Latest / The Sooners On SI Podcast / Sooners on SI Podcast 353: Dirt is Moving on New Facilities in Norman, Recruiting Rolls on and the Diamond Sports Prepare for the Postseason

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Sooners on SI Podcast 353: Dirt is Moving on New Facilities in Norman, Recruiting Rolls on and the Diamond Sports Prepare for the Postseason · The Sooners On SI Podcast

• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: What's up, everybody?
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: It is that time of week, Sooner's on a side podcast, taking off here on a Wednesday, a hump day, almost the middle of May, which is kind of insane, because it feels like just a little bit ago, we were all dragging ourselves out of the stadium after a playoff game, but neither here nor there, no who today, so myself, Ryan Chapman, joined by
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: The typical crew usually got our man Carson Field down in Normank, Carson.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is your time of year, my guy.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: There is plenty of great golf weather ahead.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think around these parts.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, it is a great time of the year for several reasons.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, like you said, golf weather, play off hockey, play off basketball.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now postseason diamond sports right around the corner, excited about it, also it should be fun.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: a fun time, a busy time in some different ways, which is great.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: A man who is doing a little bit of all that he's got his hand in every cookie jar, Ryan Aber, how are you, my friend?
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: doing great just got a little bit of sun yesterday at the ground breaking event which I didn't even realize until after I got home and start feeling a little bit weird and you're like, yeah, I was actually out in the sun today for quite a while, but it was an interesting day yesterday between that and the sawpball interviews yesterday afternoon, which was also a nice to get those done a little bit early.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: Also, it's not every day you get a FaceTime from me, which at the look on your face was out of her.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Listen, I don't call people, I don't FaceTime people unless I am on the road and need something ASAP or unless there's something like, I need your help on a picture of something, and I was like, I could text it back and forth or I could just show it to him.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: But the panic on Ryan's face, I wish you guys could see that he was like, what has happened, Ryan is fit, oh, okay?
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it looks fine, good, okay.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was I thought for sure it was going to be like a pocket dial situation because that happens to me quite frequently with my last name.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm first in a lot of people's contact lists, so sometimes it defaults to that first one to make the pocket dial, but we got it figured out I was just glad you weren't rubbing my nose in it about 30 seconds after we hung up as the braves got a home run.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: I thought that that was the perfect way to end the call.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And you had to sit through all of the remembrances, which is great and awesome, but it's just one of those, you can't lose on the day that you're remembering everybody.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: You might be first in the contact book, you're last in my heart though, sorry.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: The man this number one in my heart, we pulled him out of the bunker, Brady triathlete and Brady.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if we have been on the pod together, you're usually filling in for me or stuff like that, but I hope we don't keep moving the bunker too long today.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, you don't, you don't want to go too long without John Hoover, but I'll try my best to do half of his half as well as how he does.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's all we're all going to figure it out.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Either everyone in the comment section is going to get this door out of here or it's like, okay, he's fine, just in, you know, here and there, not all the time.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, at Listen, we're sports riders, trains were all dorks by definition, and that's okay.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think we all accepted that a long time ago.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Boys, we got, we're inching a little bit closer football.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've just hit our off season solstice.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think that was a week or two ago.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Shout out to Chris Bowshy, who's always on top of the perfect midpoint between season ending and opening day.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: We did get our first kickoff time of the year.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is no real shock.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oklahoma's return trip to Michigan.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: is going to be a big noon kickoff and it's going to actually be at noon for us in Arbor, noon, Eastern, obviously 11AM, Central.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: The only thing that really would have put this up in the air is if NBC would have stepped in on some of their big tin rights and tried to somehow get the game, but Brady, I just know that everyone around here, we don't have to do it very often, but sometimes you have to go back to big 12 country into your big 12 roots and just
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, why not?
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look, this is probably, this is definitely a minority opinion, and this is definitely probably the wrong opinion.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I don't know, like the thought of going to Ann Arbor, the thought of going to the big house.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: To me, yes, the colors would pop much better under the lights.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're talking about prime weather up in the northern part of the country.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: in the evening.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be September and Michigan, so it's still going to be pretty warm, not as hot as it is down here in Oklahoma or Texas, but still fairly warm.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: But every time I've watched Michigan on TV when they're playing at home because they're in the big tin, it's usually during the day.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, hey, if you want to get the full Michigan Wolverine experience, if you're going to be able to make the trip, before it's enough to go up there, you
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: May as well just be under the heat of the hot sun.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a clear sunny day.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I know most people want to prefer it to be at night.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was an electric atmosphere last year in Norman with that game being a prime time kickoff.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, everything looks great.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The helmet schools, the blue blood, the fan base is, I mean, Michigan just being a yellow jersey team.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: All their fans being in the
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: stadium amongst the sea of crimson and cream.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just a great visual optic for college football fans that were there or watching on TV.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: But again, it's big tin country.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, typically those games are on during the day, so you may as well just kind of accept it.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Brady, that's maze to you.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, of course.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's my job.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And don't you forget it.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Don't you forget it one bit.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Now it'll be, um, I might be the wrong person to ask when it comes to kick off time stuff because obviously is it way more fun at night when you've got the whole day to tell you yes.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: stuff like that.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: As long as the game doesn't land in that middle-to-day spot, I know that it's it's reverse for fans, usually it's, if I can't have a night game and as long as it's not 10 million degrees, I'll take 230, I know there's been excitement for OU Texas when it kicks off at 230, but we're selfish.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: The week two college football slay is pretty good.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: I know we're used to having big week ones, then we maybe take like a half step back in week two, but of course we got Texas Ohio State that week and we got some border war, Missouri and
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Kansas Georgia Tech.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: I forget I was looking at this morning.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: They've got a thing we got some other conference battles stuff like that.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just happy that we'll go at 11 or noon out in the eastern time zone and then we'll be able to take in a full day of college football because I think we too is going to be maybe not as good as week one, but it's going to be pretty darn good.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it's going to be a fantastic day of football.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: God willing, we won't leave the press box at midnight, which is always nice for our bodies, just being rested, making sure our content is the best.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think I kinda echo what Brady said as far as when I think of good, big tin football.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think of early afternoon, morning games, stuff like that, just the sun shining, two of the most historic programs in college football history.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this game, it was already gonna be great.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe it works.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this place is chaotic.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: whether it's a day game, night game, the big house is going to be electric regardless of when the game starts.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a little bit more tame just because it's not at night.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe that works slightly into OU's favor, but this is there are a lot of highlight games on the schedule.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is this is arguably number one though.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Here's the point in the podcast that contractually, does anyone have any pot shops they want to take it on this?
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're about to move on to some other college football at large stuff, if anyone has speak now or forever hold your piece on basket weaving, the Confederacy, all that stuff.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: Len Kippen does not know why Louisiana State University is named the Tigers apparently.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: We just skip that in Louisiana history.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: Anybody?
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, okay.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: We do have something that I do think it might come off as mundane and boring, but it could actually be a step toward us getting some, I don't know if I want to use the G word with guardrails or starting to real some of the stuff back in, but if you guys remember the house settlement created.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: many, many new rules, regulations that college football and college athletics are going to try and put in there.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: The CFC, the college sports commission, is become a thing.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I'll go.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: These are all words that I think were happening around buzzword buzzword and college football, but hadn't quite come into focus yet of how it's going to work.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: functionally.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: In I'll go, CSC, they've got the clearing house that's supposed to make college sports in ILDL's legitimate as opposed to just I pay you three million dollars or whatever gotty number it is to come in here.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Come on, kind of going on in the background, Nebraska was one of the first groups that had some in ILDL's kicked back.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: they tried to go to arbitration and try to come back and forth and see what's going on here and Ryan, as this came down, Nebraska actually lost.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: The arbitrator ruled in favor of the CSC and I'll go in the denial of clearinghouse, which effectively, if this all holds up,
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: it would mean that maybe we have the first step in NIL deals being actually an IL deals, revshare money being actual revshare money and if you can do that you can actually start to police and maybe get closer to the idea that there's kind of a salary cap in the former revshare and then NIL on top of that.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Ryan, am I being too hopeful?
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Am I looking at this going?
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: Nothing ever happens, the NCA is not enforced or whatever.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: Or couldn't this actually be like, could we look back in five or six years and go, it didn't really matter in the summer, but this is the first little step to moving toward a new system that actually looks a little bit more like the NFL or something like that?
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see, is the answer.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think, you know, it's,
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of it, I mean, the grand solution here is national legislation, which I think is very far off, and as much as it's been talked about, the reality of it has not, you know, come to fruition in any significant way, you know, I know that, uh,
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, there was the meeting with the president, the president, uh, to try to figure some of this stuff out, but that's not the way to go.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's got to be, you know, through through legislation, and, you know, I got a chance to chat with Joe Harris a little bit before the groundbreaking, uh, yesterday, and, you know, it was the first thing that he brought up.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: He said, hey, did you see that?
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that was a big time deal that I think, you know, he said, maybe goes on under the radar.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the big question here is whether the schools and their, you know, media rights, arms and entities are separate.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you can divide those, but this ruling is going to be appealed, they're going to review the CSE and things like that.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's until you get a national framework, it's going to be really difficult because it's just a matter of finding the right judge who hears your argument this way.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, I mean, heck, even as we see in the Owen Heinecky deal,
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's all about this patchwork system of, you know, rulings and judgments that without something definitive that applies to everybody, it's going to be unbalanced and I just don't see that happening, you know, that balance coming anytime soon.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: It really feels like to me, and I think I've got the right people, the right group to roll this theory out.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: I truly believe in, and there have been talks forever, right?
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: The college football fan, and rightly so has said, at some point college football is gonna pull away from the NCAA, and right now, the college football playoff.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, let's just reorganize under the CFP.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: We can appoint a chairman.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: We can throw Josh paid out there.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: If we'd like, I know he's constantly running for that.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: But like, whoever that is, Nick Sabin, Bob Stubb, Josh paid, Brady's miserable, all these names.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: It could be a spot where,
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't really matter to me if they're under the NCAA, if you've got Nick Sabin as the head of the CFP and he's handing out rule and rule and rule and this is going to help this.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: As long as there's one school across the entire country that wants to push a rule and wants to take the NCAA or the cost of a playoff or anybody to court,
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think you're going to have a kumbaya happy college football where people aren't pushing and pushing and pushing.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think for me, that's the biggest thing that it feels like right now, we're basically in the college football version of the articles of Confederation where the conferences are kind of together and when it benefits the SEC and the big 10, they'll roll together up until the moment that
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: Tennessee decides, well, I don't care what the SEC says.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't like this rule.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to sue.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then all this says, well, Tennessee is going to sue over my dead body.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to be in a disadvantage.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then suddenly you have the SEC inside in kind of turmoil.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then the big 10 and the SEC in the Big 12 go, ah, so I don't know Brady what what the answer is.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if we simply have to get to a point where
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: The players are okay with calling themselves employees of the NCAA, Oklahoma, whatever.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: We get a CBA and then on the other side we can put actual guardrails on.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if there's going to be a way that college football can find a equilibrium with this kind of what feels like articles and confederation style system.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: It just feels like that NIL was the Pandora's box that opened, but I don't know if anyone ever really processed all the other things that the NCAA seems just
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: They'll find it in court, but if they lose that they're not like legislating actual rules on the other side of that, they're saying, OK, well, you guys figured out that.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, you're right.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when this started, like you said in IL and what 2021 that offseason, there was an early understanding even at the time that, OK, well, this, this is now a brave new world in the sport of college athletics.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That clearly do not exist when the moment that it became the law of the land.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the understanding was the time.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, hopefully five to ten years from now, it's a little bit of a more of a structured landscape that you can play and that you can coach and that you can recruit in.
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The guard rails that you kind of talked about.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so in the interim, it's kind of the Wild Wild West landscape where there are some rules that most people agree upon and there are some rules that can be I guess Phil softly debated in court if it benefits particular player particular team particular conference what what what what have you and so all those little things are going to build up to the first instance of here is a rule.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: here's the new law of the land and it's just a long process that admittedly a lot of people are just going to be tired of bored of because I mean it's it's corny but it it is true like the spirit of the game just kind of gets exercised more and more and more each time there is a court case and I know you fans
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: are incredibly excited about Owen Heineke coming back for 2026, greatly increases their chances to compete at a high level to return to the College of Ball Playoff no doubt, but if you just think about it from a third party perspective, it's just weird.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a weird situation and it's not necessarily
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: nearly a situation that you sign up for when you grow up in a state that's crazy about college football.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all have the understanding that you might have a favorite player.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might love Adrian Peterson, but you understand he's only going to be here at your favorite school for three seasons because he's that good and then he's going to hand off his jersey to the next great player that you hope that you root for.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of the landscape that you all that we all accept whether you're
• 16:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: rooting for teams or covering teams.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of up in the air just because we have to make a zillion different micro decisions to ultimately get to something that brings us closer and closer to a new status quo.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're just not there yet, but because I believe there's some similar cases going on in California that are going to be more specifically geared towards are what are they considered multimedia rights companies like Leerfield for the University of Oklahoma,
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are they separate entities or can they be involved in NIL?
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think there's still a lot of micro court cases and debates to come in your future.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: But again, this is what the offseason is for.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Try to figure it out then so that when we get to fall, we just know, okay, what are the rules and how can we kind of debate who the best team in the country is?
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the day, it's all we care about.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'd say, of course, and you obviously know as good as anybody, you're on the field in the middle of it.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that when we get to 11 a.m. Central week two in Tommy's leather at the big house that I've not seen the game day.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: go down or the game day atmosphere go down now also we cover a school that's usually on the good end of transfer portal happening so I don't know if there's less excitement at a place where their quarterback gets poached and actually like I don't know what North Texas is game days going to look like this year compared to last year after
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: They all just move to still water basically, but it has become this point of, uh, listen, I don't think any of us got into this just to cover court cases or anything like that.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's the point where I think there are a lot of people that in the Aussies and they're like portal court cases, just let me know what the projected Dept charts going to be about August 10th and then let's fire this thing up and get going from there.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I certainly have those opinions to an extent.
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: The first week of the portal, I'm kind of into it, invested, oh, where's this player gonna go?
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it just does kind of drag on.
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: We see it, there are some rare spring exemptions where players get to transfer, I saw clips and just got a new player from Texas State.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, weird things like that happen.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Court cases happen and the results are so different.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Seeing Joey Aguilar get his denied.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Trinidad, Shameless, and Hyniki get their injunctions approved, so it is so many different things and it feels like the governance is different for these court cases that it's kind of hard to keep up with and it's just a lot of moving parts that I am a traditionalist.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like the exes and the owes, the teams, the uniforms, just give me the game day and I'm there.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a value in it.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like the portal I like recruiting, but part of me is like just
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: I wonder how much Oklahoma's coaches are enjoying that they've got a guy like Jim nagging his front office to help navigate some of this stuff because I think every coach that loves recruiting loves to kind of dive in and watch the huddle tapes stuff like that.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: I also think that they're probably happy that they're like, oh, I get this process streamlined a little bit.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: as far as that goes if somewhere on down the line we do get a CBA it's also something that Jim naggy kind of has some experience operating in in that world I know that uh Brady he was on uh oh you president Joe Harris is podcast character with the president just kind of talking about a bunch of different stuff and I know one thing he had floated in a world where there's a CBA you could do things like maybe have a freshman salary cap or things like that because
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's something that every locker room and every coaching staff is trying to deal with, right?
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, we've got an absolute bad ass guy that was just an all SCC guy, but we're also pursuing the top edge rush that everyone's playing in the country and how do we balance the books and give a competitive offer in the high school ranks while also making it fit on our locker room and all that.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's just stuff that's impossible to deal with that I'm glad I don't have to deal with for the most part.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it sounds like an absolute fool's air into try to put all this together, but especially when, again, like going back to when an IL became a thing, everybody understood that this is going to take a while for us to get to a new status quo.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And until then, it's going to be a little annoying.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there was also this, I guess, optimistic understanding that, okay, the market will just kind of correct itself.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: There might be some schools that say, hey, now we actually have a chance.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the Ole Misses kind of became or came up to the forefront of the sport.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Texas Tech most recently, where, okay, the market should correct itself.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: If donors, a donor or just programs in general, just pay a ton of money.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: for better teams, but they don't get the success that they feel that those teams should warrant or IE the money that they spent should warrant, then they'll stop paying that money.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this is an age old rule and college triple.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not necessarily like people aren't really looking for a return on investment here.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all about pride.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all about
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: wanting to give yourself the best chance possible year and year out.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's undefeated in the offseason.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody feels great about their program.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a constant arms race.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that correction of market has never really occurred.
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when Jim Nagy says, yeah, I would love to have a freshman salary cap just to make it that much more easier to tell incoming potential recruits that this is the most that we can pay you.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the most that you can get paid by I'm coming out of high school.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: by any program, whether it be Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Miami, you name it, this is the highest you can go.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I mean, oh, you, what, they've got two, five-star offensive tackles in the 2027 class right now.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that means that Super Hackett, Caden Penny, will be true freshman when Michael Fassouci is a true junior, which potentially will be his final season as an Oklahoma sooner if all things go according to plan for him.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: and you don't want to have a situation and I'm not going to sit here and say that this is happening or this hasn't happened, but you don't want a situation where Cooper Hackett came penny two phenomenal talents that you want in your program are making more money than Michael Fassouci who has proven it at a college level at an SEC level and as a budding NFL draft pick level.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what you want to avoid if you're like if you're Jim Naggi for any of these people running programs now and I mean it would make a lot of sense if it started
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you general manager saying it out in the open on the podcast with a president here is like he had done because thank everybody can remember Sam Bradford's rookie contract.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was it?
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: 52 58 million guaranteed and as soon as that happened, the NFL was like, yep, many of the cap on that.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: No more gigantic rookie contract guarantees.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is a rookie cap now and it started because of a local home sooner.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: and his ping pong table that he bought and kept everything still plays on to the stay I bet famously famously it's also just a spot to where
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's all so slow.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate anyone that has just on idea.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like everyone loves to call out the problem or loves to say, this needs to change or we need guardrails.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there are a lot of coaches that when it gets time to be like, okay, well, what would you do it becomes the,
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just trying to focus on Saturdays.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's why I appreciate like when day and landing during the playoff was just like this game should be happening in Lubbock, Texas.
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: We should start right after rivalry week and if we play every Saturday through December that we can most years have a schedule where we finish this thing by July 1 or January 1 excuse me and then you can have the portal coaching changes all that stuff after that.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: It just kind of becomes a spot where
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: You get going and that return on investment piece to Brady, it's something that reminds me of Abraham when we were first meeting with Roger Denny and his introductory press conference and stuff like that and asking about fundraising that's something that he talked about a great deal is like
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: How do we quantify the return on investment?
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because from the area of life that Rodgerdini came from into athletics, it's usually very, very hard just to be like, well, you're just going to get joy out of this.
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we need to spend some millions of dollars because don't you want to be happy?
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that that's something that is kind of a challenge for collegiate athletics, especially as it moves into even more of a place of
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: needing naming rights, needing to get everything sponsored to up the bottom line when you get into a revshare world.
• 24:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's it's just a mess.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I was thinking when Brady was talking that, you know, you know, I was thinking when Brady was talking that, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know,
• 24:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: about the realities of things that when you're talking about return on investment, you know, in the in pro sports we have these owners and we all know them who spend a lot of money and just throw money at the wall and see if anything sticks, you know big contracts, some of them pan out, some of them don't, I know you don't know anything about that Ryan from the NFL perspective,
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: with the way that college athletics is currently run.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have all these micro-owners that the donors, the ones who are paying these NIL deals in large part, and these micro-owners are sort of doing the same thing.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it pays off really well, sometimes it doesn't, but
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just really difficult and then when you move, you know, as we're moving toward more private equity being involved and things like that, it just, you know magnifies all of that to me and I don't wish I had a better solution to offer other than just, hey, this thing needs to be legislated.
• 26:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And to me, that's about the only way to do it because we see the NCAAs technically, you know, an organization that's run by its member schools, but
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have these different layers and things where things get out of control and then you get the courts involved, things like that, and it just becomes a mess, and it's become not way with a lot of organizations, I think with the OSSA, here in Oklahoma, you get some of the same stuff going on and people get
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, been out of shape about the way that these organizations are running things, but you've got to have some kind of framework to put everything in.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just a real problem finding what that framework is right now.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's good.
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're on a great spot as a sport and just as in CA.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, the good news is there are still some like kernels of older school or maybe I hesitate to call it now older school, but older school story, for instance, something else that Jim Nagy had said on that pod Brady was talking about that did Oklahoma take an unconvincial path to get old and high and keep back on the roster.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: What is Oklahoma goes out and really hits the ground and pound the pavement for the 2028 and 2029 classes and tries to put the finishing touches on 2027 classes.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Guys, like going high in the key that Owen, a high in the key story in an old way can still be a little bit of an anecdote that can help be maybe something to juice Oklahoma's recruiting efforts.
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no question.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, the way that he presented it anecdotally was interesting.
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: He mentioned specifically a recruit.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't name their crew, but he said it was somebody from out of the footprint that they had just started really getting in touch with recently.
• 27:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so Carson, you might be able to whittle that down in your mind, who that might be.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Maggie was talking about how he had a phone conversation with this recruit and his dad.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he basically sat them down and told them like, yeah,
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I can sit here and tell you how great our program is, how great the culture is, the brotherhood, all that stuff.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you're going to hear that from other GMs, from other head coaches that their programs are great, and there's a lot of truth to a lot of what they say.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, though,
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we did just have a player by the name of Owen Heinecki, who potentially could have been drafted.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Robert Spear's shootings was drafted, the Unburks ended up getting drafted.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Owen Heinecki very well could have been drafted.
• 28:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was going through the offseason process, going to the senior bull, going to our pro day, going to the NFL combine, he went through every interview.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coaches were flying out to work him out.
• 28:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: He very well could have been drafted, and yet he still took the very at the time slim chance, the opportunity to potentially come back to return to the University of Oklahoma to play one more year of college football.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure the understanding is yes, it would benefit him if he puts together another great year.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It would increase his draft stock, but the whole point of it was
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: that alone tells you how great our culture is that a guy could have potentially gone to the NFL definitely as a undrafted free agent potentially as a drafted player, but he chose to return instead to come back to OU to play another year football.
• 29:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that is just going to be something that I feel
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jim Naggi is going to use and selling the program.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it's going to be heard and receive very well because when you're a parent, when you're a guardian and you're deciding on where you want to help advise your son, your nephew, who never might be to go play college tomorrow from the next three to five years.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, you want them to be in an environment where they're protected, where they're safe, where they're appreciated, and where they're going to get better as a football player and as a young man.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, I don't know how to make a story, it applies, you know, obviously specifically to him, because it's, it's what his story is.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But generally speaking, naggies, using it as a recruiting tool and, and to be honest, like, I don't blame him, I would do.
• 30:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Just another arrow in the quiver for Oklahoma, it feels like they've got nothing but momentum right now.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've talked a ton about the 207 class.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: These last couple of weeks, we've talked about making moves in both a couple of 2028, QB offers or 2029.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: QB offers, the offers have not stopped rolling out.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's going to be the theme all summer long.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, that's what this time of year is.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Though, of course, I am pretty curious.
• 30:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: The one area of, I hesitate to say, like me, but the one unknown for like 2027 to be on is just a little bit of,
• 30:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: We talked about the running backs in the past, could do position coaching, probably going to flip flop a couple of guys in that class, just because of old guys coming to Dwarco, looking elsewhere, dealing with Cole, getting his hands on it.
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Have we been able to a couple of months after deal with Cole's come in, take a look and maybe start to kind of get a better idea of what exactly dealing with Cole is looking for.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: So he looks at 227, 228 and running backs and beyond.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, specifically recently, they've sent out a lot of new offers to running backs last week.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was TJ Lewis, a running back from Illinois, a three-star prospect, obviously far from a commitment.
• 31:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure with him, but they do need another running back in the 27-class after Jackson's Stoke.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: decommitted a couple of weeks ago, they have Keltrod bin who that's already looking like a great investment.
• 31:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Only have one division one offer window you offered him.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now he's a consensus for star prospect.
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, they have him, but maybe who this is the other guy?
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: They probably start sending out some more offers to that wouldn't surprise me.
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then 28, they've also picked up a little bit there too.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our for Jordan McNeill, who's another unranked prospect, like Keltrod bin was.
• 31:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: that turns really good.
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then they also offered yesterday Kevin Hart's field who is the number one running back recruit from the 2028 class according to rival assembly that was.
• 31:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: That one's notable just in the sense that they lost Mike Rhodes, he committed to OU in January,
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: backed out of it and April obviously like you mentioned to Barbara Murray not being there anymore.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's from Texas.
• 32:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So probably we'll end up in either Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech.
• 32:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of those programs.
• 32:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But this is a big time off for a big time prospect out of Georgia.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've seen the sooner's kind of
• 32:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Build some new recruiting zones with them now being an SEC school.
• 32:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, James and Robert, Jalen Scott, both being from Alabama.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Being in the SEC is really open to a lot of doors for the studenters recruiting wise.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that pays off with Hart's field, maybe it doesn't.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you've got to like how proactive, McCullough, this staff is being recruiting running backs.
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: not a surprise that Dilma Cole wanted to get in the mix there's a guy that I think that that's something that wants to, hey, you just had two first rounders.
• 32:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Why don't you get in the mix for some of the top guys across the country, be like, if you want to be a first round running back I am the guy for you.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it should be good, I excited to continue to see how the not just the 207 of the 208, 209 recruiting efforts
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: unfold here throughout the summer.
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: Not the only thing that's going to eventually at some point help recruiting or just help fans in general as on Tuesday, out in Norman, the mythical
• 33:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Rock Creek entertainment district that has been stuck in litigation and appeals and all the yada yada yada yada.
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, guess what, ceremonial shovel in ground.
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: They had the ground breaking on Tuesday.
• 33:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: He had Porter Moser, Jeannie Broncheck, the whole staff sat there, Roger Denny, Joe's hands.
• 33:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: Junior, all that fun stuff.
• 33:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: Abraham, you were out there for us.
• 33:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: First off,
• 33:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: Eddie had a hard hat.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: What the heck were you doing with the staffer?
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And secondly, just how wasn't as, again, it I can't really never thought we would see the day where there was even a shovel into the ground, much less that this thing's going to try and go up here and maybe in two and a half basketball seasons be ready to go, maybe.
• 33:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it sounds like the target date is sometimes during the 28, 29 season.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had heard some talk that maybe by SEC play that year that I can hope to get into the building, things like that.
• 34:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I asked Rodgers, didn't he about it?
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: He said, hey, we're going to push them to get this thing done as quickly as you minimally possible to try to get in there and get this thing started.
• 34:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I didn't bring the hard hat because I wasn't sure, you know, if it was going to happen, the way that everything else has gone, because just deal.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there were some golden shovels put in the ground or at least put in the pile of sand that was there just for the ground breaking, you know, wouldn't have the dignitaries actually going into the hard red clay in this state, so they had some sand out there, but
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: the construction gets underway officially next Tuesday and when they start, you know, actually making progress with getting the infrastructure set and then getting that arena up.
• 35:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's one of many.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thankfully, I don't know if this is good news or bad news.
• 35:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's like 7,000 construction projects for a reener stadiums happening across the greater Oklahoma City metro area.
• 35:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: So either, a lot of people experience or a lot of competition, good news on this though is at least like you can get the arena and the parking up and then backfill like the entertainment district part of the entertainment district after that.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: So something that can make that thing move pretty quickly.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: We just got to avoid city council members
• 35:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: construction equipment.
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like that's not off the table in Norman.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: First, I know you've not been here long enough to know this.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: Norman, not a very pro-building city when it comes to specifically on Arena for shooting hoops.
• 35:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we will see as far as that goes by.
• 35:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: It seemed like I kind of am curious, Abraham.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: What was the
• 35:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: demeanor of Porter and Jenny just because I think that it's something that that's jokes that we don't probably touch on.
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: And hey, we're trying to figure out a Lloyd Noble Center solution when they were both signed on, but I'm sure that like us that maybe they even had their hopes dashed a little bit at time after time after time again until finally this thing's got some groundbreaking and some shovels movement.
• 36:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I asked both of them about that and Porter Moser specifically said that him and Jenny were sort of called into a meeting within their first week or two.
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think he said maybe the first month of being on campus and told, hey, this is the thing's going to happen and we're, you know, just a few months away from, you know, really kicking this thing into gear and getting shovels in the ground and figuring it out.
• 36:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: We all know that that didn't happen and he said, yeah, there's some, well, Porter Moser said there was never a doubt that it was going to happen.
• 36:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was just when, although, you know, given his job security and things like that, I've got to think there were some doubt, maybe that it would happen during his tenure there.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jenny Baronsheck was a little bit more open and said, yeah, there were times where you wonder if it's really going to happen or they ever going to be able to to figure this thing out as, you know, the politics of it all the legal challenges things like that, but they talked about the importance of the arena in setting a better atmosphere, I thought.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, Porter Moser had a great quote in there, the one that I used in the headline initially at least was we have to take it from having home games to having a home field advantage, a home court advantage and that's the biggest thing that both of these coaches said about it and also the fact that they can go out and talk to, you know, high school freshman coming into this year next year.
• 37:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: uh... and beyond and be able to point hey you're going to play in this new building it's not an abstract anymore uh... i think that's a big thing uh... because uh... they also talked about roger dine was asked this
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Porter Moser and Janie Baranchick were all asked, hey, how big of a a role do facilities play in recruiting nowadays with all the NIO stuff that we spent the last, you know, however long talking about things like that, how much does it matter?
• 38:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they all said it does matter.
• 38:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not as big a piece as maybe it was.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: but it's still something to say, to separate yourselves from other schools who maybe might be paying the same amount of money.
• 38:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, we've got this new building, we've got this kind of atmosphere things like that.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it definitely doesn't make a difference.
• 38:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Most importantly, it means that when the new arena comes in, hopefully my mom can get off work in OKC at five and make it before the under 16 time out, six PM tip because love your mom, but I don't know how many different versions of the text message of why can't we get an arena farther north so that I can make it after getting off work.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: appreciate and thank you to everyone for removing that one little situation there as far as that goes.
• 39:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right, boys, let's head into stick fall season.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: We got penultimate weekend for the baseball team of the right-was-season in the books.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: Now they look forward to headed up to the brick to take on Tennessee.
• 39:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: Softball is opening postseason play.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: Number three seed in the NCAA Tournament.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: We did the whole regional breakdown, lessons from Georgia, all that stuff on the Surrens on the side.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Softball show, which if you're listening to the podcast, it's in this feed, it's the last podcast for this one.
• 39:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you want any of that, if you're on YouTube, just click the button, John Hoover Media.
• 39:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's one of the last videos there.
• 39:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: We did talk to Patty Gasso, Abbey Dayton, and Kai Miner.
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Last night or last yesterday afternoon, technically Ryan was not like shocked by any means by Patty Gassell being like, yeah, it's behind us.
• 39:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've learned our lesson, but did you where you buy in it when Patty Gassell talked about the lesson is we had to compete every single inning and that's going to be something that this team's going to be able to do here throughout regional play.
• 39:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think so now again, as I said on Monday, how far this team goes is based on how far they're pitching carries them.
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's got to be better, although they're facing, you know, certainly this weekend and even next weekend, they're not facing the offenses that they faced really over the last month.
• 40:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: of SEC play, but I think just walking up to the stadium yesterday, Ryan, I don't know when you walked up, if you could hear it, Mason Young from the Tulsa World alluded to it during a couple of questions to Patty Gasseau, but we could hear her over the microphone.
• 40:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, over the, uh, PA system there at Love's field, uh, given her instructions.
• 40:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: She said the voice isn't quite, maybe what it was before.
• 40:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she's got to have some amplification, but just hearing the way she was running practice and the way that she was encouraging, the way that she was, uh, you know,
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: They were doing situational work, things like that.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It felt a lot like some of those other teams that have taken good turns once the postseason got there.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, again, they've got to do it on the field.
• 41:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: They've got to prove it.
• 41:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think this weekend's going to be any challenge for them really at all in that regard.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the biggest thing for them is just getting back.
• 41:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: to what, you know, made them really successful for a large part of the year all around and getting some, you know, offensive mojo back, getting the defense working again and then just having those pitchers settled down.
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think there's something to it with, especially the leadership that this group has, but there's still a lot of freshmen at sophomores who haven't been through this very often who, you know, as much as you talk about it, it's a different animal
• 41:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: If the message you're preaching is needed to compete ever at that every inning, I think having a senior in Abbey Dayton who seems very excited to start this last ride is kind of the person you want at the spearhead of that because Abbey Dayton, we know that she is she'll say her mind in a good way, right?
• 42:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: She's a vocal teacher.
• 42:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: She doesn't need a microphone either.
• 42:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: She confirmed that I'm louder than Patty Gassos, Mike.
• 42:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: So don't need to worry about that.
• 42:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: But she is like lead by example, lead by words, all of it.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: We need to talk about compete, compete, compete.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so I think that's going to be someone that they probably look to.
• 42:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: And in a weird way, another one of their vocal leaders or something that's kind of emerged as that is akin to Wells.
• 42:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, she's not shy as well.
• 42:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think she's kind of embraced.
• 42:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: this spot is one of the the heavy hitters in college softball and that was only further illustrated by the fact that on Wednesday she was named to the top 10 list for USA softball collegiate player of the year that'll get cut down to a trio of finalists next week and then that will officially be awarded out the night before the Williams College World Series gets underway but kind of about your only freshman only underclassmen in the top 10
• 42:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: There for Oklahoma on the in Carson you were out at Kevin Park this past week and anything extra that they need to look for for Kansas because it's an improved Kansas, but Improved is that mean that you should come in and hang around in the government regional
• 43:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, definitely not.
• 43:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things that I covered Kansas last year, just a freelance assignment for the Lawrence Journal world.
• 43:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was a bad softball team last year.
• 43:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: This year, there are respectable team definitely a lot better offense.
• 43:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: They have one or two arms that are decent, but you look at the firepower that OU has, the coaching obviously prowess with Patty Gasso and her staff.
• 43:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It shouldn't be a huge reason for concern.
• 43:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'd like to think they could probably get past that
• 43:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: should be good in Norman, probably academic, but we've been through that before as far as regional's go.
• 43:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I guess if we're looking for positives on the baseball side of things, Brady and Carson, got out of there with a win, a big offensive show, get a couple of those, even though you had some meltdowns in Fayetteville, I'm gonna choose to look at the positive, but you no longer have the pressure of,
• 44:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: a regional host specter holding over your head.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: You can kind of just go out there and I guess Brady is this week and just as much about seizing momentum and confidence heading into the SEC tournament as anything else knowing your tournament spot is fine, but you're probably just not really under consideration seriously for a host at this point.
• 44:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think so.
• 44:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also kind of look at this series against Tennessee, where Tennessee not ranked just like only you've falling out of most, if not all of the college baseball rankings after dropping the series to Arkansas, like you mentioned, I look at this as, like you said, like you need to see some moments and have some good vibes going into conference tournament play and then so forth after that.
• 44:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But also, one thing that I have kind of praised them for,
• 44:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, uh, this season was if you guys can remember back to last year.
• 44:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you had a, you know, fairly solid outing, uh, first year in the SEC as well, um, last season.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you look at their schedule when when when when lost record results.
• 45:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: everything makes sense like they didn't beat a lot of the teams that were clearly better than them.
• 45:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't win any of those really any of those series's.
• 45:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then they get to Lexington Kentucky and they get swept by a bad Kentucky baseball team last year.
• 45:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: That has not happened this year.
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They have not dropped series to teams and programs that OU as it stands right now are clearly better than.
• 45:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when you're talking about the the job skip Johnson has and building
• 45:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let us just take care of the teams that we are definitely better than before you can start having true aspirations to let's go into Austin, go beat Texas, let's go on the road and beat a really explosive Arkansas team, a really explosive Auburn team at one point was a top five program in the country earlier this season.
• 45:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've put their best foot forward, they have been blowing out in a few games, but for the most part, they've given themselves chances, late in games to potentially win series that they ended up losing.
• 46:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for this series this weekend, if they're able to take care of business, they can kind of look at this schedule and go.
• 46:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, we didn't drop anything that we shouldn't have dropped.
• 46:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, there were a lot of teams on our schedule that are just clearly better position than OU is right now, and OU for the most part had some good showings in a lot of those matchups, but the result is they didn't really have that weekend where they kind of played above their weight, so they're right where they should be.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you feel good about a pseudo home series in Oklahoma City, breakdown ballpark, hosting Tennessee, you feel good about it.
• 46:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But again, I think for the most part, like you mentioned Ryan, it's just all about trying to seize moments and going into a postseason play.
• 46:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I agree 100% with what you said.
• 46:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this league gets there is no overstating how deep this league is outside of Missouri and South Carolina.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as you said, Brady, they took care of business against Missouri.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's an opponent that you really can't afford to slip up even one game.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've seen that with Vanderbilt dropping the game, Arkansas losing in all three other games, ended up winning two of them, but trailing in all three of those.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you has done a good job of avoiding disaster.
• 47:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: They want a series against a Vanderbilt team that's not as good as it usually is, but still winning on the road.
• 47:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's big.
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: This team be A&M at early in conference play.
• 47:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was a huge series win just seeing what A&M shaped up to be.
• 47:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this schedule, I mean, the last three series of the regular season, their brutal, you see a Florida team that's playing as well as anybody right now.
• 47:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: or console it's not easy to play at the bottom and then Tennessee, that just beat Texas in a three game series.
• 47:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're playing some really good baseball even though they're unranked.
• 47:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this one's not going to be easy either, but you have to think of the advantage of once you get past Hoover, I think that experience of playing for
• 47:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, and then you name your opponent, I mean, it's good team after good team aside from that week and against Missouri, but they've had to play and they've won a fair amount of them.
• 48:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're almost 500 in this league, which that's not the goal.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't get me wrong.
• 48:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: They want to be hosting both regionals and super regionals.
• 48:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Barring a sweep this week and then maybe three wins and Hoover.
• 48:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: That just doesn't seem likely at this point anymore, which is disappointing.
• 48:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was telling Brigadier a couple of weeks ago that college baseball regionals are one of the most underrated sporting events to go to, whether that's covering or just going as a fan.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I know that both of us would have loved to be out there for a regional, but this team, if they could get a little moment some stealer gamer to this weekend, win a couple in Hoover, you've got to like what this team can do after just playing
• 48:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: And also it's something we've talked about all your long is you get into regional play can't go to an SEC regional right and so it is long is you for the mood in your own clubhouse have some momentum going in, but as long as you avoid like the you know 28 29 30 31 32 that range of things you're also not going to get sent to an SEC regional or.
• 49:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: If there's, you know, one of those seeds in the top four five, it's not an SEC team.
• 49:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you could avoid those, then you get into a spot that is very comfortable for I think every college baseball team, which is
• 49:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: host of the regional huge host and a super huge.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's just about is much about what pitching staff is caught fire or who is a plan that has the hot bad or things like that when you get to regional and super is playing.
• 49:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've seen really highs from different members of the local pitching staff at time, so it just becomes okay.
• 49:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you get everybody rolling in the same direction again once you get to regional play, then that's the path that Oklahoma and Skip took to the college world series a couple of years back and we all know that
• 49:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: just moments and moments in that series away from maybe being a little bit different.
• 49:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: So should be really fun and any time they can head up to the brick is always going to be a pretty good happening indeed.
• 49:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: We'll be all over the place this weekend.
• 50:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: We'll be out there.
• 50:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: with the Thursday Friday Saturday with Oklahoma and Tennessee, we'll have regional action on hands-on deck in Norman America, obviously for Oklahoma and the softball squad getting after it with the NCAA regional and what'll likely be a super after that, but it's a really fun time of year and can't wait to dive into it all with you guys.
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Gentlemen, that's all we got today.
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: No big thank you as always to Carson, big thank you to Abraham for hopping on.
• 50:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Brady,
• 50:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're a busy man and the bunker is cold, but you kind of like dark the crepted places, so I appreciate you for hanging out with us As always, the website, Oakland Shooters on SI.com All of our football coverage, all of our softball baseball, everything, it's up there and it's always free to head to Oakland Shooters on SI.com But for the podcast, Avery and I talk to you guys next Monday, for the softball show, we'll all be back next Wednesday, recapping everything in the world of OU Till then, have a good one