Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
It's the Craigway Show with the voice of the Texas
Longhorns and Hall of Fame broadcaster Craig Way.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, changes have happened.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It was three to nineing Atlanta going to the top
of the eighth and the first five Mets batters reached
base on double and singles and then a sacrifice fly
and all of a sudden, bam, four runs across the plate.
There's still only one out and they've got another runner
in scoring position. The Mets lead the Braves four to
(00:44):
three and are batting in the top of the eighth
game one of this really cataclysmic double header in im Portland,
and now a two run bomb, a home run. I
didn't see that. Did you see who hit that? Cameron Parkmo, Yeah,
it is so Brandon Neimo twenty third home run of
(01:06):
the year, no doubt or two. Yeah, six runs a
crossed the plate for the Mets, still batting with only
one out on the top of.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
The eighth inning and they're up six to three on Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So what this is gonna mean is it's gonna be one, two, three.
I guess it'd be a third pitcher of the inning
coming on for Atlanta. If the Mets hold onto this lead,
they will clinch a playoff spot and Atlanta will have
to win game two to get in.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Here's the other interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
If the Braves win one of the two games, like
I said, they're in and they go in automatically as
the five seed because they have the tiebreaker on both
the Mets and the Diamondbacks, the Mets can be either
the five or the sixth seed. If the Braves win
game two, the Mets would be the sixth seed. If
the Mets sweep Atlanta, the Mets would win to the
(02:00):
five slot and Arizona gets in as the six. If
you're the Diamondbacks, how do you feeling about it? I
have to think you're not feeling good because, well, I
don't know because Chris Sale is scheduled to pitch game
two if Atlanta had won, and they may yet win
(02:22):
it at six three and the eight, but if they cut,
if Atlanta comes back and wind be interesting to see
if the Braves actually pitch Sail in game two or
if they save him for game one tomorrow in San Diego,
because they would automatically be the five seed. But if
they lose this game and right now they've given up
six runs in the top of the eighth inning. If
(02:42):
they lose this game, they have to pitch Sale in
game two. They have no choice in the matter.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And you think that this comeback, which is incredible and
so anti Mets usually think the Mets with Mets by
losing both these games in some sort of spectacular fashion.
And of course they still could lose this game, but
they hold on. I think it's got to be so
so emotionally draining that you would kind of favor Atlanta
in game two, especially with Chris Saale. But I can't
imagine being a diamondsback player. Are you watching this game?
(03:08):
He's flying on your phone, You're out on the golf course, like,
it's got to be awful.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
We'll see.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
So it's six ' three Mets still batting, one out,
one out on the top of the eighth inning.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
We'll keep you posting on this Game one.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
They do have to play the second game of the
doubleheader to decide. If the Mets hold on and win this,
they're in. And then they have to decide that second
game will decide who the final wildcard spot is, and
I say final. With the brakes winding, they still go
in as the five seed and the Mets would then
slide to the six.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
But if they win, they know that they are in.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
All right, let's hear from Long Wrtons head coach Steve
Sarkisian from the weekly news conference. You heard it live
this morning here on Sports Radio AM thirteen under the Zone.
And yeah, there's a news conference even on a bye week.
So here are the opening comments, the opening thoughts of
Long Ortons head coach Steve Sarkisian.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Well, it's good to see everybody the bye week, and
you know, I think everybody would probably agree there's nothing
like going into a buy coming off of a win. Uh,
as an undefeated team, you know, that's always something that
you strive for. And this actually, ironically is the first
year we've gone into a bye undefeated. You know, our
our previous buyes we've kind of lost the week before
(04:19):
going into the bye. I was reminded that one of
one of our younger analysts on staff that we need
to win this week's week and have a buye where
we're where we're happy, and we were we've won going
into the buy, So that was a that was positive,
and you know, I think there's a lot of different
things to look at when you're going into a buy,
one of which is analyzed in the previous game, but
(04:40):
also just kind of the totality of the first five
weeks of the season and some of the things that
you know we're proud of and that we're that we're
doing well, and some of the things that you know
we're we're we need to improve and and where we
can where we can get better. And so I think
that was a lot of our meeting this morning with
the team was looking at kind of the big picture,
(05:01):
but also where last game was a little bit of
a microcosm of those things. I think, you know, one
thing offensively is we've got great balance right now, as
much as you know a lot of the passing game
gets a lot of the notoriety. I think we're averaging
just under two hundred yards a game rushing the football
right now, and so when we can do that and
(05:22):
we're throwing the ball over over three hundred yards a game,
that can make things challenging on our opponents. And I
think one that's a credit to the offensive line, you know,
because we've had three different backs having to carry the ball.
I think that's a credit to some of the creativity
to our offensive staff of finding different ways to get
yards on the ground, some of the reverses and end
to rounds and things like that.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
But on the on the.
Speaker 5 (05:45):
Same token, it's a credit to the quarterbacks too. We've
been doing this with two different quarterbacks now they've an't
basically almost about split time. It's kind of two and
a half games two and a half games, and their
ability to execute offensively, and then the big play playmate
ability by the receivers. You know, there's been a lot
of explosive explosive plays. I think Saturday we averaged eight
(06:06):
point four yards per play, which is nearly you know,
as you guys know, nearly a first down a play,
and that I think it was about twenty three percent
explosive play rate, so one out of every four plays
was hitting as an explosive.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
So that was something we talked about this offseason.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
How do we become a more explosive offense to create
those yards and chunks that has shown up. And then
probably the you know a couple of things to me
that that where we need to improve offensively. You know
that the turnover thing. I think we're at plus two
on the turnover margin. It's just not where we want
to be. And a lot of that is doing the
(06:41):
fact of you know, we we we're turning the ball
over more than we have historically, and and that's on
us as coaches. We have got to emphasize it more.
And it'll be a point of emphasis this week. And
it's easy to point at a Jaden Blue this week
or an arch Manning the week before I look at
just hey, is there a way for us to secure
the football better? Can we protect better? Can we do
(07:03):
our turnover circuit drills better? Right, it's one thing just
to point out what the issue is, but it's another
of you know, how do we rectify that and how
do we improve upon that?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So that that's the first thing. The second is kind
of some of the.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Unforced errors, especially when you start crossing the fifty yard line.
And we've talked about this with with some of the
false starts in pre snap penalties. We have to understand
and be mature enough upfront that people are gonna they're
gonna stem their front, they're gonna shift their front, they're
gonna say things, uh to try to h and entice
(07:36):
us to jump off sides, and we can't fall prey
to that, and so we've got to work better at
that as a staff and putting our guys in that
situation in practice. And then we you know, you have
five holdings in a game and a variety of positions, right,
I mean, we got a receiver get called for holding
DeAndre Moore who was out of sheer effort. You know,
Gunner got called for a hold that I quite frankly
(07:57):
thought he was just finishing a guy, but that they
call it. And then we had a couple holds on internally,
and those are taken away from positive yardage. Those are
putting us behind the chains to where coming out of
last week's game, being five to nine on third down
was kind of indicative of where we've been all year.
I think we're right about fifty three percent on the season.
(08:18):
But we shouldn't be relying on having to convert third
and fourteens, you know, third and nineteen's. You know, that's
that's a hard way to live over an extended period
of time. So we've got it. We've got to minimize
the self inflicted wounds. Because we do it, we are
really doing some very good things offensively. I think we
need to continue to push our wide receivers and from
(08:38):
a perimeter blocking standpoint and playing for one another. That
was a point of emphasis this morning with the team
as well, of how how much of an impact it
has on our offense when we can put those balls
on the perimeter, the bubble screens and different things and
get positive yards where we've been big little We've hit
some big ones, but we're too many players are getting
(08:59):
hit behind the line scrimmager for no gains that we
need to improve upon.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
That, I would say.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Defensively, you know, there's a couple of things that jump
out to me. You know, everyone loves to look at
total yards. I kind of look at you know, a
were keeping them out of the end zone. And the
fact that I think we're averaging just seven points a
game right now. Defensively, we've given up three touchdowns, you
know in five games. You know, our third down defense
(09:26):
is really good right now, our red zone defense is
obviously really good.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Right now.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
I think we're starting to see that sack number go up.
I think we've got thirteen sacks now. But again, you
know what I was pointing to them is making sure
that we're really understanding of our defense. This morning and
where our breakdowns occurred in the game. We're really some
alignment and assignment issues. It wasn't so much that we
weren't good enough to make some of those plays. You know,
(09:51):
whether our backers didn't align right and we had no
edge on a defense and a run spits out and
it's like, well, we're not playing very good run defense. Well, no,
we didn't align right, and so we weren't able to
set an edge and a ball got to the edge,
and so that was that was something we talked about.
You know, one of the explosive pass plays we hit
was just a little bit of poor communication, you know,
between the safety and a linebacker. We gave up a
(10:13):
deep crossing route. So those are some things that we
definitely can clean up on. But I have been impressed
with that unit and the way they're playing. I think
they're playing collectively really well together. And you know, the
first drive of the game, they came at us with
a couple of little different run schemes and they found
some yards of the run game. But really after that
(10:34):
the run game was was relatively nullified.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, they hit one here and there.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
You know, when we're in past defense, when most people
be thinking, hey, you got to throw the ball to
get back in the game, and then they hit a
couple of runs inside. But really I think they average
about two yards of carry after that first drive, and
so you know, that's if that's how they want to
play us that then then that's how people will play us.
So I do think there's things in there for us
to continue to improve upon. I think our return it's
(11:00):
it's been frustrating, and the kick return game, we just
haven't gotten any returns, haven't had many kickoffs. First of all,
when people don't score, they don't kick off, and secondly
we're not getting the returns and the punt return game.
It was good to see silas A have an explosive
return Saturday, but again we still want to remain aggressive there.
I think will Stones had a heck of a first
(11:20):
half of the season. I mean, people aren't getting kickoff
returns against us either. I don't know when the last
one we had to go down and tackle. So there's
been a lot of good to what we're doing. But
I think probably the biggest thing for me is the
mentality of our team. You know, I challenged them really
hard this morning about what this bye week was going
to be about how we're going to try to improve
as a team, how we're going to try to get better,
(11:42):
and and I think that they understand that, and that's
what our focus will be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. But also
get fresh, get healthy. So when we come back Neat,
come back next week, you know, our sports science numbers
are back to a high level of explosive movements and
top end speed the way we know how to play. So,
(12:02):
like I said, I'm proud of our guys through five games,
but as you guys know, like we got a long
way to go. You know, we're not a third of
the way through this season if we're.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Trying to accomplish what we want to accomplish.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
So it's a good win, good first portion of the season,
but more.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Work to be done.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
All Right, there's the opening thoughts from Long Horns head
coach Steve Sarkashian. We'll hear more from start coming up
throughout the program. This afternoon. Update on Mets Braves. Braves
batting bottom of the eight, leadoff man aboard against Phil Matone,
who's on the mound for New York right now, and
again the Mets with a six run top of the
eighth of taking a six to three lead on Atlanta.
Winner gets in. The loser would have to win game
(12:42):
two to get in. If the loser of game one
also loses game two, then Arizona would go in as
the final way of playoff wild card entry. We'll keep
you posted on that and more here on this long
oorns Monday on sports Radio AM thirteen under the zone
of the iHeartRadio Am