MIKE CRISPINO

Mike Crispino joins the show to discuss UConn Football beating Duke!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Binando back to pets Now. He looks and he looks
and he throws up top. It's part in the episode,
Hey Dust, he's scored it as well. Who else? Skyler
the Magnificent.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
That is the wonderful voice of Mike Crispino, who joined
us now on the Robbyable Show. At Ben Darnell and Mike,
You've been doing Yukon football for a number of years now,
but how big was this win for Yukon over Duke Robin?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Was huge. I've been around eight years. The first four
years were terrible, one of the worst football teams in America.
Didn't look like they could compete. Then Jim Moore showed up,
came out of the TV booth and showed he still
got his fastball. So the team's been building six and

(00:53):
six that first year in the regular season, then a
step back of a few close losses in year two
last year, ending up winning a bowl game this year.
This was a huge game for them in my mind,
this was a prove it game. They had to proved
they could beat a good team, a hot team. The
Blue Devils had won three big games on the road

(01:14):
already this year with a dynamite quarterback and some dynamic receivers,
a team that had scored forty six to beat Clemson
just last week. You know, they were an underdog and
they all knew it. I mentioned it's a Jim and
Our Coaches show, and he gave me the throwaway line
when I said, Jim, you're an underdog at home, he goes,

(01:37):
we know it, and that was it. I felt like
there was a there was an attitude thing going on
there where the team now feels that we're good enough,
we should never be an underdog at home, and they
proved it. It was a great game, drama, thrills, comebacks.
Yukon wiped out five deficits in that game. That's what

(01:58):
impressed me the most. Time they got down, they somehow
bombd a way to climb back in and they finally
made the last play. I mean, something that the Giants
couldn't make right on the weekend and a few other
times this year. And now they don't have their head coach,
but you got to make those plays in the fourth quarter,
those winning plays, and they got it done. And so

(02:19):
now they're in a position at seven to three, they're
gonna have a pretty good season. Here. They're going to
finish who knows eight or nine wins and maybe a
Bowl win, and then they're'll be doing something they hadn't done.
And I don't know, you've got to go back fifteen
years at least to have a team this good.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
I have never felt the twelfth man factor like I
did at the Rant Saturday night. With that final play
in that sack fumble recovery, that place was rocking more
than I've ever experienced before. And I'd have to think
Mike that that juice and that energy was huge for
the team, and actual play on the field in the
fourth quarter, no, no doubt.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
I just talked to Donovan Branch, coach the show which
airs tomorrow, and he's flat out said it. He said,
we felt it, we heard it, and Lou Hansen to
the tight end. Here's a guy who played at Michigan
for a couple of years in front of one hundred
thousand people. He didn't say this was Michigan one hundred
thousand people, but he said it was wild. We got

(03:18):
so much support from those stands, and it matters. It
does when you're the home team and you get some
momentum and you've made a couple of big plays. I
think it just helps. And if you're a duke, I
felt like in the last drive, which they put together
a pretty good drive, when it really came down to it,
the crowd was rising up, and the crowd influenced what

(03:39):
happened in those last few plays. And I think, you know, listen,
when you're at home and you have that advantage, you
must take advantage of it. And you certainly did this
weekend well.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
And talk about their average yards like you said, you know,
you've been covering it for eight years, going back to
four years, they're averaging like one hundred yards passing a game.
Now they're averaging three h undred yards passing a game.
And it was perfect three eleven this game, four to
sixty seven in total offense. You know, they were averaging
forty four points every home game. They got thirty seven.

(04:11):
So they Huskies keep hugging along doing what they're doing,
and like you so perfectly put it, then they were
able to get that final stop. And that's what they
haven't been able to do to get these wins.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Right. I mean I was saying this for three, four
or five years ago when U kind was averaging twenty
points a game and I said, your defense would have
to be Chicago Bears eighty five like to win games
because if you're only scoring twenty, the other team only
needs to get twenty one to beat it. So now
you go scoring in the thirties most games. W they're

(04:47):
winning games. Their offense has been tremendous. Joe Finano is
having a fabulous year and he ran the ball the
other day, guys, which I think. You know, he's a
great quarterback in terms of throwing the ball accurately on
the run, finding receivers, but he's also getting smart about
when he sees something opening up and they're not playing

(05:07):
him to run. He's taken advantage of it. Six times
he carried it and he ended up with a net
of fifty one, but he ran for sixty three. He
had a twenty six yard run averaged eight and a half.
And he's not a runner, but guess what. You leave
a guy wide open while everyone's covering your receivers, that's
when you can take off and get some substantial yardage.

(05:28):
And he was able to do it. But to your point,
the offense puts pressure on people. You know, the receivers
catch the ball, the running backs run hard, the tight
ends are involved, they come at you in a few
different ways, and when you do that, that puts pressure
on the other team. They come in going, wait a minute,
we're gonna have to score maybe forty to win here,

(05:48):
and that's not easy to do.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Call of the year fake punt run to keep a
drive alive late in that game. I thought that was
a huge play in that ball game, in great execution.
But I listened to postgame coach Moore is like, it's
just a normal Saturday. We practiced that all the time.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
I thought that was the call of the game. Mike, Well, yeah,
I agree with your special teams when something goes your
way in special teams. Look at the Jets yesterday kickoff return,
punt return and they win a game right based on
what they did with their special teams. And I think
it was a perfect time to pull it. I didn't
expect it. I wasn't thinking that. I was thinking about

(06:26):
what kind of field position can Connor Stuss get the
Huskies with a good kick. Instead, Alex Hanik takes off
and he didn't stop. He ran for twenty six yards
and that was just a momentum shifter. And special teams
are about throwing curveballs at people, throwing things in that
no one is thinking about. No, no, they're not going

(06:46):
to do anything but kick it to us. Well they did,
they ran the ball. I thought that right there, and
I think I said it on the ear that Jim
Moore pushed all the shifts to the center of the
table on that one. He said, look, we're going to
do this. We get the first down, we're gonna roll.
If we don't, we're gonna find a way to stop them.
But the point is you make a decision like that,

(07:07):
you are telling your team, gentlemen, we're trying to win
this game. We're not trying to kick a field goal
like Brian Daviel did yesterday on the half yard line.
We're trying to win the game and that's why we
do this.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
How do they look injury wise? They had a couple
of guys that got smoked in the knees. I thought
there should have been a penalty on one of the
freaking tackles acts did. Yeah, man, they threw a shoulder
into one of our guys knees. How healthy is Yukon
going up against Air Force this week?

Speaker 1 (07:39):
So we're gonna have to wait and see tomorrow and
Jim Morrims the media. I think there'll be a couple
guys missing, probably Lie Malette, maybe Juice Mareen will have
to miss this week. But I don't know. I'm not
the doctor, you know, Bob Howard's the guy, and the
rest of the medical staff. They're gonna have to see
what kind of injury is the extent of these injuries.
I know Mel Brown is getting close to coming back. Yeah,

(08:00):
I'm not saying yeah right. He might not come back
this week, but he could possibly play in the last
game of the year on the road and then in
the bowl game and not lose his red shirt. Boy,
that would give you con a little because you think
about it, he was their game breaker. He's only been
he played two and a half games this year. He's
been out for the last seven and a half weeks.

(08:21):
So I mean they could get him back, maybe not
this week, but the following week and in the postseason.
So it's football. You're going to lose guys. It's unfortunate.
But I think one thing that Jim Moore has done
here now in these last two years is developed quality depth,
and you have to have it in football. We all
know it you're going to lose guys. Guys are going

(08:42):
to it's the collision sport. People are going to break.
And you know, u Khon has been relatively injury free
this year. They really have, you know, look about their
offensive line. They've been fairly stable. Defensive line as well.
Linebackers are not missing very many people in these games.
So there's gonna be a couple guys out. I'm not
sure the extent. I hope it's only a week. We

(09:04):
don't know. We'll find that out tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yukon Sports Network Mike Crispino, not only was he busy
on Saturday Friday night, you had men's basketball against you
Mass Lowell tonight six point thirty with the tips six
o'clock right here in these Robbers shows, Sports Stations Columbia.
The Columbia is in the house, six o'clock pregame man
terras Reid makes a big difference seventeen minutes, a double double.

(09:26):
I know it was you Mass Lowell and they weren't,
you know, up to the Yukon caliber. But still some
about it when that guy who is like a back
to the basket, old school center style, some about it
that actually creates floor spacing and everyone else really feeds
off I thought their offense really clicks when Terrace is
in there.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean he makes the game
easier because if you miss, he gets to the glass, right,
he gets a putback. He's nine of twelve from the field,
twenty points. And you're right, U mass Lowell is a
you know, a mid major team on the road, but
you could see the way they ran their offense and
the way the ball moves when you have that extra

(10:05):
guy that you can chuck it into. An experienced guy
like Eric Ryba is going to be really good, but
he's not quite there yet. He's a freshman in his
second or third game in college basketball. You got Terris Reid,
who for the most part has all that experience, four years,
a couple of years in the Big Ten, a couple
of years here with Dan Hurley, and it just makes
the game easier, right for everybody, because he's an option.

(10:28):
You can throw it in there, and he's smart about
if he has to get rid of it and give
it up and find someone else who's open. And I
think that's so key because it just gives you more options,
more ways to score the ball and you count. I've
been saying this since the preseason and they started playing
these exhibition games. This could be a very dangerous team.

(10:49):
They're not healthy, they do not have a couple of
outstanding players. Brayln Mullins McDonald, loll American. I really think
people are going to really like Jacob Furfew, freshman guard
from Australia, and he's not available right now. But get
all those guys on the floor. This team's deep. They
can put the heat on you and they can keep

(11:10):
it coming. They can keep coming after you for forty minutes.
And if that, you know, Dan Hurley can get guys
to do that. With this group of players, I mean,
these guys are going to be dangerous from November all
the way to March.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Talking to Mike chrispino yukon Sports Network, People's Bank Gamble
both have been renovated. Watching the girls play a gample.
They dropped their banner last night. They can get over
ten thousand people in there. I mean, we are not
making it easy on any opposing teams anymore. Wherever we play.
We got kick ass arenas and we got noisy crowds.

(11:46):
It's fantastic going to watch men and women's basketball at Yukon.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Oh yeah, no question. I mean People's Bank Arena. They
stepped it up there. They improved the concession areas and
the concourses and the seating and the the luxury seating
is more of it. And they're really taking care of
some of the donors who are supporting these programs, you know,
so beautifully. And I think that's necessary. And that's number one.

(12:13):
And gamble, they're never they never stopped trying to make
it better. Uh, they may eventually have to add some
seats there. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Then they added seats, yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
I mean, listen, I think you could sell them. I
don't think you know, I don't think you're gonna have
any empties to be the way these programs are rolling.
I mean the coaching you kut has I've been saying
this since I've been there. Really, the coaching is high level,
and the players say it. That's why they come there.
I mean, it's I know, it's a different world. People
get paid to play college force, but it still matters

(12:47):
who's got the whistle in their hands. And you can't
find a better bunch than we have. I mean, come on,
Dan Hurley two championships, Tino Orima twelve, Jim Pender's always
in the in the regional super regionals, and Jim Moore
are rebuilding a program that was on the brink. I mean,
it doesn't get me better than that. And I think

(13:08):
the fans know it, and I know the players know it,
because that's the first thing they say. You ask them
about their teams, and they'll talk about their coach almost
every time, right off the top. All of that being said,
the momentum these programs have is fabulous, but without the support,
without people fill in the seats, it's not the same.
So they're doing what they need to do. The athletic

(13:29):
Department is David Benedict and all the guys that are
involved in that. They're doing what they need to do
to make this a great athletic program, and so far
it just keeps us spending.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Mark Skrzyzewsky's out there talking. He's talking big East ACC
mergers on a lot of people's minds. I don't know
if it was that Yukon Duke football game, but more
people are saying this. Rick Patino said it at the
end of March Madness. A little bit during the summer
what do you think about a Big East ACC merger
finally coming to fruition.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
I like it a lot. I mean, obviously in basketball
would be a super league, right, come on, all those
great schools and the history and the great programs, and
I think you cause proving in football, they certainly belong
in a league like the ACC. And I think the
ACC is probably among the power fors, maybe the least

(14:20):
prominent at this point. They could use a little boost,
I think, a little juice, and I think that would
that would bring it. I think it's time for them
to make a move. I don't know what's keeping them
from it. I think they're too concerned with statisfying Clemson
in Florida State. But as you can see, Clemson and
Florida State have been great over the years, but they're
not great this year. So you got to have options.

(14:42):
You got to have other schools, right, Georgia Tech's having
a good year, Virginia's having a good year. You need
as many schools as you can to have a shot
to improve your league's profile around the country. I think
it makes absolute sense. But you get guys like Shrzchewsky
and Patino, I mean, leaders of the Sports saying this stuff.
Dan Hurley hasn't made any statements about it, but I

(15:03):
believe he thinks the same way. I think a super
league would just draw more attention for these big East
and ACC schools. I can't wait to see it happen.
I hope it does