous, the whole situation is, and not just between
41:58
Speaker 10: Utah and BYU, but obviously the now we're talking about
42:01
Speaker 10: offensive quarter that comes all the way from Utah state, right? Like,
42:05
Speaker 10: so it really is remarkable how, I mean, how many
42:09
Speaker 10: players have played on both sides. I mean, Keanu Tanavasa
42:12
Speaker 10: is a name that stands out obviously, but there's others and,
42:15
Speaker 10: you know, and then the coaches who have coached both programs. And,
42:18
Speaker 10: and I mean, you mentioned it, your in-laws, right? I mean, it, it,
42:22
Speaker 10: it feels like a rivalry that is similar to most others,
42:25
Speaker 10: but probably not as intertwined as most others are. Um,
42:30
Speaker 10: I do think that many other rivalries, whether we're talking
42:32
Speaker 10: about Oklahoma or Oklahoma State or Texas and Texas A
42:34
Speaker 10: & M, you're going to have families where some go
42:37
Speaker 10: to one school and some go to the other. But
42:40
Speaker 10: just the intermingling, intertwinedness of these feels very unique. And
42:44
Speaker 10: I think your point is extremely well stated, too, OC.
42:48
Speaker 10: This ain't your mom's or your grandmother's. Utah offense, you know,
42:54
Speaker 10: I mean, and that was the thing we heard about
42:56
Speaker 10: throughout the off season from Morgan Scali. And now we're
42:58
Speaker 10: seeing it like, this is not a downhill power running style. Okay.
43:03
Speaker 10: It is, but not in the same way that we've
43:05
Speaker 10: seen it where line up the blockings to the left side,
43:09
Speaker 10: you know, they bring an extra tight end over there.
43:12
Speaker 10: You're running to the left side, right? I mean, now
43:14
Speaker 10: what we're seeing is a downhill running power style play.
43:17
Speaker 10: but it's got the pre-snap stuff. It's mixing and matching
43:19
Speaker 10: personnel packages. We see Bert Ficklin out there a lot.
43:22
Speaker 10: We've seen, you know, tackles in the pistol with the quarterback.
43:26
Speaker 10: So to me, and I also think like in some ways,
43:30
Speaker 10: BYU is in some of a disadvantage based on the
43:33
Speaker 10: fact that they already had kind of the extra preparation
43:35
Speaker 10: they needed to do for the Notre Dame game. Whereas
43:37
Speaker 10: with Utah, like, this has kind of been the one
43:40
Speaker 10: game they've circled all year. This is the second for,
43:42
Speaker 10: for BYU. So like when BYU was on the buy,
43:45
Speaker 10: they had one game and then the Notre Dame game
43:49
Speaker 10: coming up, you know, they had probably spent some extra
43:51
Speaker 10: time in Notre Dame, whereas they couldn't spend extra time
43:53
Speaker 10: looking at Utah. And I would think this is an
43:56
Speaker 10: offense you need to prepare more for, because this is
43:58
Speaker 10: not the offense. that you've seen, you know, even if
44:02
Speaker 10: it is from an offensive coordinator that's coming in from
44:04
Speaker 10: Utah State. So, look, I think Utah has an advantage
44:07
Speaker 10: in a lot of areas, and certainly when it comes to,
44:10
Speaker 10: you know, keeping a BYU defense honest with, again, personnel packages,
44:16
Speaker 10: mixing and matching. We've just seen so many different formations.
44:19
Speaker 10: They're an extremely difficult team to prepare for. And, again,
44:22
Speaker 10: because they're so multifaceted and because they're They could beat
44:26
Speaker 10: you in so many different ways. That makes it even
44:28
Speaker 10: more difficult to prepare for because you're looking for one thing,
44:30
Speaker 10: you see something else, and suddenly Hunter Andrews comes out
44:33
Speaker 10: the back end and he's got 112 yards and two touchdowns.
44:35
Speaker 10: So they have the weapons on the outside.
44:38
Speaker 3: They've got the tight ends.
44:40
Speaker 10: Now the production sort of backs that all up. The
44:43
Speaker 10: biggest thing and concern for me from a Utah standpoint
44:46
Speaker 10: is the interceptions from Devin Dampier. That was a concern
44:49
Speaker 10: coming out of New Mexico. He did not have the
44:51
Speaker 10: interceptions last year, but that was, of course, once again,
44:53
Speaker 10: one of those very blah, basic offenses. you know, that
44:57
Speaker 10: wasn't asking him to do too much was more of
45:00
Speaker 10: a take advantage of the opportunities and the throws when
45:02
Speaker 10: you have them. But for the most part, just don't
45:04
Speaker 10: turn the ball over. And he didn't, but we've seen
45:06
Speaker 10: it now more so this year because this is a
45:08
Speaker 10: more multiple and multifaceted offense. It's sort of the blessing
45:11
Speaker 10: and the curse, right?
45:12
Speaker 12: Like.
45:12
Speaker 10: You want to see an offense that has the potential
45:14
Speaker 10: to be more explosive and to be more multiple. But
45:17
Speaker 10: within that, you have a guy that had interception issues
45:19
Speaker 10: at New Mexico, and those are starting to come back.
45:22
Speaker 10: I think BYU is a team very capable of taking
45:24
Speaker 10: advantage of that in a way that maybe some of
45:27
Speaker 10: these other opponents last few weeks have not.
45:29
Speaker 1: Last thing before I let you go, the AP says
45:32
Speaker 1: Utah's three, BYU is seven. College football playoff rankings, where
45:36
Speaker 1: are they going to put the top teams in the
45:38
Speaker 1: Big 12s?
45:41
Speaker 10: I don't see any way that Utah is going to
45:44
Speaker 10: be any lower than three. From being undefeated in the
45:48
Speaker 10: Big 12 team with how good the Big 12 is
45:50
Speaker 10: this year with five teams right now in the top 25, again,
45:52
Speaker 10: I don't see any way that they're lower than three.
45:56
Speaker 10: If I don't see any way BYU is... A lot
46:03
Speaker 10: of times we do see these rankings mirror that of
46:05
Speaker 10: the AP Top 25. I would be surprised, certainly, to
46:07
Speaker 10: see that change. I'd be very curious to see where
46:09
Speaker 10: they put BYU and where they put Notre Dame, because
46:12
Speaker 10: that is something to kind of monitor throughout. Because remember,
46:15
Speaker 10: Notre Dame gets an automatic bid if they're one of
46:17
Speaker 10: the top 12 seeds, and BYU is going to be
46:20
Speaker 10: kind of hanging out in that area, I would think,
46:22
Speaker 10: depending on, obviously, how the game goes on Saturday.
46:24
Speaker 3: So.
46:25
Speaker 10: for me, I expect Utah to be at three. I
46:28
Speaker 10: expect BYU to be in the top 10, but where
46:30
Speaker 10: they are and where BYU is, or rather where Notre
46:32
Speaker 10: Dame is, is going to be a huge thing to
46:33
Speaker 10: pay attention to.
46:34
Speaker 1: Ari, always appreciate your time. Can't wait for this weekend.
46:39
Speaker 1: Hopefully you call an audible and come in for the
46:41
Speaker 1: Holy war.
46:42
Speaker 10: Yeah. One of these days, my friend, one of these days,
46:45
Speaker 10: but you enjoy your week brother. And hopefully we'll see
46:47
Speaker 10: you soon.
46:48
Speaker 2: That's Ari Temkin. Big 12 radio on tune in.
46:54
Speaker 1: Uh, He's got a lot of knowledge about this conference,
46:56
Speaker 1: and you can tell every time we have a conversation
46:58
Speaker 1: with him. The eyes of the Big 12 and of
47:01
Speaker 1: the country will be on Utah versus BYU.
47:05
Speaker 2: 10 a.m. on ABC on Saturday.
47:10
Speaker 1: Still no announcement as to which ABC crew is calling
47:13
Speaker 1: that game.
47:13
Speaker 2: At least I haven't seen one yet.
47:16
Speaker 1: A few more of your text messages, and then we'll
47:18
Speaker 1: get to the Morgan Scali press conference. It's the Sean
47:21
Speaker 1: O'Connell Show on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
47:26
Speaker 9: You're listening to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
47:29
Speaker 9: Hyundai Studio of ESPN 792.1 FM.
47:34
Speaker 2: All right.
47:40
Speaker 1: Before we get to the Morgan Scali press conference, a
47:44
Speaker 1: public service announcement here from 7724.
47:46
Speaker 2: Ute fans, show.
47:47
Speaker 1: Up early, be loud, and please, please, please don't sell
47:50
Speaker 1: your tickets to BYU fans.
47:53
Speaker 2: I know you'll get enough to pay for the whole season,
47:55
Speaker 2: but don't do it. You're dang right. Don't do it.
47:58
Speaker 2: If you're going to sell your ticket, sell them to
48:00
Speaker 2: a fellow Ute. All right.
48:02
Speaker 1: You don't want a bunch of blue at rice cycle
48:04
Speaker 1: stadium on Saturday morning. Bunch of great texts coming in.
48:13
Speaker 1: Several of them have some theme to this 2289. Great
48:16
Speaker 1: problem to have this season is fun. One thing is different.
48:20
Speaker 1: One thing, this is a different Utah team. These are
48:23
Speaker 1: Morgan's Utes. I think that is super, hyper evident. And
48:29
Speaker 1: you guys know I'm not in the business of, I'm
48:31
Speaker 1: not interested in just trashing Kyle Whittingham.
48:34
Speaker 2: He's having enough trouble up in Michigan right now.
48:36
Speaker 1: 21 years of awesome football at the University of Utah.
48:41
Speaker 1: Far from perfect as a coach, certainly. A coach that
48:45
Speaker 1: gave you a program you could be proud of. I
48:47
Speaker 1: will never turn my back on that or turn my
48:49
Speaker 1: nose up at that. But there is a distinct personality
48:54
Speaker 1: to this Utah team in Morgan's very first year. Now,
48:58
Speaker 1: I think his long tenure as an assistant coach is
49:02
Speaker 1: the D.C. has helped him expedite that transition to it
49:07
Speaker 1: being his team, his culture, his everything. His recruiting weekend,
49:11
Speaker 1: by the way, coming up 50 plus recruits coming in
49:14
Speaker 1: for the Holy war, biggest recruiting weekend, arguably in program history.
49:20
Speaker 1: Mo Brown is going to make his decision today. I
49:23
Speaker 1: think it's today. Maybe it's tomorrow. After decommitting from Fresno,
49:28
Speaker 1: I mean, they've got some momentum going on right now.
49:31
Speaker 1: And it's Morgan's thing. It's Morgan Scali's. Speaking of, he's
49:38
Speaker 1: got his weekly press conference coming up.
49:40
Speaker 2: We'll take a quick one.
49:41
Speaker 1: We'll come back with that on the Sean O'Connell Show,
49:43
Speaker 1: ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
49:53
Speaker 2: All right.
49:55
Speaker 1: Morgan Scali Weekly Press Conference set to start here in
49:59
Speaker 1: just a moment or two. Utah 8-0. I tweeted out
50:05
Speaker 1: the AP poll. for your number three ranked Utes and
50:09
Speaker 1: how people around the AP voters around the country had
50:12
Speaker 1: them placed. There was one single person, Stephen Means from
50:20
Speaker 1: the Cleveland.com AP writer who mostly covers Ohio State, has
50:25
Speaker 1: Utah as the number one team in the country. So
50:28
Speaker 1: one person put Utah at number one. There were 10
50:31
Speaker 1: voters who put them at number two. There were eight
50:34
Speaker 1: voters who had them all the way down at number six.
50:37
Speaker 1: And there was actually one who had them at number eight,
50:41
Speaker 1: a Georgia, Georgia writer named Zach Klein at Utah is
50:46
Speaker 1: the eighth ranked team in the country.
50:48
Speaker 2: So you can.
50:49
Speaker 1: See if you go look at that tweet, the wild disparity,
50:53
Speaker 1: Josh Furlong, who was our local writer has them at
50:57
Speaker 1: number three, which is exactly where they ended up in
50:59
Speaker 1: the poll.
51:02
Speaker 2: Morgan Scali to the podium.
51:14
Speaker 8: Great to have everyone here. First off, I was made aware.
51:19
Speaker 7: Of the young man in Cincinnati in the stands and
51:24
Speaker 7: the medical situation there. I was made aware of that
51:27
Speaker 7: after the game. I didn't know quite much about hearing
51:30
Speaker 7: that he's in stable condition, but our thoughts are with
51:33
Speaker 7: everyone involved there.
51:34
Speaker 8: Our time in Cincinnati was awesome.
51:37
Speaker 7: Fans were very accepting, and Coach Satterfield and that crew.
51:41
Speaker 8: Do a heck of a job.
51:43
Speaker 7: Very good team. So we're hoping for the best in
51:47
Speaker 7: that situation. But they were great hosts to us on
51:52
Speaker 7: that trip.
51:54
Speaker 8: State of the U, congrats to Aaron Vringer.
51:58
Speaker 10: Vringer!
51:59
Speaker 7: From cross country, she was named All-Big 12 for her
52:02
Speaker 7: performance at the Big 12 Championships. This past weekend, the
52:06
Speaker 7: Utes finished fifth in team standings there, congrats.
52:10
Speaker 8: Happy basketball season starts tonight, let's go.
52:13
Speaker 7: Utes coach Jensen and the crew taking on Long Beach
52:15
Speaker 7: State tonight. Packed the Huntsman Center for the Utes. Coach
52:19
Speaker 7: Peterson also and the women will open up tomorrow night,
52:22
Speaker 7: the Huntsman Center against Eastern Washington.
52:25
Speaker 8: So good luck to everyone involved.
52:27
Speaker 7: Volleyball heads out on the road for a swing through
52:29
Speaker 7: the Arizona schools. And then, I mean, a lot's happening
52:33
Speaker 7: on campus this week outside of the basketball that's going on.
52:36
Speaker 7: Soccer's got their final game of the season Thursday night.
52:38
Speaker 7: It'd be great for Ute fans to show up and
52:41
Speaker 7: support there. Swim and dive, have home meets as well
52:46
Speaker 7: on Thursday and Friday. And it's a great time of year.
52:50
Speaker 7: Everyone's competing. Everyone's doing good things. In terms of the Utes,
52:54
Speaker 7: at Cincinnati, Really pleased with the way our guys started.
52:58
Speaker 7: Very focused, concentrated work throughout the week. I thought in
53:04
Speaker 7: particular Devin was really good decision making. Some different guys
53:11
Speaker 7: stepped up. Daniel Bray had another solid performance. I thought
53:14
Speaker 7: Hunter Andrews, as much as he's done in blocking and
53:18
Speaker 7: team football, for him to get kind of a standout
53:21
Speaker 7: performance was fantastic. The O-line play in general was really good.
53:26
Speaker 7: Defensive side of the ball, Scooby Davis, I believe it's
53:29
Speaker 7: been announced, Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week. I
53:33
Speaker 7: thought he had his best game as a U. Tackling,
53:35
Speaker 7: you watch him in pursuit, as well as obviously the
53:40
Speaker 7: pick six, so a really good game by him.
53:42
Speaker 8: Rabbit, Evans, Ethan Day also with a solid performance.
53:45
Speaker 7: I thought Ryan Phillips, two huge punts, one almost pinning
53:49
Speaker 7: him inside the 10, but also one that Inside our
53:52
Speaker 7: own 20, and you flip the field, and.
53:55
Speaker 8: They start near their 20.
53:57
Speaker 7: So fantastic punt by Boyle Ryan flipping the field in
54:01
Speaker 7: special teams. There's some things special team-wise I don't think
54:04
Speaker 7: we're doing a good enough job in in kickoff return
54:07
Speaker 7: and have to clean some things up there. But overall,
54:12
Speaker 7: pleased with the performance the second half. Run fits, not
54:17
Speaker 7: good enough. Second half, turnovers, giving the ball away, not
54:21
Speaker 7: good enough. But to go into that stadium against a
54:26
Speaker 7: team that had just knocked off the top 10 team
54:28
Speaker 7: and to play the way we did.
54:30
Speaker 8: I was very pleased.
54:36
Speaker 7: By way of announcement on the injury front, Kelvin Obot
54:40
Speaker 7: is out for the season. lower leg deal. Not going
54:45
Speaker 7: to get into specifics there, but he'll be done for
54:48
Speaker 7: the year. And then we've got BYU coming up.
54:53
Speaker 8: Huge matchup.
54:54
Speaker 7: I believe it's the first time that we've both been
54:57
Speaker 7: in the top ten going up against each other.
55:00
Speaker 8: That's awesome. Awesome for the state. Big rivalry game. Kalani,
55:06
Speaker 8: respect the heck out of him.
55:07
Speaker 7: And And that staff have a lot of guys that
55:10
Speaker 7: I know over there that either we coached with or
55:11
Speaker 7: we just have known for a long time. Respect them
55:14
Speaker 7: and what they do. Very good on both sides of
55:18
Speaker 7: the ball, really. And expect nothing but the best from them.
55:24
Speaker 7: Defensive side of the ball, various fronts. They run to
55:28
Speaker 7: the ball.
55:28
Speaker 8: They're active.
55:29
Speaker 7: They play with really good technique up front. Secondary is
55:32
Speaker 7: very solid in coverage. On the offensive side of the ball,
55:36
Speaker 7: obviously Bayer. It all runs through him. We expect LJ
55:43
Speaker 7: probably to be back, but don't know, but we're.
55:45
Speaker 8: Planning for it. And it's going to be a heck
55:47
Speaker 8: of a matchup.
55:49
Speaker 7: Early 10 a.m., but I know our fans are juiced
55:52
Speaker 7: and fired up, and they'll be there early and excited
55:56
Speaker 7: for this one. We expect a huge crowd and a
55:58
Speaker 7: huge viewing audience as well.
56:01
Speaker 8: This is a big one. It's not the big one.
56:04
Speaker 8: It's a big one, just like last week was a
56:06
Speaker 8: big one. There's only the big one. I keep hearing
56:09
Speaker 8: people say, it's the big one.
56:10
Speaker 11: Nope.
56:12
Speaker 8: The big one. Only two teams playing. So it is
56:16
Speaker 8: a big one and we're excited for it. So with that,
56:20
Speaker 8: we'll turn it over for questions.
56:23
Speaker 7: Oh, we have my guy Justin's first.
56:29
Speaker 5: Great win on Saturday, all but the second half. Rivalry
56:31
Speaker 5: week is upon us with you being a player and
56:34
Speaker 5: now a coach. What makes the Holy War so special
56:36
Speaker 5: and on the the top rivalries, what makes it one
56:39
Speaker 5: of the top rivalries in the country, and is.
56:41
Speaker 13: There pursuant pressure because the University of Utah hasn't.
56:44
Speaker 5: Won the whole war since 2018?
56:46
Speaker 8: Oh, thank you, Justin, for reminding me of that. Like
56:48
Speaker 8: I didn't know. It's a great rivalry.
56:51
Speaker 7: It's great because of the proximity to each other, you know,
56:56
Speaker 7: the history of the back and forth. I think also
57:02
Speaker 7: it's unique that on both staffs, you really have staffs
57:06
Speaker 7: that know each other that have coached together, coached against
57:08
Speaker 7: each other for so long. Um, and, uh, I mean, shoot, I,
57:15
Speaker 7: ever since I was a kid growing up and you've, there's,
57:18
Speaker 7: I know there, it's probably going on the internet right now.
57:21
Speaker 8: What I said, my, you know, my senior year.
57:23
Speaker 7: And, you know, at the end of the day, um,
57:30
Speaker 7: It's mine and Kalani's hope that this thing can be
57:33
Speaker 7: more civil. The hatred, the toxicity that is spewed.
57:40
Speaker 8: From both sides, to me it's not good for the rival.
57:44
Speaker 7: What makes it great is it's competitive, is the back
57:47
Speaker 7: and forth, is the fact that look at us in
57:51
Speaker 7: one state within 30 minutes of each other and you're
57:54
Speaker 7: sitting here.
57:55
Speaker 8: Ranked in the top 10. That's awesome.
57:59
Speaker 7: No other state can say that, you know. So much
58:04
Speaker 7: respect for Kalani and that crew, and we expect a
58:09
Speaker 7: great matchup. But that's, in my opinion, those things, you know,
58:12
Speaker 7: are what make the rivalry great is that it's been
58:15
Speaker 7: competitive throughout the years.
58:18
Speaker 8: People that, you know, they know each other. Anyway. Oh, sorry.
58:25
Speaker 5: Late in the game, Bert Fickman can't get that touchdown
58:27
Speaker 5: and he can't have that hand throw. He comes off
58:29
Speaker 5: the field a little frustrated. One, what does that say
58:32
Speaker 5: about him as a competitor and your team?
58:35
Speaker 8: And two, teammates came around him and kind of tried
58:37
Speaker 8: to console him.
58:37
Speaker 5: What does that say about this team culture.
58:39
Speaker 8: And what you're able to do? Oh, yeah.
58:41
Speaker 7: Everyone understands that when they get their shot, you're not
58:44
Speaker 7: in there just to go through the motions.
58:46
Speaker 8: You're in there to perform. And it does. I mean,
58:52
Speaker 8: we know he's a competitor.
58:54
Speaker 7: Otherwise he wouldn't be in half the packages that we
58:57
Speaker 7: put him in doing what we do with with a
59:00
Speaker 7: quarterback right so I love that young man for who
59:05
Speaker 7: he is the team player that he is the passion
59:07
Speaker 7: that he has for football for competing at the highest level.
59:11
Speaker 7: And you look throughout that film, there's plenty of opportunities
59:17
Speaker 7: to say, okay, that's good team football right there. You know,
59:21
Speaker 7: our offensive lineman turning Way Sean away from potential confrontation,
59:26
Speaker 7: Nate Ritchie going and grabbing Nick Brown after a play,
59:29
Speaker 7: turning him away.
59:30
Speaker 8: I mean, that's what you want to see.
59:31
Speaker 7: There's plenty of things that happen in college football where
59:34
Speaker 7: you're saying, oh, man, that's a penalty that costs them dearly.
59:37
Speaker 7: You look at the end of the Oklahoma State-Iowa State game,
59:43
Speaker 7: two personal fouls, one that gives.
59:47
Speaker 8: Oklahoma State, right, red zone, next play, touchdown.
59:54
Speaker 7: Celebration penalty, all of a sudden now Iowa State benefits,
59:58
Speaker 7: and they get in field goal range and win it.
1:00:00
Speaker 7: That stuff is so crucial, those intolerable penalties. So really
1:00:08
Speaker 7: happy our guys, and we're not immune to it, but
1:00:13
Speaker 7: happy that our guys are handling those situations.
1:00:16
Speaker 8: In this game, this is.
1:00:17
Speaker 7: Going to be a game where emotions are high and
1:00:20
Speaker 7: you can't let... The emotions rule you. It's all about execution.
1:00:27
Speaker 8: And that's it. So, anyway. I think, did you have one? Okay.
1:00:35
Speaker 5: What stood out about Kalani to you when you guys
1:00:37
Speaker 5: were both on the same staff? And what's kind of
1:00:40
Speaker 5: that relationship like now that you're both head coaches?
1:00:44
Speaker 8: Kalani, much like Bert, the ultimate competitor.
1:00:49
Speaker 7: He and I are very alike in the sense that
1:00:51
Speaker 7: we love to have fun, we love to joke, but
1:00:53
Speaker 7: when it gets down to it and competing and you
1:00:56
Speaker 7: cross those lines, it's okay.
1:00:59
Speaker 8: It's time to win.
1:00:59
Speaker 7: And so respect him so much as a human for
1:01:05
Speaker 7: the good that he does, the good that he is.
1:01:07
Speaker 8: We, myself, Kalani, and Bronco Mendenhall all had dinner before
1:01:14
Speaker 8: the season started.
1:01:17
Speaker 7: Respect each other And, you know, Kalani's a dear friend,
1:01:22
Speaker 7: so I love him and am grateful for what he
1:01:24
Speaker 7: taught me and.
1:01:27
Speaker 8: Excited to go against him.
1:01:30
Speaker 14: Coach, Noah Benney, Braden Pagan, Wayshawn Parker, Ethan Day, we're
1:01:35
Speaker 14: all limited in some form on Saturday.
1:01:37
Speaker 4: Do you have an update on those guys at all?
1:01:40
Speaker 8: All are fine and we'll be playing.
1:01:46
Speaker 15: Morgan, do you have a favorite rivalry moment either as
1:01:49
Speaker 15: a player or a assistant coach or just a.
1:01:53
Speaker 8: Fan growing up in this?
1:01:55
Speaker 7: As a player, it's hard to beat the, because we'd
1:01:57
Speaker 7: never done anything like it when we beat BYU to
1:02:02
Speaker 7: be able to go to the Fiesta Bowl.
1:02:04
Speaker 8: You lose that game and all of a sudden your
1:02:06
Speaker 8: dreams are dashed to that.
1:02:07
Speaker 7: And so that, the fans rushing the field, throwing Tostitos
1:02:13
Speaker 7: chips up in the air and My helmet was stolen.
1:02:18
Speaker 7: No idea where it is, but we were able to
1:02:21
Speaker 7: get another one. It's not like it is today where
1:02:23
Speaker 7: everyone's got five helmets. That was my one helmet. The
1:02:31
Speaker 7: 3-0 game down in Provo, that was neat because it
1:02:36
Speaker 7: was our first outright conference championship in 50 years that
1:02:39
Speaker 7: we had won. It was the coldest game I've ever
1:02:43
Speaker 7: either as a player or as a coach. It took
1:02:47
Speaker 7: everyone that was driving back to Salt Lake City two
1:02:49
Speaker 7: hours to get home because everyone was sliding off the road.
1:02:53
Speaker 10: I had.
1:02:55
Speaker 7: Torn my meniscus the week prior against Wyoming, had surgery
1:03:00
Speaker 7: on Monday, and then played Saturday.
1:03:04
Speaker 8: That's how much the rivalry means a lot. So that was...
1:03:11
Speaker 8: That was neat.
1:03:12
Speaker 7: And then to be able to– I think they had
1:03:14
Speaker 7: the longest scoring streak in NCAA at that point, and
1:03:18
Speaker 7: then we were able to hold them to zero.
1:03:20
Speaker 15: And then what makes Bear Bachmeier just so unique? I mean,
1:03:25
Speaker 15: linebacker's mentality.
1:03:26
Speaker 7: As a quarterback.
1:03:26
Speaker 8: I'm going to be honest.
1:03:27
Speaker 7: When I first started watching Bear, I'm like, this guy
1:03:30
Speaker 7: cannot throw. He is not– he is a running back
1:03:34
Speaker 7: playing quarterback. I was wrong, dead wrong. I mean, Aaron
1:03:39
Speaker 7: Roderick has done such a great job developing him, and you.
1:03:42
Speaker 8: Can tell his work ethic also.
1:03:45
Speaker 7: You have to compliment him on that because he is
1:03:48
Speaker 7: an efficient thrower.
1:03:50
Speaker 8: He has zip on his ball. He makes great decisions.
1:03:54
Speaker 7: And add to that the fact that when he runs,
1:03:58
Speaker 7: it's like, okay, bring your lunch every time.
1:04:01
Speaker 8: He is thick. He's tough to bring down. Really good balance.
1:04:06
Speaker 7: So the dual threat is always going to be something
1:04:09
Speaker 7: that if a team's got that, then you really have
1:04:12
Speaker 7: to have answers and take your shots every once in
1:04:16
Speaker 7: a while.
1:04:16
Speaker 8: But I can't say enough good things about him.
1:04:22
Speaker 15: So you've got this week, the rivalry week, is just
1:04:25
Speaker 15: an incredible, intense week on its own. You've already mentioned
1:04:28
Speaker 15: the two top ten. You guys ranked in the top five. Tomorrow,
1:04:32
Speaker 15: the playoff committee will write their poll, and you guys,
1:04:35
Speaker 15: I'm sure, will be in there. So there will be
1:04:37
Speaker 15: a lot of attention given to the program. I'm wondering
1:04:41
Speaker 15: if you'll have a message to the team to make
1:04:43
Speaker 15: sure that they don't get caught up in that because
1:04:48
Speaker 15: the attention that they're going to receive is just going
1:04:50
Speaker 15: to probably be more than they've ever received. And as
1:04:53
Speaker 15: you know, as you told us, the neon lights are
1:04:59
Speaker 15: white on Broadway.
1:05:00
Speaker 5: Oh, dear.
1:05:03
Speaker 8: They are bright on Broadway. That's a good one. I
1:05:07
Speaker 8: will not sing. But our guys are very aware.
1:05:12
Speaker 7: That nothing's given to you. And to say we're owed anything,
1:05:21
Speaker 7: owed a ranking, owed this, owed.
1:05:23
Speaker 8: That, no, no one owes you anything. You go earn
1:05:25
Speaker 8: it every single day.
1:05:26
Speaker 7: Every game, And when you say, okay, well, it really
1:05:34
Speaker 7: doesn't matter.
1:05:34
Speaker 8: How do you know?
1:05:35
Speaker 7: At the end of the season, that one loss could
1:05:38
Speaker 7: have ruined your entire chances.
1:05:40
Speaker 8: You had two losses last year.
1:05:41
Speaker 7: Who would have thought, okay, well, had you got one
1:05:45
Speaker 7: of those, you would have been playing in the Big
1:05:47
Speaker 7: 12 championship.
1:05:48
Speaker 8: Every game matters, and no one owes you anything.
1:05:53
Speaker 7: You go earn it every single day, and the minute
1:05:56
Speaker 7: you stop being hungry, it's the minute someone that's hungrier
1:05:59
Speaker 7: than you comes in and takes what you have. So
1:06:03
Speaker 7: that's not something that we sit here and we pat
1:06:05
Speaker 7: ourselves on the back every day about what our ranking is.
1:06:10
Speaker 7: The only ranking that matters is at the end of
1:06:14
Speaker 7: the season.
1:06:16
Speaker 8: That's it. So control what we can control.
1:06:20
Speaker 7: The other thing is the film is going to show
1:06:22
Speaker 7: you if we can't look at that film and say
1:06:25
Speaker 7: we've got stuff to correct, we're blind. Poor run fits
1:06:29
Speaker 7: in the second half. uh, not good enough, special teams.
1:06:33
Speaker 7: There's stuff on that film. It's like, okay, you let,
1:06:37
Speaker 7: we let them come back. We let them score points.
1:06:39
Speaker 7: We turn the ball over. We can't turn the ball over.
1:06:41
Speaker 7: That's stuff that loses you football games. And so we're
1:06:44
Speaker 7: very aware of, of, you know, what we.
1:06:47
Speaker 8: Need to do to improve.
1:06:48
Speaker 7: And we have great leadership that understands we're here in
1:06:52
Speaker 7: this spot because we have focused each week on that opponent.
1:06:57
Speaker 8: And, uh, So I'm pretty confident in our guys that
1:07:01
Speaker 8: they're not going to look beyond this week.
1:07:07
Speaker 7: Maureen, you've seen a lot of starting quarterbacks from Utah
1:07:10
Speaker 7: go into this game.
1:07:11
Speaker 13: What's it like having a guy like Devin Demp here
1:07:13
Speaker 13: leading your team.
1:07:14
Speaker 8: Into this game?
1:07:17
Speaker 10: Awesome.
1:07:19
Speaker 8: Because I've gone into a game without a quarterback.
1:07:23
Speaker 7: I understand from a defensive coordinator perspective, it is so
1:07:26
Speaker 7: nice to be able to Not only C, because this
1:07:29
Speaker 7: is a guy that's making really good decisions throwing the ball,
1:07:32
Speaker 7: and he's also making people pay.
1:07:38
Speaker 8: And running the ball when he can run it.
1:07:40
Speaker 7: He does not shy away from called cue run game.
1:07:44
Speaker 8: He's tough. He's competitive. He'll call his own number. And
1:07:51
Speaker 8: so I'll go to war any day with a guy
1:07:54
Speaker 8: like that.
1:07:54
Speaker 3: So.
1:07:55
Speaker 7: very, very pleased with, with Devin, his progress and also
1:07:58
Speaker 7: his leadership and, and how he's led throughout the season.
1:08:02
Speaker 4: Morgan, at Big 12 Media Days, Devin actually shared with
1:08:05
Speaker 4: the media that he knew he needed to perform better
1:08:08
Speaker 4: in bigger games. And for you as a head coach,
1:08:13
Speaker 4: how do you help him and players in general prepare
1:08:17
Speaker 4: for a big game like this?
1:08:19
Speaker 7: They're all big. They're all big. Um, I think it's that.
1:08:25
Speaker 7: Don't overdo it. What are the keys? What do we
1:08:29
Speaker 7: need to do to win the game? And that's what
1:08:32
Speaker 7: we need to do. Study the film.
1:08:34
Speaker 8: Go to bed on time. Hydrate. Eat right.
1:08:37
Speaker 7: I think you can overdo it. But in my opinion,
1:08:46
Speaker 7: he's performed well in big games.
1:08:48
Speaker 8: So it's a team sport. And he can be down
1:08:52
Speaker 8: on himself because he's ultra, he does that.
1:08:56
Speaker 7: But there's a lot that goes into his performance, you know.
1:09:00
Speaker 7: protection and, you know, correct route adjustments based on coverage.
1:09:06
Speaker 7: I mean, there's a lot that goes into it. But, again,
1:09:09
Speaker 7: that's just him. He's an ultra competitor and, you know,
1:09:13
Speaker 7: feels like he's got to improve there.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: Rabbit Evans has been making a lot of big plays.
1:09:20
Speaker 15: Can you tell me the recruitment in, how did you
1:09:23
Speaker 15: get him, what did you see in him, what is
1:09:25
Speaker 15: he like, and what has he got that he just
1:09:27
Speaker 15: seems to be turning up in the right spot for
1:09:29
Speaker 15: the team.
1:09:30
Speaker 3: At the right time?
1:09:31
Speaker 7: Yeah, Rabbit was a young man that we've had a
1:09:33
Speaker 7: great relationship with, Blinn College. A ton of kids come
1:09:36
Speaker 7: from Blinn in Brenham, Texas. I've had a great relationship
1:09:40
Speaker 7: with that coaching staff, and they let me know about
1:09:43
Speaker 7: this young man. I went and watched him in person
1:09:46
Speaker 7: and just he moved like a safety. Very fluid, very quick.
1:09:52
Speaker 8: He's flexible. His first season with us, it was really
1:09:57
Speaker 8: the Colorado.
1:09:58
Speaker 7: Game where we put him on air against one of
1:10:01
Speaker 7: their top slot wide receivers.
1:10:04
Speaker 8: And he was money in man coverage. Really good hips.
1:10:09
Speaker 7: We expected last year to be his breakout year and
1:10:13
Speaker 7: all of a.
1:10:13
Speaker 8: Sudden the injury happens.
1:10:15
Speaker 7: Comes back, he's a little, just Most leg injuries, you're tentative,
1:10:20
Speaker 7: you're trying to feel it out. Once he got to 100%,
1:10:24
Speaker 7: you could just see it. You could see the difference,
1:10:26
Speaker 7: and it's like, okay, he's back to being himself. He's
1:10:30
Speaker 7: very instinctive. He's got great body control. He's not afraid
1:10:36
Speaker 7: to strike. He's a striker.
1:10:38
Speaker 8: And, you know, when you have the ability to play
1:10:42
Speaker 8: man coverage and blitz and do all the versatility... that
1:10:46
Speaker 8: he has is what makes him so valuable.
1:10:49
Speaker 11: Morgan, going back to the game last year, just what
1:10:53
Speaker 11: did you maybe.
1:10:53
Speaker 8: Learn about, you know, bear and ways that you.
1:10:57
Speaker 4: Can combat, you know, that Q run game or limit
1:11:00
Speaker 4: him in some ability?
1:11:02
Speaker 7: Uh, he can hurdle you. That's one thing we learned,
1:11:06
Speaker 7: you know? So yeah, he's, he's a competitor. He's, he's,
1:11:10
Speaker 7: he's athletic. Um, Obviously, this is staffs that know each
1:11:14
Speaker 7: other and know our schemes, and it just comes down
1:11:17
Speaker 7: to execution. At the end of the day, they executed
1:11:21
Speaker 7: in key moments, and we didn't, and that's why they
1:11:24
Speaker 7: won the game.
1:11:25
Speaker 8: Last question, Jason.
1:11:27
Speaker 13: Morgan, I want to ask you just about the cultural
1:11:29
Speaker 13: relevance of this rivalry.
1:11:31
Speaker 8: A lot of people go to church.
1:11:32
Speaker 13: The next day, and they have BYU and Utah fans
1:11:35
Speaker 13: in the same room. Some people have kids that go
1:11:37
Speaker 13: to BYU, and they went to Utah. I guess just
1:11:41
Speaker 13: knowing that relevance, just how special do you think those
1:11:45
Speaker 13: connections make this rivalry with the religion, with the culture,
1:11:48
Speaker 13: and just having families intermingling at different places at the
1:11:53
Speaker 13: two universities?
1:11:54
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think you can find that in any rivalry.
1:11:58
Speaker 7: And yes, you have a predominant religion as part of
1:12:03
Speaker 7: one school, but I think we make too much of that.
1:12:05
Speaker 7: There are young men playing on both teams that aren't LDS,
1:12:10
Speaker 7: and there are fans that aren't LDS. We're fans, and
1:12:15
Speaker 7: we're players, and at the end of the day, does
1:12:19
Speaker 7: God care who wins this game?
1:12:22
Speaker 6: No.
1:12:22
Speaker 8: Does he care about people?
1:12:24
Speaker 9: Yeah.
1:12:25
Speaker 8: And so I think we can be better to each
1:12:27
Speaker 8: other in that realm, but.
1:12:30
Speaker 7: Definitely, like I said, the proximity, how close we are,
1:12:34
Speaker 7: and family members having gone to both schools, and just
1:12:38
Speaker 7: the It does. The whole family draw is what can
1:12:42
Speaker 7: make it so good.
1:12:47
Speaker 8: All right. Thank you.
1:12:52
Speaker 1: Morgan Scali, Utah head football coach. Thoughtful responses, as we
1:12:57
Speaker 1: have come to expect from him.
1:12:59
Speaker 2: A little thing there at the end.
1:13:04
Speaker 1: About the actual rivalry itself and how he did or
1:13:07
Speaker 1: not he did.
1:13:08
Speaker 2: It will be the, I.
1:13:10
Speaker 1: Will say this, the social media representation of both fan
1:13:15
Speaker 1: bases is probably like when you're talking about the loudest
1:13:20
Speaker 1: voices in each fan base on things like Twitter.
1:13:23
Speaker 2: And if you're still doing Facebook and I don't know
1:13:27
Speaker 2: how much people talk sports on Instagram.
1:13:28
Speaker 1: So Twitter would be, I guess the main one, the
1:13:31
Speaker 1: loudest voices on that platform on both the blue and
1:13:36
Speaker 1: the red side of this thing. can be pretty obnoxious
1:13:42
Speaker 1: and their interactions with one another so far already this season,
1:13:47
Speaker 1: very obnoxious, like talking trash about the silliest things like our,
1:13:54
Speaker 1: our fans. There's more of our fans at this game
1:13:56
Speaker 1: than your, your fans at this game.
1:13:57
Speaker 2: It's like, all right, relax. The teams are going to
1:13:59
Speaker 2: play right.
1:14:01
Speaker 1: So while you find yourself getting caught up in the
1:14:05
Speaker 1: rivalry talk this week, I will say this, do it.
1:14:11
Speaker 1: to an extent where you are okay with the outcome, right?
1:14:15
Speaker 1: You can, you can just close the app. If you
1:14:20
Speaker 1: can handle all of the trash talk and the repetitive
1:14:24
Speaker 1: bad words and the insults that extend well beyond, you know,
1:14:28
Speaker 1: actual field of play stuff, then you know, Put yourself
1:14:33
Speaker 1: down there in the mud and wallow like a pig.
1:14:36
Speaker 2: That's fine if you're okay with that.
1:14:38
Speaker 1: If you're someone who's sensitive and has a hard time
1:14:40
Speaker 1: with it or is genuinely going to get mad and
1:14:43
Speaker 1: start to have real human feelings about that kind of stuff,
1:14:47
Speaker 1: just get out of it. Or go talk to someone
1:14:50
Speaker 1: in person. Because in person, the conversations are a heck
1:14:55
Speaker 1: of a lot different.
1:14:56
Speaker 8: Even with a.
1:14:56
Speaker 1: BYU fan or when you're a BYU fan, even with
1:14:59
Speaker 1: a Utah fan.
1:15:03
Speaker 2: Have fun with it, even with the trash talk.
1:15:07
Speaker 1: But maybe don't make it about, you know, something that
1:15:11
Speaker 1: is deeply personal to someone's lifestyle, like their religion, if
1:15:14
Speaker 1: you can avoid that. And by the way, the Muss
1:15:18
Speaker 1: already put out their statement, their encouragement to follow the rules.
1:15:23
Speaker 1: I don't anticipate that there will even be anyone trying
1:15:25
Speaker 1: to start the.
1:15:28
Speaker 2: Infamous chant that has cost.
1:15:31
Speaker 1: ucf a hundred thousand dollars and would potentially cost any
1:15:36
Speaker 1: fan base a hundred thousand and and maybe even a
1:15:39
Speaker 1: penalty on the field i don't think you're going to
1:15:41
Speaker 1: deal with that at rice cycle stadium but the official
1:15:45
Speaker 1: stance of that head coach you just heard from morgan
1:15:48
Speaker 1: scally of the university of the official mighty utah student
1:15:52
Speaker 1: section is.
1:15:54
Speaker 2: Don't do it keep the chance football related people.
1:16:02
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Speaker 1: Southern Steer Butcher, official butcher of the Sean O'Connell Show.
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1:18:29
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Speaker 2: Right here on your home of the Utes, it'll be Utah.
1:19:34
Speaker 1: Versus Long Beach State opening the 2026 campaign for Alex Jensen. Hopefully, look,
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Speaker 1: we saw some interesting things from them in the non-conference,
1:19:47
Speaker 1: the preseason, I should say, in the exhibition games. Hopefully
1:19:52
Speaker 1: against Long Beach State, you're starting your tune-up process. So
1:19:57
Speaker 1: get up there if you have an opportunity. Maybe a
1:20:00
Speaker 1: little FHE tonight up at the Huntsman Center. Bring the
1:20:03
Speaker 1: kids out. Tickets are affordable and they're available. Pack that
1:20:08
Speaker 1: thing out. Yeah, I'll say this too.
1:20:11
Speaker 6: I'm hesitant to say this because of the way the
1:20:14
Speaker 6: Jazz season has started. Just a little bit hesitant. We
1:20:16
Speaker 6: were optimistic about the Jazz, and now they're 1-5. But
1:20:19
Speaker 6: plenty of time for that to turn around. But I
1:20:21
Speaker 6: do feel a lot more optimistic about this season for
1:20:24
Speaker 6: the running Utes than I was going into last season
1:20:28
Speaker 6: for the running Utes. Alex Jensen's first year, I feel
1:20:32
Speaker 6: like they have upgraded the talent. Not being able to
1:20:35
Speaker 6: have Nomi Yakov is a big deal. I'd feel even
1:20:38
Speaker 6: more optimistic if they had him, if the NCAA hadn't
1:20:42
Speaker 6: have made him ineligible. But I do feel like we're
1:20:45
Speaker 6: going to see some serious strides this year. I feel
1:20:47
Speaker 6: like you probably feel the same.
1:20:48
Speaker 3: Way, Osteen.
1:20:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And here's the thing.
1:20:52
Speaker 1: Alex Jensen is so good at just being honest about that.
1:20:55
Speaker 2: Last year, he kind of told us.
1:20:57
Speaker 1: He laid a groundwork, and he was like, look, it's
1:20:59
Speaker 1: going to take time, and it's a complicated landscape right now.
1:21:04
Speaker 1: But he also, I think, when we had the conversation
1:21:07
Speaker 1: with him a couple weeks ago now, he's.
1:21:10
Speaker 2: Dropping a couple little breadcrumbs along the way.
1:21:12
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, we got this to work on and this
1:21:14
Speaker 1: to work on, but we like where we're at right here.
1:21:17
Speaker 2: And the team, everything in.
1:21:19
Speaker 1: College basketball, college football, college gymnastics, college hockey, college track
1:21:24
Speaker 1: and field, everything is about the bodies. Everything is about
1:21:27
Speaker 1: the players that you actually have. Do you have the
1:21:31
Speaker 1: right people to on the floor for you. We're going
1:21:34
Speaker 1: to find that out starting tonight with Alex Jensen and
1:21:37
Speaker 1: his squad. No surprise here, but I guess it's officially
1:21:43
Speaker 1: an update. College game day not coming back for this
1:21:46
Speaker 1: top 10 BYU versus Utah matchup at Rice Eccles Stadium.
1:21:50
Speaker 1: They are going to the Miami Notre Dame game. So
1:21:54
Speaker 1: the only way that you can outdo number three versus
1:21:58
Speaker 1: number seven is you can have number one versus number four.
1:22:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where they're going. It's fine.
1:22:06
Speaker 1: It's probably for the best, right? You already had game
1:22:09
Speaker 1: day here. You won on game day. You had your
1:22:13
Speaker 1: little Pat McAfee feud. Did you see, by the way,
1:22:16
Speaker 1: did you see Pat trying to claw his way, trying to.
1:22:19
Speaker 1: worm his way back into the good graces of Utah
1:22:22
Speaker 1: football fans. Did you see this on college game day
1:22:26
Speaker 1: this past Saturday? I, I, I.
1:22:28
Speaker 6: Normally don't watch just cause it's a little, a little
1:22:30
Speaker 6: too early for me to get up and watch game day.
1:22:32
Speaker 6: I'm not because I've, there's some people that have shared
1:22:35
Speaker 6: the sentiment, Pat McAfee ruined it. I don't share that
1:22:37
Speaker 6: same segment, but so I missed it. The only thing
1:22:40
Speaker 6: I saw that was, that seemed to be a vague
1:22:42
Speaker 6: reference to Utah is he Is he asked for a
1:22:45
Speaker 6: full size candy bar after when the mascot was giving
1:22:48
Speaker 6: out just fun size candy to them? It seemed to
1:22:51
Speaker 6: be a shot at Morgan, the kicker.
1:22:53
Speaker 2: I actually didn't see that. That's kind of funny. Little
1:22:55
Speaker 2: sub tweet. No, what he did, they were going through,
1:22:59
Speaker 2: you know, they.
1:22:59
Speaker 1: Do segment by segment by segment, whatever, by the way,
1:23:01
Speaker 1: the kicker for this one, for the last game, I
1:23:05
Speaker 1: don't even remember where they were. The kicker, the kid
1:23:08
Speaker 1: was like a former soccer player. And he went left
1:23:12
Speaker 1: of the upright both times by like the, I mean,
1:23:16
Speaker 1: it was painfully close.
1:23:19
Speaker 2: It would be actually.
1:23:20
Speaker 1: Better to just skip it along the ground or kick
1:23:22
Speaker 1: it into Kirk curb streets face.
1:23:24
Speaker 2: Like the Utah girl did. It was so painful. So close.
1:23:28
Speaker 1: And he missed both of them. And Pat was just like, sorry, man,
1:23:31
Speaker 1: not giving you a third try. He's just like, you're,
1:23:34
Speaker 1: I mean, he's like a soccer player. So they were,
1:23:36
Speaker 1: they weren't going to keep flirting with that, but he
1:23:38
Speaker 1: was so close.
1:23:39
Speaker 2: And I can't imagine being like 20 years old. So
1:23:42
Speaker 2: it was like million dollar kick. You got it. And
1:23:45
Speaker 2: you miss it by that much. He's never going to forget.
1:23:47
Speaker 3: Right.
1:23:47
Speaker 2: It's going to eat him alive for the rest of
1:23:49
Speaker 2: his life.
1:23:49
Speaker 11: Anyway.
1:23:50
Speaker 2: Oh, anyway, that was crazy.
1:23:51
Speaker 1: But what they were going segment by segment and they
1:23:54
Speaker 1: did a segment on who is the the dark horse
1:23:59
Speaker 1: to win the sleeper pick to win the national championship.
1:24:04
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I actually did catch this.
1:24:06
Speaker 16: Yeah.
1:24:07
Speaker 1: And of course, Pat McAfee, he gets to be the
1:24:08
Speaker 1: one who picks last on everything. And he, he gave them, well,
1:24:12
Speaker 1: no one's going to expect me to say this.
1:24:13
Speaker 2: I got Utah. And it was like, okay, I roll Pat.
1:24:18
Speaker 2: We know what you're doing here. It's all of it. People,
1:24:22
Speaker 2: all of it is pro wrestling. Okay.
1:24:25
Speaker 1: What happened was Pat McAfee thought he was going full heel.
1:24:31
Speaker 1: And then The reaction, the blowback he got from the
1:24:35
Speaker 1: real journalism and media landscape made him realize that was
1:24:40
Speaker 1: a bad piece of writing. That was a bad storyline
1:24:42
Speaker 1: in my WWE timeline as Pat McAfee. So now I'm
1:24:47
Speaker 1: going to go back and now I'm going to try
1:24:50
Speaker 1: to make myself into a baby face again. Now I'm
1:24:53
Speaker 1: going to get off this heel train and I'm going
1:24:56
Speaker 1: to try and endear myself to everybody again. it's not
1:24:59
Speaker 1: going to work, but he tried. So good for you, Pat.
1:25:02
Speaker 6: There was a part of his now infamous clip from
1:25:06
Speaker 6: his show. The Monday after the infamous appearance on game
1:25:11
Speaker 6: day before the Houston game at president circle, there was
1:25:14
Speaker 6: a part where he said he was careful to say
1:25:18
Speaker 6: they got an awesome football team. And he, he basically said,
1:25:20
Speaker 6: I love their football team. And then went on to say,
1:25:24
Speaker 6: he felt really, he was made to feel really uncomfortable
1:25:26
Speaker 6: by the fans. So I, I'll just say, I don't disagree.
1:25:32
Speaker 6: That's his mindset where you just laid out pro wrestling,
1:25:35
Speaker 6: absolutely entertainment and backtracking when it's convenient for him, all
1:25:40
Speaker 6: those things. But I also think that he, he was
1:25:44
Speaker 6: careful to say he genuinely thinks that Utah has a
1:25:47
Speaker 6: really good football team.
1:25:48
Speaker 2: And this aligns with that at the very least for sure.
1:25:51
Speaker 2: All right. So no game day coming. That's fine. It's
1:25:55
Speaker 2: 10 AM ABC kick.
1:25:58
Speaker 1: I will have thoughts on whoever the broadcast team is
1:26:00
Speaker 1: whenever we get that announced. But this is actually concerning
1:26:05
Speaker 1: for the rivalry game. We are now going on three
1:26:08
Speaker 1: consecutive weeks of BYU playing football games where the Big
1:26:14
Speaker 1: 12 conference after the game comes out and says, oh,
1:26:20
Speaker 1: by the way, this scenario was officiated incorrectly.
1:26:25
Speaker 2: Notre Dame game.
1:26:28
Speaker 1: The conference officials were like, oh, guess what? We should
1:26:31
Speaker 1: have given Notre Dame one more play. I'm not even
1:26:34
Speaker 1: talking about whether or not it was pass interference. There
1:26:39
Speaker 1: was one second left on the clock. The officials said that.
1:26:43
Speaker 1: These are not judgment calls, all right? This is a
1:26:45
Speaker 1: very important distinction to draw. There are going to be
1:26:48
Speaker 1: calls in the Utah-BYU game.
1:26:51
Speaker 2: It's going to happen that you don't agree with.
1:26:54
Speaker 1: You're going to boo. You're going to say, ref, you suck.
1:26:57
Speaker 1: You're going to move on with your day, right? There's
1:27:00
Speaker 1: going to be a drive extended for Utah. There's going
1:27:02
Speaker 1: to be a drive extended for BYU based on a
1:27:04
Speaker 1: penalty that the opposition does not like one bit.
1:27:07
Speaker 2: And almost all of those are judgment calls.
1:27:12
Speaker 1: This is now three weeks in a row where the
1:27:15
Speaker 1: rules were officiated improperly for BYU or in BYU's favor.
1:27:21
Speaker 1: One was the Notre Dame final snap. I'm not taking
1:27:24
Speaker 1: the win away from BYU.
1:27:26
Speaker 10: Okay.
1:27:26
Speaker 1: They beat Notre Dame. Would, would they have scored on
1:27:30
Speaker 1: the final play and with one second left? Probably not honestly,
1:27:36
Speaker 1: but bad look for the officials the following week against
1:27:41
Speaker 1: UCF end of game scenario, 10 second runoff. They come
1:27:46
Speaker 1: back and say, actually, that's not how it should have
1:27:48
Speaker 1: played out. It should have been officiated differently.
1:27:51
Speaker 2: Our bad. Sorry about that. And then the third week
1:27:55
Speaker 2: in a row.
1:27:57
Speaker 1: Regarding a replay review before halftime, BYU was awarded a touchdown,
1:28:06
Speaker 1: basically two plays before they actually scored the touchdown.
1:28:11
Speaker 2: Because the guy was down. And the replay got it wrong.
1:28:19
Speaker 1: So this is now three weeks in a row where,
1:28:25
Speaker 1: and it's not BYU's fault that the officials keep screwing
1:28:28
Speaker 1: up in favoring BYU, but the officials keep screwing up
1:28:32
Speaker 1: and favoring BYU. If I'm a Utah fan, I'm worried
1:28:36
Speaker 1: about that because I'm like, man, they keep doing this
1:28:39
Speaker 1: and it's helped. BYU every single time. And the rivalry
1:28:42
Speaker 1: game is close every single year. Do we have to
1:28:44
Speaker 1: worry about the officials screwing it up again and making
1:28:48
Speaker 1: it so Utah gets screwed here? If I'm a BYU fan,
1:28:52
Speaker 1: I'm still worried about this because my, if I'm a
1:28:55
Speaker 1: BYU fan and I'm like I still have my same personality.
1:29:00
Speaker 1: I'm going, you know what, what they're going to do
1:29:02
Speaker 1: is they're going to overcorrect. And now the poor officiating
1:29:05
Speaker 1: is going to favor Utah because they don't want to
1:29:07
Speaker 1: be seen as favoring BYU.
1:29:11
Speaker 2: Both fan bases. Here's what you can do. You can
1:29:14
Speaker 2: hate the people wearing blue. You can hate the people
1:29:16
Speaker 2: wearing red.
1:29:17
Speaker 1: Everybody needs to hate the people wearing stripes because they.
1:29:20
Speaker 2: Keep screwing it up.
1:29:22
Speaker 1: The big 12 officials this year have been horrendous. And
1:29:28
Speaker 1: I do not want officiating to be a topic of
1:29:31
Speaker 1: conversation in this holy war. It feels inevitable that it
1:29:34
Speaker 1: will be, but I do not want it to be like,
1:29:39
Speaker 1: by all means, let's talk about on Monday. Let me
1:29:42
Speaker 1: scream about a great coaching decision or a poor coaching decision.
1:29:47
Speaker 2: Do not make it like two years ago.
1:29:49
Speaker 1: Where the entire narrative around that game ended up being
1:29:53
Speaker 1: about whether or not it was a ticky-tack defensive holding
1:29:56
Speaker 1: call or the game should have been over.
1:29:58
Speaker 2: That's what it all boiled down to.
1:30:02
Speaker 1: And when referees are too large of a part of
1:30:08
Speaker 1: the conversation, it takes a significant amount away from the game.
1:30:13
Speaker 6: So I don't want that. I'm with you, OC, but
1:30:16
Speaker 6: if we're choosing... if we're saying, okay, the refs aren't
1:30:20
Speaker 6: gonna be perfect. We can't, we can't control that at all.
1:30:23
Speaker 6: And there's probably going to be what's going to be
1:30:26
Speaker 6: perceived as a bad call or most definitely a bad
1:30:29
Speaker 6: call for one of the teams late in the game.
1:30:32
Speaker 6: If we can just say that's probably going to happen
1:30:34
Speaker 6: and be able to live with that. I would prefer
1:30:36
Speaker 6: it being something of a judgment call, like a, that
1:30:40
Speaker 6: shouldn't have been a targeting, but that's what they called,
1:30:42
Speaker 6: or even two years ago, that shouldn't have been pass
1:30:45
Speaker 6: interference slash defensive holding, but that's what they called, or
1:30:47
Speaker 6: vice versa. Rather than, hey, that guy's knee was down. Hey,
1:30:52
Speaker 6: there's actually a second left on the clock, like we've seen.
1:30:55
Speaker 6: Those are inexcusable. The judgment type stuff are unfortunate, but
1:31:00
Speaker 6: it's at the very least something that, hey, there's enough
1:31:04
Speaker 6: of a thing there if you twist your body a
1:31:07
Speaker 6: little bit and squint enough that, hey, maybe that was
1:31:10
Speaker 6: the right decision by the ref on those judgment calls.
1:31:13
Speaker 2: You can't, there's.
1:31:13
Speaker 6: Nothing that can be said for the, in favor of
1:31:16
Speaker 6: the referees. If they end the game too early, like
1:31:21
Speaker 6: is like has happened a couple of times and, or,
1:31:24
Speaker 6: or like you said last week, the guy's knee was
1:31:26
Speaker 6: down before the touchdown score. Like those things have to
1:31:29
Speaker 6: be perfect. And it would be a travesty if, those
1:31:34
Speaker 6: things showed up in this holy war. So let's not
1:31:36
Speaker 6: have that happen.
1:31:37
Speaker 11: Reps.
1:31:37
Speaker 2: Okay. A hundred percent. Come on stripes. All right.
1:31:41
Speaker 1: This USC, they had a big win over the weekend
1:31:45
Speaker 1: against a team that nobody cares about except for James,
1:31:48
Speaker 1: but USC beats, USC beats Ohio state 30 to 18.
1:31:50
Speaker 10: All right.
1:31:51
Speaker 1: And that should be, A sigh of relief for USC supporters,
1:32:01
Speaker 1: a sigh of relief for Lincoln Riley.
1:32:03
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Like Lincoln Riley needs to stop.
1:32:08
Speaker 1: Having Mark Zuckerberg give him lessons on how to be human.
1:32:12
Speaker 2: It's the, he's the weirdest guy.
1:32:14
Speaker 1: He, instead of sitting down and just being ready to
1:32:19
Speaker 1: field questions and acting like a normal dude, after his
1:32:24
Speaker 1: team beat the number two ranked team in the country,
1:32:27
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley sat down and pulled a note card out
1:32:30
Speaker 1: with a prepared statement he had written beforehand about why
1:32:35
Speaker 1: he's the right person at USC. It's like, what are
1:32:39
Speaker 1: you doing, dude? And by the way, he misread his
1:32:43
Speaker 1: own statement at first. You saw this, right?
1:32:45
Speaker 10: Yeah.
1:32:46
Speaker 2: He sits down. He sits down. He's like, this is
1:32:48
Speaker 2: not a joy led. Wait, excuse me. This is a
1:32:52
Speaker 2: joy led program. It's like, dude, shut up. Just be human.
1:32:56
Speaker 2: Stop it.
1:32:57
Speaker 1: If you are bothered that people want you fired, sit
1:33:02
Speaker 1: down and pull your best Dion Sanders.
1:33:04
Speaker 2: We just beat Ohio state.
1:33:06
Speaker 1: If you still want me fired after my team beats
1:33:08
Speaker 1: Ohio state, that's on you.
1:33:10
Speaker 2: Questions, please. Exactly.
1:33:12
Speaker 1: I mean, I think USC would be better off if
1:33:18
Speaker 1: they figured something else out. I don't think Lincoln Riley
1:33:21
Speaker 1: is a complete head football coach. I think he's at
1:33:25
Speaker 1: times an offensive genius. I think he's been great at
1:33:27
Speaker 1: recruiting and developing elite quarterbacks. I think that he's got
1:33:31
Speaker 1: a significant blind spot for physicality for the defensive side
1:33:34
Speaker 1: of the ball. I think it's going to manifest itself
1:33:36
Speaker 1: for the entirety of his career, whether he's at Oklahoma
1:33:39
Speaker 1: or he's at USC or he goes to Southern miss
1:33:42
Speaker 1: or wherever he ends up.
1:33:43
Speaker 2: I just think that's part of who he is. And
1:33:45
Speaker 2: guess what?
1:33:46
Speaker 1: You used to be a pretty dang successful football coach.
1:33:49
Speaker 1: When you have elite skill in one area and you
1:33:52
Speaker 1: have a blind spot in something else, raise your hand.
1:33:55
Speaker 1: If you know anyone else who could fit that description,
1:33:58
Speaker 1: raise your hand. If there's anyone that maybe we watched
1:34:01
Speaker 1: for 21 years in this state that has elite, elite, something,
1:34:06
Speaker 1: maybe even a couple of elite traits, but has a
1:34:08
Speaker 1: blind spot that ultimately curses your ultimate success.
1:34:12
Speaker 2: All right. That's, that's a thing in college football. being
1:34:17
Speaker 2: the dude who sits down and reads the written statement.
1:34:23
Speaker 1: Is weird. And it is not going to help you
1:34:26
Speaker 1: or endear you to anyone. I Lincoln Riley is a
1:34:29
Speaker 1: good football coach. He might even be a great football coach,
1:34:32
Speaker 1: whether or not he's an elite and complete football coach.
1:34:35
Speaker 1: I think we kind of already know the answer to that.
1:34:37
Speaker 1: He'll get you a Heisman trophy. He'll get you maybe
1:34:40
Speaker 1: even a conference championship, although I don't think so on
1:34:43
Speaker 1: the big 10, but he's never going to win you
1:34:44
Speaker 1: a national championship is my opinion. on the Lincoln Riley scenario.
1:34:49
Speaker 1: And if that's not good enough for USC, then move on.
1:34:52
Speaker 1: But please enough of this weird soap opera in LA,
1:34:59
Speaker 1: all the big 10 people, by the way, all the
1:35:00
Speaker 1: big 10 fan bases, they're just like.
1:35:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep him. Keep him there.
1:35:04
Speaker 6: Speaker 2, even though he made my Buckeyes look terrible,
1:35:11
Speaker 6: made the Buckeyes backup quarterback. Who's now thrust into starting duties.
1:35:15
Speaker 6: The rest of the season look awful. Go ahead and
1:35:19
Speaker 6: keep them USC. Go ahead and keep Lincoln Riley there.
1:35:22
Speaker 6: You know, Utes fans love them. Some Lincoln Riley as you,
1:35:25
Speaker 6: as USC head coach. I mean, this is, he really,
1:35:31
Speaker 6: I don't know how, how he made upsetting the number
1:35:34
Speaker 6: two country, the number two team in the country. This
1:35:38
Speaker 6: are responding to an upset like that. This difficult, like,
1:35:41
Speaker 6: you're absolutely right. Oh, see, he should have come in there.
1:35:44
Speaker 6: Deon Sanders style saying, saying like, we just, we just
1:35:49
Speaker 6: beat maybe the best team in the country.
1:35:52
Speaker 2: Like you believe in us now. Remember when Dion did
1:35:54
Speaker 2: that after like win number four or whatever.
1:35:56
Speaker 10: Yeah.
1:35:57
Speaker 2: You believe in us now? Like obviously Lincoln Riley's not
1:36:00
Speaker 2: that way.
1:36:00
Speaker 1: And there was some, there was something like he got
1:36:04
Speaker 1: into a little like verbal spat with a coach in
1:36:07
Speaker 1: Ohio state coach as he was walking back into the
1:36:10
Speaker 1: locker room.
1:36:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had the game turned off before that.
1:36:13
Speaker 1: It was really interesting, and I saw the replay of
1:36:16
Speaker 1: it a couple times. He's walking with his family, and
1:36:18
Speaker 1: someone chirps him, and he just bleep you to the guy.
1:36:22
Speaker 3: Wow.
1:36:23
Speaker 1: And actually, it was Maurice Claret that got in between
1:36:27
Speaker 1: them and was just like, I got it, coach.
1:36:29
Speaker 6: Just let's... We just lost. Let us get into the
1:36:32
Speaker 6: locker room. Good for Maurice Claret.
1:36:34
Speaker 2: It was Maurice Claret. The Buckeyes legend. I was just like, oh, look, okay.
1:36:38
Speaker 2: Maurice down there doing good things. Oh, see, I'll tell
1:36:42
Speaker 2: you where I was.
1:36:43
Speaker 6: As soon as Ohio State got that touchdown that pulled them,
1:36:48
Speaker 6: should have pulled them within one score, but they did
1:36:50
Speaker 6: the dumb thing where they went for two instead of
1:36:53
Speaker 6: keeping it one score, and then they didn't get it.
1:36:56
Speaker 6: It's like, okay, I get that when you're down four,
1:37:00
Speaker 6: I'm starting to come around to that when you're down
1:37:02
Speaker 6: 14 in that same situation. You're either needing a touchdown
1:37:05
Speaker 6: and a two-point conversion to tie the game in your
1:37:08
Speaker 6: next drive, or an extra point gives you the lead
1:37:12
Speaker 6: in your last drive if you get the ball back.
1:37:14
Speaker 6: I do not get it when an extra point keeps
1:37:18
Speaker 6: you within eight, and then they don't get it and
1:37:20
Speaker 6: they end up being down nine. I'm like, okay, I
1:37:23
Speaker 6: don't need to watch this anymore. The game's over. So
1:37:26
Speaker 6: that's where I was with that.
1:37:29
Speaker 3: So.
1:37:30
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley, win or lose, just don't read prepared statements
1:37:35
Speaker 1: at the postgame presser.
1:37:36
Speaker 6: It's strange, man. That's what you do when you're fired.
1:37:40
Speaker 6: You have the prepared statement. Don't act like you're fired
1:37:43
Speaker 6: before you're fired, Lincoln Riley.
1:37:44
Speaker 10: Come on.
1:37:46
Speaker 2: This is local news here.
1:37:48
Speaker 1: The hometown remix sweaters are out for the Utah Mammoth.
1:37:52
Speaker 1: It is a blue, mountain blue, I think is the
1:37:56
Speaker 1: official name of the color. A mountain blue sweater with
1:37:59
Speaker 1: the alternate block. You Tuskegee logo.
1:38:03
Speaker 2: It's the, uh, university of Utah ish logo. Yeah. Uh,
1:38:07
Speaker 2: I like this. I like the logo.
1:38:08
Speaker 6: I like the look released on the week of the
1:38:11
Speaker 6: Holy war by a team owned by BYU is perhaps
1:38:13
Speaker 6: biggest donor.
1:38:14
Speaker 2: You can't make this up. He's probably, it's incredible. He's
1:38:16
Speaker 2: probably like what's worse.
1:38:17
Speaker 1: Uh, giving, giving the you like a little reference or
1:38:22
Speaker 1: making the you blue to bother.
1:38:24
Speaker 2: Everyone up there at the university of Utah. So it
1:38:26
Speaker 2: goes both ways in any case.
1:38:29
Speaker 1: The hometown remix sweaters are out and not to brag,
1:38:35
Speaker 1: but to brag you're given, if you have a season
1:38:38
Speaker 1: ticket package of any kind, you're given early access. I
1:38:41
Speaker 1: think they were anticipating that there was going to be
1:38:44
Speaker 1: like this long line of people out in front of
1:38:48
Speaker 1: the official team stores to buy these hometown remix sweaters.
1:38:53
Speaker 1: I don't think that has been the case. I don't,
1:38:56
Speaker 1: I don't know if people have jobs. I think most
1:38:59
Speaker 1: people can't stand in line to buy something before Christmas
1:39:03
Speaker 1: or whatever, but let me know if you know, eight, seven, seven, three, five, three,
1:39:07
Speaker 1: zero 700. Let me know how the sales are going.
1:39:09
Speaker 1: If you're aware, because I'm genuinely curious. I think it's
1:39:13
Speaker 1: a good sweater. I think it's a good hometown remix.
1:39:16
Speaker 1: I think a couple of teams maybe did it a
1:39:19
Speaker 1: little bit better, but top five, top five for the
1:39:22
Speaker 1: hometown remix for me with Utah using the third color
1:39:26
Speaker 1: of their repertoire of their scheme in order to get
1:39:30
Speaker 1: the hometown remix. What I am really holding my breath
1:39:32
Speaker 1: for is the winter classic sweaters. So in this 2026 season,
1:39:39
Speaker 1: as a mammoth fan, you're going to go from two
1:39:42
Speaker 1: sweater options to four sweater options. And I hate to
1:39:48
Speaker 1: bring this up because I am always a fan of
1:39:50
Speaker 1: people wanting to rock their team's gear and whatever else.
1:39:55
Speaker 1: The price point on the like tackle twill, the sewn
1:39:59
Speaker 1: on letters and numbers for the hometown remix sweaters.
1:40:05
Speaker 2: What do you think those are, James?
1:40:06
Speaker 1: How much we think one of these bad boys will
1:40:07
Speaker 1: cost you?
1:40:09
Speaker 2: What a, Regular sweater's like 200 bucks, right?
1:40:12
Speaker 1: If I want like a Trocheck, I want a Trocheck
1:40:16
Speaker 1: Hometown Remix Blue.
1:40:18
Speaker 2: What am I paying, do you think? Say at least $ 250, $ 300?
1:40:21
Speaker 2: It's $ 274.
1:40:22
Speaker 10: 99.
1:40:22
Speaker 2: That's a lot of money, man. So right in the
1:40:27
Speaker 2: middle of what I said, perfect. That's a lot of money.
1:40:30
Speaker 2: It's too expensive. Yeah. I don't know where the actual....
1:40:37
Speaker 1: Sweet spot is for fanatics and for Smith entertainment group.
1:40:42
Speaker 1: I truly don't. $ 300 is too much. I think if
1:40:49
Speaker 1: these things were $ 180, you would sell twice as many.
1:40:56
Speaker 1: And maybe you don't like your return on that. Maybe
1:40:58
Speaker 1: you don't like your profit margin on that. I really
1:41:01
Speaker 1: think though, that at some point the numbers would balance
1:41:03
Speaker 1: out because you would sell so many more, uh, once
1:41:06
Speaker 1: you get past the $ 200 price point for any piece
1:41:10
Speaker 1: of clothing, no matter what it is, you're getting into
1:41:14
Speaker 1: like a certain segment of, it has to be a special,
1:41:18
Speaker 1: special occasion. It has to be a birthday or Christmas
1:41:20
Speaker 1: present or an anniversary gift or, you know, father's day,
1:41:24
Speaker 1: mother's day, whatever.
1:41:25
Speaker 2: It's gotta be something like that.
1:41:26
Speaker 1: If you're dropping 200 or you're only selling to rich
1:41:29
Speaker 1: people over $ 200 for a singular clothing item, that is
1:41:33
Speaker 1: not like, I know a hunting jacket that is going
1:41:37
Speaker 1: to save your life when you're out in subzero temperatures.
1:41:41
Speaker 2: It's just a lot, man.
1:41:42
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's pricing a lot of people out for sure.
1:41:47
Speaker 6: And hockey sweaters, as I understand, have always been more
1:41:52
Speaker 6: expensive than other jerseys. So I guess that's just something
1:41:57
Speaker 6: we're learning. here too, is that this is this the
1:42:00
Speaker 6: price of an HL sweater, but it, it, it's unfortunate. Like,
1:42:04
Speaker 6: like you said, if they dropped it a hundred dollars,
1:42:06
Speaker 6: they'd probably sell way more.
1:42:09
Speaker 1: And every business owner in the world is like you morons.
1:42:12
Speaker 1: Of course they can't just drop it a hundred dollars.
1:42:14
Speaker 1: They cost a lot to make.
1:42:15
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know. It's just tough.
1:42:19
Speaker 1: I will say this though, as much as I'm complaining
1:42:22
Speaker 1: about these, the winter classic sweater is That thing's probably
1:42:26
Speaker 1: going to be $ 400 when they roll it out.
1:42:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's going to be the most expensive one. And
1:42:31
Speaker 2: guess what? I'm buying one. You're getting an authentic one?
1:42:35
Speaker 2: Unless it's absolutely hideous, I'm getting it. I'll say this.
1:42:40
Speaker 6: Wouldn't it be awesome if the Mammoth did something similar
1:42:46
Speaker 6: to what Utah did with their whiteout helmets for Winter Classic?
1:42:51
Speaker 6: Did some kind of icicle thing? Kind of freeze you
1:42:56
Speaker 6: out kind of motif. That would be pretty sweet.
1:42:59
Speaker 1: What I want is I want a photorealistic mammoth on
1:43:04
Speaker 1: that thing.
1:43:05
Speaker 2: There you go. Okay.
1:43:07
Speaker 1: I will also accept a frosty-themed skeletal mammoth, if you
1:43:14
Speaker 1: want to go with that.
1:43:16
Speaker 2: So use the Colombian mammoth in Fairview?
1:43:20
Speaker 10: No.
1:43:22
Speaker 2: At the museum in Fairview as a model for that?
1:43:25
Speaker 2: That'd be sweet. Dude, do you know how cool that
1:43:27
Speaker 2: sweater would be?
1:43:29
Speaker 6: It'd be a way to market, like, hey, this is
1:43:33
Speaker 6: one reason why Mammoth won the fan vote.
1:43:35
Speaker 1: We have a history of mammoths here. I would make
1:43:39
Speaker 1: that my primary mammoth sweater.
1:43:41
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
1:43:42
Speaker 2: A black one with, like, even you use blue, you
1:43:45
Speaker 2: could use white. Skeletal mammoth.
1:43:49
Speaker 1: Maybe put a couple snowflakes somewhere because it's a winter classic.
1:43:51
Speaker 2: I don't know.
1:43:52
Speaker 3: I don't know.
1:43:53
Speaker 2: That's my vote. Okay. That'd be sweet. You're welcome. I
1:43:56
Speaker 2: just designed a jersey for you. All right. We got
1:44:00
Speaker 2: to double up here.
1:44:01
Speaker 1: Zach Moss to talk about a big win on the
1:44:03
Speaker 1: road against Cincinnati. And of course, Holy war. So Sean
1:44:07
Speaker 1: O'Connell show on ESPN, 700 and 92 on FM.
1:44:16
Speaker 9: This is the Sean O'Connell Show, your home of the
1:44:19
Speaker 9: best inside of your Utes. Let's get back to O.C.
1:44:23
Speaker 9: from the Murdoch Chevrolet studio of ESPN 792.1 FM.
1:44:38
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show. Welcome in Zach Moss,
1:44:42
Speaker 1: Utah football legend, NFL veteran. Sideline analyst on the Utah
1:44:47
Speaker 1: radio broadcast. And he joins us every single week here
1:44:50
Speaker 1: on a Monday to recap the weekend and look forward
1:44:53
Speaker 1: to next week.
1:44:54
Speaker 2: Zach Moss. Welcome to the show. How are you, sir?
1:44:58
Speaker 3: Doing good. How are you guys doing?
1:44:59
Speaker 2: Great man.
1:45:00
Speaker 1: Undefeated still Utah football goes on the road and smashes
1:45:05
Speaker 1: Cincinnati big burst out performance in the first half.
1:45:09
Speaker 2: You're down there on the field. What did you see
1:45:11
Speaker 2: at Nippert stadium?
1:45:14
Speaker 3: I just saw the team that was locked in, ready
1:45:17
Speaker 3: to go. Absolutely no worries about a track game. You know,
1:45:22
Speaker 3: those guys was ready to go. They was locked in
1:45:24
Speaker 3: from the jump. It was absolutely a blitz that they
1:45:28
Speaker 3: put on Cincinnati. So that was always good to see.
1:45:30
Speaker 3: That's what you want to see when you talk about
1:45:32
Speaker 3: championship caliber teams, right? Not playing with your food. So,
1:45:36
Speaker 3: you know, those guys right there absolutely took care of
1:45:38
Speaker 3: their business early on.
1:45:39
Speaker 1: 42 to six at half. And then they come out
1:45:43
Speaker 1: of half and it's a, it's a lot slower in
1:45:45
Speaker 1: the second half. And you and I have talked about
1:45:47
Speaker 1: this before the third quarters. This one felt a little
1:45:51
Speaker 1: bit different of a lull in the third quarter. You're
1:45:54
Speaker 1: fighting human nature at that point, when you're a player,
1:45:57
Speaker 1: when you're a coach, you obviously want to stay dialed in.
1:46:00
Speaker 1: You want to make sure you're still putting your best
1:46:01
Speaker 1: foot forward, but when you're up 42 to six, really
1:46:04
Speaker 1: hard to have your foot all the way down on
1:46:06
Speaker 1: the gas pedal.
1:46:07
Speaker 2: I imagine that, What.
1:46:08
Speaker 1: Did you see in the second half? Some fans are
1:46:11
Speaker 1: worried about it.
1:46:12
Speaker 2: I don't think I am.
1:46:13
Speaker 1: What did you see in the second half that maybe
1:46:15
Speaker 1: slowed things down for Utah?
1:46:18
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a little worried about it, I will say,
1:46:21
Speaker 3: in the sense that it's not a first week thing.
1:46:24
Speaker 3: This has been something over these couple of weeks where,
1:46:28
Speaker 3: you know, they always seem to have at least one quarter,
1:46:32
Speaker 3: no matter when it might be, like be early on
1:46:34
Speaker 3: in the games. third quarter it seems to be uh
1:46:37
Speaker 3: a type of an offensive law could be a defensive
1:46:40
Speaker 3: law as well sometimes um you know in that kansas
1:46:42
Speaker 3: game where defense is absolutely just getting um you know
1:46:45
Speaker 3: shredded and stuff like that so it seems to be
1:46:48
Speaker 3: that you know this isn't a a one-time thing right
1:46:54
Speaker 3: i don't want people thinking that it's a one-time thing
1:46:56
Speaker 3: It is something that keeps showing up. And as you
1:46:59
Speaker 3: continue to get up in, you know, competition week in
1:47:02
Speaker 3: and week out, right, and these games start meaning a
1:47:05
Speaker 3: lot more. And like you say, you know, undefeated, you know,
1:47:09
Speaker 3: everybody's looking at chops to play. You can't have those quarters, right?
1:47:13
Speaker 3: You can have a few bad drives, but things can't,
1:47:17
Speaker 3: you know, essentially compound long enough to where we're talking about,
1:47:21
Speaker 3: you know, offense not looking so well, defense not looking
1:47:25
Speaker 3: so well for an entire quarter, which is why, you know,
1:47:29
Speaker 3: Cincinnati got a little bit of life going into that,
1:47:32
Speaker 3: coming out of that halftime, and same thing happened versus
1:47:34
Speaker 3: Iowa State. You know, similar things versus Utah State, where
1:47:39
Speaker 3: we scored 33. But yeah, it's hard to keep your
1:47:44
Speaker 3: foot on the pedal. You know, obviously the game plan
1:47:48
Speaker 3: changes a lot, right? You try to run the ball
1:47:51
Speaker 3: a little bit more, try to just do some some
1:47:53
Speaker 3: game managing things, which kind of takes a lot of
1:47:55
Speaker 3: the edge off for the offense. But at the same time,
1:48:00
Speaker 3: you got to be able to do the regular things, right?
1:48:04
Speaker 3: Very well, the fundamentals very well, and not just be
1:48:07
Speaker 3: able to, you know, function when, you know, we're calling
1:48:12
Speaker 3: really good plays. We got to be able to do
1:48:14
Speaker 3: certain things and churn and get into some four-minute situations
1:48:17
Speaker 3: of an offense and do those things at a high level.
1:48:20
Speaker 2: So you're eight games into the season.
1:48:24
Speaker 1: This might just be part of who you are, but
1:48:26
Speaker 1: we made that point at the beginning of the show.
1:48:28
Speaker 1: We have not yet seen this team play four complete
1:48:32
Speaker 1: quarters well, and you just pointed out sometimes it's early
1:48:35
Speaker 1: like it was against Houston, and sometimes it's later, like
1:48:40
Speaker 1: it was this week. And if you're going to have
1:48:44
Speaker 1: a lull in a game, and it's going to be
1:48:47
Speaker 1: a couple of drives long, I think you just mentioned,
1:48:50
Speaker 1: probably you can survive it. With the BYU game coming up,
1:48:54
Speaker 1: how long of a lull can you survive, knowing how
1:48:57
Speaker 1: formidable the Cougars are?
1:49:00
Speaker 3: You know, it's hard to tell because this isn't a
1:49:03
Speaker 3: regular game. No matter if both of these teams are,
1:49:07
Speaker 3: you know, 0-6 coming into this week, it's never a
1:49:11
Speaker 3: regular game. So sometimes the game plan and things that
1:49:15
Speaker 3: you have, sometimes that stuff doesn't work, right? This game,
1:49:18
Speaker 3: rivalry game, You look around the college football, right? You
1:49:22
Speaker 3: look in NFL and talk about divisional games, right? You know,
1:49:26
Speaker 3: sometimes game plan goes out the window and it's about
1:49:28
Speaker 3: who absolutely wants it a lot more. So they can't
1:49:33
Speaker 3: have it. You know, the good thing, the bright thing
1:49:35
Speaker 3: about this offense overall is that, you know, they do have,
1:49:40
Speaker 3: they do have the tendency to, you know, have some laws,
1:49:43
Speaker 3: but at the same time, they start off the games
1:49:46
Speaker 3: so fast, right? Only one game, I believe. this season
1:49:50
Speaker 3: where we didn't score an opening drive, a touchdown or
1:49:54
Speaker 3: points at all. And that was versus Houston. You know,
1:49:57
Speaker 3: and that was a team where you talk about a
1:49:59
Speaker 3: top 15 opponent where the level of competition absolutely rose
1:50:04
Speaker 3: real quick and we got shut out.
1:50:06
Speaker 4: Right.
1:50:06
Speaker 3: So that stuff right there, is something that you can't just,
1:50:10
Speaker 3: you know, toot your nose at. You've got to absolutely,
1:50:14
Speaker 3: you know, look at that, believe that to be what
1:50:16
Speaker 3: it is because football isn't a game of mirage, right?
1:50:20
Speaker 3: Whatever you see is exactly what's happening. So, you know,
1:50:24
Speaker 3: they start fast. Hopefully that continues on 10 o'clock on
1:50:30
Speaker 3: Saturday because they're definitely going to need it because it's
1:50:34
Speaker 3: hard to, you know, not– to play four full quarters
1:50:38
Speaker 3: of football, which, you know, I've been saying on our
1:50:41
Speaker 3: show with Bill and Sly that we haven't seen this
1:50:43
Speaker 3: team play four full quarters of football. So, you know,
1:50:46
Speaker 3: I'm going to say it now, hopefully those guys absolutely
1:50:50
Speaker 3: decide to play four full quarters on Saturday.
1:50:54
Speaker 1: So you've got a situation now where it's a top
1:50:58
Speaker 1: 10 Holy War. It's our, I think for most people,
1:51:01
Speaker 1: definitively the biggest Holy War game ever. And, you know,
1:51:05
Speaker 1: you're going into it You're going into it undefeated. You're
1:51:09
Speaker 1: going into it where you've been tested a little bit,
1:51:12
Speaker 1: but you haven't had that sting yet. Is there something
1:51:17
Speaker 1: to being undefeated versus like BYU where they've already got
1:51:21
Speaker 1: a loss out of the way? They know how to
1:51:23
Speaker 1: recover from that. They didn't play that great against Arizona State.
1:51:27
Speaker 1: But the confidence that comes with not only being, you know,
1:51:30
Speaker 1: a winning team, a good team, but an undefeated team
1:51:33
Speaker 1: coming into this holy war. What do you think it
1:51:35
Speaker 1: does for or against Morgan Scali's group?
1:51:39
Speaker 3: I don't think it does anything, honestly. The record is
1:51:42
Speaker 3: what the record is. The message always is to be 1-0.
1:51:49
Speaker 3: Every single game you go into, it's always a new week.
1:51:52
Speaker 3: You always start 0-0. Both teams are 0-0. They're just
1:51:54
Speaker 3: trying to go 1-0 that week. So it's very similar.
1:52:02
Speaker 3: This week, right? I don't think, you know, obviously BYU
1:52:05
Speaker 3: losing the game. You know, the bigger thing is both
1:52:07
Speaker 3: of these teams have played in big games already this year. Obviously,
1:52:11
Speaker 3: BYU versus Notre Dame and then our game versus Houston, right?
1:52:15
Speaker 3: You know, and we both played that game. at home
1:52:18
Speaker 3: right this is another big game uh and byu's on
1:52:21
Speaker 3: the road so you get a little bit of a
1:52:23
Speaker 3: confidence boost from that um but yeah the record is
1:52:26
Speaker 3: what the record is the the mission the you know
1:52:30
Speaker 3: the message that is being um preached is to go
1:52:33
Speaker 3: one and oh don't look at what we're doing and
1:52:35
Speaker 3: what we have done that's already.
1:52:36
Speaker 1: Done zach moss is our guest here on the sean
1:52:40
Speaker 1: o'connell show talking a little Utah BYU, which is of
1:52:44
Speaker 1: course the biggest game of the year so far. We
1:52:48
Speaker 1: had a Creed Whittemore game earlier. We had Braden Pagan
1:52:52
Speaker 1: have breakout games already. Noah, Benny got his breakout game.
1:52:57
Speaker 1: Dan Pierce has been pretty consistent.
1:53:00
Speaker 11: Way.
1:53:00
Speaker 2: Sean has been awesome in every game.
1:53:02
Speaker 1: Even when he doesn't have crazy stats, we had the
1:53:04
Speaker 1: Hunter Andrews breakout game against Cincinnati. He goes over a
1:53:08
Speaker 1: hundred yards. and scores a couple of touchdowns. And I'm
1:53:11
Speaker 1: looking at this roster and I'm like, okay, who's next?
1:53:14
Speaker 1: Who is Kevin McGibbon going to scheme into a great
1:53:17
Speaker 1: game next for this Utah football team? And can it
1:53:20
Speaker 1: be somebody like Daniel Bray who had some nice moments
1:53:23
Speaker 1: in last year's BYU game?
1:53:25
Speaker 2: So I extend that question to you.
1:53:26
Speaker 1: Is there still somebody on the roster that is going
1:53:30
Speaker 1: to have a breakout game?
1:53:31
Speaker 2: I mean, we're eight games in, so maybe I shouldn't
1:53:33
Speaker 2: expect it anymore.
1:53:36
Speaker 3: Um, I think you hit it on the head. We're
1:53:39
Speaker 3: eight games in. I think the offense knows exactly who
1:53:44
Speaker 3: they are. They know exactly the guys they want to
1:53:46
Speaker 3: lean on. So I don't think we might see any
1:53:50
Speaker 3: breakout games. Essentially, I think, you know, Ricky Johnson had
1:53:54
Speaker 3: a very good game, I want to say, versus Kansas. So,
1:53:59
Speaker 3: you know, the main thing is just everybody doing their
1:54:02
Speaker 3: job at a high level, right? It doesn't have to
1:54:04
Speaker 3: be one guy. Like I said, these... these rivalry games
1:54:08
Speaker 3: are absolutely totally different type ball game. Right. It doesn't matter,
1:54:13
Speaker 3: you know, you know, way Sean has had some really
1:54:15
Speaker 3: good games this year. A lot of guys have done
1:54:18
Speaker 3: really a lot of good things, but you know, when
1:54:22
Speaker 3: you have these rivalry games, all that stuff goes out
1:54:24
Speaker 3: of the window, and it's about all 11 guys on
1:54:27
Speaker 3: both sides of the ball doing everything they need to
1:54:29
Speaker 3: do to win a game like this because, you know,
1:54:32
Speaker 3: it's hitting yardage in these type of games that show up.
1:54:35
Speaker 3: Don't show up in the stat sheet, essentially, but are
1:54:37
Speaker 3: going to show up in the win-loss category. And, you know,
1:54:41
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to special teams to be a big
1:54:44
Speaker 3: part of this game and absolutely get rolling and flip
1:54:47
Speaker 3: a field and, you know, so that way we don't
1:54:49
Speaker 3: have to go down you know, 90 yards every single time.
1:54:53
Speaker 3: And our side of the ball, when we give them
1:54:55
Speaker 3: back the ball, making them have to drive the length
1:54:57
Speaker 3: of the football field. So for me, if anything, I'm
1:55:00
Speaker 3: looking for a group. It'd be special teams to really
1:55:03
Speaker 3: do some dictating of this game.
1:55:07
Speaker 2: I like that.
1:55:08
Speaker 1: Special teams getting themselves a little bit more involved here.
1:55:13
Speaker 1: You never lost to BYU in your Utah football career.
1:55:15
Speaker 2: You were part of the long streak. Is that correct?
1:55:19
Speaker 10: Yes, sir.
1:55:20
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite memory, a favorite moment from
1:55:23
Speaker 1: Utah versus BYU as a player?
1:55:29
Speaker 3: I would say, and I've never actually thought about it,
1:55:33
Speaker 3: And I think the favorite moment is probably not losing
1:55:37
Speaker 3: to those guys. Obviously, my first year versus those guys
1:55:41
Speaker 3: was 2016. And that was essentially my introductory to college football.
1:55:49
Speaker 3: I had some runs in that game that gave me
1:55:52
Speaker 3: a lot of confidence as a freshman. So my favorite
1:55:56
Speaker 3: moment is overall just not losing to that team. Um,
1:56:00
Speaker 3: because you, you see as the years go by how, uh, just,
1:56:05
Speaker 3: I guess, you know, how much you can cherish something
1:56:08
Speaker 3: like that. Uh, when talking to guys that have went
1:56:11
Speaker 3: to BYU that you come, uh, cross paths with and
1:56:14
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So that would be it for me.
1:56:16
Speaker 2: Uh, okay. So one of the games you didn't play in,
1:56:20
Speaker 2: is that right?
1:56:20
Speaker 1: Were you, were you banged up for, was it 2018
1:56:22
Speaker 1: that you didn't have any stats?
1:56:24
Speaker 8: 18.
1:56:26
Speaker 3: I didn't play yet.
1:56:27
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:56:28
Speaker 1: So do you know, in the other three BYU games,
1:56:31
Speaker 1: do you know the total number of yards you ran
1:56:33
Speaker 1: for against BYU in your career?
1:56:36
Speaker 11: No.
1:56:38
Speaker 2: All right. First one, you had 58.
1:56:39
Speaker 1: You had like four carries for 21. And I guess
1:56:44
Speaker 1: that would have been 2017 missed the 2018 game, 2019.
1:56:45
Speaker 1: Do you know how many you at least had in 2019?
1:56:54
Speaker 3: I remember I had a hundred plus. That was the
1:56:56
Speaker 3: first game back after my knee surgery. And then I
1:57:00
Speaker 3: also walked into that game with a broken hand as well.
1:57:03
Speaker 3: You had 187 yards against BYU in 2019. That is
1:57:05
Speaker 3: a monster game against the.
1:57:07
Speaker 5: Cougs.
1:57:20
Speaker 3: Wish it could have been 200. That would have been
1:57:22
Speaker 3: even better. One 87 seems nice, but it seems kind
1:57:24
Speaker 3: of weird to that number.
1:57:27
Speaker 1: Speaker 0 7, 266 rushing yards for Zach Moss in
1:57:31
Speaker 1: three games against BYU.
1:57:33
Speaker 2: That's a, that's a healthy number. That's a great number
1:57:35
Speaker 2: for Utah.
1:57:36
Speaker 3: Great.
1:57:36
Speaker 2: And we liked that.
1:57:38
Speaker 3: I'll take it. I'll take it. Cause all those yards
1:57:40
Speaker 3: essentially helped, you know, the undefeated record stay undefeated. So,
1:57:46
Speaker 3: you know, that's, that was, that's always good. Hopefully Wayshawn
1:57:50
Speaker 3: can do some of that as well and get his
1:57:54
Speaker 3: first win against that team.
1:57:56
Speaker 1: Well, one of the big things when you looked at
1:57:58
Speaker 1: this game on paper, you know, beginning of the year,
1:58:00
Speaker 1: even the first three, four games of the year, it
1:58:03
Speaker 1: felt like, you know, way, Sean, great running back at
1:58:06
Speaker 1: the university of Utah, LJ Martin, great running back at BYU.
1:58:10
Speaker 1: It would potentially be, you know, somewhat of a duel
1:58:12
Speaker 1: between them who could be more productive for their team.
1:58:15
Speaker 1: There is a question as to whether or not. LJ
1:58:18
Speaker 1: Martin is going to be available. I think he'll play,
1:58:21
Speaker 1: but then the question becomes how effective can he be
1:58:24
Speaker 1: coming directly off an injury? I think I was told
1:58:28
Speaker 1: at least that he had a surgery during that time
1:58:30
Speaker 1: off and that can always complicate recovery and things like that.
1:58:34
Speaker 1: So when you're going up against a team like BYU,
1:58:37
Speaker 1: who is, maybe either down one of their best players
1:58:41
Speaker 1: or with one of their best players limited, how does
1:58:44
Speaker 1: it change things for Utah and for what they can do,
1:58:47
Speaker 1: especially when their defense is on the field?
1:58:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that definitely changes a lot overall as
1:58:55
Speaker 3: from the scheme and things like that, that Coach Swan
1:58:58
Speaker 3: is going to want to implement and just how much
1:59:01
Speaker 3: they can actually focus on Bear Buckemeyer, right? So, you know,
1:59:06
Speaker 3: that allows them to have a lot more eyes on
1:59:08
Speaker 3: him and understand what Coach A-Rod is going to want
1:59:12
Speaker 3: to do from the games that, you know, they've already shown. um,
1:59:16
Speaker 3: how they want to use them when they haven't had LJ, right.
1:59:18
Speaker 3: You're talking about a really good player in Martin. So, um,
1:59:23
Speaker 3: you know, overall, like I said, though, you know, I,
1:59:25
Speaker 3: I keep saying this out. It's a real, uh, thing, right.
1:59:30
Speaker 3: You know, even without LJ Martin, this game is going
1:59:34
Speaker 3: to be still a tight game, especially early on, hopefully not,
1:59:39
Speaker 3: you know, too many, um, different things going on in
1:59:43
Speaker 3: the back end of the game where we can, you know,
1:59:45
Speaker 3: kind of everybody enjoy the fourth quarter a little bit
1:59:46
Speaker 3: and just kind of make sure we get out of
1:59:48
Speaker 3: here with an easy ish kind of a win. But,
1:59:51
Speaker 3: you know, those guys are still going to play, you know, extremely,
1:59:55
Speaker 3: extremely hard. You know, those guys behind LJ, they're going
1:59:58
Speaker 3: to step up, you know, because this is, like I said,
2:00:01
Speaker 3: this is a game where, you know, it's a lot
2:00:03
Speaker 3: of bragging rights just throughout the years of your life
2:00:06
Speaker 3: and things of that nature. So, yeah, Um, expect everybody to,
2:00:09
Speaker 3: you know, definitely be at their absolute best, no matter
2:00:12
Speaker 3: who's on the field.
2:00:15
Speaker 2: Turnovers are always a big feature in this game.
2:00:18
Speaker 1: One turnover can be incredibly costly. I mean, it's true
2:00:20
Speaker 1: in every game, but when, you know, most of these
2:00:22
Speaker 1: have been one score affairs, it becomes a lot more magnified. And, uh,
2:00:27
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, neither BYU or Utah in the last couple
2:00:31
Speaker 1: of games has been particularly great with their turnover margin
2:00:35
Speaker 1: and with the turnovers in general. Uh, Devin Dampier threw
2:00:39
Speaker 1: his first pick six of the season against Cincinnati, and
2:00:43
Speaker 1: he's had like a throw in each game that you
2:00:46
Speaker 1: kind of want to get back. You don't want to
2:00:49
Speaker 1: limit somebody. You don't want to make him overthink things.
2:00:52
Speaker 1: But is there a way that that can be approached
2:00:55
Speaker 1: with Dev for the Utes ahead of this Utah or
2:00:59
Speaker 1: BYU game?
2:01:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, turnovers are huge in every game,
2:01:04
Speaker 3: like you.
2:01:05
Speaker 10: Said, right?
2:01:06
Speaker 3: And you never want to have that. Dev has definitely
2:01:08
Speaker 3: had some games where, especially the last two weeks, where
2:01:12
Speaker 3: he kind of forced some things that probably, you know,
2:01:15
Speaker 3: he didn't need to. And he's looking at the film
2:01:17
Speaker 3: and he wanted to get back and all that type
2:01:19
Speaker 3: of stuff as well. But, you know, it turns out
2:01:22
Speaker 3: it's a part of the game, so you never want
2:01:23
Speaker 3: to take a player from being essentially who they are.
2:01:27
Speaker 3: You know, that's what makes these guys able to go
2:01:29
Speaker 3: out there and be really good. So, you know, it's
2:01:34
Speaker 3: hard to say, but, you know, controlling the ball, controlling
2:01:39
Speaker 3: the time of clock is going to be huge in
2:01:41
Speaker 3: this game. Both teams like to run the ball. Both
2:01:43
Speaker 3: teams have quarterbacks that have the ball in their hands
2:01:47
Speaker 3: a lot of the time, no design runs and things
2:01:51
Speaker 3: like that. So file security is going to be absolutely
2:01:55
Speaker 3: at a premium, right? Going back to... you know, those hidden,
2:01:59
Speaker 3: those hidden yards, right. When you get a turnover, right.
2:02:02
Speaker 3: And those are hidden yards when you get a turnover, right.
2:02:04
Speaker 3: You get guys start the ball on 30 yard line
2:02:07
Speaker 3: and essentially in the red zone already. You know, the
2:02:10
Speaker 3: pick six was huge on giving Cincinnati some nice little
2:02:14
Speaker 3: juice of life. So all that stuff definitely plays a
2:02:18
Speaker 3: big part into, you know, both sides of the ball.
2:02:21
Speaker 3: So yeah, definitely, definitely don't want to get into a
2:02:24
Speaker 3: turnover battle or lose the turnover battle, which we definitely did.
2:02:28
Speaker 3: I believe last week.
2:02:29
Speaker 1: Conversely, Utah was able to create points with the defense
2:02:34
Speaker 1: scoop and score touchdown and a pick six of their own,
2:02:37
Speaker 1: which kept a 23 season streak alive for the Utes
2:02:42
Speaker 1: having at least one pick six and all those seasons. And,
2:02:44
Speaker 1: you know, when you're an offensive player and you're sitting
2:02:48
Speaker 1: there and you're four drives have already been successful scoring-wise,
2:02:52
Speaker 1: and then you watch the defense get you some points
2:02:54
Speaker 1: as well. What does it do for the mentality and
2:02:57
Speaker 1: just for the team overall when the defense goes out
2:02:59
Speaker 1: and scores points?
2:03:01
Speaker 3: Oh, it makes you feel invincible. Those guys feel like
2:03:04
Speaker 3: they can't do no wrong, you know, because they already
2:03:07
Speaker 3: feel like they're going to absolutely go down there and
2:03:09
Speaker 3: put some type of points on the board every single
2:03:12
Speaker 3: time they have the ball in their hands. So, you know,
2:03:15
Speaker 3: one thing I know about turnovers is, you know, if
2:03:18
Speaker 3: you get some turnovers going in one game, they definitely
2:03:20
Speaker 3: can transfer over to another game. They come in bunches, right?
2:03:23
Speaker 3: So hopefully, you know, we get to see a lot
2:03:28
Speaker 3: more turnovers on Saturday around 10 a.m.
2:03:30
Speaker 1: 10 AM was the topic of conversation last week. And
2:03:37
Speaker 1: now it's a reality approaching, but it's on ABC, right?
2:03:40
Speaker 1: You don't even have to have cable to watch this game,
2:03:43
Speaker 1: a big showcase opportunity, even if it's early here in
2:03:46
Speaker 1: the mountain time zone and even more so on the
2:03:48
Speaker 1: Pacific coast. But you know, the, the sleepy bug in
2:03:53
Speaker 1: your head, the I'm used to playing at night. How
2:03:56
Speaker 1: do you get over all that when you're playing in
2:03:59
Speaker 1: this particular game?
2:04:01
Speaker 3: Well, you know, uh, As a player, that's going to
2:04:06
Speaker 3: be a challenge for sure. They haven't had a game
2:04:09
Speaker 3: this early at all. But again, that's part of your job.
2:04:14
Speaker 3: And if you can't get up for this type of game,
2:04:17
Speaker 3: for this type of moment, to showcase not just in-state,
2:04:22
Speaker 3: but also to the country exactly about... What what Utah
2:04:26
Speaker 3: football is about.
2:04:27
Speaker 10: Right.
2:04:28
Speaker 3: And then what the name of the back of that jersey.
2:04:30
Speaker 8: Is all about as well.
2:04:31
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not worried about the energy part from
2:04:34
Speaker 3: the guys. I think, you know, both sides of the ball,
2:04:36
Speaker 3: they'll be absolutely ready to go for this type of game.
2:04:38
Speaker 3: It's a primetime game. You don't get a lot of those.
2:04:41
Speaker 3: You know, it's really hard to get primetime games. So,
2:04:45
Speaker 3: you know, the guys will be ready to go for sure.
2:04:48
Speaker 3: Fan side of things, right? Last time I checked, Utah
2:04:52
Speaker 3: is sponsored by Monster. So go get you a Monster
2:04:55
Speaker 3: or a Red Bull, whatever you got to go get
2:04:58
Speaker 3: and be ready to go because, you know, at the
2:05:00
Speaker 3: end of the day, it's going to be a big, big, big,
2:05:03
Speaker 3: big game. And at the end of the day, everybody
2:05:05
Speaker 3: should be happy that both programs, no matter what side
2:05:09
Speaker 3: of the ball you may be on, both programs are
2:05:12
Speaker 3: being showcased and that the state is doing some really
2:05:15
Speaker 3: good things. And that football is definitely trending upwards here
2:05:19
Speaker 3: in the state of Utah.
2:05:21
Speaker 1: You'll appreciate this because you know, you're, you're a Florida guy.
2:05:25
Speaker 1: And when we talk about elite football talent and where
2:05:29
Speaker 1: it comes from and the college football scene, right? A
2:05:32
Speaker 1: lot of times it's like California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, That's
2:05:37
Speaker 1: where the fertile recruiting grounds are and all that.
2:05:39
Speaker 2: Crazy right now.
2:05:41
Speaker 1: You can only create top 10 matchups with schools from
2:05:44
Speaker 1: two States.
2:05:45
Speaker 2: One of those is Utah. And we get one on Saturday.
2:05:49
Speaker 1: The only other state that could give us a top
2:05:51
Speaker 1: 10 matchup with schools in their own States right now
2:05:54
Speaker 1: is Indiana. Cause Indiana and Notre Dame are both in
2:05:57
Speaker 1: the top 10. Like Florida can't do it right now.
2:06:00
Speaker 1: Texas can't do it right now. California can't do it
2:06:02
Speaker 1: right now. College football is weird in that this year is,
2:06:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to make the argument. Utah and Indiana are
2:06:09
Speaker 1: the top states in the land.
2:06:12
Speaker 10: Yeah.
2:06:13
Speaker 14: Yeah.
2:06:14
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of. good ball being played in
2:06:18
Speaker 3: both of those states. We'll see how it all essentially
2:06:22
Speaker 3: ends up, you know, but it's been really, really cool,
2:06:26
Speaker 3: you know, essentially be, you know, back a part of
2:06:28
Speaker 3: the program in some degree and watching the program have
2:06:32
Speaker 3: absolutely one of the best seasons so far with a
2:06:37
Speaker 3: lot more to go and then getting to the playoffs
2:06:39
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So, you know, It's great. You
2:06:42
Speaker 3: don't take these things for granted. It's really hard to
2:06:45
Speaker 3: be undefeated. It's really, really hard to do that, especially
2:06:48
Speaker 3: when a lot of good football is being played around
2:06:50
Speaker 3: the country. So, yeah, I would say, you know, both
2:06:53
Speaker 3: of these states are definitely doing some really good things
2:06:56
Speaker 3: and just got to keep it going.
2:06:58
Speaker 1: Last thing before I let you go, as someone who
2:07:00
Speaker 1: was not raised with this rivalry, right? Like how long
2:07:04
Speaker 1: when you were on campus, did it take before you
2:07:07
Speaker 1: realized before you started to feel like, how much Utah
2:07:11
Speaker 1: versus BYU meant.
2:07:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, my freshman year was, you know,
2:07:16
Speaker 3: after that game, I kind of realized that, you know,
2:07:19
Speaker 3: obviously growing up in Miami and yeah, Miami, Florida State,
2:07:23
Speaker 3: Florida State, Florida, Miami, Florida, right? All those rival games are,
2:07:29
Speaker 3: you know, huge and you learn about those, but it's
2:07:32
Speaker 3: different because, you know, you haven't played for those schools
2:07:36
Speaker 3: or anything of that nature, but you see the videos
2:07:38
Speaker 3: and And, you know, they would essentially show the highlights
2:07:43
Speaker 3: of Utah versus BYU every single day. The fight song
2:07:47
Speaker 3: of BYU every single day. The monitors all across the
2:07:51
Speaker 3: facility is just the highlights, right, of, you know, essentially
2:07:54
Speaker 3: Utah just dominating BYU. And, you know, once you became,
2:07:59
Speaker 3: I became BYU. starter, that's when, you know, it definitely
2:08:04
Speaker 3: started to mean a lot more. And like I said,
2:08:07
Speaker 3: that's when I realized that, you know, this is something,
2:08:09
Speaker 3: it's not just a game. It's something that, you know,
2:08:12
Speaker 3: You know, I coach high school football now, so little
2:08:15
Speaker 3: kids that are BYU fans and things like that, you know,
2:08:19
Speaker 3: everybody talks about it. So it's really cool to be
2:08:24
Speaker 3: on just the winning side of the rivalry, but it's
2:08:27
Speaker 3: a huge thing that, you know, you never want to
2:08:29
Speaker 3: never not win versus BYU. You never want to be
2:08:33
Speaker 3: that class, that group. I've played with guys that played
2:08:36
Speaker 3: at Michigan and Ohio State and, you know, played with
2:08:40
Speaker 3: some guys that they just never beat. Michigan or Ohio state. And,
2:08:44
Speaker 3: you know, that eats at them. They can be, you know, 30, 32,
2:08:49
Speaker 3: and it's a big deal. So hopefully our guys who've
2:08:53
Speaker 3: done so many good things for the program and Dan
2:08:57
Speaker 3: Pierre and Parker, and so many more on both sides
2:09:00
Speaker 3: of the ball, they can, you know, nobody knows what
2:09:03
Speaker 3: the future looks like, but hopefully those guys, never have
2:09:06
Speaker 3: to say they never beat BYU because that'll be something
2:09:11
Speaker 3: that definitely will bother them a little bit.
2:09:14
Speaker 1: We're going to hope that doesn't happen for any of
2:09:16
Speaker 1: these guys on the roster.
2:09:18
Speaker 2: Zach, we'll see you up there on Saturday morning. Appreciate
2:09:21
Speaker 2: your time. Thank you, sir.
2:09:23
Speaker 3: Absolutely, guys. Take care. Zach Moss, 266.
2:09:25
Speaker 1: Yards against BYU in his career and 187 in the
2:09:28
Speaker 1: final year. Really, really put the Emphasis on his contribution
2:09:37
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Speaker 4: All right.
2:10:47
Speaker 1: Speaking of important initiatives, it is becoming that time of
2:10:50
Speaker 1: season where we get some opportunities to give back. The
2:10:53
Speaker 1: Road Home and Candy Cane Corner have been great partners
2:10:57
Speaker 1: with Broadway Media for a very long time. We'll talk
2:10:59
Speaker 1: about some of the stuff they've got going on as
2:11:01
Speaker 1: the holidays approach. That's next on ESPN 700 and 92.1 FM.
2:11:13
Speaker 9: You are listening to The Sean O'Connell Show, your source
2:11:16
Speaker 9: for the best youth football coverage. Here's O.C. from the
2:11:19
Speaker 9: Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM.
2:11:33
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Sean O'Connell Show. We're going to
2:11:35
Speaker 1: talk some candy cane corner here in just a second.
2:11:38
Speaker 1: Good news for Utah today. On the recruiting front, and
2:11:42
Speaker 1: I don't talk a ton about this. There's a lot
2:11:44
Speaker 1: of people who are a lot more dialed in than me.
2:11:47
Speaker 1: Our friends at Ute Zone who join us on Wednesdays,
2:11:50
Speaker 1: they do a good job following the recruiting picture.
2:11:52
Speaker 2: You guys know where to find it, but.
2:11:57
Speaker 1: This is big news. So Moa Brown, who plays, he
2:12:03
Speaker 1: projects as an offensive tackle. He's a Corner Canyon High
2:12:07
Speaker 1: School player right now.
2:12:08
Speaker 2: He's a big old boy.
2:12:10
Speaker 1: He's from the same, if you remember, Mania Brown, Manasseh Brown,
2:12:16
Speaker 1: that were, you know, Granger back in my day. Big,
2:12:19
Speaker 1: big guys that just had a lot of success in
2:12:22
Speaker 1: both college football and, you know, at least their flirtation
2:12:27
Speaker 1: with the pros. Moa Brown is a three-star offensive tackle.
2:12:32
Speaker 1: He's 6'7. He's a basketball player, light feet, really athletic.
2:12:38
Speaker 1: And look, if he does everything right, he projects to
2:12:42
Speaker 1: be potentially an NFL talent. Now he's going to have
2:12:45
Speaker 1: to put some weight on the frame and all that
2:12:48
Speaker 1: kind of stuff.
2:12:49
Speaker 2: A smart kid does well in.
2:12:50
Speaker 1: School and a good kid from what some of his
2:12:55
Speaker 1: previous coaches have told me.
2:12:57
Speaker 2: I don't know him. I did talk to him at
2:13:00
Speaker 2: one of the Utah games, a Utah state game, actually.
2:13:03
Speaker 1: Just to, A big in-state talent, number six overall rated
2:13:08
Speaker 1: player in the state of Utah in the class of 2027.
2:13:13
Speaker 1: He decommitted from Fresno last week. He made his announcement today.
2:13:18
Speaker 1: He will sign with the University of Utah. He intends,
2:13:22
Speaker 1: he is committed to the University of Utah. And I'm
2:13:26
Speaker 1: really hesitant to talk about commitments and to talk about
2:13:29
Speaker 1: stuff like this, but it serves today on the show.
2:13:34
Speaker 1: to discuss something that's so important where Utah's at and
2:13:37
Speaker 1: where this particular game is at on the slate and
2:13:43
Speaker 1: where it's being played. Rice Eccles Stadium is going to
2:13:47
Speaker 1: be hosting, obviously, 51,000 of you and also 50-plus high-value
2:13:54
Speaker 1: recruits for this University of Utah football program, guys that
2:13:57
Speaker 1: they're trying to get to sign in either the 2027, 2028,
2:14:00
Speaker 1: 2029 classes. right? Like big time, important recruits come in
2:14:06
Speaker 1: for games like this. Now it's not wholly dependent on
2:14:10
Speaker 1: whether like their signings one way or another, not wholly
2:14:13
Speaker 1: dependent on whether or not you win these games, but
2:14:15
Speaker 1: it doesn't hurt when the atmosphere is great and you
2:14:18
Speaker 1: win a game and it's a top 10 matchup. And
2:14:22
Speaker 1: pretty much every one of these guys is also on
2:14:24
Speaker 1: BYU's radar and is being recruited by BYU. I mean,
2:14:27
Speaker 1: it goes a long way. We have seen BYU with
2:14:31
Speaker 1: their NIL opportunities and with them winning the last three
2:14:33
Speaker 1: in these start to claw back the dominance in state
2:14:37
Speaker 1: that Utah had been able to establish with the top players.
2:14:40
Speaker 1: And really there was a time not so long ago,
2:14:42
Speaker 1: we're talking five or six years ago, where it was like,
2:14:44
Speaker 1: Oregon would get the number one guy from the state
2:14:47
Speaker 1: of Utah. And then Utah would get the number two
2:14:50
Speaker 1: guy from the state of Utah and maybe the number
2:14:52
Speaker 1: four guy and the number six guy and the number
2:14:53
Speaker 1: eight guy and BYU was fighting to stay in those conversations.
2:14:59
Speaker 2: And it's balanced out a lot.
2:15:03
Speaker 1: And if you can beat BYU and you're now the
2:15:04
Speaker 1: 9-0 team and you're the No. 3 team and they're
2:15:07
Speaker 1: the No. 10 team at that point, it goes such
2:15:11
Speaker 1: a long way in these conversations. It is a huge
2:15:14
Speaker 1: recruiting weekend for the University of Utah. This young man,
2:15:17
Speaker 1: Moe Brown, has already levied his commitment.
2:15:20
Speaker 2: He's already put it out there. BYU still wants him.
2:15:25
Speaker 1: So another important reason for this Utah team football team
2:15:30
Speaker 1: to put their best foot forward on Saturday morning at
2:15:33
Speaker 1: Rice Eccles stadium recruitment, especially in the state recruitment, fighting
2:15:39
Speaker 1: it out for the top talent in state with BYU.
2:15:43
Speaker 1: And now, as we've talked about many times on the show,
2:15:46
Speaker 1: you are, you're not a secret anymore.
2:15:49
Speaker 2: Guys like this.
2:15:50
Speaker 1: If you're a 280 pound, six foot, seven inch offensive
2:15:53
Speaker 1: tackle at corner Canyon high school, It's not just Utah
2:15:57
Speaker 1: and BYU and all, maybe like a couple of California
2:16:00
Speaker 1: schools and people out West know about you.
2:16:03
Speaker 2: Georgia's recruiting here. Alabama's recruiting here.
2:16:07
Speaker 1: Oklahoma's recruiting here, but a big gap for the university
2:16:12
Speaker 1: of Utah and for Jordan gross, who is already making
2:16:17
Speaker 1: some hay. Although he, He got bad news already, and
2:16:22
Speaker 1: we learned it today. Kelvin Obot, the prize of last
2:16:26
Speaker 1: year's recruiting class, the number one rated recruit in program history,
2:16:30
Speaker 1: a young man who started several games for Utah this year,
2:16:33
Speaker 1: played in all of the games, but started several of
2:16:35
Speaker 1: the games that he played in to the halfway point
2:16:39
Speaker 1: in the season.
2:16:41
Speaker 2: He will be out for the rest of the season.
2:16:44
Speaker 2: Looked like an ankle. I think he got rolled up
2:16:46
Speaker 2: on in that Colorado game.
2:16:49
Speaker 10: So.
2:16:50
Speaker 1: Bummer, but the offensive line has played well, both with
2:16:54
Speaker 1: him and without him. And now one more talented man
2:16:57
Speaker 1: in the pipeline. All right, let's talk a little candy
2:17:00
Speaker 1: cane corner here on your home of the Utes ESPN, 792,
2:17:05
Speaker 1: one FM.
2:17:06
Speaker 3: All right.
2:17:06
Speaker 9: You know what?
2:17:07
Speaker 1: It's time to talk candy cane corner and Jeff Carissa
2:17:10
Speaker 1: and Dan are all in here to talk candy cane corner,
2:17:13
Speaker 1: but I distracted them into talking a little football, BYU, Utah.
2:17:18
Speaker 1: We got into some fantasy talk. Now let's focus on
2:17:21
Speaker 1: what actually matters. The candy cane corner has been supporting
2:17:24
Speaker 1: families for over 30 years and starting a month from today,
2:17:30
Speaker 1: it's going to happen again. You're going to have an
2:17:32
Speaker 1: opportunity to help the candy cane corner, make sure families
2:17:34
Speaker 1: in our community get taken care of.
2:17:37
Speaker 2: First of all, welcome in. Thank you all for being here.
2:17:39
Speaker 2: Thanks for having us. Jeff, let's start with you. The
2:17:43
Speaker 2: reason behind candy cane corner, the why.
2:17:45
Speaker 14: Yeah, it's all about providing the magic of the holidays of,
2:17:50
Speaker 14: people opening up their presents on Christmas and knowing that
2:17:53
Speaker 14: someone cares about them, that they are loved. And we
2:17:55
Speaker 14: have the opportunity to help them do that, help them
2:17:58
Speaker 14: experience the joy of the holidays.
2:17:59
Speaker 1: And when you think about these charitable, you know, drives initiatives,
2:18:04
Speaker 1: especially around the holidays, one of the big questions is like,
2:18:07
Speaker 1: all right, well, how many people are we reaching here?
2:18:10
Speaker 1: Should I just maybe grab, you know, one family off
2:18:13
Speaker 1: a tree somewhere and support them? And this, this has
2:18:16
Speaker 1: been kind of like you personalize it, but, but it's
2:18:20
Speaker 1: really far reaching. Are these numbers accurate that last year alone,
2:18:24
Speaker 1: it was 1700 men, women, and children taken care of.
2:18:27
Speaker 10: Yes.
2:18:27
Speaker 11: And we were doing the math this year and it's
2:18:29
Speaker 11: probably going to be closer to 1,800. And so what
2:18:32
Speaker 11: happens is those people that are experiencing homelessness that are
2:18:34
Speaker 11: getting services from the Road Home or Volunteers of America,
2:18:38
Speaker 11: we work with their case managers. We've been working with
2:18:40
Speaker 11: them for some time and get to know the families
2:18:42
Speaker 11: and we get to do a one-on-one voucher of, okay,
2:18:44
Speaker 11: what does mom and dad want for Christmas? What does
2:18:48
Speaker 11: Johnny want for Christmas? And what does Robbie want? And
2:18:50
Speaker 11: we go through these lists and they get back to
2:18:53
Speaker 11: us at Candy Cane Corner and we go through with
2:18:55
Speaker 11: our volunteers and we do one-on-one shopping all these families
2:18:59
Speaker 11: and make sure that they have the items that they
2:19:00
Speaker 11: want this holiday season so it is a personalized experience
2:19:03
Speaker 11: although our clients do not come to the come to
2:19:06
Speaker 11: the store anymore it's a really great opportunity for our
2:19:08
Speaker 11: volunteers to get a glimpse of the people that we
2:19:10
Speaker 11: serve and what they want for christmas this year.
2:19:13
Speaker 1: Candy cane corner slc.com and there's a lot there's a
2:19:17
Speaker 1: lot of ways you can give even if you don't
2:19:19
Speaker 1: have the financial means you can help out this cause
2:19:22
Speaker 1: even if you don't have the extra money laying around Sure.
2:19:24
Speaker 16: Yeah, we take volunteers that help operate the whole endeavor.
2:19:28
Speaker 2: So we have volunteer opportunities.
2:19:30
Speaker 16: But, yeah, it doesn't take a whole lot to provide
2:19:33
Speaker 16: just a small gift, unwrapped, drop it off in one
2:19:36
Speaker 16: of the boxes, and that person is going to be
2:19:39
Speaker 16: able to, that otherwise wouldn't be able to have a Christmas,
2:19:42
Speaker 16: is going to have something on Christmas morning.
2:19:45
Speaker 1: And probably no surprise, but some of the top needs
2:19:48
Speaker 1: that the Candy Cane Corner has this year are kind
2:19:50
Speaker 1: of the things that are on our own Christmas list, right?
2:19:53
Speaker 11: Yeah.
2:19:53
Speaker 2: You ask your husband, your wife, your mom, your dad,
2:19:56
Speaker 2: your kid, what do you want for Christmas? It's the
2:19:58
Speaker 2: same stuff.
2:19:59
Speaker 8: Exactly.
2:19:59
Speaker 11: These people are exactly like you and I. They're just
2:20:02
Speaker 11: going through something that is very traumatizing and very hard.
2:20:05
Speaker 11: But they are just like everyone else. And, you know,
2:20:08
Speaker 11: we do this when we go back to school campaigns.
2:20:10
Speaker 11: We talk about them. They're just kids going back to
2:20:12
Speaker 11: school like any other kid. They're just families that are
2:20:14
Speaker 11: having a rough time during the holiday season. And they're
2:20:17
Speaker 11: just like my family, just like your family. And a
2:20:20
Speaker 11: great way to think about it is when I go
2:20:21
Speaker 11: Christmas shopping and I want to donate, I just grab
2:20:24
Speaker 11: literally the same thing that my son is wanting or
2:20:26
Speaker 11: something that my husband wants. And I put it in
2:20:28
Speaker 11: the cart and I know one's going to my husband.
2:20:30
Speaker 11: One's going to someone that needs it. Can't be any
2:20:32
Speaker 11: easier than that.
2:20:33
Speaker 2: Great way to think about it. Headphones, both wired and wireless. Makeup.
2:20:37
Speaker 1: I got three daughters, let me tell you. Extra makeup
2:20:41
Speaker 1: is always a good thing. Sports balls, right? We're a
2:20:45
Speaker 1: sports talk radio station. Let's make that our initiative at
2:20:48
Speaker 1: ESPN 700. Let's provide all the sports needs for these
2:20:52
Speaker 1: families that are being taken care of. And if you're
2:20:54
Speaker 1: like me and you get a little bit overwhelmed by
2:20:57
Speaker 1: all the options, gift cards. Heaven sent for us lazy
2:21:00
Speaker 1: gift givers, right?
2:21:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
2:21:02
Speaker 11: If you are interested in giving a gift card, we
2:21:04
Speaker 11: really encourage you to check out Canyon King Corner SLC
2:21:07
Speaker 11: dot com to figure out how you can get that
2:21:09
Speaker 11: gift card back to us. Our friends about in America
2:21:11
Speaker 11: are really looking for those gifts. So we're looking for toys,
2:21:14
Speaker 11: all those unwrapped items. And we would just love to
2:21:17
Speaker 11: see whatever you all can bring.
2:21:19
Speaker 1: OK, so drop off locations as people are stocking up.
2:21:23
Speaker 1: We've got the Geraldine King Resource Center. Mount America Credit
2:21:27
Speaker 1: Union locations, is that all of them?
2:21:28
Speaker 14: We have 50 branches throughout the Wasatch Front where you
2:21:32
Speaker 14: can drop off these items. We have donation boxes. So everywhere,
2:21:36
Speaker 14: think Ogden, Spanish Fork, Tooele, Park City, everywhere in between.
2:21:39
Speaker 14: And usually they're located near a shopping center. So it's
2:21:42
Speaker 14: really simple. Just go get an extra item or two,
2:21:44
Speaker 14: drop them off at those donation boxes.
2:21:46
Speaker 2: We'll make sure they get to the people who need
2:21:48
Speaker 2: them most. That's this month. That's in the month of November.
2:21:50
Speaker 1: And then the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera Rehearsal Hall,
2:21:54
Speaker 1: December 2nd through the 10th.
2:21:56
Speaker 11: Yes, and if you want to find out when you
2:21:58
Speaker 11: can drop off those items during that time, check out
2:22:01
Speaker 11: our store. We do ask for donation appointments, but honestly,
2:22:03
Speaker 11: just come on by. Come say hi, check out the store,
2:22:06
Speaker 11: see how it's going to give back.
2:22:09
Speaker 2: CandyCaneCornerSLC.com. Let's do this, people. Best week of the year
2:22:15
Speaker 2: for us, Holy War Week. Let's rally. Let's be generous.
2:22:18
Speaker 1: Let's start this drive off right for Candy Cane Corner.
2:22:21
Speaker 2: Thanks, all of you, for being here. Thanks for having us.
2:22:23
Speaker 2: And go Utes, everyone, right? Go Utes. Right? We got
2:22:28
Speaker 2: one out of three.
2:22:31
Speaker 1: It's the Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN 700, 92.1 FM.
2:22:40
Speaker 9: You're listening to the Sean O'Connell Show, your source for
2:22:43
Speaker 9: the best Utes football coverage.
2:22:45
Speaker 8: Here's O.C.
2:22:46
Speaker 9: From the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN 700 at 92.1 FM.
2:23:03
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell show.
2:23:06
Speaker 1: No crosstalk today, but we always love the final segment
2:23:08
Speaker 1: of the show brought to you by Advanced Window Products, 801-850-9100.
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Speaker 4: All right.
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Speaker 1: We have tickets to Queens of the Stone Age. They're
2:23:49
Speaker 1: coming May 11th to the Delta Center.
2:23:53
Speaker 2: 877-353-0700.
2:23:54
Speaker 1: Zach Moss was on the show earlier today, as he
2:23:56
Speaker 1: is every Monday. His final year at the University of
2:23:59
Speaker 1: Utah is last season, 2019. How many rushing yards did
2:24:03
Speaker 1: Zach Moss have against BYU? Monster game against the Cougs
2:24:08
Speaker 1: for Zach Moss. How many was it? We talked about
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Speaker 1: it during our conversation with Zach Moss. 877-353-0700. Two tickets
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Speaker 1: to Queens of the Stone Age at the Delta Center
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Speaker 1: next May if you have that answer. Spence Checketts and
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Speaker 1: The Drive are coming at you today live from the
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Speaker 1: virtual dugout.
2:24:29
Speaker 2: That's 90 North, 500 West in Lehigh.
2:24:32
Speaker 1: Go down, enter to win a signed Utah Utes football
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Speaker 1: from Devin Dampier.
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Speaker 1: the future of Great show today. Appreciate everyone who weighed in.
2:24:49
Speaker 1: Let's see if there's anything I forgot on the text line.
2:24:52
Speaker 1: We had a really good chunk of interaction from the fans. Okay,
2:24:59
Speaker 1: this is from 8503.
2:25:00
Speaker 2: I like this one. All right. We were talking about
2:25:03
Speaker 2: this earlier. Ute fan here.
2:25:04
Speaker 1: LJ Martin is elite, and no matter how advanced your
2:25:06
Speaker 1: sports science department is or the magic cocktail of peptides
2:25:09
Speaker 1: you're exposed to, a lower leg injury at that position
2:25:12
Speaker 1: in his level won't have cardio explosiveness or twitchiness. 80%
2:25:17
Speaker 1: chance he's now average. Play him advantage Utes. That is,
2:25:21
Speaker 1: by the way, something that Kalani Satake and his coaching
2:25:25
Speaker 1: staff have to figure out with LJ Martin.
2:25:28
Speaker 2: Now, I generally....
2:25:31
Speaker 1: Err on the side of optimism for BYU here, where
2:25:37
Speaker 1: a young man of his health and his fitness and
2:25:43
Speaker 1: the great medical care available to him down there at BYU,
2:25:48
Speaker 1: he's going to have like every opportunity to get back
2:25:51
Speaker 1: and to be a lot closer to fully healthy than,
2:25:54
Speaker 1: I don't know, you or I would have.
2:25:57
Speaker 10: Right.
2:25:57
Speaker 2: But there are limitations to all of that.
2:26:00
Speaker 1: And BYU has to balance their goals for the season
2:26:05
Speaker 1: with their goals for Saturday.
2:26:07
Speaker 2: In most cases, they're one in the same.
2:26:09
Speaker 1: In the case of LJ Martin, that's where you could
2:26:12
Speaker 1: run into some friction with those two things. Your best
2:26:17
Speaker 1: overall player, probably on the team, LJ Martin coming back
2:26:21
Speaker 1: and being 80%.
2:26:21
Speaker 2: Is that enough?
2:26:25
Speaker 1: For him to be effective against a really solid Utah defense.
2:26:28
Speaker 1: Can he give you at 80%? Can he give you
2:26:30
Speaker 1: like 75 yards on the ground in this game and
2:26:34
Speaker 1: maybe a touchdown and help you win? Or maybe he's
2:26:37
Speaker 1: not quite 80% and is 70% LJ. Martin is taking
2:26:42
Speaker 1: advantages or taking opportunities. I should say away from other
2:26:45
Speaker 1: players on the team. Now they haven't really done much
2:26:50
Speaker 1: with their opportunities, but we're going to take a look
2:26:52
Speaker 1: at some of the numbers and, on the show later
2:26:55
Speaker 1: this week.
2:26:56
Speaker 2: And I'll, I'll tell you why I think some of
2:26:58
Speaker 2: that is.
2:26:59
Speaker 1: Aaron Roderick wants LJ Martin. He wants Colton Swan to
2:27:03
Speaker 1: have to account for LJ Martin. Is it worth having
2:27:06
Speaker 1: him out there just as kind of a decoy, right?
2:27:08
Speaker 1: These are all like where checkers becomes chess in an
2:27:13
Speaker 1: injury situation like this one, LJ Martin is phenomenal. And
2:27:17
Speaker 1: of course I'm looking at this from a Utah lens.
2:27:20
Speaker 1: If he's 90%, 90% L LJ Martin, probably better than all,
2:27:27
Speaker 1: but two of the running backs that you've seen so
2:27:29
Speaker 1: far this year, Aiden Flora and Cole tab get a
2:27:33
Speaker 1: ton of respect.
2:27:34
Speaker 2: They deserve it.
2:27:35
Speaker 1: They're really good players, but 90% LJ Martin is probably
2:27:39
Speaker 1: better than every other running back. You've had to play against.
2:27:42
Speaker 1: So if he's 90% in your BYU, you're like, absolutely.
2:27:46
Speaker 2: Let's ride.
2:27:49
Speaker 1: That injury report will come out on Wednesday. There's obviously
2:27:53
Speaker 1: the questions about how transparent people are. The betting line is,
2:27:58
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a real close look at that.
2:27:59
Speaker 1: If they get more information than we do, I think
2:28:02
Speaker 1: Vegas has to reflect his presence or his absence. Line
2:28:06
Speaker 1: went from three to three and a half to five
2:28:08
Speaker 1: and a half pretty quickly on this game. And of course,
2:28:12
Speaker 1: the betting patterns of BYU fans are going to change
2:28:14
Speaker 1: some of that. And recent conversations at general conference are
2:28:21
Speaker 1: potentially going to change the betting patterns of BYU fans.
2:28:24
Speaker 2: So there's that.
2:28:26
Speaker 6: Does that mean it's more likely that Utes are going
2:28:29
Speaker 6: to stay favored and maybe the line goes up? Is
2:28:32
Speaker 6: that what we should read into it here? I think
2:28:34
Speaker 6: that's how that works, yeah.
2:28:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. All right. Interesting dynamic to the Holy Wars.
2:28:41
Speaker 1: I think that the number can get misleadingly large because
2:28:44
Speaker 1: all the betting is coming in on one side, if
2:28:48
Speaker 1: that makes sense.
2:28:49
Speaker 3: Yeah.
2:28:49
Speaker 2: So we'll see. But that's all for today. Thanks for listening.
2:28:54
Speaker 2: Thanks for weighing in. We'll do it. Tomorrow as well.
2:28:59
Speaker 2: Stay tuned for the drive.
2:29:00
Speaker 1: And if you have an opportunity, stop by at the
2:29:03
Speaker 1: virtual dugout down there in Lehigh.
2:29:06
Speaker 2: Tell Spence that we sent you.
2:29:09
Speaker 1: It's 90 North 500 West at the virtual dugout. And
2:29:13
Speaker 1: you can go and enter to win a signed Devin
2:29:16
Speaker 1: Dampier football. Thanks for listening to Utah's number one sports
2:29:22
Speaker 1: talk in your home of the Utes.
2:29:23
Speaker 2: It's rivalry week, baby. Holy war on Saturday, ESPN 700
2:29:26
Speaker 2: and 92 on FM.