Latest / The Craig Way Show / Sark Addresses Holly Rowe, CFB Injury Notes, Two Weeks Remain in MLB Season

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Sark Addresses Holly Rowe, CFB Injury Notes, Two Weeks Remain in MLB Season · The Craig Way Show

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, we just had to make sure we were legal, right?
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Speaker 1: There we go. Get that station ID in there. Good afternoon, everybody.
0:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to the program here on Sports Radio AM 1300,
0:11
Speaker 1: The Zone, and where you can always listen to us
0:13
Speaker 1: for free on the iHeartRadio app. My name is Craig Wayadoo.
0:16
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. We're going to jump right
0:17
Speaker 1: into things. Coming up in a few minutes. We'll have
0:22
Speaker 1: our weekly conversation with Roger Wallace, my broadcast partner in
0:24
Speaker 1: Longhorn Football. We'll talk about that. We will also discuss
0:29
Speaker 1: the two high school games on tap in the KXAN family,
0:32
Speaker 1: including tonight's game on KBVO between the brand-new Liberty Hill School,
0:38
Speaker 1: Legacy Ranch, against Pflugerville and Tomorrow Night Vandegrift and Round Rock.
0:42
Speaker 1: Those games. We'll do that. We'll have Inconceivable this hour.
0:47
Speaker 1: Next hour, we talk some Major League Baseball with Gene Watson,
0:50
Speaker 1: our MLB insider. But in the 2 o'clock hour, we're
0:53
Speaker 1: going to do it again in the 4 o'clock hour.
0:54
Speaker 1: We're also going to hear in the 3 o'clock hour
0:58
Speaker 1: a sneak preview of this evening's edition of Longhorn Weekly
1:05
Speaker 1: with Coach Sark. Jackson Jeffcoat is our special guest. He's
1:10
Speaker 1: going into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor, so that's
1:12
Speaker 1: really cool. So we're going to look forward to that
1:15
Speaker 1: as well. And the show airs in its entirety at 5.30,
1:18
Speaker 1: 30 minutes after this program is done. We'll bring you
1:22
Speaker 1: Longhorn Weekly with Coach Sark. So we hope you'll tune
1:25
Speaker 1: in for that. We think you'll like that. But what
1:28
Speaker 1: we're going to do right now, and we're going to
1:30
Speaker 1: re-air it at the start of the 4 o'clock hour,
1:33
Speaker 1: Longhorn's head coach, Steve Sarkeesian, holds a weekly Thursday media Zoom.
1:39
Speaker 1: It's the final opportunity for the area and for national
1:43
Speaker 1: media to visit with Sark prior to a game. And
1:45
Speaker 1: what we normally do is that Zoom usually takes place
1:48
Speaker 1: somewhere around 1130 in the morning, give or take a
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Speaker 1: few minutes. And we bring you the sound bites from
1:55
Speaker 1: that and tell you, you know, what the questions are asked.
1:58
Speaker 1: But given what Sark says at the start of this
2:01
Speaker 1: and some of the follow-up questions, we thought it would
2:03
Speaker 1: be appropriate just to go ahead and bring you the
2:09
Speaker 1: media availability in its entirety. It's about 20 minutes, and
2:13
Speaker 1: you'll hear the specific questions about things that happened last week,
2:17
Speaker 1: the two ESPN interview opportunities, and also a development with
2:22
Speaker 1: regard to Sark's coaching staff. So we're gonna let him
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Speaker 1: tell you with his opening statement, and then we'll let
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Speaker 1: you hear all the questions for that. So here it
2:30
Speaker 1: is from just a little while ago, about three and
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Speaker 1: a half, about two and a half hours ago, Longhorn's
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Speaker 1: head coach, Steve Sarkisian with the Weekly Media Zoom.
2:38
Speaker 2: Okay, I think first things first, I'd like to start
2:41
Speaker 2: with a couple house cleaning things before we get into
2:44
Speaker 2: the football aspect of things. We had a fortunate situation
2:49
Speaker 2: last evening. Coach Nansen was charged with a misdemeanor DWI.
2:55
Speaker 2: We obviously are aware of the situation. I'm still gathering facts.
3:00
Speaker 2: I'm still monitoring the situation. We're obviously disappointed, but that's
3:04
Speaker 2: all I really have on that at this time. Another
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Speaker 2: housekeeping issue I want to address is a couple of
3:11
Speaker 2: my in-game interviews last Saturday night in the Ohio State ballgame,
3:15
Speaker 2: the first at halftime. I was scheduled to have an
3:19
Speaker 2: interview with Laura Rutledge. ESPN was having technical difficulties, and
3:24
Speaker 2: I had to make an in-moment decision to say wait
3:29
Speaker 2: on the interview or try to get with our team
3:31
Speaker 2: and try to make the proper adjustments to come out
3:33
Speaker 2: and play as good as we could in the second half.
3:35
Speaker 3: I let Laura know that. And I think she said
3:37
Speaker 3: that on air.
3:38
Speaker 2: And then I had an opportunity to visit with Laura
3:40
Speaker 2: when we came back out of the locker room to
3:43
Speaker 2: let her know where our thoughts were as a team
3:45
Speaker 2: and what we needed to do in the second half
3:47
Speaker 2: of that game. As it pertains to after the ball game, again,
3:52
Speaker 2: there was a delay. After I greeted Coach Day in
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Speaker 2: the middle of the field, there was a delay. In
3:57
Speaker 2: the moment, through that delay, I wanted to go celebrate
4:01
Speaker 2: with our team. We just had a 21-point fourth quarter
4:04
Speaker 2: comeback against the number one team in the country. if
4:07
Speaker 2: hindsight's 20-20, if I could do it all over again,
4:09
Speaker 2: I would have exuded more patience in that moment and
4:14
Speaker 2: sat through and waited for the interview with Holly. Obviously,
4:17
Speaker 2: we have a ton of respect for ESPN and Holly.
4:19
Speaker 2: Holly and I go way back to even to my
4:21
Speaker 2: days of playing at BYU, and we've got a great relationship.
4:25
Speaker 3: ESPN is a great partner of ours.
4:28
Speaker 2: We know we're going to have more opportunities with that
4:30
Speaker 2: crew covering us, and we're looking forward to those opportunities.
4:32
Speaker 2: So could have definitely handled that situation better with a
4:35
Speaker 2: little bit more patience in the moment. But that obviously
4:38
Speaker 2: led to the situation with Arch and his press conference
4:42
Speaker 2: as it pertained to the AI video. And obviously, Arch
4:47
Speaker 2: recognizes he made a mistake, and it's an unfortunate one.
4:50
Speaker 2: Nowhere do we condone domestic violence or violence against women.
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Speaker 2: Nothing in our program says that, nor Arch individually. I
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Speaker 2: think if he could take it back, he would. But
5:01
Speaker 2: He has since apologized to Holly. He's made a public apology. And,
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Speaker 2: you know, our goal is that we can move forward
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Speaker 2: and him be the guy that we all know that
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Speaker 2: he is and what he represents. So those are the
5:13
Speaker 2: two house cleaning things I wanted to make sure I
5:15
Speaker 2: addressed with all of you on this call. And then
5:18
Speaker 2: get into the football side of things. And, you know,
5:21
Speaker 2: this has been a big week for us, you know,
5:23
Speaker 2: in that, you know, you have such an emotional great win.
5:26
Speaker 3: That we had last week against Ohio State. How do
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Speaker 3: we recalibrate?
5:30
Speaker 2: How do we refocus to put ourselves in position to
5:33
Speaker 2: continue to improve as a program, which we touched on
5:36
Speaker 2: earlier in the week about things we need to do
5:38
Speaker 2: improve upon, but also improve individually because we need more
5:42
Speaker 2: players to step up right now. And we need more
5:44
Speaker 2: guys that we can count on, that we can have
5:46
Speaker 2: trust in. And that's been a big point of emphasis
5:49
Speaker 2: for this week to go along with the ball security,
5:52
Speaker 2: to go along with it, with the third down defense,
5:54
Speaker 2: to go along with starting better at the start of
5:56
Speaker 2: the game and But I've been very impressed by our guys.
5:59
Speaker 3: They've worked.
6:00
Speaker 2: They've taken to the hard coaching. They've been coachable in
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Speaker 2: all three phases. I feel like we got better this week.
6:07
Speaker 2: But now, ultimately, we need to play that way Saturday
6:11
Speaker 2: night at 7 o'clock.
6:12
Speaker 3: Which should be a great environment.
6:14
Speaker 2: We're back at DKR for a third straight home game.
6:17
Speaker 2: Night game should be a tremendous environment, one that we
6:20
Speaker 2: never take lightly. And we're looking forward to that opportunity.
6:24
Speaker 2: And we're going to need to. We're going to face
6:26
Speaker 2: a very hungry football team and a good football team
6:28
Speaker 2: in UTSA. One thing I've learned about playing Coach Traylor
6:31
Speaker 2: in UTSA the previous two times, they're going to play hard.
6:35
Speaker 2: They're going to play tough. They're going to play fast.
6:37
Speaker 2: They're going to be aggressive with the play calls. We've
6:40
Speaker 2: gotten onside kicks. We've gotten trick plays. We've gotten numerous blitzes.
6:44
Speaker 2: So we've got to be on our toes. But at
6:46
Speaker 2: the same token, we have to attack them. and make
6:49
Speaker 2: them defend us in all three phases as well.
6:51
Speaker 4: Hey, Steve, real quick, can you tell us yet at
6:54
Speaker 4: this point if Coach Nansen's going to be on the
6:57
Speaker 4: sideline with you this weekend? Have you determined anything like
7:00
Speaker 4: that yet? And just given the way things have unfolded
7:04
Speaker 4: the last few days, did it spoil what should have
7:08
Speaker 4: been just a historic week for you guys?
7:12
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know yet.
7:13
Speaker 2: Like I said, Jim, we're still gathering information and monitoring
7:17
Speaker 2: the situation. So Um, you know, we'll have more for
7:20
Speaker 2: you as we get closer to the ball game. Um,
7:23
Speaker 2: for us, you know, at the end of the day
7:25
Speaker 2: for our players, I think keeping the main thing, the
7:27
Speaker 2: main thing, um, you know, we're talking about two kind
7:31
Speaker 2: of isolated incidents that were completely separate from one another, um,
7:35
Speaker 2: that involve very few people, the rest of our team,
7:38
Speaker 2: that was a heck of a win for those guys.
7:40
Speaker 3: Now we need to learn from one another. And I
7:41
Speaker 3: think that's.
7:42
Speaker 2: The important part because arch isn't going to be the
7:44
Speaker 2: last guy that has a camera in front of him and, and, and,
7:47
Speaker 2: You know, being conscientious of the choice of words and
7:51
Speaker 2: things that we say. We've got other staff members on
7:54
Speaker 2: staff and the choices and decisions they make off the field.
7:58
Speaker 3: And so we've got to learn from one another.
8:01
Speaker 2: But I don't think that it takes away from what
8:03
Speaker 2: an incredible win and incredible environment we had last Saturday night.
8:07
Speaker 2: And what a great opportunity we have coming up this
8:09
Speaker 2: Saturday night against UTSA.
8:10
Speaker 5: Yeah.
8:11
Speaker 6: I'll just kind of piggyback on what you said there
8:13
Speaker 6: at the end. Um, you know, do you use this as,
8:15
Speaker 6: as a learning moment, I guess, for, you know, the
8:17
Speaker 6: players to kind of learn how they handle, you know,
8:19
Speaker 6: not just, I guess the nuances of the press conferences,
8:22
Speaker 6: but social media and the things they're seeing, you know,
8:24
Speaker 6: do you kind of address it?
8:25
Speaker 3: Do you use this opportunity to address it to a
8:27
Speaker 3: team as a whole? I guess is what I'm asking. Yeah, definitely.
8:29
Speaker 2: I think, you know, one of the hard parts, um,
8:34
Speaker 2: of this day and age of where we live with
8:36
Speaker 2: social media and things, like AI videos can feel so real.
8:44
Speaker 3: And there's numerous of them. They're everywhere.
8:47
Speaker 2: And so the idea that we have to take what's real,
8:51
Speaker 2: real as myself, players, staff, whoever's doing the interview, and
8:56
Speaker 2: what's not real, we have to treat it as such
8:58
Speaker 2: not real. And I think being more conscientious of our
9:02
Speaker 2: word choice and things is very important because although we
9:07
Speaker 2: can think of something as kind of satire or fun,
9:11
Speaker 2: at the same token, that has a direct effect on
9:14
Speaker 2: other people.
9:14
Speaker 3: And I've seen AI videos about me.
9:16
Speaker 2: That aren't very welcoming, that some of them I laugh
9:20
Speaker 2: at and some of them are like, ooh, that stings
9:22
Speaker 2: a little bit. But that's the world we live in today.
9:25
Speaker 2: And so just acknowledging that from a players and coaching
9:29
Speaker 2: staff perspective And then our choice of words and how
9:32
Speaker 2: we acknowledge or don't acknowledge those things, I think moving
9:35
Speaker 2: forward is very important.
9:36
Speaker 1: Hey, Steve, how is Arch Manning holding up?
9:40
Speaker 7: I know he already gets enough attention as it is,
9:43
Speaker 7: but he got a lot of attention that he probably
9:47
Speaker 7: didn't see coming.
9:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think Arch has had a great week
9:50
Speaker 2: of practice. I think he obviously feels bad about the situation.
9:55
Speaker 2: But at the same token, I don't think it was
9:57
Speaker 2: a malicious statement by him. You know, I think it
10:00
Speaker 2: was not, that was not the intent by any means.
10:03
Speaker 2: And so I think at his core, he knows what
10:05
Speaker 2: he believes in and what he stands for. Like I said,
10:08
Speaker 2: he's had a good week of work. I think he's
10:10
Speaker 2: excited to get back on the field and play. But
10:13
Speaker 2: also I think it's a good reminder of what we
10:15
Speaker 2: represent and the brand that we represent here at the
10:20
Speaker 2: the amount of coverage our program gets, and more so
10:22
Speaker 2: than ever, when you're the number one team in the country,
10:26
Speaker 2: you're going to get scrutinized for all that we do.
10:28
Speaker 3: And so being mindful of that, I think, is important
10:31
Speaker 3: for all of us.
10:32
Speaker 8: Yeah, Steve, you know, you talk a lot about adversity
10:35
Speaker 8: and overcoming adversity. And I guess, you know, here's a
10:39
Speaker 8: little bit off the field. And how do you handle
10:42
Speaker 8: that as far as distractions plus, you know, newly ranked
10:46
Speaker 8: number one?
10:48
Speaker 2: I really, I try to keep the main thing, the
10:50
Speaker 2: main thing and focus on what we need to do, Kurt.
10:52
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean there's not lessons learned along the way.
10:55
Speaker 2: And I do think that that's important to learn from
10:58
Speaker 2: one another. But at the same token, you know, this
11:02
Speaker 2: football team has worked really hard for the last eight
11:05
Speaker 2: and a half months to get themselves into this position.
11:08
Speaker 2: And so staying focused on what we need to do
11:11
Speaker 2: when we're in the building from game prep to meetings,
11:15
Speaker 2: to walkthroughs, to practice, to individual periods to post-practice work
11:19
Speaker 2: i think that's where our focus is it's not so
11:22
Speaker 2: much about the record or the past wins or or
11:26
Speaker 2: what people rank us at it's more about what are
11:28
Speaker 2: we going to do the next time we get an
11:30
Speaker 2: opportunity to go play and are we going to be
11:32
Speaker 2: the ability to play better football than we played last
11:34
Speaker 2: week and you know i i that was really my
11:38
Speaker 2: point that i was trying to make to the team
11:39
Speaker 2: even at halftime of last week's game the first half
11:42
Speaker 2: occurred We don't have to play like we played in
11:44
Speaker 2: the first half. We can play a much better brand
11:46
Speaker 2: of football, but we've got to get focused on the
11:49
Speaker 2: second half and not focus on the negativity of the
11:52
Speaker 2: first half. And again, I commend our players and our
11:54
Speaker 2: staff for refocusing themselves at halftime and playing a much
11:58
Speaker 2: better second half of football. And that's what we need
12:00
Speaker 2: to do continually moving forward. If philosophy-wise, how do you
12:05
Speaker 2: handle turnovers or, I guess, drops? I mean, Relief had
12:08
Speaker 2: that early turnover, but y'all went back to him pretty quickly.
12:12
Speaker 2: same thing with Ryan after his drop, he, you know,
12:14
Speaker 2: got a target not, not that long after.
12:16
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you kind of handle?
12:17
Speaker 2: Well, I think that, you know, I think one thing is, um,
12:21
Speaker 2: why did those things occur?
12:23
Speaker 5: Okay.
12:24
Speaker 2: And so there's a fundamental aspect that I try to
12:26
Speaker 2: teach and coach off of in real time. I touched
12:29
Speaker 2: on Relique and he knows this, like, he had the
12:32
Speaker 2: ball in his inside arm and we preach and harp
12:35
Speaker 2: and practice putting the ball in our outside arm and
12:38
Speaker 2: he had the ball in his inside arm.
12:40
Speaker 3: So that was a fundamental technique error.
12:43
Speaker 2: We've worked really hard with Ryan and a lot of
12:45
Speaker 2: our receivers of when we catch the football, we catch
12:48
Speaker 2: the football in front of our eyes and we don't
12:50
Speaker 2: let the ball pass our eyes. And in that instance,
12:53
Speaker 2: the ball passed his eyes. That's a much tougher catch
12:56
Speaker 2: to make. And so we try to teach the technique
12:58
Speaker 2: and get them back into, the confidence of when you
13:00
Speaker 2: use the proper technique, you put yourself in a much
13:03
Speaker 2: better position to be successful. But at the same token,
13:06
Speaker 2: those guys have earned a lot of my trust for
13:08
Speaker 2: months of the way they work and the way they practice.
13:11
Speaker 2: And so I think the longer you let it linger
13:14
Speaker 2: where they don't get a touch or they don't get.
13:16
Speaker 3: The ball in their hands, the more that it's on
13:17
Speaker 3: their mind.
13:18
Speaker 2: And so I try to get them back into the
13:20
Speaker 2: flow of the game, get their confidence back going again
13:23
Speaker 2: and get them playing football to the best of their ability.
13:26
Speaker 5: Good morning, Stark.
13:27
Speaker 3: The Athletic had a report about player.
13:30
Speaker 9: Payroll earlier this week, and it had, I think, you guys,
13:32
Speaker 9: Ohio State, Oregon, around $ 50 million.
13:35
Speaker 1: To your knowledge, is that accurate?
13:37
Speaker 9: And from a coach's perspective, would you want that information public,
13:41
Speaker 9: or do you prefer it private for everyone?
13:44
Speaker 3: That is inaccurate.
13:46
Speaker 2: I think the Athletic and different outlets make, I guess,
13:51
Speaker 2: evaluations on players of what they think players are worth
13:54
Speaker 2: and are not worth. I'm all for if everybody wants
13:58
Speaker 2: to submit all of their contracts to a general source
14:01
Speaker 2: like you do in the NFL and everybody has access
14:04
Speaker 2: to the contracts, how they're written, how much each player
14:07
Speaker 2: is making, what are his bonus structures, so on and
14:09
Speaker 2: so forth.
14:10
Speaker 3: I'm all for it.
14:11
Speaker 2: But I think we got to be cautious in that
14:15
Speaker 2: if that's not what we're doing and we're just making
14:19
Speaker 2: subjective guesstimations on what roster size is and then we
14:23
Speaker 2: take them as reality, I think that's the part that's
14:26
Speaker 2: a little bit disappointing. And I can't speak to the
14:28
Speaker 2: other schools because I don't know exactly what everybody's paying
14:32
Speaker 2: individual players and the totality of their roster, of what
14:35
Speaker 2: their roster's worth. And so, you know, different than coaches' salaries,
14:39
Speaker 2: my stuff's public. Our coaches' salaries are public. And everybody
14:41
Speaker 2: else is public, excluding the private universities. And so until
14:45
Speaker 2: we can get to a point to where everything can
14:48
Speaker 2: be public, I think we have to move with a
14:51
Speaker 2: little bit more caution to take everything as true. How
14:55
Speaker 2: do you know it's actually true when we're really the
14:57
Speaker 2: only ones that know what our roster's worth? And LSU
15:01
Speaker 2: only knows what their roster's worth, or Ohio State, Oregon,
15:04
Speaker 2: so on and so forth. What is everybody's roster worth
15:08
Speaker 2: or not worth? But I think that's where we have
15:11
Speaker 2: to move with a little bit more caution and discretion.
15:13
Speaker 3: Good morning, Coach.
15:15
Speaker 1: Quick two-parter.
15:16
Speaker 10: The first part was Coach Nansen at practice today. And
15:21
Speaker 10: then the second part was, I know you respect all
15:24
Speaker 10: of your coaching colleagues and all your coaching brethren. Do
15:27
Speaker 10: you have any higher respect for a guy like Jeff Traylor,
15:31
Speaker 10: who's at a G5 school that's trying to develop guys
15:34
Speaker 10: that get poached all the time? And I know your
15:37
Speaker 10: job is hard, but that job is really hard down
15:39
Speaker 10: there as well. So just your respect level for what
15:42
Speaker 10: they're able to do down there as well.
15:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's great.
15:44
Speaker 2: No, Coach Nansen was not at practice today. Um, as
15:47
Speaker 2: far as coach trailer and the job that, you know, he,
15:52
Speaker 2: it's interesting because I've got a, I've got a really
15:53
Speaker 2: good relationship with coach trailer. I've got a really good
15:56
Speaker 2: relationship with GJ Kenny, obviously Neil Brown, who was with
15:59
Speaker 2: us last year at North Texas.
16:01
Speaker 3: And so I have conversations.
16:03
Speaker 2: With those guys, um, and what they have to do
16:06
Speaker 2: year in and year out to almost recreate their roster.
16:10
Speaker 3: It's interesting.
16:10
Speaker 2: GJ was able to keep his quarterback, his two receivers,
16:13
Speaker 2: some of those guys, Neil Brown goes to North Texas, um,
16:16
Speaker 2: I mean, he almost has an entire new team, you know,
16:19
Speaker 2: and what that looks like for him. But I think
16:22
Speaker 2: what the amount of respect to have for Coach Traylor
16:25
Speaker 2: is the level of consistency that he's had at UTSA
16:29
Speaker 2: since he's taken that program over. You know, they believe
16:32
Speaker 2: in a certain style of play. They play that style
16:35
Speaker 2: and then they recruit to that style with the understanding
16:38
Speaker 2: that he's probably going to lose his best players at
16:40
Speaker 2: the end of every year or some of. I mean, shoot,
16:43
Speaker 2: Trey Moore played for us for two years coming from UTSA.
16:47
Speaker 2: We just played a receiver from Ohio State, McEwen, that
16:49
Speaker 2: was a receiver at UTSA last year and is now
16:52
Speaker 2: starting for Ohio State.
16:53
Speaker 3: Those are just to name a few.
16:55
Speaker 2: And so, but the level of consistency in which Coach
16:58
Speaker 2: Traylor does it, and then the style in which they
17:01
Speaker 2: play the game, it's new faces, but the style doesn't change.
17:05
Speaker 2: And I think that that's a sign of a great leader,
17:07
Speaker 2: you know, that he has a, a real belief and
17:10
Speaker 2: understanding of how he wants that program to look and
17:12
Speaker 2: how he wants them to play, and they play like it.
17:14
Speaker 2: And that's why they've had the level of success that
17:17
Speaker 2: they've had over time. You know, they've kind of withstood
17:19
Speaker 2: the test of time. It has been one year this,
17:21
Speaker 2: the next year that. They've been really consistently good for
17:24
Speaker 2: quite some time now.
17:26
Speaker 11: All right, Coach.
17:26
Speaker 12: Just wondering, after a high-profile game last Saturday, what's the
17:30
Speaker 12: message in the locker room going against a team like
17:32
Speaker 12: UTSA this week?
17:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, what a great opportunity for us. You know, we
17:36
Speaker 2: have an opportunity to improve as a program. different challenges.
17:40
Speaker 2: Every week's a different challenge. You know, we have challenges
17:43
Speaker 2: where we need to improve internally. The focus has really
17:46
Speaker 2: been on us and what we need to do, but
17:48
Speaker 2: at the same time, schematically knowing what we're going to
17:50
Speaker 2: get or anticipating what we might get from UTSA and
17:53
Speaker 2: working on those things. But what a great challenge for
17:56
Speaker 2: players to improve in our program, to get better from
17:58
Speaker 2: one week to the next. What a great opportunity for
18:01
Speaker 2: this team to show what they're made of, you know,
18:03
Speaker 2: because the natural narrative is be, we're going to have
18:06
Speaker 2: a letdown Saturday night. Well, what a great opportunity for
18:08
Speaker 2: us to send a message of what this team's really
18:11
Speaker 2: made of, the type of leadership we have, the culture
18:13
Speaker 2: that we have. Now we need to go do that.
18:17
Speaker 2: It all sounds good, but we have to go do it, right?
18:19
Speaker 2: Saturday night at seven o'clock.
18:21
Speaker 5: Coach, good afternoon.
18:21
Speaker 13: So I'm wondering after the years that you've been working
18:24
Speaker 13: with Arch, what is it like today to not only
18:27
Speaker 13: play in the game, but also in the game as
18:29
Speaker 13: you guys are trying to navigate, you know, the plays
18:32
Speaker 13: and stuff like that? Obviously the game has probably slowed
18:35
Speaker 13: down for Arch. He's at a higher level of thinking.
18:38
Speaker 13: He's probably more aligned to what you're thinking. Has it
18:42
Speaker 13: transitioned from coach to player to co-conspirator or partner in
18:46
Speaker 13: this game that you are working on?
18:49
Speaker 2: Well, I think obviously the dialogue is better. I think
18:56
Speaker 2: there's obviously more connectivity. There's more understanding of situations. We
19:01
Speaker 2: talked more situations over the years. of what and how
19:04
Speaker 2: and why. I think there's a greater level of trust,
19:07
Speaker 2: my trust in him, his trust in me and what
19:09
Speaker 2: we're calling and why we're calling it. You know, I
19:14
Speaker 2: think a lot of players, when you're down 21 or
19:17
Speaker 2: when you're down 20 and you're down 13 and a
19:21
Speaker 2: quarterback's like, I just want to chuck it deep. We
19:23
Speaker 2: got to hurry up and score. I think the patience
19:26
Speaker 2: art show the other night, getting completions, him understanding why
19:30
Speaker 2: we were running the football and We don't have 21-point
19:34
Speaker 2: touchdown passes that we have to collectively put plays together
19:37
Speaker 2: one after another after another. So I think his understanding
19:40
Speaker 2: of what and why and how we were trying to
19:42
Speaker 2: do it um is definitely higher um but i think
19:45
Speaker 2: it ultimately it comes down to thinking more alike and
19:48
Speaker 2: then you know the trust factor of believing in one
19:52
Speaker 2: another to execute what we're trying to get done.
19:54
Speaker 14: Hey sark you mentioned earlier getting some more players on
19:57
Speaker 14: the field in a game like this especially when the
19:59
Speaker 14: rotation is kind of shortened against ohio state expectedly with
20:03
Speaker 14: the wide receiver specifically i think cam coleman played 75
20:06
Speaker 14: snaps that's a lot of running around out there for
20:08
Speaker 14: him so how important is it to get guys like
20:11
Speaker 14: Sterling Burkhalter, Jermaine Bishop, and some of those others on
20:13
Speaker 14: the field on Saturday?
20:15
Speaker 2: No, I do think it's important because we got a
20:17
Speaker 2: long season ahead of us. And I understand the amount
20:22
Speaker 2: of effort that was put into that game the other night.
20:24
Speaker 2: And again, I was not anticipating going into the locker
20:27
Speaker 2: room down 20-3. In a little tighter game, you can
20:31
Speaker 2: roll some players a little bit differently.
20:33
Speaker 3: But every play felt so important.
20:35
Speaker 2: That we just didn't have an opportunity to roll as
20:37
Speaker 2: many guys as we would have liked on either side
20:39
Speaker 2: of the ball for that matter. But I also know
20:42
Speaker 2: what the next 10 games are going to look like
20:45
Speaker 2: for us in the regular season.
20:46
Speaker 3: And so having the ability.
20:48
Speaker 2: For more guys to play, having the ability for more
20:50
Speaker 2: guys to earn trust of the coaching staff, to put
20:52
Speaker 2: them out there. And that trust comes from doing what
20:55
Speaker 2: they're supposed to do with the right level of intensity
20:58
Speaker 2: and effort and knowledge. That's what they show us, that
21:02
Speaker 2: we can trust them.
21:03
Speaker 3: So Through it all, yeah. I mean, and it's got
21:06
Speaker 3: to happen earlier in the game.
21:07
Speaker 2: And we have to trust their practice habits that when
21:11
Speaker 2: they get out there, they're going to do what we're
21:12
Speaker 2: expecting them to do.
21:13
Speaker 3: Last one, CJ, you're up.
21:15
Speaker 11: Yeah.
21:15
Speaker 15: Coach, I guess in that same kind of conversation, any
21:19
Speaker 15: players you're expecting back on the field injury-wise and how
21:22
Speaker 15: are Nick Townsend, some of those guys, but also I
21:26
Speaker 15: don't think it's been but a couple of years since
21:28
Speaker 15: we've seen the six offensive line package. What did Jordan
21:31
Speaker 15: Coleman kind of show you guys in camp and over
21:34
Speaker 15: the summer that led you guys into trusting him in
21:36
Speaker 15: that package there?
21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we'll get Derek Cooper back this week,
21:41
Speaker 2: which would be great for us.
21:43
Speaker 3: He is a guy who we had really high.
21:47
Speaker 2: Kind of expectations for to start the year and got
21:50
Speaker 2: hurt early in the Texas State game. Wasn't able to
21:52
Speaker 2: play last week, so we'll get him back this week.
21:55
Speaker 2: Nick Townsend, I don't think we'll be able to go Saturday.
21:59
Speaker 2: We've got other guys with some bumps and bruises, and
22:01
Speaker 2: that's where the depth needs to start to step up
22:03
Speaker 2: so we can rotate some guys. As far as the
22:07
Speaker 2: 6-0 lineman thing, that was probably more than that, CJ,
22:11
Speaker 2: than just the 6-0 lineman. It was more just going
22:13
Speaker 2: to goal line. something that, that, you know, we haven't
22:17
Speaker 2: been in, in a while. And we lost a little
22:20
Speaker 2: faith in, and that's probably as much on us as
22:22
Speaker 2: coaches as, as it was on the players. But evaluating
22:27
Speaker 2: last season and really the last two years of where
22:29
Speaker 2: we could improve as a program, we had to get
22:31
Speaker 2: back to that style of football. And we've had, we've
22:34
Speaker 2: had really good success there over the years. I mean,
22:37
Speaker 2: can think back to sweat and Murphy and different guys
22:39
Speaker 2: being in that package and, And we always try to
22:41
Speaker 2: find a role for guys that we think can have
22:43
Speaker 2: an impact, whether it's for one play or 10 or 50,
22:46
Speaker 2: whatever it looks like. And so I think Jordan's athleticism
22:49
Speaker 2: on the edge, his ability to move people in short area,
22:52
Speaker 2: are all things that led to giving him that opportunity
22:55
Speaker 2: to be part of that package.
22:57
Speaker 1: So there it is. That's Longhorn's head coach Steve Sarkeesian
23:00
Speaker 1: from the weekly media Zoom addressing the issues with the
23:05
Speaker 1: end-of-game interview attempts by ESPN. the whole thing, the Arch
23:09
Speaker 1: Manning situation. And then the latest news this morning coming down,
23:13
Speaker 1: that Johnny Nansen, Longhorn's assistant coach, linebacker's coach, cited for
23:18
Speaker 1: a misdemeanor DWI and was not at practice today. And
23:22
Speaker 1: Sark's saying he's not sure. He doesn't know yet about
23:26
Speaker 1: the situation, whether Nansen will be on the sideline Saturday night.
23:28
Speaker 1: All right, coming up, we're going to visit with Roger Wallace.
23:31
Speaker 1: We'll talk some Longhorn football. We've got a lot more
23:33
Speaker 1: here on Sports Radio AM, 13 under the zone on
23:35
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app.
23:43
Speaker 16: You got this to the left, this to the right,
23:47
Speaker 16: and you're the only.
23:48
Speaker 6: Man in town.
23:49
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a little weird because.
23:54
Speaker 1: You know, when we have Roger Wallace join the program,
23:57
Speaker 1: the producer, Jake Herman, bumps back with a Jimmy Buffett song. Roger,
24:03
Speaker 1: the biggest parrot head we know. And yet, and normally
24:08
Speaker 1: it's one that's suggested we talk about whatever. And I
24:11
Speaker 1: had not. And I said to Jake, do we have
24:14
Speaker 1: a song ready?
24:14
Speaker 17: He said, yeah.
24:15
Speaker 1: Do you want something else? I had no idea what
24:16
Speaker 1: he was going to play. The song I was going
24:18
Speaker 1: to suggest was Finn's.
24:19
Speaker 8: All right.
24:20
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It's amazing. And so I lean into Roger
24:24
Speaker 1: to give us, is there, I mean, obviously, Buffett's stuff
24:29
Speaker 1: is very tropical, but was there any specific meaning other
24:31
Speaker 1: than a girl going down to the Caribbean and being
24:35
Speaker 1: accosted by dudes in a bar and stuff like that?
24:38
Speaker 18: Well, I'm glad you asked because the fifth word in
24:43
Speaker 18: the song is Cincinnati, and that kind of goes to my...
24:49
Speaker 18: My fandom with Buffett and that kind of became his
24:53
Speaker 18: northern Parrothead headquarters, if you will, way back in the
24:58
Speaker 18: late 70s when he was mostly a southern guy in
25:02
Speaker 18: Florida and Key West and all that. And then he,
25:05
Speaker 18: for one reason or another, Cincinnati kind of became a
25:08
Speaker 18: huge Buffett hub. And so much so that he made
25:14
Speaker 18: a point of playing every year. That's a concert in
25:18
Speaker 18: Cincinnati is where one of his band members came up
25:21
Speaker 18: with the term Parrothead when they were looking at the crowd.
25:24
Speaker 17: And so.
25:26
Speaker 18: Yeah, that holds some significance beyond the fact that, you know, Landsharks,
25:30
Speaker 18: and they came up with a beer name because of
25:34
Speaker 18: the Landshark, which is, you know, essentially what Fins is about, dudes,
25:39
Speaker 18: or Landsharks.
25:40
Speaker 17: Yeah. It's the one that went down to Cincinnati, et cetera.
25:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. See, I was hoping
25:46
Speaker 1: there was a story behind it, and there's probably not
25:48
Speaker 1: a story behind every Jimmy Buffett song, but about some
25:51
Speaker 1: of them. That's one of his more popular tunes, so
25:53
Speaker 1: it makes sense. It makes sense.
25:54
Speaker 18: That's one of those ones, Craig, where he always says
25:57
Speaker 18: or used to say, obviously, that there's some you just
26:00
Speaker 18: have to play and he doesn't play it for himself.
26:02
Speaker 17: He plays it for his fans. And, you know, Fins
26:05
Speaker 17: is one of those anthems. And if you've.
26:07
Speaker 18: Ever been to a Buffett concert, it's quite a quite
26:09
Speaker 18: a scene when they put the Fins up and start
26:12
Speaker 18: swaying from the left to the right. It's a pretty cool,
26:14
Speaker 18: pretty cool scene on a lot of those anthems. outdoor
26:17
Speaker 18: venues up on the lawn.
26:19
Speaker 1: Yeah witnessed it myself there at that that that that
26:22
Speaker 1: amphitheater by the cotton bowl i did that one one
26:25
Speaker 1: uh one time the the swaying back and forth and
26:28
Speaker 1: and uh and that sort of thing it kind of
26:31
Speaker 1: it kind of makes and it's funny he has that
26:33
Speaker 1: line that that in the song manana that that that
26:37
Speaker 1: uh that jake played last week says don't try to
26:40
Speaker 1: describe a kiss concert if you've never seen one don't
26:43
Speaker 1: try to describe a buffett concert if you've never seen
26:46
Speaker 1: one right.
26:48
Speaker 17: Yeah, that's right.
26:49
Speaker 18: I mean, you know, you can kind of, you know,
26:51
Speaker 18: the parking lot, you know, it's tailgating, it's, you know, tropical,
26:55
Speaker 18: it's Hawaiian shirts. Now, you know, towards the end of
26:59
Speaker 18: his career, it was, he would thank the parents for
27:02
Speaker 18: introducing their children to, introducing their you know because the
27:06
Speaker 18: the demographic got pretty old but but yeah it's it's
27:09
Speaker 18: kind of it's kind of what you would uh you
27:11
Speaker 18: know escape to uh to margaritaville is uh you know
27:15
Speaker 18: a real thing and his fans and that's what a
27:18
Speaker 18: concert's kind of like no doubt about it i don't
27:20
Speaker 18: live the funny part the ironic part you know it
27:22
Speaker 18: i don't live the buffett lifestyle right i just like
27:26
Speaker 18: the music and i like the tropical.
27:28
Speaker 17: Vibe and the beach vibe and the palm trees and
27:30
Speaker 17: all that.
27:31
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah you're not not not exactly the the Put
27:35
Speaker 1: it this way. If I were to see you at
27:37
Speaker 1: a Buffett concert back in the day, would you have
27:38
Speaker 1: dressed like the other Parrotheads?
27:40
Speaker 18: I would not, and I would not have a frozen
27:44
Speaker 18: concoction drink and all that stuff. But I would know
27:49
Speaker 18: every song.
27:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No doubt about it. Let me jump
27:53
Speaker 1: right in because you were down there on campus there
27:56
Speaker 1: because you have a weekly conversation with Sark for the
28:00
Speaker 1: game day show that you guys have on KBVO. Um,
28:04
Speaker 1: and you know, Sark had mentioned something to me before
28:08
Speaker 1: we recorded Longhorn Weekly last night and John Bianco was
28:12
Speaker 1: talking about, they were going to, I think, go ahead
28:14
Speaker 1: and address all of this business straight on. And then
28:18
Speaker 1: in addition to that, the Johnny Nansen news that came
28:20
Speaker 1: down as well. So I take it you weren't necessarily surprised.
28:23
Speaker 1: by Sark going head-on with stuff to talk about, the
28:26
Speaker 1: ESPN attempted interview things, the snafu with that, Arch Manning's situation,
28:31
Speaker 1: and then the Johnny Nansen news on top of it.
28:35
Speaker 18: Yeah, I mean, I kind of summed it up with it.
28:37
Speaker 18: They got a lot going on down there, and it
28:39
Speaker 18: has nothing to do with a football game. So in
28:42
Speaker 18: that regard, you're 48 hours out. And yes, and I
28:46
Speaker 18: think in some ways he owed it to Arch, to
28:50
Speaker 18: kind of explain the chain reaction of events that happened
28:54
Speaker 18: that led up to what everyone's been talking about the
28:58
Speaker 18: last couple of days. So not surprised at all. I
29:00
Speaker 18: think he felt he owed it to Arch. He also
29:02
Speaker 18: wanted to let people know he understands as well as
29:05
Speaker 18: Arch does, that he made a mistake in his choice.
29:08
Speaker 17: Of comments and all that.
29:09
Speaker 18: And our conversation is for our Texas game day, which
29:14
Speaker 18: airs an hour before the game.
29:15
Speaker 17: So obviously we've moved on.
29:16
Speaker 18: He talked about the things that they need to work on,
29:19
Speaker 18: but that's part of it, don't you think?
29:21
Speaker 1: Is it just getting.
29:23
Speaker 18: That focus, because there's a lot of stuff flying around here.
29:26
Speaker 18: And oh, by the way, the number one team in
29:29
Speaker 18: the country.
29:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, all of that stuff heaped in and coming off
29:34
Speaker 1: of that gigantic win. I mean, it would not surprise
29:38
Speaker 1: me if.
29:40
Speaker 1: Whoever, the ESPN guys or the Fox guys, whoever, all say, hey,
29:45
Speaker 1: Texas better be on upset alert because they've got all
29:47
Speaker 1: these distractions swirling around and they're coming off that mountaintop
29:51
Speaker 1: experience and getting ready for a hungry UTSA team. But
29:55
Speaker 1: that said, the vibe I got from Sark last night,
29:58
Speaker 1: and I think what you got as well, is they're
30:01
Speaker 1: circling the wagons, they're locking in on this game no
30:04
Speaker 1: matter who the opponent was going to be, regardless of
30:06
Speaker 1: that outside stuff.
30:08
Speaker 17: No question.
30:09
Speaker 18: And if you've ever been to practice, which I know
30:12
Speaker 18: a lot of people don't obviously get that opportunity, practice
30:15
Speaker 18: looks pretty much the same every day.
30:17
Speaker 17: And that's because they have to do the work.
30:20
Speaker 18: And so the other stuff, maybe it seeps into outside
30:25
Speaker 18: of practice and their day-to-day lives a little bit.
30:29
Speaker 17: But the practice.
30:30
Speaker 18: is so regimented and, you know, it's so structured that
30:33
Speaker 18: there's no time for your mind to wander about all
30:36
Speaker 18: that or you're going to get called out so fast.
30:38
Speaker 18: And so I don't think getting their focus in practice,
30:41
Speaker 18: I think no matter what with a win like that
30:44
Speaker 18: against Ohio State, it's only natural that their biggest concern
30:47
Speaker 18: is to get his team off an emotional high, especially
30:51
Speaker 18: Saturday at, you know, 7 o'clock when it's time to play.
30:55
Speaker 1: No question about it. Roger Wallace with us for a
30:57
Speaker 1: couple more minutes. Okay, let's jump to the weekend, starting
31:01
Speaker 1: with your game tonight. This is kind of a unique thing,
31:04
Speaker 1: isn't it? I sometimes refer to brand-new high school football
31:08
Speaker 1: athletic programs as expansion teams because of what they have
31:13
Speaker 1: to deal with and start out. And in the case
31:14
Speaker 1: of Legacy Branch, it really kind of is not having
31:16
Speaker 1: that senior class and getting ready to take on Pflugerville,
31:19
Speaker 1: and that's the one you and Keith Moreland have tonight.
31:22
Speaker 18: Yeah, Legacy Ranch and Pflugerville at the field. And, you know,
31:25
Speaker 18: we were out there on their very first day of
31:28
Speaker 18: practice in August. And, I mean, it's a beautiful facility,
31:32
Speaker 18: the high school. And Tim Kinnicky, the head coach, said, man,
31:35
Speaker 18: I got to watch that thing being built. And it
31:38
Speaker 18: was quite a process for a first-time head coach. But then,
31:42
Speaker 18: you know, I joked with him, what do you do
31:44
Speaker 18: when you get that job and you're building a program?
31:46
Speaker 1: And he kind of laughed.
31:46
Speaker 17: He goes, yeah, that's interesting because you've got to do everything.
31:50
Speaker 18: And you probably, for everything you do, you probably forgot.
31:53
Speaker 17: Three things you need to do.
31:54
Speaker 18: But they come out of that Liberty Hill District, and
31:57
Speaker 18: we know the history and the tradition. So they're going
31:59
Speaker 18: to get some players just by nature of that system
32:04
Speaker 18: out there and those kids hungry to play football now.
32:07
Speaker 18: You know, they know they're going to take some lumps
32:08
Speaker 18: and they have the last couple of weeks, but they
32:10
Speaker 18: won their first game. And like you said, they're.
32:13
Speaker 17: All coming back.
32:13
Speaker 18: He said, he goes, I know I've got everybody coming back,
32:16
Speaker 18: assuming they don't leave and got a freshman center, for instance.
32:20
Speaker 18: So obviously you point to the future and you see,
32:23
Speaker 18: you know, how how to do this year is a
32:25
Speaker 18: first year varsity program.
32:27
Speaker 1: That is tonight at the field. You can watch it
32:29
Speaker 1: on KBVO at 7 o'clock tonight, Pflugerville against Legacy Ranch.
32:32
Speaker 1: And then the game, I'm stepping in for you tomorrow
32:34
Speaker 1: night because you'll be on campus.
32:35
Speaker 18: I was going to say, can I turn the tables
32:37
Speaker 18: on you?
32:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
32:40
Speaker 18: Since you've got the game tomorrow night on KXAM +,
32:44
Speaker 18: This is a game that used to be for a
32:46
Speaker 18: district title or a piece of the district title or trying.
32:48
Speaker 17: To upset the apple cart.
32:49
Speaker 18: This is a pretty cool non-district game over at Monroe
32:52
Speaker 18: Stadium tomorrow you and Keith will be doing.
32:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Vandy Griffin, Round Rock, and you're spot on
32:57
Speaker 1: with it. And you know the coaches as well as
32:59
Speaker 1: I do. And, you know, I was impressed with both teams.
33:04
Speaker 1: of the coaches and what they had to say about this. Basically,
33:09
Speaker 1: that you're talking about two schools who are used to
33:12
Speaker 1: playing each other for eight consecutive years. It's been nine
33:17
Speaker 1: years since they weren't in the same district. So it's
33:21
Speaker 1: eight consecutive years. that Round Rock and Vandegrift met as
33:27
Speaker 1: district opponents. So in eight consecutive years, they got used
33:31
Speaker 1: to playing each other. And of course, Cody Moore's in
33:34
Speaker 1: his fourth season overall, but still, and Drew Sanders is
33:40
Speaker 1: the only coach Vandegrift has ever had. We know that
33:42
Speaker 1: as well. But they both were in unanimity about This
33:45
Speaker 1: was too good a game to not play, continue to play,
33:50
Speaker 1: even though they're no longer in the same district. If
33:53
Speaker 1: for no other reason, Rodgers, you know, the 6A districts
33:57
Speaker 1: in this area are all 17 districts. They had to
33:59
Speaker 1: add that fourth non-district game. He said, why not jump
34:03
Speaker 1: right into that? And with Round Rock, it's so weird
34:07
Speaker 1: to think about this, Roger, that the Round Rock schools
34:10
Speaker 1: are not in with the Leander schools, but they're in
34:12
Speaker 1: with Westlake and Lake Travis. And that's what's going to
34:15
Speaker 1: be really interesting to follow on down the line.
34:19
Speaker 18: Yeah, that's, you know, it's funny when you think about,
34:23
Speaker 18: you know, Kelly Reeves and Gupton are, you know, right
34:26
Speaker 18: up the road from each other. And I joked last
34:28
Speaker 18: week when we were at Kelly Reeves that, you know,
34:30
Speaker 18: Cedar Ridge and Vista Ridge, and Vista Ridge is way
34:33
Speaker 18: closer to that stadium than Cedar Ridge is as far as.
34:36
Speaker 17: Their campuses are. So, yeah, but what.
34:41
Speaker 18: I say it's a great game.
34:42
Speaker 17: You say it's a great game.
34:43
Speaker 18: I'm sure both coaches are going, okay, we're at week
34:46
Speaker 18: four now and still we're in non-district. So this is
34:48
Speaker 18: a great matchup, but these are also two really physical teams.
34:51
Speaker 18: And that's a month of pounding now before they get
34:54
Speaker 18: ready for the.
34:55
Speaker 17: Most important part.
34:56
Speaker 18: So it's kind of a catch 22 where you get
34:59
Speaker 18: a great opponent, you get a great gauge.
35:01
Speaker 17: But you don't want to get beat up too.
35:03
Speaker 18: Badly here a month into the season before that run. But, yeah,
35:06
Speaker 18: it should be fun. And, no, you know, Westlake's off tomorrow. So,
35:09
Speaker 18: you know, on KXAN +, that's the marquee game, obviously, tomorrow.
35:14
Speaker 1: Well, and it'll be a big crowd there. And they
35:16
Speaker 1: both have good offensive lines. And you saw Vandegrift a
35:18
Speaker 1: week ago. And we've seen what Round Rock did. That
35:20
Speaker 1: was an impressive win. They got over Dripping Springs. Both
35:23
Speaker 1: teams 2-1 going into that. And I am kind of
35:27
Speaker 1: curious to see both of these quarterbacks, in action as well.
35:33
Speaker 1: Dove Strickler for Round Rocks, kind of almost their Swiss
35:37
Speaker 1: Army knife. He does so much for Coach Moore. And
35:42
Speaker 1: then you saw Gavin Custer a week ago and what
35:44
Speaker 1: he can do for Vandergrift.
35:47
Speaker 18: Yeah, you have to think that Vandegrift took a big
35:49
Speaker 18: step last week at Liberty Hill, the way they just
35:54
Speaker 18: kind of jumped on Liberty Hill.
35:55
Speaker 17: Big ball game, obviously, for Liberty Hill to.
35:57
Speaker 18: Host a 6A team, not only a 6A team, but
36:00
Speaker 18: one with the name of a Vandegrift. And they were
36:04
Speaker 18: on the wrong end of a pretty decisive win by Vandegrift,
36:08
Speaker 18: and Custer seemed to kind of find himself a little
36:11
Speaker 18: bit after what happened a couple of weeks ago. So Yeah,
36:14
Speaker 18: it should be interesting, and then we'll be talking almost
36:19
Speaker 18: exclusively about district games. I look at that 12-5A district,
36:24
Speaker 18: and the fact that they're going to be two weeks
36:25
Speaker 18: into district play after this weekend, and then a lot
36:29
Speaker 18: of schools don't open district until next week.
36:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. You can catch Roger and
36:35
Speaker 1: Keith tonight with the call on KBVO at 7 o'clock,
36:38
Speaker 1: Pflugerville against Legacy Ranch, and then Keith will join me
36:41
Speaker 1: tomorrow on KXM +. for Round Rock and Vanderbilt. Rog,
36:44
Speaker 1: thanks for the time. Have a good call tonight. We'll
36:46
Speaker 1: see you this weekend.
36:47
Speaker 17: Thanks, Craig. Thanks for stepping in tomorrow, too.
36:49
Speaker 1: You betcha.
36:50
Speaker 5: Take care.
36:50
Speaker 1: All right, that's Roger Wallace. We'll be back with more
36:52
Speaker 1: on 13 Under the Zone.
36:56
Speaker 19: He's a Texas legend, a Hall of Fame broadcaster, the
37:01
Speaker 19: voice of the Texas Longhorns, and your host of The
37:05
Speaker 19: Craig Way Show. Here he is now, Craig Way.
37:31
Speaker 1: Second hour of the program here on Sports Radio AM,
37:34
Speaker 1: 1300 The Zone. Craig Way, joined by the producer, Jay Kerman.
37:39
Speaker 1: We're glad to be with you up until 5 o'clock.
37:41
Speaker 1: Coming up in a few minutes here in this 3
37:43
Speaker 1: o'clock hour, we will visit with Gene Watson to talk
37:48
Speaker 1: some Major League Baseball. We are, after all, drawing closer
37:52
Speaker 1: to the end of the regular season. So you basically...
37:59
Speaker 1: After this weekend, we've got just one more week of
38:02
Speaker 1: the regular season. So we're inside like the final 10
38:05
Speaker 1: days of this season. And we'll get his thoughts on
38:11
Speaker 1: the pennant races and some key topics on Major League Baseball.
38:15
Speaker 1: We'll do that. When we started off the program last hour,
38:18
Speaker 1: we let you hear in its entirety the weekly media
38:23
Speaker 1: Zoom that Longhorn's head coach Steve Sarkeesian does on Thursdays.
38:29
Speaker 1: And we brought it to you. Normally, we bring it
38:32
Speaker 1: to you like in cut-up form. We bring you his
38:34
Speaker 1: sound bites, and we tell you what the question was.
38:37
Speaker 1: But I thought it was important enough to have the
38:39
Speaker 1: questions in there for context, given the fact what Sark
38:42
Speaker 1: was addressing with regard to the end-of-the-game interview attempts from ESPN,
38:47
Speaker 1: the whole Holly Roth thing, and Arch Manning, and then
38:51
Speaker 1: the news that he announced this morning that linebackers coach
38:55
Speaker 1: Johnny Nansen was arrested on a misdemeanor DWI charge last night.
39:02
Speaker 1: So the details of that were all in that, and
39:04
Speaker 1: there were some follow-up questions about that. So we brought
39:07
Speaker 1: it to you in its entirety. If you missed it, A,
39:10
Speaker 1: no worries. You can always catch it on the podcast
39:12
Speaker 1: page at am13underthezone. com. Beyond that, we're going to re-air it
39:19
Speaker 1: right out of the gate in the 4 o'clock hour,
39:21
Speaker 1: so you can hear that. in its entirety. However, what
39:25
Speaker 1: we're gonna do right now, before we get to Gene Watson,
39:27
Speaker 1: is to bring you a little sneak preview of tonight's
39:30
Speaker 1: program of Longhorn Weekly. It'll actually air at 5.30 this afternoon,
39:35
Speaker 1: about a half an hour after we're done. Longhorn's head coach,
39:39
Speaker 1: Steve Sarkeesian, and I were talking about the win over
39:42
Speaker 1: Ohio State, getting you ready for the matchup. with UTSA
39:46
Speaker 1: and a special guest, a lifetime Longhorn and All-American, one
39:51
Speaker 1: of the guys going into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor,
39:56
Speaker 1: and that's Jackson Jeffcoat. So here's a little sneak preview.
39:59
Speaker 1: This is from the show that will air coming up
40:03
Speaker 1: beginning at 5.30 this evening. And this is with Jackson Jeffcoat,
40:08
Speaker 1: the Longhorn All-American and Hall of Honor inductee. We have
40:12
Speaker 1: our special guest with us here and I've known him
40:17
Speaker 1: and there's a story behind how long I've known this
40:20
Speaker 1: guy but I always leave the introductions to you, Sar.
40:23
Speaker 2: Well, I think this is pretty special when you think
40:27
Speaker 2: about what's happening for this guy this week and.
40:30
Speaker 3: Much deserved.
40:33
Speaker 2: To be inducted this week into the Texas Hall of
40:37
Speaker 2: Honor and welcome Jackson Jeffcoat and It's great to have you, man.
40:42
Speaker 7: Thank you, Coach. I appreciate you.
40:43
Speaker 1: Good to see you here, Jackson. You know, going into
40:47
Speaker 1: the Hall of Honor class, also a member of another
40:51
Speaker 1: Hall of Honor. And this is not, you know, chicken salad.
40:55
Speaker 1: If you're in the Plano ISD Hall of Honor, all
40:58
Speaker 1: the great high school football that's come from the Plano
41:01
Speaker 1: School District, he's in that as well. Of course, a
41:04
Speaker 1: parade in USA Today All-American. Ranked as the best defensive
41:07
Speaker 1: end and second best overall prospect by ESPNU when he
41:11
Speaker 1: was coming out of Plano West. Two-time first-team All-State. Posted 25.5
41:18
Speaker 1: sacks in the last two seasons and 56 tackles for losses.
41:23
Speaker 1: It says you also considered playing basketball in college.
41:28
Speaker 11: I did.
41:28
Speaker 5: I did.
41:28
Speaker 7: Basketball is my number one sport. I love basketball. I
41:32
Speaker 7: was told by Texas that I could play both here.
41:36
Speaker 12: How long did that last?
41:39
Speaker 7: After football season.
41:40
Speaker 5: They said I could.
41:41
Speaker 7: They said I could. But after football season, I didn't
41:44
Speaker 7: want to play anymore. I was so tired. I was
41:46
Speaker 7: beat up. I was like, yeah, I can't. I just
41:49
Speaker 7: can't do it.
41:50
Speaker 1: Well, this says something about the athleticism of the Jeffco family. Obviously,
41:54
Speaker 1: Jackson's dad, Jim Jeffco, played for the Dallas Cowboys, an
41:57
Speaker 1: outstanding All-Pro. And in my earlier reporter days, I got
42:01
Speaker 1: to know his parents, Jim and Tammy, very, very well
42:04
Speaker 1: and covered the Cowboys during that time. Also during that time,
42:08
Speaker 1: let's take it back to 1995, Sark, when you were
42:11
Speaker 1: at BYU. So this is 1995. My oldest son was
42:16
Speaker 1: five years old and was playing tee ball. and this
42:19
Speaker 1: is in Irving, and we're over there, and he's playing
42:22
Speaker 1: for a team called the Tigers, and they're playing for
42:24
Speaker 1: a team called the Tasmanian Devils. And there were two
42:29
Speaker 1: girls on that team who were the best players on
42:32
Speaker 1: the team, Jim and Tammy's daughters. And there was a
42:36
Speaker 1: little two-year-old rug rat, three-year-old rug rat running around outside.
42:40
Speaker 1: And Tammy would go, Jackson! And there you are running
42:43
Speaker 1: around the field at age two or three or whatever
42:46
Speaker 1: it was back then. But your sisters were very athletic.
42:48
Speaker 15: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:49
Speaker 7: I got an athletic family. They can play.
42:52
Speaker 1: Boy, sir. Were you much good at baseball? Baseball?
42:55
Speaker 7: I mean, funny story. I had an AOL screen name
43:01
Speaker 7: or AOL email account. It was Baseball Jack. I think
43:04
Speaker 7: that was the first sport my dad tried to push
43:06
Speaker 7: me towards outside of, I mean, he didn't want me
43:09
Speaker 7: to play football. So baseball was my sport. King Griffey Jr.
43:13
Speaker 7: was my guy. I really looked up to, and I
43:16
Speaker 7: was a pretty good baseball player. You can ask my dad.
43:18
Speaker 7: I could play.
43:20
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? Well, and I know a lot of times, Sark,
43:22
Speaker 1: when you're recruiting guys, guys are two and three sport athletes.
43:25
Speaker 2: No, I think for us, you know, even now, and it's,
43:29
Speaker 2: more rare than it was like even, even what was
43:32
Speaker 2: it where we're saying 15, 20 years ago, right? Like there,
43:37
Speaker 2: when we can recruit athletes that are multi-sport athletes, it
43:40
Speaker 2: tells you a lot, A, about the competitive spirit of somebody.
43:44
Speaker 2: It tells you about the natural athleticism, right? The hand-eye coordination,
43:47
Speaker 2: the foot-eye coordination, the instincts, right? The spatial awareness that they're,
43:52
Speaker 2: you know, what's going on around them. Um, and so
43:56
Speaker 2: when you, when you can find them and two sport,
43:59
Speaker 2: three sport athletes, those guys are like gold man, because,
44:02
Speaker 2: and that also tells you they haven't just specialized in
44:06
Speaker 2: football and train all year in football and do drills
44:09
Speaker 2: all year in football that we know there's some upside
44:12
Speaker 2: and there's some growth and there's some development in their
44:14
Speaker 2: game that we're not getting a finished product.
44:17
Speaker 1: And again, you'll hear more with Jackson Jeffcoat on the show.
44:20
Speaker 1: He was, he was with us for three segments. in
44:23
Speaker 1: the program and some really good stories from him about
44:26
Speaker 1: playing for Texas and the other schools he considered and
44:29
Speaker 1: what it means to him to be a Longhorn and
44:31
Speaker 1: all of those kinds of things. And about his pro
44:34
Speaker 1: career as well. So we'll have that coming up on
44:37
Speaker 1: Longhorn Weekly. The full program comes your way at 5.30
44:41
Speaker 1: this afternoon. 5.30 this afternoon, Longhorn Weekly with Coach Sark
44:46
Speaker 1: from the 40 Acres. All right, up next, we shift
44:49
Speaker 1: to baseball. We'll talk about the Major League Pennant races
44:51
Speaker 1: and more with Gene Watson, the front office fan of
44:55
Speaker 1: the Chicago White Sox, when we continue on Sports Radio
44:57
Speaker 1: AM 13 Under the Zone and the iHeartRadio app.
45:04
Speaker 3: We're back.
45:05
Speaker 19: It's the Craig Way Show with Hall of Fame broadcaster
45:08
Speaker 19: and voice of the Texas Longhorns, Craig Way.
45:20
Speaker 1: All right, it is time to talk some baseball, even
45:23
Speaker 1: in the midst of all the football conversation. And we
45:27
Speaker 1: have more of that coming, and we'll hear more from Sark,
45:30
Speaker 1: as we pointed out. And we'll have more from him
45:34
Speaker 1: coming up at the 4 o'clock hour as well. But,
45:36
Speaker 1: like I said, we're keeping track of the Major League penetration.
45:40
Speaker 1: I was impressed by something as we're now joined by
45:43
Speaker 1: our good friend, our MLB insider from the Chicago White
45:46
Speaker 1: Sox front office, Gene Watson. You know, Gino, you know
45:49
Speaker 1: how it is in Texas and you played high school
45:51
Speaker 1: football in Texas and you know how folks get and
45:53
Speaker 1: how they're fired up about everything and coming off that
45:56
Speaker 1: win over Ohio State. And I know you were there
45:58
Speaker 1: for that. It was an amazing game and all that
46:00
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But last night I'm watching KXN Sportscast
46:06
Speaker 1: and Noah Gross is doing it. And he did not
46:10
Speaker 1: lead with Longhorns like most of them have been doing
46:13
Speaker 1: of late coming off of the game and all the
46:15
Speaker 1: other stuff. No, he led with the Astros loss and
46:18
Speaker 1: the Rangers win. And here they are in a flat-footed
46:21
Speaker 1: tie for first place in the American League West. at
46:25
Speaker 1: level 500 76 and 76 with uh with with uh
46:32
Speaker 1: 10 games to go in the season asters and rangers
46:35
Speaker 1: as you said this thing is going to go to
46:37
Speaker 1: the wire and i guess none of us should be
46:38
Speaker 1: surprised by.
46:39
Speaker 11: Any of that well what's really happened is people have
46:43
Speaker 11: got to take care of business the next six because
46:45
Speaker 11: almost every team has and it's the major leagues and
46:48
Speaker 11: anybody can beat anybody in a given day but but
46:52
Speaker 11: we play colorado and toronto plays cincinnati and and Houston
46:55
Speaker 11: plays Sacramento. And so like those last three games, you
47:00
Speaker 11: got a chance to, you know, if you can take
47:02
Speaker 11: care of business, you've got a chance to make some
47:03
Speaker 11: hay on the last weekend. And, and Kansas city's got
47:07
Speaker 11: a chance to play a real factor in this because
47:09
Speaker 11: they play us for three and Cleveland, I believe for
47:12
Speaker 11: three or four. And so Kansas city who's played much
47:15
Speaker 11: better baseball over the last three weeks has a chance
47:18
Speaker 11: to play spoiler.
47:18
Speaker 5: And they're just the type of team to do it.
47:20
Speaker 5: They are very dangerous.
47:21
Speaker 11: And if there were two halves of the season, uh,
47:24
Speaker 11: they would definitely be in play for a playoff spot
47:26
Speaker 11: in the second half. So you got to take care
47:28
Speaker 11: of business in the next six, seven days and going
47:31
Speaker 11: to the last weekend. And you're going to start to
47:33
Speaker 11: see teams do some pretty creative things when it comes
47:36
Speaker 11: to their pitching staffs as we get down the stretch.
47:39
Speaker 1: All right, let me get your thoughts on your ball club.
47:43
Speaker 1: I mean, most teams, most teams, especially veteran ones or whatever,
47:48
Speaker 1: or ones that have been down the road, might look
47:51
Speaker 1: at the fact that they got swept and then go, oh,
47:56
Speaker 1: you know, what's going to happen here? You've been saying
47:59
Speaker 1: all along that your guys, don't really seem affected by
48:04
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff about, you know, you're not
48:06
Speaker 1: even supposed to be here, yada, yada, and you're only
48:08
Speaker 1: a half game back in the division despite being swept
48:11
Speaker 1: by the Guardians. What would you say is the mindset
48:13
Speaker 1: of the ball club? You were around them as well
48:15
Speaker 1: and how they're processing this, understanding there's 10 games left
48:20
Speaker 1: and a chance to go back to work with the
48:24
Speaker 1: Tigers next on deck and how they deal with this.
48:27
Speaker 11: Well, this is a very young team and on April 1st,
48:31
Speaker 11: and we've had these conversations with our players. If we
48:34
Speaker 11: would have said on April 1st, you're going to be
48:36
Speaker 11: a half game out of the division on September 18th,
48:40
Speaker 11: you would have taken it. And so that's the viewpoint.
48:43
Speaker 11: Do we, do we feel like we played our best baseball?
48:45
Speaker 11: Absolutely not. And I think every team that is one
48:48
Speaker 11: or two games out of the wild card or the
48:50
Speaker 11: playoff division lead right now would, would, would say that,
48:53
Speaker 11: that they have not played their best baseball. So, You
48:56
Speaker 11: just got to wake up and win today. I think
48:57
Speaker 11: Jose Espada said it the best. You know, you got
49:01
Speaker 11: to play your best baseball today.
49:02
Speaker 5: And that's going to be the goal. So that's where
49:05
Speaker 5: we're at right now.
49:07
Speaker 1: Safe to say that this is the time of the year.
49:10
Speaker 1: And again, your ball club being uh unaccustomed being in
49:14
Speaker 1: this position and and since you've been there it's the
49:17
Speaker 1: script has obviously flipped with everything you've done in the
49:19
Speaker 1: other and and the rest of the front office and
49:22
Speaker 1: turning the fortunes around there on the south side but
49:25
Speaker 1: um have they have they gotten comfortable with scoreboard watching
49:30
Speaker 1: are we to that point when you get to the
49:31
Speaker 1: final 10 games of the year you're kind of watching
49:33
Speaker 1: that that that hand operated scoreboard or electric uh electronic
49:37
Speaker 1: scoreboard out there aren't you.
49:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, that really started about September 1st for me.
49:43
Speaker 11: And because you look at the schedule and you're like,
49:46
Speaker 11: we start a four-game series with Detroit today.
49:48
Speaker 5: They're only five games out of the wild card. And A.J.
49:51
Speaker 11: Hinch has this team believing that they're going to make
49:54
Speaker 11: the playoffs. I mean, that's just the way he operates.
49:56
Speaker 11: And so when you look at your future schedule and
49:59
Speaker 11: you realize, okay, this is going to be a difficult one.
50:02
Speaker 11: I mean, look at the Pirates. The Pirates, I'm telling you,
50:04
Speaker 11: are one of the best young teams in baseball. They're
50:06
Speaker 11: going to be a presence next year. in the National
50:08
Speaker 11: League Central. And so you see these little pockets on
50:12
Speaker 11: your schedule where you go, that's not going to be
50:14
Speaker 11: an easy series. We better take care of business today.
50:16
Speaker 11: But now you're past the point of no return. You
50:19
Speaker 11: got to win every game that you can.
50:20
Speaker 1: Gene Watson is with us right now as sirens wail
50:23
Speaker 1: all around him. I don't know what's going on in
50:26
Speaker 1: Chicago right now. Yeah. I want to ask you about
50:30
Speaker 1: the American League East because it looks like the Rays
50:33
Speaker 1: are going to get there after all. The Yankees were
50:35
Speaker 1: making a push, but now they lost to the Twins
50:39
Speaker 1: in the extra innings last night, and Aaron Judge had
50:41
Speaker 1: to be pulled for a pinch hitter. Tightness in that
50:44
Speaker 1: lower right leg. I would imagine that's going to be
50:47
Speaker 1: the real deal. concern right now after he'd spent so
50:51
Speaker 1: much time on the injured list for Judge to have
50:55
Speaker 1: to come out of the ballgame after he'd been back
50:57
Speaker 1: in the lineup a week. Yeah, and that's the tough one.
51:00
Speaker 11: That's the difficult one because Tampa has just been such
51:03
Speaker 11: a great team all season long and you know you're
51:06
Speaker 11: chasing them. You know they're a team you're going to
51:08
Speaker 11: have to, as the playoffs set up today, a team
51:10
Speaker 11: you're going to have to beat And not only do
51:12
Speaker 11: you lose, but you lose your best player at the
51:13
Speaker 11: same time. And so it's going to be a character
51:16
Speaker 11: check for the Yankees. They've got an extremely talented team,
51:19
Speaker 11: especially on the mound. And so you just try to
51:21
Speaker 11: do the best you can every day.
51:23
Speaker 5: But truly.
51:25
Speaker 11: diminishing to the morale of our ball club losing your
51:27
Speaker 11: best player like that.
51:28
Speaker 1: Looking at the wild card race right now, as you
51:31
Speaker 1: pointed out, the Tigers are five out of that last spot.
51:34
Speaker 1: They're only five and a half out of the top
51:35
Speaker 1: spot in your division as well. And you said A.J.
51:38
Speaker 1: Hinch has them still believing and looking at this. Looking
51:42
Speaker 1: at the totality... of the wild card spot. I think
51:44
Speaker 1: it's pretty safe to say that the Yankees and Red
51:46
Speaker 1: Sox are going to be seeds four and five and
51:50
Speaker 1: what a first round wild card series that should be.
51:53
Speaker 1: Then is your ball club, although you're only a half
51:54
Speaker 1: game out of first in the division. The Rangers are
51:57
Speaker 1: a game out of of the third wild card spot
52:00
Speaker 1: but tied for the division race with the Astros so
52:04
Speaker 1: one of those teams figures to kind of be in
52:06
Speaker 1: the thick of the fight down there then you got
52:08
Speaker 1: Toronto a game and a half back Baltimore is two
52:10
Speaker 1: and a half back on that let me start with
52:12
Speaker 1: them how uh how realistic is it to think I
52:16
Speaker 1: know it's just two and a half but how realistic
52:18
Speaker 1: is it to think especially the teams they have to
52:20
Speaker 1: get past for the Orioles to have a real shot
52:23
Speaker 1: to get that third wild card spot.
52:25
Speaker 11: You almost have to win every game, and you have
52:27
Speaker 11: to hope that because there are some matchups with Cleveland, Toronto.
52:32
Speaker 11: You almost have to win every game and hope that
52:34
Speaker 11: one team sweeps the other in your advantage to where
52:37
Speaker 11: you can get back in. Because at this point, with
52:40
Speaker 11: eight to play, nine to play, it's not the number
52:43
Speaker 11: of games out. It's the number of teams in front
52:45
Speaker 11: of you. And so that's going to be the really
52:47
Speaker 11: difficult part for them because somebody's going to win every night.
52:50
Speaker 11: And when you get to these tiebreaker situations, Houston has
52:53
Speaker 11: the tiebreaker. over Texas winning nine out of 13 this year.
52:56
Speaker 11: We have the tiebreaker over Cleveland. And I think this
52:59
Speaker 11: is a situation where, and you know, on the last
53:01
Speaker 11: day of the season now, they start every game at
53:05
Speaker 11: the same time because of the 2012 finish to the season,
53:08
Speaker 11: all the drama that took place there.
53:10
Speaker 5: I think you're literally.
53:12
Speaker 11: Going to see the season come down to the ninth
53:14
Speaker 11: inning for a lot of teams.
53:15
Speaker 5: And it's going to be a super exciting day for baseball.
53:17
Speaker 1: Hey, I want to give you a chance to give
53:20
Speaker 1: the history lesson to folks about the end of that
53:21
Speaker 1: 2012 season because it was bizarre and crazy how that
53:24
Speaker 1: went on that last night.
53:27
Speaker 11: Well, you know, Baltimore upset Boston in the ninth inning,
53:33
Speaker 11: and the big one was Austinite Greg Golsan, who was
53:36
Speaker 11: playing for the Yankees, threw out Carl Crawford at third
53:40
Speaker 11: base in one of the best throws ever in the
53:42
Speaker 11: history of baseball. Greg is a Pflugerville High School product
53:46
Speaker 11: or Conley product. And so you had all this drama
53:50
Speaker 11: taking place at different times. And as a result of
53:53
Speaker 11: that night, the commissioner's office said, you know what, we're
53:56
Speaker 11: going to start all these games on the last day
53:58
Speaker 11: at the same time to present that drama at the
54:00
Speaker 11: same time. It's really changed the game. But this year,
54:05
Speaker 11: with how many teams are within two and a half
54:07
Speaker 11: games and with the ways of the schedule setting up
54:10
Speaker 11: with teams having some softer opponents on the final weekend,
54:13
Speaker 11: I really do believe we're going to have some ninth-inning
54:15
Speaker 11: drama that ends and begins some teams' playoff run.
54:19
Speaker 1: And, Gino, correct me if my memory is faulty here,
54:23
Speaker 1: and I know the NFL has done it the same
54:26
Speaker 1: way with starting games at the same time, and that
54:29
Speaker 1: is also to prevent teams that, if they had a
54:34
Speaker 1: later start, might have discovered that they were eliminated from
54:40
Speaker 1: a race and then the manager guts the on-field lineup
54:44
Speaker 1: and you have a bunch of bench guys playing and
54:49
Speaker 1: it kind of impacts the integrity of that final game.
54:53
Speaker 1: They want everybody going full blast on these deals if
54:56
Speaker 1: there's any chance at all in that each individual game
55:01
Speaker 1: has a chance to impact the final day.
55:04
Speaker 5: A hundred percent.
55:05
Speaker 11: And I've actually looked at that from an integrity standpoint
55:08
Speaker 11: and like who could, and I'm telling you, the Royals
55:10
Speaker 11: are going to play a big part in what happens
55:12
Speaker 11: because they've got, they've got.
55:14
Speaker 5: Three with us and they've got three with Cleveland.
55:16
Speaker 11: They're playing, they beat the Astros last night. They're playing
55:18
Speaker 11: very good baseball. They are factoring into this wildcard individual
55:22
Speaker 11: lead race more than people realize. And so you got
55:26
Speaker 11: to take care of your business against your better teams
55:29
Speaker 11: and win those games like Detroit for us tonight. And
55:31
Speaker 11: then you've got to really take care of business on
55:33
Speaker 11: the softer schedule right the final weekend.
55:35
Speaker 1: Gene Watson with us here on the program. Let me
55:37
Speaker 1: jump to the National League. The Braves and Phillies both
55:43
Speaker 1: are kind of moving backward. They were both, it was
55:46
Speaker 1: hot and heavy. They were both going really, but they
55:48
Speaker 1: both dropped six of their last 10. And they had
55:51
Speaker 1: the head-to-head and nothing really seemed to really settle that
55:54
Speaker 1: much about that.
55:56
Speaker 5: Up four and a half.
55:58
Speaker 1: With nine to go for Atlanta, you're in pretty good
56:00
Speaker 1: shape for the Braves to win, and then the Phillies
56:02
Speaker 1: just have to zero in on trying to lock down
56:05
Speaker 1: that 5C because the Cubs have been going pretty well
56:08
Speaker 1: of late too, except when they had to run into Milwaukee.
56:12
Speaker 11: Yeah, and I was at that game last night at
56:13
Speaker 11: Wrigley Field, and I'll be with Atlanta tomorrow in Houston
56:16
Speaker 11: for the three games. And that three-game series in Houston
56:19
Speaker 11: looms big for both teams. One, for the Astros, because
56:22
Speaker 11: of where they are in the playoff hunt, they need
56:24
Speaker 11: to win two or three of the series. But Atlanta,
56:26
Speaker 11: as well as they're playing, Their offense is sputtering a
56:29
Speaker 11: little bit. And so even the teams that are in
56:32
Speaker 11: and feel comfortable about getting in in October, you want
56:35
Speaker 11: to be playing your best baseball right now. And so
56:37
Speaker 11: there's kind of an internal push with your manager and
56:39
Speaker 11: your coaching staff between them and your players to like, hey,
56:42
Speaker 11: we got to get things going. If we think we're
56:44
Speaker 11: going to carry this thing through the playoff race, we
56:47
Speaker 11: got to get going now. And so that's where, you know,
56:50
Speaker 11: kind of being in this thing and it not being
56:53
Speaker 11: just a slam dunk, you're in completely. That's where the
56:56
Speaker 11: coaching staff and the manager can create a little competitive
56:58
Speaker 11: edge and push these players to try to play their
57:01
Speaker 11: very best baseball. I think Atlanta would tell you that.
57:04
Speaker 11: They've got to get their offensive going, and this is
57:06
Speaker 11: going to be a big weekend for them in Houston.
57:08
Speaker 1: You know the other team, Gino, that out of the
57:11
Speaker 1: East has kind of raised my eyebrows. They're not going
57:13
Speaker 1: to get into the postseason, but the Marlins have made
57:16
Speaker 1: life really difficult on the Diamondbacks, and they're almost knocking
57:20
Speaker 1: them out of that last wildcard spot, and they're only
57:23
Speaker 1: a game below.
57:24
Speaker 4: 500.
57:24
Speaker 1: The Marlins continue to be very difficult to deal with.
57:28
Speaker 5: Very good young pitching.
57:29
Speaker 11: Gabe Kapler has done a tremendous job, former Major League player,
57:32
Speaker 11: been a part of World Championships. He's done a tremendous
57:35
Speaker 11: job coming over from the Dodgers and just creating an
57:39
Speaker 11: exceptional culture from a player development standpoint. He went Dodgers, Phillies,
57:43
Speaker 11: Giants as a manager, but his mind has always been
57:46
Speaker 11: on the PD side. And they've done a tremendous job
57:49
Speaker 11: of developing players. They've got very good young pitchers. and
57:52
Speaker 11: some very good young position player. This is a team that,
57:54
Speaker 11: you know, it's a very tough division to make a
57:57
Speaker 11: big swing in, but they're making gradual improvements, and they're
58:00
Speaker 11: doing very well as an organization right now.
58:02
Speaker 1: Do you like Clayton McCullough's work as manager? I know,
58:05
Speaker 1: you know, he comes from that Dodger tree, and it
58:07
Speaker 1: didn't work out with Chris Woodward with the Rangers, and
58:09
Speaker 1: he's back in that same spot he had before he
58:12
Speaker 1: got the Ranger job, which put McCullough into the first
58:15
Speaker 1: base coaching box, and now Clayton is the manager of
58:18
Speaker 1: the Marlins.
58:19
Speaker 11: Yeah, and Clayton is the son of Howard McCullough, who
58:22
Speaker 11: I hired in Kansas City, legendary scout out of the Carolinas.
58:27
Speaker 11: And Clayton, obviously a baseball brat, has been raised in
58:30
Speaker 11: the game and knows the ins and outs of the industry, players,
58:33
Speaker 11: player development. And he's a great leader, a great baseball mind.
58:37
Speaker 11: And what a great opportunity for a young, talented manager
58:40
Speaker 11: like that to grow professionally. with a young, talented team,
58:43
Speaker 11: and he's doing a tremendous job so far.
58:44
Speaker 1: See, now you're just dating yourself, Gino, you know, mentioning somebody,
58:48
Speaker 1: that in the tooth. Let me jump to the Central.
58:51
Speaker 1: Looks like the Brewers, who have already clinched the Central,
58:54
Speaker 1: are almost certain to be the one seed. Now, they
58:59
Speaker 1: were the one seed last year, and the Dodgers went
59:00
Speaker 1: to Milwaukee in their National League Championship Series and swept them,
59:03
Speaker 1: and they got on the roll and all that kind
59:04
Speaker 1: of stuff, but given how things have gone this year,
59:08
Speaker 1: not only for the Dodgers, but for all the teams,
59:09
Speaker 1: and this looks like maybe the best ever Milwaukee team.
59:12
Speaker 1: They're two wins away from their all-time franchise record. How
59:16
Speaker 1: important is it for the Brewers to have home field
59:18
Speaker 1: advantage throughout the postseason?
59:21
Speaker 11: I think it's big because it's a tough ballpark to
59:23
Speaker 11: play in, but I think they would also tell you
59:25
Speaker 11: that for the first time in a really long time,
59:28
Speaker 11: I mean, they, they've been a great organization of sustainability
59:31
Speaker 11: and winning games and Jacob Mercerowski's, you know, the modern
59:34
Speaker 11: day Nolan Ryan. I think everybody's talking about that, but
59:38
Speaker 11: for the first time in a long time, if the Brewers,
59:41
Speaker 11: don't at least get to the world series and compete
59:43
Speaker 11: to win the world series, there's going to be a
59:45
Speaker 11: certain level of disappointment because this is the best team
59:48
Speaker 11: they've ever had.
59:49
Speaker 5: Pat Murphy is one of the best managers in the game.
59:51
Speaker 11: They are an ultra talented team and they do all
59:54
Speaker 11: the little things very well to win baseball games. And
59:57
Speaker 11: so even though you're looking at the Dodgers there, the
1:00:00
Speaker 11: Braves there, the Phillies there, I think the Brewers would
1:00:03
Speaker 11: tell you that anything less than competing is for the
1:00:06
Speaker 11: world championship would be a disappointment for them.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: If there were a question mark, and here we are,
1:00:11
Speaker 1: you know, at 152 games into the season for them,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: they got 10 left. If there was a question mark
1:00:18
Speaker 1: or something that probably needs to have an uptick as
1:00:23
Speaker 1: the postseason gets underway for Milwaukee, what would that be?
1:00:25
Speaker 5: I don't think there is one.
1:00:27
Speaker 11: I think that obviously momentum is the next day starting
1:00:31
Speaker 11: pitching and they're starting pitching is very good. And so
1:00:34
Speaker 11: then you talk about the fundamentals of the game and
1:00:36
Speaker 11: advancing runners, hitting behind.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: Runners, bunting.
1:00:40
Speaker 5: Nobody's better. Hitting the cutoff man, taking the extra base
1:00:43
Speaker 5: on the base pads. Nobody is better.
1:00:45
Speaker 11: And so what you have to hope is down the stretch,
1:00:48
Speaker 11: down these next 10 days that you stay healthy and
1:00:51
Speaker 11: that you're lined up to go. You're obviously going to
1:00:53
Speaker 11: get a bye and you're lined up to go. And
1:00:56
Speaker 11: I've said it before, if there's one thing you don't
1:00:59
Speaker 11: want to do is you get those days off and
1:01:01
Speaker 11: you lose your edge. And here comes a team that's
1:01:04
Speaker 11: had to fight for every inch and you run into
1:01:06
Speaker 11: a buzzsaw. And so that's the only real thing. They
1:01:11
Speaker 11: are primed and ready to compete for a world championship.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: Visiting with Gene Watson here for a few more minutes.
1:01:15
Speaker 1: All right, I want to jump to the Cubs. And
1:01:18
Speaker 1: I asked you a week ago if it was pretty
1:01:21
Speaker 1: solid now for Pete Crowe Armstrong to be the MVP,
1:01:24
Speaker 1: and you agree. And I think he's done nothing to
1:01:27
Speaker 1: change that, and he's now up to 44 homers. But
1:01:30
Speaker 1: I was curious to get, with your ballpark knowledge, with
1:01:34
Speaker 1: what you know of the physical structure of each of
1:01:37
Speaker 1: these major league ballparks, This kind of made me chuckle
1:01:40
Speaker 1: last night when I was watching, and I saw PCA
1:01:43
Speaker 1: go back for a fly ball, and he couldn't get it,
1:01:45
Speaker 1: and he kind of almost disappeared into the ivy. He
1:01:48
Speaker 1: softly went into it, and Jim Deshaies on the telecast said,
1:01:52
Speaker 1: I think if it was in a different ballpark and
1:01:56
Speaker 1: not having a brick wall, he might have been able
1:01:58
Speaker 1: to take another stride or two without worrying about that.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: So I'm curious to get your thoughts on that. And,
1:02:03
Speaker 1: you know, we know how Wrigley plays and how hitter-friendly
1:02:07
Speaker 1: it can be, depending on if it's blowing out toward
1:02:09
Speaker 1: Waveland or Sheffield or whatever. But when you have that
1:02:13
Speaker 1: and what the ball player has to keep in mind,
1:02:16
Speaker 1: depending on where they're playing, in the case of Wrigley Field,
1:02:18
Speaker 1: you've got a brick wall. It may be covered in ivy,
1:02:20
Speaker 1: but it's still a brick wall out there.
1:02:23
Speaker 11: Yeah, and if you think back earlier during the Crosstown
1:02:26
Speaker 11: Series with us in Chicago, he basically went through our
1:02:29
Speaker 11: chain fence wall. That's when he had the confrontation with
1:02:32
Speaker 11: the fan. And so this guy plays extremely hard, but
1:02:36
Speaker 11: nobody knows that ballpark like he does. And, you know,
1:02:39
Speaker 11: the thing about Wrigley, and we were there last night,
1:02:42
Speaker 11: is like one minute it's right to left, one minute
1:02:45
Speaker 11: it's blowing in, another minute it's blowing out, and you
1:02:47
Speaker 11: can't predict.
1:02:50
Speaker 5: What the wind's going to do there.
1:02:51
Speaker 11: But it just blew me away last night because I'm
1:02:54
Speaker 11: a lifelong Cub fan. I've watched the Cubs my entire life.
1:02:57
Speaker 11: And to think about finally a left-handed hitter passing Billy
1:03:01
Speaker 11: Williams for the home run record a single season, when
1:03:03
Speaker 11: you think about that record and how long it stood,
1:03:06
Speaker 11: I think that speaks volumes to the campaign for PCA
1:03:10
Speaker 11: to be the.
1:03:10
Speaker 1: Most valuable player of the National League. Yeah, totally agree
1:03:13
Speaker 1: with that. All right. Let me jump to the West.
1:03:17
Speaker 1: The Dodgers have a magic number one. They're closing in today.
1:03:20
Speaker 1: They're up on the Reds and they're closing in a
1:03:21
Speaker 1: day on division on winning the division. But they've got
1:03:24
Speaker 1: other questions. Clearly, they're supposed to get Diaz back. But
1:03:27
Speaker 1: Dave Roberts has said he's got to earn his spot
1:03:29
Speaker 1: for the postseason roster because he's been hurt so much
1:03:32
Speaker 1: and hadn't been able to perform that well when he
1:03:33
Speaker 1: was out there. Then Blake Snell last night has groin tightness,
1:03:38
Speaker 1: although Snell says he thinks he can make another start
1:03:40
Speaker 1: before the season's done. He said, it's not that big
1:03:42
Speaker 1: a deal. I've pitched through this before. He said, in fact,
1:03:45
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised they pulled me from that. But
1:03:48
Speaker 1: they've had their aches and pains, as we know. We
1:03:50
Speaker 1: still don't know exactly what the deal is going to
1:03:52
Speaker 1: be with Otani when they get him back. We know
1:03:54
Speaker 1: he's not going to pitch. Uh, they won 92 ball games.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: They are the two time defending world champions, but they,
1:04:00
Speaker 1: but they've got some vulnerabilities. It looks like, uh, Gino,
1:04:03
Speaker 1: how about your thoughts on the Dodgers and trying to
1:04:05
Speaker 1: power through this before I get to talking about San Diego?
1:04:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, this, this is really like, they, they know what
1:04:12
Speaker 5: they're playing for.
1:04:12
Speaker 11: We've talked about it a bunch. Like they're not going
1:04:15
Speaker 11: to be taken back by anything. Once the bell rings
1:04:18
Speaker 11: for October, they know the history that's on the line
1:04:21
Speaker 11: and they're going to pull together and do the very
1:04:22
Speaker 11: best they.
1:04:23
Speaker 5: Can to, uh, try to be a three-time world champions.
1:04:25
Speaker 11: I don't think Dave Roberts, I don't think panic is
1:04:28
Speaker 11: a part of the game plan at all with these guys.
1:04:30
Speaker 11: I think health is going to be a really important
1:04:32
Speaker 11: part of it. I think these guys have got to
1:04:34
Speaker 11: try to get as healthy as they possibly can.
1:04:36
Speaker 5: And, and just say that, you know, show, Hey, he's
1:04:39
Speaker 5: not going to pitch at all.
1:04:40
Speaker 11: I mean, you need him in the eighth inning with
1:04:42
Speaker 11: the bases loaded and one out to come in and
1:04:44
Speaker 11: get a ground ball, maybe. So I think there's still
1:04:46
Speaker 11: some things that are very up in the air, but,
1:04:49
Speaker 11: but when you've been around teams like this and, you know,
1:04:52
Speaker 11: in 14 and 15, when we went back-to-back World Series,
1:04:55
Speaker 11: it almost becomes an afterthought that, hey, we're going to
1:04:59
Speaker 11: be in this thing. So getting healthy and performing your
1:05:02
Speaker 11: best are the two most important things. And they don't really,
1:05:05
Speaker 11: you know, get worried or excited or afraid of anyone opponent.
1:05:09
Speaker 5: Because they're the back-to-back World Champions.
1:05:11
Speaker 11: And you've always got players on that 26-man roster that, wow,
1:05:16
Speaker 11: they're back-to-back World Champions.
1:05:17
Speaker 5: There's players on there that have never done it before.
1:05:20
Speaker 11: And so you kind of feed off that momentum and
1:05:21
Speaker 11: that adrenaline of those players pushing and keeping everybody on
1:05:24
Speaker 11: a sharp edge, but they'll, they'll be fine. They're going
1:05:27
Speaker 11: to be a force to be reckoned with, uh, in October.
1:05:30
Speaker 5: And, uh, You know, until somebody knocks them off, they're
1:05:32
Speaker 5: the defending world champions.
1:05:33
Speaker 1: Well, Gino, you've said keep an eye on the Padres.
1:05:36
Speaker 1: And here they are. They've won nine out of ten.
1:05:38
Speaker 1: And as the Diamondbacks have lost those two games I mentioned,
1:05:41
Speaker 1: the Marlins, San Diego is really starting to distance themselves
1:05:45
Speaker 1: from Arizona to get that final wild card spot. It
1:05:47
Speaker 1: looks like they're going to get it. Here's my question
1:05:50
Speaker 1: for you. If things hold as they appear that they
1:05:53
Speaker 1: will hold, and that Milwaukee will be the one seed,
1:05:55
Speaker 1: and the Dodgers will be the two seed, and they'll
1:05:57
Speaker 1: get the buys, and Atlanta holds on to win the East,
1:06:00
Speaker 1: you're going to have a first-round wild-card series between Atlanta
1:06:05
Speaker 1: and San Diego. If you're a Braves fan, how concerned
1:06:09
Speaker 1: might you be with the Padres surging the way they
1:06:11
Speaker 1: are now?
1:06:13
Speaker 11: Well, I think that the Padres roster, that 26-man roster,
1:06:18
Speaker 11: understands the sense of urgency that exists and what A.J.
1:06:22
Speaker 11: Preller has committed to this team and this roster. They
1:06:25
Speaker 11: have gone all in financially, all in with their prospects
1:06:29
Speaker 11: in the minor league system. They've got great young prospects
1:06:32
Speaker 11: playing all over baseball right now for other teams, making impact.
1:06:36
Speaker 11: And so I think that roster clearly understands that this
1:06:39
Speaker 11: is it for us.
1:06:40
Speaker 5: We've got new ownership coming in.
1:06:43
Speaker 11: There's a potential chance of a C.B.A., Lockout next year,
1:06:47
Speaker 11: we got to go now. And I think that you've
1:06:49
Speaker 11: seen that sense of urgency over the past two weeks.
1:06:52
Speaker 11: And in as much as the American League playoffs and
1:06:55
Speaker 11: the American League East matchups that we would see in
1:06:57
Speaker 11: the first round, that Braves-Padres matchup would be a killer.
1:07:00
Speaker 11: And so now think about the winner of that series
1:07:04
Speaker 11: and the momentum and the edge and the fight that
1:07:07
Speaker 11: they're going to have coming out of that battle-tested series.
1:07:10
Speaker 11: and then going to play a team that's been sitting
1:07:11
Speaker 11: for three or four days. I think it really gives
1:07:14
Speaker 11: that team an edge when you have to go out
1:07:16
Speaker 11: and battle and fight and scrap. Even though your pitching
1:07:18
Speaker 11: may not line up, the psychology of your team and
1:07:21
Speaker 11: us against the world is something that I've been a
1:07:24
Speaker 11: part of twice.
1:07:24
Speaker 5: And it's really, really hard to beat.
1:07:28
Speaker 1: If things pair out like they look, that next matchup
1:07:31
Speaker 1: will be against the Dodgers. So could you imagine these
1:07:33
Speaker 1: postseason matchups? Red Sox-Yankees in the wild card. Cubs-Phillies in
1:07:39
Speaker 1: the wild card. Padres-Braves in the wild card. With the
1:07:44
Speaker 1: winner of that, maybe the Padres-Dodgers in the division series
1:07:50
Speaker 1: off of that. Maybe Yankees-Rays or Red Sox-Rays in the
1:07:55
Speaker 1: division series. How about those postseason matchups?
1:07:58
Speaker 11: I think it's, it's clear to see to everybody who
1:08:01
Speaker 11: follows the game every day that the power exists in
1:08:03
Speaker 11: the national league and the rosters. And this happened in the,
1:08:07
Speaker 11: in the, you know, mid 2000, we went back to
1:08:09
Speaker 11: back in 14 and 15, you could see Toronto continuing,
1:08:13
Speaker 11: continuing to push and Houston continuing to push to, to
1:08:17
Speaker 11: get their rosters, you know, to the point where they
1:08:20
Speaker 11: felt like they could compete in the world series.
1:08:22
Speaker 5: And so that's what you've seen in the national league.
1:08:24
Speaker 11: Now these, these, These teams have looked at the teams
1:08:27
Speaker 11: around them, specifically the Dodgers, and they said the only way.
1:08:30
Speaker 5: We're going to get in the game is if we
1:08:31
Speaker 5: do this, building our roster.
1:08:33
Speaker 11: And when you do that, you look up and you've
1:08:34
Speaker 11: got four or five superpowers in one league, and that's
1:08:37
Speaker 11: what's going on in the National League right now.
1:08:39
Speaker 17: Okay.
1:08:40
Speaker 1: Gino, we know what a big Notre Dame fan you are.
1:08:44
Speaker 1: Are you checking out on the Irish until the Miami game?
1:08:46
Speaker 1: I mean, things look pretty well in hand for the
1:08:49
Speaker 1: Irish until then.
1:08:50
Speaker 11: I will be at the Miami game, but after Northern
1:08:53
Speaker 11: Illinois and Marshall, there's no checking out ever.
1:08:57
Speaker 1: I understand.
1:08:58
Speaker 5: What a scene Saturday night.
1:08:59
Speaker 11: I've been going to that stadium since I was five
1:09:01
Speaker 11: years old, and I've never seen anything like when the
1:09:04
Speaker 11: team came out.
1:09:05
Speaker 5: It was unbelievable.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: That's what Sark asked me coming up on Longhorn Weekly.
1:09:10
Speaker 1: He said, how many years have you been doing this
1:09:12
Speaker 1: in the booth? I said, it's 35 years in the booth.
1:09:14
Speaker 1: He said, have you ever heard it that loud? And
1:09:16
Speaker 1: I said, no. I'm not.
1:09:17
Speaker 5: Not even close. Not even close. It was the most
1:09:21
Speaker 5: incredible scene.
1:09:22
Speaker 11: And it just took me back to the days when
1:09:25
Speaker 11: I was with Bo Jackson at a corporate dinner two
1:09:28
Speaker 11: nights ago. And we were talking about the Auburn game
1:09:30
Speaker 11: at 83 when he got hurt. Jerry Gray tackled him
1:09:33
Speaker 11: on the far sideline. And that was one of the
1:09:36
Speaker 11: loudest nights. I think Auburn was number three in the country.
1:09:39
Speaker 11: And it's the first time I ever snuck into Schultz's
1:09:41
Speaker 11: beer garden.
1:09:41
Speaker 13: Yeah.
1:09:42
Speaker 11: That was one of the loudest nights I remember until
1:09:45
Speaker 11: Saturday night.
1:09:45
Speaker 5: Just what an incredible atmosphere.
1:09:47
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. He's Gene Watson, our MLB insider.
1:09:50
Speaker 1: And yeah, big Notre Dame and Texas fan on that.
1:09:53
Speaker 1: It'd be the dream scenario for you, by the way,
1:09:55
Speaker 1: for Texas and Notre Dame to play for a national title.
1:09:58
Speaker 5: My family wouldn't know. They wouldn't know how to live
1:10:00
Speaker 5: with me.
1:10:00
Speaker 1: Okay. Hey, thank you, my friend. I appreciate you doing this.
1:10:05
Speaker 11: All right, Craig.
1:10:06
Speaker 5: Thanks so much. Talk to you soon.
1:10:07
Speaker 11: You bet.
1:10:08
Speaker 1: That's Gene Watson, our MLB insider. We have more coming
1:10:11
Speaker 1: up here. All right, thanks again to Gene Watson from
1:10:18
Speaker 1: the Chicago White Sox front office joining us on the program.
1:10:21
Speaker 1: All right, let's roll back to the NFL. Like I said,
1:10:26
Speaker 1: we try to be a little bit of everything for you,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: you know, college football. pro football, Major League Baseball, other
1:10:34
Speaker 1: topics as assigned, so to speak. So we'll go back
1:10:36
Speaker 1: to the Cowboys getting ready for this matchup with the
1:10:38
Speaker 1: Washington Commanders. And Dallas coming off that disappointing loss to
1:10:44
Speaker 1: the New York Giants, where the Giants just had control
1:10:47
Speaker 1: of the football for so much of the second half.
1:10:49
Speaker 1: The Cowboys had one third-quarter possession, one fourth-quarter possession. That
1:10:53
Speaker 1: was it. That's all they had. The Giants had long,
1:10:55
Speaker 1: methodical drives that were sustained in part because by lack
1:11:00
Speaker 1: of communication at times in the Cowboys defense. That also
1:11:04
Speaker 1: happened on the touchdowns they gave up. So Brian Schottenheimer
1:11:06
Speaker 1: was asked about how do you go about fixing that
1:11:09
Speaker 1: communication issue on defense?
1:11:12
Speaker 16: Well, you address it first and foremost. It was surprising
1:11:16
Speaker 16: to us that we didn't communicate very well. Spent quite
1:11:19
Speaker 16: a bit of time yesterday in the team meeting just
1:11:21
Speaker 16: going back through the keys to communication.
1:11:23
Speaker 1: First part is being decisive and loud.
1:11:27
Speaker 16: Second part, that's the the person that's giving it, and
1:11:30
Speaker 16: then the receiving is where we're off, you know, on
1:11:33
Speaker 16: a few things.
1:11:33
Speaker 1: Calls are being made. They have to be louder.
1:11:36
Speaker 16: They have to be more decisive, but they have to
1:11:38
Speaker 16: be received. And to co-sign that, you see us, we
1:11:41
Speaker 16: signal all the time based on, you know, different things.
1:11:43
Speaker 20: So, you know, you can't hear what they're saying on
1:11:46
Speaker 20: the film.
1:11:46
Speaker 16: So there should be hand signals that show information being
1:11:50
Speaker 16: received and, you know, we need to be better. And
1:11:52
Speaker 16: it wasn't good enough, but we emphasize that we talked
1:11:55
Speaker 16: about it and they understand.
1:11:57
Speaker 1: It's a natural question and a natural reaction as well,
1:12:00
Speaker 1: especially with younger teams and younger units about just trying
1:12:04
Speaker 1: to do everything. And, you know, Sark talked about it,
1:12:09
Speaker 1: I thought, about guys that are just trying to do
1:12:13
Speaker 1: too much on defense, jumping into a gap they shouldn't
1:12:16
Speaker 1: be in. And so their gap is left open. So
1:12:19
Speaker 1: the question for Shani, were the guys trying to do
1:12:21
Speaker 1: too much?
1:12:22
Speaker 16: There's a lot of moving parts. The way the National
1:12:24
Speaker 16: Football League is right now is... You know, we're this
1:12:27
Speaker 16: way on offense. You're trying to change the picture. You're
1:12:31
Speaker 16: trying to make things look different. You're trying to make
1:12:33
Speaker 16: people have to adjust on the run. Motion shifts, movements
1:12:36
Speaker 16: are at an all-time high in this level. So if
1:12:39
Speaker 16: you don't communicate when the numbers change and the picture changes,
1:12:42
Speaker 16: then you're going to put yourself at a disadvantage. Um,
1:12:45
Speaker 16: that's what we did to ourselves the other night.
1:12:47
Speaker 3: Okay.
1:12:47
Speaker 12: All right.
1:12:48
Speaker 1: Uh, and ask for the injury update. What was Malik
1:12:51
Speaker 1: Hooker's injury? And, uh, and then, uh, DeMarvian overshown as well. Hook, uh,
1:12:56
Speaker 1: had surgery, uh, went well, uh, doing good. Uh, he'll
1:12:59
Speaker 1: get into the rehab part of it. And then, uh,
1:13:02
Speaker 1: Demo start working with, with Britt. But, uh, overall, those
1:13:05
Speaker 1: were the, the two main things. Okay. And then, uh,
1:13:08
Speaker 1: so not only based on injury, but also on performance, uh,
1:13:13
Speaker 1: you know, Schottenheimer was asked, Is he planning any specific
1:13:17
Speaker 1: lineup changes?
1:13:18
Speaker 4: No.
1:13:18
Speaker 16: I mean, we offer different packages, but in terms of, hey,
1:13:21
Speaker 16: this guy's been promoted, this guy's been demoted, absolutely not.
1:13:25
Speaker 16: And again, back to business. We started the day. We
1:13:29
Speaker 16: talked about attention to details with the team. I think
1:13:31
Speaker 16: that's an important part. Some of the things that we do,
1:13:33
Speaker 16: we just kind of shot ourselves in the foot. And
1:13:35
Speaker 16: so small things matter, and whether it's receiver splits, You know,
1:13:40
Speaker 16: whether it's communication, whether it's body position on kickoff return,
1:13:45
Speaker 16: we got to be better with the little things.
1:13:47
Speaker 1: Okay. All right. There's some stuff there from Ryan Schottenheimer.
1:13:54
Speaker 1: A couple other injury updates. Well, instead of an injury update, C.J.
1:14:03
Speaker 17: Strout.
1:14:04
Speaker 1: We know the issues that he's had to deal with
1:14:07
Speaker 1: and what he's gone through and the struggles. And then,
1:14:09
Speaker 1: of course, had the fumble last week and, you know,
1:14:14
Speaker 1: right near the end of the game. And it probably,
1:14:17
Speaker 1: the NFL players, a lot of them anyway, get immune
1:14:22
Speaker 1: to outside criticism. They don't worry about it much. It's
1:14:24
Speaker 1: whatever's coming from the coach and inside. Some, however, might
1:14:28
Speaker 1: be bothered by it a little more, especially if it
1:14:31
Speaker 1: comes from, not necessarily from within, but from the extended family.
1:14:35
Speaker 1: What I'm talking about is Andre Johnson on a podcast
1:14:39
Speaker 1: was questioning C.J. Stroud's body language. And this is that
1:14:45
Speaker 1: legend talk or the LGND talk podcast that Kendrick Perkins does.
1:14:49
Speaker 1: And you know, here's one of those, when did you
1:14:52
Speaker 1: stop beating your wife questions? Kendrick Perkins asked Johnson what
1:14:55
Speaker 1: he disliked about Stroud. And he said, quote, with him,
1:15:02
Speaker 1: and this is just me personally, what I dislike about
1:15:04
Speaker 1: CJ is his body language. His body language is bad.
1:15:08
Speaker 1: So Stroud was asked about it yesterday. He said he
1:15:12
Speaker 1: really wasn't bothered by it, even though he's a former Texan. Great.
1:15:14
Speaker 1: He said, I respect Dre as a person. I appreciate
1:15:17
Speaker 1: his critiques, but I'm focused on the week going 1-0
1:15:19
Speaker 1: this week against the Bengals. I respect Dre. And if
1:15:21
Speaker 1: that conversation needs to be had, it'll be had. So
1:15:24
Speaker 1: it's probably a healthy approach to take, given the fact
1:15:30
Speaker 1: he's got a lot of other things to fix.
1:15:31
Speaker 12: He played well last week, too.
1:15:33
Speaker 13: Yeah.
1:15:34
Speaker 1: Until the... fumble like in the game.
1:15:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:15:38
Speaker 1: On the last drive.
1:15:40
Speaker 12: All right.
1:15:40
Speaker 1: We'll be back to wrap up the three o'clock hour
1:15:43
Speaker 1: here on 1300 The Zone.
1:15:44
Speaker 7: It must be some kind of mistake. Waiting in the
1:15:50
Speaker 7: rain for hours.
1:15:52
Speaker 14: You are late.
1:16:05
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm as big a Genesis fan as the next guy.
1:16:08
Speaker 1: In fact, I worked a couple of their tours selling
1:16:11
Speaker 1: merch back in my collegiate days. I remember one specific
1:16:14
Speaker 1: show at what was then the Summit Houston. Now it's
1:16:18
Speaker 1: Joel Osteen's church there. And I don't know if you
1:16:24
Speaker 1: ever saw the video when they did the song Mama.
1:16:29
Speaker 1: And you see Phil Collins and his... Eyes iridescently lit.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: It's kind of spooky looking. When he's doing that, I
1:16:38
Speaker 1: always remember they did that in that show. I remember that.
1:16:41
Speaker 1: But anyway.
1:16:42
Speaker 12: I've never seen that.
1:16:44
Speaker 1: You can Google search it or something another time. So
1:16:49
Speaker 1: is this based on what's going on with the Cowboys?
1:16:52
Speaker 21: Yeah, a little bit of what we heard Brian Schottenheimer
1:16:55
Speaker 21: talk about earlier. And as we'll continue to hear from
1:16:57
Speaker 21: this press conference, they got to get on the same
1:17:00
Speaker 21: page and they got to get there in a hurry.
1:17:01
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:17:02
Speaker 1: Yeah uh in a hurry with the Washington Commanders coming
1:17:05
Speaker 1: to town all right uh some more from Shottie um
1:17:08
Speaker 1: because DeMarvian overshown and we heard uh Shottie talking about
1:17:14
Speaker 1: it earlier about uh uh the uh the injuries that
1:17:19
Speaker 1: the teams had uh but and that included overshown who
1:17:22
Speaker 1: just can't It seems that you can just see the
1:17:24
Speaker 1: frustration in Demos' face, too, about staying out because he
1:17:28
Speaker 1: goes all out and everything. He doesn't know any other
1:17:30
Speaker 1: way and injured the hamstring. So there's different guys that
1:17:36
Speaker 1: have rolled in. That said, Jay Sean Barham, the rookie,
1:17:42
Speaker 1: is a guy who has really impressed the coaches, and
1:17:46
Speaker 1: he's probably going to get– much more playing time as
1:17:51
Speaker 1: a result of this does that mean that he's going
1:17:53
Speaker 1: to wear the green dot when he's out there as always.
1:17:57
Speaker 16: We have multiple guys that can do it all the
1:17:59
Speaker 16: confidence in the world and jay sean you know he
1:18:02
Speaker 16: is actually very loud when he communicates um but yeah
1:18:06
Speaker 16: when he out now yeah when he communicates uh but
1:18:09
Speaker 16: uh he uh he would do fine in that but
1:18:11
Speaker 16: we do have other things that we're looking at.
1:18:13
Speaker 1: Did you catch what sean hammer just said there when
1:18:15
Speaker 1: he communicates When he communicates. So it rolls right back
1:18:19
Speaker 1: to what you're talking about. This whole thing about communication, right?
1:18:22
Speaker 12: As in, he didn't communicate on some key plays last week.
1:18:25
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:18:25
Speaker 1: All right. So does that mean not only with Jay
1:18:30
Speaker 1: Sean Barham, but with others, are these communication problems due
1:18:34
Speaker 1: to the inexperience of the linebacking spot?
1:18:37
Speaker 20: No, yeah, I'm not going to put on one position.
1:18:40
Speaker 20: That's not fair.
1:18:42
Speaker 16: The ball gets thrown outside, the singleton outside, and there's
1:18:45
Speaker 16: not a linebacker or somebody there, and everyone assumes it's
1:18:47
Speaker 16: the linebackers.
1:18:48
Speaker 20: It's not just the linebackers, okay?
1:18:50
Speaker 16: So let me be very clear about that. Again, we
1:18:53
Speaker 16: have rules based off of splits and changes and number
1:18:57
Speaker 16: counts and things like that, Todd, that, you know, that
1:19:01
Speaker 16: are complicated. And so there was one time where a
1:19:05
Speaker 16: player assumed that it was going to be something because
1:19:08
Speaker 16: that's how we've done it some. Uh, but it was
1:19:11
Speaker 16: not communicated from another player. And so therefore that player
1:19:14
Speaker 16: has the Trump card. Um, there's a lot that goes
1:19:16
Speaker 16: into it and, uh, I'm chalking it up to the
1:19:19
Speaker 16: fact that it was, uh, our first game. Um, and again,
1:19:23
Speaker 16: like I said, uh, we were making calls. We just
1:19:25
Speaker 16: weren't making them all the time and then receiving them
1:19:28
Speaker 16: all the time. And so that's why you saw some
1:19:30
Speaker 16: of the, uh, things where it looked like, you know,
1:19:32
Speaker 16: they got us on three different plays. Those were actually
1:19:34
Speaker 16: three different calls, um, three different defensive calls. And so, um,
1:19:39
Speaker 16: you know, that's us not being on the same page.
1:19:42
Speaker 16: And defense, team defense, is about all 11 guys being
1:19:46
Speaker 16: on the same page. I mean, I've never been around
1:19:49
Speaker 16: any good defense that if you don't have all 11
1:19:51
Speaker 16: guys on the same page, it's usually not going to
1:19:53
Speaker 16: be very good.
1:19:55
Speaker 1: Next, he was asked about the challenge of a new
1:19:59
Speaker 1: defensive coordinator and having Christian Parker there running that defense
1:20:06
Speaker 1: and with some new players and some of the other stuff.
1:20:09
Speaker 1: How about the challenge of dealing with that? It's real.
1:20:12
Speaker 16: You know, I think I said this to you guys.
1:20:14
Speaker 16: I think, you know, the Giants adjusted some things. You know,
1:20:18
Speaker 16: you study a lot of film and you look at, okay,
1:20:22
Speaker 16: you know, this is, you know, in this case, this
1:20:24
Speaker 16: is going to be Minnesota's defense or this is going
1:20:26
Speaker 16: to be, you know, David Blau, the coordinator on offense
1:20:29
Speaker 16: was there last year, but he's got ties to Ben
1:20:31
Speaker 16: Johnson and Larry Izzo, the special teams coordinator, he's been
1:20:34
Speaker 16: there for a couple years with DQ. But at the
1:20:37
Speaker 16: end of the day, you really don't know. You don't know.
1:20:41
Speaker 16: So what do you do? You do things you're good at.
1:20:43
Speaker 16: And so that's what we're emphasizing it on. It goes
1:20:45
Speaker 16: back to that 80-20 principle. And we don't know how
1:20:49
Speaker 16: David Blau and the offensive staff want to attack us.
1:20:52
Speaker 16: We don't know what Durante Jones and DQ are going
1:20:54
Speaker 16: to come up with on defense.
1:20:56
Speaker 20: So let's do what we do well. And usually when
1:20:58
Speaker 20: we do that, we perform well.
1:21:02
Speaker 1: And then there was the look back with all those
1:21:05
Speaker 1: young players at the youngest of the young, so to speak,
1:21:08
Speaker 1: first-round draft choice, Caleb Downs. And what did Brian Schottenheimer
1:21:13
Speaker 1: think of Downs' first NFL game overall? I thought he
1:21:17
Speaker 1: played really well.
1:21:18
Speaker 16: Obviously, everyone saw the strip sack fumble, the timing of it,
1:21:20
Speaker 16: you know, really good disguise. You know, Jackson, you know,
1:21:23
Speaker 16: Dart didn't know that he had a free runner coming,
1:21:25
Speaker 16: which was great. I thought he attacked the ball beautifully.
1:21:28
Speaker 16: Some of the coverage stuff and communication stuff was really good.
1:21:32
Speaker 16: And then the last really kind of third down in
1:21:35
Speaker 16: the game, I mean, he was right there on likely,
1:21:37
Speaker 16: and Jackson made a great throw, and Caleb was matched
1:21:39
Speaker 16: up on him, and he tried to get the PVU,
1:21:41
Speaker 16: and likely made a great catch and great throw by Jackson.
1:21:45
Speaker 20: But Caleb Downs is a tremendous football player.
1:21:49
Speaker 1: So with all that now in the fold, the Cowboys
1:21:52
Speaker 1: have to get ready for Washington. And you were.
1:21:58
Speaker 1: You tell me if impressed is the improper word, but
1:22:02
Speaker 1: impressed enough by what your team did. Yes, they came
1:22:06
Speaker 1: up on the short end against the Eagles, but they
1:22:10
Speaker 1: gave a pretty representative account of themselves last Sunday.
1:22:13
Speaker 21: Representing the way that small mistakes still doom them that
1:22:16
Speaker 21: added up last year, I think Look, when you lose
1:22:19
Speaker 21: a game by two points, you missed an extra point.
1:22:21
Speaker 21: You also got backed up on your first chance to
1:22:24
Speaker 21: tie it on a two-point conversion, so you settled for
1:22:26
Speaker 21: an extra point there. And then you ran a shovel
1:22:29
Speaker 21: pass that didn't come anywhere close to fooling the Eagles
1:22:31
Speaker 21: defense at the end. You're left with some questions about
1:22:33
Speaker 21: David Blau, the first-time play caller. All in all, though,
1:22:36
Speaker 21: I thought Jaden Daniels did a good job when he
1:22:39
Speaker 21: pushed the ball downfield. I wanted him to push it
1:22:42
Speaker 21: downfield a little bit more. Antonio Williams showed some promise.
1:22:45
Speaker 21: Sonny Stiles popped. He blew up Saquon Barkley in the
1:22:48
Speaker 21: backfield a few times. So all that's encouraging. I know
1:22:51
Speaker 21: the Eagles O-line is being maligned a lot in the
1:22:54
Speaker 21: NFL press this week.
1:22:55
Speaker 12: And I don't know.
1:22:56
Speaker 21: Is that an O line that's taken a step back? Maybe,
1:23:00
Speaker 21: but the commander's defensive line and their ability to pass rush,
1:23:03
Speaker 21: I hope takes a step forward because if they do,
1:23:06
Speaker 21: the ceiling for the team is much higher than I thought.
1:23:08
Speaker 12: So I leave a little bit cautiously optimistic.
1:23:10
Speaker 5: Okay.
1:23:10
Speaker 1: All right. Um, here's a couple other NFL notes for you.
1:23:14
Speaker 1: I found this interesting that the passing game specialist for
1:23:20
Speaker 1: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, um, The senior offensive assistant is
1:23:25
Speaker 1: Ken Zampezi. I'm going to guess Ken because of that
1:23:27
Speaker 1: last name is the son of Ernie Zampezi. He was
1:23:29
Speaker 1: one-time long-time offensive coordinator, including for the Cowboys. And he
1:23:34
Speaker 1: was with the Rams as well. But Ken Zampezi... was
1:23:38
Speaker 1: with Baker Mayfield the one year in Cleveland. And he
1:23:43
Speaker 1: was saying at a news conference that it was a
1:23:46
Speaker 1: mess what they did and that the Browns made a mistake. Quote,
1:23:50
Speaker 1: they had the guy, they had the guy and they
1:23:53
Speaker 1: gave him up. And then, of course, Mayfield faced the
1:23:58
Speaker 1: Browns when he was with Carolina in 2022. Jacoby Brissett
1:24:02
Speaker 1: was Cleveland's starting quarterback. Deshaun Watson was serving the 11-game suspension.
1:24:06
Speaker 1: Panthers lost that game. This time, it's Watson on the
1:24:10
Speaker 1: other side of the ball. And he said, the year
1:24:12
Speaker 1: we were there, we were one of the best offenses
1:24:14
Speaker 1: in the NFL. The second half of that season, 5-3
1:24:17
Speaker 1: in a place that was before the season started 1-31.
1:24:20
Speaker 1: The script got flipped. The city came alive. Because they
1:24:24
Speaker 1: finally drafted a quarterback that worked out for them and
1:24:26
Speaker 1: they mucked it up. They mucked it up. That was
1:24:29
Speaker 1: what his deal was. When asked if he thought the
1:24:31
Speaker 1: Browns shared his sentiment, he said, oh, I don't know.
1:24:33
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. We got the guy we want in Tampa.
1:24:34
Speaker 1: That's what's important. But he did throw some shade the
1:24:38
Speaker 1: way the Cleveland Browns are pretty easy to throw shade
1:24:41
Speaker 1: against these days.
1:24:43
Speaker 12: Well, they've got.
1:24:44
Speaker 21: They've got the worst quarterback room in professional football. And
1:24:48
Speaker 21: maybe not that out, right? Maybe not just in professional football.
1:24:52
Speaker 21: Maybe than what we've seen in the last five to
1:24:55
Speaker 21: six years. I don't know what you do because Deshaun
1:24:58
Speaker 21: Watson has not looked good, Craig, at all since coming
1:25:02
Speaker 21: back off this injury.
1:25:03
Speaker 12: It's been so long now.
1:25:05
Speaker 21: I can't remember the last time Deshaun Watson looked like
1:25:08
Speaker 21: one of the best 30 guys.
1:25:09
Speaker 12: In the league.
1:25:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't look to get better anytime soon.
1:25:13
Speaker 1: Another thing that may not be looking to get better
1:25:15
Speaker 1: is Nico Collins. He suffered that hamstring injury yesterday in
1:25:20
Speaker 1: practice with the Texans. And so now he's uncertain to
1:25:24
Speaker 1: play in their game this Sunday against the Bengals. So
1:25:27
Speaker 1: he met after practice with team doctors. They say they
1:25:30
Speaker 1: don't think the injury is serious, but his status is
1:25:35
Speaker 1: in jeopardy. The official injury report says listed Collins as
1:25:39
Speaker 1: limited yesterday in practice due to his hamstring and of
1:25:42
Speaker 1: course he had a hamstring problem a couple years ago
1:25:44
Speaker 1: he had to go on IR and he missed five
1:25:45
Speaker 1: games in the middle of the season so uh he
1:25:48
Speaker 1: had seven catches on 10 targets 75 yards and a
1:25:52
Speaker 1: touchdown and that loss to the Bills they need him
1:25:55
Speaker 1: and if he's not out there that's tough that's that's
1:25:57
Speaker 1: a difficult situation um you know, remember they'd already lost
1:26:01
Speaker 1: Jaden Higgins. He's out with that ACL tear. So it's,
1:26:03
Speaker 1: it's tough.
1:26:04
Speaker 21: Kayshaun Boutte all of a sudden slots into a wide
1:26:07
Speaker 21: receiver one role. Then you're relying on guys like Hutchinson
1:26:10
Speaker 21: and Knoll. So it's not going to be easy, especially
1:26:13
Speaker 21: if you need to keep pace with Joe Burrow and
1:26:15
Speaker 21: that offense.
1:26:16
Speaker 1: No doubt about it.
1:26:17
Speaker 11: All right.
1:26:17
Speaker 1: We have more coming up here on this Thursday afternoon
1:26:19
Speaker 1: on Sports Radio AM 13 Under the Zone and the
1:26:21
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. Okay, I know you said you were rolling
1:26:29
Speaker 1: in back when the... I Can't Drive 55, Sammy Hagar,
1:26:34
Speaker 1: one of his classics. What was your reasoning with this one, though?
1:26:37
Speaker 21: We've got a Thursday night football game that is, like
1:26:40
Speaker 21: your friend Greg Tepper would say, pointy.
1:26:42
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:26:43
Speaker 12: How about a 55 over-under?
1:26:45
Speaker 1: Is that what it is? For Lions, Bills? That's a
1:26:51
Speaker 1: very attractive week two matchup, I think, in the NFL.
1:26:55
Speaker 1: I like that one for a Thursday night game. So
1:26:57
Speaker 1: for those of you with Amazon, with Prime Video, right?
1:27:01
Speaker 1: Because it's the prime game, isn't it?
1:27:03
Speaker 9: Oh, yeah.
1:27:03
Speaker 12: Alan Kirk, the debut.
1:27:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
1:27:06
Speaker 12: No grouchy Al tonight.
1:27:10
Speaker 1: So anyway, their season debut tonight for that one for
1:27:16
Speaker 1: Lions and the Bills. I want to go back to
1:27:17
Speaker 1: a couple of college notes as well. First of all,
1:27:22
Speaker 1: Longwood's head coach, Steve Sarkeesian, talked about it. You heard
1:27:25
Speaker 1: it when we brought you the media availability about the
1:27:27
Speaker 1: guys that were banged up. Probably not, I would think,
1:27:34
Speaker 1: is probably the best way. We'll see what the ultimate–
1:27:38
Speaker 1: game day, you know, um, uh, student at the, uh, well,
1:27:42
Speaker 1: they don't have to do a student athlete availability report
1:27:45
Speaker 1: until they get the conference play.
1:27:46
Speaker 12: But, but we know that because of all the LSU contracts.
1:27:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
1:27:50
Speaker 17: Exactly.
1:27:50
Speaker 1: And that's where I was going. Uh, what I started
1:27:52
Speaker 1: to say was that Nick Townsend, I think there's a
1:27:55
Speaker 1: pretty safe bet that he's not going to play. And
1:27:59
Speaker 1: there's other guys that are banged up and, and, uh,
1:28:02
Speaker 1: wanting to get back, out on the field. DJ Lagway,
1:28:05
Speaker 1: the Baylor quarterback, is considered doubtful. Pete Damble reported that
1:28:10
Speaker 1: for ESPN today. And, of course, they played Louisiana Tech.
1:28:14
Speaker 1: Baylor came off that 44-3 win over Prairie View, but
1:28:18
Speaker 1: Lagway didn't even play in that. He got hurt, you know,
1:28:22
Speaker 1: in the loss to Auburn in the season opener. He
1:28:26
Speaker 1: went 27 of 54 for 333 yards and two touchdowns,
1:28:29
Speaker 1: had an interception, lost a fumble. And then, of course,
1:28:32
Speaker 1: the game-winning two-point conversion attempt to Matt Klopfenstein was stopped
1:28:36
Speaker 1: inches short of the goal line. They bounced back, got
1:28:38
Speaker 1: the win without him last week against prairie view but
1:28:41
Speaker 1: he may not be able to go against louisiana tech
1:28:44
Speaker 1: so uh we'll keep an eye on that as if
1:28:48
Speaker 1: if he does not go nate bennett will probably wind
1:28:51
Speaker 1: up making the start i would think for baylor in
1:28:54
Speaker 1: that one and then about that sam levitt thing um
1:28:58
Speaker 1: He's listed as doubtful for the game. Now, the exact nature,
1:29:03
Speaker 1: and we're talking about the LSU quarterback, Leavitt, the exact
1:29:08
Speaker 1: nature of the injury, it's a little murky. He finished
1:29:13
Speaker 1: last week's win over Louisiana Tech, spoke to reporters afterwards, didn't,
1:29:18
Speaker 1: according to reporters, didn't appear to be in pain. In
1:29:22
Speaker 1: the Monday news conference, Lane Kiffin did not mention that
1:29:25
Speaker 1: Leavitt was dealing with any injuries. So it's surprising some
1:29:29
Speaker 1: folks that he's listed as doubtful as they get ready
1:29:33
Speaker 1: to play Ole Miss. And all that goes with that,
1:29:37
Speaker 1: with Ole Miss.
1:29:38
Speaker 21: And it all comes the day after, Craig, the story
1:29:41
Speaker 21: you brought up yesterday with the players, including Prince Will
1:29:44
Speaker 21: Umar Miellon, being served.
1:29:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:29:46
Speaker 21: This week is living up to everything we hoped it
1:29:48
Speaker 21: would for these two teams.
1:29:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, so there's some more food
1:29:53
Speaker 1: for thought. We'll be back to wrap up today's edition
1:29:55
Speaker 1: of the program on 1300 The Zone.