Halloween Weekend Watching Guide: Texas-Vanderbilt, World Series, and more!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Friday, Happy Halloween. Happy At ben of November, I'm
happy to be back for a football game at d
k R Texas Memorials Team. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to
a Halloween weekend edition of The Craigway Show here on
Sports Radio AM thirteen under the Zone.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
My name is Craig Way.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Glad to have you with us this afternoon as we
get you into the weekend.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
I know it's Halloween.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Be careful out there for driving around with the little
nippers out there with trigger treating going on. The producer
of the program is Jay Carmon. Did you do much
trigger treating when you were a kid?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
I did? I did. I enjoyed it.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
I would famously trick or treat in costumes that were
hard to see out of, and my clumsier side would
come out. So one year I just embraced it all
the way. I went as a Charlie Brown ghost.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Oh nice, Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
I had a little trouble with the scissors.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I like that. Okay, all right, very good.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
No matter where you may be headed tonight or we
can rallowy, be careful out there. Obviously, lots of folks
out on the streets of the neighborhoods and here in
the Greater Ow Center. Let me tell you what we
have coming up on the program this afternoon. Coming up
in a few minutes, we're gonna bring you an excerpt
from last night's Long Worn Weekly with coach Coach Sark.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I hope you got a chance to hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
If you didn't, a no worries, it re airs again
tonight at seven o'clock b Obviously you can catch on
the podcast page at A thirteen hundred the Zone dot com.
And also we're going to bring you a couple of sebjects. Now,
normally what we do every Friday is to bring you

(01:43):
one segment of the program, the one which is the
breakdown of the matchup with the opponent, and we will
do that in the four o'clock hour. Today we'll hear
Sark talk about this Vanderbilt Commodore's team and how his
team has to play to defeat this Vanderbilt team to
stay on the track and get the seven and two
and continue their hopes of keeping the goals in front

(02:04):
of them. Well, we'll do all that, but coming up
in a few minutes another segment of the program, we
had a lot of fun with Johnny Danson, who is
the co defensive coordinator. In his area of concentration with
this football team is the linebackers. And if you know
anything right now about how this long worn football team
is playing, A, the defense is playing really well, and

(02:27):
B the linebackers are probably at the top of that list.
And we'll visit with Johnny Dance and it's it's interesting
because he and Sark go way back. We had a
couple of segments with him, and I'll just tell you this,
this is this part. What I'm about today is not
what we're going to play for you in a few minutes,
but it is on the show if you if you
listen to the re airing tonight, or like I said,

(02:49):
on the podcast page, whatever what it is. They were
talking about their background and how they got to meet
one another, and of all things, it was at a
USC football camp when Sark was on Pete Carroll's staff
at USC. This was after the Texas USC Rose Bowl, which,

(03:16):
by the way, tomorrow morning with the eleven am kickoff.
At some point it'll probably be after the clock switches
into the early afternoon, maybe into the first quarter or
something like that. They're going to honor the two thousand
and five national championship team, So twenty year anniversary of that,
and I know all of us who were there watched it,
witnessed it, all that other kind of stuff.

Speaker 5 (03:39):
We were.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
You know, it seems like the time has just absolutely
zoomed by since twenty years have come and gone. I
feel like they like a rock song, you know, like
a rock from Bob Singer, twenty years where to go?
Twenty years? I don't know twenty they go? Anyway, twenty

(04:01):
years went by.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
I don't know the words, but even if I did,
I wasn't coming in during that.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
That was great.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
You know Bob Seeger, he was one of my favorites obviously,
But in that song like a Rocket, there's that one
segment where he talks about that, because that whole song
is about him as a young man being strong and virile.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
And all of a sudden, now it's twenty years later.
All where'd the time go? You know, that kind of thing.
But they're going to do that.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
But it was after that when Steve Sarkisian and Johnny
Nansen met and was at a USC football camp and
we had this whole picture later of them coaching together
at Washington because Sark got the job at Washington about
a year after they met at the camp or something.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
So it's a really good story.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
And that was in the first of the two segments
that we had with coach Nansen last night. But what
we're going to play for you coming up here in
a few minutes is the he is him talking about
his guys and start talking about his guys, the linebackers
and what they've done, and that's sort of the progress

(05:09):
that they've made.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
So that's coming up in a few minutes. We'll have.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Inconceivable coming up, Jake. We know what inconceivable means on Friday.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Don't we even on Halloween?

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, it makes it even better, right. Oh yeah, we've
got some Florida Man stuff coming for the Halloween weekend.
We'll have that for you three o'clock hour. Geene Watson,
one more time. We're going to bug him from the
cruise ship because we've been checking with him at stops
along the way, not on the cruise, but stops along
the way. Of the baseball postseason. Well, now it's at

(05:43):
a critical juncture. The Toronto Blue Jays can win the
World Series Tonight. They could be world champions by the
end of the night if they win, if they beat
the Dodgers, and LA's going to try to do everything
they can to prevent that from happening, starting with the
fact they're starting.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know, but yamamoda.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
But there's some other wrinkles involved with this, and so
we'll visit with Gene Watson talking about that in the
three o'clock hour. Also, we'll hear some more from Sean
Miller to Texas men's basketball coach. And in the four
o'clock hour, as I mentioned, we'll hear from Sark breaking
down the matchup with the Vanderbilt Commodore. So we have

(06:22):
all that coming up on the program. So looking looking
forward to bringing you those features, those elements. I want
to start something completely different. Have you noticed what the
Spurs are doing?

Speaker 3 (06:36):
No, not yet. I was watching I was watching high
school football last night.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yep, yep, And that was an incredible game. Great comeback
for Huddle and beating Vista Ridge. Congratulations to Huddle. They've
clinched a playoff spot. They won thirty five thirty four.
That win, by the way, has huge meaning and other
ripple effect things. We'll get to that. A little bit
later on. So the Spurs beat the by heat last

(07:00):
night one O seven, one on one victor women. Yama
had another great game, wimby twenty six points, eighteen rebounds,
six assis, five blocks, that kind of stuff, but there
was something else. This is the Spurs' fiftieth season in
the NBA, their fiftieth UH and, and of course the

(07:21):
ancestral link to their franchise predates their time in the
NBA is when they were in the ABA. They actually
started as the Dallas Chaparrals back in nineteen sixty seven
in the first year of the ABA, UH and the
Shaps had some some up moments and down moments. They

(07:42):
made the playoffs a few times, but they never reached
an ABA finals. I remember as a kid, my parents
were Carolina Cougar season ticket holders in the seventy two
seventy three and seventy three seventy four season. Their two
their two big years seventy two seventy three UH they
went fifty seven and twenty seven. They won the East

(08:02):
the Eastern Vision, and their coach was a young Larry Brown.
His assistant was a young Doug mow Aba MVP was
Billy Cunningham. Who'd come over from the Philadelphia seventy six ers.
They had Pogo Joe Caldwells a Ford who was one
of the few guys who could lock down. Doctor j
could play really good defense against a young Julius Irving
back then when Irving was playing for the Virginia Squires.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
And where did they play? We're in Virginia. Were the
Squires you name it? Richmond?

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yes, yeah, Norfolk.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Hampton even played a few games I think in Charlottesville,
but mainly mainly Richmond, Richmond Coliseum, the old Richmond Coliseum,
the Norfolk Scope which is still around the Scope, and
the Hampton Roads Coliseum.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
How about that, the Traveling the Traveling Squires.

Speaker 5 (08:50):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
So they were they they before then they were the
Washington Capitals for one year, played the old Washington Coliseum,
played one season when they had Rick Barry.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
One year prior.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
To that, they were the Oakland Oaks and won an
ABA title in sixty eight sixty nine when Rick Berry
was playing for them. So that was kind of the
ancestral But the ancestral link for the Dallas Chaparral for
the San Antonio Spurs was the Dallas Chaparrals in nineteen
seventy three, they moved to San Antonio, became the Spurs,
played at the old Hemispher Arenam and a very young

(09:25):
George Gervin, the iceman, was playing with the Spurs back then.
I remember seeing the Carolina Cougars play the Spurs in
the Greensboro Coliseum like late fall, right around Christmas time,
maybe even the early winter nineteen seventy three.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
So that's where it started.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
Then.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Of course, when the merger happened and the four teams.
Can you name the four teams that went from the
ABA to the NBA, Well, one of them is.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Spurs obviously Minnesota.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
No Minnesota.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
Now I don't I'm not an NBA historian.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Like again, crank, all right, all right, you don't have
to be an NBA story Indiana Pacers, Okay, Denver Douggets,
New York Nets now known as the Brooklyn Nets.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
They were New York.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
They were there for like one year, went to New
Jersey for years, and then moved back and went in
to Brooklyn when the new arena was built in Brooklyn
several years ago. So those four teams went in and
the Spurs went in the reason why I say all
of this is because during all of that time as
a San Antonio's person in the ABA and in the NBA,

(10:33):
and this is their fiftieth season in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
The Spurs did.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Something last night that that franchise has never accomplished before.
They're five and oh. No Spurs team had ever been
five and oh not the ones with David Robinson and
Jim Duncan and you know, all of those, all of
those great teams that they had that won the five
championships starting in ninety nine, none of those teams have

(10:59):
started five. But this team is five and oh, So
keep that in mind as this team, it's a young team,
and they'll have their ups and downs, clearly, but they're
improving and they're getting better. And the Spurs won last night,
so you know, keep that in mind. That's that's something

(11:20):
to behold there as they're off to a five and
zero start.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
YEA, for what it's worth, they had a perfect preseason too.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, so they're playing well and we'll see how it is,
you know, ultimately on down the road. There's a long
long way to go. But they had guys like Stefan Castle,
last year's Rookie of the Year. He had twenty one
point six rebounds. He'd assists for steals. Devin Vassel had
seventeen points, nine boards, a couple of late three pointers.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
He said.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
His quote was, remember that's what was a first round
pick back during the pandemic in twenty twenty Florida State. Yeah,
and he said, honestly, Tyler losing zas Bays and I've
been here for a long time.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
It's been a journey.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
I can say that I've seen this happen many times,
that team going on runs. And maybe coach Mitch puts
it on film that I didn't dive on the floor.
Maybe you don't go for that loose ball, you don't
do the little stuff. Those little things help you win
these games. And that's what we need, the little details,
the little minute things help us win games.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
And that's what happened to night.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
So yeah, So there it is, and it's kind of
a fresh approach with Mitch Johnson there at the helm.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
So take note of it is.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
All we're saying is that the Spurs are off to
a five and oh start all right up. Next, we're
going to hear from coach Sark and also from Johnny Nansen.
The linebackers coach as well for Texas As. We get
you ready for a football Friday, Football Saturday, and football
Sunday right here on Sports MEDIOAM thirteen under the zone

(12:53):
of the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
It's not a Chevy commercial. This is what we were
talking about, just a moment ago right here at this
part of the sign, and he's coming up.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
Actually, yeah, right here?

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Twenty years, isn't it?

Speaker 5 (13:25):
Where they're going.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Twenty year?

Speaker 1 (13:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (13:34):
I was sitting on one this summer time.

Speaker 5 (13:39):
Where they're gone.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
It might make you think about that since its twenty
years since the Longhorns won the national championship.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Oh, Craig, you didn't have to go there, No, no.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
I'm saying, but pleasant memories. That's just all of a sudden,
the time flies by.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
I was in my fourth year in the play by
play cheer for that national championship season Keith Mortland and
I and Roger Wallace was our sideline reporter back then,
and it was a tremendous memory. So that national championship
season of two thousand and five. But that's what made
me think about it earlier. Bob ce or like a rock.

Speaker 5 (14:16):
That song.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Where at that point in the song ras is twenty years?
Where did they go twenty years? I don't know. I
wonder sometimes where they go.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
That's good, where they've gone. That's a good song.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, yeah, it is. And of course a lot of
people think of it because of Chevy trucks.

Speaker 5 (14:30):
You know, like a rock.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
You know that old Chevy truck campaign was well done
by Chevrolet to do that with their trucks. College football
last night utsa a big bounce back win for Jeff
Trailer's team and.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
They just blew them out forty eight twenty six.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
But there was something else that happened as a result
of that, Jeff Trailer said after to the game, and
he was asked.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
About all the fire and the belly of his guys
and all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
And they're only four and four right now, but they
have a shot now to get back to a bowl game.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
He said.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
They felt extremely disrespected entering the game because of comments
made by GreenWave head coach John Sumrall, who by the way,
is going to be one of the candidates I think
for the vacancy at LSU, and quarterback Jake Retslock, the
guy who transferred from BYU. Some Roll had told reporters

(15:32):
in New Orleans earlier in the week that utsa pump
noise into the Alamodome and that other coaches in the
American Conference told him that the speakers aren't turned off
during Roadrunners games. To Laane practice this week with crowd
noise allowed music to prepare for this trip, and some
are all said. Here was his quote. I think they
may pipe in some in through the speakers. I don't
think it's legal. I don't think anybody's investigating it. We've

(15:56):
just got to be ready to deal with it. That's
helped them create a home field and then trailer. He
didn't like those comments at all, he said. And here's
the quote a coach that said, we basically cheated the
last six years, which disrespects everything we'd done in the
last six years. In my opinion, he said, the comments
seemed a little more personal. I just told my guys man,

(16:16):
we're already living in his head. I wish I worked
for a boss to let me do all those things
with crowd noise, our crowd's loud and our band's loud.
He said he liked some role, but he thinks the
comments even made utsa's band cautious about playing music during
the game. He said, our band director was scared to
death to play with the band. It's probably one of
the main reasons we haven't lost a game here. They

(16:37):
have a twenty two game home winning street there now,
he said, those dudes rock every time we're here. He
also took issue with retslofft the BYU transferred doing a
miked up interview with ESPN before the game. Now, Redsloff
had just played in that building, would be why you
want to be Colorado in the Alamo Bowl last year,

(16:58):
and when he was asked about Utsa's unbeaten run there,
he said, I'll tell you what I'm one to know
in this stadium. So something's got to give, and it's
not going to be me.

Speaker 5 (17:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
He threw two interceptions and then got benched, and Trailer
said a quarterback for them that disrespected us like unbelievable.
Miked up before the game, The coach also mentioned spoiled,
rotten media and fairweather fans in this postgame comments. We
shut them up for a week, he said. So it
was a little spicy there, but it was a big
win for UTSA. They needed that win and They're twenty

(17:29):
two to zero in regular season conference home games under
Jeff Trailer. So yeah, big big win for UTSA. All right,
Long Wrens are trying to get another big win and
they play this Vanderbilt Commodore's team that really challenges you
offensively with what Diego Pavia does certainly a quarterback, with

(17:53):
the running back center Alexander and MK Young do in
the backfield, what Els Towers does at the tight end,
what Trey Richardson and Junior's share Gland Richie Hoskins can
do as receivers. Offensive line that plays really good and
tight together, and coming up in the four o'clock hour,
we'll hear Sark talk about the differences between this offensive

(18:16):
line and the old line that they just got through
facing at Mississippi State, because they're vastly different. We'll hear
about that. But the long Worn defense has been really
outstanding of late, and chief among those guys are the
linebackers Anthony Hill, Leonga Lafoul Trade more Ty Anthony Smith.

(18:37):
Those guys have made a major difference for Texas. And
Johnny Nansen is the guy who handles the linebackers for taxes,
and that's his.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Role as co defensive coordinator.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
So, as I mentioned last night a Long Worn Weekly,
we got a chance to visit with coach Nansen, found
out a little more about him. He's from southern California.
The guy was a quarterback at Long Beach Polly. He
was playing high school football around the same time Sark
was in southern California.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
And then he went on and was.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
An assistant coach at Idaho. When they cross paths and
met at a camp you might say, or a coaches
retreat type thing that Pete Carroll hosted when he was
the head coach at USC and Sarks said, you know,
people see Pete Carroll as the guy who choose gum

(19:37):
and he laughs and all the other kind of ride
rode on, and they said he was hard on coaches.
He would grind on coaches, and really being in that camp,
he would grind on coaches to try to help them
be better. And he noticed that, and Sart noted took
note of Johnny Nansen because he did any anything that
was asked of him. And when Sark got the job

(19:59):
at Washington, he had Nansen at first coaching special teams,
then he had him coaching lineback. I mean running backs
before he even got on the defensive side. But they
knew he was a defensive guy. Even though he played
quarterback in high school. He switched to defense by the
time he got in college. So that was all part
and parcel of the first segment. And again, if you're

(20:21):
listening tonight at seven o'clock, or if you hear it
you know on you know, by going to our website
on the podcast page, you'll hear that segment. But this
is inspecific about what this group of Texas linebackers is doing,
where they've progressed, how far they've come, and where they are. Again,
this is from Long Warm Weekly last night with coach

(20:43):
sark and our special guest co defensive coordinator linebackers coach
Johnny Nansen. Our special guest at Johnny Nansen, co defensive coordinator,
works with the linebackers. We've been hearing this the last
couple of weeks and Sarkada talked about this the cornerstone
of your linebacking corps. Anthony Hill has really been campaigning
sark about wanting to be on the offensive side, you

(21:05):
know as well.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
But he's got that kind of athletic ability he really does.

Speaker 7 (21:09):
I mean the pick against Kentucky, I think was indicative
right of his athleticism and playmaking ability. And I told him,
I said, if he would have just scooped and scored
that fumble against Kentucky, I would have I would have
given him a playoff offense. So until he gets he's
got to get in the end zone, all right, and
then then we can start talking about, you know, what
he can do offensively.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
But he's a pretty special.

Speaker 5 (21:29):
Guy for you, no doubt.

Speaker 8 (21:30):
Man, he's a special player. You know, he could do
it all. Very talented, Uh to think about people don't
know about. He's a great kid.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
Man.

Speaker 8 (21:39):
He's always willing. He's in the building right now watching film.
That's the type of kid he is.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
You know.

Speaker 5 (21:45):
He'll text me, coach, I saw this in a video game.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
You know.

Speaker 8 (21:48):
I saw this defense, and I think it's very similar
to what we do. I'm like, man, take a break.
But that's the type of kid he is. He loved ball.
He's just a ball, you know, ball. He understands what
it takes. He takes care of his body. He's that
he's a pro.

Speaker 9 (22:04):
You know.

Speaker 5 (22:05):
When it's all said and done.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
I get the feeling you've got several guys like that
out of your group. I remember Sarclas year talking about
Leonge Lafoul and what a committed person he is to
the process.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
Yeah, I'm very lucky and blessed to have these guys.

Speaker 10 (22:20):
Man.

Speaker 8 (22:20):
I love my room. I love these kids. They're very close.
They care for one another. They're like the big brothers
a tie and bow, you know. And when you have
a room like that, it makes it so much fun
every single day that I come to work, because they're
wanting to learn, you know, and they're always looking for
the wise.

Speaker 5 (22:38):
Why are we doing this?

Speaker 8 (22:39):
When you have those type of kids, man, it's like
it's very special, you know what I mean. And that's
the reason why they play so well. When you look
at all of them, I trust every one of them.

Speaker 11 (22:49):
You know.

Speaker 8 (22:49):
They're student of the game, and any of them could
finish the game. You look at Tie tight end up
finishing the game fourth for US Saturday and played the
big role in that those last four series.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
So and that's credit to them, you know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (23:03):
They take the time when I'm not in the room,
dur and there watching film by himself, and that says
a lot about the character of those kids and their
high character to come from great families, and I'm just
lucky to be part of it.

Speaker 7 (23:17):
Yeah, I think one thing about I was been talking
to Craigier about this as the season has gone on.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
You really have four starters, yeah, for two positions.

Speaker 7 (23:25):
You know when you talk about Leonga, Anthony and then
Trey and Ty Anthony, any one of those four guys
are on the field, there's never any like panic on
our part.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Now.

Speaker 7 (23:35):
It's hard to take Anthony Hill off the field, don't
get us wrong, great like like you know, the playmaking ability,
the leadership, all those things that he provides. But when
Trey Moore is in there, he plays great. Now, Trey
obviously gets to offset and NASCAR and rush the passer
and do those things. Leonga the versatility, Ty Anthony the versatility.
But those guys are all committed to it. And that's
a credit to the defense, right, especially in that defensive front.

(24:00):
Some new faces right that interior defensive line. They needed
kind of that stability there. But it's a great room.
All different personalities, right, every one of them's different. Anthony
is a very silly, young, silly guy like he he
loves the joke He's loved, quick to take a shot
at you, like make a joke about you. Leonga is
like perfect, like in a box, like man, you left

(24:21):
your bottle coach, you know. Like it's just Trey's very
focused to himself, you know, and to Anthony was was
very green, but he's grown.

Speaker 6 (24:29):
Up like before our eyes.

Speaker 7 (24:30):
And now just I was thinking about bo Barnes here,
how much he's matured from the time he got here
to where he is today. And that's a byproduct of
those other four guys in that room.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Wow, And they all in addition to the personality makeup,
they do bring some slightly different gifts to the party.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
To you when you have him on the field.

Speaker 5 (24:50):
Right, Oh, there's no doubt. There's no doubt. Like Trey.

Speaker 8 (24:52):
You think about Trey, he plays NASCAR, he's playing nickels,
he's playing bass, you know. And then you look at
Aunt were using him multiple things, things that we do
upfront and the back end.

Speaker 5 (25:02):
And then you know, you talk about Tye.

Speaker 8 (25:05):
Tye, you know, he could play bass, he could play
nickel and he could be in that he's in NASCAR.
So when you think about the learning curve of these guys,
it's really damn special because man, you gotta know a lot,
you know what I mean, And they got adjust to
certain formations and motions and things like that, so you know,
and then long A Longa plays all of them, you

(25:26):
know what I mean, all two spots on nickel and
he could play all three in bass. It's funny because
every Saturday, coach will have a staff meeting and coach
will go down how we're gonna utilize our guys and
who's in certain situations things like that. There's a couple
of times I'm like, coach, I use all of them.
Every one of them is on the field at one point,

(25:46):
so you know, and then you know a couple of
guys or you know, And that's says a lot about
like I said about the kids and the type of
kids that we bring in our program.

Speaker 5 (25:56):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (25:57):
They're really football there football I Q pretty high and
uh and they're willing to learn, you know what I mean.
It's it's big time and.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
And it makes it even more rewarding for you as
a coach knowing that they're kind of sponges about it
and want to get better in their like we say,
committed to the process.

Speaker 5 (26:13):
No doubt, no doubt.

Speaker 8 (26:14):
And every day they're they're asking questions, Hey, coach, what
do I need to do to get better? And you
know the one thing about it is, you know, like
Sunday after the last game, I bring all of them
in and I always talk about, man, we got these
four games, what do you need to get better?

Speaker 5 (26:30):
And this is what I think I need you to
do to get better in order for us to move forward.

Speaker 8 (26:35):
And I think when they have a clear vision of
what they need to work on, I think, you know,
it makes them, you know, even want to work a
little bit harder to get better at certain areas in
their games.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
All Right, hey, it's great to see you. I appreciate
you coming by.

Speaker 5 (26:48):
Awesome. Man, love to be here, Man, love it. Thank you, coach.

Speaker 7 (26:51):
This guy's probably going back to draw some some some
run fits.

Speaker 5 (26:55):
Yeah, we got to stop the run, coach, We got
stopped to run this week.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
A lot of fun last night Visiting World aired last night.
We record the program on Wednesday evening. He's a lot
of fun visiting with Johnny Nansen.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
There he is the guy. And here is another fun
fact about Johnny Nansen.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
If you watch the program, because it also is recorded
by Ute Student Productions there, so it's recorded by them.
Simple water here if you watch the and it'll air
I think tonight, like at nine o'clock. I believe it's
on kpv O and then it'll be on tomorrow morning

(27:35):
on KPVO prior to their Long Worn Game Day show,
which will be at ten o'clock. So it'll probably be
on at nine o'clock. But if you watch it, or
if you watch it at long Worn network dot com,
if you watch online, will we begin the first segment
with Nansen coach Nansen. It's the second segment of the program.

(28:00):
And when we begin that it, uh, he's not on
set at first. We're just talking and we get to
talking about him and started his talking about and then
all of a sudden he walks on the set and
you're sorry, go come on, Johnny, come on in here.
So it comes on normally. Obviously you started. Everybody seated
on the set. He was in the room and they

(28:21):
and where we record is not that far when we're
the coach's meeting rooms are and all that other kind
of stuff.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
So he was in he was in a room and
he's grinding away and grinding away.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
With his with the defensive staff and they're talking to
me and I'm scheming up you know, Vanderbilt and all
this other kind of stuff, and then it's like, oh,
got to go, and he hops up and he realizes
he's wearing flip flops. Johnny Nansen Normally, according to Coach Sark,
here's your fun fact. Coach Akeena and Coach Nansen are

(28:52):
in flip flops most of the time during the day
in the office, not when they're on the practice field,
but when during the day. So Coach Nansen and he
would have been five being in flip flops, but he
wanted to be presentable in shoes, so it took him
a couple of minutes to put on socks and shoes,
and that's why the segment started. Now, but we got
him in there and we kidded about it there, you
know about him next time, you know, whatever he can

(29:13):
he can get. I said, you can go back and
wear the flip flops now. So he's good. He's good,
and he's that kind of that kind of fun personality.
There will be nothing fun about having the deal with
Diego Pavia and Cedric Alexander and MK Young and the
rest of that offense. But that's what they've been working
hard and grinding hard on to try to get ready

(29:34):
for this matchup tomorrow morning eleven am. And again a reminder,
our coverage begins at seven o'clock tomorrow morning, the Third
and long Horn Podcast.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Guys, they do a great job.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
They'll have their breakdown of it their pregame at eight
am on Bevo Boulevard. At eight am on Bevo Boulevard
is when Long Horn's Game Day starts with Cameron Parker,
Mike hardboll Harge, and Mark Henry from the wind Chip Circle.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Look, come hang out.

Speaker 5 (30:06):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
The engineer on site is none other than Jay Carmon. Now,
Now what time you gotta be down there to set up?

Speaker 4 (30:12):
I'm gonna be there right before six point thirty in
the morning, Okay, all right, brightly, I will be awake
very soon. Okay, the alarm already feels like it's coming up.
But it's gonna be a great time on. The key
is getting out there and getting set up. Once you're
set up, the fund begets yeah, no doubt about it,
all right. So anyway, that'll be uh tomorrow morning.

Speaker 5 (30:33):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
And then of course Network pre game at ten am
and the kickoff at eleven.

Speaker 11 (30:38):
He's a Texas legend, a Hall of Fame broadcast, the
voice of the Texas Longhorns, and your host of The
Craig Way Show. Here he is now Craig.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Way second hour of the program here on sports Radio

(31:16):
AM thirteen hundred The Zone. Hope your Halloween afternoon is
going all right? Craig Way alongside the producer Jay Carmon.
I think I ask you this question back some time
ago when we were doing the run up Talloween, but
I could remember the answer.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Your favorite Halloween candy is?

Speaker 3 (31:36):
I think I'm a crunch guy at heart, crunch or twigs.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Does that mean you also like the Hershey crackle bar,
which was just like Nesli's crunch hic.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
It was red with white letter and spelled k r
A c k e L.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
I think I've heard of that, but I can't say
it's been in heavy rotation.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
If you were to buy like the Hershey miniatures, you know,
the little bitty ones, a little bitty Hershey chocolate, you
wouldn't eat the Mister Goodbar, which is my favorite, but
but they in the special dark I really like that one,
the mildly sweet chocolate that one. They also have miniatures
in there for crackle, which is the same thing as
a Nsley crunch. It's the milk chocolate with the crisp rice's.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:18):
I mean I, as you know, with my luckily, Halloween
candy comes wrapped pretty you know, pretty well, right, because
I would, you know, with allergies, Halloween was kind of complicated,
but I would take the candies if they you know,
if they had nuts, and you know, I'd give some
away to friends, maybe trade a few, but then we
would we would take the allergy in candy and we

(32:39):
donated to I think the folks at Walter reed.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Oh gice. Nice of you to do that, since you
couldn't obviously assume it.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Yeah, it's like it's not that nice. I wasn't able
to eat it.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
The problem that we have is like we'll get all
these really good Halloween candies and we have to resist,
and by we, I mean mainly me to a lesser
extent my wife, but but mainly me and my son Jason.
We have to kind of resist the temptation to eat
them ourselves before the trigger treaters even arrive, or as
they are arriving, you know, pass went out, eat one

(33:10):
pass went out, and try not to do that. So
we should have a full bowl of candy for those
trigger treaters who arrived at on our doorstep this evening.

Speaker 4 (33:19):
So you won't have the lights off and do not disturb.
Forget the World Series going on. Well, I won't be there,
so some folks might in Los Angeles or elsewhere might
be like, hey, stop knocking, We've got baseball to watch.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, some might do that.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Coming up in a few minutes, Gene Watson will be
with us to preview Game six of the World Series.
I want to go back to a couple of football
notes here. So the story that we talked about yesterday
where the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, told reporters that
the athletic director Scott would would would not be involved

(33:57):
in hiring the replacement for fired coach Brian Kelly, saying
he'd rather let President Donald Trump do it. He said,
he said stuff like there's you know, there's a pattern
because Woodward had hired Jimbo Fisher when he was at

(34:17):
A and M and Texas A and M is paying
out the seventy five million there and LSU's gonna have
to pay out fifty three or fifty four million dollars
in paying off Brian Kelly. So he said he's not
going to be involved with this. Well, he took it
a step further and he fired Scott Woodward last night.

(34:40):
And we mentioned it inconceivable that Kim Malke, the women's
basketball coach, was so distraught over that that she didn't
show up for the postgame news conference after their exhibition
basketball victory over Langston. But even though the athletic director,
the now former athletic director, Scott Woodward, was not going
to be involved with the high, the interim athletic director,

(35:03):
Verge Ausbury will be involved in the higher and in fact,
Verge good old Verge Verge Ousbury, what a name. We'll
have full authority to hire the next football coach, and
he told reporters this morning that a search committee has
already been formed to identify Brian Kelly's replacement. Osbury is

(35:25):
a former LSU linebacker and he'd been connected to the
university for more than thirty years. Now leading the athletics department,
he said, we're going to hire the best football coach
there is.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Well, they all say that that's right. That's our job.
We're not going to let this program fail.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
LSU has been in has to be in the playoffs
every year in football, there's twelve teams that make it.
It's going to expand here. We have to be one
of those teams at LSU. No substitute.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
LSU is not broken. That's right, quite the quote.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
So anyway, some have suggested that the political controversy surrounding
the LSU athletics department shake up because they don't have
a full time president right now too, They have an
interim president, and it might scare away some potential candidates,
but Osbury said he's pretty confident that they will find
the right coach. He said, we're LSU. This place is

(36:22):
not broken. The athletic department is not broken.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
We win.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
He was the executive deputy athletic director under Scott Woodward.
He's a member of the search committee, along with LSU
Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott Ballard and other board members
and donors. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to select
the next LSU president on Tuesday, but Balladt told reporters

(36:48):
that wouldn't affect the search for a new football coach McNee,
State president Wayne Rouse or Russy, University of Alabama provos
James Dalton, former Union of Arizona president Robert Robbins are
finalists for the position, and Ballard said, we're not slowing
down for that.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
Verge is going to move forward and knows what he
needs to do.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
But depending on how that works out and when the
new president starts, a new president will absolutely have input
and hopefully hit the ground running.

Speaker 5 (37:17):
So there it is.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
It was a ten year, ninety five million dollar contract
that Kelly had and that Woodward agree to that, and
so the Governor Landry criticized him for that, and that
included incentives and it left LSU on the hook for
a fifty four million dollar buyout in their terms.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Of that deal.

Speaker 5 (37:36):
So there you go. All right.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Uh So they'll they'll figure it out. They'll they'll get
a good football coach. And I think most everybody feels
that target number one is going to be Lane Kiffin,
which is kind of a weird and awkward and uncomfortable
deal because it's within the conference and Kiffin is that
old miss and by the way, Florida is going to

(37:59):
be interested in him. And by the way, Arkansas is
going to be interested in him, but most seem to
think that he might have the best shot. Although isn't
it always the case that the Nick Saban rumors already started.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Saw a thing last night on social media.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
It's all right, they've already reached out, you know, talking
about a two hundred million dollars deal.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Okay, Yeah, so that's not happening.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, we'll see if it works.

Speaker 4 (38:23):
Could they Could they pluck somebody from the NFL ranks?
I mean, I'm just trying to go through and think.
I know, Joe Brady is a hot name. I think
he needs to be an NFL.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Coach, right exactly.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
I mean, he's got the LSU ties obviously, but but
he would probably be the only one that I would
think of that would be that, because once NFL guys
are in there, they want to stay there if they can.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
All right.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Up next to the World Series a preview of tonight's
Game six, we visit with Gene Watson, our MLB insider.
He'll join us next when we continue on this Halloween
Friday afternoon on Sports Radio AM thirteen under the zone
of the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 5 (39:04):
Checking a third come to.

Speaker 6 (39:07):
Study time, He old Sarah's masterpiece.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
I'm trying tell you all Sunday.

Speaker 11 (39:14):
Yes, welcome back to the Craig Way Show and the
voice of the Longhorns Craig follow Craig on social media
at porn Boys.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Well that was how Game five ended of the World
Series on Wednesday night, with the Toronto Blue Jays winning
dominant fashion six to one to take Game five, and
they now go up three games to do. They are
one win away from winning the World Series. So we
told Gene Watson we would bug him again on his

(39:49):
cruise our MLB Insider, and so we've done that to
try to get an updated thought on all of this.
As he joins us from the deck of the ship today, Hey,
great of his way once more. I'm indebted to you
for taking the time, and blessings to Melanie for allowing
you to actually do some work when you're when you're

(40:09):
on vacation.

Speaker 9 (40:10):
Right, Well, I think she would tell you she'd rather
be out of the cabin than in the cabin with her.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
So this is a this is a nice break. That
cabin is getting a little small after six days. Okay,
all right, all right, we had the highlight.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
It was a double play to end the thing, but
the theme obviously was around what Trey is Savage, the
outstanding rookie, did in in game number five, And toward
that end, Jeff Passing, our mutual friend, wrote a really
good piece on on ESPN dot com today about and
the title of it is twenty twenty five World Series

(40:44):
How the splitter became October's top pitch. Obviously, Ooshinoba Yamamoto
will be throwing it a lot tonight. Kevin Gosman as well.
Can can you describe a little bit about why the
splitter has become such a fun nomenon for pitchers who
are really really good, who can mast rich and it

(41:04):
just makes them incredibly difficult to beat?

Speaker 9 (41:09):
Well, first of all, what makes Trey you sevenches splitter? So,
so you know such a weapon is his high slot,
the way he comes out of the glove and the
arm angle and the way it works. And when you
have a game right now, that's that's such a north
south pitching range, and everybody's top railing the fastball with

(41:30):
with high.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Velocity ninety five to one hundred on most nights.

Speaker 9 (41:33):
So when you when you combine the fact that it's
a north south pitching zone right now top to bottom.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
The velocity is higher than it ever been.

Speaker 9 (41:42):
And then you come in with a young guy who
has absolutely zero fear that the league doesn't know very
well at all. With a high slot like that, it
makes that split finger just a devastating weapon, and it's
certainly working for this young man.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
And one the other thing that that our friend jet
Passid wrote was the rise of the splitter over the
past half a decade, fueled by the emergence of elite
pitching from Japan, where the offering is a standard part
of nearly every pitcher's arsenal. Not only is Yamamota throat obviously,
shoe Aotani throws it as well, it says, and the

(42:16):
softening on its hues by MLB teams that at one
point had forbid the pitch fearful that it led directly
to elbow injuries has transferred in baseball even more than
the cutter and the sweeper once did, because it's a
superior pitch to all of them. Clayton Kershaw said, if
you can throw it near the strike zone, it's the
best pitch in the game, is it? Because of the

(42:40):
late movement on the pitch at the velocity that it's thrown.

Speaker 9 (42:44):
Yeah, again, it's the variable from the fastball. But you know,
Roger Craig was the inventor of the split finger. Many
people remember Roger Craig, the manager of the Giants. He
invented a split finger. And it's just it's another pitch
that works off your fastball and is a different look,
more of a time to bottom fade than a change up.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
But you know, you made a point.

Speaker 9 (43:04):
And and it's something that that I don't think we
do enough of is examining how Japanese pictures train the
way their bodies move, the durability. I mean, in a
in a game where everybody is talking about, you know,
no three times through the order. Look at what Yamamoto
has done. And I truly believe it's a mindset. And

(43:25):
and if you allow your organization to be paralyzed too much, uh,
from from a mental standpoint of, you know, training your
pictures to only go to two times in the order,
that that expectation to get through ninety and he's a
game is never going to happen. And and I think
that's a big difference between the mindset of Japanese pictures, uh.
And when they come over to the United States, they're

(43:47):
just their bodies move differently, they're built differently, and I
think you're seeing that in Y'ama Mota's performances right now.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Very very interesting.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Okay, So Gosmand, the guy will who will oppose him tonight,
his quote was, it's kind of one of the few
pitches I thoroughly believe a hitter can know it's coming
and still get out.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
I've always felt like the change.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Up is the best pitch in the game because it
looks like a fastball, and anything that looks like a
fastball and isn't is really good. So I think that's
why you're seeing a lot more guys do it. I'm
happy to see a lot more starters do it because
it's always kind of more of a reliever pitch, So
to me, it's exciting to see guys like Yamamoto throw
it a lot. That's what Gosman said, And he's got
to go up there and really and truly, as you know,

(44:28):
because you know the relevant history of it, Like you said,
Roger Craig, who was a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers
and then the Los Angeles Dodgers and then the New
York Mets there in the early sixties before he became
such a pitching coach savant and then later a manager.
It's the splitter, they say, is the evolutionary descendant of
the fork ball, which dates back to the nineteen teens.

(44:50):
With that kind of thing, I mean, but that's all ongoing.
When you're like in Arizona or at spring training or
any of that. There's always tinkering with these pitches. And
whether it's the sweeper, the slider, the splitter, whatever it is,
there's always somebody trying to build the better mouse trap
when it comes to pitching, isn't it, Gino, No.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Question about it.

Speaker 9 (45:10):
And I think what what you're looking at is hitters
when they get to the plate hitting principal number one,
look fastball. And so when you combine that mindset of
you know, I'm going to go to the plate and
I'm going to look fastball because the velocites are so
high now you have to. And the pitchers do such

(45:30):
a great job of repeating their deliveries and not getting
any variance to the fastball arm speed to the to
the slider arm speed to the split or change arm speed.
It's just incredibly difficult for these hitters to sit back
and wait. And so I said, coming into the series,
I thought it was going to be a heavy split series,

(45:50):
and we're certainly seeing that that's the case right now.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
You know, here's one more take on it, and then
I'm going to jump into the matchup itself. Mark Pryor,
the Dodgers pitching coach, you know very very well and
a guy who was a great pitcher himself with the Cubs.
He said, the lack of splitter's throne in the two
thousands led to a knowledge gap because you think about it,
he said, you know, Bruce Souter learned the splitter in

(46:15):
nineteen seventy three. He winds up going to the Hall
of Fame. Mike Scott want to cy young with it.
Roger Clemens, Kurt Schilling, John Smoltz all pitched into their
forties thanks to it, said, but by the time their
careers ended in the two thousands, the splitter was made
into a scapegoat for failing elbow ligaments across the game.
Some had the gumption to keep throwing it. Most were

(46:35):
discouraged turning split into a four letter word, but Mark
Pryor said, I don't think a lot of people knew
how to teach it.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
If you were around the guy who threw it, maybe
you can mess with it.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
If you weren't, I don't even remember anybody I was
with who threw splits, So it was something you didn't
even mess around with it. You were a pitcher, your
son was a pitcher. What was the mindset like back
in the day about with regard to that pitch.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Well, again, I think he's right.

Speaker 9 (47:01):
I think it has been a scapego for injuries because
we have more information than ever about the way the
body works down the mound, and if you're very efficient
with the way that your body works, and you have
the hand size, because that's a big part of this
is having the finger linked and the hand size to
throw this pitch. If your body's working efficiently and you're

(47:22):
working down the rubbery efficiently and you have the hand
size to work on top of the baseball, there should
be no stress to throwing the pitch. But I you know,
we're an industry of fads and copycats, and I think
that you're going to see a lot, especially the college
arms coming out of the draft that haven't had this pitch,

(47:42):
look for it to kind of take over the game,
just like the sweeper did a few years ago, which
to me, most sweepers are just sliders.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
They just renamed it.

Speaker 9 (47:51):
I're gonna see a lot of people, especially the college arms,
come out and try to figure out how to make
the split finger part of their usage.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Baseball with Geen Watson or MLB insider from the Chicago
White Sox front office here on thirteen hundred and sad.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
All right, let's get back to the World Series.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
And this is just me, not just as a Dodger
of him, but as a guy who's just watching the
World Series.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
This is my take on it.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Short of a no hitter, Yoshi Nobo Yamamoto can pitch
another great game that I and it will not matter
if the Dodgers don't hit, And that to me has
been more of the key than the Dodger pitchers in
the bullpen becoming the Dodger bullpen again the other night
that they haven't hit. Mookie Betts is struggling gigantically. Freddie

(48:39):
Freeman had the walk off homer in the eighteenth or
other than that, he hasn't been totally on on the skip.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
You know, they've had several guys.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Will Smith Max Munsey, who are hitters, really good hitters,
and they're not hitting right now, and I don't think
they can win one nothing game or a two one game.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
What's your take on why.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
The Dodgers, other than the splitter and and you Savage,
why they haven't been hitting really throughout the course of
this whole World Series other other than Game two.

Speaker 5 (49:11):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
It has just been shocking to me.

Speaker 9 (49:13):
I mean, you know, Freddie Fraeman, the Oscar been okay,
but you know, Will Smith hitting two thirty eight, Max
Munsey's three for twenty, Kiki Hernandez has a two hundred
on base percentage, Edmunds three for twenty one. They're just
not hitting as a group. Rookie Betts is three for
twenty three. He has no extra base hits, and so
that that's a big part. And I think some of

(49:35):
that can be you know, you know Trey Yesovich is
there's not a lot of history and track record. There's
not guys in the Dodgers doug out that have seen
this guy. And you go up to the plane and
it's just a mystery to you. And and the way
he attacks hitters has been a big part of the
series and I think the split singer has been a
big part of it. But I really, you know, and

(49:56):
I've said it from the word go, I thought the
Dodgers would win this series and six games. It's obviously
going to take seven now that happens. But I just
don't think it's time to panic. I think that there's
gonna be some some ways in the way. Yama Moto's
gotta be good. They don't want to have to go
to to Blake Snell out of the bullpen. They'll certainly

(50:16):
potentially go to Otani if they have to, if there's
a pocket of left handers that they feel like he
can can attack. But yama Moto going deep into Game
six and when he gets into trouble, Roki Susaki coming
out and being able to use leverage, that's what's gonna
get these guys to Game seven if possible.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Yeah, the Dodgers are hitting two fourteen as a team
since the Wildcard round, after they swept Cincinnati, and they
swung the bats pretty well against the Reds, but against
even the Phillies and then the Brewers. I really started
to notice it against the Brewers, and then in this
World Series, they you know, they They've only scored three
or more runs in just three of their one hundred

(50:56):
and twenty three half innings.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
And so those are the things that come by.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Now on the other side of this thing, g know,
to your point, which we're talking about, if they find
a way to get through game six, largely on the
arm of Yamamoto, what I'm hearing in game seven is
they probably would probably would start Tyler Glass. Now, however,

(51:22):
they say they wouldn't have necessarily any aversion to starting
show Aotani as an opener and then going because as
you know, and as you always say, like our friend
Keith Morland, does, everybody's got their spikes on if you
get into a game seven, right, Yeah, And that's where.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
I think that you just can't panic if you're the Dodgers,
I mean, you do.

Speaker 9 (51:42):
You need to come up with more creative ways to
get on base and you know, maybe put the game
in motion.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yes, does the bottom of the order. They just can't
have one or two guys carry the offense.

Speaker 9 (51:52):
The bottom of the order has got to give some
type of production, whether that's bunning to get on base
or hitting and running. Putting the game in motion. They
got to to be creative in the ways that they're
they're scoring runs. But from a pitching standpoint, I still
find it feel like they're in good shape. If you
go Yamamoto, if you go Susaki, if you go Otani, uh,
then you got glass. Now Snell would come out of

(52:14):
the bullpen. I mean, those five guys. If you said
I need these five guys to win eighteen innings of.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Baseball, you would you would take it to the house
with that.

Speaker 9 (52:24):
And so I just don't think from a pitching standpoint,
you can panic right now. But they gotta They got
to figure out the way the bottom that order is
going to help out and be more productive than they
have been.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Hey, it's not out of the real possibility. We see
Kershaw again right out of the bullpen.

Speaker 9 (52:39):
If there's a pocket of left handers, and I think,
I think it's Yamamoto, I think it's Susaki. I think
I think there's a possibility you you could see o Tani,
you know, potentially in the outfield at some point for
an inning if if they have it, I think that
that's the thing that Dave Roberts has to be opened
to right now is navigating links with their impact starters

(53:01):
and then finding pockets for like Kershaw to come in
and leverage Otani to come in and leverage and get
through these eighteen innings and try to get out of
Toronto with the two wins.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
All right, final thing here, do the Dodgers do what
the Blue Jays largely did with Otani earlier in the series.
When it comes to vlad Junior? Are they gonna are
they gonna start walking Vladimir Guerrero?

Speaker 2 (53:23):
I think you have to that this guy is just unbelievable.

Speaker 9 (53:26):
And I'll never forget the first he was in our
complex and in the Dominican Republican when he was fourteen
years old. And I mean, it's just an incredible talent,
incredible mindset. And isn't it funny how that team took
off when they locked him up to the five hundred
million dollar contract, and just the ease and the tension
that it took away from that clubhouse, you know, and

(53:48):
and Boba Schett. You know, he could end up playing
big for the Blue Jays in some ways, even though
he hasn't been healthy. Springer in some ways, even though
he hasn't been healthy. So it's gonna be a great
two games, I know, it sounds crazy. I think it
goes seven games. I think that the Dodgers still have
a very good chance of winning this interesting.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Okay, I hope you're right, my friend. You know I'm hoping.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Anyway, Hey, listen, enjoy the rest of the cruise and
we'll do it. We'll do as we always do. We'll
do a World Series recap of the wrap up of
the season next week. If that works for you, Greig,
thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Talk to you guys soon.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
That is Gene Watson, our m LB insider from the
Chicago White Sox. For an office we'll hear from Shawn Milton. Well,

(55:09):
this was right in the wheelhouse and when I was
in college Michael Jackson's Thriller, What an album it was,
and uh, every Halloween themed party and for a long
time after it was every party I was at and
then college.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
It was a big party guy.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
But when I was this was sure to play either
on a turntable or on a cassette or something back
in the day.

Speaker 5 (55:32):
Uh there. Uh.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
It also makes me think of the time when my
daughters were on the dance teams, uh at middle school
at Henry Middle School there in Cedar Park and the
Black Diamonds dance team at Henry Middle School annually did
the routine and the whole the thriller thing, the dance
number thing, and and it got to where they asked

(55:56):
me to do the PA for it, and.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
I couldn't do vincents last you could.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
But this is making my Halloween. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yeah, Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
We heard yesterday some comments from Sean Miller, the Texas
men's basketball coach, because Long Worns open the season on
Tuesday evening in Charlotte against the Duke Blue Devils. Here's
a couple other thoughts from coach Miller and getting his
team ready to go. One of them, it's kind of
a general catch all visionary question. It's about how much

(56:32):
of this early season with them opening with Duke and
then what are called by games, buy by games, the
ones where teams come in for a check, give your
team a chance to grow a little bit, and then
they have some other more difficult non conference games on
down the road. But how much of this early season

(56:54):
is experimenting as opposed to implementing your vision for what
you see this team becoming.

Speaker 12 (57:01):
Here here's what I would tell you, I think you
have to start off with like your standards and how
we're going to do it right, because that's that's what's
kind of gotten us all here. Like these are the beliefs,
these are the non negotiables. This is how we practice,
what we build, the things that we know work. But
what you find is, in your best attempt to have

(57:23):
everything perfect on day one, you just don't because it's
such an imperfect situation when you have this many new
players coming in together and the new coaching staff, so
you know, we have a lot of unfamiliarity. So what
you find is each day, each week, especially each week,

(57:43):
you learn a little bit more, some of which is
that's not going to work.

Speaker 6 (57:50):
And then you pivot and you you.

Speaker 12 (57:52):
Automatically go to what you now have realized is your
better course. Uh So you have to have some flex flexibility.
I think you really have to adapt. Even like let's
use Kenda Weaver as the example I coached against them.
We watched him, we've been around him for four or
five months, But when you're around him every day for

(58:13):
like three four five straight weeks, you learn that he
does certain things maybe better than you thought he could do,
and then there are certain things like that that doesn't
work as well. Combination of players. You know, having these
two guys in the game I thought would be good,
they're too small. It's better when they're not in together
as much. So we're learning to adapt and evolve. And

(58:36):
I think that goes back to it's going to be
difficult to judge us early on, because I do think
some of our adapting and evolving will also happen once
we play real games in front of a crowd and
we learn, you know, different styles that we play against,
what works, what doesn't, And I don't want to use
the word experiment, but I think we'll learn and will

(58:57):
grow a lot in the month of November and even
part of the December, and then eventually we're going to
have the answers to the test. We just have to
at that point get it right and be the best
we can be. But you're right. I'd love to say
we got it right right now and this is how
we're going to do it, but that is definitely not
the case.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
He was also asked because coach Miller's been around a while,
knows John Shire very well, look the coach at Duke,
what will his emotions be like as he takes the
helm of the Texas basketball program on the floor for
the first time.

Speaker 12 (59:30):
Well, the emotion of wearing the logo, I think is
you know what I've said since I've been here. You know,
I'm beyond grateful to be the head coach at the
University of Texas. I know that this is a high
expectation environment. That really is what drew me to wanting
to be here. And this is a world class place,

(59:51):
and the University of Texas deserves a world class college
basketball program, and that's what we're in charge of. And
to have that, I think responsibility, you know, it comes
with a lot of hard work, It comes with you know,
I think a lot of highs, and by the way,
there's going to be some lows.

Speaker 6 (01:00:11):
But I'm just super excited and honored to be here.

Speaker 5 (01:00:15):
You know.

Speaker 12 (01:00:15):
The duke part, I have to remind myself that this
is the starting line, not the finish line, right. I
think every player and every coach, you know, you get
excited about playing duke simply because they've deserved to be
on top of the mantle, right, Like they're the best
of the best. Forty years, we've all watched greatness in

(01:00:37):
their program, and Jonathan Shire has done nothing but continue it.
So when you're playing against the best, you know you
hope it brings out the best in you. There's also
a side of me that wakes up in the morning
and says, why in the world will we playing Duke?
There are a lot of other choices out there, but
we're going to take on the challenge. I do know this,

(01:00:59):
We will learn and a great deal about our team.
It's a great game to play when you think about
playing them away from home. Uh, it has great meaning
towards March, and there'll be no doubt that we get
on the plane after the game, regardless of how it went,
will be better because of it, because we'll have learned
true lessons on where we stand.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Recall of some of the injuries the long Wores have
had to endure, especially to the big guys like Madus
Bokatitis and Lasina Treori. Might we see a couple of
young freshmen out there, John Clark from the Houston area
and Declan Duru from Germany.

Speaker 12 (01:01:35):
You know that's certainly possible in both of their cases.
Let me let me address John Clark. John Clark is
one of the most coachable freshmen that I've had the
pleasure of coaching.

Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
You know, he basically looks you in the eye and
just tries to do what you ask of him.

Speaker 12 (01:01:53):
The one negative on John, and it's not towards him,
it's just his circumstances, you know, as is in high school.
He missed the majority of his senior year with an injury.
And you know, and it just goes back to regardless
of what sport you guys cover or we coach, you know,
it's never in the player's best interest to miss the
extended period of time, especially when they're young freshmen or

(01:02:16):
their senior in high school. So I think John missing
that time, you know, we were able to really this
spring and summer get his strength and conditioning moving in
a good way. I think he's learning and improving as
much as anybody. He made huge gains over the summer.
And I would just say this to you, his best
days are ahead of him, and I think that his

(01:02:38):
role this year. He's working and we're working together to
figure it out. But when you see him down the road,
you're going to see a.

Speaker 6 (01:02:45):
Really terrific player.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
And I really believe this.

Speaker 12 (01:02:49):
He can be a great player for us here at Texas,
there's going to be this developmental curve that he's he
has to get through. But because of his great attitude,
I'm very confident that he'll get through that part in
that phase.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
And finally, when long worn fans get ready to take
a look at this basketball team, what does he want
his team to show? What does he want to show
long worn fans to get them amped up about what
this team might be able to accomplish this season.

Speaker 12 (01:03:18):
I think what fans always respect is teams and players
that play with great effort. And the hard part about
me saying that is there's a lot of players and
teams that think that what they do.

Speaker 6 (01:03:39):
Signifies great effort. But there's levels to it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:44):
Just there is, right.

Speaker 12 (01:03:45):
Well, like, for example, when I ask each of our
players who works hard, I mean all thirteen hands go up.
Sometimes they may put two hands up, right, they think
they've never worked harder in their lives. Of course I
worked hard, but even within the group of our thirteen,
there are some who work harder than others. And I
think the same thing. It's fair to assess a team.

(01:04:07):
You know, when you think of Kelvin Sampson and Houston's
teams in recent years. I don't know if anybody would
ever dare say that they don't compete and play with
great effort. You know, it's a signature of their program.
Comparing them to others who think they play hard, there's
a difference the way they play harder.

Speaker 6 (01:04:27):
So we have to grow in that area.

Speaker 12 (01:04:31):
And like I said about everything here, time will allow
us to be better even in that area. But we
have to play with tremendous effort that if you're a
Texas fan, you're a basketball fan, that you learn to
really respect and appreciate the effort level and the togetherness.
But in particularly I think the energy and the competitive

(01:04:53):
spirit that we play with. That's what we can control.
That's what we're growing, and that's what we're building. And
I think once you have it, it's not easy to
lose it, even in our day where there's a lot
of change from one season to the next. I do
believe this, though it's not as easy to create it
as everybody thinks. So I think that number one on

(01:05:17):
our list is to play the game with great effort,
regardless of the score, winning losing. That you visibly see
that we're playing with tremendous heart and effort, and I've
yet to see a fan base that doesn't grow to
really love and appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
That the thoughts there of Sean Miller, the head coach
of Long Worn men's basketball. They'll practice during the course
of this weekend. They'll fly out on Monday to Charlotte.
The season opener is Tuesday night against the Duke Blue
Devils at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's

(01:05:53):
the Dick Vitow Classic, and you know that will be
the season opener for the Laws Dick Vitel Invitational. I
should say it's the Dick Vitale And some folks might
not know who the sponsor is on this deal just
by mentioning their name, but I know, and I think
you might know. It's the Dick Vitale Invitational presented by

(01:06:15):
Belk oh the clothing brand.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Yeah, Belk.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
If you're out here and you're not really familiar with Belk,
think Dillard's. It's kind of like Dillard's, that kind of thing.
That's what I grew up around in North CAROLINAUS Belk
started in North Carolina. But it's the Dick Vitale Invitational
presented by Belk and so that is seven o'clock airtime
Tuesday night at the tip off at seven forty five
Texas against Duke. We'll be back to wrap up hour

(01:06:39):
number two here on thirteen Under the Zone. Third and
final hour of the program here on the Halloween Friday
on Sports Radio AM thirteen Under the Zone Craig Way
joined by the producer Jay Kerman. Coming up with a

(01:07:00):
few minutes first of all, just around the corner, we're
gonna hear from Rian schotenheim Er, the Cowboys head coach.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
But coming up a few minutes after.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
That more from Sark where we do our breakdown of
the opponent, and it's kind of almost a preview of
what you hear in the pregame interview that we record
about an hour and forty five minutes prior to kick.
The difference is when we do the pregame interview on

(01:07:31):
the field, and this interview takes place, like I said,
we meet up just inside of two hours prior to kick,
and sometimes he has to do like a TV obligation,
a TV pregame interview. I think he has to do
one for ESPN Radio tomorrow with the in Fitzimmons, a

(01:07:52):
good deal and good dude. In fact, our good friend
and former employee of this building, John Madanny, is the
producer of that ESPN radio broadcast tomorrow, and they'll be
they'll be there, our good friend and former employee of
this building as well, Mike Partle.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
We'll be engineering on that. In fact, Mike is going
to be.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
We have an engineering situation with him this a week
from tomorrow, the home opener for men's basketball. Mike's going
to step in for Cameron Parker as our engineer for that.

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
I thought that was who I was going to go
see at stage brush, the engineering situation.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
The engineering situation New Ban, Yes, absolutely. But Sark and
I normally record the interview. Like I said, it's right
around an hour forty five to Kit, give her take
a few minutes. And for example, last week it was
closer about an hour and a half out that the
team was a little later arriving. And when Sark gets there,

(01:08:48):
the first thing he does, and if you're in the
stadium early, you've noticed this, he takes a lap around
the stadium. He doesn't jog it, he doesn't run it.
He's dressed to the nines. Obviously, he's very, very nicely
and some combination with burn orange in there. It might
be with white and a sport jacket. It might be
a black shirt or a black jacket or something like

(01:09:08):
that in dress pants. Looks very nice. And so do
the players when they come in. They all arrive and
suits various forms and then they go and then they
change into their game. They work close. That's what coach
Roy used to call them, their work clothes. But Sark
would take a walk around the field. He stops about

(01:09:29):
and he's talked about this on the air before he
stops about three quarters of the way around. I guess
you might say two hundred and seventy degrees something like that,
because he goes all the way down to the north end,
crosses the back of the end zone, comes back down
about the fifty yard line on his way back toward
the south end. So it stops and calls his parents.
Does it every week, every game day, without fail. And

(01:09:53):
stops and calls his fa. I think he does a
FaceTime with him on his phone and so, but he
gets in touch with his folks. Then he walks back through.
He greets like some special fans that might be there,
and then he'll do the interviews. If there's a TV interview,
he'll do that first, or say a national radio interview,

(01:10:16):
he'll do that and then and then we'll do ours,
and ours is the last one he'll do before he'll
go into the locker room. So it's about right around
between two hours and an hour forty five prior to kick.
But what I was started to say is the difference
between that interview and what you'll hear coming up in
a few minutes is the more immediacy of the situation

(01:10:38):
if somebody's injured and can't go, or if somebody got
cleared late on the student athlete availability report.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
And is able to go, so it's kind of an update.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Otherwise, a lot of it is what you'll hear in
the upcoming seven a breakdown of the opponent and also
talking about his team in our pregame interview. But there'll
be a lot about the breakdown of the opponent, and
that's coming up a few minutes. Brian Schottenneimer is the
Cowboys head coach and he's was addressing the media, talking
with the media about where the team is coming off

(01:11:10):
the loss to the Denver Broncos.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
And you knew this was this was gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Somebody was counting snaps and said Cede Lamb had fewer snaps.
It always makes me think of what Sark says, don't
count your snaps, make your snaps count, and he used
Ryan nibble At as an example of that. He used
Lance Jackson is an example of that. Guys who make
the most of the time on the field. Nevertheless, one
of the media was going to ask Brian shott Niember,
why a fewer snaps for CD last week.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong.

Speaker 13 (01:11:38):
I think, you know, again, he's you know, there's a
different personnel tags. We certainly don't have many to take
him out of the game, but there are a few
things that we will will put somebody else in to
do certain jobs. I won't tell you all the jobs
that those guys do, but yeah, I think it was
more of a deal. We knew it was going to
be a long game, playing you know, in Denver and
playing a good team, and I really don't think it
was anything you know, concerning Newly.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
No, he's feeling good, all right. So then it gets
to things about the defense.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Did you see the quote that Charles Barkley had on
TNT around the NBA the other night about the Cowboys.

Speaker 5 (01:12:11):
Did you see that?

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
Well, first of all, Craig, they're on ESPN, now, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
Well let's see the guys. You're right now, that's exactly right.
So around the NBA on ESPN the other night. Did
you see what he had to say about the Cowboys?

Speaker 11 (01:12:24):
No?

Speaker 5 (01:12:24):
No, what he says?

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
He said something like it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Was a throwoy line, but it was about the Cowboys
and about defense or something, and he said, you talked
about how bad they were Defensively, he goes, you don't
trade away your best defensive player then complain about your defense.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Why I didn't get done or something something to that effect.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Towards that, someone asked Schottenheimer, did he, as head coach
or his staff underestimate And I think it's silly the
way it was put like that, But it doesn't matter.
Did he underestimate what Michael Parsons did for the players
round him? Or did he or did he underestimate the

(01:13:04):
players he had going forward thinking they were okay to
go without Micah when they made the trade.

Speaker 13 (01:13:08):
You know, Mike is certainly a great player, and we
all know that. No one will ever point to the
fact that Mike is not a credible player. But you know,
defense is about more than just one guy. I mean,
like some of our defensive struggles have not been because
of one guy not doing the right thing. And it's
not been you know, one assignment that hasn't been one defense,

(01:13:31):
whether it's man's own, whatever it's been. You know what
team defense is about. I saw a crazy stat Miles Garrett.
Somebody said that five sacks last game and they lost.
I mean, like, you know, this is the ultimate team
game and defense, you know, And the more I spend
time over there, you realize I guess, as the offensive
guy just kind of always took it for granted because

(01:13:51):
we had our own issues.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
But like if you're not.

Speaker 13 (01:13:55):
Aligned perfectly in terms of your fits and things like that,
it makes it really really different.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Coton.

Speaker 13 (01:14:00):
So again, I all respect to Mike, what a great player,
but you know, team defense is what we need to
play better.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
Yeah, Okay, they're playing pretty good team defense in Green Bay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
Turned it around on the second advocates the Steelers last
week and got after Aaron Rodgers and ended up winning
the game. Last Sunday night, he was asked about his
defensive players. Have they just flat out not played to
their potential.

Speaker 13 (01:14:24):
No, I think you know we none of us have
done good enough, you know, I mean coaches, players, head coach,
none of us have done good enough.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
That's that's real.

Speaker 13 (01:14:31):
I mean our scorecard is what it is, you know,
and that's not just you know, defensively, that's offensively. You know,
we're a football team that's three four and one. You
can take the stats on offense. And as I concerned,
I mean, is what it is we want to win,
you know, and people talk about a MVP and this
and that. Dak Prescott doesn't want to win MVP, you know,

(01:14:52):
he wants to won a Super Bowl and that's what
we want to win.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
And we're not there yet.

Speaker 13 (01:14:55):
We've not played that consistently well enough to certainly be
in that discussion. But doesn't mean the journey stops. It
certainly doesn't stop. It just you get more focused, you
get more intentional, and uh, we got to do it together.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
I don't know what words were bleeped out there, but
I can probably.

Speaker 3 (01:15:09):
Guess it was something like Reggie Jackson.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I told Art Haynes, that's right.

Speaker 5 (01:15:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
Any time you hear an athlete or a coach or
anybody for that matter, say you can take your whatever
it might be, and and then the rest is bleaked out.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
You can probably figure out what it is. So we'll
just leave it at that, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Uh So they played the Arizona Cardinals on Monday night
and he was asked for his impressions.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
What really stands out to him about Arizona good football team? Uh,
you know they've you know, had you know, miss Kyler
for a few games.

Speaker 13 (01:15:45):
He's obviously a dynamic player, and you know there they
have been a little bit beat up, you know, like
a lot of teams in the league.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):
But I see a team that's that's that's that's hungry.

Speaker 13 (01:15:54):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
They play hard. They have lost some close games, I
know on defense.

Speaker 13 (01:15:58):
You know, they went out and they spent a bit
of money on adding guys like you know, Kalais Campbell
and good players like that Buddha Baker. Shoot, I mean
this guy, you know, he just doesn't get enough credit
for what a great football player he is. I saw
him in a game, literally in a game when I
was in Seattle, literally take out two of our running backs.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
I mean, he just he plays the game the right way,
and not.

Speaker 13 (01:16:19):
Enough people talk about what an elite player he is,
and uh, you know, they want to run the football,
they want to get the ball. Obviously to McBride, he's
a really good, good weapon. And you know, I just
think that they're like everybody. They're aggressive defensively, they're very multiple,
they do a lot. You know, Nick Rallis is a
is a is a really sharp defensive coordinator, puts his
guys in good positions, and they're good football team.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Don't let the record fool you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
He was also asked a if he was aware of
this and be if he bothered to mention this to
the team. Kyler Murray, the quarterback for the Cardinals, you know,
former Oklahoma Sooner as we.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
Know, was asked.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
He was asked if he knew or if he had
mentioned to the team that Kyler Murray was nine and
oh at at and t stadiu. And this goes all
the way back to the high school when he was
quarterback of the Allen Eagles.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
I think I should know this.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Since I called those state championship games forty three and
oh was his time. Now, that was in the real
salad days of the Allen Eagles when they won the
three consecutive state titles. He went forty three and oh
during that time. By the way, Allen's really good this year.
They're finally, really, really back in a serious contender this

(01:17:37):
year for the first time really since about that time.

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
It's been a few years. So Kyler Murray going back
to his time.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
As quarterback, they beat Texas in the Big twelve championship
game there in twenty eighteen, after Texas had beaten Ou
earlier in the year on the on the walk off
field goal, the dick or the kicker field goal, anyway
he was. He was asked if he mentioned Kyler Murray
being nine to zero at at and T Stadium dating

(01:18:09):
all the way back to his high school days with Allen.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
No, I don't think so.

Speaker 13 (01:18:12):
Hopefully it means he's due to lose one, Kyler, you know,
if you want to help, But no, I think you know,
obviously you can't speak about Kyler Murray without talking about
what incredible player he was at Allen and in high
school and you know, one of the maybe the greatest
high school quarterbacks of all time.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
He's in that discussion.

Speaker 13 (01:18:29):
But you know, I'm sure he'll be excited to come
back here and very comfortable playing here. But again, you know,
whether you play at at and T Stadium, you play
out in Arizona, you play in a neutral site, He's
still a damn good football player.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
They're a good football team, and we're gonna have to
play well. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
And then the final thing here for Shotty, and this
is the captain obvious question of the day. Look, if
you know anything about the Cowboys and the whole whatever
America's team theme at all that other kind of stuff
and how well they rate on television, you have you
must understand that all of the television networks are going

(01:19:11):
to want to showcase the Cowboys on their network. This
started all the way back in nineteen sixty six, and uh,
you know, the Lions would play. The Lions have been
played on Thanksgiving every year since nineteen thirty four. So
but it was always it was always an early in
the day game, and CBS went to Tech Shram, who

(01:19:37):
I think was the Cowboys president general manager and I
think was on the television committee as well.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
And I think Pete Roselle, who was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
His good friend, who was commissioner of the NFL nineteen
sixty six, is right in the circle of the merger
that's when it was fashioned.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
That's when it was done.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
And tech Shram and Lamar hunt To of Texans were
key figures in fashioning the merger. You can read on
that in history. How they met at the Texas Ranger
of the law enforcement at the Baseball Player, the Texas
Ranger Statue at love Field in Dallas in nineteen sixty six.

(01:20:16):
Clandestine meeting then went out in the car, I think,
and drew up a.

Speaker 5 (01:20:19):
Lot of the.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
Early line, look at how a merger would look between
the NFL and the AFL. So this was happening right
during all that time. And Pete Roselle asked tech Shram
if he was interested in having the Cowboys on in
a late afternoon game on Thanksgiving Day to give the
fans late afternoon law enforcement at the Baseball Player the

(01:20:42):
Texas Ranger Statue at love Field in Dallas in nineteen
sixty six.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Clandestine meeting then went out in the car, I think,
and drew up a lot of the.

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
Early line, look at how a merger would look between
the NFL and the AFL. So this was happening right
during all that time. And Pete Roselle asked tex Shram
if he was interested in having the Cowboys on in
a late afternoon game on Thanksgiving Day to give the
fans late afternoon, especially on the East Coast, something to watch.

(01:21:14):
And he said, yeah, we'll try it. And he played
the Cleveland Browns and he beat the Browns and it
was a ratings winner. And that was the breakout year
for the Cowboys. First time they got to the NFL
Champions Show Ja Simpson and then the NFC game was
Blans on CBS, and then like it happened, like seventy
five and seventy six or seventy five seventy seven. Anyway,

(01:21:36):
there was a couple of times they weren't on for
that and they haven't missed since because the networks understand
how important it doesn't have the.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
Cowboys on on Thanksgiving. But it's not just about Thanksgiving.
They're on on all other times.

Speaker 1 (01:21:49):
They're on Sunday nights, they've been on some other Thursday nights,
and now they're going to be on Monday night. And
so the captain obvious question of the day was do
the Cowboys get a quirkiar schedule time given their profile
this year?

Speaker 2 (01:22:02):
Certainly it is. I mean, you can't say it's not.

Speaker 13 (01:22:04):
I mean the multiple Thursday night games in this schedule,
But I don't think they're doing that to penalize us.
I think, you know, people love to love or hate
the Cowboys, and that's part of why we play, how
we play, where we play, and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
But again, it's it really doesn't matter.

Speaker 13 (01:22:21):
These guys would go and play anybody, anytime, anywhere. But
I can't say that it's not something that is definitely
noticeable when you look at the schedule and the Thursday
Thursdays and things like that are a little different.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
It might be for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
Ultimately they get a little time off of before and
after the Thanksgiving game as well. Oh by the way,
in case you didn't notice, you know who they play
on Thanksgiving?

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):
Jake my Washington Commanders.

Speaker 5 (01:22:49):
No, No, that was last year.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Didn't they play them last year? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
Yeah, this year would be the Kansas City Chiefs. So yeah,
don't have the chief something.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
Isn't there one really swinging a mint game on Thanksgiving?

Speaker 11 (01:23:01):
This year?

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
There's one game.

Speaker 4 (01:23:02):
There's one game that looked really good before the season
and now it's and now it's not, And of course
it's not showing me what I want it's usually.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
The night game. The night game.

Speaker 1 (01:23:14):
Uh, that's on either NFL Network or Prime. It's on
one of those.

Speaker 4 (01:23:20):
You know, when it's not bad Bengals Ravens. If you
get Flacco and Lamar are both healthy, that's not bad.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Okay, all right, which one is that on? What network is?

Speaker 4 (01:23:27):
That's the night game on NBC. Okay, So Hackers Lions
is up first.

Speaker 5 (01:23:34):
That's good.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
I think they've got a good lineup that there's any
weak point. It's the middle game. It's the Dallas kids,
a city game.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
Because I don't know if the Cowboys will be up
to stopping the Homes and the Chiefs.

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
There will be points.

Speaker 4 (01:23:46):
But yeah, we're seeing we're seeing the Chiefs Worthy Rice
both active. Everybody forgot how tough they are to stop
when both of those guys are healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
Absolutely, and when you have my Homes on your fantasy team,
you can do that. By the way, I'm playing my
son this weekend. He's Gottmar Jackson. So he's already out
to a twenty five to nothing lead on me.

Speaker 3 (01:24:02):
Yeah, that's not great.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
Because Lamar at a good game last night. I don't
know if the Ravens are quote unquote back maybe there
is one of the stories I saw mentioned dangerous again.
All right, up next, we'll hear from Loghorn's head coach,
Steve Sarkisian our breakdown of the matchup against Vanderbilt. When
we continue on this Halloween Friday, I'm thirteen under the zone.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
Thousand hagens, I'm David Pawkins, and I'm gonna scale the
hell out of you. And we're back to the Craigway Show.
Have a message for Craig.

Speaker 11 (01:24:38):
Share it by using the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 10 (01:24:46):
I was looking in the lab stage log light with
my eyes begin any sight, so my mom stuff from
his lab began to rise, and suddenly, to my.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
He did the Monks tonight. It was a graveyard smell.

Speaker 5 (01:25:09):
It caught on in a fly.

Speaker 6 (01:25:12):
It hit the monks from my love.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
This was a song that was actually a number one
hit twice separated by eight years when it first came
out in nineteen sixty five. Bobby Quotations, Boris Picket the
Monster Mash.

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):
It was number one in nineteen.

Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
Sixty five, and then it was just kind of remember
when I was in elementary school, you'd hear a little
bits of it and then in nineteen seventy three it
was kind of like reissued and went.

Speaker 2 (01:25:41):
To number one again. Zombies were having fun. The party
had just begun.

Speaker 9 (01:25:48):
So you do thriller, Monster, wolf Man, Dracula and his
son anyway, So yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
We all have fun on Halloween, all right. The Longhorns,
of course, will play the day after Halloween, All Souls
Day as it's called. And getting ready for the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Last night and Long Worn Weekly, And in case you
missed it, you can hear the reairing of the program
tonight at seven o'clock. Maybe if you're driving little trigger

(01:26:20):
treaters around even listen to when you're driving around. But anyway,
last night a Long Worn Weekly airing here on thirteen
under his own Sark and I we're talking about we
always have that segment near the end of the show
where we just specifically zero in on the opponent. So
here's the conversation we had about tomorrow's matchup with Vanderbilt.

(01:26:40):
The Vanderbilt Commodorees come to town. Last year, they were
a great story. This year they're a serious bona fide
contender in the SEC, aren't they.

Speaker 7 (01:26:48):
H This year they're a great team. Last year they
were a great story. It is a very good football team.
I think Clark has done a tremensal Clark leader, head coach,
has done a great job of you know, where this
program was when he got there, where they were early
in his time, and building it and building it obviously,
you know the addition of of a transfer quarterback in
Diego Pavia and what he's instilled, and I've said this

(01:27:10):
numerous times on this show that you know, quarterbacks have
a real responsibility. You know, complete passes, run the ball,
score touchdowns, don't turn it over. One of their biggest
roles and one of their biggest jobs is to instill
belief and instill belief not only in that locker room,
but not only in the organization, but the fan base
and all parties involved. And Diego Pavi has done that.

(01:27:31):
And that's not to take anything away from Clark Lee.
He's a great coach, he found him and all that.
But this guy has instilled belief in that program and
in those other players. He became attractive for some other
guys to transfer into that program. This is a top
ten team in the country for a reason.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
They're good. There's a team schematically difficult to defend him,
isn't he.

Speaker 7 (01:27:50):
We just we just went from from one end of
the spectrum to the other. We just went from Misissippi
State with gigantic splits by the receivers, really vertical stressing
you you know, open sets up tempo, going fast to Vanderbilt. Now,
who's got to think out about eight different personnel groupings.
They're gonna huddle, they're gonna shift, they're gonna be an unbalanced,
They're gonna run quarterback driven runs. And he causes issues

(01:28:12):
because A they have the traditional run game. B they
have the quarterback run game. See they got the triple option.
And then four they got him improvising off of whether
it's pass plays, run play, screenplays, all those things. And
so there's a lot to defend in a small box
where you play these guys.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
I want to ask you about another guy, And for
this it requires a little historical perspective. Think it was
the twenty twenty state championships. I'm calling on television and
it's Westlake against Denton Geyer. West Lake is quarterback by
Kate Klebnick, who's at Clemson. Denton Geyer's quarterback by Eli Stowers,
who goes down with a knee injury in the first
quarter and have to bring in freshman Jackson Arnold, Yeah,

(01:28:50):
to play quarterback, but the guys you have, Ethan Burke
and Colton Vossig were chasing him around the whole game,
and Westlake goes on and they win the state championship.
Stout was, however, the transformation into being a legitimate NFL
pro prospect tight end.

Speaker 7 (01:29:05):
Well, he really is, you know, I mean when you
think about you know, he was a he was a
big time recruited quarterback and then that that transformation to
tight end, and they've done a great job. And then
they utilize them a bunch of different ways, and you're
gonna see number nine all over the place on Saturday,
whether it's in line split. Out had a tremendous season
last year. Was probably a relatively high draft picked a

(01:29:27):
year ago, came back again for his senior season, and
they use him a variety of ways, and he is
a legitimate threat to hurt you, not only underneath, but
in the down the field throw game.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
The other guy want to ask you, that was the
local product, Cedric Alexander. We saw him at LBJ High
where he played for the guy who's on your staff now,
Jamal finner And was a tremendous young man in outstanding
running back and really part of a one to two
punch along with him.

Speaker 2 (01:29:52):
K Young.

Speaker 7 (01:29:52):
Yeah, you know, I think it is a nice one
two punch. You know, they're both physical players. They both
got low center of gravity. You got to wrap them up.
You can't just hit them and expect them to go down.
These guys got too much balance and body control. Uh
but but said he was a real kind of lead
dog for him last year. Now that's kind of a
dual threat to go along with Pavia. There's a lot

(01:30:12):
to defend here. That those guys will be on the
field together, sometimes will be a third back with them.
They'll be multiple tight ends, and so our communication before
the snap is going to be really critical, and we've
got our eyes got to be right. We got to
play really discipline on the defensive side of the ball
because they tax you with a lot of the eye
candy stuff to run very conventional plays.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
How about defense, What really attracts you to what you
see from the Commodore defense?

Speaker 7 (01:30:37):
Well, I think they're very good upfront, you know, and
they've you know, they brought in a couple of transfers here.
Ninety nine Sing is a very good football player. The
two linebackers inside are great players that the safety number
two or Star Nickel is a very good football player
for him. But I think one thing they do is
they play really well together and they know their scheme.
They they are aggressive at times. They're gonna blitz you.

(01:30:59):
They're gonna put more guys to that you can block,
and so you got to have answers for all that.
But I think one thing about Vanderbilt that I've been
most impressed with is they play as a team. Their
offense compliments their defense. Their defense compliments their offense. Both
sides compliment their special teams. They got an elite kicker,
they've got a very good punter. They play sound defense,
They try to keep the ball in front, gonna they're

(01:31:21):
gonna they're gonna control the ball offensively. But they're very
efficient on offense, so they limit the plays their defense
has to play against. They play as a team, they
win as a team. And so that's what's gonna take
for us. We've been talking about us playing complimentary football,
have been talking about us winning as a team. It's
gonna take a team effort Saturday, because that's what Vanderbilt
forces you to do.

Speaker 1 (01:31:40):
So there it is the break down on the Vanderbilt
Commodores with head coach Steve Sarkisian and the interesting to
hear how he talks about the offensive line being different
from the offensive line the long ward take a lot
of folks, and this has been said any times, many

(01:32:00):
ways over the years that you really don't pay that
much attention to the offensive line unless they make a mistake,
give up a sack and call for a holding penalty, whatever.
But the science of defending a specific offense includes how
you line up against the offensive front clearly, and there's

(01:32:24):
different ways to approach it, and you're going to see
different fronts. And it was a different look last week
with Mississippi State with those wider splits that they take.
And of course, you know, nobody took as wide at
splits as when the late Mike Leach was coaching Texasttack
and he even had that in Mississippi State before before

(01:32:47):
he had the heart attack and passed away. But this
is a different kind of almost intertwined, interlocked.

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
Cohesive group.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
They don't take those big, wide splits, but the opera
right as Sark was talking about very well as one
specific unit. And by the way, there's something else about him.
Every single member of the starting offensive line is a transfer.
In fact, even if you go too deep into their

(01:33:18):
starting and backups on the offensive front, every single one
is a transfer, except the backup center Cooper Starks. Other
than that, everybody else is a transfer. Isaiah Glass, the
quick side tackle is a transfer from Oklahoma State. Kate
McConnell the quick side guard. And by the way, strong

(01:33:38):
and quick means, you know whatever, strong and weak. They
don't like these weak and a lot of others. But
it's the one on the shorter edge of the philoter
on say, the hash mark that's closer to the sideline.
So the quick side guard, Kate McConnell transferred from Minnesota.
The center Jordan White transferred from Liberty. He's from Largo, Maryland.
By the way, okay, right during the DC area around

(01:34:01):
at PG County.

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
The strongside guard, Chase Mitchell is from Washington, Pennsylvania. He,
like the senator, Jordan White, transferred from Liberty. The strongside
tackle Bryce Henderson. Henderson transferred from South Dakota. Even the backups.
The backup quickside tackle Clinton Asubuoki is from Lagos, Nigeria,

(01:34:25):
transferred in from Northern Arizona. Sterling Porcher, I remember seeing
his name before. He's a grad transfers from Someter, South Carolina.
He transferred in from Texas Tech. The strongside guard, Gunnar Gibbons, Covington,
Virginia coming.

Speaker 3 (01:34:41):
I don't think that's in the DMV okay.

Speaker 1 (01:34:43):
All right, he transferred from Virginia Tech, so it probably
makes more sense dmv.

Speaker 4 (01:34:48):
DC Maryland, Virginia at a metro area, but no, not
the Department of Motor Vehicles. Yeah, think Covington is closer
down by Roanoak in the West Virginia border.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
Well, that makes sense. He transferred in from Virginia Tech,
all right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
And Orian Irving is a native Texan out of Houston, Lamar,
but he transferred him from sam Houston only. The backup center,
Cooper Starks is home grown. He's from Gerard, Illinois. But
this was the thing that we talked about when we
heard from Clark Lee, the head coach, that he's got

(01:35:20):
guys who have all bought in together and now they're
starting to get more high school players in addition all
these transfers as well, so it'll be interesting to see
how the long words go up against that offensive front.
All right, we have more coming up when we continue
here on Sports Radio AM thirteen under the zone of
the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 2 (01:35:50):
Here's one of those.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
Great underrated Beatles songs, I think, and it's really fitting
with this weekend. It's Savoy Truffle by George Harroit and
you hear him, he's talking about all kinds of of
candies and sweets, like for right here, he's gonna say,
coconut fludge really blows down the blues I think air,

(01:36:18):
but the refrain is you'll have to have them all
pulled out after the Savoy Truffle. And what inspired him
to do this song this is off the White album
is Eric Clapton was working with him on the sessions.
In fact, Eric Clapton plays the lead guitar on while
my guitar gently weeps.

Speaker 2 (01:36:40):
And Eric Clapton at the.

Speaker 1 (01:36:43):
Time was like a candy junkie, so he was constantly
eating you know, caramel creams and different things, or cream tangerine.
You hear George Harrison say that, and monte Lemon and
ginger sling with pineapple heart, all these different things candies,

(01:37:04):
And he said, if you don't care, you don't be careful,
you're gonna have to have all your teeth pulled out.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
You have to have them all pulled out after the
Savoy truffle.

Speaker 3 (01:37:10):
Some of those are candies from our inconceivable earlier this week.

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):
Yeah, probably so, probably so. A treat of a different
sort would be this weekend's high school football.

Speaker 2 (01:37:24):
Lineup.

Speaker 1 (01:37:25):
It started last night with a tremendous game out at
Gupton Stadium.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
Could you believe that? Come back?

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
Well, I'll tell you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):
One thing that Huddles done this year is that they've
taken advantage of team's mistakes. And Vista Ridge had them
down thirteen points in the fourth quarter and they got
down the field and got a touchdown to get it
within six. Forced to fumble, they had two stripsack fumbles
in the game, was a big thing, and scored the

(01:37:55):
winning touchdown with about four minutes to go and then
had to make two defensive stands but did so to
win the game. So Huddo with that win, is now
seven and two and they are six and one in
the district and they clinched a playoff spot. Now here's
the unique element on all of this. Vandergriff plays Westwood tonight.

(01:38:18):
If Vandergriff wins, they would also be six and one
in the district. Vandergriff woul own the tiebreaker on the Huddle,
but it really won't matter in terms of playoff seedings
because Vandergriff is definitely going Division two and Huddle is
definitely going to go Division one, so they would both
then be the top seeds in their area. The other teams,
there's three teams fighting for two spots. Vista Ridge which

(01:38:39):
lost and they conclude the season against Westwood next week.
McNeil should be able to defeat winless Maynor tonight, but
then McNeil plays Huddo next week and round Rock, which
should be able to get a win at Stony Points tonight,
has to finish with Vandergriff, So it could come down
to a point differential between Vista Ridge, McNeil and round Rock.

(01:39:00):
Could It would also affect whether Vista Ridge goes to
Division one or Division two because round Rock has a
large enrollment. But if the Dragons don't get there and
Vista Ridge and McNeil are the two playoff teams. Vandergriff
and McNeil would be the D two representatives. Huddo and
mister Ridge would be the D one representatives. And so
what that means is the loser of last night's game

(01:39:21):
in all likelihood plays like Travis and by district. That's
what a one point difference in that game means. That's
what that means. Nothing against Bowie. If Bowie beats Austin
Hye tonight, and that's not a guarantee. Austin I beat
him last year. But if Bowie does defeat him, they
would get in. They would go Division one and they
would be the runner up to like Travis, which means

(01:39:44):
they would play the top seed from twenty five to
six A and D one that would be Huddo based
on that one point win last night.

Speaker 4 (01:39:50):
And how about some of those creative plays drawn up
by coach Ryan Hart. Remember they absolutely they've got Owens,
the elegant quarterback who transferred over, but they're able to
use his ability to get down the field. I think
they kind of they wasted that opportunity right late in
the first half.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
Yeah, they have one, but just kind of hunk, tough
and put.

Speaker 4 (01:40:07):
Together, you know, they converted in the red zone when
it mattered and.

Speaker 3 (01:40:10):
Got those two big takeaways.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
Yeah, they did that.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
Meanwhile, in twenty six to six, a Lake Travis in
the driver's seat to win the destroy they play Akins tonight,
that could get them to nine and oh, Lake Travis
looks like they're going to go ten and oh on
the regular shat, they'll be the top seed in the
D one bracket, the top seed in the D two bracket.
That's going to be decided next week Dripping Springs Westlake,
that will be the time. And again tonight, Austin High

(01:40:36):
and Bowie play. And here's here's the swing there.

Speaker 3 (01:40:40):
Of Coff called some wild games in that series.

Speaker 1 (01:40:42):
Oh yeah, if Booie wins, they clinch playoff spot, they
would be the runner up in the D one bracket,
like I said, and then you'd probably already know that
Booie would be playing Huddle at that point depending let's see,
I'm trying to remember Huddle beat Round Rocks. So yeah,
they would, they would, they would be playing Huddle. And
by district, however, if Boston High wins, they're definitely going

(01:41:03):
to go Division two, that would push Westlake to D one.
So that's you know, and they would be the runner
up there to the Lake Travis so in the D
one bracket just like last year, so that could happen.

Speaker 2 (01:41:18):
That's in six A.

Speaker 1 (01:41:20):
You've got a big one in five A Tonight in
five A, D two and Senior Night, right, last last
home game of the regular season for Bastrop tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:41:30):
That's right, and Bastrop is averaging over sixty points a game.
Only three teams have ever done that over the course
of their full season. Now it's going to get more
difficult here with Flugerville this week and then Liberty Hill
yep to close things out for the Bears. Liberty Hill
beat Flugerville seventy to twenty three. Yeah, Tonight is a

(01:41:50):
heck of a quarterback battle between two guys who are
Cole Taylor who's starting for the fourth season and Weston Nielsen,
who will be a four season starter at Bass Drop.
Just two tremendous quarterback It's going to be a treat.

Speaker 1 (01:42:03):
Yeah, and if Bastrop wins, it could well set the
stage for the battle of the district title next week
between Bastrop and Liberty Hills. So that's an important one
and also the other important one is the game in
four eight Division one, and that's LBJ and Taylor playing

(01:42:26):
tonight in Taylor, and that's for the district title at
that point.

Speaker 2 (01:42:29):
So there's some of the matchups there. All right.

Speaker 1 (01:42:31):
We'll be back to wrap up today's edition of the
program on sport Radio AM thirteen under the zone of
the iHeartRadio app.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Spooky Podcasts from iHeartRadio

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Halloween Weekend Watching Guide: Texas-Vanderbilt, World Series, and more!

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Spooky Podcasts from iHeartRadio

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

Halloween Weekend Watching Guide: Texas-Vanderbilt, World Series, and more!

Spooky Podcasts from iHeartRadio