September 24, 2024 • 16 mins
Neil Price, the voice of Hail State, joins The Craig Way Show to discuss Saturday's game between the Texas Longhorns and the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Neil talks about Jeff Lebby's first season as the new head coach and the Bulldogs' struggles to begin the year. They also talk about Blake Shapen's injury and what Texas can expect at QB from freshman Michael Van Buren.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Because it's time to talk football from the state of
(00:03):
Mississippi in Spacific Mississippi State University, Hale State as they
say there, and the play by play voice of the
Mississippi State Bulldogs, you know, Price joints us on the hotline.
Neil was trying to remember when it was we met.
I want to say it was women's basketball, maybe Sweet sixteen,
somewhere along the line, when you were the play by
(00:23):
play voice of Kentucky women's basketball and baseball something like that.
Does that sound even vaguely familiar?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, that sounds about right. I think you might have
been doing a national broadcast and Kentucky was the Sweet
sixteen side somewhere Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
May Yeah, I'm at Kansas, Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That was it, Kansas City. I was there. I was
doing it for Westwood One. That's it.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, yeah, yes, we remember it well. Anyway, I appreciate
you taking the time to join us, and I'm interested
to get your thoughts on on Jeff Levy and how
this new world of things of being a head coach
of the at the collegiate level, especially in a league
(01:09):
like the SEC. How and just looking at his news
conference things, it looked like he handles everything basically with
a plumb and understands how all of this works, even
being thrust into a difficult situation with the injuries he's.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Had to deal with. Yeah, I think that's accurate. You know,
he is an optimist. I like that about him because
if you can't maintain some degree of optimism, or if
you can't be even keeled, you won't make it very
(01:42):
long in this league. It will eat you alive. And
then you throw in the injuries that have kind of
compounded the situation because he already was dealing with a
roster that had three returning starters, already dealing with what
amounts to a complete rebuild, and then the players you're
(02:02):
counting on out of the portal, or even some of
those that stuck around that you hoped would be key contributors,
are a lot of the guys who are on that
injury list right now, including the guy who was going
to be your starting quarterback. So it has been a
true baptism by fire. But through it all, he's maintained
a really good attitude, and I admire him for it
(02:24):
because I don't know if I was in his seat,
if I could do the same.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I think a lot of us would probably be in
the same thing. Okay, so you brought up the quarterback,
we might as well jump in there and get your
thoughts on this obviously long worn fans, we're familiar with
Blake shaping, but now he suffers the shoulder injury and
he's out. So we're looking if what Coach Levy said
yesterday is still going to be the case. On say,
(02:50):
we're looking at a true freshman and Michael Van Buuren
junior taking the snaps, and I know there's a red
shirt freshman Chris Parson there as well. How about your
thoughts on what Coach Levy is dealing with in specific
at this quarterback spot.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, he's got two athletic guys there. Michael and Chris
both had the ability to make plays with their legs.
I think both of them have very good arms. I
think if we're being totally honest about it, maybe the
difference maker Craig is that Michael Van Buren is a
guy that Jeff Levy brought in, that he evaluated and
(03:27):
that he saw as maybe the future of the program
here at some point. And Chris Parson's a guy that
Mike Leach brought in, and I think it maybe is
that simple now. He was quick to praise Chris on
Monday and said, you know, he's been a great teammate
through all of this. He is doing his job in
(03:50):
practice this week of pushing Michael and making sure that
he's got somebody behind him that Number one has been
through this little bit because Chris got thrown into a
similar situation late in the year last year when Will
Rogers was hurt and had to start a couple games late.
But he wasn't doing it on the road against the
number one team in the country. And I don't know
(04:12):
that anything can really prepare you for that other than
you just got to get out there and get deep
into the pool.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
So we'll see how it.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Goes on Saturday.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
But Michael is.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
A great talent, four star recruit guy who had a
really great high school career in Maryland. I think he
will be a very good one by the time that
his career is over, and we'll see if he's able
to go out there and handle himself with a lot
of maturity in a hostile environment.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
On Saturday.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
You brought up Chris Parson Beam brought in by Mike Leach,
And obviously was tragic what happened with Coach Leach, and
he's so well thought of in so many areas as well.
Because of his passing, how difficult was it for the
program to kind of rebound and try to find its
footing again given the unexpects the nature of things happening there.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh, I don't think there's a page in the head
coach's handbook that prepares you for going through that. And
I get Zach Barnett a ton of credit.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You know, he's not here.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Anymore, but that's the guy who was asked to do
the impossible and he tried his best to do it.
You know, Coach Leech passed in December. That's a big
recruiting period now, obviously, and Zach Garnett was asked to
not only come in and take the reins of the program,
but also hold a recruiting class together and keep things
(05:40):
moving forward. And I think he tried very hard to
do that. I do, and I don't know in one
year if if that's a if that's a fair sample
size or not. But I also know that college athletics
is always not a fair business too, you know, it's
it's a results business. And you know what, there's just
(06:00):
been so much change in this place, in particular in
about a twenty four month stretch, that everybody's head has
been on a little bit of a swivel. But now
Zach Feltman, the new athletic director. Well, I say new
Zack's been here two years now, but I mean, you.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Know, Zach's been able to bring some of his people in.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
He's starting to kind of build the path that he
believes is the best forward for the department. And Jeff
Levy is a big piece of that plan because obviously
they want to put an emphasis on football. They want
Mississippi State to be competitive. They want them to be
good at it, competitive at it in a very tough league,
toughest in America, and you know they're going to give
(06:42):
him every resource, I think to make sure that he's
able to do that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
But yeah, I mean, when.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You're talking about losing the leader of the program and
then you're trying to pull it all together, I think
that Zach. I think that the people who were playing
on the team at that point point, the people around
the program. If anyone ever wrote a book about it,
it'd be unbelievable because the way those guys pulled together
and tried to get this thing headed back in the
(07:09):
right direction. I don't think any of them get enough
credit for what they did, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Neil Price, played by play voice of the Mississippi State Bulldogs,
joins us here on sports Radio AM thirteen hundred and zone.
I mean, ask you at the running back spot, because
it looks like not only carries, but production looks like
it's about it. Even lead distributed with the guys who
have been asked to carry the football.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And I think that's because there's opportunity at that position.
You know, they like all of those guys. Now, Kevon
Lee is another guy who's on that laundry list of injuries.
You know they and sounds like they're going to have
to do without him for a while. And he's the
most experienced guy in that group. When you take into
account that he played at Penn State, so they played
in the Big Ten. He kind of been waiting his
(07:50):
turn here because he was playing behind a couple of
guys that were pretty good running backs that aren't with
the program anymore, you know, one at USC another in Washington.
But it's a shame that you lose that kind of experience.
Devon Booth is a guy who he has some elusiveness
to him. He's got a good burst. Johnny Daniels is
(08:11):
a guy that I think the coaching staff believes might
be the best pure running back on the roster with
regard to what all he can do, and he's shown
flashes of that. And both those guys have helped out
on special teams as kick returners too, So I think
they like the group. It's just a matter of again,
they got to get snaps, They got to get out
(08:32):
there and get opportunities because there are two guys who
just never played here before. So they're learning as they
go and hopefully they'll continue to get better as we
get deeper into the year.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Neil, what is that a fair assessment? And safe to
say that's the situation with a lot of the Bulldog
defense right now because you have so many fresh faces
that are in there trying to learn on the fly
and execute even as they continue to educate.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, I think that's very fair. You know, you're talking
about a program.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That in the not too distant past had two.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Guys playing corner that are both playing corner in the NFL.
Right now. So you had two really good defensive backs.
Just in my tenure here, going back to seventeen, they've
had a couple of guys on that defensive line who
are making a lot of money in the NFL right now,
Jeffrey Simmons, Montese Sweat, and I think that Jeff's got
a chance to be an NFL Hall of Famer by
(09:30):
the time he's done. I mean, you know, so they've
had some real people playing defense here, and they had
a couple of guys like Calvin Dinkin's up front that
they thought, you know, maybe the next one of those
guys he grew into his body and got a little
more experience. But you know, Calvin's played in less than
two games in two years here because he's just had
(09:52):
bad luck as it relates to injuries. So I don't
know that they've got anybody else right now that they
can put out there that and fully understand what they
were looking for. I mean, the transfer guys have been great.
Bingley Jones, though didn't get to play last week because
you know, he's banged up. Suleiman Paka played at Purdue,
understands what it means to play big time football, playing
(10:13):
into Big Ten. But you know, again you're playing in
a new system with a new coordinator at a new place,
and it's you know, it's gonna be game five, you know,
coming up. So I know that in the grand scheme
of things, you ever get close to halfway point of
the season, the five games at one place kind of
a different story, you know. So there's a lot of that.
(10:34):
There is up and down that defense, and you know,
that's just part of it, and you know, I think
it's going to be part of it as we move forward,
not just here, but a lot of places, because that's
the nature of the transfer portal, and that's the nature
of the day and age we live in now in
college sports.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
No doubt about it that you referenced something earlier, and
I'm glad you did, and I want to give you
a chance to expand on this a little bit. Walkmorn
Sans have been hearing for the past three years since
it was announced that Texas and Oklahoma we're going to
go into the SEC, that not only the tried and
(11:12):
true phrase it just means more, but just the week
two week grind, the toll that playing in that conference
every week can take, the toll that it can take
on a football team. Now in these parts, things have
gone well early obviously, and folks are excited and all
(11:33):
that other kind of stuff. But not that I'm asking
you to deliver a cautionary tale, but just to give
long worn fans a little bit of a look at
what the grind is like to go through this league,
since they're about to play their first ever conference game
this Saturday.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I think, and I'm not saying it because I've been
in this league my entire life, and it's it's no
disrespect to any other league in the country, because there
are plenty of great athletes and great teams and programs
out there right now. But look at the schedule this
week in the SEC. Okay, Oklahoma's going to play Auburn
(12:12):
on Saturday. Georgia is going to play Alabama in a
conference game. Both those teams are ranked in Top five
A and M's gonna play Arkansas in a game that
means a lot to both of them because it has
for a long long time, and both of them will
go out there and try their best to beat the
tar out of one another, you know, for pride. And
that's just a regular week, that's what it is. I mean,
(12:34):
it's in Alabama, will play Georgia, and in a few
weeks it'll be the third Saturday in October and they'll
have to play a Tennessee team that's really good. Right now,
I can tell you being at Kentucky all those years,
twelve years when State was Kentucky's permanent cross division opponent.
In those days, Rich Brooks was the coach, and Coach
(12:55):
Brooks used to always say about Mississippi State, you know,
their record may not be the greatest every year, but
when you play them, you know, because they just lay
on you and they take a physical toll out of you,
and it's hard to get ready to go again against
another physical team the next week. It sounds hyperbolic, I know,
but I'm telling you shy of the NFL. I think
(13:18):
it's the toughest football league in the country because everybody
has physical, imposing people on both sides of the line
of scrimmage, and they've all got some really great athletes
at skill positions that are capable of making big time plays.
I don't know top to bottom that there's another college
(13:41):
league in the country that has that. And the thing
that always stands out to me Craig or the defenses.
I mean the offense is sure, that's great, but the defenses,
to me are always the thing that stands out because
you've got big, fast people on just about every defense
in the SEC. So listen, there are teams who've come
(14:03):
in here and proven it can be done. I mean,
it can be done. You can have great success at
as coach Saban he retired, maybe is the greatest that
ever did it at Alabama and had a lot of
success and when lost records through darn good. But I
think even he would tell you, in an honest moment
that there was nothing easy about how they had to
(14:23):
do that every week. In any coach in this league
I think would tell you that. Well.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
To your point, when you mentioned the third Saturday in October,
everybody knows that's Tennessee Alabama. On that same day you
have Georgia in this town playing Texas.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So it's just.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
A conference game.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It's not a playoff game. It's a conference game. That's
what it is.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You look at the schedule as it unfolds over the
course of the season and I say it's not a
playoff game. Maybe that's not accurate. Maybe it is, even
though you're in a twelve team playoff. Now it's proceeding probably,
I mean, I think that's fair. And then you're talking about,
you know, having if you want to compete for a championship, well,
(15:07):
the margin.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Prayer is very slim. So you got to find a.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Way to keep winning those games. You know. That's just
that's what it is, week in and week out. So
that's what makes it fun for fans. And it's one
of the reasons maybe that some of the coaches have
a lot of sleepless nights because they're trying to scheme
and get ready for the next biggest game of the year,
which happens to be seven days from wherever they are
(15:32):
right now, that's true.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
It'll be Texas and Mississippi State this Saturday afternoon at
three point fifteen at dk R Texas Memorial Stadium. Neil
Price play by play, voice of the Mississippi State Bulldogs
joining us here, Neil, I thank you so much, travels safe.
I look forward to seeing up in the broadcast booth
on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, you know, I'm excited to come to a stadium
named after a former Mississippi State football coach.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
I think, yeah, how about that.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
So there is a little bit of fourtuitous timing and
this being the first conference game and coach Royal having
that connection between both programs. I've never been to Austin,
interested to see it obviously, have seen it on TV
plenty of times, and it'll be good to see you
again too. I look forward to it. Thank you, Neil,
thanks so much. Thanks Greig. You bet that's.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Neil Price, play by play voice of the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
How many of you out there didn't know that coach
Royle was briefly a coach at head coach at Mississippi
State in Washington and in the Canadian Football League too.
He was He had beinton Eskimos.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
That's true. All right.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
We'll hear more from Leonge La foul Logmorns linebacker coming
up when we continue on Sports Radio AM thirteen under
the Zone in the iHeartRadio app.
Because it's time to talk football from the state of
(00:03):
Mississippi in Spacific Mississippi State University, Hale State as they
say there, and the play by play voice of the
Mississippi State Bulldogs, you know, Price joints us on the hotline.
Neil was trying to remember when it was we met.
I want to say it was women's basketball, maybe Sweet sixteen,
somewhere along the line, when you were the play by
(00:23):
play voice of Kentucky women's basketball and baseball something like that.
Does that sound even vaguely familiar?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, that sounds about right. I think you might have
been doing a national broadcast and Kentucky was the Sweet
sixteen side somewhere Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
May Yeah, I'm at Kansas, Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That was it, Kansas City. I was there. I was
doing it for Westwood One. That's it.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, yeah, yes, we remember it well. Anyway, I appreciate
you taking the time to join us, and I'm interested
to get your thoughts on on Jeff Levy and how
this new world of things of being a head coach
of the at the collegiate level, especially in a league
(01:09):
like the SEC. How and just looking at his news
conference things, it looked like he handles everything basically with
a plumb and understands how all of this works, even
being thrust into a difficult situation with the injuries he's.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Had to deal with. Yeah, I think that's accurate. You know,
he is an optimist. I like that about him because
if you can't maintain some degree of optimism, or if
you can't be even keeled, you won't make it very
(01:42):
long in this league. It will eat you alive. And
then you throw in the injuries that have kind of
compounded the situation because he already was dealing with a
roster that had three returning starters, already dealing with what
amounts to a complete rebuild, and then the players you're
(02:02):
counting on out of the portal, or even some of
those that stuck around that you hoped would be key contributors,
are a lot of the guys who are on that
injury list right now, including the guy who was going
to be your starting quarterback. So it has been a
true baptism by fire. But through it all, he's maintained
a really good attitude, and I admire him for it
(02:24):
because I don't know if I was in his seat,
if I could do the same.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I think a lot of us would probably be in
the same thing. Okay, so you brought up the quarterback,
we might as well jump in there and get your
thoughts on this obviously long worn fans, we're familiar with
Blake shaping, but now he suffers the shoulder injury and
he's out. So we're looking if what Coach Levy said
yesterday is still going to be the case. On say,
(02:50):
we're looking at a true freshman and Michael Van Buuren
junior taking the snaps, and I know there's a red
shirt freshman Chris Parson there as well. How about your
thoughts on what Coach Levy is dealing with in specific
at this quarterback spot.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, he's got two athletic guys there. Michael and Chris
both had the ability to make plays with their legs.
I think both of them have very good arms. I
think if we're being totally honest about it, maybe the
difference maker Craig is that Michael Van Buren is a
guy that Jeff Levy brought in, that he evaluated and
(03:27):
that he saw as maybe the future of the program
here at some point. And Chris Parson's a guy that
Mike Leach brought in, and I think it maybe is
that simple now. He was quick to praise Chris on
Monday and said, you know, he's been a great teammate
through all of this. He is doing his job in
(03:50):
practice this week of pushing Michael and making sure that
he's got somebody behind him that Number one has been
through this little bit because Chris got thrown into a
similar situation late in the year last year when Will
Rogers was hurt and had to start a couple games late.
But he wasn't doing it on the road against the
number one team in the country. And I don't know
(04:12):
that anything can really prepare you for that other than
you just got to get out there and get deep
into the pool.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
So we'll see how it.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Goes on Saturday.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
But Michael is.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
A great talent, four star recruit guy who had a
really great high school career in Maryland. I think he
will be a very good one by the time that
his career is over, and we'll see if he's able
to go out there and handle himself with a lot
of maturity in a hostile environment.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
On Saturday.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
You brought up Chris Parson Beam brought in by Mike Leach,
And obviously was tragic what happened with Coach Leach, and
he's so well thought of in so many areas as well.
Because of his passing, how difficult was it for the
program to kind of rebound and try to find its
footing again given the unexpects the nature of things happening there.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh, I don't think there's a page in the head
coach's handbook that prepares you for going through that. And
I get Zach Barnett a ton of credit.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You know, he's not here.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Anymore, but that's the guy who was asked to do
the impossible and he tried his best to do it.
You know, Coach Leech passed in December. That's a big
recruiting period now, obviously, and Zach Garnett was asked to
not only come in and take the reins of the program,
but also hold a recruiting class together and keep things
(05:40):
moving forward. And I think he tried very hard to
do that. I do, and I don't know in one
year if if that's a if that's a fair sample
size or not. But I also know that college athletics
is always not a fair business too, you know, it's
it's a results business. And you know what, there's just
(06:00):
been so much change in this place, in particular in
about a twenty four month stretch, that everybody's head has
been on a little bit of a swivel. But now
Zach Feltman, the new athletic director. Well, I say new
Zack's been here two years now, but I mean, you.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Know, Zach's been able to bring some of his people in.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
He's starting to kind of build the path that he
believes is the best forward for the department. And Jeff
Levy is a big piece of that plan because obviously
they want to put an emphasis on football. They want
Mississippi State to be competitive. They want them to be
good at it, competitive at it in a very tough league,
toughest in America, and you know they're going to give
(06:42):
him every resource, I think to make sure that he's
able to do that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
But yeah, I mean, when.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You're talking about losing the leader of the program and
then you're trying to pull it all together, I think
that Zach. I think that the people who were playing
on the team at that point point, the people around
the program. If anyone ever wrote a book about it,
it'd be unbelievable because the way those guys pulled together
and tried to get this thing headed back in the
(07:09):
right direction. I don't think any of them get enough
credit for what they did, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Neil Price, played by play voice of the Mississippi State Bulldogs,
joins us here on sports Radio AM thirteen hundred and zone.
I mean, ask you at the running back spot, because
it looks like not only carries, but production looks like
it's about it. Even lead distributed with the guys who
have been asked to carry the football.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And I think that's because there's opportunity at that position.
You know, they like all of those guys. Now, Kevon
Lee is another guy who's on that laundry list of injuries.
You know they and sounds like they're going to have
to do without him for a while. And he's the
most experienced guy in that group. When you take into
account that he played at Penn State, so they played
in the Big Ten. He kind of been waiting his
(07:50):
turn here because he was playing behind a couple of
guys that were pretty good running backs that aren't with
the program anymore, you know, one at USC another in Washington.
But it's a shame that you lose that kind of experience.
Devon Booth is a guy who he has some elusiveness
to him. He's got a good burst. Johnny Daniels is
(08:11):
a guy that I think the coaching staff believes might
be the best pure running back on the roster with
regard to what all he can do, and he's shown
flashes of that. And both those guys have helped out
on special teams as kick returners too, So I think
they like the group. It's just a matter of again,
they got to get snaps, They got to get out
(08:32):
there and get opportunities because there are two guys who
just never played here before. So they're learning as they
go and hopefully they'll continue to get better as we
get deeper into the year.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Neil, what is that a fair assessment? And safe to
say that's the situation with a lot of the Bulldog
defense right now because you have so many fresh faces
that are in there trying to learn on the fly
and execute even as they continue to educate.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, I think that's very fair. You know, you're talking
about a program.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That in the not too distant past had two.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Guys playing corner that are both playing corner in the NFL.
Right now. So you had two really good defensive backs.
Just in my tenure here, going back to seventeen, they've
had a couple of guys on that defensive line who
are making a lot of money in the NFL right now,
Jeffrey Simmons, Montese Sweat, and I think that Jeff's got
a chance to be an NFL Hall of Famer by
(09:30):
the time he's done. I mean, you know, so they've
had some real people playing defense here, and they had
a couple of guys like Calvin Dinkin's up front that
they thought, you know, maybe the next one of those
guys he grew into his body and got a little
more experience. But you know, Calvin's played in less than
two games in two years here because he's just had
(09:52):
bad luck as it relates to injuries. So I don't
know that they've got anybody else right now that they
can put out there that and fully understand what they
were looking for. I mean, the transfer guys have been great.
Bingley Jones, though didn't get to play last week because
you know, he's banged up. Suleiman Paka played at Purdue,
understands what it means to play big time football, playing
(10:13):
into Big Ten. But you know, again you're playing in
a new system with a new coordinator at a new place,
and it's you know, it's gonna be game five, you know,
coming up. So I know that in the grand scheme
of things, you ever get close to halfway point of
the season, the five games at one place kind of
a different story, you know. So there's a lot of that.
(10:34):
There is up and down that defense, and you know,
that's just part of it, and you know, I think
it's going to be part of it as we move forward,
not just here, but a lot of places, because that's
the nature of the transfer portal, and that's the nature
of the day and age we live in now in
college sports.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
No doubt about it that you referenced something earlier, and
I'm glad you did, and I want to give you
a chance to expand on this a little bit. Walkmorn
Sans have been hearing for the past three years since
it was announced that Texas and Oklahoma we're going to
go into the SEC, that not only the tried and
(11:12):
true phrase it just means more, but just the week
two week grind, the toll that playing in that conference
every week can take, the toll that it can take
on a football team. Now in these parts, things have
gone well early obviously, and folks are excited and all
(11:33):
that other kind of stuff. But not that I'm asking
you to deliver a cautionary tale, but just to give
long worn fans a little bit of a look at
what the grind is like to go through this league,
since they're about to play their first ever conference game
this Saturday.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I think, and I'm not saying it because I've been
in this league my entire life, and it's it's no
disrespect to any other league in the country, because there
are plenty of great athletes and great teams and programs
out there right now. But look at the schedule this
week in the SEC. Okay, Oklahoma's going to play Auburn
(12:12):
on Saturday. Georgia is going to play Alabama in a
conference game. Both those teams are ranked in Top five
A and M's gonna play Arkansas in a game that
means a lot to both of them because it has
for a long long time, and both of them will
go out there and try their best to beat the
tar out of one another, you know, for pride. And
that's just a regular week, that's what it is. I mean,
(12:34):
it's in Alabama, will play Georgia, and in a few
weeks it'll be the third Saturday in October and they'll
have to play a Tennessee team that's really good. Right now,
I can tell you being at Kentucky all those years,
twelve years when State was Kentucky's permanent cross division opponent.
In those days, Rich Brooks was the coach, and Coach
(12:55):
Brooks used to always say about Mississippi State, you know,
their record may not be the greatest every year, but
when you play them, you know, because they just lay
on you and they take a physical toll out of you,
and it's hard to get ready to go again against
another physical team the next week. It sounds hyperbolic, I know,
but I'm telling you shy of the NFL. I think
(13:18):
it's the toughest football league in the country because everybody
has physical, imposing people on both sides of the line
of scrimmage, and they've all got some really great athletes
at skill positions that are capable of making big time plays.
I don't know top to bottom that there's another college
(13:41):
league in the country that has that. And the thing
that always stands out to me Craig or the defenses.
I mean the offense is sure, that's great, but the defenses,
to me are always the thing that stands out because
you've got big, fast people on just about every defense
in the SEC. So listen, there are teams who've come
(14:03):
in here and proven it can be done. I mean,
it can be done. You can have great success at
as coach Saban he retired, maybe is the greatest that
ever did it at Alabama and had a lot of
success and when lost records through darn good. But I
think even he would tell you, in an honest moment
that there was nothing easy about how they had to
(14:23):
do that every week. In any coach in this league
I think would tell you that. Well.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
To your point, when you mentioned the third Saturday in October,
everybody knows that's Tennessee Alabama. On that same day you
have Georgia in this town playing Texas.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So it's just.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
A conference game.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It's not a playoff game. It's a conference game. That's
what it is.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You look at the schedule as it unfolds over the
course of the season and I say it's not a
playoff game. Maybe that's not accurate. Maybe it is, even
though you're in a twelve team playoff. Now it's proceeding probably,
I mean, I think that's fair. And then you're talking about,
you know, having if you want to compete for a championship, well,
(15:07):
the margin.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Prayer is very slim. So you got to find a.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Way to keep winning those games. You know. That's just
that's what it is, week in and week out. So
that's what makes it fun for fans. And it's one
of the reasons maybe that some of the coaches have
a lot of sleepless nights because they're trying to scheme
and get ready for the next biggest game of the year,
which happens to be seven days from wherever they are
(15:32):
right now, that's true.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
It'll be Texas and Mississippi State this Saturday afternoon at
three point fifteen at dk R Texas Memorial Stadium. Neil
Price play by play, voice of the Mississippi State Bulldogs
joining us here, Neil, I thank you so much, travels safe.
I look forward to seeing up in the broadcast booth
on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, you know, I'm excited to come to a stadium
named after a former Mississippi State football coach.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
I think, yeah, how about that.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
So there is a little bit of fourtuitous timing and
this being the first conference game and coach Royal having
that connection between both programs. I've never been to Austin,
interested to see it obviously, have seen it on TV
plenty of times, and it'll be good to see you
again too. I look forward to it. Thank you, Neil,
thanks so much. Thanks Greig. You bet that's.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Neil Price, play by play voice of the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
How many of you out there didn't know that coach
Royle was briefly a coach at head coach at Mississippi
State in Washington and in the Canadian Football League too.
He was He had beinton Eskimos.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
That's true. All right.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
We'll hear more from Leonge La foul Logmorns linebacker coming
up when we continue on Sports Radio AM thirteen under
the Zone in the iHeartRadio app.
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