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August 18, 2025 103 mins
Craig Way shares Coach Sark's takes on the Longhorns outlook for the season following their weekend scrimmage. It's all here on The Craig Way Show!
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:14):
He's a Texas legend, a Hall of Fame broadcaster, the
voice of the Texas Longhorns, and your host of the
Craigway Show. Here he is now Craigway.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's a brand new week, So why do I get
excited about it?

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Right?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
I know, I know it's Monday. I get it. I
understand that.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
But we're here to kind of guide you through it.
Hopefully things go well. Forhere you get afternoon.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome to a Monday edition of The Craigway Show. That
happens also to be my name, and I'm glad to
have you with us this afternoon. Us includes the producer
Ronald Savage Junior. He is the producer on the program
this afternoon. So glad to have you with us, and
we're with you up until five o'clock. As always, we
certainly avail ourselves to you of our text line and

(01:27):
a lot of people text in last week with a
lot of questions, a lot of comments. Glad to feel
those always and the way you do that to reach
us by texts. There's a couple of different ways you
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that we have and what you do with that is
you text the word Texas followed by your questioner comment

(01:52):
to eight one five three zero. So you text the
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We had several people saying to what and how exactly
does it matter if texas is in all caps or
does it need to be in the lower It doesn't matter,
just gotta have the word texas Texas. And then, for example,
somebody last week was talking about being excited for the

(02:15):
football season, so the text was Texas and then it
said I'm just glad we're inside of twenty days to
kick off or something like that. So you put the
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(02:37):
And this is also the way where you can win
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(03:00):
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(03:23):
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(03:44):
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I'm just glad that this thing is now twelve days
away from kickoff. We are Colt McCoy days away from kickoff.

(04:06):
We are Earl Thomas day's away from kickoff, so you
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we give you a couple of different ways to reach us,
either the text line or the talk back feature.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
What do we have for you today?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
We're going to hear from Logorn's head coach, Steve Sarkigan
following the scrimmage on Saturday. Sark we'll talk more about
the progress of certain guys and where they have to
go to get to where they want to be.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Since we are, after all, twelve days to kick.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
And they are going to start, you'll hear start and
give this in greater detail. But they're going to kind
of treat this and they've done this in the past
and other coaches do it all across the country. They're
kind of treating this like a mock game week. So
today Monday would be like a Monday of a game week,

(04:58):
like it'll be next Monday day. Now, next Monday also
brings into play the first of sarks weekly eleven AM
News conferences, which we always bring to you live and
you'll hear it live next Monday morning at eleven o'clock
from the ut campus. We'll bring that to you live
right here on thirteen under the Zone. But they practice

(05:20):
on Monday and then Tuesday and the heavy heavy load
in days or Tuesday Wednesday, peel back a little bit
fine tune on Thursday, and then basically a walk through Friday. Now,
in the case of this particular season opener, they're opening
on the road, so it's even less of a walk
through in the morning, and then boom, they go to
the airport and they're all flying to Columbus next weekend.

(05:42):
But it'll be done like that, and then on Saturday,
it'll be kind of a mock rehearsal of an actual
game where they have all their pyrotechnics and the smoke
and everything when they run out. Because the next three
games that follow this Ohio State game are all home
games against San Jose State and UTAP and then Sam

(06:05):
Houston before the open date and then the open SEC
play on October fourth in Gainesville at Florida. So this
is kind of a rehearsal week for Texas in a
lot of ways, but they're still obviously preparing for this
season opening with Ohios sting. Well, here's start talk about
that coming up. Speaking of Ohio State, don't know if
you saw it, heard it, It did happen today. There

(06:28):
was a press conference this morning. The quarterback battle, or
the competition for the number one spot, at least for
the time being, has been captured by Julian Sayan, who
has won the starting quarterback spot. Ryan Day announced that today,
noting that Sam won a close competition against the junior

(06:49):
Lincoln Keynolds, but separated himself really over the last week
with his consistent play. Sam was the number nine recruit
in the nation, in the top prospect out of the
state of California. Year. He signed with Alabama, but then
he transferred to Ohio State after Nick Saban retired. So
Day said he met with the quarterbacks this morning to

(07:09):
inform them of the decision. His quote was, our guys
are confident again with both quarterbacks. Will need both quarterbacks.
Lincoln did a lot of great things, but we're going
to name Julian the starter here. Give him the majority
of the reps with the starters, and go prepare to
beat Texas. Sayan appeared in four games for Ohio State
last year, twenty seven snaps, completed five to twelve passes

(07:30):
for eighty four yards in a touchdown. He did enter
the offseason really kind of is the favorite to win
the job. But Keenolts, who hadn't played since the Cotton
Bowl game against Missouri in twenty twenty three when he
completed six of seventeen passes for eighty six yards, did
make a legitimate push for the top job and a
lot of athleticism and other trades. But they said that

(07:52):
dividing practice reps becomes more difficult when you're preparing to
face in an opening opponent like Texas the closer you
get to the game, so they needed to give the
lion's share of the snaps and reps to a number
one guy, and it turns out that it's Julian sand
so he is the new number one guy. Day said,

(08:16):
you're always looking for consistency and taking care of the football.
When you start with practice one in the spring and
do a study on the entire growth over six months,
you can see there's a lot of growth. Made you
look at the numbers and the production. We felt like
Sam was in a situation where he was ready to
go to play in this game. We also feel like

(08:37):
Lincoln's ready to play, but overall, Julian is more consistent.
So Keenholtz will serve as the backup, and freshman Tavian
Saint Clair, who is the number ten overall recruit in
the twenty twenty five class, will be third on the
depth chart. Probably they would look to redshirt him if
it works out that well. So you know, Keenholds will

(09:02):
serve as sands backup against Texas so and he said
Ryan Day said, Keenholds handled it very well practice Monday,
with good energy. Said he knows, and he's part of heart.
He's going to play this year. He's a competitor. I'm
sure he wants to play in the first game that
I wouldn't say he's discouraged. The team knows that we're
going to need him, and he knows. So you knew

(09:27):
this is going to happen to if you live in
Ohio or if you live in Michigan, there's going to
be a lot of attention focused on the group in
the other state. You know that because of the rivalry
between those two. Given the announcement that was made on

(09:49):
Friday by the NCAAA of the penalties handed down to
the University of Michigan for the science dealing scandal and
Connor Stallion's kind of at the head of it, and
the show calls penalties being given not only to Stallions
for eight years, but Jim Harball for ten years as

(10:09):
a repeat offender. By the way, Harball didn't really looked
like it bothered him that much when he was coaching
the Chargers on Saturday the in the preseason game against
the Rams. He didn't, they said they asked him about
He kind of shrugged about it. His life is in
the NFL now, which probably needs to be since he's
probably he can't under a show cause automatically walk in

(10:36):
and be the head coach of a program until the
year twenty thirty eight, so that's how far off it's gone.
Counting additionally, the four years of the show cause handed
him last year, that goes to twenty twenty eight and
then in an additional ten years, So he didn't really
seem to.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Be really bothered by that. But anyway, Ryan, they.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Open his press conference by declining the comment on the
penalties handed down to Michigan and also the three game
suspension for their head coach. You're on more, two of
which are going to be served during twenty twenty five.
So naturally people were going to ask Ryan Day about it.
He's got nothing to say about that, all right. So

(11:22):
there's the front side of that. How about the Long
Horns coming off Saturday scrimmage, their second fall camp scrimmage.
They've got one more of this coming Saturday. Like I said,
it's kind of a dress rehearsal type scrimmage, but they
have one more this Saturday. But we're going to hear
Long Horns head coach Steve Sarskakishan discuss what happened this
past Saturday and where the team is with one week

(11:44):
to go in the regular fall camp before they get
into game week production.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
We'll do that coming up.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Glad to have you with us here on a Monday
afternoon on Sports Radio AM thirteen under the Zone.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Happy to have you with us on.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
A Monday afternoon Major League Baseball game going on right now.
The Burverers lead the Cubs won nothing. That is in
the top of the fourth. Important to mention that because
now that we are headlong in the mid August, we
start taking a little more note of the Pennant races.
Milwaukee had a fourteen game winning streak snapped yesterday by

(12:20):
the Reds and ten innings, and they have this crucial
series with the Cubs, a four game series at Wrigley Field.
They have a comfortable lead on Chicago in the Nation
League Central right now, so we'll see how it goes
with that. In the American League West, the Astros stumbled
again against the Baltimore Orioles yesterday. They got whacked twelve

(12:43):
to nothing yesterday after losing to them a couple of
nights prior to that, And right now, the Astros lead
in the American League West is still a game in
alf On, Seattle, because the Mariners lost that game last night,
the Little League World Series Game Classic Game because they
play a game at the Minor League Ballpark in Williamsport

(13:04):
and lost to the Mets last night. The Rangers were
able to pick up one game by virtue of the
win over Toronto yesterday, but there's still seven and a
half back in the division and in the wild card picture,
Texas is still five and a half back, so they've
still got a hill to climb there if they're going
to try to get into that. And in the National
League West, the Dodgers finished off a sweep of the

(13:26):
Padres of the weekend, so now they're back in first
place and they're up two games on San Diego. But
those two teams will play three more times in San
Diego this coming weekend. LA is in Colorado for four
games set this week San Diego at home to face
San Francisco, And we'll keep you updated on all that
kind of stuff as well. But we did want to
get to some sound from Long Horns head coach Steve Sarkisian.

(13:48):
The long Horns held the scrimmage yesterday. Sark by and
large you'll be able to tell pleased with what he
saw there and some other items as well. Let's start
off with his opening statement coming off of Yester or
Saturday scrimmage.

Speaker 4 (14:02):
To get it started. I was really proud of our
players this week in their approach to things that we
wanted to improve upon. And you know, last week we
were really not very good from an operational standpoint, offensively,
pre snap penalties, illegal procedures, illegal formations. I thought we
did a much better job of that today. I think

(14:24):
we had two I think last week we might have
had ten eleven of them, so they have two of those.
I thought was really good. I thought the receiving corps
had a really nice day. You know, Ryan was back
really going Wingo looked great, DeAndre Dala McCutcheon. I thought,
you know, Calik Lockett made some plays today, so that
was really encouraging on that front. I think the depth

(14:47):
that running at bringing back continues to show itself. And
I thought that Cedric continues to grow and improve. He
got more and more reps today, so all that was
was very encouraging. I thought defensively, you know, the front
continue used to play at a high level from a
pass rush standpoint and in the run game. You know,
I think the one thing we'll critique the defense on,

(15:09):
but naturally we're proud of the offense. I think there
was one turnover today and that one came on a
fumbled exchange from center to quarterback, and so I think
we had some more opportunities to create turnovers defensively, we
just didn't quite do it the way we would have liked.
But I thought the defense did a really nice job
in the red zone, much better than we were last week,
and we got a lot of really good kicking work done.

(15:31):
You know, we'll kick the ball off extremely well from
a kick coverage standpoint, but we'll look at the other
facets of special teams that I can really dig into
the particulars, but all at all, you know, for the
last two and a half weeks, our guys have been
working and training and grinding to improve individually to help
us improve collectively. Well, that's offense defense special Teams. And

(15:52):
I think anybody who was just watching today, today's level
of intensity, physicality and speed was much different than it
was a week ago. And so that's great growth for us.
And we'll get back tomorrow with the guys and look
at the tape and point out the areas where we
need to continue to improve. But we'll shift year some two.
We'll get into a mock week, and we'll treat next

(16:12):
week is if we're in school, even though we haven't
started school, so these guys can start to find their
routine on a regular basis of what their regular work
week would look like when school starts the following week.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
All right, So those were his opening thoughts and then
the questions start for them. So naturally, folks are going
to be real interested in the ramp up to this
colossal matchup, if you will, because it is really big.
But it is after all, and we've mentioned this before,
and Sark has mentioned this before, and a lot of
people have mentioned this before. While it is a colossal matchup,

(16:48):
number one against number two in the country as far
as the coaches ball goes, number one against number three
in the AP. While it is this huge matchup, it
is two things. One, it is a season opener. So
even prior to the twelve team playoff, it you know,
it wasn't a winn or take all elimination, lose and

(17:13):
forget about making the postseason type of deal. It wasn't
like that even recent But nowadays, obviously with the twelve
team playoff, you're definitely not going to be out of
the picture, even with losing a game of this magnitude
against another top five rank school on their field in
a season opener. All that said, everybody's wanting to know

(17:35):
about the prep and the ramp up to Ohio State,
and Sark was asked.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
When does the actual specific.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Ohio State Buckeye prep start for his program.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
It'll start in the next week, you know, we'll start
doing some things specific to that game plan. We won't
necessarily just make that week all about Ohio State because
there's some things that we have to work on right
to improve upon. But there'll be a fair amount of
work done. You know, if you think of like a
bowl game, where you have kind of two weeks sometimes

(18:08):
to prepare a playoff game, you can start the beginning
stages of an install. But at the same time, we
need still some training camp work that we need to
do against good on good to keep our level of
intensity and physicality up the right way.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
Good on good In case you needed a reminder on that,
that means first team offense against first team defense guys,
that's good on good. It's not to say the second
team guys are bad. It's just good on good. It's
a shorter way of saying one's against ones. You know
that kind of thing. Now, you heard Sarks say it
in the opening statement, but not just and you've heard
him talk about this many times in the past. In fact,

(18:46):
you've heard coaches at all levels of football. I heard
several NFL coaches use this phrase coming out of their
exhibition games. It's the word cleanup, and we've got to
clean up some things on the offense man, we gotta clean.
Andrew mccooba, by the way, the lifetime Longhorn, who of
course had the great game clinching interception against Arizona State

(19:10):
and the Peach Bowl, had his first ever pick six
on Saturday as a rookie of the Philadelphi Eagles against
the Cleveland Browns. First time ever. When he was at
LBJ High here had interceptions, never had a pick six.
When he played at Clemson for three years, never had
a pick six his years, a long worn last year,

(19:32):
big interceptions, including that one in the Peach Bowl. Never
had a pick six until this past Saturday. So he
was pretty excited about that. But then even he Andrew mccooba,
added words, I've got some things they got to clean up.
So with this whole cleanup thing going on seven to
ten days in the ramp up for that, how crucial

(19:52):
does start believe the cleanup time is right now? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (19:55):
I think that. You know, naturally, what are your major
concerns when you go into a week one, right, you
think about ball security, You think about tackling on defense,
you think about the pre snap penalties, and then you
think about special teams. Those are the main things that like, like, okay,
how do how do we how do we how do

(20:16):
we not you know, how do we take care of
the ball really well? How do we work on tackling
and what's that fine line of tackling too much, not
and not enough so that you can tackle really well
in a week one, making sure that we're not giving
away free yards, you know, before the ball is even snapped,
whether that's false starts, whether that's jumping off sides, on defense,

(20:36):
having the discipline there. And then how do you how
do you play sound on special teams? You know, there's
so many there's so much hidden yardage in special teams,
you know, whether it's punting the ball, returning the ball
points off the board, you know, making your field goals,
you know, finding finding areas where you maybe block a punt,
block of kick, things of that nature. So all that
that those are kind of my main areas now. Naturally,

(20:57):
every guy is going to walk out of our meetings
tomorrow to say, hey, I got to get better at X,
Y or Z, and so everybody's got individual things to
work on, but big picture for me, it's like, can
we take care of those four areas? And if we
can do that, in those four areas, I think the
rest of the game will kind of take care of
itself that way, and we'll find out if we're good
enough or not okay.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
And one area where they will be able to determine
if they are good enough is once Sark and the
coaching staff are able to win ale out who are
the starters and who are the backups. And there are
still position battles going on along the offensive front, even
though he's talked about CJ. Baxter and Trey Wisner being

(21:38):
kind of one in one a either way at starting tailback,
who draws the first nap doesn't matter, wide receiver, secondary, interior,
defensive line. There's different questions about position battles. So he
was asked about separations of these position battles.

Speaker 4 (21:57):
No, I would say that, you know, there was some
there were some things in the secondary that was encouraged
by you know, Manny had a good scrimmage today. You know,
I challenged him on a couple of things, and I
thought he responded, well, you know, Gilbo has been very steady.
I think we're starting to see the best versions of
Kobe Black and Kate Phillips, which has been encouraging. You know,

(22:21):
and and Warren has had a great camp, definitely on
special teams, but I think at corner too. So anytime
you can go into a season and you feel like
you have that many corners that you could play, that's
a good problem for us to have. To go along
with the nickel and the safety position, you know, defensive line,
they're they're a little tougher for me to evaluate with
the naked eye. When you're calling plays, you're watching the

(22:43):
offensive execution. So I'll probably have a better answer for
you guys in the next week about what that looked like.
I thought they've played well, but I can't give you
the particulars on kind of what that looked like today.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
All right.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
So continuing on that theme, however, with regard to the
position battles, whether you're starters, backup set kind of thing,
Sark was asked how many starting positions right now are
not settled?

Speaker 3 (23:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
We haven't. We haven't had that meeting. We'll have it
as a staff, you know, and we'll go through it.
I think the beauty for us, you know, defensively, I
could almost say we have fifteen sixteen type starter players,
you know, I mean, you know, I look at our
safety position and I see three guys over there that
all could be starters, you know, whether it's Derek, Jilani, Michael, Xavier,

(23:31):
Phil Smith's had a great camp, you know. I look
at we just talked about corner. We talked about the
deep interior defensive line. I think the depth at our
edge position, you know, so we have a lot of
really good defensive players. So to say, hey, that's our
eleven starters, probably not fair. I mean, I look at
our linebacking corps. All four of those guys could be starters,
you know, whether it's Anthony, Trey, you know, Leonga and

(23:55):
Ty Anthony, these guys are really good players and so
probably not fair. So I think about the two deep
that way, what that looks like. Can think about the
two deep at receiver and at tight end. We already
talked about last week. The multitude of personnel groupings out
of twelve personnel that we can utilize. And you know,
at running back it's one A, one B. Right now,
you know where Cedric and Trey are at, and then

(24:17):
you know we're Christians coming along and what Jeric and
James are doing. So in the end, you know, I don't.
I'm not so hung up on who's the starters. I'm
more hung up on what does our two deep look like?
Because if you're in the two deep, you're gonna play
for us, and that's pretty clear.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
All right.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
So there's some thoughts and comments from long Worns head
coach Steve Sarcus. We're gonna hear more throughout the course
of the afternoon in the three o'clock hour, and in
the four o'clock hour as well. We'll hear from him
about that to the text lone already, folks that weighing
in with questions here this afternoon. First of all, a

(24:54):
couple that were this afternoon, somebody asked, what is the portal?
What's going on? I guess is the way it was described,
what is going on with the portal wide receiver? Who
has missed post scrimmages. Uh, you need to know that
that they are not that concerned about that.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
They're gonna They're gonna.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Air on the side of being very very cautious if
if it comes to anybody being banged up, and that
includes them at mostly who they picked up. So I
don't think there's anything to read into that at least
right now.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Somebody asked, uh, uh, with your connections to North Carolina
because I grew up there.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
I don't know how many connections I have.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Uh in North Carolina other than to great places to
grab a burger along the North Carolina coastline or in
my hometown of Greensboro. But somebody said, with your connections
in North Carolina and obviously UT I'm curious what the
reaction is in North Carolina and Mac Brown's complete reemergence
back into UT athletics plus moving back here. If you're

(26:05):
looking for a disgruntlement, it will not be coming because
Mac was such a popular figure among fans at both places.
I think in both cases a lot of the fan
base thought that it was time for a change.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
Uh, but nobody really has held it.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
You know.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
Mac Mack's not.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
A native of North Carolina, was a native of Tennessee. Uh,
but he lived a lot of time obviously in Texas.
In addition, it was time in North Carolina and they
wanted to get back here. Uh. He's you know, doing
that podcast. We had Bobb Aloo from k I Take
the Music Server the other day, and so Bob was
telling us about you know, Mac being back ingrained in

(26:47):
the area. There was the big concert of the fundraising
event last night at Moody and he was there with
Matthew McConaughey and and several of the other in the
country music scene that was going on with that last
night as well. Uh, there's no I don't think anybody.
I've not heard of any rumblings of any hard feelings.
When I was back in North Carolina back a little

(27:08):
over a month ago, Folks that I visited with back
then seemed to kind of wish him well and hope
things go well for him. You know, he's going to
be back into the media, just as he was when
he departed Texas. Before he took the job back in
North Carolina, he was working as a game commentator for ESPN.
I think he'll do some more of that. So yeah,

(27:30):
he is kind of into the media mainstream now. One
more before the break here, This was a text that
came in late late last night, and.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
I don't know if.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
The morning Kickoff guys My Cardball Hart and Mark Henry
addressed it, but I think I know the Billy Dee
who sent this in It said for the next show,
does Jim Harball have a moral turpitude clause in his
NFL contract that would be a problem for him in
light of his college football fourteen year band clearly cheating.
Should and can the Chargers give him the boot? First

(28:07):
of all, I think you're revealing your age by use
of the term moral turpitude. You're in the same boat
with me. Secondly, and more to the point and practicality
of it, No, NFL is going to be a completely
separate thing than NCAA moral turpitude. If there were things
like conduct unbecoming in the eyes of the commissioner, like

(28:28):
if there was a domestic violence thing or something like that,
NCAA violations are not going to fall into that category.
So I don't think anything will be coming of that.
We continue on thirteen Under the Zone, second hour of
the program here on Sports Radio AM thirteen hundred The Zone.
Glad to have you with us here for our number
two Greig Waye my name Ronald Taviage Junior or our

(28:50):
producer Cameron Parker will be back tomorrow in the chair.
Have to ask him how the wedding went in Mexico.
Not his wedding. He was down there for a wedding,
but not his.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
This is.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
He says, this is kind of the wedding season for
the people with whom he associates, and it's around there's
a lot of weddings. You know, we know about weddings
being in the spring and in the summer. There are
also those who will, you know, heaven forbid, actually schedule
a wedding during football season. I mean, can you believe

(29:25):
that it does happen. I always enjoy reading the posts
and tweets from people who are just beside themselves that
they have to attend a wedding. Like on Texas O
you weekend, so you have the weekend at the Red
River Rivalry and there's people that got to be in
and so they're sneaking in, you know, radio to hear

(29:47):
our call. And we appreciate that. For those who do,
we're in television to try to watch it. But it
does happen off of that. But for Cameron, he'll tell
you that for a lot of the folks that he
knows friends and associates different people, his wedding season is
really July, August, September into that. So he's kind of

(30:09):
in the belly of the beast right now. But he'll
be back tomorrow and we'll get his review on the
wedding in Mexico that he attended. We're going to hear
more from long Orange football coach Steve Sarkisian coming up
here in just a few minutes. We'll hear more from
sark Update the Major League Baseball scoreboard for you. Brewers
lead the Cubs three nothing. It's in the top of

(30:31):
the sixth inning at Wrigley Field and they're actually going
to the bottom of the six now it's three nothing.
Milwaukee trying to start another winning streak after they rattled
off fourteen in a row. They have the best record
in all of baseball before the Reds ended the winning
streak yesterday by winning in ten innings of them. But
looks like they're jumping right on Chicago and Chicago trying

(30:51):
trying to mount some sort of a push to get
back close because going into today, the Cubs were, you know,
quite a bit back, eight games back of the Brewers
starting play today. Now that's for the Central Division and

(31:12):
the Wildcard. The Cubs are leading the Wildcard standings by
a game and a half of the Padres, and then
the Mets are three games further back of that pace.
But the Reds closing fast on New York, and the
Mets have been struggling of late Cincinnati, just a game
and a half off of that play pace. In the
American League Wildcard chase, the Red Sox and Mariners tied

(31:38):
for the top spot there, the Yankees just a half
game behind that pace, the Guardians three in that back,
the Royals four, the Rangers five and a half.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's where that is.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
And in terms of the division race, the Astros still
leading the American League West by a game and a
half on the Mariners. The Rangers seven and a half
back of that. Best record in the America League belongs
to Toronto. The Blue Jays, despite yesterday's lost to Texas,
still twenty one above the.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Five hundred mark.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
They have a five game lead on the Red Sox,
five and a half of the Yankees. In the American
League East, Tigers just a half game behind that pay
set by the Blue Jays. They hold an eight and
a half game lead in the Central on Cleveland, So
it gets caught up on the major league schedule. The
other thing I wanted to get to always talk about
this year or this time of year, when you get

(32:30):
to August is when we begin to see rankings and polls,
rankings and polls and raidings and tables and all that
other kind of stuff because we as a football consuming public,
are obsessed with that preseason polls in college football, you know,
preseason all American teams, preseason conference picks. For those of

(32:53):
you follow the high school football scene, preseason district races,
a preseason top ten. Of course, every Tuesday, Greg Tepper,
to the editor in chief of Dave Campbell's Texas Football magazine,
joins us. He'll join us tomorrow and in addition talking
college football, and you can follow their stuff online at
Texas football dot com. You can subscribe there and get

(33:13):
all the digital content plus their magazine that they may allow.
But in addition to that, they also do the high
school previews. There's over fifteen hundred high school football programs
in the state of Texas. They had scrimmages last weekend
against other programs, so this is the last week of scrimmaging,
and that includes for programs that did not have spring
practice and started a week after everybody else. And even

(33:38):
though this coming weekend will be a college football regular
season weekend on what's known as zero week, the main
bulk of the action will be the following weekend, and
that's when the high school football team will kick off
in Texas as well, So we'll take a look at
that a little later on. But one thing I wanted

(33:59):
to do before where we got to more sound from
start yet. The latest All American preseason All American team
has come out.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Now we mentioned those from.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
The Coaches Association, the Athletic there's a couple of them now,
and the one that's most universally recognized is the AP
Preseason All American Poll. In some of those other polls,
the Long Worn football program would get one, maybe one

(34:34):
player maybe two on the first team, splitting in between
offense and defense, and one or two or maybe even
as many as three on the second team.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
And that's how it's kind of gone with most of
those poles.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
But in the one that is the most universally recognized,
the AP Preseason All American Poll, the Long Worns had
three first team players, as did Penn State. Those teams
which are the preseason number one and number two teams
in the AP Top twenty five preseason poll, not Ohio State.

(35:07):
They're number two in the coaches they're number three in
the AP. Penn State is the number two in the
AP if you listen to Heather Dinnich for ESPN, and
I do like Heather's work, but she believes Penn State
should be number one and not Texas in the preseason poll.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
I don't think it matters much right now anyway, But the.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Two teams that are number one and number two in
the AP preseason Top twenty five have the most players
on the preseason AP All American Team that was announced today.
Each team with three Texas has one player from each
level of its defense on the first team.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
Colin Simmons coming off the edge.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
You might have seen Colin not thing be a second
team All American with a couple other Poles. Linebacker Anthony
Hill junior and has been usually the one who's consensus
on all the All American teams, and then Michael Taff
also has been either on the first team or on

(36:12):
the second team, depending on which Preseason All America team
you were perusing. So all three of those guys are
first team pre season AP All Americans. Colin Simmons, he
had rusher, Anthony Hill, the linebacker, Michael Taff the safety.
Penn State by the Way had running back Nicholas Singleton,

(36:32):
offensive lineman Oliva Vega Coote, and defensive lineman Zan Durant.
Third ranked Ohio State number four, Clemson number six, Notre
Dame number eight, Alabama and Pittsburgh each had two players
on the first team. The SEC had twelve players on

(36:55):
the twenty seven man first team. Now you say, who's
doing the voting on this, This is the the media
voting panel on this. The Big Ten had seven players,
the ACC had four. The Big twelve to two first
team quarterback Kate Klubnick from Clemson and of course West
Lake High here in the Austin area. He threw for

(37:15):
thirty six hundred and thirty nine yards and thirty nine
touchdowns and just six interceptions last year. Ohio State safety
Caleb Downs we saw him in the Cotton Bowl.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Last year.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Florida center Jake Slaughter are returning first team AP All Americans,
and of course, Downs said the late interception against Texas
to help wrap up the semifinal win. He of course,
starred as a freshman in Alabama two years ago and
then pretty much established himself as the top safety in
the nation in his first season with the Buckeyes, although

(37:44):
although it was shot a Baron and his versatility and
his playmaking ability that earned him the Thorp Board. Downs
is a projected top three pick in next year's NFL Draft.
He was joined on the preseason All America First Team.
No surprise here, Buckeyes receiver Jeremiah Smith Slaughter the Florida

(38:04):
center as a leading candidate for the Remington Trophy as
the top center in the nation. He played eight hundred
snaps in that breakout season for the Gators last year,
allowing just one sack, was among the highest rated running
pass blockers in the country according to Pro Football Focus.
The AP All America Team for the season will be

(38:26):
released in December when the season's over the regular season,
and that's going to mark the one hundredth anniversary of
the very first AP All American Team that was published
in nineteen twenty five. They did not have a pre
season All American team when the AP released its first
All American team in nineteen twenty five, they only did
it at the end of the season, not preseason. So

(38:49):
here it is your first team. Offensive quarterback as I mentioned,
is Kate club Nick from Clemson. Your running backs, Jeremiah
Love from Notre Dame and Nicholas Singleton from Penn State.
Your tackles Er Fanno from Utah and Kate and Proctor
from Alabama. The guards Oliva Vega Aoni from Penn State
and Armage Reed Adams from Texas A and m. The

(39:12):
centater is Jake Slaughter from Florida. The tight end is
Eli Stowers, the fifth year senior from Vanderbilt. And I
always feel compelled to point this out because this guy
is a tremendous athlete. He's done so much. Eli Stowers
was the quarterback quarterback for Denton Geyer when they lost
to Westlake and Kate Klubnick in the state championship game

(39:35):
a few years ago.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
He was a quarterback.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
And Stowers started off at Texas A and m ended
up transferring to Vanderbilt. And he has become a standout
tight end. He is going to be playing on Sundays.
He will be drafted barring some catastrophic injury or something
like that. I think Stowers is really really good. Wide
receivers Jeremiah Spence, as I mentioned, from Ohio State, Ryan

(39:59):
Williams from Alabama, and Jordan Tyson from Arizona State. The
all purpose player is Desmond Reed from pitt and the
kicker is Dominic's Vada from Michigan.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
That's the first team offense. The first team defense.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Dylan Stewart from South Carolina and Colin Simmons from Texas are.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
The edge rushers.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
The tackles Peter Woods from Clemson and Zane Durant from
Penn State. The linebackers Anthony Hill from Texas, West Weeks
from LSU, and Kyle Lewis from Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's gonna have
a really good defense. Can they answer the bell offensively
will be the biggest question for pet The corners Leonard
Moore from Notre Dame, Jemal McCoy from Tennessee.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Leonard Moore, of course, the round rock product.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
The safeties Caleb Downs from Ohio State, Dylan Thieneman, the
third year safety from Oregon listed as defensive back because
they have cornerback safeties, and then defensive back is Michael Tapp.
Taff has that versatility where he can play in the nickel,
he can play the boundary safety, the field safety has

(41:09):
even matched up at corner on occasion. They mainly kept
in the safety slots or as the star back, as
they call it in the Texas system. The punter is
Brett Thorson from Georgia second team offense. The quarterback is
Garrett Nusmeyer from LSU. The running backs Mackay Hughes from
Oregon and Isaac Brown from Louisville. The tackles Francis Mauigoa

(41:30):
from Miami and Blake Miller from Clemson. The guards Cayden
Green from Missouri and Keelan Rutledge from Georgia Tech. The
center's Parker Brails from Alabama. The tight end Max Claire
from Ohio State. The wide receivers Antonio Williams from Clemson,
Elijah Sarratt from Indiana, and Cam Coleman from Auburn. The

(41:52):
all purpose players ca Tron Allen from Penn State. The
kicker is Peyton Woodring of Georgia's second team defense. The
edge are TJ. Parker from Clemson and Mattio Ugi Lavel
from Oregon. The tackles are Tim Keenan from Alabama and
Christan Miller from Georgia. The linebackers Torry and York from
Texas A and m Harold Perkins from LSU Aiden Fisher

(42:17):
from Indiana. The corners Chandler Rivers from Duke di'angelo Ponds
of Indiana. Again Indiana expect they have a really good
defense this year. Safeties are Corey Perrick, second year from Minnesota,
kJ Bolden from Georgia, the defensive back Jalen Kilgore of
South Carolina and the punter Ryan Eckley of Michigan State.

(42:37):
So there's your pre season a p All American team.
Three Longhorns on the first team, all on defense, Colin Simmons,
Anthony Hill, and Michael Tapp All right up next, we're
gonna hear more from Long Horns head coach Steve Sarkegian
as we continue here on thirteen under the own harrela Monday,
as we take you.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Through this Monday afternoon and hope it's going all right
for you.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
On there, we heard some comments from Long Worn's head
coach Steve Sarkisian from his post scrimmage available now. He
did another media veil today and we'll bring you those
comments tomorrow, but we want to get you caught up
on his total evaluation of the scrimmage and where things stand.

(43:25):
You know, as it was Saturday, two weeks to kick off,
So let's hear some more from the head coach, and
we heard him talking about position battles and things like that.
If there's one thing that can be said about Sark
and his coaching steps since they've been here, is there

(43:48):
not only their acquisition of talent, but the rapid pace
with which they've developed the talent. But perhaps every bit
is important to that as it is to Sark is
the debt. So what would be his biggest concerns right
now for his two deep lineup?

Speaker 4 (44:05):
You know, realistic? Probably O line you know, I mean,
and I don't know if you ever have ten O
linemen that you feel great about. I mean it find
me a team that felt great about ten O lineman.
But naturally, you know, if we're at eight with two
more and you feel really good about in real games,
can they go in and function and function at a
level that is winning football. That's probably my my biggest concern.

(44:30):
But outside of that, I feel very comfortable with the
depth on our team. And we forced a lot of
game like action on these guys to see how they
respond to things, So I feel okay there. It's more
about can we put them in stressful situations and how
do they respond? And that's what we'll try to do
here over the next seven days or so.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
As what is usually the case, He's asked for the update,
the injury update on guys banged up, trying to get back,
slowed a little bit, guys that they're slow playing on
all of that. So he's asked, are there guys missing
any kind of significant due to injury?

Speaker 4 (45:01):
We shut a couple shut. I think three guys down today.
You know they got nicked and you know, Trevor got
nicked up, Gooseby Jilani and Trey Wisner. I think if
we were playing real, a real football game, they probably
all would have been back out there. But that's you know,
you're allowed. I can get away with that in a scrimmage, right,
But I feel confident those guys will all be okay.

(45:23):
So I feel good about that. The fact that we've
gone you know, I think last week we had just
ran about one hundred and fifty plays in a scrimmage,
and today that number might have been a little lower
than that, maybe about one thirty five. You know, you're
running two hundred and eighty plays and scrimmage football and
to not come out of it with any real catastrophic
injuries you know, that's a knock on wood. That's good for.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Us now as good as Sark has felt about what
Peak quick Kowski has done with the defense in addition
to Pek's working the rest of the defensive staff, Sark,
we know is going to dive head first in how
he's directing the offense. So he was asked about the
depth and the development of what was going on with
his offense.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Yeah, you know, I think I think I'm answering it right,
and if I'm wrong, ask me it again. But I
think one thing you know, when you when you go
on the road on defense, winning on first down is
really important. And part of winning on first down is
one stopping the run right, and because you want to
create second long situations, I think the second part of

(46:23):
winning on first down is eliminating the explosive pass plays
right and and keeping the ball in front of you.
And then the third part is minimizing those advantage throws
to the perimeter right, whether it's the bubble screens, the
receiver screens, the tunnel screens, and and and and playing
that way football. When you can do that, when you
can play second long defensive football all right. Now, now

(46:44):
you're starting to force the offense's hand and then if
you can get them to third and long, that's when
we can cut our really go cut our guys loose.
And so I think first down defense is really important
for us on the road, and and that's what that's
what we try to do. Uh and they we we
pose a lot of problems that we can We can
play a multitude of defenses. We play a lot of fronts.
We've got a lot of really good pass rushers, and

(47:05):
we've got a very savvy secondary that knows how to
play with one another. So that that's what we try
to do. Think naturally for us offensively, you know, when
you're on the road, one we got some new faces
on the offensive side of the ball. That goes without saying,
you know, I mean, Archer's got a couple starts under
his belt, but you know, first start on the road,
we've got some new faces on the old line. We've

(47:25):
got new faces at tied end, We've got a couple
of returners at receiver. But I think having some poise,
having some composure offensively early on is big for us.
And so as we work our way through that, we
got to make sure that that we're sound defensively and
doing the things that we need to do. Hey, I
hope we come out and go right down the field
and score. If we don't, we got to play really

(47:47):
good defense. We've got to play really good on special teams.
We got to find the run game while that that
aspect of the offense finds itself and shoot. Like I said,
I hope it happens right away. It might take a minute.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
We'll see.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Yeah, all right, So start just alluded to that the possibility, no,
the probability that at.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
Times the offense is going to start slow. So he
was asked, why.

Speaker 4 (48:08):
Is that, Well, I don't know that that happens that way.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
I feel like we've performed actually pretty well on the
road as an offensive team. But hey, we got new faces.
It's a tough environment. It's crowd noise. First game of
the year with crowd noise. We simulate it as best
we can, but real crowd noise. You know, the first
game jitters first at bat, you know, do you take
a pitch or do you come out swinging?

Speaker 2 (48:32):
You know?

Speaker 4 (48:32):
I mean, so there's a there's a mentality that you
have to have. What are we calling? And so all
that will formulate over the next you know, fourteen days
to try to put ourselves in the best position to
have success.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Okay, So in that vein, then did Sark see improvement
from his offensive unit? Would did he like what he saw?
What specific improvements did he see with his offense?

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (48:53):
You again, I for oddly enough, we do it pretty
well on the road. And I think that that's the
mental intensity and focus. They know they have to be
really dialed because of the crowd noise, the timing of
the cadence, things of that nature. And so naturally, you
guys heard me say it a thousand times. You know,
you get what you emphasize as a coach, and so

(49:13):
you know, I was kicking myself last Saturday because I
probably wasn't hard enough on some of the pre snap
things in practice, and then it reared its ugly head
in the scrimmage, and so hey, I made it a
real point this week. And they were probably like coach
Sarks being a jerk. Well, I'm being a jerk for
the best interest of them so that they can perform.
And again, I think you get what you emphasize. I

(49:34):
want to make sure we were cleaned up pre snap. Well,
the byproduct of that, I think we had two procedural
things today and that's including ones, twos, and threes, and
so the fact that we were able to clean a
lot of that stuff up, I think gives me some
confidence that we'll be able to do it here in
a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Okay, he says, Sark the jerk or whatever, but getting
his guys back on track in terms of pre snap
lack of movement, lack penalties, because that's one thing I
see a lot in the pro scene with this the
preseason games going on right now. That's another one of

(50:11):
those things I mentioned in the first hour of the program,
the term clean up a lot of things to clean up, Well,
you know what, A lot of the stuff they're cleaning
up pre snap violations, false starts, Uh, there's been you know, uh,
other other movements and other things that haven't gone with
the not set properly. So pre snap things, those were

(50:33):
things to clean up on the offensive side. What about
the defensive side Between the two scrimmages, how has Start
felt about how his team is tackled.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
Yeah, I thought last week might have been a little
better than today, just from the naked eye right field
level and I got to see, you know how maybe
in what and why, maybe a couple of the mistackles occurred.
You know, I felt like today the ball got in
base a little more, which forced some more stressful tackles

(51:03):
on the defenders, which is a good thing, right, and
and we've got to learn how to do those things.
But I also thought there were some very good tackles
made that that were a couple of them touchdown saving
tackles that forced the offense to have to go execute
in the red area. So in the end, you know,
we got to find our opportunities to tackle. We got
to do a great job, uh in our in our
individual periods of working on tackling. There's only so much

(51:26):
we can tackle to get ourselves ready to go. But again,
that's that's every USK, any head coach around the country.
That's the first thing out of their mouth of one
of what's your biggest concern going into week one is
how well are we going to tackle? Because we can
we all can only do it so much right for
for the betterment of the team.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah, that's a that's a key there, because you don't
want to push it and risk injury the guys. But
you got to know how they're going to do, you
might say, in live rounds when they're out there. Uh,
certainly in a game as well. One more from start
before we get to the break. And this is as
much logistics as anything else. I understand, and so does

(52:10):
the head coach, and so does so do a lot
of people who follow this, follow this whole annual exercise.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
I understand.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Folks take on, especially with the nil and the portal,
the transient nature of college football and how for many
it has become, not all, but in many cases it's

(52:39):
become a chase for the almighty dollar. Even at the
collegiate level. We know that there's there's no hiding from
that as well.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
But once the teams.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Are settling in, then it reverts back as you draw
close to the start of a semester, about the balance,
the balance of what you have to do on the
football field. You're off season conditioning, now playing into your
fall camp workouts and your continual conditioning, and now being

(53:16):
back on campus or in many cases not even having
left campus. But the difference now is you're in class
full time, taking a full load, not just say six.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
Hours or three hours or whatever.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
It's the balance of the academic with football, and Sark
was asked about what does he say to his guys,
what does he look for, what is he's expecting, and
what's been the experience of guys trying to balance school
and football.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
That's I think, first of all, that's always talked about
with us. It's not like it's an all the time thing.
That's not a sometime discussion, that's an all the time thing.
And you know, naturally I'm going to give him the
reminders that closer we get to it, you know, as
you know, we start up next Monday. But I think
there's a routine and a level of consistency that I

(54:07):
want our guys to go through life with, and that's
being accountable to to what you know, what their job
is and what they're responsible for, and one of which
is to go to school. But I think that's also
part of their daily routine of finding their flow throughout
the season. When you go to class some of the time, well,
that affects your routine of when you're in the building

(54:27):
when you're not. And so we try to create routines
and habits in our daily lives and so that they're
not having to pick and choose and wonder, you know
what today looks like. And so there's a reason we
practice in the morning. There's a reason we get them
up and they're here first thing in the morning, they
eat breakfast, we go do football, and then from here
they go to class. It's like it's part of the cycle.

(54:48):
And then they come back in the afternoon. And so
once they find that groove in their cycle, it makes
life a little bit easier. And so that's what this
week is for. We have to kind of simulate that
for them so they can get a sense and a
feel of what what that feels like before it actually
begins next week.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
All right, there it is some more thoughts from longrn's
head coach Steve Sarkis.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
We're gonna hear more from Sart coming up.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
And we got some other topics to get to when
we continue here on this Monday afternoon.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
I'm thirteen under the zone, okay, so.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Rolling through here on a Wednesday afternoon, and glad to
have you with us here on the prom I wanted
to get to a couple of other topics here before
we got to the break, and it was NFL related
and one of those NFL well, there's a couple of

(55:37):
quarterback notes to get to. First of all, amidst all
of the conversation between what was going to happen between
Shadeur Sanders and Dylan Gabriel with the Cleveland Browns, it
was I don't want to go as far as to

(55:58):
say it was a lot of windowdresing, because it is
important to know who the backup is going to be.
But there's there was no mystery as to who the
number one quarterback in Cleveland is. Joe Flacco, and Kevin
Stefanski said he's the one now. Flacco is going to

(56:20):
start their preseason finale against the Rams on Saturday, but
coach Stefanski said he would treat the game as address
rehearsal for the regular season. Of course, Flacco did not
play in the first two preseason games, so they've had
this quarterback competition going on between Flacco, Canny Pickett, and
then the two rookies Dylan Gabriel and Sdeur Sanders and

(56:44):
Deshaun Watson. Of course, has spent training camp on the
pup list of physically on any performed list has that
achilles injury, so Flacco has taken an overwhelming majority of
the first team reps has had a hamstring injury, and
that happened back on the twenty sixth of July, so

(57:07):
he's not even participated in eleven on eleven drills. And
there are those who believe because of what should where
Sanders showed in the preseason opener against Carolina and what
Dylan Gabriel showed against the Eagles of the weekend, that

(57:27):
really and truly the battle for the backup spot is
going to be between those two. They also added Tyler
Huntley a couple of weeks ago to give them a
little depth at the quarterback spot because at the time
Sanders was a little banged up, Gabriel was a little
banged up.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
But they're both back, but.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
The speculation continues that they may find a way to trade.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Can He Pickett.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
Now, remember the Browns traded for him in the offseason.
He was the first round pick of Pitt's back in
twenty twenty two. So here's forty year old Joe Flacco,
who is back of the Browns for a second stint
following the five game stretch a couple of years ago
when he played really well. He went four to one

(58:14):
in the five regular season starts and they ended up
making the wild Card round, lost to the Texans, but
he was named the Comeback Player of the Year. He
spent last year with the Colts, was two and four
as a starter, but rejoined the Browns on a one
year deal with four million dollars. So he's one of
three quarterbacks to have a winning record with the Browns

(58:35):
since the return of the franchise, you know, not you know,
not counting the time of the original Cleveland Browns, and
a lot of folks still have trouble with that.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
By the way, that.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
The Browns who started off in what was a rival
football league, a competing league with the NFL in nineteen
forty six, it was the All American Football Conference, and
the Browns dominated the four seasons that was in existence.
In fact, they went one defeated one year, went fourteen
to zero one year, and won the league championship all

(59:16):
four years. And at the end of the forty years,
three teams were absorbed into the NFL, the Browns, the
San Francisco forty nine ers, and the Baltimore Colts. Now
it was kind of a different Colts franchise. In fact,
the Colors were different. Even they were green and Gray.

(59:36):
They were in there in fifteen to fifty one, but
the franchise was going broke, so a group bought them
moved into Dallas. They were known as the Dallas Texans,
not to be confused with the AFL Dallas Texans a
decade later that would ultimately become the Kansas City Chiefs.
This was an NFL franchise in nineteen fifty two called
the Dallas Texans.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
They were horrible.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
They played in the Cotton Bowl. They said they drew
less fans than and would show up for a lot
of high school games that were played in the area.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
They were horrible.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
They went one and eleven and their one win was
on Thanksgiving Day when they upset the Bears, and a
game played in Akron, Ohio in the old Rubber Bowls Stadium.
But they were terrible and the thing was bankrupt about
two thirds of the way through the season. The NFL
had to pick up the franchise and operated as a
road team based out of Hershey, Pennsylvania. So so then

(01:00:26):
it came back to Baltimore in nineteen fifty three and
it was a reconstituted Baltimore Colts. Changed the colors to
blue and white, when all the way up to nineteen
eighty four, then moved to Indianapolis. That's where they are now.
But there is a connective tissue there between all that,
even through the defunct Dallas Texans who then got moved back.
This Cleveland thing was different because the Browns, who won

(01:00:47):
all four All American Football Conference championships, go into the
NFL nineteen fifty and everybody said they're going to get
their come up ands now way till they face a
real team to come play the Eagles, the two time
defending champions first game of the year.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
The Browns blew out the Eagles. He beat them thirty
five to ten.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
They went on and they won the NFL title in
fifty got to the finals in fifty one to fifty
two and fifty three, lost all those games, but came
back and then won in fifty four and fifty five.
The Browns, counting their All America Conference days football conferencedations,
appeared in ten consecutive league championship games. Not a lot

(01:01:25):
of people don't count the AAFC days because of talent pool,
which just wasn't the same. But that Browns team was
the Browns team that went all the way to nineteen
ninety five, and then Arn't Modell moved into Baltimore to
become the Ravens. At that point, Paul Tagliabu, who was
the commissioner, said, we will replace the Browns franchise in

(01:01:47):
Cleveland the Browns, the current Browns who are moving to
Baltimore have the permission. They can move to Baltimore, but
they have to have a different team name, they have
to have different record. The original records of the Cleveland
Browns will be transferred to the replacement franchise, which I
thought was a little weird, but they did it that way,

(01:02:10):
and the Ravens went on and established their own identity
and won a Super Bowl in two thousand and one,
another one a few years ago. So this Browns team
that was reconstituted in nineteen ninety nine, a brand new
Browns team has been, as we know, largely awful, just
not good for years and years and years. And they've

(01:02:32):
run through quarterbacks over the decades like a small market
television station runs through sports anchors. I mean, it's just
every contract comes back up and they make a change.
But Kevin Stefanski has looked at as being a guy
who can put it on solid ground, even though they're
looked at as probably being a team that's going to

(01:02:55):
have a losing record this year. It's going to be
interesting to see what they do with the race for
number two between if it is truly a race for
number two?

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
Can he pick it?

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
If he's healthy, would appear to be the number two guy,
but again, the Browns may look to deal him. So.
Joe Flacco is one of three quarterbacks to have a
winning record with the Browns since the return to the
NFL with the replacement franchise in nineteen ninety nine. Do

(01:03:29):
you know the other two quarterbacks with winning records for
the Cleveland Browns are It's none of the ones who
were drafted to be big time stars. It was guys
who came in to fill a gap. Brian Hoyer ten
and six and case Keenum two and zero, and that's
been it. All of the other ones, the Tim Couches

(01:03:52):
of the world and Johnny Manziel's and you know those quarterbacks,
Baker Mayfield, those are the never could get going. And
that was due in large measure because the Browns were
just bad, just flat out bad. So we'll see with
forty year old Joe Flacco. He's thrown for forty five

(01:04:13):
thousand yards in his career, two hundred and fifty seven touchdowns,
one hundred and sixty two interceptions in seventeen seasons. Remember,
he was the MVP of Super Bowl forty seven when
he led the Ravens to the winner of the forty
nine ers.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
So we'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
But Flacco is the number one starter at quarterback for
the Browns. And then as far as other quarterback notes go,
Matthew Stafford did practice on Saturday. The Rams quarterback excuse
me today, he practiced today. He'd been out with an
aggravated disc in his back other than throwing passes and

(01:04:53):
work had a couple of weeks ago. He did take
part in the entire practice. Sean McVay said, I thought
he did good job. We had twenty six plays a team.
He did a really good job of managing the huddle.
I thought he saw the field well. I thought he
went where the ball should go, and there were some
good competitive work on both sides. Of course, he hasn't,
you know, played in a preseason game, and even if

(01:05:13):
he was one hundred percent healthy, m they wouldn't play.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
He doesn't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
The guy who's actually looked pretty good for the Rams
at quarterback, believe it or not, for them has been
Stetson Bennett, former Georgia Bulldog. He played the entire game
on Saturday against the Chargers and let him on a
game winning drive down there.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
And then one other.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Quarterback in case you didn't notice, Quinn Ewers had a
really solid game his second game with the Miami Dolphins.
So that was that was impressive, and not only that
wasn't impressive to see him perform well. He felt pretty

(01:05:55):
comfortable about it, and Mike McDaniel felt comfortable with him,
so we'll see if it carries forward for him. But
he had a nice effort in the win of the
Lions when they beat the Lions twenty four to seventeen,
So he did a pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
Job on that in leading them all.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Right, coming up, we'll be back to wrap up our
number two here here on this Monday afternoon on sports
Radio AM thirteen.

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
Under the Zone.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Third and final hour of the program here on Sports
Radio AM thirteen hundred the Zone.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Glad to have you with us here on a Monday afternoon.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Craig Wait is my name, and so we begin this
new week by talking about you know, a lot of
the lot of the things that carried forward and through
the weekend, and that included the Long Orange scrimmage. We
will hear some more from Long Orange Head coach Chief

(01:06:59):
Sarkeesian coming up in just a few minutes more. And
they were back at work today. You heard Sart say
in the post scrimmage conversation, he said, we're going to
show this to the guys tomorrow meeting yesterday and try
to again there's that phrase again, clean up the things

(01:07:19):
that weren't entirely happy with. But by and large he
was much more pleased with this scrimmage coming out of
the scrimmage than he was the first one. And he
gave some detail on that where he really got into
the kitchen, so to speak with some of those guys,
especially on the offensive side. As a related pre snap
penalties and things of that nature, we should tell you

(01:07:42):
our first Long Worn Weekly with Coach Sart program comes
up a week from Thursday night at seven o'clock. You
we're here a week from Thursday night here at seven
o'clock here on thirteen under the zone. And of course
the season opener for Texas will be Saturday morning, August
thirtieth from Ohio Stadium, Columbus, Ohio against the Ohio State Buckeyes.

(01:08:07):
Our coverage begins with our long Orange Game Day programming
at eight am and the kickoff at eleven o'clock from Columbus, Ohio.
So we'll look forward to all of that. But there's
still some more work by the log Worne to get
to and by other teams as well, and I'm going
to get to that in a minute, but I do

(01:08:28):
want to give you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
We do give away.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
Tickets and various and sundry other prizes here on this program,
utilizing our talk back feature. So we're going to do
that right now because we're gonna give away a pair
of tickets to see Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace.
This is coming up on September third and Moody Center.
And this is put together by our intrepid as he

(01:08:56):
self Styles calls himself intern kid antone like them. He
works in the promotions department and comes up with these
tickets and things for us. So here's how you do this.
You download the iHeart Radio app on your smartphone if
you haven't already done so, you search AM thirteen under

(01:09:17):
the zone, either through your little magnifying glass or search feature.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
However, it'll pop right up.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
And then when it does, there's a red butt with
a white microphone in it. Tap that and then you're
going to leave us a message with the keyword that
you heard on the station. Today's keyword is come back,
come back, so that's the keyword, so again to win
a pair of tickets to see Breaking Benjamin three days Grace.

(01:09:43):
Put it this way, you get you into the drawing.
You're going to bypass a lot of the folks who
try to win it other waste. This is the way
to do it. To try to have a shot to win.
You download the iHeartRadio app, search AM thirteen under the zone,
tap that red butnt with a white microphone. You can
leave us a message up the thirty seconds. But the
keyword you heard is on Craig Way to show you

(01:10:03):
guys giving away tickets Breaking Benjamin three days Grace. The
keyword is come back. That's all you have to do.
You have up until thirty seconds on it. They said,
it doesn't really even take you that long to do it,
but that's how you do it. That's how you go
about trying to increase your chances to win.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
All Right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
I mentioned that the college football scene, and especially especially
as it relates to Texas and the SEC and the
Big Ten. So the majority of those power conferences as

(01:10:46):
it relates to those, begins in twelve days or maybe
in ten days. There's some teams that are going to
play some Thursday night games, and then there's one or
two on Friday as well, But it actually does begin,
and I'm talking Division one.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
I'm not just talking.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
FCS or D two or whatever, but for Division one
FBS football, the actual season does begin this week and
it also includes the first ever game in Ireland matching

(01:11:26):
ranked teams that aer Lingus college football game has been stationed,
has been staged played in Dublin, Ireland over the past
few years, and Notre Dame played Boston College and they
played Navy there last year as Georgia Tech beat Florida
State and started the downhill slide for the Seminoles. But

(01:11:49):
this year it's going to be a little bit different
because it's a conference game between ranked teams. Seventeenth ranked
Kansas State, number twenty two Iowa State. Yeah, that's Farmageddon,
that's what they call that matchup. Farmageddon and they're actually
going to play this Saturday on what is referred to

(01:12:10):
as zero week. Now, this is just me saying this,
but I'm a little dubious about them calling it zero week.
You know why, because for years, and I do mean years,
in the state of Texas, the UIL had a zero week.
Now it was the optional eleventh week to give teams

(01:12:33):
a chance to fill up their schedule and play ten
regular season games. Eventually, that kind of just kind of
faded in the distance, and it's now nobody really has
a problem anymore, at least not at the high school
level in Texas the UIL level. Referring to Week eleven
not being a playoff week, final week of the regular season.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
It is week eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Even though the team that are playing in it have
played no more than nine games at that point.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
It is their tenth game.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Because by and large, most teams take a bye week
during the year. When they started this zero week thing
a little over a decade ago at the high school level,
it was more the exception than the rule for teams
to play on that zero week, just as it is

(01:13:26):
right now in college football. And there was I think
I counted the first year that they did that at
the high school level in Texas there were about one
fifth of the schools played on that opening weekend because
a lot of schools couldn't get their their schedules together

(01:13:47):
done to do it. Then it was a little more
the next year, and then there was significantly more than ever.
And now it's the point where pretty much everybody plays
on that first weekend. It's the vast exception to the
rule for schools not to play on what used to
be called zero week. It's now just called week one.
Week one through week eleven. Well, the college game refers

(01:14:10):
to it as zero week because you don't have many games.

Speaker 3 (01:14:13):
You have some, but not many.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
In fact, there are five Division one FPS games this week.
This week now, on zero week, you cannot play before Saturday.
The old UIL Texas rule when it was called zero week,
you could actually still start on Thursday, like you can
do in Week one now, but for the purposes of

(01:14:35):
college football, you cannot play Division one FBS.

Speaker 3 (01:14:40):
You cannot start before Saturday. So here's your games.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
The first one out of the box is that game
I mentioned k State Iowa State Farmageddon playing in Dublin, Ireland,
eleven am.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Kickoff.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
My friends with the Wildcat Sports Network at Kansas State,
Wyatt Thompson to play by play voice, Stan Webber the analyst,
and Matt Walters their sideline reporter. I joked with those
guys about this about you know, what are guys gonna like?
You guys, what can you possibly do in Ireland? He's

(01:15:19):
wandering around.

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
That sort of. They laughed about it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
But it's new for the men, same thing for John
Walters for the play by play voice for Iowa State
as well. And so they'll be there and that's eleven
o'clock in the morning on Saturday, so there will be
actual regular season counts in the books and in the
Big twelve a conference game no less college football played

(01:15:46):
on Saturday. The other games three UNLV is hosting Idaho State.
Idaho State is an FCS program, but you know V
obviously Division one.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
The difference.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
And what's noteworthy about you and I is that Dan
Mullen is back coaching again, and he's the coach of UNLV.
Remember he did really good job at Mississippi State and
then went to Florida. They cut him loose and then
he'd been on television on ESPN for a few years.
Now he's back in the game, and they'll play at
Allegiance Stadium on Saturday after in Vegas hosting Idaho State.

(01:16:21):
Kansas is playing also, so you've got three big twelve
teams in action on Saturday. I always stated against Kansas State,
Kansas at home against Presno State. That's a game that's
actually on Fox five point thirty Saturday afternoon. And a

(01:16:43):
lot has been made about the new look and completely
remodeled and refurbished David Booth Memorial Stadium in Kansas. When
I was up there the last time I was up
there for baseball actually a couple of years ago, I
could see the progress they were making with the stadium.
And now the whole east side of the stadium does

(01:17:04):
not look like a one hundred year old college football
stadium anymore, because that's pretty much what it is. It's
over one hundred and it looked that way, but they
they've remodeled that. And David Booth himself, by the way,
just made a three hundred million dollar gift to the
University of Kansas, to Kansas Athletics. A lot of it
will go into finishing up what they want to do
with that stadium and their football facilities. And complex and

(01:17:29):
then some will be used obviously money for anil purposes,
things like that. The other two games one involves a opponent,
an opponent for Texas for this year, Sam Houston. They're
playing Western Kentucky. That is a conference game in a

(01:17:49):
Conference USA, So Sam Houston will play Western Kentucky and
then the said and that's a CBS Sports Network telecast,
and then at six thirty on actual CBA. Yes, just
weird to think of this Stanford as an ACC team,
but they are and they play at Hawaii. So all
of those games are this Saturday on the zero week,

(01:18:12):
So just to let you know, that's the situation for
this week and there will be actual live college.

Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
Football going on all right.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Up next, we're gonna hear more from Logrnon's head coach,
Steve Sarkisian, since they're still twelve days out from kickoff.
That's next here on thirteen under the Zone. Coming up
in just a few minutes. Yet more more rankings, and
these are always kind of fun to get to with
regard to Division one college football. We'll get to those

(01:18:42):
coming up in just a few minutes. Let's get back
to hearing from log Horn's head coach Steve Sarkisian. When
we last left off last hour, he was talking about
the balance of school and playing football, and you're at
your best playing football not only when you balance all that,
but when you are healthy as well if any injuries.
Obviously special on the offensive side of the football, mainly

(01:19:06):
the depth of what's happened with the tackle spot, and
he was asked for an update.

Speaker 4 (01:19:11):
Yeah, Jayden stepped in. I thought did a nice job.
I mean, it's a tall task against our guys, you know.
I think that's one of the values of competing on
our field every single day, is Okay, you want to
step in and play left tackle, you're blocking calling Ethan
Zena Vasik, you know, Brad Spence, you know Lance Jackson.
I mean, and so it's you don't get a break,

(01:19:33):
and so him to get that exposure I think was
good for him today. But one thing we do, you know,
our ones go ones, Our twos go twos. Our ones
go against the twos, our twos go against the ones.
We're constantly moving that. But it's hard to tell the difference,
you know, It's hard to tell. It's like, well, yeah,
I was a two yesterday going against the two or
the ones. I'm a one to day going against the

(01:19:53):
two of the ones. So you got to block those
guys every day. What changes is kind of who you're
next to. But I think thought, like I said, I
thought Jayden did a nice job today of stepping into action.
It was good for him. We have to do those things,
you know, we have to kind of put people in
position for the what ifs, right because knock on wood
could have happened in Columbus, sure, and so we can't

(01:20:15):
act like that's the first time that ever happened. He's
got to step in. We've got to change centers, you know,
Connor Robinson's got to go to center if Cole's out
And okay, what does that feel like with Archie quarterback?
And so we try to do those things to simulate
those things in scrimmages so that when the moment comes,
they've been there before.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
Okay, all right, so that's building up the depth. What
about the depth quarterback? Yeah, we know this is arch
Banning's football team, but as it and goes. And by
the way, when he said Jade was talking about Jaden Chapman,
one of those guys trying to you know, fill in there,
but what about with regard to the backup quarterback spot,

(01:20:52):
so the number two spot behind Arch Banning, as Sark
was asked.

Speaker 4 (01:20:57):
Yeah, no, I thought in the end, you know, they
all did some good things. Is always at quarterback we're
fighting for consistency. It's like the most I talk about
it at every position, but it's the most glaring at quarterback,
right because he's the guy that has the ball every play,
and so you know, we'll look at the kind of
how they grate out off the tape, but the level
of consistency is critical at that kJ again showed up

(01:21:19):
today and had some nice drives where they moved the
ball and you know, he think he had a nice
touchdown drive and he had the two minute drive at
the end for the field goal, which was good. So
but we'll look at it and see what that consistency
looks like, feels like. And you know, at some point
we're gonna have to make a decision, and that's that's
part of our responsibility to do that. But we've got time,

(01:21:42):
so we'll be okay.

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
Usually when the long warns of a scrimmage, the scrimmage,
of course is closed to fans and media. There are
some people who are allowed to view the scrimmage. One
of those, and it makes all the sense in the
world was Mack Brown, you know, for sixteen years, the
long Rens head coach and now living back in the

(01:22:06):
area and doing the podcast that he's doing with Vin
Young and Bob lou So you know, Mac has been
there and has chatted quite a bit with Sark, and
so Sark was asked about Mac Brown, his his appearance

(01:22:27):
being there and if there's any influence involved.

Speaker 4 (01:22:30):
It was cool. I was jealous he had. He was
already suited up to go te off and play some
golf as soon as we were done. I don't get
to go do that. But you know, it's awesome having
having coach Brown around. He did at the highest level,
not only here but throughout his career. He's got what
we're striving for naturally, and he's got a wealth of wisdom,
and you know, he's such a personable guy that that

(01:22:51):
all of our players, I think, feel very comfortable talking
to him. Uh So it's just great having him around.
You know, again, we had a lot of a lot
of people around, a lot of players, ex players and things,
so that part has been great. But having having coach
Brown back in and around Austin, I think is pretty
cool for us.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
We'll hear more about Matt coming up in a few minutes.
But what about explosive plays coming out of the scrimmage.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
I think Ryan Wingo had a pretty good explosive I
think Clik Lockett had a pretty good explosive Dayla McCutcheon
had had a big play. I'm probably missing a couple
other guys. A couple of other running backs kind of
got out, whether you know, I think Trey Wisner or
James Simon, Christian Clark, you know, some guys did some
did some nice things today.

Speaker 3 (01:23:32):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
And then since we're talking about explosive plays or wow plays,
I mean, how much does that weigh into evaluation when
guys are making plays like that and the players involved.

Speaker 4 (01:23:43):
I thought Manny Muhammad played really consistent and and and
I purposely went after him with with a couple of
different things, and and for him to play the way
that he played gave me a more confidence that I've
even had. And I have a lot in him, but
today was very very encouraging on.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):
That front, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
And then the guy who continues to make just the
consistency of the play, and who apparently continues to get
better is Anthony Hill.

Speaker 4 (01:24:08):
Yeah, I just think he's matured. You know, ant was
really young when he first got here. I think when
he enrolled in school, he might have been sixteen years old.
You know, maybe he just turned seventeen. And I just
see a level of maturity of him off the field.
But I but I think that maturity has carried himself
onto the field too. You know, he practices like a
pro every day. You know, he doesn't have to be reckless.

(01:24:31):
We know he's a great hitter. He doesn't have to
hit all of our guys all the time. You know,
he knows how to practice at a high level and
put himself in position to perform when what it's time
to perform. And so I just again, I think there's
a level of confidence. I think there's a level of
understanding the defense. I think it's being with coach Nansen
two years in a row. Now he's hearing a consistent

(01:24:51):
voice in the linebacker room. All those things have helped
him grow and mature to be the player that he is.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
Okay, so when talking about growth and I maturation. As
we shift back to the offense. You probably heard us
during last week play some sound from c J.

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
Baxter.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
So Cedric has been through a lot, obviously, and the
injuries that he had which took him out of last
season entirely, and his road to recovery, the fact that
he's dating, you know, the former Texas softball stand out
Mia Scott who played on the torn acl that she had,

(01:25:34):
was did not get surgery, finished up the College World
Series run. Those kinds of things, and the help and
the lift and inspiration. You might say that she all
motivation that she supplied for him as well. So still
in all, when you get on the practice field, you
got to trust that knee. I've heard football players tell

(01:25:56):
me that. I've heard Rory Harmon tell me that with
women's basket ball. I've heard guys tell me that would
would men's basketball with baseball about mentally trusting that everything's
going to be all right. So Sark was asked about CJ.
Baxter's mentality coming off the injury.

Speaker 4 (01:26:14):
Yeah, I mean, unbelievably impressed. You know, that's always the
challenge when you come off of you know, major surgery
injuries type stuff, and as a runner in particular, you know,
because at the end of the day, you know, you
think about your job is is to take the ball,
and there's eleven guys the other side that are all
trying to smack you as hard as they can and

(01:26:35):
get you on the ground. And then you got to
do it again and again and again and again and again.
And so, you know, I think for him, there's a
real sense of maturity early on in the process of
how he was going to attack his recovery. There's a
real sense of maturity on how he was going to
support his teammates. All right, what's my role this year?
Support my teammates, be a great teammate. And I think

(01:26:55):
in turn, coming back this year, the respect he has
from his teammates by the way that he rehabbed. Now
they're supporting him and his journey to take that step
to be the player that that he wants to become.
But I know they want for him as well. But
I think his confidence continues to grow that, you know,
as he gets over the one hurdle to the next,
to the next, I think his confidence continues to grow

(01:27:18):
as he as he's you know, getting over these hurdles.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
Okay, all right, so does he as a head coach,
and and does the offensive staff have to be kind
of patient with him as he works his way through this.

Speaker 4 (01:27:29):
You know, I was I was gonna. I was set
on being overly cautious and patient coming into the season.
I've changed my tune. And I told him that I
met with him after last scrimmage. I've changed my tune.
You know, we're we're gonna be a little more aggressive
than than we thought. And he he wants to. He
wants it that way. Uh, and he continues to give
me confidence that I can be aggressive with the way

(01:27:49):
he's responding day after day after day.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
All Right, there's under another interesting dynamic here. Sark was
talking about the pre stamp penalty thing and how we
really kind of got on the team when they had
it in the first scrimmage, and so we can't have them,
especially on the road. Interestingly enough, last year, the Long

(01:28:12):
Words had far fewer pre snap penalties on the road
than they did in home games.

Speaker 3 (01:28:19):
So as far as that goes, you know, what makes
it not happen when they go on the road.

Speaker 4 (01:28:26):
You know, I think that we focus on ourselves. You know,
you guys have heard me say it time and time again.
We're enamor with us. We try not to get caught
up in the opponent. We try not to get caught
up in the environment, the crowd, the weather, whatever it is.
And we try to be as tight as we can
as a team, and we try to lean into one another.

(01:28:47):
And you know, sometimes going on the road, you got
less people, you can only travel so many. It's a
tighter knit group. I think that's that's very helpful that way.
I think there's there's something about the poison composure that
we operate with on the road and the way that
we go do it. And I think there's something about,

(01:29:07):
you know, when when there's everybody's against you, right, there's
something about that and our pride and the way that
we need to stand up and handle our business. And
so hey, I don't know that. I don't know if
that there's some secret sauce. You know, we're routine routino operation.
You know, as much as some of us want us
to change our routine on the road, we've stuck with

(01:29:29):
it way back in the day when we weren't a
great routine and over time, over time, guys found the
routine of what we did and why we did what
we did and we started to change the narrative of
who we were as a road team. And now that's
built that that we've built confidence through that and the
guys knowing, like, hey man, when we do X, Y
and Z and we do it the right way, we're

(01:29:49):
going to put ourselves in position to have some success. Now, ultimately,
you have to perform right, and you got to play
with the right sense of physicality. You got to execute
at a high level. You got to make plays at
critical moments and they're needed. But you got to put
yourself in position to do those things. And I think
the routine of which we go about it allows us
to put us in that position. And we've been fortunate
enough where our players have responded at critical moments on

(01:30:11):
the road when we've needed it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
Okay, so that's happened on the road.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
One thing that wasn't always the best on the road
or at home for that matter, was success in the
red zone, not just getting points but getting touchdowns inding
the drive z that Sart was asked about that and
on special teams about the Texas state transformation. Mason Shipley,
who of course is leading the charge to be the
place kicker.

Speaker 4 (01:30:35):
The red zone, was pretty good. I thought we missed
a couple opportunities, quite frankly, and we'll look at why.
You know, I gotta assess that I thought we had
some other chances to score, and you know, maybe a
block here, a route there, a throw here that could
have changed that. I thought field goal kicking was pretty good.

(01:30:56):
I don't know, we were kind of had a lot
of different groups going, so there was twos ones and
things is happening. So I look at that. I know
we blocked one, which is encouraging for me. I know
that sounds crazy, you got a field goal block, but
we're we're a really good block team and we want
to be a great block team. And so to get
that push that we got. Now we got to clean
up why we gave up some leakage. But I think

(01:31:16):
that's a good thing, quite frankly, that we were able
to get home and get our hands on one to keep,
you know, building confidence in our ability to rush punts
and kicks.

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
Okay, And a couple more from him, one about how
they're giving up the running back carriage and we heard
him talking about CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:31:35):
Bashrip.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
Of course, Trey Weisner was involved in that and and
where he sees that going through and how they did
that in the scrimmage.

Speaker 4 (01:31:42):
Probably not probably not early in the year. I don't,
you know, early in the season they're they're like everybody else.
I don't. I don't think they're in football shape yet
for that, you know, I think there's a difference in
being in physical condition as there is football shape. You know,
football shape is different. You know, you have to think
at a high level. You got to make adjustments. You

(01:32:03):
got to make those subtle cuts, you gotta you gotta
strain for yards, you gotta hold on to the football right.
So realistically, I'm probably not quite ready for that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:32:12):
Hopefully we can disperse those carries, you know, a little
bit more, and I think we have the people that
we can do it with. But we'll probably walk out
of the first game and one of these guys will
have twenty five carries and we'll wonder, why why do
you get? Why do you get twenty five carries?

Speaker 3 (01:32:28):
And then one final thing I mentioned.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
Mac Brown's got this podcast going and he and Vin
Young and Bob Aloud from k I've been doing this.
It's called Stampede and it's part of there's kind of
a podcast Network through Sinclair Broadcasting one with Ohio State,
Alabama and somewhere else as well, and Sark was on it.

(01:32:51):
It was a guest on that podcast who was asked
about how things went with the podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:32:55):
Yeah, I had a blast on the on the Stampede
with with Mac and why that was fun. You know,
anytime you get on a podcast and it feels like
a conversation rather than an interview, it's those are the
fun ones, and that one that, you know, I felt
like I could have been on there with those guys
for hours, you know, just talking stories and football, and

(01:33:16):
I like hearing them talk, you know, because I'm always
intrigued when you you know, the special years that they
had together and ultimately the special year they had together.
I mean, there's so many stories in those seasons that
I get on there and I get caught asking them
questions back. But I think those are probably the best
ones to be part of.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
So there it is commentary and questions being answered by
Longworts head coach Steve Sarkagian. We'll hear more from Sark
tomorrow on the program. Coming off of the day's practice,
we got another college football ranking system to dissect when
we come back here on thirteen under the Zone.

Speaker 3 (01:33:52):
I want to get to a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
First of all, the baseball thing. I don't know if
you were watching it last night, but they had what
was called the All Star the Little League World Series Classic.
Last night ESPN was doing their Sunday night telecast from Williamsport, Pennsylvania,
because the Little League World Series is going on. In fact,

(01:34:14):
right now, there's a game going on Chinese taipe Ai
has grabbed a two to nothing lead on Aruba as
they play in the second inning in that one.

Speaker 3 (01:34:24):
So that's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
But of course they have a major league game there
a few miles away from the Little League complexes, the
two ballparks there at the Minor League Ballpark where the
Williamsport Crosscutters, the METSAA team plays, And so they had
the Little League Classic, and the ESPN crew, Carl Ravage

(01:34:50):
and David Cohne and EDUARDA. Perez all interviewed Rob Manfred,
the commissioner, and among the things they talked about. First
of all, they asked, you know, baseball has gotten into
this thing where they're playing more games in non traditional

(01:35:10):
areas like the field of Dreams Game, and they're not
playing that this year because I think they're building a
bigger ballpark out there in the cornfield in Iowa and
then picking it up again. They played one at Fort
Bragg a few years ago. They played one a Black
Heritage Classic game honoring the old Negro baseball leagues of

(01:35:33):
the thirties, forties and fifties at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama.
And then they've had this Little League Game one at
the Little League World Series going on since twenty eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:35:45):
So this is like the eighth year they've had it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:48):
And they asked him, the commissioner, is this one that
would stay in there? And he said, yeah, this is
one we want to do every year. And then they
got into talking about expansion. Now, remember there's thirty teams
in Major League Baseball, so if they expanded by two more,
it'd get it to an even thirty two. And there's

(01:36:10):
all sorts of speculation as to how they might divvy
that up. Might they have, you know, all these different
divisions of four teams and even do away with America
League nationally, which is silly, I think, because not only
that having two more teams would give them an even
split and an even break to where they don't have

(01:36:34):
to have at least one interleague game every single day
they have to because of the uneven amount of teams.
But he was asked about expansion, and his quote was,
I think if we expand, it provides us with an
opportunity to geographically realign. I think we could save a
lot of wear and tear on our players in terms

(01:36:54):
of travel. I think our postseason format would be even
more appealing for entities like ESPN, even though their contract
expires this year and who knows what they're going to
get back in because you'd be playing out of the East,
out of the West at ten o'clock, where sometimes we
get Boston Anaheim.

Speaker 3 (01:37:10):
Would be two West Coast teams.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
That ten o'clock slot that's a problem for us sometimes
becomes a real opportunity for a West Coast audience. He
said he wants to have the locations of two new
teams picked by the time he retires in twenty twenty nine,
although the clubs won't yet be playing. He has long
set expansion will follow after the Rays and the A's

(01:37:33):
complete their long running request for new stadiums.

Speaker 3 (01:37:36):
Of course, the A's will be moving to Vegas. The
Rays have.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
Still have to figure out their issues, so that was
kind of a baseball update. Now, I guess you could
call this for fun unless you're a fan of one
of these teams at the bottom. ESPN did a similar
thing like this, and they do the bottom ten the
athletic ranks, all one hundred and thirty six FBS teams,

(01:38:01):
all of them from number one down one thirty six,
and just some highlights of it. Number one thirty six
is the same number one thirty six and what.

Speaker 3 (01:38:11):
ESPN did the other day. It was a pretty easy choice. Really.
It's Kent State.

Speaker 2 (01:38:14):
They were the only winless team last year and they
now have an the interim head coach where they fired
their coach like in February, and so they've had to scramble.
So their slug is one thirty six. Kent State, the
only winless team of twenty twenty four, now has an
interim head coach and little reason for optimism. One thirty
five Kennesaw State from Georgia. New coach Jerry Mack has

(01:38:37):
a roster, a decent experience, but moving from a triple
option offense could compound the growing page. So then it
moves on up UMass one thirty four, Tulsa one thirty
three acron won thirty two.

Speaker 3 (01:38:50):
Acron.

Speaker 2 (01:38:50):
It says there are some offensive pieces here, but a
Bowld ban for the program's academic progress rate won't help
the motivation. Missouri State, who's transitioning to FBS at one
thirty one, ball State one thirty. New Mexico's days one
twenty nine, So it goes on down. Rice Is at
one twenty seven. New coach Scott abel runs a very

(01:39:11):
fun option offense, but he may not have the pieces
that fit it yet. Moving into the one teams UTEP
at one thirteen. Of course they're an opponent for Texas.
There's more depth here. Scottie Walden hopes for Bowl contention
in year two. Continuing trekking Sam Houston at one to three.

(01:39:33):
Of course they they'll play the long Horns on September
twenty After a coaching change and portal losses following a
surprise ten win season, Sam Houston has replaced the entirety
one of the G five's best defenses. Then in the
you get inside of one hundred, North Texas is number
ninety five. Coach Eric Morris is imported the Sam Houston

(01:39:57):
defense with coordinator Skyler Cassi in several transfers to pair
with what is typically an explosive offense. The lowest rank
of the SEC schools is Mississippi State at number ninety.
A healthy quarterback Blake shape and should help, but the
Bulldogs might have the toughest schedule in the country. Most
of the computer model seem to indicate that they do that. They,

(01:40:19):
by the way, have the toughest schedule. After that, Continuing
down into the seventies and the sixties, Oklahoma State is
number sixty eight. On into the fifties, Texas State first
of all. UTSA is at number fifty eight. The Roadrunners

(01:40:41):
close twenty twenty four with a lot of momentum and
their entire offense returns, but a completely new defense must
step up to get in the conference race. Number fifty seven,
just ahead of UTSA is Texas State. Of course, those
two teams play for the I thirty five Trophy, and
they say the offensive line looks good, but new playmakers
must show up across the board after consecutive Bowl trips.

(01:41:05):
Moving down number fifty one is Colorado losing Travis Hunter
and Shader Sanders is obviously big, but Dion Sanders has
built some depth in this program and the defense took
a big step forward a season ago. Number fifty is
North Carolina. He says, no one's quite sure what to
expect from Bill Belichick's team, especially so much roster turnover,
but South Alabama quarterback transfer g Do Lopez is talented.

(01:41:29):
Arkansas is number forty seven, Vanderbilt is number forty six
in looking at it into the top forty, Kansas is
thirty six, TCU thirty five, Missouri's thirty four, Baylor twenty eight.
They say quarterback Sawyer Robertson and running back Brice in
Washington could make this one of the best offenses in

(01:41:50):
the Big twelve. Tennessee is twenty six, Oklahoma's twenty five.
Two coveted transfers quarterback Jometsier and running back Jay could
make for a fascinating new offense and what is a
make or break year for coach Brent Mennibles. Texas Tech
is twenty four, Texas A and M is twenty. This
might be the best running attack in the nation with

(01:42:12):
quarterback Marcel Rene a stable of backs.

Speaker 3 (01:42:15):
Ole miss is number.

Speaker 2 (01:42:16):
Sixteen, Florida fifteen, South Carolina is twelve into the top
ten ls WHO ten Alabama nine, Arizona State eight, Oregon seven,
Notre Dame six, Georgia is five, Ohio State is four,
Texas is three. Chris Fanini says, I believe in arch Manning,

(01:42:38):
but I have some concerns about all the talent being
replaced in the trenches where Texas has been so good.
Number two is Clemson and number one Penn State, the
nittyllons of this year's Michigan and Ohio State with a
lot of guys who turned down the NFL to come
back to win it all, and I predict they will.

Speaker 3 (01:42:52):
You can't get over the hump until you finally do so.

Speaker 2 (01:42:56):
From one thirty six down to number one through the
athletic we'll wrap up today He's edition the program on
thirteen under the Zone
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