Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's our number three of the program. Thank you for
spending your afternoon with us wherever you may be in
San Antonio on Ticket seven sixty and around the world
on the iHeartRadio app, the free iHeartRadio app where you
can make us a pre select on your phone or
on your mobile device, iPad or computer and listen to
this show and UTSA games as well throughout the year
(00:27):
on Ticket seven sixty and on the app. UTSA is
playing Rice this weekend, and to kind of give us
a little thought and preview of this matchup, we're gonna
bring in JJ Perez for this segment, who comes out
here for the radio show most weeks. And disappointment obviously
with the Temple lost JJ, but I just thought there
was a couple of things in that game that if
(00:49):
they had the tip at the end and then they
had the turnover that they didn't get, and that's a
UTSA win. Sometimes it just comes down to two plays.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, I think Temple's gonna end up being a little
bit better than we thought they were going to be
when the season is over and you look at those
two turnovers, right, I think that's where it you could
dial in where the game got away from UTSA, and
I think Jeff's kind of echoed this, and it's been
his message this whole time. These are going to be
(01:18):
close games, right, so you got to you got to
execute those. And a couple of missed assignments here and there,
but I think there's a lot of excitement still left
in this season. I think this Rice game is as
big as it comes for, you know, for for what
this season holds.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I've been to this a little bit earlier. Every week,
every Sunday, I start my prep for the next game, yep,
and I get my spotterboards out and I start making
changes to them, or make create the changes or the
or create new ones for teams we haven't played. And
in conference we always play Rice. Last year we played Temple,
we played south Ford, I think two years ago. North
(01:58):
Texas is usual on the annual opponent. Yeah, And I'll
get the boards out and I'll start looking at the
rosters and five years ago, seven years ago, maybe even
three years ago. The name's hardly ever changed. So if
the team was terrible in twenty twenty one, they were
probably terrible in twenty twenty two as well. It was
the same guys. They weren't getting better. Now it's there.
(02:18):
I put about sixty players on two different boards and
they're all different, and it's better players coming in. Every
roster is filled with players from from power for schools
or transfers to where they get to play, and there's
never a game that's easy. They're all the I think
South Florida to Lane and Memphis are probably the top
three teams in the league, but everybody else, you know,
(02:39):
four through about ten or eleven is the same.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's an arms race, right, That's what you know. Nobody
is talking about what changes the name, image and likeness
and how rosters are valued and different positions are valued.
And you mentioned the top three teams and those are
maybe the top three spenders and they have the best value.
So how does UTSA adjust to that? And where they're
(03:04):
somewhere in the middle, right, so they they have to
play better and execute better. And you know, to your point,
there's just more talent out there. The transfer portal has
changed this game so much.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
The quarterback, whether it was Loel Narcis seven or eight
years ago, or Dalton Sturm or Frank Harris or Owen McCown,
they get all the credit in the world. They're the
greatest player that ever existed when they win, and you know,
it's fire the quarterback, and let's make a change when
they lose, and it's not fair to them. They're the
same same person, and it can be week to week.
(03:36):
We've seen it forever, I mean not just transfer portal.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Ara, but forever.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, I mean I could we we could remember when
Frank Harris was getting some of the shade that Owen's
now getting thrown at. And it's it's a tough position, right,
you got to be able to have the strong mental
aspect and perform physically.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And into Owen's.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Credit, he's he's tough both physically and mentally. I mean,
he took some shots on Saturday, and he made some
plays too, and he made some mistakes, and I know
he's a competitor and there's some of those decisions he
would want back. And how does UTSA get him into
a more of a flow and a better, you know.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Way to produce offense.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I think that will largely determine how the rest of
the season goes, because it's mostly all quarterback play when
you're playing at this level.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I've had several conversations with Owen and anytime he has
something he needs help with. Dad's pretty good at this position.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, dad, uncle, his brother plays.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You know, Jeff, there's lots of people inside the building,
so he's not I wouldn't close the book on him yet.
And I think I think Owen McCown's football is his
best football still ahead.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Of him, all Right. It's a lot of players, a
lot of fans don't want to hear the reasons. They
look at sometimes reasons as excuses.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Aj Wilson's had a really good year and he's been
the big downfield target. And here's a guy that was
brand new. He comes in from Houston last year. Well,
Utsa played against him last year. Now he's on the
Roadrunners team. And then you look at at Jamel Hardy,
who I think was the second big you know, that tall,
high point guy like Zakari or JT that you could
(05:14):
throw the ball high to. Devin's a great wide receiver.
Will he's been banged up. You can tell he's been
hurt all year, but some of these other guys are smaller.
You want him to catch it in space and then
use their ability to make play yards after catch. But
trying to get consistent guys on the field because of
just a nagging injury here or there really disrupts your practice,
which carries over to your game.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I mean, the big question is why can't you TSA
passed the ball down the field right? And I said
that this week that they're just not going to be
able to start throwing thirty yard passes down there because
they just don't have the personnel right now to you
listed to all the guys who have been banged up,
and is that a recruiting thing, is that a roster
management thing? I don't know, but there's some ways they
(05:58):
got to try and bridge that gap. Because we're seeing
defenses stack up against the run against Robert or so
I think there's some we could see something with the
tight ends, maybe some intermediate routes. And that's what I'm
expecting the rest of the season, a little bit of change, hopefully.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Well the big three that UTSA had when everything was
just as perfect as it could be with JT and
Cephas and Zakari. Zakari was beat up in practice all
the time, but he showed up on game day. JT
hardly ever got hurt until he got hurt, and I
never could get right, and Cephas has been on practice
squads in the NFL. So you're talking about really really
(06:36):
good athletes and really good players, and regardless of how
good these receivers are, living up to that standard is
kind of a high standard. I mean, you want to
get there, and I think they could, but that's still
a high bar.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Right, and you still have to go execute it.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I do think there's there's talent on this roster for
the road Runners to be good, but you still have
to go out and execute on game day and I think.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
They are missing a little bit of that so far
in this season.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I had this conversation that people will hear Saturday as
part of our chalk Talk segment, and I asked this
question to Jess Lap, the defensive coordinator, because you're going
to face an option team against Rice, and let's face it,
Rice is going to have to win a different way
than everybody else is. You can't just go get a
bunch of athletes that you think are okay athletes and run,
(07:23):
run and shoot and throw at seventy times a game.
You can't do what Alabama and Texas and even UTSA does.
If you're going to compete, you've got to control clock,
you got to make sure the other team's offense days
off the field, and you've got to grind out twenty
one to fourteen wins. And they're going to try to
do that. They've got another option attack that UTSA is
going to have to face this weekend, and I think
(07:43):
they've gotten better at it. I thought they were better
last year in the Army game than they've ever been
against Army before, and we saw a little bit of
it with Temple, and so hopefully they can continue to
be assignment sound and take care of business with that
option game.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I think they had one missed assignment on the option
Temple and touchdown run. So that's what you gotta watch
out again. And I actually think the defense has been
playing all right in recent weeks. And I still think
their best defense, their best football is.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Ahead of them.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So you just you can't lose that one play in
a position in a in the second half, and that's
kind of that's kind of where they're at. The margins
are just razor thin right now for the robot.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Right I don't know if you heard this story I
was talking about a little while ago. The NCAA is
gonna let college athletes and college administrators gamble on sports
sporting events. Yeah, we're not college football or college basketball.
If you're if you're a college athlete, you can't bet
on college games. But in states where it's legal, this
is going to be something that they can do. Now,
are we opening up a can of worms that we
(08:47):
wish we didn't open up? Or I mean, I don't
see where it's it's bad for a football player to
play fantasy football, uh, in the NFL. But I can
also understand where if you get too are down the
road into debt, you may do whatever you have to
do to get out of it.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's just so prevalent, right, I think Pandora's already out
of the box with the sports gambling, and it's everywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
It's it's on your phone.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I'm looking at my fantasy team over there trying to
find a defense, and it's, uh, it's interesting. Now we
have player availability reports for the American Conference, so yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So we can't tell people that somebody's not gonna play
anymore for three weeks.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Who knows. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Some of those things are we're kind of I've been
looking at them pretty closely. And some of those are
pretty interesting the way they report those.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So we'll see.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
How that has an impact on on the gambling side.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
See, I think that the player availability thing is fine
if everybody does it right and everybody's honest about it, right,
So just list everybody questionable and and I guess your
your bases are covered. But and to me, that's the
problem is that if if I know that the backup
quarterback is going to start on Saturday, yeah, I'm going
(09:58):
to dial up every exotic blitzi'e ever thought about in
my life to confuse him, to make him make mistakes.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
It's like I know that you know that. I know, though, right,
so that where do you stop? But for one of
those things?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Really? And the reason why you have the injury report
is to satisfy the gamblers, all right, and the gamblers
already know. I mean, look at the movie Casino, Ace
Rostin had spies everywhere to tell him if the quarterback's
girlfriend broke up with him or not.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
What's changed nowadays is the daily fantasy or gambling. You
could bet on how many carries somebody has, or how
much receptions or targets or how far.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
What's the Owens' longest completion.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So that's where there's a little bit of twist and
people just they want to know, all.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Right, Robert Henry, obviously Temple was going to make sure
he didn't run the ball. They didn't care if anybody
else got fifty yards or one hundred yards. They were
not going to let Robert have the holes that he had.
And I think that's where the maturity of the running
back comes because now Rice in North Texas and South Florida,
all those schools are going to kind of look at
that film and go, Okay, what a tip will do.
(11:01):
Let's see if we can duplicate it, and now they're
gonna have to find different ways to find him space
to run.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Jeff made it sound like he was battling some kind
of conditioning deal. So even with you know, the backup
running back, they should have been able to run the
ball lit bit better. I thought the blocking was okay,
and there were run laying so we'll see. I think
I saw John Emery suited up over the weekend, and.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
There's a lot of people are really high on his
on his prowacy. He's got a good fetuse.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
They've kind of been saving him for the end of
this season, right, I think he's still coming back from
his knee injury, so we'll see. Obviously, they've put a
heavy workload on Robert to this point of the season,
and you gotta just have some concern that he'll make
it to the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, And even in the NFL now, we're seeing teams
that run two running backs. If you're gonna run in
the NFL thirty running plays, your primary guy's gonna get eighteen,
the other guy's gonna get twelve. And if you have
a second or even third running back that you can
give carries to. In college, having a fresh back against
the tire defense in the second half usually is a
(12:00):
better recipe.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It's hard because you kind of want to see what
Robert Henry could do with twenty twenty five carries, right,
But but.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Then he gets worn out by the sixth week of the.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Seaton and they're gonna scheme up against you.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Then they're gonna adjust, and they're gonna have second half adjustments,
so that that's where the road Runners really have to
come through and kind of figure out the best game plan.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I know when we when I visit with Jeff here
in about forty five minutes. We don't look ahead. He
doesn't care about anything other than rice. But you and
I get to do this. The gauntlet comes after this week.
North Texas is way better than I thought they were
gonna be at the beginning of the season too. Lane
has always been pretty decent. And now South Florida with
its ten million dollar roster, yeah, it's gonna be. So
you got a gauntlet of three huge games in a row,
(12:40):
and this is a kind of a must win this weekend.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I asked Jeff today if it was a must win
and not so many words, and they can't look at that, right,
But you're right, we can, and I think it is
this week. And and then you have a huge rivalry
game next week against North Texas, which that game has
not been announced yet.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
They fair way to see what happens with South Florida
this week, and and and uh in South Florida's that
that should be a really good game South Florida North Texas.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So I you know, you look at you look at
the Gauntlin and it's an opportunity. I don't think the
top of the conference, which I considered utsa in the
upper half of it with the talent wise, I don't
think it's that much of a disparity.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
So you gotta go get one.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
You gotta go get one of these hard ones on
the road and hopefully they could do it and they
show improvement and they give the Road Inner fans faith
because I know there's a lot of Road Inner fans
out there with a lot of angst right now.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Defensively getting takeaways, that's the big thing that USA.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, it's missing.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
They've been opportune, and I think if you look at
the success they've had this year, a lot of that's
come off of that. So they got to find a
way to just make something happen. I think the pass
rush is a big part of that. We've seen improvement
on that, so they got to just keep trending that way.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Shad Banks just makes super plays. Yeah, he's got to
be an NFL guy.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And you look at where where would this defense be
without Shad Right, he's over delivered in the way I
see it.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
So yeah, I think he's got all the.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Ten we've seen in the past. The and not that
Owen pee Wee or Vick Shaw or not us has
several sacks already, but we're seeing the interior linebackers kind
of it's probably been since Telefo was here. Yeah, where
the middle linebacker basically ruled the game at times.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I think Brandon Tucker maybe as good as Shad Banks, right,
and he's not even the everyday starter. So you know
that Blackshire has been solid. They've gotten more production from
that spot. To me, it's important part of the defense.
It's the center, the anchor of the defense. And you know,
as the secondary has been improving and coming along, it's
(14:47):
one of.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Those deals where they just got to rely on those guys.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
All right. Specials on Roadrunner inside Roadrunner Sports.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, thirty off one dollar for the first month if
you want to join, a lot of good stuff on there.
We're following the road Runners throughout the whole season in
win or Lose and basketball.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Soon two weeks from Saturday.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, so they're ready practicing, So we'll see what those
guys get going.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
All right, we'll see you on Saturday. Let's see. We're
on the here at four thirty, so you're on at
four forty.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I'll be there. Thanks Andy, All right.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Thanks, that's JJ Perez Inside Roadruner Sports. There's a big
game in the Cotton Bowl this Saturday, as ou In
Texas will play again, we'll get to hear what Steve
sarkise and thanks of this game and this matchup coming
up next
It's our number three of the program. Thank you for
spending your afternoon with us wherever you may be in
San Antonio on Ticket seven sixty and around the world
on the iHeartRadio app, the free iHeartRadio app where you
can make us a pre select on your phone or
on your mobile device, iPad or computer and listen to
this show and UTSA games as well throughout the year
(00:27):
on Ticket seven sixty and on the app. UTSA is
playing Rice this weekend, and to kind of give us
a little thought and preview of this matchup, we're gonna
bring in JJ Perez for this segment, who comes out
here for the radio show most weeks. And disappointment obviously
with the Temple lost JJ, but I just thought there
was a couple of things in that game that if
(00:49):
they had the tip at the end and then they
had the turnover that they didn't get, and that's a
UTSA win. Sometimes it just comes down to two plays.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, I think Temple's gonna end up being a little
bit better than we thought they were going to be
when the season is over and you look at those
two turnovers, right, I think that's where it you could
dial in where the game got away from UTSA, and
I think Jeff's kind of echoed this, and it's been
his message this whole time. These are going to be
(01:18):
close games, right, so you got to you got to
execute those. And a couple of missed assignments here and there,
but I think there's a lot of excitement still left
in this season. I think this Rice game is as
big as it comes for, you know, for for what
this season holds.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I've been to this a little bit earlier. Every week,
every Sunday, I start my prep for the next game, yep,
and I get my spotterboards out and I start making
changes to them, or make create the changes or the
or create new ones for teams we haven't played. And
in conference we always play Rice. Last year we played Temple,
we played south Ford, I think two years ago. North
(01:58):
Texas is usual on the annual opponent. Yeah, And I'll
get the boards out and I'll start looking at the
rosters and five years ago, seven years ago, maybe even
three years ago. The name's hardly ever changed. So if
the team was terrible in twenty twenty one, they were
probably terrible in twenty twenty two as well. It was
the same guys. They weren't getting better. Now it's there.
(02:18):
I put about sixty players on two different boards and
they're all different, and it's better players coming in. Every
roster is filled with players from from power for schools
or transfers to where they get to play, and there's
never a game that's easy. They're all the I think
South Florida to Lane and Memphis are probably the top
three teams in the league, but everybody else, you know,
(02:39):
four through about ten or eleven is the same.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's an arms race, right, That's what you know. Nobody
is talking about what changes the name, image and likeness
and how rosters are valued and different positions are valued.
And you mentioned the top three teams and those are
maybe the top three spenders and they have the best value.
So how does UTSA adjust to that? And where they're
(03:04):
somewhere in the middle, right, so they they have to
play better and execute better. And you know, to your point,
there's just more talent out there. The transfer portal has
changed this game so much.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
The quarterback, whether it was Loel Narcis seven or eight
years ago, or Dalton Sturm or Frank Harris or Owen McCown,
they get all the credit in the world. They're the
greatest player that ever existed when they win, and you know,
it's fire the quarterback, and let's make a change when
they lose, and it's not fair to them. They're the
same same person, and it can be week to week.
(03:36):
We've seen it forever, I mean not just transfer portal.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Ara, but forever.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, I mean I could we we could remember when
Frank Harris was getting some of the shade that Owen's
now getting thrown at. And it's it's a tough position, right,
you got to be able to have the strong mental
aspect and perform physically.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And into Owen's.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Credit, he's he's tough both physically and mentally. I mean,
he took some shots on Saturday, and he made some
plays too, and he made some mistakes, and I know
he's a competitor and there's some of those decisions he
would want back. And how does UTSA get him into
a more of a flow and a better, you know.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Way to produce offense.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I think that will largely determine how the rest of
the season goes, because it's mostly all quarterback play when
you're playing at this level.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I've had several conversations with Owen and anytime he has
something he needs help with. Dad's pretty good at this position.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, dad, uncle, his brother plays.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You know, Jeff, there's lots of people inside the building,
so he's not I wouldn't close the book on him yet.
And I think I think Owen McCown's football is his
best football still ahead.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Of him, all Right. It's a lot of players, a
lot of fans don't want to hear the reasons. They
look at sometimes reasons as excuses.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Aj Wilson's had a really good year and he's been
the big downfield target. And here's a guy that was
brand new. He comes in from Houston last year. Well,
Utsa played against him last year. Now he's on the
Roadrunners team. And then you look at at Jamel Hardy,
who I think was the second big you know, that tall,
high point guy like Zakari or JT that you could
(05:14):
throw the ball high to. Devin's a great wide receiver.
Will he's been banged up. You can tell he's been
hurt all year, but some of these other guys are smaller.
You want him to catch it in space and then
use their ability to make play yards after catch. But
trying to get consistent guys on the field because of
just a nagging injury here or there really disrupts your practice,
which carries over to your game.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I mean, the big question is why can't you TSA
passed the ball down the field right? And I said
that this week that they're just not going to be
able to start throwing thirty yard passes down there because
they just don't have the personnel right now to you
listed to all the guys who have been banged up,
and is that a recruiting thing, is that a roster
management thing? I don't know, but there's some ways they
(05:58):
got to try and bridge that gap. Because we're seeing
defenses stack up against the run against Robert or so
I think there's some we could see something with the
tight ends, maybe some intermediate routes. And that's what I'm
expecting the rest of the season, a little bit of change, hopefully.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Well the big three that UTSA had when everything was
just as perfect as it could be with JT and
Cephas and Zakari. Zakari was beat up in practice all
the time, but he showed up on game day. JT
hardly ever got hurt until he got hurt, and I
never could get right, and Cephas has been on practice
squads in the NFL. So you're talking about really really
(06:36):
good athletes and really good players, and regardless of how
good these receivers are, living up to that standard is
kind of a high standard. I mean, you want to
get there, and I think they could, but that's still
a high bar.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Right, and you still have to go execute it.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I do think there's there's talent on this roster for
the road Runners to be good, but you still have
to go out and execute on game day and I think.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
They are missing a little bit of that so far
in this season.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I had this conversation that people will hear Saturday as
part of our chalk Talk segment, and I asked this
question to Jess Lap, the defensive coordinator, because you're going
to face an option team against Rice, and let's face it,
Rice is going to have to win a different way
than everybody else is. You can't just go get a
bunch of athletes that you think are okay athletes and run,
(07:23):
run and shoot and throw at seventy times a game.
You can't do what Alabama and Texas and even UTSA does.
If you're going to compete, you've got to control clock,
you got to make sure the other team's offense days
off the field, and you've got to grind out twenty
one to fourteen wins. And they're going to try to
do that. They've got another option attack that UTSA is
going to have to face this weekend, and I think
(07:43):
they've gotten better at it. I thought they were better
last year in the Army game than they've ever been
against Army before, and we saw a little bit of
it with Temple, and so hopefully they can continue to
be assignment sound and take care of business with that
option game.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I think they had one missed assignment on the option
Temple and touchdown run. So that's what you gotta watch
out again. And I actually think the defense has been
playing all right in recent weeks. And I still think
their best defense, their best football is.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Ahead of them.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So you just you can't lose that one play in
a position in a in the second half, and that's
kind of that's kind of where they're at. The margins
are just razor thin right now for the robot.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Right I don't know if you heard this story I
was talking about a little while ago. The NCAA is
gonna let college athletes and college administrators gamble on sports
sporting events. Yeah, we're not college football or college basketball.
If you're if you're a college athlete, you can't bet
on college games. But in states where it's legal, this
is going to be something that they can do. Now,
are we opening up a can of worms that we
(08:47):
wish we didn't open up? Or I mean, I don't
see where it's it's bad for a football player to
play fantasy football, uh, in the NFL. But I can
also understand where if you get too are down the
road into debt, you may do whatever you have to
do to get out of it.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's just so prevalent, right, I think Pandora's already out
of the box with the sports gambling, and it's everywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
It's it's on your phone.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I'm looking at my fantasy team over there trying to
find a defense, and it's, uh, it's interesting. Now we
have player availability reports for the American Conference, so yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So we can't tell people that somebody's not gonna play
anymore for three weeks.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Who knows. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Some of those things are we're kind of I've been
looking at them pretty closely. And some of those are
pretty interesting the way they report those.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So we'll see.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
How that has an impact on on the gambling side.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
See, I think that the player availability thing is fine
if everybody does it right and everybody's honest about it, right,
So just list everybody questionable and and I guess your
your bases are covered. But and to me, that's the
problem is that if if I know that the backup
quarterback is going to start on Saturday, yeah, I'm going
(09:58):
to dial up every exotic blitzi'e ever thought about in
my life to confuse him, to make him make mistakes.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
It's like I know that you know that. I know, though, right,
so that where do you stop? But for one of
those things?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Really? And the reason why you have the injury report
is to satisfy the gamblers, all right, and the gamblers
already know. I mean, look at the movie Casino, Ace
Rostin had spies everywhere to tell him if the quarterback's
girlfriend broke up with him or not.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
What's changed nowadays is the daily fantasy or gambling. You
could bet on how many carries somebody has, or how
much receptions or targets or how far.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
What's the Owens' longest completion.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So that's where there's a little bit of twist and
people just they want to know, all.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Right, Robert Henry, obviously Temple was going to make sure
he didn't run the ball. They didn't care if anybody
else got fifty yards or one hundred yards. They were
not going to let Robert have the holes that he had.
And I think that's where the maturity of the running
back comes because now Rice in North Texas and South Florida,
all those schools are going to kind of look at
that film and go, Okay, what a tip will do.
(11:01):
Let's see if we can duplicate it, and now they're
gonna have to find different ways to find him space
to run.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Jeff made it sound like he was battling some kind
of conditioning deal. So even with you know, the backup
running back, they should have been able to run the
ball lit bit better. I thought the blocking was okay,
and there were run laying so we'll see. I think
I saw John Emery suited up over the weekend, and.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
There's a lot of people are really high on his
on his prowacy. He's got a good fetuse.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
They've kind of been saving him for the end of
this season, right, I think he's still coming back from
his knee injury, so we'll see. Obviously, they've put a
heavy workload on Robert to this point of the season,
and you gotta just have some concern that he'll make
it to the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, And even in the NFL now, we're seeing teams
that run two running backs. If you're gonna run in
the NFL thirty running plays, your primary guy's gonna get eighteen,
the other guy's gonna get twelve. And if you have
a second or even third running back that you can
give carries to. In college, having a fresh back against
the tire defense in the second half usually is a
(12:00):
better recipe.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It's hard because you kind of want to see what
Robert Henry could do with twenty twenty five carries, right,
But but.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Then he gets worn out by the sixth week of the.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Seaton and they're gonna scheme up against you.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Then they're gonna adjust, and they're gonna have second half adjustments,
so that that's where the road Runners really have to
come through and kind of figure out the best game plan.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I know when we when I visit with Jeff here
in about forty five minutes. We don't look ahead. He
doesn't care about anything other than rice. But you and
I get to do this. The gauntlet comes after this week.
North Texas is way better than I thought they were
gonna be at the beginning of the season too. Lane
has always been pretty decent. And now South Florida with
its ten million dollar roster, yeah, it's gonna be. So
you got a gauntlet of three huge games in a row,
(12:40):
and this is a kind of a must win this weekend.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I asked Jeff today if it was a must win
and not so many words, and they can't look at that, right,
But you're right, we can, and I think it is
this week. And and then you have a huge rivalry
game next week against North Texas, which that game has
not been announced yet.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
They fair way to see what happens with South Florida
this week, and and and uh in South Florida's that
that should be a really good game South Florida North Texas.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So I you know, you look at you look at
the Gauntlin and it's an opportunity. I don't think the
top of the conference, which I considered utsa in the
upper half of it with the talent wise, I don't
think it's that much of a disparity.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
So you gotta go get one.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
You gotta go get one of these hard ones on
the road and hopefully they could do it and they
show improvement and they give the Road Inner fans faith
because I know there's a lot of Road Inner fans
out there with a lot of angst right now.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Defensively getting takeaways, that's the big thing that USA.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, it's missing.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
They've been opportune, and I think if you look at
the success they've had this year, a lot of that's
come off of that. So they got to find a
way to just make something happen. I think the pass
rush is a big part of that. We've seen improvement
on that, so they got to just keep trending that way.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Shad Banks just makes super plays. Yeah, he's got to
be an NFL guy.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And you look at where where would this defense be
without Shad Right, he's over delivered in the way I
see it.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
So yeah, I think he's got all the.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Ten we've seen in the past. The and not that
Owen pee Wee or Vick Shaw or not us has
several sacks already, but we're seeing the interior linebackers kind
of it's probably been since Telefo was here. Yeah, where
the middle linebacker basically ruled the game at times.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I think Brandon Tucker maybe as good as Shad Banks, right,
and he's not even the everyday starter. So you know
that Blackshire has been solid. They've gotten more production from
that spot. To me, it's important part of the defense.
It's the center, the anchor of the defense. And you know,
as the secondary has been improving and coming along, it's
(14:47):
one of.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Those deals where they just got to rely on those guys.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
All right. Specials on Roadrunner inside Roadrunner Sports.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, thirty off one dollar for the first month if
you want to join, a lot of good stuff on there.
We're following the road Runners throughout the whole season in
win or Lose and basketball.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Soon two weeks from Saturday.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, so they're ready practicing, So we'll see what those
guys get going.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
All right, we'll see you on Saturday. Let's see. We're
on the here at four thirty, so you're on at
four forty.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I'll be there. Thanks Andy, All right.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Thanks, that's JJ Perez Inside Roadruner Sports. There's a big
game in the Cotton Bowl this Saturday, as ou In
Texas will play again, we'll get to hear what Steve
sarkise and thanks of this game and this matchup coming
up next
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