Aaron Torres & Jason Martin Recap Travis Hunter Winning The Heisman As A Two Way Player, Bill Belichick Coaching UNC, College Football Bracket, Caitlin Clark Backlash, And More!!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome man, everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday Erin Torris,
Jason Martin. We are broadcasting live from the tirack dot
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(00:26):
way tire buying should be Aaron Torris, Jason Martin, broadcasting
live from the tire rack dot Com studios. Jymartin Nashville,
tour is in La jaymart what's going on?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Man?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
How you doing?

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Doing pretty well? Doing pretty well. It's really strange to
see Bowl games on right. Like I wasn't really I
wasn't up on the Bowls starting on December fourteenth, and
now I look up and I remember, oh yeah, Friday
is the first playoff game. Yep. Man, we're getting right
to this, aren't we. Like it's exciting. I'm glad we
don't have that much of a of a break because

(00:59):
I'm real this thing play out and see how it goes.
But it really has just kind of snuck up, like
here we go, like we we're pretty much already there.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, it's funny because obviously, look, you know, the old
era of college football, you know, we'd really have about
three weeks off before quote unquote meaningful postseason games. And
it was funny because you know, like even you know,
you look at the schedule like Monday Tuesday and sit
there and think, oh, we got all this time before
the playoffs starts, and it hit me like Monday night,

(01:31):
I was like, oh, wait, next week is game week.
Like we got four really big games. And that was
when I was like, Oh, all that stuff that I've
been putting off because we have so much college football,
so much NFL, Yeah, I better actually get that done
this week. I better do some Christmas shopping this week, because,
like you said, this week coming up, we're gonna talk

(01:51):
a lot about the college football playoff, We're gonna talk
a lot about the games ahead. And it is full
speed ahead from there. But jaymart, let's go back. Let's
go back about two hours from now, from from right
when we're speaking here. Just two hours ago, the Heisman
Trophy was announced, and obviously this is always a fun night.

(02:12):
It's kind of a nice cap to the college football
regular season. To your point, the postseason starts a little
bit quicker than we're used to, but in a move
that I don't think necessarily surprised anybody, although I was
a little bit surprised on how close the vote. The
vote ultimately ended up being Travis Hunter is your twenty
twenty four Heisman Trophy winner. He took home in total

(02:37):
two thousand, two hundred and thirty one points, including five
hundred and fifty two first place votes, ashtingenty three hundred
and nine first place votes. This was actually the closest
Heisman race since two thousand and nine, mark Ingram and
Toby Gerhardt. I was actually stunned at how close.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
It was.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
No disrespect to ash gingenty but where what you know,
just just your big picture takeaways on the Heisman Trophy ceremony,
which went final about two hours ago.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Well, I mean, we'll talk about Travis Hunter and what
he said here in just a minute, but you're pointed
about it being close, Like I had the same reaction.
You didn't like, Wow, Really, I had a horrible take
early in this season where I was just like, we're
not gonna be talking about Travis Hunter by the end
of this year. But that was before we thought, you know,
Colorado was going to rattle off all the wins that
they rattled off, and he was so instrumental in that.

(03:26):
So I'm trying to figure out about Gent because we
know how great he was, and I think you have
to you have to say this Without Gent, they don't
sniff the playoff, no doubt, right, I mean they that's
it right there. They end up with a buy, which
we could have an argument about that because I don't
know that that's a thing that's going to be happening
for very long. But they end up with a buy
in the college football Playoff because of him, and I

(03:49):
think that's why he gets a lot of out of respect. Plus,
I mean, he had an unreal season. He's incredible running
back and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does
on the next level as well. But in terms of
about you, those two guys and all four of them
were spectacular. But I think they got this right. First
of all, I'm glad they went with Travis Hunter. Had
they gone with Gent, I don't think it would have

(04:10):
been just an absolute robbery. But there's nobody more valuable.
When you're playing both sides of the ball and you
played over four hundred and thirty more snaps than any
other player in college football, and you were just dynamic
on both sides. It's not like you were a liability
on defense, but you were still out there. No, you

(04:30):
were excellent in that role, and you were excellent on offense,
and you were a consummate teammate, and you were there
for everything that was going on in one of the
best stories in college football all year long. So I
think the first thing is congrats to Travis Hunter. He
completely earned it. And then the second thing is what
I sent you right after he won and we were
listening to a speech and I was just like, man,

(04:52):
you just liked this guy, Like there is a real
to Travis Hunter. Where I was listening to him and
I said, oh, yeah, I've known a bunch of Travis
Hunter in my life. Sure, those were the guys I
always liked. When I saw him come around the corner,
it's like, Oh, that's that's just a fun loving guy.
That is who he is. There was nothing about that
that was corporate speaker anything else. That was just Travis
Hunter being Travis Hunter, like being caught up in the moment,

(05:13):
and he was funny, he was engaging. His mom had
some great words when she was talking to Holly row afterwards,
like really hard not to get down with this, Like
Travis Hunter was exactly what you would want to represent
college football. He was a kid that was extremely excited
to be there, felt blessed, seemed to have his priorities

(05:36):
exactly where they needed to be, how to smile a
mile wide and put a smile on my face as well.
Like just a very infectious personality who it's going to
be really easy to hope that he does well with
whatever he does going forward.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, you know, first of all the personality shown through.
I did think the best part was shout out Lil Wayne.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
The little Wayne thing about not knowing any of his
music and calling him out at the same time, and
then just like talking to then gave lyrics for I
bet that's a first of the Heisman. Yeah, is quoting
lyrics and saying that's my song in the middle of
a Heisman speech. But I just I don't think Travis
Hunter cared about the moment. He just this is who
he is and that's that's the unvarnished truth. And it

(06:19):
was awesome.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
The direct quote was, you know, going through all the
thank yous coach Prime Schador, this Hunter family, his own family,
and he says, quote, Wayne, you don't know how you
came into my life. My fiance loves you. I didn't
know none of your songs before that. So that was
Travis Hunter shouting out little Wayne at the heisman ceremony.
You know one, I agree with you one hundred percent.

(06:44):
Just seems like just say and I think what you
what you alluded to. It's just it was so free
flowing and listen, I'm never gonna criticize a you know,
a twenty one year old kid, you know, in front
of a you know, millions of people that wins a Heisman.
But you know, some of the speeches have been pretty
pretty scripted whatever, and this one was, hey, coach Prime,

(07:05):
I'll see at the pond tomorrow. We're fishing, baby. Like
it was just, you know, there was just such a
genuineness to it. It was very sincere. I want to
talk a little bit about the race with gent because
in this is something we may have talked about over
the last couple weeks. I forget like it's interesting because
it feels like whenever you say something like I'm about
to say, it sounds like you're criticizing Ashton Genty, but

(07:26):
I'm not. I understand that he quite literally had a
historic season the likes of which we've basically never seen
from the running back position before. I think, to your point, Jason,
like Boise State is in the College Football Playoff in
large part because of him. I just think what Travis
Hunter did, Like if Travis Hunter could do, if people
could do what Travis Hunter did, somebody would have done

(07:48):
it by now. Like the fact that we're talking about
a kid that on the season, you know, we're talking
about a kid that this year he finished with I'm
gonna pull it up two catches, eleven hundred receiving yards,
fourteen receiving tds and four interceptions on the other side
in a year in which he basically the other team

(08:11):
didn't throw the ball to him. And so, you know,
to play obviously one position at such a high level,
but to play both, I think is just absolutely incredible.
I don't think we'll ever see it again. And listen again,
sounds like I'm about to diminish the guy that I'm
gonna mention next, and I'm not intending to do it.
But like Charles Woodson, like obviously Heisman incredible. No one's

(08:33):
ever going to take it away from him. He deserved it. Whatever,
But he had nine catches that entire year that he
won the Heisman. I understand he played a lot on
special teams, had a couple of big returns, all that,
But we think of Charles Woodson as this insane dual threat.
You know what, Travis Hunter did one hundred and thirty
snaps per game. That's not who Charles Woodson is. And

(08:53):
that doesn't mean that he wasn't incredible. That's not me
trying to tear down what Charles Woodson did, you know,
twenty five years ago. It's just to say that we
have literally never seen anything like Travis Hunter. I think
it's fair to assume that we're never gonna see anything
like this again. One just a coach even willing to
do this, but a player that is up for playing
one hundred and twenty five hundred.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
The decision man. Yeah, if you're that good, you don't
want to, you know, that's like being the college picker
that wants to get to the show. And back in
the day, they would pitch three days in a row
or something like that, and they pitched like one hundred
and thirty. By the time they got to the major leagues,
their arm was done and they were never able to

(09:34):
do anything despite just being all world and everybody talking
about what their career was going to be. Like. I
think that's the most important point that you made there
is that Travis Hunter, what he did was remarkable not
just because he was capable of doing it, but because
he was willing to do it great And that is
a really important way to look at it. And what

(09:54):
Jenti did, for example, is run the ball exception well,
which we've seen a lot of people do, and what
Travis Hunter just did we may never have seen before
and we'll never see.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Again, no doubt. And I think that's the other part
is that I think that's a great point by you
is obviously this week, you know, transfer portal opens up,
guys are coming, Guys are going. That's their prerogative. It's
the new world. They're allowed to that's what the rural state.
But there is something too a kid that that puts
his team first, puts you know, his his you know,

(10:26):
puts Colorado football ahead of his and then a few
an NFL future by playing the amount of snaps that
he did, by doing everything that he did. I think
it's really cool by the way him and shud Or
Sanders have both said they're playing in that Alamo Bowl
in a couple Well, actually, I take the back. I
don't know that they said it. Deon Sanders was like, no, no, no,
my guys play until the season is over. So I
think that's a great point by you. Is the sacrifice

(10:48):
that that he had made throughout the season, not just
because he can do it, but because he's willing to
do it, and he obviously did it at a historic level.
Jam Harmin.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, and again just is a great moment. And the speech.
I will remember that speech. I usually think the Heisman's
speeches are good, and you know, you come across this
feeling really good about those guys and their families and
what maybe they've had to overcome. But just the there's
a genuineness to it in general, but there was something

(11:18):
about this one that was just so different to me,
just so raw, so real, and I just it put
a smile on my face. And usually these things are
more teary eyed or or you know, Solomner is just like, man,
this is so impressive, will listen to it. This was
just an infectious. Like when he said that you know
the team was gonna go party, you believed him, like, yeah,

(11:38):
that's probably exactly what's gonna happen. And I will remember
just that enthusiasm, that energy, and just the sheer, just
joy in him and the pride from his mom and
all it was. It was just really good. Like that
was just one of those moments where there's nothing negative
to take from anything that took place. All that brought

(12:00):
cash was really well done. The interviews after the Factor
really well done. They just the whole thing was was
was perfect. Even if it was closed, we won't remember
that it was closed down the road. It won't matter.
He still won the Heisman. Deserve to win the Heisman,
and congratulations to him.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Congratulations to him, Travis Hunter, your twenty twenty four Heisman
Trophy winner. Tell you what, we will come back when
we do. You know you thought guy, you thought Coach
Prime made waves when he went to Colorado. Coach Prime,
he ain't got nothing on the new North Carolina football coach.

(12:34):
We're gonna come back. We got a lot to discuss.
Bill Belichick, he'said it to Chapel Hill. A lot of
takes coming your way. Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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listen live.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Eric. What do you think of when you hear this.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Home Alone?

Speaker 1 (13:01):
That's right? Yeah, that's right. It's exactly what I think of.
I know there are other things. I know. It's famous
all at I think of Kevin McAllister in the bathroom
and the whole deal. Home Alone is still on a
great film. I watch it all year round, will never not.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
I will tell you around this time of year, pretty
regularly got a nice little three movie rotation of oh yeah, Elf,
Well I go Elf, Home Alone and Home Alone two.
I haven't said ELF seems to be on pretty regularly
on you know, I'm one of seven Americans that still
have cable because of all the sports that I watch.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
But I do too.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, I haven't seen as much Home Alone at Home
Alone two as I thought.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
But well I own them so I don't have to
worry about it. But real quick, Home Alone, Home Alone two,
Christmas Vacation, I think are our three that I probably
roll through the most we throw in Charlie Brown, and
we also do throw in elf. Those are probably the
ones there's a WEE could get into a longer discussion,
But yeah, that three film rotation, though the thing is

(14:06):
at least for many years, I haven't had time watching
it as much these days with two kids and everything else.
But Home Alone Home Alone two were just twelve month
a year. I just had them on a loop sometimes
in the background because they were just super easy to watch.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
What is your take on Home Alone two? As in,
there is an argument and I'll share my thought after
that Home Alone two is better than Home Alone one?
Is that too extreme for you?

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Okay, so here's my thing. For a while I did
think Home Alone two was better than Home Alone one,
But somebody brought up a great point to me, and
I think it's actually accurate. Is Home Alone two isn't
better than Home Alone one? But it's very rare that
a sequel is so good that it's in the conversation.

(14:52):
So basically, Home Alone two's greatness is that they somehow
took like this completely unique movie, and you I think,
right like, oh, Home Alone two, there's no way it
could even be in the same stratosphere. How could they
lose the kid again? Dah da da dah. And they
found a way to kind of lose the kid again,
and it kind of still works even though they just
lost the same kid the year before. I don't even

(15:12):
know if that makes sense, but well, I.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Mean it doesn't. I mean, it makes sense an the
idea that they needed a sequel, and so we're just
going to allow our brains to shut off long enough
to make it work. But hol On two can't be
as good as one, because all they did was redo one.
I mean, they had the same character archetypes all the
way through it. I mean instead of having the next
door neighbor, you have the bird lady, you have all

(15:34):
that kind of stuff. Basically, they just they did what
most sequels do, they turned up the volume. But the
thing that they got right is as they turned up
the volume, they didn't completely lose what made the first
one good. And so I think that's why it still lands,
even though again, I mean, i'm a I believe the
first I remember going to the theater watch both of
those of my parents. I remember going straight after school.

(15:56):
They picked me up from school and we went and
saw Home alone too. And I had to make them
let me go see Home Alone one because we had
watched Cisco and Ebert and they said, this might scare
you if you're a kid. And actually there are portions
of it to do when he hangs when he hangs
Kevin on the hook on the door, sure and talks
about what he's gonna do to him. Yeah, that's a

(16:16):
that's a bit frightening for the right age group and all.
But they're just they're great films for the right reasons.
I actually did like a two hour podcast breaking them
all down from every angle, going through every injury and
reading a bunch of articles and stuff. I did that
for the uh for for Out gig years ago.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Can I say that was when I was officially over
the internet. Was when people started interviewing doctors, and doctors
would be like, yeah, there's no way that a guy
could survive having an anvil dropped on his head from
the eighth floor and fire burning his skull. It's like, yeah,
we're aware, Yeah, we know, we understand it's a little fictional. Okay,

(16:54):
but it still works and it's a great movie. By
the way, I will say the one hole in Home
Alone two, Why did the hotel staff want to bury
this kid so bad, like they literally ran them into
the streets of Central Park. It doesn't even make sense.
Why do they care the bills getting paid doesn't really
make sense.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
That's a good points, that's a fair point. It seems
like they what were they getting out of the deal
to have reacted the way that they did the entire time.
But he had to have some kind of obstacle to overcome,
and so they had to create it artificially. And again,
they're both just they're they're both fun movies, and I'm
glad that they exist. We don't have enough fun movies anymore.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
No, I agree, I agree, But yeah, two absolute classics.
And yes, that is the first thing that I think
of when I hear the song that Mary brought us
in from the break with. And I'll tell you this,
you know what movie we didn't talk about Scrooge, but
I bring it up cause he's coming to college football. Look, yeah,
I don't know how smooth it was, but listen, I'm

(17:55):
just gonna I'm just gonna Flori is yours, Bill Belichick,
North Caroline, just take it wherever you cause because and
I was talking to Martin VJ when we switched between studios.
I mean, we could literally do three hours on this topic.
I believe it is so fascinating just when you take
us through your week, you know, from the McAfee interview
on Monday to you know, the manifesto, because I had,

(18:19):
you know, like seven different things, Like I had seven
different takes throughout. It was like, you know, the Seven
Days of Christmas, the Seven Days of Belichick. Every day
I had a different take. It's not happening, this is fake.
This is to get the NFL. Maybe it's happening. What's
the deal with the manifesto? He's coming, It's gonna work.
It's not gonna work. So I'm just gonna give you
the floor we can. Like I said, we got two

(18:40):
and a half more hours to really break this whole
thing down, and we could do three hours on it
if we want. But just what what?

Speaker 1 (18:45):
What?

Speaker 2 (18:45):
What is your first thought when you hear Bill Belichick?
North Carolina football head coach.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Do you remember the text that I sent you? It
would have been before last week's show when this story
first broke, but.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
We didn't even get to it last week. We had
it on the rundown to it and we didn't get
to it because it just didn't feel like something that
was real.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
That's exactly right. I said this Belichick, I don't have
it in front of me, but I said something to
the effect of this Belichick to North Carolina story is
the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
I'm with it, and.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
I'm sitting here today on December the fourteenth, at eleven
twenty seven Eastern Time, saying this Belichick to UNC thing
is the dumbest thing I've ever wow. Like I am,
I'm still booking it. By the same take, I'm not
rooting for it to fail. I've just I see no
reason why this is gonna work like it clearly shows

(19:37):
he loves football and he wants to coach. But that
report even came out, I don't know if that was
today or yesterday from Messini and from some other people
that you know, his people would reached out to the
jets of all teams to gauge interest, and there were
a couple of other teams that they reached out to.
So that story about him being done with the politics
of the NFL and wanting the purity of college football,

(19:59):
which is quite a way to go, doesn't really hold Water,
he wanted to coach, and he's going to North Carolina
for some reason. And I said before, I really enjoyed
him on TV. I don't know why he needed to
get off television so fast. And then of course there's
that well he's trying to pave the way for his
son and all this other stuff. It's like that's laudable,

(20:21):
I guess, But he's going to go coach college football
in twenty twenty four. Like this, this college football, the
one that we're watching right now, the one where you
have to have all this charisma and you know, basically
be the pied piper and have all this collective money
and everything to bring people in, and you have all

(20:42):
of the you talk about the politics of the NFL.
What about the politics and the money involved in college
football right now? And you're joining the ACC in a
world where if there was a way to keep the
ACC completely out, they would have done it this year.
So you go to that conference of all player as
you could go. You don't go to the Big ten
of the SEC. You go to the ACC. You go

(21:05):
to North Carolina, which is I mean, you are following
Mac Brown and last year was really, really bad it's
North Carolina football. But North Carolina is just penthouse Kentucky
when it comes to their football program, where they look
to basketball as fast as they can too, but they
do at least side eye football for a little longer
than Kentucky fax it.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Wow, there's a lot there. I'll tell you what. This
is such a lengthy conversation. I could go in a
lot of different directions. Why don't we take a quick pause.
Let's get it over the news desk. Let's let the
sega get us caught up on everything we've missed, and
then I will respond to a lot of what you said.
Go ahead to saga. Floor is ors, my.

Speaker 4 (21:43):
Friend, guys, we did not have a quarterback winning the
Heisman Trophy tonight. It's Colorado wide receiver and defensive back
Travis Hunter. I bring up QB because it's the only
fifth time this century that a quarterback did not win
this trophy. In fact, the last time that no QB
was in the top two voting was almost a decade ago,
when it was Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey finishing one

(22:05):
to two. So Travis Hunter finishes won and two in
the voting. Was running back from Boise State Ashton Genty.
A distant third in the balloting was Oregon quarterback Dylan Gabriel.
This week, Hunter has won the AP Player of the
Year Walter Camp Award, National Player of the Year, the Heisman. Tonight,
he won for Best wide Receiver the Bolitnikoff Award, and

(22:26):
for Best Defensive Player the Bideneric Award. In fact, he
made Big Twelve history this season. He was named First
Team All Conference on both sides of the ball in
the same season for the first time in that league's history.
Travis Hunter Heisman Trophy winner Navy defeated number twenty two
Army today thirty one to thirteen quarterback Blake Horvath with

(22:48):
four total touchdowns in over two hundred yards rushing. Army,
by the way, will be playing Louisiana Tech in its
bowl game. After Marshall opted out due to a wave
of transfers, Las Vegas Raiders defensive end and Max Crosby
is out for the year. He'll have ankle surgery. The
Kansas City Chiefs activated kicker Harrison Butker Dallas defensive back

(23:08):
Trayvon Diggs is likely out for the year. NFL Network
says he'll have knee surgery. NBA Cup Semifinals done in
Las Vegas tonight, Oklahoma City a winner over Houston one
eleven to ninety six thirty two points for Shay Gilgis Alexander. Earlier,
Milwaukee won its semifinal with thirty two points from Jannis
Antennacoompo beating Atlanta one ten one oh two so Oklahoma

(23:29):
City against Milwaukee, and the NBA Cup Final in Vegas Tuesday.
Golden State is acquiring guard Dennis Shrewder from the nets.
Among the fifteen NHL games victories for Winnipeg and Washington,
Detroit four to two over Toronto. In men's college basketball,
Number one Tennessee one on a layup at the buzzer
at Illinois sixty six sixty four. Kentucky beat Louisville tonight

(23:52):
dayton at home, upset Number six Marquette yukon over a
Gonzaga at Madison Square Garden on Fox TV seventy seven
and seventy one. In Indianapolis. Today, Texas A and M
defeated Perdue in a Top twenty matchup. Clemson, number sixteen
in the country, lost in overtime at home to Memphis
eighty seven eighty two Cincinnati edged rival Xavier. UCLA came

(24:14):
back to win at Arizona by the way. Number one
Ucla and women's hoops won it's game one oh two
fifty one at Long Beach State. And there was a
women's basketball game at Vanderbilt tonight where Vandy from three
point range was two for twenty four and still won
the game by final of one oh six to forty
against Evansville because Evansville had thirty six turnovers in the

(24:38):
forty minute game.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Back to you, Thank you very much, Steve Sieger. This
is Fox Sports Radio Fox Sports Saturday air towards DC Martin,
broadcasting live from the Tyreck dot Com studios. Rapid Radios
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(25:00):
go to Rapid Radios dot com now for up to
sixty percent off and free shipping. All right, Belichick, North Carolina,
and this one might go take us to the top
of the hour. With the way things are going, so
you said, I don't want to quote you here, but
you said there you see Did you say you see
no way in which this works or what was your

(25:21):
you know paraphrasal.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, I'm just I don't see how this works. I mean,
I can be wrong, and I'm not necessarily rooting forward
to fail. I just it seems like such a square
peg in a round hole situation. It just it just
doesn't compute to my brain.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Do you think it's because of the recruiting aspect? Do
you think it's what? Why do you think it besides
the fact that obviously North Carolina's done a super desirable job.
What makes you what makes you feel the way that
you do?

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, I mean I do think. I mean it's the
age gap, and it's just the Belichick that we have
always seen, and maybe he's turned over a new leaf
and maybe this is who he was behind the scenes.
We always heard he was a funny guy also the stuff,
and he's been good on TV. But I mean, college
football has become a sales job. A lot of it has.

(26:13):
And obviously you're not alone because you have collectives and
you have alumni and you have all these other kinds
of things. But it's just a different ballgame. And I
think that a lot of the stuff that we saw
Belichick do through the years, not that he forgot how
to coach. He's still an incredible football mind, one of,
if not the greatest, we've ever seen. But you still
have to be able to relate to players. You have

(26:34):
to make them want to play for you. And you
have all those horror stories of people that played for
New England and then played somewhere else and had all
sorts of glowing things to say about where they found themselves,
not as much about where they came from. So it's
the attitude and the cantankerousness, and the age gap and
the way college football has shifted, and all these things
that just seem to conglomerate to me into a proposition

(26:58):
that I would not bet on.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, I am so. I mean I could see the
scenario where it works. I just don't really think it's likely.
I mean, first of all, and I was telling you know,
U VJ and Martin this, you know, kind of when
we were switching studios. Like I said earlier, is one
like this. First of all, I do find a funny J.

(27:21):
Mart and I think you're a good person to kind
of have this conversation with because you love college sports
as much as I do. But like, first of all,
this idea and he has this four hundred page manifesto, okay, whatever,
but this idea that he's gonna bring anything real, you know,
because there was this talk early in the week of well,
he's gonna revolutionize the training table into this and the
strength It's like, there's nothing he is going to do

(27:45):
that Ryan Day and Sharon Moore and Kaylin de Boorr
and Kirby Smart and Steve Sarkisian are doing right now
from strength and conditioning to meal prep to this to that,
And that's I think where the naivete about where college
football is right now comes. Like I just think that's
part of the naivete is that the fact that like

(28:06):
I players, everything that a player gets in the NFL,
they get in college too, from strength and conditioning, meal prep, nutrition,
this that you know, the old joke used to be
that the facilities in college were better than the facilities
in the pros because in college up until three or
four years ago, that's how you sold kids is get
them in the whatever. So one, there's nothing revolution that

(28:27):
he's gonna do. And I do think the bigger question
is exactly what you said. Is with recruiting is one,
is he gonna do it? Period? Two? Do you realize
how time consuming it is? Like that's the part that
I don't think until you're in it you can fully understand.
I mean, listen, we all know if you love college football,

(28:49):
you know right now is portal season. Okay, these guys
are on zooms twenty four hours a day. They're evaluating
film twenty four hours a day, and it's it's a
little bit hyperbolic, but eighteen plus hours a day in
the you're re recruiting your own roster. And I think
those are the things that to me, until you're in it,
you just don't understand. Is one the amount of time

(29:09):
that goes in it, and then the other thing is
like the amount of time that you have to spend.
And I don't want to say making sure your players
are happy, but kind of making sure your players are happy.
And I don't mean, you know, acquiescing to them completely,
but I do think it is a world where you
kind of gotta have your finger on the pulse of
your team and the whole do your job, whatever next

(29:31):
man up. Like I don't really think that works in
this era of college football. Doesn't mean you can't be
tough on players, but you also just can't be completely
disinterested in anything that happens with them away from the facility,
or you're just gonna lose guys. And so, uh, there's
twenty more layers to this conversation. But I think that's
the big part is do you really know what you're

(29:51):
getting into from a recruiting standpoint a re recruiting standpoint.
And then, like I said, I just think in this
portal world, nio world, I think every many things. Oh,
all you do is throw a bag at somebody. Well
guess what, No, who else has my money besides North Carolina,
Miami does, an Old Miss does, and Alabama does, and
USC does. And it's like you, it can't. No one

(30:13):
is successful just throwing money because everybody has money. I
just don't think until you're in it you can understand
the nuance of how hard it is.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, I mean, I think, oh that's right, and I
think it's well stated by you. I was thinking about it.
You know, when candidates and you know, I've even known
a few that form exploratory committees, right, and they kind
of canvas around to determine whether or not there would
be enough support for them to mount some kind of
a political campaign for office. Senators, you go and you

(30:45):
see whether or not, you know, there's there's enough there
or if the juice is not worth the squeeze. And
sometimes you'll have yeah, we're going to form an exploratory
committee to see if we can run for president of
the United States, And then sometimes you know, we've decided
we're not going to do that because it's not there.
The one thing we haven't said so far. This tells
me that the exploratory committee in the Belichick camp found

(31:08):
out that the NFL is a dry Well.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Let's save that for maybe on the other side of
the break, because that's a whole other conversation that I
think is absolutely nuanced. Yeah, I want to get to that,
But do you, like, just from the college perspective, do
you think there's anything else, Like, have we missed any part?
I just think it's it's a way harder job. And
maybe it's because maybe it's because of my college basketball background,
but I've seen Patrick Ewing come in, Chris Mullen come in,

(31:34):
you know, fill in the blank. Mike Woodson in Indiana whoever.
These guys come from the NBA, Jerry Stackhouse, who coached
in your hometown of Nashville at Vanderbilt. They come from
the NBA, and oh, I got the x's and o's,
and I got this playbook and this and that, and
it's like that is such a small part of being
a successful college coach. And I just don't think. I

(31:55):
think all these guys come in and think, oh, my
ex'es and o's, my schemes, my this, my that, and
it's like you need players one And actually, I think
one thing that I haven't really heard anybody talk about
with Belichick is another part of it is you're limited
in the amount of time you can work with players
every week, which is for a guy that you know
is obviously a notorious grinder, It's like you're not gonna

(32:17):
be able to just have guys in the facility eighteen
hours a day. That's not how it works at this level.
So I could go on and on, but I don't
want to keep cutting.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, only I want to credit Stuart Mandel. I don't
know if you saw his piece at the Athletic he
annihilated this interesting. I did not see it when it happened.
I've never seen him disopinionated in my life. He just
crushed Belichick in terms of this hire and one of
the things he laid out, I think this is a
perfect way to send us to break here. Bill Callahan

(32:46):
went to Nebraska, that didn't work. Charlie Weiss, great col
went to Notre Dame. He even says, he goes Charlie
Weiss and his quote decided schematic advantage of quote at
Notre Dame. Herm. Edwards and his vaunted quote new leadership
model on quote at Arizona State, Lovey Smith with no

(33:10):
discernible plan of any kind. At Illinois, Bill Callahan and
his master plan to scraut Nebraska's fame triple option offense
for the West Coast offense. So he goes through all
this kind of stuff, says inevitably this does not work,
and then he talks about how Belichick has been at
Washington this year where Steve Belichick is the DC, but

(33:31):
that doesn't land. I mean, the name of this article,
if you guys want to find it someday, it's called
Here's why North Carolina is going to regret hiring Bill Belichick.
And he calls him unqualified to be the football coach
at North Carolina. Like it's scathing, but it's right. Like,
we don't have a lot of examples of pro coaches

(33:51):
going to the college game and succeeding. And this college
game is far different than the one from decades past.
And I don't know the stamina required. Yes, just is
Belichick up for this even if he does understand it?
Day after day after day after day after day. When

(34:12):
you win the Super Bowl and you can take a
couple of weeks off, but when you win the National
Championship game and you're Nick Saban and you're on the
flight home and you are looking at tape of potential
recruits that you need to contact the next day, it
doesn't end. Is Bill Belichick ready for that world? I
am skeptical.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
I'm skeptical as well. And I'll tell you what. Jamart
will come back and we'll discuss the world that he
left the NFL. Is this it for him in the NFL?

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Why?

Speaker 2 (34:42):
What could what could happen by the way that buyout drops?
Could he be back? We'll discuss that all next Fox
Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeart Radio app. Search FSR
to listen live.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Aer Torris Jason Martin
broadcasting live from thee tie ORAQ dot com studios. Let's
put a boat for now on the Bill Belichick conversation, Jamart,
we were obviously talking new North Carolina coach officially introduced
this week. I'll say, up until probably late Tuesday, I

(35:24):
really did think it was a ploy to get the
to get back into the NFL. I even thought the
McAfee interview on Monday. I know he always goes on,
but we've seen a million coaches that you know, are
in the media that when they start negotiating basically go
go dark. And I thought it was a ploy. I
really did. And then, like I said, Monday and a Tuesday, Tuesday,

(35:47):
the conversations are still going on into Wednesday and it
officially happened. So I did want to kind of hold
because I think it's a lengthier conversation that's worth having
here of Bill Belichick, and one like you know, like
even if it goes well, how long. But then obviously two,

(36:08):
I guess what I would ask you is this do
you believe First of all, you know, we all saw
the ESPN report that basically he's kind of sickened by
what the NFL has become. All that, but one, there
is also the counterpoint of that basically, his buyout drops
to a million dollars on June first of twenty twenty five.

(36:29):
And you know, listen, teams don't generally hire coaches in
June or July unless something really really bad happens. So
I'm not saying that he's gonna leave North Carolina before
he ever coaches a game. But North Carolina has also
made it pretty easy for him to get out of
his contract if the NFL were interested. Goes without saying that. Basically,

(36:52):
there didn't appear to be very much interest this year,
and that's probably a big reason why he took the job.
Do you think this officially closes the door? You know,
does this officially close the door on him as an
NFL head coach.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
I don't know if it officially closes the door, but
it certainly lends credence to that direction. I think that
all the handwringing about the politics of the NFL, if
an NFL team is ready to hire him, right now,
that just never happened. Like the reason you go to
North Carolina is because the Carolina Panthers aren't going to
hire you. Like that's the truth. Like there's I don't

(37:25):
see a universe where Bill Belichick voluntarily goes to college
if the NFL door is open right now. Now. I
don't know that it's permanently closed, But I do think
that the get into Bill Belichick business in the NFL
has dried up a lot more than maybe we had
fully realized, even though you know, he didn't get a
job in the last cycle, and so you started to

(37:45):
kind of look at that and wonder, But there's probably
seven openings. Last I looked, there was seven openings. Maybe
coming at the end of the year, you'll get there's
some appetizing openings, there's some young quarterbacks, there's there's some
things to look at there, and doesn't look like Belichick
was going to be part of those plans. And I

(38:06):
think a lot of that came down to he wants
a lot of control that teams are not willing to
give him anymore, and North Carolina he's actually going to
have that control. Like if you read into some of
those things, he's actually still going to be more powerful
than he probably would have been at any of the
jobs where an NFL team would have brought him in.
They would have brought him in for a specific job,

(38:28):
but not with all the control that he ended up
having in New England, which was a detriment to that
franchise and likely its downfall. So the highs are really
high with Bill Belichick, but the lows are really low.
So how much power does he need? I'm afraid North
Carolina's going to get him whatever he wants obviously here,
but I think for North Carolina it's worth the risk
because their football program doesn't make news anyway. The news

(38:51):
that we've heard about North Carolina football in the last
handful of years is Sam Howe didn't work out when
he came back to school, ends up getting drafted and
flamed out. Drake may underperformed, but he might actually be
good based on what we're seeing in the NFL. And
outside of that, it has been a bunch of nothing
except Mac Brown tried to restart his career there and
had a year. But that's what it is. I think

(39:13):
this puts North Carolina on the map and puts them
on television because people are gonna want to see this
for the train wreck mentality or the positive mentality, whatever
it is, there's gonna be a curiosity factor that surrounds us.
For North Carolina, I understand it. For Bill Belichick, the
only way I understand it is if the NFL door,
if it's not officially closed, it certainly is lending closed.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, I think one, it definitely feels like it is
moving towards being closed. I think the bigger question becomes
if he's really good, Like if he goes eleven and
one next year, I do think there'd be interest. But
I'm kind of stunned that there is an interest. That's
maybe an hour three conversation because I cannot believe that
with all these jobs opening up, that nobody is going
to be interested in him. Fox Sports Radio Er Towards

(39:56):
Jason Martin, broadcasting live from the Tireck dot Com Studios.
We'll come back. I do want to discuss that twelve
team college football playoff bracket. Did the committee get it right?
Did they get it wrong? Plus plenty more. This is
Fox Sports Trido. Welcome in everybody. Hour two. Fox Sports
Radio Erictorus Jason Martin, broadcasting live from the tyreck dot

(40:19):
Com studios. Tyreck dot Com will help you get there,
an unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road hazard protection,
and over ten thousand recommended installers. Tyrec dot com The
way tire buying should be our one. We covered a
lot of college football. Travis Hunter, your twenty twenty four
Heisman Trophy winner, in a little bit of a closer

(40:41):
race than I think a lot of people expected. The
closest race as a matter of fact, since two thousand
and nine when mark Ingram beat Toby Gerhardt for second place.
In that one, Marking won at Toby Garhart finished the
second place. Also talked a lot about Bill Belichick, who,
of course is the North Carolina head coach, Bill Belichick

(41:01):
hoping to one day build North Carolina into a college
football playoff team.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Well, J Mart, you wait a second? Can we can
we put a moratorium on chapel? Bill?

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Right already? You're already over it?

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Should I be?

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Or is this just grinch in me? Like something about it?

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Every time I see it, I cringe, even though I
like maybe if I had to come up with it,
i'd like it better. But I keep seeing it from everybody,
and I'm just I don't know. Maybe I should, maybe
I should back off on it. Maybe it'll grow on
me a little bit. But right now, it's like a fungus.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Oh wow. Well, uh yeah, I you know, it's one
I have no strong opinion on. I heard somebody kind
of say it offhand, and I thought it was clever.
Then Schefter made it in the official tweet, and then
I saw, you know, thirty seven different knockoff t shirts.
I didn't know. The only thing I will say, I
didn't know if it was like a per like when
Schefter tweeted it. I didn't know if it was like

(41:58):
a purposeful branding thing, like is this North Carolina what
they plan on doing, like how they plan on branding this?
Or was it organic? I don't know. But yeah, I'm
pretty much already ready to pretty much already ready to
not be using that going forward. Okay, so let me
ask you. You and I were on air this same
time slot last week. Obviously we were coming on straight

(42:21):
off all of the college football of last week, but
the ACC Championship game as well. I have a lot
of thoughts on the addition of SMU into the college
football playoff. They were obviously the eleven seed. The big
controversy coming out of Saturday Alabama versus SMU. I have
a ton of thoughts on it, But what is your
thought on SMU making the twelve team college football playoff?

(42:44):
Then we can kind of just break down the bracket
as a whole.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
I'm glad they get in, and I said last week,
but I thought they deserve to get in. And the
reason why is because the committee had already set the
precedent by placing them in the field spot where they
shouldn't have been able to be overcome that they were
playoff worthy. And I don't think that them playing an

(43:08):
extra game that others weren't required to play should benefit
those teams that didn't have to do it. I understand
the argument about the SEC and the schedule and all this.
Like I heard fine Baum, and you know, I heard
what he said, and I wondered in my head, I
was just like, does he believe this or does he
know he has to say this? And I felt that

(43:30):
way about some of the discourse throughout the week that
there were certain people that I felt like had to
take certain stances, whether or not they agreed with them
or believe them or not. I don't know, I'm not
trying to question anybody's integrity, but I don't think that
there should be that much handbringing or anybody upset that
SMU got in over three Lossbama team that had two

(43:52):
pretty bad losses. The Van Vanderbilt turned out to be
pretty good. That Oklahoma lost to me disqualified them, not
against a team that had come in with one loss
and made that kind of a comeback. But even that,
based on everything else that you saw in the playoff rankings,
nothing changed what they said was right. Those conferences, those

(44:12):
those title games really didn't affect much at all because
you even look at the direction of the at large
is they followed the seedings like you had. You had
the top four that we're gonna be buys that were
conference champions, but then five, six, and seven were exactly
the way they were set up the week before, in
the exact same order. So Texas losing it didn't affect anything.
Penn State losing didn't affect anything. I just don't think

(44:35):
that you could play that and then say, but SMU,
we're gonna penalize them. I think they got this right.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
So one I agree with you, and and you know,
it was funny I was on with Steve Hartman and
Manci earlier in the day, and what I said was,
and this has been my stance all week, is that
you can disagree with the criteria with which the committee
decided to use to you know, put teams in the
bracket and seed teams, but what you can't argue with

(45:06):
is they were at the very least consistent in how
they did it. And this was something like listen, you know,
I probably shouldn't have it was probably to my own detriment,
but I did watch about an hour of ESPN's coverage
when the bracket got released, and the idea, you know,
it was almost jmar. It felt like it felt like

(45:28):
they put together the SMU versus Bama rundown on Thursday,
and they just used the same rundown as if that
was the only piece of context that mattered. And so
to me, like you said, the committee made it very
clear that they weren't going to punish anyone for losing

(45:48):
in a conference championship game. And the frustrating thing to
me watching that coverage on ESPN was the idea that
if you're going to argue that SMU shouldn't be in,
I have no problem with that argument. But here's the thing.
If that's the argument, then you actually really can't argue
that Texas should have been the five seed. There's nothing

(46:08):
on Texas's resume that says that they are the best
at large team except to the point that you just made.
They were the highest ranked team that did not win
a conference and so by default, they just moved to
the highest rated at large spot. Penn State coming into
the weekend was the highest the second highest rated team

(46:29):
that was not that did not win a conference championship,
they defaulted to the second at large bid. By the
way Iowa State UNLV were ranked before their conference championship games,
they lost, they they did not fall out of the rankings,
and so that was the frustrating thing with me watching
the coverage. Then, of course, listening to coverage all week

(46:51):
long was the idea that, Okay, if you want to
argue sm you shouldn't have been in that's fine, But
the committee literally did not punish a single team for
lou in the conference championship game. And I want the
same energy for Texas getting the five seed when they
had zero ranked ranked wins, no you know, zero ranked wins,
no great wins period. It was the same argument, just

(47:14):
with a different team.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Yeah, Like, I actually think that there's something here that
you can see. Like everybody argues for oh Man, Boise State,
and TCU having to play each other that year. Man,
we wanted to see Boise State against one of the
big boys and TCU against one of the big boys. Yeah,
we'll put your money where your mouth is, right, Like, actually,
actually stand up for what you claim to believe in here,

(47:37):
because I'm starting to not believe that you even wanted
Boise State and TCU to be in there at all,
because that's the argument you're making. Because really what you're
saying about SMU is they're just not a big enough brand,
Like they shouldn't be invited to this stance, Like that's why,
and that's your argument about Texas, because it's exactly right,
Texas is a brand, man, they've got to be there.

(48:00):
There were arguments of Ohio State should have still been
five because of their talent level. Who cares, what's the record,
what's the last thing that they did? How do you
factor all these things in? Like SMU is the penalty
was because they were SMU and not Alabama, and that
has nothing to do with the record. It has to
do with the name and the perception behind the name,

(48:23):
and that that to me is why I'm glad that
they kept this the way that they did. If you
believe that Alabama should have been in over SMU, you
should have ranked them ahead of SMU the week before,
and effectively, that's what the that's what the committee said
they did. And so you hear the argument that I
kept hearing was well, SMU is a path of least resistance, right,

(48:44):
that seems like the thing you should pick, right Like,
why would you pick the thing that's going to be
the most controversial if it's wrong. If one thing is
not really going to upset too much of the Apple card,
then it's like with the the SEC is a different
league and all that mess. Okay, then don't play the games.
Don't play them at all, because SMU never had a

(49:05):
shot to begin with unless they went undefeated based on that.
Because if we're just doing it based on brand names,
then we don't need to play a season. Just put
these teams in. If you look at the season, you
look at all this other stuff. I think they got
it right now. There's a few things they need to
evaluate one being the buyas that needs to be recalculated
for sure. And the other thing we talked about some

(49:26):
things that need to be eliminated. Go ahead, gave us
the list. Last week you had the conference title games
and all this. The ap pole needs to be eliminated
entirely because it creates weird discussions that don't need to happen. Sure,
it doesn't matter, right, because this is the only ranking
system that matters. Let this rank from one to twenty five,

(49:47):
however you want to do it. But we don't need
an ape pole that then is going to muddy the
water and create arguments where otherwise they wouldn't exist. The
apeopole at this point should be obsolete because it has
absolutely nothing to do with anything relevant. Let's just go
ahead and rank these teams and let one group make
this determination. I don't really give a crap at this

(50:09):
stage what the ap.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Says, so I agree. Let me ask you this because
I do think this is a fair conversation. I think
you might have even alluded to it earlier in the show.
The automatic not only automatic bids, the five automatic bids,
but also the top four teams getting first round automatic buys,
which obviously sets up a weird scenario where like in

(50:32):
Oregon as the number one seed gets the winner of
Ohio State Tennessee as opposed to say, Penn State, which
is the sixth seed and they're gonna get Boise State
in round two on a neutral Do you have any
problem with either of those two things? At the five
auto bids or the four first round byes to the
highest rated the highest rated conference champions.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Well, the auto bids is going to create controversy when
you have a Clemson end that doesn't deserve to be
in but won their way in, for example. I have
a bigger issue with the buys because even though you
know you win your conference in all of this stuff,
I just don't think that that represents the four best
teams in the country. And I think that the four
best teams in the country are the ones that should

(51:16):
get the buys, not the way that this is seeded
with the four conference champions that won these title games
and all this stuff. I don't think that can be
your factor. I don't think that that makes any sense
at all. I mean, look at it's not as if
the Big Sky champion goes into the NCAA College Basketball
Tournament as a two seed, they win their tournament and

(51:38):
they get in and they're like a fifteen or whatever
it might be, whatever year it is, And I think
you have to evaluate it the same way. I mean,
Arizona State had a great year, Boise State had a
great year. Anybody think they should be three and four
and have buys. I do not. I don't think that.
I don't think. I think that we're gonna get to,
probably within the next couple of years, a bigger field

(51:58):
and fourteen teams I think is what we're gonna see.
But then you also have I think that it's gonna
go down to the four best teams, and it should
like the teams, they should get the rewards. It shouldn't
just be because again, I think the conference title games
are your other issue that sets all this in motion.
But I think it's very hard to argue that Boise
State or Arizona State deserved byes over some of the
teams underneath them.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah, so I actually agree with you. I don't hate
the auto five auto bids for this twelve team playoff,
and to your point, we're probably gonna expand it because
the SEC's mad and whatever. I do think you have
to have some auto bids because first of all, first
of all, the whole reason we expanded the playoff was
quote to decide it on the field. And then what

(52:42):
was the big argument? It was, Oh, it's always the
SEC Invitational, It's always this, It's always that. It's like,
this is the whole reason we expanded the playoff. As
a matter of fact, I mentioned earlier, I was almost
Stephen Mozzie and I joked about it is you know
Steve Hartman, would you know who?

Speaker 1 (52:56):
I love? Steve?

Speaker 2 (52:57):
And he was one hundred percent right. He's like, what
are Alabama fans complain about? And what I said to
him was I said, it's amazing how we expanded this field,
uh to include everybody, and now all anybody wants to
do is hypotheticals. Well, Miss would be a twenty two
point favorite against this team. It's like, I don't care.
This is why we expanded the playoff. The one thing
I will say, I do agree with you now that

(53:18):
I have seen how the bracket plays out. The idea
that you have to give the auto bys to the
highest ranked conference champions, I just don't agree with that.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Now.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
I would argue that if we are going to if
we are not going to give them to the conference
champions then we do need to look a little bit
harder at losing a conference championship game, right Like, you
can't if if if, if, if, Yeah, I was gonna
say if Oregon, Texas, Ohio State and or Penn State
and Georgia are the four teams going in and the

(53:52):
four the four highest ranked teams get auto bis, and
you can't just say that, you know that that that
the conference championship championship games mean nothing, because then you
would actually have players sit. But I'll also say, you know,
and listen, I think we're gonna over the years as
we figure this this college football playoff bracket out, I
think there's gonna be a lot of parallels to the

(54:12):
college basketball bracket. And right like, I mean, it is
a little bit unfair when you look at the basketball
bracket of if Duke and Carolina or number one and
number two in the country going into the final week
of the season, it doesn't preclude Duke or North Carolina
from getting a first round or from getting a number
one seed if they if they win the ACC tournament
and or if they don't win the AEC tournament, so

(54:33):
I just bring it up because that's my real only gripe,
and I think it's year one. I think we're all
trying to figure it out. I think the people that
put the bracket together really did have kind of the
best interests of college football at heart when they decided
to put the four auto buys to the four highest
rank conference champs. That's the only thing that I would
say though, When you look at a bracket and it

(54:54):
very clearly is disadvantageous to Oregon to get the number
one seed, that's something you probably at least have to reconsider.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Yeah, And the other thing, I think that if you
keep things as they are, at the very least, I
think you have to recede after the first round. You
have to the same way like the NFL would set
it up. It's just like whatever the lowest ranked team
that advances is going to play the top team. Like,
I think the rewards should continue through and there should

(55:21):
be a consistency behind that. There should not be a
universe where Oregon's road to the championship is tougher than
everybody else's. Like that doesn't make any sense at all.
I mean, think about this, technically, Penn State could make
it all the way to the semi finals by beating
SMU and beating Boise State. I know we said nice
things about SMU, But you want to play SMU and

(55:44):
Boise State or do you want to play, for example,
Tennessee or Ohio State. I think that the argument there
would be difficult to make. That that needs to change,
and I think that will change. I think either they're
going to recede or they're going to figure better way
out to set these buys, because it does seem like
Oregon was penalized for being the only undefeated team and

(56:06):
the best team in the bracket.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
College Football Playoffs starts Friday night, Indiana at Notre Dame.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
UH.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Maybe before we get out of here we'll make our
official round one picks, because by the time we come
on air next week, at least three of the four
games will be done and the fourth game will be
in progress. Fox Poatl.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
So, by the way, all three of the three of
those four games up north. I know it's the only
game in the South is the Clemson Texas game.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
It is interesting how it all broke out. And I'll
say this too, I mean, we got we got a
second here to chat about it is. I'm genuinely excited
about the matchups, like, like I know, you know, first
first of all, like and we talked about the Quinn
Euros versus arch Manning thing last week, Like Quinn Ewrris
plays the way he did last week. I'm not saying
Clemson will beat Texas, but Clemson can beat Texas. You know,

(56:55):
Notre Dame Indiana. That's kind of a cool little geographical thing.
I think Notre Dame's probably gonna win that one, but
it's it's just interesting. And then obviously, boy, oh boy,
Jmark you I was gonna say, can you imagine what
our show will be like next week if Ryan Day
loses a home playoff game to wrap up a season

(57:15):
in which he has a twenty million dollar roster. By
the way, I'm sure you saw.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
That, James Franklin.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Yeah, that's true too. Well, that one would be worse. Yeah,
but real quick, I'm assuming you saw the story the
Ohio senator that wants to make it a felony to
plan flags on the field. Yeah, you know what else
is a felony? Losing to Michigan when they can't pass
the freaking football. That should be a freaking felony. So
we will be on air next week after Ohio State.

(57:44):
Tennessee cannot wait first week of college.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Put the rundown together. Now, Yes, we don't know what
the the specifics will be. We know we're gonna be
talking about.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, I'll tell you what though, j mart Tonight, we're
coming on after the NBA Cup and we didn't even
talk about it, which.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Is actual squad too. It's my Thunder.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
There you go. Well, I don't know where tonight ranked
among the great wins in Thunder history, but I know
a lot of people weren't watching it. Based on what
we've seen. We're gonna come back discuss the state of
the NBA. Some shocking numbers out this week. We'll discuss
all that next. Fox Sports Radio Welcome back, everybody. Fox
Sports Radio, aeron Torres. Jason Martin broadcasting live from the

(58:23):
tyreq dot Com studios. Jmart if you know the words
sing along, go ahead, no, No, where's yours?

Speaker 1 (58:29):
No? See, I've been thinking all show, Mike, And now
there's one Christmas song that doesn't get played enough in
my opinions, maybe most underrated. It's one of my favorite artists.
Maybe if I actually just had to break it all down.
He might be my favorite artist.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
And Nick Cannon Mike.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
I wonder if Mary's gonna play that out of the
next couple of weeks. I wasn't gonna tell her what
it was and just see if she would come up
with it. But on the flip side, it's this which
you can't go five minutes without hearing. It is catchy.
I'm not gonna suggest it. It's not. I do know
the lyrics. I refuse to engage in this practice. Don't care.

(59:07):
Go ahead, Mary, Yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Come on to all she wants for Christmas?

Speaker 1 (59:14):
To try and quit.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
I can't get over the Nick Cannon. Come man, there's
one guy that I know sings a great song. Oh yeah,
if you can name me five Nick Cannon song man,
I'll give you a thousand dollars. I can name you
five Nick Cannon. Uh, never mind. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Where you're going. We we all know where you're going.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Could have gone anywhere. All she wants for Christmas is you,
j Martin. That's all she wants underneath the Christmas tree.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
I have a feeling it's not me, but never know.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
I mean, with that attitude, it is. But anyway, how
about this Fox Sports radio error towards Jason Martin. We
are broadcasting live from the tyreq dot com studios. Let's
do it, j Martin, Oklahoma City Thunder, they get a
win NBA Cup. So so I was actually telling Brandon,
our great associate producer, who helped us get some sound

(01:00:08):
and stuff for today. You and I were on air
the day they announced the NBA Cup format two summers ago,
and like, you need a doctorate to figure out how
this thing even worked. But we're now in year two.
Semi finals were tonight or for Saturday night for those
of you on the East Coast, it's past midnight. And

(01:00:30):
what's notable about this NBA Cup is that despite last
year in which the Lakers won and then fired their coach,
can't believe that there hasn't been very much enthusiasm around
the NBA Cup. According to reports this week, ratings down
ten percent through group play, and I think it has importantly.
NBA ratings are down twenty eight percent year over year

(01:00:54):
on ESPN. Last year's playoffs were down twelve percent, and
this is the stat that is mind boggling and I'd
say has to raise concerns in New York at the
at the NBA offices. But ratings have been taking forever
and doesn't seem to impact anybody. Ratings down forty eight

(01:01:14):
percent since twenty twelve. I have a lot of takes
on this, j Mart, but I mean, what is there
to say? Go ahead? Floor is yours, and I actually
go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
So I actually went down the rabbit hole of creator
content online and kind of I went through YouTube and
went through some videos of some people that cover the
league regularly that aren't, you know, major media personalities. I
just wanted to hear what people had to say, people
that really loved the league, and there were a lot
of videos about this league is dead, this league is dying,

(01:01:48):
all these kinds of things. And so there were various
things that were mentioned. One thing in particular, it popped
up a couple of times that we'll get to here
in a second, and I've mentioned my own feelings on
one issue particular. But I think that one huge problem
is that the three players that dominated the league in

(01:02:12):
terms of its coverage, it's marketing, all of those things
have not changed over the last ten years. You've got
Lebron James, You've got Steph Curry, and you've got Kevin Durant,
and in twenty twenty four, even with this great crop
of young talent, you'll see ads that showcase all this
young talent that this NBA AD or something like that,

(01:02:34):
But they're not marketing these guys like you think about
bn CAO in Orlando and how that's a team that's
playing really good basketball. They've resigned Jared Suggs, They've got
you know, Bank Carroll's an outstanding player, but they have
less national television broadcast than the LA Clippers do. So
it doesn't matter how much talent you have spread over

(01:02:55):
the league if none of it is drawing on television
or you're not actually it properly. But the three guys
that were the guys are still the guys. And the
biggest problem for the NBA is I mean, they're all
about to be done fairly soon, a few maybe really soon.
So that's a consistent issue. But I think the overarching problem,

(01:03:22):
and the one that I want to get into deep
in more detail, maybe after Tosaga or after I listened
to you for a couple of minutes, is the fact
that the NBA has become a chuck fest from distance,
and it's something I've lamented now for a few years.
That's why I said I've turned ninety five years old,
because I now believe the three point line should be
abolished for the good of the sport of basketball. And

(01:03:45):
we can get into that a lot deeper with some
statistics and some information and things like that. And I
also think the Shack's point that he has made recently
on podcasts that others I think have echoed is one
hundred percent right, which is every team in the league
plays exactly the same. Every game looks exactly the same,

(01:04:05):
They're all running the same place, They're all designed to
do the same thing. So there's like one team in
the league that doesn't use the pick and roll effectively
and they try to do other stuff, but almost the
entire league, from game to game, it's the exact same thing.
And after a while that gets very samey, and you
just move on.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
So I'll tell you what I do have a lot
of thoughts, some to piggyback off what you said, some
of my own. We'll discuss them on next but first
let's get it over the news desk. Say go ahead,
my friend.

Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
You know, I was looking at the NBA schedule and
in a week and a half. Pretty much everybody plays
that Monday before Christmas. No NBA games on Christmas Eve,
and then the five games they have on Christmas Day,
which is a Wednesday. This year, they're putting them all
on ABC, not just some cable some network. All of
them are on cable and all of them are on

(01:04:55):
network TV. The same year that the NFL says, you know,
this whole Christmas thing, we might be continuing this, so
they sold two Christmas games. The NFL did to Netflix. Sure,
the Chiefs at Steelers game is Netflix only on Christmas Day.
And then it's the Texans hosting the Ravens opposite the

(01:05:17):
five NBA games.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Just for the record, both those games are much more
and they're both relevant to to.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Yes, absolutely, and it's late season. You know, I was thinking,
I listen, I love the NBA. I love the NFL.
I love the business that they've created. They get kind
of lucky. I mean, the Steelers all of a sudden
being like legitimately awesome, Like sometimes stuff just breaks your way.

Speaker 4 (01:05:40):
Does the Steelers have a couple of games within and
score a touchdown and still one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Yeah, Like you looked at that game and it was
just kind of a throwaway. Oh the Chiefs are playing,
maybe that's one I could skip for some presents. Now
it's like, oh, the Steelers are awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:05:50):
But even the Chiefs against the Raiders the last couple
of years with holidays be it Christmas or Black Friday,
is getting good ratings. And you know, I mean they
was streaming only on Black Friday and was still getting
what ten times the rating that the NBA was getting.
Once we had that day after Thanksgiving NFL game. By
the way, this were the two semifinals for the NBA
Cup in Vegas tonight. The ratings for the Cup quarterfinals

(01:06:14):
across TNT and ESPN averaged about one point three million viewers.
You might say, oh, it's about the same as last year.
Some of the games last year were going up against
the NFL, so they would have had higher. Nothing against
the NFL this year head to head in the Cup quarterfinals,
and it was still only one point three six million viewers.

(01:06:35):
College hoops got one point three to four million about
a week ago for the SEC against ACC like a
Duke Auburn game, So there's your comparison. And once it
was group play, it was about one million for a
Lakers game or for a Warriors game, and if it
wasn't them, even if it was the Knicks, it was
less than one million viewers nationally for NBA Group Play games.

(01:06:57):
As far as the Heisman Trophy ceremony tonight, you could
make a case also that the past decade their ratings
have been down quite a bit. If you go back
a decade, it was over three million viewers for the
Heisman ceremony. A couple of years ago it was one
point six million viewers. Back up a little bit last year.
We'll see about tonight as it was, as you mentioned,

(01:07:18):
the smallest margin of victory by Heisman winner since two
thousand and nine. The winner Colorado wide receiver and defensive
back Travis Hunter. Finishing second was Boise State running back
Ashton Genty. By the way, this is three straight years
that a transfer player wins the Heisman, because Travis Hunter
had started at Jackson State, and then last year we

(01:07:40):
had the former Arizona State quarterback Jaden Daniels winning it.
Before that it was Caleb Williams. So three straight years.
And remember when they divided college football in its history
back in the seventies to Division one and one Double
A programs tonight, Travis Hunter becomes the first guy to
start his career in FCS and win the Heisman Trophy.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
Interesting, how about three of the four guys actually came
from the transfer portal. Three of the four guys in
New York tonight the style by genty but Dylan Gabriel
as well. Everywhere, Yes, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:08:11):
The stunning thing from the Athletic this week. Four of
the top ten are from the Mountain Time Zone.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Saw that.

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
Yeah, go figure none from the secias, not one from
the SEC in the top ten in Heisman voting this year,
Navy beat number twenty two, Army thirty one thirteen. Vegas
Raiders defensive end star Max Crosby is out for the year.
He'll have ankle surgery. The winners in Vegas and hoops
tonight NBA Cup Semifinals where Milwaukee and Oklahoma City. They'll

(01:08:42):
face each other in the final in Las Vegas on Tuesday,
and College Hoops had a game decided on a layup
at the buzzer and the winner was Number one Tennessee
now ten and zero winning at Illinois at the buzzer
sixty six sixty four.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Back to You Fox actually had back to back buzzer beaters,
Rutgers winning at the buzzer as well.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
The Fox had the Yukon game tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
They sure did. By the way, next Saturday, I you know,
I'm not a huge women's hoo's but juju Watkins at Yukon. Yeah,
next Saturday.

Speaker 4 (01:09:10):
You see what Notre Dames women's team has done with
not just beating top five teams double digit wins over
and over again, I mean Yukon and USC and Texas recently,
and on and on.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Oh I saw was to beat the Huskies doing night.
Thank you?

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
Ver?

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
Are you know the official Tours and Martin women's basketball
team as we established last week? That's one of us
established last week.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Guess all right, thank you sounds dangerously close to us
being women. What do you mean the Tours and Martin
women's basketball team.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
No, it's our official team.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
No, I get it. It almost sounds like we're playing
on that team.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
Is he not going to nominate?

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
By the way, Aaron Torres, Tennessee Lady balls after today
they set a record.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
They made thirty three pointers in this game. Well this
is actually a perfect seguay back to the NBA, where
they do nothing but miss threesh to say, here, do
you have a stet off the top of your head. I
think we got a record last night most miss threes
in one game. I saw this steat this morning. Let
me see if I can find it. I think it
was the hornet. Here you go, Hornets and bowls made

(01:10:16):
history on Friday night most miss threes ever in regulation
with seventy five. And so I bring it up that
is via Nate Duncan, who.

Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
Because they each took about fifty threes in a forty
eight minute game.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Well, and this is a perfect segue into the conversation
about what is wrong with the NBA? Why are people
not watching? You know, Jay Martin, I'll be honest. Is
to me, it just it all goes back to load management.
And it's hard. I know, I sound like an old man.
It's just hard for me to get excited to watch
a game when I never know who's playing. And I
know that's like the argument from like three years ago,

(01:10:50):
and the newer argument is really the style of play.
But I just kind of checked out on the regular
season about three four years ago because I said, even
if I want to down on a Friday night, even
if you know wife's out of town or whatever. It's
like you just never know who's going to show up
and who isn't. And so we are talking about the
NBA ratings. We found out this week that, as Desager

(01:11:11):
just told us, Cup play is down. NBA Cup, which
was tonight or Saturday night, was down ten percent through
group play. To date, NBA is down twenty eight percent
on ESPN, and it is down forty eight percent since
twenty twelve. And just to go back to the conversation,
I don't think it's one thing. To me, I do

(01:11:32):
think it is. I don't even think it's style of play.
I think it's still as load management. The players established
that the regular season doesn't matter. The players established that
they don't care, so it's hard for me to care.
And then to your point, when you turn it on,
you know, you have a situation where everybody's playing the
same way. They're all taking a bunch of threes, you know,
And I gotta be real as well, is that. I

(01:11:54):
also think that part of it is that when you
look at kind of the state of the NBA, this
is gonna sound weird. I just don't find a lot
of the modern stars that compelling you brought up the
point about the league is still pushing Katie Stephan Lebron
on us. But it's like you look at some of
the star players like, I don't know, maybe it's just
me and maybe it's old man, get off my lawn.

(01:12:15):
But it's like, I don't really find shake gilges Alexander
all that interesting. He puts up a lot of points,
he fills the statue. I don't find him that interesting. Luca,
I kind of don't find that interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
It's a terrible interview.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
Who Luca?

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Yeah? Is he interview?

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Yeah? I think Jokic is really fun to watch. I
think Jannis has his moments. Even Giannis has kind of
gotten a little weird and you know, preachy with some
of the stuff he's doing in Milwaukee. Although I know
they're playing better of late. I just think it's it's
it's it's a bunch of different things that have led
us into this situation. But I don't think there's any
doubt that ratings are down, and I don't know, I

(01:12:52):
just I don't find it to be very entertaining product
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
Well, I mean I think that the idea, look, that's
a that is something the league needs to handle behind
closed doors. In terms of building stars, you can't always
determine who the best player is going to be, but
you do know how to get your marketing arm behind
certain guys. And you have to realize that a generation
is changing right now. You have a lot of young guys,

(01:13:16):
but you don't really know how to feature them, and
I'm not sure they fully know how to feature themselves
in this landscape. And so you have all of that
kind of stuff. And then, as we mentioned, we don't
have the full time to get into it right now.
But the three point shooting's crazy. Every team is averaging
at least thirty one threes a game. And I sent
you this stat. I think we can end here because

(01:13:37):
I know we had to Siga coming on the other side.
But it takes seventy four, like on an average, to
score eighty We're just looking at percentages of makes to
score eighty NBA points. It takes seventy four to twos
and it takes seventy five and a half threes to
score eighty points. Now that makes no sense, right, because

(01:13:57):
I mean, to score ninety points, you need threes or
you need forty five twos, right, But that's if they
all go in. And that's what we forget. The percentage
of three point makes is actually down from what it
was twenty years ago, and the three point shooting numbers
are up in terms of attempts. You had that the

(01:14:18):
opening night, I think it was in the NBA, the
doubleheader that was on T and T. I believe there
were over one hundred and forty three shot in those
two games. That is preposterous. And none of these guys
are making it, like, I understand why Steph's got the
green light. I don't need Wemby to take double digit
threes a game when he's shooting barely thirty percent. Like

(01:14:40):
that's the argument. And I saw that made by a
couple of those content creators, and they're right. It's not
even about like and kelvin Washington. Our colleagues said the
exact same thing on the odd Couple this week. Not
everybody can be Steph Curry, and the idea that everybody
is trying to carb and copy themselves in a three
D printer and become Steph Curry. You don't Matt which
have the ability to shoot like that guy. So this

(01:15:03):
most effective tactic available that some people call a meta
like the meta in basketball right now, the most efficient
way to score points is supposed to be take a
ton of threes, but that is horrible to watch. If
you're shooting thirty one percent as a team and you're
still taking fifty a game, that to me is unwatchable.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
I'll be very quick on this point because we got
to get back to Tosager. I was thinking, have analytics
essentially killed two sports now because it's impossible to kind
of talk baseball. We can consume it, but it's tough
to talk and basketball. I think analytics there's no doubt
as more of the numbers have come in, it's become

(01:15:42):
a less watchable product overall. Again, NBA ratings down forty
eight percent since the twenty twelve season. Fox Sports Radio
eron towards Jason Martin broadcasting live from the Tireck dot
Com Studios. We will come back. When we do, we
will get to Disager with his thended late late hour update,
The Sager's Up Next. Fox Sports Radio, Welcome back, everybody.

(01:16:05):
Fox Sports Radio, Eric Toeords, Jason Martin broadcasting live from
the Tyreck dot Com studios. Football fans be sure to
tune into Fox Sports Radio every Sunday morning, beginning at
ten am Eastern seven Pacific for Countdown to Kickoff presented
by BEDMGM, Brian No, Jeff Schwartz, Professional Better Bill Krackenberger
will have you covered three hours before kickoff. Every Sunday morning,
listen to Countdown to Kickoff, presented by BETMGM right here

(01:16:27):
on Fox Sports Radio and in the iHeartRadio app Desager Apologize,
got to you a little bit late, Flora's yours, my friend, have.

Speaker 4 (01:16:34):
A holly, jolly Christmas. Anyway to the both of you,
Thank kids. Can I pass along an amazing item from
stat Zinc? After Travis Hunter won the Heisman Trophy tonight,
the year twenty twenty four will now go down as
the first in American sports history where the winners of
the Heisman, the NBA MVP, and NHL MVP all play

(01:16:55):
for teams in the same state. Colorado Wow, Nicola Jokic,
Denver Nuggets, Travis Hunter, Colorado NHL Avs Nathan McKinnon, who
got up to fifty points on this season tonight, first
in the NHL to do so. Rather amazing. So we
had a wide receiver and defensive back win the Heisman tonight.
How many total snaps did Travis Hunter play this season?

(01:17:17):
The answer is well over one thousand. In fact, it
was over four hundred more than any other player in
the upper level of NCAA football. He had ninety two
catches on offense plus four interceptions on defense in twelve
games for Colorado. Fifteen total touchdowns this year. And we
did have a bowl game tonight, yes in Birmingham. South

(01:17:39):
Alabama beats Western Michigan thirty to twenty three. Western Michigan
finishes the season six and seven. They had played at
Ohio State early in the season and lost fifty six
to nothing and still got to a bowl game. In fact,
late season, they lost three straight conference games in a
row in November and still got to a bowl game.

(01:18:00):
And now we find out today that Luisiana Tech at
five and seven, is going to be Army's opponent in
a bowl game this month because the original opponent, Marshall,
has had to opt out due to a wave of
transfers after a coaching change. Already, there's been a headline
that's probably not the only time that's going to happen.
Former USC quarterback Miller Moss reportedly committed to Louisville. A

(01:18:22):
year ago, he threw six touchdown passes against Louisville in
a Bowl win. Remember he was subbing for Caleb Williams,
who didn't want to risk injury before being number one
pick in the draft. And yet tonight we hear that
Travis Hunter is due to play in his bowl game
this month before he goes to the NFL Draft. Navy
beat number twenty two ranked Army thirty one thirteen. We

(01:18:44):
actually had three touchdown passes total in this game. That
had only happened once in almost twenty years in an
Army Navy matchup. The guy who's the Army quarterback this year,
Bryce and Daily, finished sixth in Heisman balloting today against
the rival one touchdown past three interceptions, while the Navy
quarterback Blake horveth four total touchdowns two hundred and four

(01:19:07):
yards rushing. Navy will have a bowl game against Oklahoma.
Today's game, by the way, was in Landover, Maryland. Next
year's matchup will be in Baltimore and Vegas. Raiders defensive
end Max Crosby is out for the year. He'll have
ankle surgery.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Thank you very much, Steve Sager. That was to Saga
with his extended update. We appreciate you to saga. Fox
Sports Radio er tors jas Martin broadcasting live from the
tyreck dot Com studios. Will come back one hour left
and boy, oh boy, do we have a lot to
get to Week fifteen in the NFL. But also Kitlin
Clark back in the news. We're discussing that next Aer

(01:19:44):
Torus Jason Martin take you till two am Eastern Fox
Sports Radio. Welcome in everybody, our three Fox Sports Radio
er tors Jason Martin. We are broadcasting live from the
tyreck dot Com studios tyreck dot com. We'll help you
get there and unmatched like fast free shipping, free road
hazard protection, and over ten thousand recommended installers tire rack

(01:20:07):
dot com the way tire buying should be. Eric Torres,
Jason Martin, we are taking you up till two am
Eastern time. Bernie Frado off the Bernie Frado Show follows us.
I know Bernie has some real good stuff coming out
of a busy day in sports. Obviously, the big news,
as the Segre just told you, Heisman Trophy goes to

(01:20:29):
Travis Hunter. If you missed any of our coverage about
Travis Hunter, about winning the Heisman Trophy. Make sure to
go back and download the podcast, which is available shortly
after we get off air. Well, that's said, Jason, Do
you want to hit on a topic. I'd certainly made
waves over the course of the week. The WNBA had

(01:20:52):
largely been out of the headlines. I could say since
the season ended, but it really was out of the
headline since Kitlyn Clark's team lost in the playoffs. Let's
call space right here, but listen this Time magazine interview
that she did certainly made waves. The most notable thing,
of course, that a lot of people have had an
opinion on basically her talking about her privilege. And I

(01:21:16):
will just read the quote directly so that way people
can't say that I misquoted her or whatever. This from
Time Magazine, Kaitlyn Clark saying, I want to say I've
earned every single thing, but as a white person, there
is privilege. A lot of those players in the league
that have been really good have been black players. This
league has been kind of built on them. The more
we can appreciate that highlight that talk about that and

(01:21:37):
then continue to have brands and companies invest in those
players that have made this league incredible. I think it's important.
Jmart I have a lot of thoughts. I mean my
first one, and we could dive into all this, but
this whole thing just feels so weird to me. Like

(01:21:58):
Caitlyn Clark, whether you like or whether you don't, completely
stayed out of the fray on anything not related to basketball,
really her entire career, dating back to Iowa. To do
this interview, which by the way, seems stage scripted weird,
but to do this in the middle of the offseason,
it doesn't even make sense to me because it's just

(01:22:20):
so it's so off brand from everything that she has
done to this point. And you don't have to start
there if you want, but that's kind of my first
takeaway is like, you got through a whole season without
wading into these waters. Now you decide to do it. It
just the whole thing seems weird. Go ahead, take it, Jaymark.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
I mean, all of what you're saying is right. One
thing I'd love to know is was she asked a
question that would lead to this answer or did this
come voluntarily without a question that was even relevant here?
This is you know, we talked about Travis Hunter earlier
and how genuine and authentic that speech was when he

(01:22:59):
won the Heisman, how just likable he was, and just
everything about that is just like, man, I want to
see this kid succeed, like this is somebody that you
want to root for, and all this kind of stuff,
as genuine as that was, what you just read, comes
across the exact opposite. I don't know if it was
focus group tested or whatever. And I also don't know

(01:23:21):
why it was necessary to be said. I don't think
that Caitlyn Clark accepting this award that she was given
or this honor that she was given and just saying,
you know, it's an honor to play in this league
with such talented players. I love playing basketball. You know,
all those kinds of things. You don't have to go
into this. This is this is taking on something that

(01:23:47):
is never going to be a win for Kaitlyn Clark.
It's just not. There's absolutely zero victory in this for
Kaitlyn Clark to jump into it, because she can never
bend the knee far enough. She can never. Now there's
she's come out and said she has this privilege or
that privilege or whatever. That's not going to change anything.
Anybody that already had problems with that, still going to

(01:24:08):
have problems with that. It doesn't matter that you've come
out and said it. It's not going to give you
more points in terms of those people that already have
an ax to grind against you or whatever. And again,
it was just like it's almost like she was It's
almost like she scored. She won a match at Wimbledon
on a net cord and the ball rolled over and

(01:24:32):
the opponent couldn't quite get to it. And when something
like that happens in tennis, you raise up both your
hands like, oh, I'm so sorry, Like you you're respectful
with the fact. It's like, yeah, I know, I just won.
But ah, it's almost like she she can barely even
just accept this without the caveat. And that's a that
is a gigantic problem, and it's not something that's going

(01:24:56):
to be fixed. Caitlyn Clark is Caitlin Clark. She's always
going to be Caitlin Clark, and she's always going to
be side eyed by everybody in that league because they
can't stand the fact that she is the cause for
their success. And we don't even have to get into
all the reasons why, but they I've said. I said

(01:25:19):
this last year when all this stuff started to first break,
I said, before she got in the league, I said
she was going to get brutalized on the floor, and
she was gonna be talked about, and you're gonna hear
all this speculation and all this kind of stuff coming out,
And I think almost all of that stuff has proven
out to be true. I think that league would rather
fail than her be the cause of its success, and
so they're gonna do everything that they can to submarine

(01:25:43):
the one thing that has made them relevant since their existence.
When she says, you know, this was built on built
largely on these black women and all this. Okay, no,
it wasn't. It was built on the It was built
on on men of all races, but a lot of
them were black men. Because it was built on the NBA.
There's no WNBA without the NBA money and the NBA

(01:26:05):
marketing arm and the NBA getting behind it, and the
NBA arenas and all this other kind of stuff. Their
players tacitly agreeing to it in public and talking about
it and all stuff nobody cared about. Nobody was clamoring
for a professional women's basketball league on the grand scale,
the NBA made it a thing. So yes, there were
players that paved the way for you to play basketball,

(01:26:27):
but that doesn't matter in this case. Like what Caitlin
Clark did and who she was in Iowa and who
she is in Indiana with the fever, what she did
and how she was able to capture the imagination of
the country because of kind of the perfect storm of
what happened their junior year or in her sophomore year
in that final four. That's just the kind of thing

(01:26:47):
you can't script. It's just something that naturally organically happened,
and she became a megastar that transcended a sport. And
I don't think that she needs to apologize for that.
She just needs to roll with the punches and say,
you know, this is a great honor. I look forward
to continuing my career and playing against a lot of great,
great women. And you know, she could say stuff is

(01:27:10):
nice about the league without seeming like she has to
apologize for her success. And I think this is the
first moment where she's made a dramatic misstep in her
career that actually could have detrimental effects on how she's
perceived outside of basketball.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
Well, and I think why and I want to put
words in your mouth, but I think why you say
that is because she hasn't been the knee, because she
hasn't said that I have privilege. Like, listen, I we're
wading into these waters, so let's just dive in. Like
what privilege has allowed her to have anything that she has, Like,

(01:27:45):
she is one of the most gifted basketball players on
the planet. She's great at what she does. She didn't
get drafted for any reason. She isn't in this position
any for any reason other than her individual success or
individual work or individual whatever. So like one, I don't
even understand like the comment, but then beyond that, like

(01:28:08):
what I would also say is exactly what you said.
Is like there's no now listen, if she really feels this,
she's allowed to say what she wants. I have no
problem with it. But there's no win because the people
that appreciated that she wouldn't wade into these waters, that
she wouldn't bend the knee, that she wouldn't say, Oh,
the only reason I'm here is because of privilege, and
blah blah blah and this and that, Like those people

(01:28:30):
probably now do not feel the same way about her
that they did seventy two hours ago, or you know,
a week ago before she did this interview. I do
also want to touch jmart on something that you said
about this league would rather fail than succeed with her
as a star. And I bring it up because the
owner of the Washington Mystics, Sheila Johnson, did an interview

(01:28:52):
earlier this week on CNN and had some very interesting
By the way, keep in mind these comments were made
after Caitlin Clark made these comments, which to your point
you said earlier and I think you're right, is no
matter what she says, it's never going to be enough.
So Kaylen Clark comes out says, it's my privilege. I
you know, this league was built on the back of
black women. Blah blah blah, blah blah. Here is the

(01:29:15):
owner of the Washington Mystics, Sheila Johnson, talking about Kaitlin Clark.

Speaker 5 (01:29:19):
It's just not Caitlin Clark, it's Reese. We have so many,
so much talent out there that has been unrecognized, and
I don't think we can just pin it on one player.
It's just the structure of the way media plays out race.
I feel really bad because I've seen so many players
of color that are equally as talented and they never

(01:29:40):
got the recognition that they should have. Caitlan Clark was
named Athlete of the Year. Why couldn't they have put
the whole WNBA on that cover and said, the WNBA
is the League of the Year.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
That was Mystic's owner, Sheila Clark or Sheila Johnson, excus
me speaking about Kayln Clark. So to your point, Kayln
Clark comes out, says what she believes is the right thing.
That everybody's going to be on her side, and she's
finally saying what everybody wants her to say. And even
after that, the owner of the Washington Mystics, it's not enough.
There's other great players. Why didn't they put the entire

(01:30:18):
WNBA on the cover. I'll tell you why. Tough picture,
tough to get everybody on one plot.

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):
Tell you why. Because the WNBA was not the League
of the Year. No, the NFL was, because it always is.

Speaker 6 (01:30:33):
Look at the ratings, look at the interest level, look
at the money generated, look at the merchandising, look at
the video games, look at everything that you want to
look at, look at every metric. The only reason your
league was talked about. It all was because of her.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
You can talk about all the other ladies and there
were some really talented ones and some of the basketball
last year as a result.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
That helped out.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
But remember, and I used this analogy at the time,
months and months ago, they are drifting off her car.
It is a NASCAR situation where they are drifting and
they're getting to the front of the line. Angel Rees
figured this out really fast, and to her credit, then
backed it up on the floor. But Angel reats became
a thing because of Caitlyn Clark, and she used it,

(01:31:19):
and she should the entire WNBA should be using this
to showcase what they can do. But the problem is
they can't just do that. They have to run their
mouths as they're doing it, and they are submarining themselves
in the process. It was not the League of the Year.
And that right there, it's like she's saying with gritted tea,

(01:31:41):
she don't even want to admit that Caitlin Clark is good.
She's talking about how she's nothing she's doing is special,
and she's getting all quiet that right there. If you
have if you are anybody with vested interest in the WNBA,
if you have financial if you have some kind of
a financial interest or anything like that or any kind
of power, you call that organization and you say, never

(01:32:04):
say something like that again, Can.

Speaker 2 (01:32:06):
I jump in on that, because that is like the
most shocking thing, like imagine and I don't even know who,
like Steve Balmer, just like you know, uh Nikol Jokich
wins the NBA title and Steve Balmer's like comes out
and just does an interview where like he's getting too
much credit. We have a lot of great players in
this league, like you know, how quickly listen, we could

(01:32:30):
criticize Adam So I think Adam Silver would be like that,
that's not acceptable, Like David Stern would never tolerate that.
And listen, this is a bigger picture, and we've we've
had this conversation before. How ineptly run the WNBA is
and the fact that they did nothing to protect this girl.

Speaker 1 (01:32:47):
I'm not saying.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):
They like she'd she like is the old The players
were actively trying to hurt Kate len Clark this past
year and the league did nothing to protect her. And
I think this speaks to this exact thing speaks to
the broader conversation about where the WNBA is where I
just think that's a perfect metaphor forget the fact, by

(01:33:09):
the way that every sport was built on somebody and
everybody was grateful for it. You think NBA owners, can
you think the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks cared in
nineteen ninety two when his the value of his or
her franchise was skyrocketing because of Michael Jordan. You think
anybody can you know, look at boxing, everybody's lining up

(01:33:30):
to fight Jake Paul because he's making everybody money. This
is the only time in the history of sports where
it's like somebody is making people money hand over fist
And to what you said earlier, j Mart, they don't
want the money. It's just it's mind boggling to me.
But again to the point that I was making before
I just started yelling.

Speaker 7 (01:33:50):
Is it's like I just sit there and say, what
league allows owners of teams to publicly just kind of
crush players that are not on their teams.

Speaker 2 (01:34:00):
It's just mind boggling to me. But it speaks to
how inepley run this entire this entire operation is I'm
not even call it a business because a business actually
turns profit at some point over a twenty five year period.

Speaker 1 (01:34:11):
And so what they've done, here's the problem. And I
gave you this quote an attext earlier Captain America, the
first avenger of the original Captain America, Steve Rogers in
that film says, you start running, they'll never let you stop.
Caitlin Clark ran this week and we all saw it.
And the big thing is they all saw it, and

(01:34:34):
now she can't stop. Now it's when's the next time
she's gonna crack. She was above it all because she
just didn't wade into the waters, whatever was being said
about her in her name, all this stuff. She generally
stayed away from all of it and she just played
basketball and that was the end of it. But now

(01:34:56):
she's come out and she's done this and she said this,
and so she's awen it some people in the process.
But those that she's trying to endear herself to, they're
not going to care. Like this doesn't change anything. They
still want to beat her brains in and they're still
upset that she's good. They're upset that people care all
this stuff. But and I mentioned this in our discussions

(01:35:20):
through time, this is a finite thing. This is not
an infinite deal where this WNBA is gonna be around
for fifty hundred years, continuing to grow. They're about at
the peak of where I think they're gonna be, and
they have found a way not only not to maximize this,
but two they have gotten the least out of this

(01:35:41):
that you possibly could because they can't stay out of
their own way. You can use this to grow your
league for five ten years, and maybe you do. I mean, look,
you got Paige Becker's coming into the league next year,
You're gonna have who was the USC player? Why is
their name? Is kaping Mere Watkins? Yeah, yeah, You've got
some talented players coming into the league. But the reason

(01:36:03):
that their eyeballs on the league is Caitlin Clark. And
to deny that fact is ridiculous. And to try to
ascribe that or talk about those people in a negative light,
that's not going to help you either. Just use it
to your advantage. You have more eyeballs, you have a
little bit more interest right now, and so instead of
doing that, That's why I understand what I'm saying. It's

(01:36:25):
like they don't want their league to fail. But because
of the way they're behaving and because of the things
that they're saying, even if I'm speaking a little bit hyperbolically,
they seem to be content with going back to complete
anonymity as opposed to using Caitlin Clark and celebrating that
they have something here that they can build around and

(01:36:47):
that they can all potentially grow from. And instead they're
the ones that are undercutting her, not the media, not
the public. They are And now, of course the media
is kind of going along with it a little here
and there, at least certain parts of the media. But
this is the most mind but you used the term
mind boggling, baffling. This just makes no sense from a

(01:37:10):
business perspective, from a logic perspective, from a fan perspective,
from a longevity perspective, this is just insanely dumb. And
that comment from the mystics, What on earth are you
thinking saying something like that? Why would Time put the

(01:37:30):
WNBA and call it the greatest league? Like either you
have such an outsized opinion of yourself or you really
have self esteem issues, Like one of the two things
has to be true, because there is no semblance of
logic in that whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (01:37:47):
I know, we got to get to break, but I
remember talking about this in the opposite manner during the
regular season. I thought, whoever was advising Caitlin Clark during
the regular season where she just basically refused to put
herself in anything political the Michael Jordan Republicans by sneakers
too stuff. I thought it was really well done, brilliant.
How many times did she just say I'm here, I'm

(01:38:08):
focused on playing basketball. Whoever was advising her on this,
It's just yeah, it's just so illogical. And you know,
we didn't even get into some of the quotes about
some of the other players of oh, you know, like,
you know the girl who poked her in the eye,
and Caitlin Clark responds, I've been poked in the eye
many times playing basketball. If that would have happened in

(01:38:28):
the NBA, do you think people would have shown up
the next day and been like, hey, Tyree Halliburn, did
you poke Steph Curry in the eye on purpose? That's
a quote from the article. It's like, yeah, it's different
when the nails are six inches long, and oh, by
the way, she did clearly try to poke you, like,
it's just the the only point I'm trying to make.
Whoever advised her on this. It's just so idiotic and

(01:38:50):
I just it didn't do anything. I don't think it.
First of all, it ostracized. I think a lot of
her followers that liked that she stayed out of politics.
I don't think that, you know, she'll get a pat
on the back from social media. But I don't think
that anybody that didn't like her for this is all
of a sudden like, well now you know, and again
you look at the players. I don't think the conversation

(01:39:13):
is going to change. I don't think she's all of
a sudden gonna get a pat on the button say hey,
good job from from some of the players that were
trying to literally hurt her during the season last year.
H J Mart. We got to get to break any
last any last thoughts before but the.

Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
Ball I would say this, I'd say this, this is
this is crazy, right because the quote is talking about
you know, trail blazers that paved the way and all
this other stuff. Right, it's being totally conciliatory, and you
understand the spirit of it. Right, that interview damaged that league.

(01:39:46):
Think about that, Think about what she was saying, and
I don't think there's a I don't think there's any
way to deny it. That interview and those comments damaged
that league. Damaged that league financially, her saying nice things
about the rest of the league because of some of
the things that we've already.

Speaker 2 (01:40:03):
We all see it's nonsense.

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
That's exactly right. It damaged the league for her to
say those things, because we all have eyes and we
all remember things, and we've seen things, and so this
this whole thing is just I sent it to you
days ago and you were on the exact same page.
It's just like, I'm just I'm disappointed with this. This

(01:40:26):
is this is unfortunate because no one wins here.

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
No one wins here. Caitlin Clark interesting week, and I'll
just go back to where I led. I just I
don't understand what the upside of even doing this interview was,
let alone, you know whatever Fox Sports Radio eron towards
Jason Martin, Well, come back a league with plenty of
drama on the field. Thankfully the NFL, we got a

(01:40:51):
preview Week fifteen, some big ones and oh, by the way,
maybe get into a little bit of speaking of some
interesting quotes. A. J. Brown had some interesting things to
say that's next. Fox Sports Radio, Welcome back everybody, Fox
Sports Radio, Ra Torres Jason Martin broadcasting live from the
Tyreck dot Com studios. Quick correction from Torres. By the way,
Bernie Fratto out this weekend. Chris Plank following us. So

(01:41:12):
we go, Yeah, we go to Chris Plank exactly twenty
nine minutes and forty five seconds from now.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
He could tell us what Auburn's getting in Jackson Arnold, Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:41:26):
Okay, I'm excited. I'm actually excited. Not for Oklahoma football.
They could be bad again next year, but we'll discuss
that with Plank in a little bit. Sorry, Plank, it's
the truth. You know, you lost all your receivers into
the portal. But anyway is neither here nor there, because
right now we do have to get to the news
desk because Steve Sager's got an update for US.

Speaker 4 (01:41:45):
And Oklahoma's bowl games coming up against Navy, which just
played today and Navy beat number twenty two Army thirty
one thirteen. In case you didn't hear, Army's bowl game
matchup will now be against five and seven Louisiana Tech
because Marshall opted out due to a wave of transfers
after a coaching change there, we didn't have much football
wise today, guys, we have a ton next weekend. Keep

(01:42:08):
in mind the college football Playoff, now a twelve team playoff,
begins with a Friday night game next weekend, Notre Dame
hosting Indiana. The other three first round games are next Saturday,
all at campus sites, and there are two NFL games
on TV next Saturday, opposite the college football on cable.
So wile Penn State's hosting SMU, there's Texans at Kansas

(01:42:32):
City Chiefs next Saturday, while Texas is hosting Clemson at
four pm Eastern. Fox TV has Steelers at Ravens starting
at four thirty eastern next Saturday. As for the Heisman
Trophy winner, it was announced tonight it's Colorado wide receiver
and defensive back Travis Hunter. He had fifteen total touchdowns
in twelve games played offense and defense. By voting points,

(01:42:57):
it was the smallest margin of victory since two thousand
and nine. But as far as first place votes only,
Hunter had a sizeable advantage of about five fifty to
three hundred over the man finishing second, Boise State running
back Ashton genty Hunter. They said was named on ninety
three percent of the ballots, which is top five all time,
and he did win five of the six voting regions.

(01:43:18):
He barely lost in the Far West three hundred and
fifty seven points to three point fifty four to the
Boise State Star. A distant third in the balloting was
Dylan Gabriel, Oregon quarterback number one. Oregon is off until
it's Rose Bowl quarterfinal, by the Way, which will be
against the winner of Tennessee at Ohio State, which will
be played next Saturday. The Kansas City Chiefs activated kicker

(01:43:40):
Harrison Butker, so he will play Sunday at Cleveland after
left knee surgery. Kicker matthew Wright was waived. Kansas City
tackle DJ Humphries is out with a hamstring injury. Las
Vegas defense van Max Crosby is out for the year.
He'll have ankle surgery. Raiders quarterback Aidan O'Connell is questionable
for Monday night against the Falcons with a knee injury.
Two games Monday night, Chicago will play at Minnesota as well.

(01:44:03):
Bears running back Roshawn Johnson is out with a concussion.
Running Back DeAndre Swift questionable with a groin injury. Dallas
defensive back Trayvon Diggs likely out for the year. He'll
have knee surgery, according to NFL Network, Saints quarterback Derek
Carr officially out. Jay Hayneer will start tomorrow, and Washington
defensive back Marshawn Lattimore is due to make his team

(01:44:23):
debut Sunday at New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
His former team.

Speaker 4 (01:44:26):
Washington activated wide receiver Jamison Crowder and placed wide receiver
Noah Brown on ir and for the Seahawks Packers game.
Seattle running back Kenneth Walker is listed as doubtful with
a calf injury. NBA Cup semifinals were today in Las Vegas.
Milwaukee eliminated Atlanta, then Oklahoma City beat Houston the finals
in Las Vegas Tuesday. Golden State is acquiring guard Dennis

(01:44:48):
Shrewder from the Nets. He's on an expiring contract. Lebron
James and the Lakers has been out for over a
week with a sore foot. He has been upgraded to
questionable for tomorrow's game against Memphis. Philadelphia rookie Jared McCain
is out in definitely. He'll have knee surgery for a
torn meniscus. McCain is averaging fifteen points a game. In
men's college basketball. Number one Tennessee still undefeated, one at

(01:45:11):
Illinois on a layup at the Buzzers sixty six sixty four.
Auburn ripped Ohio State in Atlanta. Kentucky over Louisville Lamont Butler,
former Final four hero from San Diego State, had thirty
three points for Kentucky, ten of ten from the floor,
including from three point range, six for six six rank
Marquette led eighteen to five early at Dayton, but the

(01:45:32):
Dayton Flyers came back to upset them. Seventy one sixty
three Alabama and Yukon with wins. Florida and Kansas as well.
In Indianapolis, Texas, A and M beat Purdue in a
top twenty matchup, seventy to sixty six Oklahoma and Old
Miss with basketball victories. Memphis won today in overtime at
number sixteen Clemson eighty seven eighty two, even though Memphis

(01:45:53):
had trailed by six with about two and a half
minutes left in regulation. Wins for Wisconsin and Mississippi State.
Cincinnati beat rival Xavier sixty eight sixty five. Bearcats had
lost five straight against savior Number twenty four, UCLA was
playing Arizona in Phoenix, separate conferences. Now UCLA's nine and
one after a comeback win fifty seven fifty four. Bruins

(01:46:16):
had trailed by thirteen in the second half. Yet another coach,
Mick cronin game they allow fifty four in an NHL
late night game. In fact, a couple of scores to
pass along. Bruins win five to one at Vancouver Tampa
Bay a five to one winner at Seattle.

Speaker 2 (01:46:30):
Back to you, thank you very much, Steve de Sager.
Do Sager have a great evening? To sagre be back
on Sunday with Chris plankint I do believe I was
going to say, among others, Chris Plank, who is following
us now twenty four minutes and twenty one seconds from now,
so Fox Sports Radio error towards Jason Martin. Jmart We're
already short on time that we've just had so much
to talk about today really quickly before we just very

(01:46:53):
quickly look at some of the big games on Sunday
in week fifteen, give me your AJ Brown, Jalen Hurtz.
We need what's wrong with our team the past game.
Comments from AJ Brown earlier this week.

Speaker 1 (01:47:05):
All right, So the reason I mentioned that I kind
of wanted to discuss this when you had this situation
at San Francisco? Was it Campbell? Is that his name?
That's he took a red shirt?

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):
I don't know if you already's gonna hit the portal?

Speaker 1 (01:47:17):
Yeah, say all right, So that doesn't happen if forty
nine ers are having a good season, right, Those kinds
of things don't happen if they're having good years. But
when things are not going well, all of a sudden,
debo pops off, and then you have Campbell and you
have all this other stuff. I do the show out
of Nashville, and for years I covered the Titans week
after week, including AJ Brown's entire time here and when

(01:47:41):
you went to Philadelphia. I don't know if I said
it to you. I probably did, but I know I
said it to a bunch of people and on many
different programs. I hope it goes well up there, because
if it doesn't, you're going to see a problem. The
one reason this has not explos loaded is that they

(01:48:02):
are eleven and two. Yep. If they start losing, look
out because this same thing. AJ was the fun, loving
guy he wasn't the diva here. Everybody else's divas everywhere
else in the league. With AJ, Brown was a great
player and all this. Then the team started to falter
a little bit. They lost that playoff game when they

(01:48:23):
were the number one seed, lost to Cincinnati, and then
AJ publicly wanted Julio Jones and that was fun. He's
fun loving guy and all this, and then you started
to have it. He had this weird conversation with Debo
on a call that got leaked publicly, and you just
started to hear things. He would just start to say things,
and there was a malcontent and there was a change,

(01:48:44):
and then all of a sudden, he gets moved and
the GM loses his job, and all these other things happened.
But we all knew that we're watching the team and
covering it, that what we had thought about AJ in
terms of like his mental stability and the way it
is that he goes about his business had shifted dramatically.
And I think we had all figured out, at least

(01:49:05):
most of us, that we got it wrong, that well,
you know what, maybe this guy's not exactly as non
diva like as we thought. So he gets up there
and of course he and Hurts it thrown together at
a wedding and hash this plan to go play together
and now they're best friends and all this well look
at it now and you have this just starting to
leak now again, if they're not eleven and two, this

(01:49:27):
may have led our show tonight because AJ Brown he's
a powder keg. He's very, very emotional and there's some
really good that comes with that, and he's an outstanding
Hall of Fame level player that's so much fun to
watch and you want to go battle with. But man,
when things are not going well, he is the last

(01:49:48):
guy that you want around. So I was thinking about
that Campbell thing when it happened Aaron, and I was
just like, that happens because San Francisco's having this kind
of a year, but the Eagles are low that they're
having the year they are because what we're seeing from
Aj and some of this stuff that's raising some red flags.
It would be so much worse and it would be

(01:50:09):
front page news everywhere because AJ's just kind of volidle
like that when it comes to his emotions, and I
think it makes him great because of the way he
plays football. But it's also a major red flag and
a detriment for your team, because he can become a
cancer real fast. And when I started seeing that, it's
just like he's already a little upset right now because

(01:50:30):
he thinks that they're winning on the backs of the
defense in the running game, and he also recognizes his
quarterback is a little bit struggling throwing the football and
trying to get him the ball down the field. He
wants to be a part of a winning franchise, but
at the same time, he's already laying the groundwork if
this thing doesn't work to explode in one direction.

Speaker 2 (01:50:52):
I think it's all totally fair. And I think to
your point, it goes without saying that, you know, if
the team wasn't good. Yeah, I just I found just
the whole thing weird.

Speaker 1 (01:51:03):
Weird.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
Yeah, And you know, I don't know if there's jealousy
of Saquon or if there's jealousy of what I mean,
it could be any any which thing. But I just
find it just frankly stunning that that, you know, you know,
you can have issues behind the scenes, but to say
anything publicly in the midst of a season that they
are having, it's just bizarre to me. By the way,

(01:51:24):
Eagles are part of a pretty big game on Sunday
afternoon four to twenty five Eastern on Fox. They are
hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers. Any quick take on that one
before we get to break and wrap the show.

Speaker 1 (01:51:35):
That's definitely one where we need two screens. Man. Yeah,
Bill's Bill's Lions and Stewards Eagles happening at the same time.
It's a good slate, man, There's some really interesting stuff.
We didn't get to break it all down because so
many other things are happening. But I mean, the Sunday
night game is really good. Bucks Chargers is interesting because
they're both fighting for their playoff lives. We just talked

(01:51:56):
about that doubleheader. I'm interested in Cowboys Panthers because if
if you want a stat to take to the break,
this will be the first game where the Panthers are
the betting favorite in their last thirty one football games.

Speaker 2 (01:52:08):
I saw that stat. I saw that. We I'll tell
you what, let's come back, let's wrap the show. We'll
do some quick preview of Week fifteen of the NFL,
and then we do have to give our official picks
for Week one of the college football playoff we'll come
back do all that next. This is Fox Sports Radio.

(01:52:31):
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Eric Torres, Jason Martin
broadcasting live from the tyreck dot Com studios. Coming up
at the top of the hour, Bernie Fratto out Chris
Plank In Plank will be following us. Cannot wait to
hear what Plank has to say about Travis Hunter winning
the Heisman Trophy, all the big news from across the NFL, NBA,

(01:52:54):
Caitlin Clark, and much more. Chris Plank coming up in
twelve minutes from now. Should mention. Shortly after the show,
our podcast will be going up. If you missed any
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Just search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcast,
and also be sure to follow, rate and review Again.
Just search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcasts,
and you'll see this show posted after we get off air.

(01:53:17):
All right, j Martin, I'll tell you what. We really
haven't had much of a chance to preview the big ones,
both in the NFL, certainly in week fifteen. We also
got to look ahead to next Friday and Saturday in
college football. So Mary, give us a little music put
us in the mood, and let's start. You said it
two screens Sunday at four to twenty five Eastern time.

(01:53:39):
Let's get to the one that we did not mention earlier. Obviously.
It is you know what I think a lot of
people believe could be a Super Bowl preview. O, my goodness,
the Buffalo Bills the Detroit Lions again four to twenty
five Eastern time. What do you think about that one, Jamart.

Speaker 1 (01:53:56):
Man, I mean, that's just gonna be a great game.
I can't wait to see it. However it goes, the
Lions just keep finding a way and they've got it
at home, so I do favor them to win the game.
Josh Allen's been the MVP. I mean, he's definitely played
MVP level football this year. Wouldn't be the least bit
surprised if the Bills do go in there and win.

(01:54:18):
But I do think the Lions, being at home, with
that crowd and just the way their offense is hitting.
The only thing with them is injuries are starting to
add up on the defensive side of the ball, and
that's something that that there needs to be a tourniquet
stop that bleeding as fast as possible, because that will
eventually cost them. I just don't know that it'll cost
them in this game. So again I'll take Detroit.

Speaker 2 (01:54:39):
I'll go a little different. You know, Lions, two straight wins, obviously,
both on Thursday nights, so they do get a little
bit of extra time with this game. But both wins
were only by a field goal. Now, admittedly that Bears
game was a little bit weird and they were kind
of in control even though they you know, they only
won by a field goal. And of course the Packers game,
we know Dan Campbell, you know, the decision to go

(01:55:01):
for it on fourth down to basically seal the win,
not give the Packers back. So both of the last
two games could have gone either way. Bills obviously coming
off just that epic, epic, epic game, really a couple
epic games. If you go back to the Snow game
two Sundays ago, I will say, even though it's a
lot of travel for the Bills west to east and
then back, I'll take the Bills to win. How about

(01:55:23):
the other one we were talking about, Philly and Pittsburgh.
The game is in Philadelphia. Obviously, as we discussed last segment,
a lot of conversation in Philly this week, unfortunately away
from the field, where AJ Brown had some interesting comments
about the state of the past game. Philadelphia is hosting
the Pittsburgh Steelers for twenty five Eastern on Fox. Who

(01:55:44):
you like, Jmartin?

Speaker 1 (01:55:45):
I mean, I think I like Philadelphia. If Pittsburgh wins,
You're gonna have some issues. There's gonna be something said
during the week. There's no question about that, especially if
it goes similarly where Hertz is struggling to throw the
football downfield and they're unable offensively to get the job done.
I still like, I'm still trying to figure out exactly
how the Steelers are winning. Like I understand what the

(01:56:07):
defense is doing, but some of the stuff that Russ
has gotten away with. And I do like Philadelphia to
win the game. I think they have a better overall defense,
and the chances are the Steelers and can make a
mistake offensively, the Eagles can potentially take that. But I
don't know how good I feel about it. It's that
in state deal. They don't like each other at all.
It's gonna be super physical, a lot of hard hitting

(01:56:29):
in that game. I think I'll take the home team,
but Tomlin finds a way a lot of times to
pool games like this out.

Speaker 2 (01:56:38):
Yeah. My only real thought, I think is that we've
seen so many times in sports like just there's a
narrative all week and we think it means one thing,
and then the game gets played and it means absolutely nothing.
And this feels like that to me. You know. Obviously,
Philadelphia along with Detroit, is as hot as anybody in

(01:56:59):
the league right now. It's kind of unbelievable how well
they're playing. So I think, like you said, if they lose,
it's certainly gonna be a thing, and there's gonna be
a lot of reporters around AJ Brown's locker. But I
do think that Philadelphia finds a way to win against
a very good Steelers team. Speaking of in state teams
that aren't really rivals but sort of rivals, let's go
to Friday night, Indiana Hoosiers at Notre Dame, the first

(01:57:24):
ever college football playoff game in the twelve team era.
By the way, Notre Dame is a very comfortable favorite
in this one. Any chance that there's an upset in
South Bend on Saturday on Friday night, excuse me, Jmr.

Speaker 1 (01:57:38):
Sure there is? I mean, I don't know how battle
tested Notre Dame is coming in against coach sig and
an offense that's had a couple weeks to prepare. I'm
gonna pick Notre Dame to win a game, but I
don't think Anyand's gonna get blown out in this game.
I think they absolutely can beat Notre Dame. I just
don't think they're going to in this case.

Speaker 2 (01:57:55):
Yeah, I think it'll be competitive. I think Notre Dame wins.
I'll say this, don't want to get too far ahead
of ourselves, because you know, Notre Dame's gonna beat Indiana first.
I think Notre Dame, with Georgia very likely having a
backup quarterback, makes for a very intriguing potential Round two matter.
I guess it would be down the road, but you know,
you know what I'm saying. It sets up for what
I think could be a very interesting matchup Penn State.

(01:58:19):
You mentioned it earlier. There's no way James Franklin possibly
loses to SMU at home as an eight and a
half point favorite, is there, j Martin?

Speaker 1 (01:58:26):
I mean, he'd better hope not. I don't think you
will in this case. I think it's gonna be an
interesting game. It's going to be a styles clash. I
just this Penn State team at times has been kind
of sneaky in terms of its ability to score some
points you're not expecting. I could see that happening a
little bit against SMU. But the big thing is Penn
State's defense. I think SMU has not seen that kind

(01:58:47):
of a defense consistently enough, and I think that'll Stomium.
Plus just the environment and the Penn State crowd. I
think that's gonna be too much for SMU.

Speaker 2 (01:58:56):
Texas, do they beat Clemson? Yeah, Saturday afternoon, Okay, get
to the big one. Then Tennessee at Ohio State. Tennessee
a seven and a half point underdog.

Speaker 1 (01:59:06):
I think that's disrespectful.

Speaker 2 (01:59:09):
Ryan Day does he get knocked out first round of
the playoff.

Speaker 1 (01:59:13):
I'm gonna I'm fascinated. I don't know if Niko is
ready for this moment in that building. I know that
defense can be and I know Dylan Sampson can be.
I'm gonna take Ohio State to win the game, but
I may change that by the time the game is
actually played. I'm I'm wavering back and forth on it.

Speaker 2 (01:59:32):
I thought it was interesting Kirk Kurkstreet's saying, would it
be better for Ohio State to be on their own?
Tell you what we gotta go. Thank the crew, Mary, producer,
Pat Steve de Seger from my partner Jason Martin. I'm meritorus.
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