Juan Soto Signs MAJOR Deal, Bregman Next? UT Loses SEC Championship, CFP Is Set

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Lunchtimers. This is the Matt Thomas Show.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Ten oh clocks straight up in the am here on
Sports Talk seven ninety l to a Monday edition of
The Matt Thomas Show with Ross without Matt Thomas. Soto
right center, see you later. Gotta be one of the.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Longest homers at Yankee Stadium this year, and.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
The kids got a couple twice in either of the
Yankee stadiums in the same night. That fall is talks folks.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
My goodness, now twenty one year old Lon Soto.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
That is hit in the air to ride and right here.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Now and now Soto carries his back down to the
first base coach Tim Bogar and one Soto has just
gone deep and the Nationalist take the lead three to
two in the fifth.

Speaker 5 (01:06):
A driven deep to right deal.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Derek Does say, yah, a monster to run home run
and the Yankees.

Speaker 5 (01:17):
Have come back to take a six to five lead.
O hoh my, he crushed that.

Speaker 6 (01:23):
MI.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I don't know what to say, but this gets to
be a little bit more fun every single day.

Speaker 7 (01:28):
The Yankees are doing everything and one Soto has done
everything all year.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
What a huge home.

Speaker 8 (01:34):
Run, Canna Steel Soto a high fly oldest center Thomas
backing up Thomas at the track and.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Run Soto three run.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Home run Sodo magic in game time, an incredible moment
has one Soto.

Speaker 8 (01:54):
Ghosty to give the Yankees a five two lead in
the tappening.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
The Bronx Bombers living up.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
To their nickname right now and.

Speaker 9 (02:04):
All ready be pushing flowers the fifteen years seven hundred
and sixty five.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Amillis, I say again, fifteen years.

Speaker 10 (02:26):
Seven hundred and sixty five.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Million dollars to one Sodo. We don't normally open up
the show with New York Mets News, New York Mets
News here on wfa N sixty six, but we had
to do it today. One Soto, Oh my gosh, what
a deal. He will be one of the many things

(02:51):
we cover on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross Without
Matt Thomas. He is out again, traveling late last night
with the Rockets as they well, you know, gotta win
against the Los Angeles Clippers snapped their two game losing streaks.
So win that was huge, I mean massive. It was

(03:11):
a must win game somewhere saying.

Speaker 8 (03:13):
And every time the Clippers tried to like cut in like,
the Rockets kept at about ten, like I kept watching them, like.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yes, all right, they're keeping this thing at ten. All right,
you were the one. I appreciate you. Appreciate you watching
and listening here. I listened to your post you did. Okay,
you definitely were the one. You and Girrod. I appreciate that.
I had to go pick up my wife at the airport.
Oh okay, that's fine, the old Hey, can.

Speaker 5 (03:32):
You pick it up for the airport? Sure?

Speaker 8 (03:34):
What time you'll end? You're not gonna like it. What
time do you land? Eleven thirty? You land at eleven
thirty at night? Oh that's fine. I've done to take
me to the airport. And then it's a five am flight,
So then you got it. That means you got to
be there at like three am. So at least you
didn't have to do that.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
All right. So Chris Gordy is here, am Ross Vireo.
You can get in anything you want to get to
seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven ninety But as
I said, don't normally start with Mets news. But I
mean your first reaction when you saw it, I think
Jeff pass and officially I was the second person. Okay, now,

(04:10):
probably not due to the latency of the website or something,
but it said when I retweeted Jeff pass and I
was retweet number two. So it's now over twenty eight thousand,
So you're welcome. Jeff. I amplified your message and now
all these people hear it. But at nine to ten
pm last night, Breaking Superstar outfielder at Juan Soto and

(04:33):
the New York Mets are in agreement on a fifteen year,
seven hundred and sixty five million dollar contract. Sources tell ESPN.
It is the largest deal in professional sports history. Your
initial reaction, Gordy.

Speaker 5 (04:44):
Was what seven sixty five? You said, seven hundred.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
And sixty five fifty one million dollars per year.

Speaker 8 (04:50):
Yeah, I laughed because somebody tweeted out they said, do
you know how much Jim Crane bought the Astros four
thirteen years ago?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Was it around four hundred six eighty Okay?

Speaker 5 (05:00):
With six eighty six hundred and eighty million, the Mets
just been one sodo more than what Jim Crane bought
the Astros for, Like that is I saw?

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Now that was when did he buy the Astros? Is
around twenty eleven. Okay, so I also saw that the
Finnway Group purchased the Red Sox for like seven hundred
something million, so he's more. His contract is worth more
than the Red Sox franchise twenty two years ago, not
adjusted for inflation. So yes, it's a huge albatross of

(05:32):
the contract. And my first reaction was just wow, I
was floored. Now we knew it was gonna be big
money for Juan Soto. We know that he's a young star.
He's twenty six years old, and one of the reasons
he's been passed around from team to team to team.
Nationals didn't want to sign him to this huge type
of deal. They wanted to get some value from him
as far as prospects, so they traded them away. Same

(05:54):
thing with the San Diego Padres. They're like, all right,
we're probably not going to be able to afford to
to to give five hundred million dollars or whatever it's
gonna be to Wan Soto, so we're gonna trade him
away to the Yankees get some prospects. And that bore
fruit for the San Diego Padres and then the Yankees,
who were going all in and trying to win the
World Series, and oh Spaghettio, poor New York Yankees didn't

(06:16):
win the World Series. They were obviously in the sweepstakes
for Juan Soto. So I knew it was gonna be
a big deal. I knew it was gonna be around
like five six hundred million dollars, but seven hundred and
sixty five million dollars from Steve Cohen and the New
York Mets. That's just more than I could have anticipated.

(06:37):
Apparently it got really close to the Yankees. All the
reports from the New York reporters are that it was
close to Sodo was close to signing a sixteen year,
seven hundred and sixty million dollar deal from the New
York Yankees, but fifteen to seven sixty five. He can
opt out after the first five years. As this just

(06:58):
continues to get more and more wacky, he could opt
out after the first five years unless the New York
Mets guarantee him fifty five million per year. Right now,
the AAV average annuel value is fifty one million dollars
per year. If they up that to fifty five, they
guarantee the last ten years of that contract, which it'll

(07:19):
essentially then become a ten year, five hundred and fifty
million dollar contract. From there, it'll be up to the
Mets to decide if they want to up the any
So it has been playing well, if he's been healthy, etc.
You'll have five more years of sample size of him
at the plate. We know him at the fields not
very good, So he's going to have to be very
good at the plate and then some to live up

(07:40):
to this deal. I mean, just blockbuster doesn't even begin
to describe this. I was completely floor and then so
now that it has happened and the dust is going
to settle, that begs the question where do other teams
go from there? And as far as position players, the
number two prospect as far as free agents on everyone's board,

(08:04):
Alex Bregman, And now, of course Alex Bregman is not
one Soto. He's older, he is not as good at
the plate anywhere near. But isn't it funny We're talking
about the one hundred and fifty six million dollar deal
from the Astros and that's what they offered Alex Bregman
to go do seven hundred and sixty five is what

(08:26):
Jan Soto god. So we'll see what happens. But I
don't think. I already know that deal that was offered
by the Astros is not going to be accepted by
Alex Bregman. He's gonna want something closer to two hundred
million dollars. Willie Adamis and the deal that he got
from the Padres over one hundred and eighty million dollars
is something that they're going to try to target and
get closer to Scott Boris. Has this domino fallen? This

(08:50):
is the Scott Boris client, as is Alex Bregman. Juan
Soto is always going to be the first domino to fall.
Now the next question is where does the next I'm
that being Alex Bregman fall.

Speaker 5 (09:02):
In into which hands?

Speaker 2 (09:03):
According to MLB trade rumors, Red Sox and Yankees both
teams that are going to be in on Alex pregnant.
And this is exactly what we've been talking about and
what I and many people predicted, not like I'm some
kind of genius, but that Juan Soto is going to
sign a big deal. And then the teams that missed out,
whether it be the Dodgers, well I don't think they're
going to be interested, but the Yankees apparently are reportedly

(09:26):
interested in retaining the services of Alex Bregman. According to
Bob Nightingale, and those teams that were thinking about ponying
up all this money for Juan Soto seven hundred and
sixty five million for Sodo, that sounds like a lot.
Then one hundred and eighty five two hundred million dollars
for Alex Bregman. Maybe that sounds like a good deal.
Once you're shopping around for anything, or a car or whatever,

(09:49):
or a house and you see this dream big house
and you swing and miss, or it's just not in
the budget. Something that maybe was even over budget before,
but compared to what was way over budget, it looks
a little bit more palatable. It's an easier pill to swallow.
And I think that is going to be the case
with Alex Bregman and the contract that Scott Boris is
gonna want for him. So that is something we need

(10:12):
to discuss as we go along, and we will as
we go along, where will Alex Bregman land? Who is
going to sign him? As I mentioned, apparently Red Sox
Yankees other teams going to be interested in the services
of Alex Bregman, as are the Astros, as Dana Brown
has said that's their number one priority for the offseason,

(10:33):
So we'll pick up the pieces from there. How do
you feel about this Jan Soto deal? Is he overpaid?
Is it way too much money? Or you say, you
know what, Hey, the young man got what he was
offered and he signed the contract. I'm okay with it.
So many different implications with this. Does Major League Baseball
need a salary cap? Has Steven Cohen gone rogue? Or

(10:53):
is this something where we're gonna see trending in this
direction these types of deals in the future. I don't
know a lot to disc got seven one three two
one two five seven ninety the phone number, and where
do you think Alex Bregman lands seven one three two
one two five seven ninety. Still a lot of stuff
to get to here on the program. We'll have to
tell the truth. We will have some college football playoff talk.

(11:14):
We have some NFL stuff to get to. The Rockets
one last night against the Los Angeles Clippers, and then
one Soto's huge deal and what it means for Alex
Bregman at seven one three two one two five seven
ninety more.

Speaker 11 (11:28):
Matt Thomas Now on Sports Talk seven ninety welcome back.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
I swear it wasn't me. They brought up bringing playing
some Kendrick on the show. Was Connor McGovern, Welcome back
to ninety three seven the beat? Oh yeah, what's your?

Speaker 5 (11:45):
What's your?

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Ninety three seven? The beat? DJ name mmm, I don't know.

Speaker 12 (11:50):
And when I was in college, I went by DJ
Conductor Connor because Inductor Connor musical rot worry. So I well,
I just I would say dj CC. Okay, DJCC. That's
kind of boring.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Actually that sounds like there the huge still leaders a
sports rv oh find me on Twitter.

Speaker 5 (12:08):
At s V.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
He's not on the beat. You're right, raps rv oh. Okay,
that's pretty good. All right, Welcome back to the Matt
Thomas Show with Ross Without Matt Thomas. We've already played
Little Wayne and Kendrick Lamar on this show. So yes,
Matt Thomas is out. He will be back tomorrow, I believe,
as he's very sleepy and I don't know what time

(12:30):
he got in from the Rockets game against the Los
Angeles Clippers last night, but they one hundred and seventeen
to one oh six over the Clips, improving to sixteen
and eight, but around nine o'clock. As I said, the
sports world was buzzing with the news of Juan Soto
and his new deal. He's going to be a New
York Met at least for the next five years.

Speaker 8 (12:50):
Gordy, Can I give you the the vibe that like
just my gut feeling right now. Yes, it feels like
the Yankees are going to overreact to this because oh
my god, we lost man SONO.

Speaker 5 (13:02):
Yes, they get they by the way, their offer was
very good.

Speaker 8 (13:04):
They offered sixteen seven sixty, Yes, sixty, but it was
over sixteen.

Speaker 5 (13:09):
But I'm like, one, Soto's not going to be playing
baseball fifteen years from now. He's just not. He's not
going to. He's not going to.

Speaker 8 (13:15):
So like fifteen sixteen, you can make it twenty five years.
He's not going to be playing on the back end
of his contract. So this seems like a spiteful thing.
Somebody wrote something about he got angry because the Yankees
wouldn't let his driver or a relative into the clubhouse,
and so they said. When Cohen with the Mets met
with him, he brought his family relations person with him,
like to explain all the things that they're going to

(13:37):
take care of his family with and all that. Wow,
there's a little bit of spiteful stuff here. It sounds like,
but doesn't this feel like the Yankees now they feel like, oh,
we got to do something.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, and they're going to go Alex Bregnant yeh know
you yes, yes, I was mentioning that in the last segment.
I mean, and this is also don't you think that's
that was Scott Boris's plan. That's something we've been talking
about that the first one to come off the board
is going to be Juan Soto then, and I made
the analogy like, let's say you're looking for a house
and it's way out of your budget, and then it

(14:07):
gets sold and you're like, all right, fine, you might
be willing to go a little bit above your original
budget because it's it's still lower than that big, way
over priced house that you couldn't afford. And the same
thing with a car or anything else, some big purchase.
It kind of in pales in comparison two hundred million
dollars from Alex Bregman, even though, of course he is

(14:28):
not the player that Juan Soto is. I don't think
he's thirty three percent of the player that Juan Soto
is and that total money is well below thirty three
percent of the total contract Juan Soto to Alex Pregman.

Speaker 5 (14:39):
Yeah, it's just I don't know it.

Speaker 8 (14:41):
It sucks because you just have you have dumb teams
with dumb money, and it's like none of this makes sense,
Like this contract of the Mets doesn't make sense at all.
Want So is a great player, but no players are
worth that much money. That's silly. And then in term
we have to respond to go, well, just the price supplaying.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Put it is the price of playing booker.

Speaker 8 (15:02):
Because some idiot gave out some stupid number doesn't mean I.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Have to be an idiot too, No, you don't. But
if you want to keep up with those jones. This
is not necessarily the Mets because they're in the National League.
But if if the Yankees are going to be spending
those that type of money and those are the teams
you're going to have to be keeping up with, I
mean it begs the question does Jim Crane have to
change his philosophy of this hard lined idea he's had.

(15:28):
I don't want to go over five years for any contract,
but if people are handing out these kind of deals.
Do you say to yourself, all right, this is a
one off one. Soto is a once in a generation,
Shohio Tani is a once in a generation. These types
of guys, the Astros can still win without handing out
these kinds of deals.

Speaker 8 (15:49):
Yeah, I just I don't know. I I agree with
the Astros plan. What the how they've done this, remaining flexible,
not handcuffing yourself to any high dollar contract that limits
future opportunities and possibilities. But again, I've said, if you
want to keep Bregman and you want to do it, okay,

(16:10):
if you can make it work. But it sounds it
just feels like with all these other sharks in the water,
it's not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's interesting because we've already seen this from the Mets.
Right a couple of years ago, they had like a
three hundred million dollar plus payroll. It was Max Suersey,
it was Justin Verlander. It was of course Lindor was
underperforming at that time and it wasn't working. They they
shed payroll, they got rid of Justin Verlander, they got
rid of Max Scherzer. They weren't doing it the right way.
So you can't just blindly spend money and then everything

(16:38):
is just going to work out. Stephen Cohen already knows
that as the owner of the Mets. The question is
if they if he's spending his money smarter, which I don't.
We can argue how smart this deal is, but at
least for the for the immediate part of this, for
the first couple of years. Yeah, is he gonna be
broken down and not worth fifty million dollars when he's
forty one years old.

Speaker 5 (16:58):
Certainly he's not going to be.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
But for right now, for buying one Soto's prime, the
Mets got significantly better and there's no arguing that.

Speaker 5 (17:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (17:08):
I mean, and it sucks. I got a body who's
a beat diehard Braves fan. He's like, this sucks. The
Mets and the Dodgers have just made this not fun.
He goes, We're going to go into the season knowing
the Atlanta Braves cannot win a World Series.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Like, that's not true. They can win a World Series.
The Mets didn't win the World Series. Now, the Dodgers
did win the World Series, but they hadn't won one
outside of the year of COVID since the nineteen eighties
and they've been spending a ton of money for for
a decade.

Speaker 8 (17:31):
Place the odds right now on potential Mets, Dodgers, and LCS.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
They feel pretty good about.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
That one, probably the favorite, but we'll see. I mean
that that's the beauty of baseball, is that anything can
happen in a seven game series.

Speaker 5 (17:43):
And people have brought that up. They're like the best
thing about it.

Speaker 8 (17:46):
Like you can get mad at the Astros, they're not
overspending and all this, but the one thing baseball showed
us is anything can happen. And I mean, the freaking
Guardians were this close to making a run this postseason.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Right and then well the big dollars Yankees made the
World Series and the Big dollar Dodgers was their opponent.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
This is the first time the Yankees have gotten there
since nine.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Okay, so that to me is kind of the counter argument.
But you're just gonna have to If you can't spin
with the big boys, you're going to just have to
do that much more, that much better, finding shrewd moves,
finding smaller deals that guys can outperform, and then having
prospects come up and outperform their contracts. That's how you win,

(18:28):
because Juan Soto can live up to that contract. We've
talked about this on the show for years with the
you know the deals by Carlos Carreo or Garrett Cole.
Garrett Cole can live up to his contract. He cannot
surpass the value of his contract. So what you're having
right now is you're gonna have to win with guys
that you have. Yan her Diaz is outperforming his contract
because he's on a rookie deal. He hasn't hit free agency.

(18:51):
Jordon Alvarez is outperforming his contract because you locked him
up early. All praise be to James Click and he
you have him locked up for several years of his prime.
So you're gonna have to make moves like that. But
then the problem come becomes. The Dodgers have been really
good building their farm system. The Yankees have been pretty

(19:12):
good stocking up their farm system as well. So if
they're gonna do that and spend money, the road ahead
gets even tougher.

Speaker 5 (19:20):
As good as Jordan Alvarez was last year, I mean,
and the numbers are great three I wait, batting average,
thirty five home runs, didn't it feel like he didn't
come through in the clutch though.

Speaker 8 (19:30):
Lest No, Like, no, it didn't. The postseason definitely did
not come through.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, well there was two games. There was a two
game sample, so two for seven. Yeah, take two for seven. Hey,
that's better than what what did uh? What did Kyle
Tucker do?

Speaker 5 (19:43):
No home runs, one walk, one striker.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Okay, so in two year hend tell me in two
games he got two hits. Oh terrible, he's a disaster
to come through. It's baseball, man, nobody hits one hundred
and sixty two home runs. It's you can't set your
watch to it flows. Oh for seven, Yeah, there you go,
Kyle Tucker. Kyle Tucker is the one we do focusing on.
He's had two bats postseasons. Just remember that crap when

(20:05):
I hear the pay the man.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
Yeah yeah, so how about tell the man to hit
the postseason.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
He's had some good runs in the postseason as well.
I yes, twenty one I think, or something like I
want to say twenty one or twenty two. He was
really good in the postseason. But that's just how it goes.
It's short samples. I think it was like he hit
big home runs in losses. Oh we don't really remember,
all right, Like he came through and the losses is
jose L twove clutch? Yes, what was his to go

(20:32):
look up his twenty twenty two playoffs when they won
the World Series. He hit under two hundred in those playoffs.
He was terrible. He was He started off like one
for twenty seven or whatever. This has been multiple What
I'm trying to tell you is that the sample sizes
are just they're so small, and we have them under
a microscope. In the playoffs. A good player, generally, over
time is still going to hit well in the playoffs.

(20:52):
And I have confidence in jord On Alvarez, who's come
up clutch many times in the playoffs. Long term, I
think Kyle Tucker's gonna be okay. But I mean, speaking
of that, uh, we got to get to a break here.
But this Soto deal, what does it mean for Alex
Bregman we're talking about, But as you mentioned, Gordy, what
does that mean for Kyle Tucker. I mean, he plays
way better right field than Juan Soto does, and he's

(21:13):
not the hitter that Juan Soto is. But Soto's ops
last year was nine eighty nine. Kyle Tucker wasn't far
off of that. I'll go look it up, but it
was pretty close. So it just feels like not only
this is Bregman gone. It's already been feeling like Kyle
Tucker is gone, but now it feels like way gone

(21:34):
going in the future for the Houston Astros. How do
you feel about this one Soto deal and how it
impacts the Houston Astros going forward? Does this make you
feel even more strongly than Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman
are gone. Does Jim Crane need to change his philosophy?
Does he need to stop with the five year limits
on contract seven to one three two one two five

(21:55):
seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven
ninety It is The Matt Thomas Show with Ross with
you until two o'clock here on Sports Talk seven ninety
continuing along here on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross,

(22:18):
but without Matt Thomas. He is out sleeping. Chris Gordy
is here going to be hanging out with me. We'll
have to tell the truth coming up at eleven thirty,
and we're also talking some Wan Sota. We'll be talking
some college football playoffs, some good stuff there, although I
don't really want to talk about it after that game
this weekend with the Longhorns and the Georgia Bulldogs. Connor

(22:40):
McGovern is here as well, and you at seven one
three two one two five seven ninety the phone number
seven one three two one two five seven ninety tweets
at sports RV and at Chris Gordy and Connor d
McGovern as well. So I pose the question to you,
what does this mean for Jim Crane. Does it feel

(23:01):
like the five year rule has to go away with
these contracts with Jan Sota or is he just a
unicorn once in a generation player. You can continue passing
on those types of guys and then go about your
business the way you normally do well.

Speaker 5 (23:15):
We already know they went with they want to get
that rule, because wasn't the report they went up to six.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yes, but I feel like it's like one year, one
year for a guy who's been here in the heart
of the soul of the team, who who is a
silver slugging third baseman. It feels like going over for
one year on that would makes sense. Over thirty will
turn thirty one when the season will I mean, if
you're only paying him to thirty seven, at least, it's

(23:41):
not like soda. You're paying him to forty one. How
many great hitting thirty seven year olds are there in
baseball right now? And baseball right now, I don't know.
Nelson Cruz was good into like his forties. He's the
first one that pops off the top of my mind
as far as other guys around baseball right now, and
I can't think of anybody off the top of my head.

(24:03):
I'm sure that there's got to be some old guy
who's doing pretty well at the play.

Speaker 8 (24:06):
I'm just pointing out it's not not Josea brayw It's
not the best bet to say. Yeah, thirty six, thirty seven,
he's gonna be crushing it.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Let's see. I'm going to like the ops leaders, which,
by the way, Kyle Tucker, Oh no, Kyle Tucker didn't
end up qualifying, so it doesn't matter.

Speaker 5 (24:21):
Marcelo Zuna is thirty four. He had a nice season
for the He wasn't great. Three to two, okay, Atlanta.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah he is solid.

Speaker 8 (24:31):
I he's the only one I'm looking in like the
top fifteen hitters in baseball that is that old.

Speaker 5 (24:38):
Yeah, Hookie Bets is thirty two, Okay, he's thirty seven.
Generation like he's a generational.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Josel. Twove Is thirty four again had been a great
He hasn't been a great hitter.

Speaker 5 (24:51):
Generational.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, so well, you're thinking Wan Soda is generational. Even
when he's forty years old, he should be able to
draw a hundred walks. He's got such great plaits. He
don't play discipline. He's twenty six years old.

Speaker 5 (25:01):
You think he's gonna be playing at forty one.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Only he's been playing. He started when he was nineteen.
He should be going. He should be coming for Pete
Rose at that point.

Speaker 8 (25:11):
There's some rumor that is it in the contract that
after five years he can opt out and then we'll
go up to like an eight hundred million dollar contract.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
He no, he has the ability to opt out after
five years, but if the Mets up the average annual
value to fifty five million dollars a year, So basically,
if they guarantee him ten years, five hundred and fifty
million dollars, which at that point in five years, who
knows what's happening with revenues or whatever. But if they've
gone up enough, the Mets will, like lightning fast, do

(25:38):
that sign him up, and then he will be locked in.

Speaker 5 (25:42):
Freddy Freeman is thirty five. Okay, it's the closest to
you know, he's also an ultimate.

Speaker 8 (25:48):
Make a bet, would you bet that Bregman is Freddy
Freeman esque over the next year.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
And no, we've seen slippage in Bregman's bat in the
last couple of years. That's what so see that that
can concern you. But that's also not exactly what you're
paying for. You're over paying for his prime. And then
you're saying, at the back end of this contract, yes,
I'm going to take an Ol. Yes it's going to
be a Jose Brad you, Miguel Cabrera, Albert Poohol's situation.

(26:13):
But I'm paying the premium for his prime right now
to where I am trying to pry open my window
of the world series as much as possible.

Speaker 5 (26:24):
But you said the words bad deal.

Speaker 8 (26:26):
Like when you're a business owner like Jim Crane and
you have your very successful businessman with all these different ventures,
he doesn't.

Speaker 5 (26:33):
Do bad deals. So why would you knowingly go into
this to go, well.

Speaker 8 (26:37):
I get two good more years out of Brigman, it'll
cost me on the back end, and good cost.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Dearly exactly No, you're you're saying you can make that
money back in revenues in playoff tickets and all that
type of stuff, in interest in having a gate over
three million people, which they hadn't had before winning the
World Series in twenty twenty two. You say, you know what, Yes,
thirty six, thirty seven years old, I'm going to be
losing on this deal, but I need to win on
this deal right now, because he is not going to

(27:03):
be paid. What is it gonna do I don't know,
thirty million dollars a year or whatever to him living
up to that and then capitalizing financially and then yes,
on the back end, it's going to be a problem
and you kind of worry about that later. Maybe it's
a robbing Peter to pay Paul type of situation. Like
your car payment stays the same when you buy a car,

(27:23):
no matter what, right, but seven years into your car payment,
it's it's not what it was at the beginning minute,
but the lot that's true, depreciate it, right, But you're
it's the same payment, but it's also and the car
is worse, but you got it some good years out
of it. That's not the greatest analogy ever I'm learning
from Matt Thomas, but you get what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (27:42):
You're paying for.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
You're paying for a thirty one to thirty three, thirty
four year old who is going to play gold Glove
caliber third base, who is going to basically be like
having another pitching coach, and who is a heart and
soul in a clubhouse, tone setter and leader. And then, oh,
by the way, hit you twenty five home runs and
get on base at a decent clip. That's what you're
paying for.

Speaker 8 (28:03):
Look, if I'm Dana Brown and Jim cran I'll make
a counter offer to Bregman. But again, I just feel
like at this point, the desperate ass Yankees are going
to say, we need to make a splash. Yes, let's
go pay Bregman the two hundred million. And if I'm Bregmant,
I'd tell Scott Morris, I don't want to be a Yankee,
but if I'm being Yankee, make them go up more,
pay the most.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
If I gotta go play by ass in New York,
make it even higher. It's a pinstripe premium. That's my favorite.
As all these Yankees fans on Twitter like, oh, it's
time to get Bragman, Oh my god, you were screaming
cheater at this guy. You're like throwing beers at people
wearing his jersey the last several years. The hypocrisy, which
I don't want to see him sign with the Yankees,
But at least the silver lining will be seeing all

(28:45):
the hypocrisy from these Yankees fans celebrating them signing Alex
Bregman after booing him for all these years.

Speaker 5 (28:52):
That will make me feel a little bit better. Well,
I just I don't want to play them. If he's
in pinstripes, I don't want to play them.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Well, we're gonna see you might. You don't really have
a choice. And this is the way that I felt
like it was gonna play out the entire time. Now
it hasn't happened. He could still sign with the Astros,
but it's gonna be somebody with in the Soto sweepstakes,
which the Yankees obviously they're USA. Today is Bob Nightingale
reporting this morning that the Yankees are expecting to make

(29:19):
a run at Alex Bregman. Rob Bradford of w ee
I saying that the Red Sox are going to be
immediately prioritizing a pursuit of Bregman. So you just lost
a bidding war with the Mets. You think the Yankees
want to lose another bidding war with the Red Sox.
I would rather him in a Red Sox uniform.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
I would too. I hate to see him in either,
but I'd rather as a Red Sox than Yankee.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, well, Devers is there with the Red Sox, but
they either Bregman, who has expressed a willingness with via
Scott Boris to play second base. Somebody's gonna move. I
don't know who it's gonna be, but yeah, this is
just it's kind of playing out the way that we
all thought. But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.
Alex Bregman is going to be gone, and then you're

(30:03):
going to be scrambling for whatever plan B is, as
as Brian ay Taggart mentioned Christian Walker, other guys where
you don't necessarily have somebody at third base, but.

Speaker 5 (30:12):
You make up an aggregate.

Speaker 8 (30:14):
Or Polanco who just came off like his work. Yeah, yeah,
about two thirteen last year?

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Is that bad?

Speaker 5 (30:20):
It's pretty bad.

Speaker 4 (30:22):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
This is the look. This is the stance that Jim
Crane has made. This is the sword he has lived
by and it's been very successful, and this is maybe
the sport that this.

Speaker 5 (30:33):
Era is going to die. I agree, I don't think you.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
I'm with you.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
Spend stupid, you spend smart.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, But at the same time, I ain't my money.
My money keep spinding it.

Speaker 5 (30:41):
But but if you're a fan of this team, you
know you're going to be craped five six years from now.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
They're going to be crappy anyways, not necessarily, I think so.

Speaker 5 (30:51):
I don't think so. I mean, like, if you keep
developing in house talent or.

Speaker 8 (30:55):
Shay Whitkamb becomes something you say, hey.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, right now, I do, you'd be waiting on Bryce
Matthews and a couple of other I think we're talking
three four years with.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
Jake Myers Tech's office.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
All right, now you're getting rid. Now you're high. I
thought you were drunk before. Now I know you're high.
All right again, all right, we're gonna take a break
on that note. Here on Sports Talk seven ninety it
is The Matt Thomas Show with Ross Matt Thomas is
out today. Chris Gordy in. You can get in. It's
seven one three two one two five seven ninety. The
phone number seven one three, two, one two five, seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (31:31):
We got uh what is it.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Called the segment? It's called UH to Tell the Truth. Yeah,
that's coming up at eleven thirty. That'll be fun with
Chris Gordy. We also have some college football playoff talk
coming up and your calls as well here on the
Matt Thomas Show. With you until two pm here on
Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Ninety more Matt Thomas now on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
We continue along here on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
I'm Ross, Matt Thomas is out, Connor mc govern is here,
Chris Gordy is here somewhere. Coming up at eleven thirty,
we will have the signature segment, we call it to
Tell the Truth, where I will give four opinions. I

(32:25):
only believe one of them. Chris Gordy and Connor McGovern
will have to guess which one. In the meantime, we've
been talking a lot about this one Soto deal and
what it means as far as its impact for the
Houston Astros. Does Jim Crane need to relax his restraints
that he puts on contracts as far as not wanting
deals over five years for the most part, mega deals

(32:49):
have been kind of up and down. I mean, Garrett
Coles is working out right now. Francisco Lindor had a
bounce back a year for the Mets. Bryce Harper has
been very good in a long term deal for the Phillies.
Fernando Tartis Junior EH, Julio Rodriguez, EH, it's been it's
been a bit of a mixed bag. So I definitely
understand where Jim Crane is coming from not wanting to

(33:11):
hand out these big, multimillion dollar and lengthy deals because
generally teams lose on the back end of them. What
you have to say to yourself is is it worth
buying a player's prime to lose on the back end
of the deal? Steve Cohen and the Mets say yes,

(33:31):
because they signed a twenty six year old to a
fifteen year deal. Now it's five years. They can opt out.
Won Soto can opt out, but at that moment, also
the Mets can up the annual value to fifty five
million dollars, at which point it will guarantee the final
ten years of that deal. What say you? Seven to
one three two one two five seven ninety is the

(33:52):
phone number seven to one, three, two, one, two, five
seven ninety Jim in memorial has rung in here on
the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. What's up, Jim?

Speaker 13 (34:01):
Hey, how you doing? Can you hear me?

Speaker 5 (34:03):
All right? I can hear you?

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Just fine, go ahead, okay.

Speaker 13 (34:07):
I you know, I think everything you both said is correct.
It's I don't want to sound like an old fogy,
but you did say that. You know, we can't just audit.
You can't spend a win. But Jim Crane's proven to
kind of be right. These long term contracts don't work.
I can see spending it on pitching, okay, because pitching

(34:30):
will keep you in and then developing your own hitters
or making a trade here and there. I don't know
what you think, but the Dodgers in this deferred money
that just doesn't seem fair, does it to you?

Speaker 14 (34:43):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (34:43):
No?

Speaker 2 (34:44):
I think it's ridiculous, and I think it needs to
be addressed because as of this moment, I think it's
like a billion dollars that the Dodgers have deferred over
the next several years.

Speaker 13 (34:54):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm all about capitalism. I
think living in America, we all are. But you know,
boris whenever I see he's involved with one of our players,
I'm just like, this guy has no loyalty to anything.
I mean, jose L two v to a god bless him.
I mean, he took a special deal and Craig Bigio

(35:16):
did a while ago. But you know this guy is out.
He's just gonna use Tucker to get whatever he can.
Like you said, I don't see Tucker coming back.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
No, I don't think so either, Jim. No, No, I
don't think so. I think it's going to be is
the thing, and when it is, it is the freest
market in major American sports, at least the Big three
sports is Major League Baseball. And if one team, and
it happens to be a lot of teams from New York,
a lot of teams from Los Angeles want to spend
as much as they can, then they will. And the

(35:46):
Players Association has fought against a salary cap tooth and nail.
And this is for exactly these types of reasons. To
where Juan Soto gets this type of deal three quarter
of a billion dollars.

Speaker 13 (36:00):
Then there's no way it's worth it. I mean, he's
a great player, but I mean, and it's all about
TV deals, So you got you got, you got cities
that have enormous TV deals and uh, hopefully the game
stays competitive, but they they're on thin ice anyway. People
don't watch baseball. I mean, I'm an old guy, so

(36:22):
I watch it. But younger guy, younger guys and girls
do not watch baseball. They don't watch it like football.
They don't want they're they're now watching soccer more.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Uh, they don't.

Speaker 13 (36:34):
They don't watch baseball. I don't know what they think
they're doing here. I mean, maybe it's gonna be the
gambling thing. I don't know, and I'll hang up and listen,
but I just don't see the market for it in
ten years. Maybe I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, yeah, I hope I'm wrong. We'll see Jim, thanks
a lot, appreciate you you getting in, and it'll be
interesting to see what happens, because, yeah, the landscape of
sports can change in ten years. As you mentioned, soccer
has been more popular the NBA. The ratings have been
way down the last couple of years. NFL just continues
to be a juggernaut and go up and up, but
MLB revenues have continued to go up the last several

(37:10):
years and we have been seeing a coming back of
younger people because of things like the pitch clock, because
I do think gambling and home run props and parlays
and all that type of stuff has people interested in
Major League Baseball for all the talk of it being
a dying sport and young people not interested in all
this other stuff. And I feel like several years ago,

(37:32):
we're wondering how much longer is baseball going to be
America's pastime? And it's not anymore. CNFL is America's past
time at this moment. But the revenues keep going up,
the contracts keep going up, These TV deals keep going up.
Now some of that, of course, is getting juiced by
recent changes. How long will that continue to last? Adding

(37:54):
extra playoff games, adding these extra wildcards? I mean, how
many more wild cards can you actually add to the playoffs?
That keeps revenues up? There, It makes a jump for
a year, but how long does that last? Over several years?
Can you continue the arrow pointing upward? That's Rob Manfred's job.
That's why he's trying to come up with all these
crazy gimmicks of golden bat stuff and the extra runner

(38:17):
and whatever. Then maybe we'll get some automatic balls and strikes,
and that'll tighten up games at some point as well.
But Rob Manfred and the owners, our task would keep
trying to invent the wheel, to keep trying to get
revenues up and up and up. It is you mean
you mentioned capitalism, That is the capitalist way. We made

(38:37):
ten billion last year, Well, we need to make eleven
billion this year. Oh, we made eleven billion this year.
We made twelve million in the next year. The twelve billion,
it has to keep going up and up and up
and up and up and up, and the disease of
more can sometimes make the product suffer. I think we're
seeing that in the NBA right now, so we'll see
what happens. But yeah, if you sign a fifteen year

(39:02):
deal in fifteen years from now, revenues have crashed for
Major League Baseball and you have to I don't know,
default on payment. I don't think it's gonna come to
anything like that. It's a very well oiled, well run
organization is Major League Baseball. So I don't think the
owners will be foolhardy enough to be to get to
the point where they can't make payments on paychecks. That's
something that has not happened for I don't know, one

(39:23):
hundred years or whatever, but it is interesting to see
where it continues to trend. But yeah, even on the
first part of what you were talking about there, Jim.
As far as signing pitchers and these long term deals,
I mean I mentioned a lot of these long term
deals are working out. I mean, we'll see what happens
with one so too, at least the first several years.
It's going to work out. In ten years, I don't know.

(39:44):
Bobby wit Junior signed to a huge deal by the Royals.
I don't think they're regretting that just yet. Choeotani signed
to a huge year with the Dodgers. I don't think
they're regretting that just yet. Bryce Harper has been very
good in a long term deal. Lindor has been kind
of up and down, but he was back to close
to an MVP level this last year. He had more
war than shoe heel Atani wins above replacement. That's also

(40:07):
because he played the field in shoe Atani's just a
DH When when Shoe Antony gets back pitching, that will
be a different story. But he led the National League
in wins above replacement. Did Francisco Lindor. So that's not
the Mets losing on that deal, but it's easise are
either long term deals. It's not about winning the first
three or four years. It's about winning in the first ten,

(40:28):
and it's about getting a championship in that window. Then
that will be worth it. If the Mets over these
these next five years win a couple of Penance and
win a couple of World Series, they're not gonna care.
Steve Cohen's not gonna care. If that franchise is gonna skyrocket,
they're gonna get a lot more money, revenues, gate, all
that type of stuff. So that that's the the dice

(40:49):
that is being rolled, and we'll see if it continues. Uh,
we'll see if it works out and if it continues
from other owners or are people gonna get burned on
these deals and learned that they are not a good
deal long term? All right, quick break here top of
the hour here on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
That is our number one in the books. Our number

(41:10):
two is coming up. We've got I keep going to
say I just don't get it, and I know I
just don't get it isn't coming up. So That's why
I keep pausing. We've got to tell the truth. Coming
up at eleven thirty, We're also going to talk some
college football as well, and anything you want to get
into as well, talking about baseball and this huge Sodo deal.
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven

(41:30):
one three two one two five seven.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Ninety lunchtimers, this is the Matt Thomas Show.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Welcome back to the Matt Thomas Show. Well, I hope
you never left. Our number two is here with me
and Chris Gordy. It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
One part of it is here Ross now. Of course
I was out for like two plus weeks so far.
Be it to me making fun of Matt for being out.
But I'm still gonna do it because he's very tired.
He's very sweetpy So coming back with Therockets as they

(42:01):
beat the Los Angeles Clippers last night and improved to
sixteen and eight on the year. So Matt calling the game,
flying back late, so he is out. In the meantime,
Chris Gordy has been hanging out. Adam Wexer will be
coming up at noon here on the program, and you
can get in at seven one three, two, one two five,
seven ninety. We've been talking a lot about this one
Soto deal. What does it mean for Bregman, What does

(42:23):
it mean for Kyle Tucker as well? What does it
mean for the state of baseball as a whole seven
to one to three, two, one two, five, seven ninety.
But also over the weekend, a big news item Chris
Gordy and dare I say your wheelhouse, the top twelve
field has been set for the college Football Playoff. What

(42:46):
was your initial reaction to the rankings that were put out.

Speaker 8 (42:50):
Yeah, look, everybody knows I'm mister sec but I think
they got it right. I mean, I know a lot
of people portion for Alabama because of their strength to schedule,
and you know, they're they're marquee wins. But to me,
marquee wins are great, but marquee wins could be negated
by bad losses. Obama had not won but two bad losses.
And the best way I heard somebody put it the

(43:11):
other day, they said Oklahoma and Vanderbilt are both Bowl
eligible because they beat Alabama. If they hadn't beaten Alabama,
they would both be five and seven and not being
Borgans right now.

Speaker 5 (43:22):
So I was like, that's the best way to put that.

Speaker 8 (43:24):
Like, those teams were not even gonna be Bowl eligible,
but they beat Alabama and became ball eligible.

Speaker 5 (43:29):
So I yeah, I just I. But but here's what's
stupid is this is.

Speaker 8 (43:34):
Now into a lot of SEC people in Alabama, people
saying well, we're just gonna not schedule any tough non
conference games anymore because and this is to a certain extent,
I agree, the Committee has sent a message that the
Indianas and the SMUs and those teams who played nobody
good at a conference, it doesn't matter. The Committee just goes,
we just reward you as long as you win. So

(43:56):
if you're an SEC team saying, our schedule's already brutal,
why would we hurt ourselves even more by playing a
tough non conference. Now, Greg Sankee, the SEC Commissioner, requires
every SEC school to play a power for team non conference. Now,
Texas went on scheduled a road trip at Michigan this year,
Ole Miss and Lank Kiffin scheduled Wake Forest.

Speaker 5 (44:17):
So not all power forward teams are created equal.

Speaker 8 (44:20):
But I think there's gonna be a big push from
these eighties to Greg Sankee.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
Going remove that rule.

Speaker 8 (44:26):
Remove that rule because it used to be you would,
uh when the BCS computers were alive, if you played
a tough non conference game and beat them, you got
extra bonus points at the end of the year because
it was like, hey, you scheduled this. The playoff committee
this year and last year put no stock in that.
Georgia opened with Clemson this year and it wasn't even

(44:47):
a topic of conversation at the end of the year.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yeah, I know it wasn't a topic of conversation at
the end of the year. But don't you think that
helps make Georgia case for being the number two seed
with those two losses that they I think it does
make their schedule day.

Speaker 5 (44:59):
And beat A and M Week one. They came to
College Station.

Speaker 8 (45:01):
Yes, if Notre Dame had played the Citadel and beat them,
they'd still be exactly where they are right now.

Speaker 5 (45:06):
It did them no favors. It didn't give them a.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
I wonder how much it would factor into the final seeding.

Speaker 5 (45:14):
That's all they looked at. They don't care that you
who you beat.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
But I think with Georgia having two losses, I do
think the Clemson win is a big feather in their cap.
And of course the two wins over the Texas only
got in.

Speaker 8 (45:24):
Because they well they won the SEC, but they lost.
They were going to put them in because they made
this arbitrary rule kind of that they were like, well,
the loser the SEC championship just still get in because
they're technically the second best team in the conference.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Well yeah, well, I would say it all depends on
how the game looked as well. I mean, it was
an overtime game. I think that's one of the reasons.
One of the reasons to me that SMU hung on
is because they they did make that game close, and
they did come back and fight against Clemson and what
was like a last second field goal by Clemson that
the game went. I think they could have been blown
out in that game and then been left out of

(45:55):
the playoff in Alabama, and I think that that is
a possible, distinct possibility. But yeah, with the on the
the Alabama thing, you mentioned the the Alabama eighty what's
his name, greg greg greg Ben, Greg Ben, the Alabama
hadn't let it directive talking about like we're not gonna
we're not gonna schedule tough non conference games anymore, Like

(46:17):
did he not look at his own non conference schedule
before he made that statement.

Speaker 8 (46:21):
Yeah, well and they did win. They won there all
their non conference games. That's where people are bringing out.
But but I do think there's something to the wear
and tear of Like put it this way, LSU opened
with USC one of their better running backs, John Emory
got hurt after that game. And if you opened with
I don't know, the Citadel, it's an easy win. You
don't lose John Emory, maybe you have him the whole year.
Maybe you beat A and M because you have one

(46:42):
of your better you know what I mean. So it's
like a chain reaction of like why put that strain
on yourself when the committee is showing they don't care
if you scheduled tough knock up. They just they're just
looking at if you're eleven to one or ten and two,
that's all we care about.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
I think we're also looking at a one year sample size,
though I think over the next couple of years. Every years,
as you know, in the playoff and there's going to
be more one loss teams, there are gonna be more
two or three loss teams. I think it could come
down to deciding between two teams. Maybe two SEC teams
who have similar records, similar losses, and then you would
look at a non conference game at a tough non

(47:16):
conference But I think it would.

Speaker 8 (47:17):
Match Georgia opened last season, or no, it wasn't Georgia.
Who am I thinking of? Florida State opened with LSU
last year. At the end of the year, they didn't
care that they beat both Florida LSU and Florida two
SEC teams. They went, well, your quarterback, I hurt and defeated.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
They got the first of all. Florida State got host
in that situation for sure.

Speaker 8 (47:42):
But and Georgia was number one of the country all year,
lost by free to Bama the SEC title game and
dropped from one to six.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah, but Texas wouldn't have been in the playoff last
year if they didn't go to Tuscaloosa and beat Alabama
out of conference, So that did matter there.

Speaker 5 (47:56):
But Bama lost to Texas and they didn't even halt
them for that. They're like, well, you get.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
In, right, you get in over George's. But Texas wouldn't
have been in if they didn't have that win. In
my opinion, so I think, like I said, it can
go both ways. Every year is different.

Speaker 8 (48:11):
There needs to be a discussion with the committee that
they have, Like I think the basketball selection you committee
does it right now, grant it's a phill of sixty
four versus a phill the twelve. But there are discussions
about early season law where you go, well, they lost
the Gonzaga, but that's a good early season loss. Like,
so they weigh strike the schedule. That's why ken Palm's
a thing. Ken Palm takes them into It takes into
consideration tough opponents, great quality, tough wins versus quality losses.

(48:36):
But Warren Manual, the bunch of dumbasses who sit in
the hotel room in Dallas.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Well, eleven is bigger than ten. So we're gonna put
the eleven win team in. Hey, who they play?

Speaker 5 (48:46):
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (48:47):
Yeah, it's like you didn't even put any critical thought
into who these teams played.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
So who do you think? So do you think you said?
But you said the committee got it right? Was your
first statement?

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Right?

Speaker 8 (48:56):
I think based off of where they were coming into
this weekend, Like I think SMU and I said to
my buddy, I said, SMU coming back into that game
bought them their spot because if they yeah, that's what
I was going to be out.

Speaker 5 (49:08):
But I don't think Sama deserved to be in.

Speaker 8 (49:10):
But I think the problem was you had this big
middle pack of a bunch of ten and two ninety
three teams that you know, you really get into a
debate over Bama's win over Georgia becomes one of the
best wins in the country.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
You know, do you do you reward them for that?
It's it becomes tough, That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
I think you're gonna end up with some outliers from
this year to where you had way more three loss
teams in the conversation than maybe you normally would, I mean, well,
we we all talked about it all year long, how
this was just a wild, wacky, weird year in college
football with Alabama and the losses that they had with
I mean Georgia losing to Ole misses and that crazy
but ol miss losing to Florida, Like, this was a

(49:50):
year of wacky upsets that might not happen a year
after year.

Speaker 8 (49:53):
Did you look at Indiana's schedule, It's not great. They
didn't beat a right team all year. They played one
right team in.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
The Hey, I have no problem with teams that don't
beat ranked teams getting into the playoff, that's not an
issue for me.

Speaker 5 (50:04):
Who was it?

Speaker 8 (50:04):
Somebody said, I think it was Penn State, Alabama, and
Texas all are in the playoffs and none of them
beat a top twenty five.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Hey, well, Texas is undefeated outside of one team. That's
my counter argument. They didn't lose a game except for
to Georgia.

Speaker 8 (50:21):
Then what I had with Texas fans, I was like,
if you would have played in Knoxville, Tennessee, maybe that's
a loss.

Speaker 5 (50:26):
If you'd played, it's.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Well, we'll see. Now they got the Hey, they got
Clemson coming up.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
You should have seen the OU people.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Look at the path the playoff gave them to get
clemps into their two Touchdow favorites over and to get
Boise the easiest path.

Speaker 5 (50:40):
Did you see.

Speaker 8 (50:40):
Tennessee Justesse, He's gonna go on the road at Ohio
State and if you beat them, guess what you get
Oregon in the next round.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Like, good god, Yeah, it's gonna be crazy. But I
think at the end of the day, it used to be.

Speaker 8 (50:52):
Two teams where Indiana didn't beat anybody, but they're eleven
to one.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
I like you know what, when we come back, I
have two solutions that I like as far as what
we can fix with the college football bracket. You want
to get in talk some college football. We've been talking Soto,
We've been talking Astros. We've got some NFL stuff. To
get to anything you want to get to. Seven one
three two one two five seven ninety is the phone number,
seven to one three two one two five seven ninety.

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Speaker 11 (52:18):
Matt Thomas now on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
To tell the truth coming up in about ten minutes
here on Sports Talk seven ninety on the Matt Thomas
Show with Ross Without Matt Thomas, he is out sleeping.
It'll be back tomorrow on the program. Conomcgovern is here
for the duration. Actually, I think he's doing double duty today.
CONOMA Governs pull in the pulling the extra over time.

(53:01):
That's okay. He is quite well compensated. Chris Gordy here
as well. A seven one three two one two five
A seven ninety is the phone number if you would
like to get in seven one three two one two
five seven ninety talking some about the college football playoff.
We'll get a little bit more into it, but Steve
has been waiting patiently, so let's go ahead and get
Steve into talk some college ball. What's up, Steve.

Speaker 15 (53:23):
I hope you guys are having a great day today.
I've got two things I'd like to hear you comment on,
and I'll lay it out for you and then just listen.
So the first one is relating to the college football playoffs.
It's interesting to talk about who should be in and
who shouldn't be in. But here's the great thing about
having a twelve team playoff. Who do you think should
be in that could actually win the national championship? And

(53:46):
if there is nobody that fits in that category, it
doesn't really matter. And that's what's great about having a
twelve team playoff. The other is, does Texas beat Georgia
if they have a dual threat quarterback? And if you
think so, what the hell is start thinking?

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Okay, all right, thank you, Steve. You know we were
talking about this off air, Gordy about the Quinn viewers.
Arch Manning debate, and in some ways you know what
you have with Quinn viewers, and it's safe and you
can win games with Quinn viewers, but for the most part,

(54:21):
you're not gonna win games because of Quinn viewers. And
Steve Sarkisian has chosen to go that avenue to where
he's gonna go with the more safe option. Win with defense.
Try to establish somewhat of a running game. Run a
bunch of tunnel screens and short passing stuff and some easier,
you know, pump and go stuff where you're pump faking

(54:44):
the screen and then you're throwing it deep and they
get a lot of touchdowns and big plays off of that.
And overall the Texas offense has been pretty solid. But
then if you run up against an elite defense, which
Georgia is, you have issues scoring consistently to where you
scored just fifteen points in the first game and then
sixteen points in regulation, and then in the next game.

Speaker 5 (55:10):
I thought he made some nice throws early on.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
He did, he did. He played extremely well.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
And I called it too. I knew.

Speaker 8 (55:17):
I knew Kelvin Banks wasn't gonna go when they said
he was questionable. I'm like they're not gonna if, especially if,
because if you win and get to buy uh and
even with the loss, you saw two more weeks before
you play games.

Speaker 5 (55:28):
So I figured he was not gonna go.

Speaker 8 (55:30):
But I thought at least the first half that old
line was protecting man. They were giving him time. The
third that pocket was clean. And then what happened in
the second half was it was like Georgia was over pursuing.
They were coming on the backside, so it would force
him to step up into the pocket, and then they
have somebody cutting cutting in from the interior when he
stepped up into the pocket, and that's when they started

(55:52):
racking up the sacks.

Speaker 5 (55:53):
What they sack up six times and seven times in
the first meeting, six times in the second meeting.

Speaker 8 (55:57):
I mean, yeah, I just that's where you really could
use the legs of an arch manning to be able
to use some bootleg action, get some rollouts, get him
out in space, because Georgia lives for that. Georgia lives
for collapsing the pocket on you.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah. I think Sarkisian is more apt to go with
somebody who plays within the structure of his offense. He's
a structured guy and I think a lot of college
coordinators and they just want guys who are going to,
in a sense, be robots. They're gonna look for read one,
read two, They're gonna throw the screen, They're gonna do
what I say. They're not gonna go a lot off schedule,
They're not gonna improvise a bunch. And what we've seen

(56:34):
from arches a lot of times, his strength is with
that improvisation. So I totally understand why Steve Sarkisian is
going and continuing to go with quinn Ewers, but I
just haven't seen We saw it in the Washington game
last year in the playoff, where quinn Ewers could have
stepped up and won that game. We saw it in
this game. We've seen it in other games that they've lost,

(56:56):
where quinn Ewers can step up and be great and
make the spectacular play and make everybody say wow. And
he consistently has fallen short in those moments.

Speaker 8 (57:06):
Yeah, he's he's he's good, Sam Ellinger, That's what he is.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Oh, you're so right. It hurts me.

Speaker 5 (57:14):
You're so right.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
It hurts me on that all right? Seven one three
two one two five seven ninety. The phone number Rodney
next up talking to college football. What's up, Rodney?

Speaker 16 (57:24):
Say?

Speaker 5 (57:24):
How you doing today?

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Doing great? What you got?

Speaker 14 (57:27):
I would SUGGECT with regard to the playoffs out of
the Power three teams from each Power for a conference,
you take two teams from the group of five, and
then you have two at large, and you go by
the record.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
You know, sixteen teams.

Speaker 14 (57:47):
Yes, sixteen teams. I think they're going to sixteen teams anyway.
But it's it's like when the way we do it
now is as an eye test, and that doesn't really
get it for me. I mean it's like, well, so
and so beat this person. Are they lost to this
person that's a better team, so that loss is better.
College football, I think, and I'm not sure, is the

(58:09):
only major sport where it does not go by wins
and losses totally.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
It's an eye test.

Speaker 14 (58:17):
So they start comparing how good a loss is or
how good a win is, when it should be line
up and play the games. Can you imagine if the
NFL actually did that with an eye test? And certainly
in situations that I can understand. Sometimes conferences are down,
sometimes up. But I'm old enough to recall when the
Oakland Raiders were a wild card team and won the

(58:40):
Super Bowl. I'm old enough to remember when what did
that Seattle? I think, if I'm not mistaken, I had
an eight and eight record or something like that, and
when the playoffs and went.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Pretty deep there line and then they beat the That
was the Wasn't that the beast quake against the Saints?

Speaker 5 (58:56):
Yeah, or something like that.

Speaker 14 (58:57):
I'm not sure about that, but I know that they
had a horrible record. But if you win your division,
you win your division because you lined up and you.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
No, I don't think. I think auto bids are not
a good idea.

Speaker 8 (59:09):
Yeah, here's the problem with that. Not all not all
conferences are created equal. Look at the Big twelve, Arizona
State won it this year. I mean, like you're gonna
have some years, well four you have a four loss
conference champion, and you might have six teams in the
SEC that are ten and two and better. You think
that four loss conference champ deserves a spot of everybody else?

Speaker 5 (59:26):
Like I think who you play matters?

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Yeah, I think. I mean if you're if you're capping
it at three per major conference is what he was
talking about, then that means the Ohio State Buckouts Buckeyes
would have been left out of the playoff this year,
and in lieu of like BYU or some other team
like well Alabama. No, you did only get three teams
in the Southeast Eastern Conference, but you got four from
the Big Ten, which just throws the things two off.

(59:51):
With the imbalance of the conferences as well.

Speaker 8 (59:53):
I think we may head to a point where the
Mountain West and some of those teams go create your
own thing, like go because again, like they're allowing you
a little bit of a window here to get a
team in, but it feels like you're never gonna have
a Boys or somebody like that win at all.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Well they're probably not, but they're in there.

Speaker 8 (01:00:12):
And then the Big Ten and SEC expanding with more
big dogs, like it's just gonna become like they don't
the powers that be in college football don't want all
those big dogs left out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Yeah, I was talking about this going into the break.
To me, I think Joel Klett floated the idea of reseeding.
I think they need to recede to wear every round
where the todd They reseed in the NFL, now they
don't reseed in the NCAA tournament. That's Also, you have
teams and regions and they're in different cities.

Speaker 5 (01:00:41):
Why do you have a week?

Speaker 8 (01:00:42):
Why is Ohio State hosting over Tennessee? Like I don't understand.
I didn't understand like that thought process because they're eight
and nine, right and Ohio State just had a miserable
loss to Michigan at home.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Right, Yeah, I mean I guess because they're they're ranked
higher in the in the.

Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
Playoff, Right, what have they done? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Oh okay, you're talking like, what is a committee? Why
have they judged that Ohio State is better than Tennessee.
I don't know. Let's see, Tennessee is lost to Georgia
and then to Arkansas, and it was the last State
lost to Michigan and Oregon Oregon in like a like
a really close game. So each of them have one
bad loss in one win.

Speaker 8 (01:01:23):
But doesn't I feel like timing matters on it, and
maybe it shouldn't. But like Tennessee's early season night loss
at Arkansas when they came up just short, Ohio State's
just happened.

Speaker 5 (01:01:36):
But they look at a rivalry.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Game, you throw out the record books in a rivalry.

Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
Game, they didn't drop them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Yeah, you know, it's like, I don't know, I don't
have your answer to that, but I think they should
reseed number one one. I think they should do that.
They're not going to do. They need to get rid
of the top four for conference champions They should just
do the top four is the top four.

Speaker 8 (01:01:53):
That would be like the college basketball tournament saying you
won the ACC championship, so you are a one seed.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
No, exactly to the front of the line. They need
to get rid of that. That needs to go, and
at the very least they need to recede that way.

Speaker 5 (01:02:06):
You do have.

Speaker 8 (01:02:06):
Somebody brought up they said, if they were just doing
on the like one through they just ranked one through
twenty five, Right.

Speaker 5 (01:02:11):
Yeah, one through twelve should be it. Whatever you ranked
one through twelve should be the twelve best.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Teams, right, yes, exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:02:17):
That should be your feel.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
It should be the twelve best teams. But I understand
where the Big twelve and the ACC are going to
feel left out. So I think that kind of you're
you're never going to iron that out of it. But
I think at the very the very least they should recede.
But what they really should do is just go one
through twelve, no matter what.

Speaker 8 (01:02:35):
If Azo State and Clemson both get their butts kicked,
you're going to see a push for Style Health Conference
champions because Clemson would not have gotten in had they not.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
Right right, Okay, so you're saying it's up to the
Texas Longhorns to destroy the Clemson.

Speaker 5 (01:02:49):
Dyke fourteen and a half point home favorites.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Ross, they got up to fourteen. I saw it at eleven.
It's up to fourteen and a half.

Speaker 5 (01:02:56):
It was yesterday. Unlets it move.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
I see it at eleven right now, but it might
be moving around action.

Speaker 5 (01:03:02):
Brett McMurphy had at fourteen. Brett McMurphy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Oh, Pete Tamill doesn't like him, and he does fourteen
and a half. It's pretty big, pretty big. All right.
We're gonna take a quick break here on the Matt
Thomas Show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas. He is out.
I am here, but we're still gonna do the signature
Monday segment. We call it to Tell the Truth. I
will give four opinions and only believe one. We'll do

(01:03:26):
that next here on the program after this short break.
I never know why, oh, but I can welcome in

(01:03:53):
to the Mad Thomas Show with Ross Matt is out,
but we're still gonna do this segment where I give
four pins. Now I have bolded. Now I was thought
about sending an email.

Speaker 5 (01:04:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
You're just gonna have to trust me, all right. I
know which one I'm not gonna touch. You're gonna not
see me touch my laptop, and then I will show
it to Chris Gordy. Which one I have bolded and
picked up?

Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
These four opinions.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
I will give four. Only one of them I believe
to be true, and it is up to Chris Gordy
and con McGovern to discern which of these opinions I
actually believe. Let's actually go ahead and get it started,
all right. Number one Jim Crane, much to his chagrin,

(01:04:39):
is going to have to change his old ways. You
have Showio Tani signing huge deals. You have Willia Domis
signing a seven year deal, and that's not even a
marquee free agent. Juan Soto's signing the deal that he
has over the next five years, whether it be with Bregman,
whether it be with Tucker, whether it be with someone else.

(01:05:00):
We will see Jim Crane break his old axiom that
he has so held himself to and he's gonna have
to get with the times. He's not gonna like it,
but he is gonna have to do it to keep
up with the Joneses. He will sign a long term
deal over six years within the next five years. Jim

(01:05:22):
Crane will do it. Okay, Okay, that's your first that's
my first opinion. Huh opinion Number two. This Chief's voodoo
magic that we've been seeing week after week in the NFL.
They're winning because of doinks. They're having other teams lose

(01:05:43):
because of doinks. Their doinks are going in, other donks
are going out, they're blocking kicks. It will not stand.
I am guaranteeing you the Kansas City Chiefs will not
win the Super Bowl because there are too many other
strong teams they they can't keep getting away with this.
The Buffalo Bills are really strong, the Ravens, other teams

(01:06:05):
in the AFC who do have some losses on their
ledger but are still better than the Chiefs. Not only
will the Chiefs not win the Super Bowl, they will
not win the AFC because they're playing by the skin
of their teeth too often, which tells me they are
not good enough. The Chief voodoo magic will end and
they will not win the AFC. H Okay, all right,

(01:06:29):
there you go. What's your opinion? Number two?

Speaker 5 (01:06:31):
Opinion?

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Number three? Major League Baseball and the other owners have
had enough. Sure, the Yankees, the Mets, and the Dodgers
can spend and spend and spend and spend. But what
about the Guardians, What about the Astros, What about the A's,
What about the Mariners? What about the Tampa Bay Rays.
There will be a meeting of the mines with the owners,

(01:06:55):
and within the next several years, heavier luxury tax penalties
are imminent with Major League Baseball. And not only that,
all these deferred payment loopholes, you Dodgers with a billion
dollars in deferred payments. That's that's it, that's enough. That's
going away. Luxury taxes are going up. They're not gonna

(01:07:18):
have a salary cap because the players would never agree
with that, but more severe luxury tax penalties will be
in place soon in Major League Baseball.

Speaker 5 (01:07:30):
Okay, so those are your three statements. I got one more, Oh,
you got another one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
It's four. I gotta pick one.

Speaker 5 (01:07:40):
What am I looking for again? You believe one? Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Go ahead, fourth and final opinion, there will be a
major change in the college football playoff within the next
two years. Too much upheaval, nobody's happy, everyone's complaining. At
some point they will either go to reseeding or to

(01:08:05):
no automatic top four or some other major change the
way that it is now, we will not see it
the same way in two years. Talking about the college
football playoff and the twelve teams going to sixteen would
also count as a major change in the college football playoffs.
I am saying we are going to see it within
the next two years. So to recap, Jim Crane will

(01:08:30):
change his stance with the times. He is going to
sign in the next few years a deal over six years.
The next five years. Number two, the Chiefs voodoo magic
will end. They will not win the Super Bowl. They
will not even win the AFC. Number three, heavier luxury
tax penalties are imminent in Major League Baseball. The deferment
loopholes will also be closed. And Number four major change

(01:08:51):
in the college football playoff, whether it be reseeding, no
automatic top four, expansion to sixteen, something will be changing
in a major way in the college football Playoff in
the next two years. Which of those lads is an
opinion I actually believe so, Connor.

Speaker 5 (01:09:09):
I'll go first.

Speaker 8 (01:09:10):
I mean, I think all of these are Jim Crane
must sign a deal over six years. We kind of
already talked about that in the first segment of the show.
But I think I remember you saying you agreed with
me that they shouldn't do that. The Chiefs one win
in the Super Bowl, I think, is this hot takey
steven A skip Bay lists as you could get had

(01:09:31):
they been lucky. Yes, but like that's something steven A
would be like, I gotta tell you skip that just
absolutely in a super Bowl this year. It's preposterous that
will be meeting in the minds. I think that's going
to happen. I think there will be more luxury tax
tax penalties. I think there will be no more deferred contracts.
I think that'll come. And it's a lot that the

(01:09:53):
major change of college football is coming. They are going
to go to at least a fourteen te playoff.

Speaker 5 (01:09:58):
That's a fact. Now, whether you believe these are odds
is the question.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
That is the question. Connor, Well, I'm all a little over.

Speaker 5 (01:10:04):
Give me what you think I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
I don't think he believes number four.

Speaker 12 (01:10:11):
I mean, I guess it's fact that it is going
to change, but maybe the luxury tax one.

Speaker 5 (01:10:17):
I'm just trying to think about what ross is. So
he only believes one is true.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Yes, for example, I'm always like, man, that's a terrible take.
Matt wouldn't believe that, but then he believes it. So,
I mean, it's up to what I believe, not will
will happen.

Speaker 12 (01:10:32):
I think I might go with number three about the
luxury tax penalties.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
There's nobody be put in place.

Speaker 8 (01:10:37):
I'll go to the playoff because I think that's the
most that's the most likely that is going to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Gordy, what number are my folded exes? Four? Number four?
You are correct now, I actually, you know what. I
really did try to throw you off, Connor, because I
do believe that the deferment loopholes will be closed. That's
the second part. I don't believe heavier luxury tax penalties
are eminent. So I kinda I threw some disguise over

(01:11:08):
that one. So it's not your fault. I'm very sorry.
That was very devious of me to do. That's okay, So.

Speaker 12 (01:11:13):
I figured I didn't think I was thinking more about
the conference champions getting to buy was it gonna change?

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
I think that has to change within the next couple
of years. Something happen. I mean, I think it will happen.
I think there's been enough outcry. I think they can
get together and fix us a little bit. And it's
we've seen precedent for them to kind of change the rules,
whether it be the BCS or the playoff or now
into this playoff and the committee and making different rules.
So I do think it will happen within the next
couple of years. Lads, thank you for playing to Tell

(01:11:42):
the Truth and congratulations Chris Gordy on winning the segment whatever.
We're so proud of you. Be great.

Speaker 5 (01:11:48):
Join the FBI Oka fun a liar.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Connor McGovern is very upset, so this is making me
very happy. All right, for a quick break here. I
also fooled some people on Twitter. Sorry, you're terrible. All right,
We're gonna take a quick break here. We got Adam
Wexler coming up at noon. In the meantime, we've been
talking soda, We've been talking college football. How do you
feel about that? Do there need to be changes? What
else is going on in sports? Anything? You want to
get to seven one three two one two five is

(01:12:13):
ninety more.

Speaker 11 (01:12:18):

Speaker 5 (01:12:38):
Prolong here Matt Thomas show, Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 8 (01:12:42):
That's out today. Chris Gordy sitting in with Ross Adam
Wex is gonna go come jump in a little bit.
They want to pass along some news to you guys
who've been longtime listeners of Sports Talk seven ninety or
Astros postgame shows are Brian and Lima tweet this sad
a little while ago. He said, if you listened to
us on seven ninety, you know the voice of a

(01:13:04):
loyal listener and call her named missus. Carrol Diehard, Astro's fan,
brought it passion and energy every time she called our shows.
According to reports, she lost her battle with cancer just
a couple of weeks ago. She was seventy one years old.
So yeah, look, we love miss Carroll. She called in

(01:13:25):
for shoot, closed in on a decade to all of
our postgame shows and was a big part of that
Astros you know world series running in well here was
it seventeen seventeen. They all mentioned to one another now.
But she was even so much so. She was featured
in the documentary they did commemorating the season, and she

(01:13:46):
was calling in one of our shows talking about you
know them astros and so yeah, she called in. She
called into some of the games this season, and I
know she wasn't doing too well, and but she called
in with her same positivity. And that's what we loved
about her was even after a loss, she would call
in and be like, well, you know, mister Gordie, I

(01:14:08):
gotta tell you, Bragman is bringing it.

Speaker 5 (01:14:11):
These boys are not gonna lose. And it was.

Speaker 8 (01:14:13):
Just she always brought that positive spirit when every other
caller was like, you go to fire Jim Gray, you
gotta fire the GM, you gotta.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
Cut this guy like God trade jose Al today.

Speaker 8 (01:14:23):
It was always nice to get her positive call in
the midst of everything.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
Yes, especially after losses. In a world where there's a
lot of dark, she was always bright light. She was
always positive, She was always fun. It had always put
a smile on my face when we put her on air.
And she will be missed, Miss Carrol. Losing the battle
with cancer. As you said on November sixteenth, seventy one,
years old, gone too soon.

Speaker 8 (01:14:46):
Yeah, it's but you know, Sean Sean tweeted out, wex
tweeted out, seen several of them. I'm gonna put up
a little tribute to her on our website here in
Sports seven nighty dot com. We have some pictures when
Michael Connor and Matt Thomas kind of coordinated with I
think Mattress Mac to get her to a game, got
her some really good seats and uh, Connor taken some

(01:15:08):
videos with her, and yeah, they they even brought her
up to the booth to meet Robert Ford and Steve Sparks.
She was blind, so she listened to every game on
the radios on seven ninety so, you know, but shout up,
Mattress Mac helped her got her to a couple of
games over the years too, and yeah, it just was
she was she was a super fan. It was good too.

(01:15:28):
Uh good to have her positivity and she'll be missed.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
Yeah, a lot of a lot of fans that we
have that are blind do end up listening to the
games and the radio of course more descriptive with Robert
Ford and Steve Sparks, and she was one of them.
And I think she was also displaced from New Orleans,
I believe, or at least originally from New Orleans.

Speaker 8 (01:15:44):
Yeah, she was a big Saints fan, So yeah, Katrina
moved her, moved her here to Houston, and she took
on the Astros and she followed every game, became a
big fan.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Yeah, one of the biggest Astros fans. Miss Carrol resting Rip.
Yeah all right, no easy way to segue out of that.
Here on Sports Talk seven ninety of the Matt Thomas
Show with Ross Chris Cordy in here as well. We
got Adam Wexer coming up in a few moments. We've
been talking about a lot of different stuff going on
in baseball in the last segment. Now, we did do

(01:16:15):
to tell the truth, and I would say kind of
halfway believe some of these opinions. But I'm with you
as far as the Jim Crane thing. You snuffed that
one out. A part of me says, he has to
get with the times, he has to sign someone to
a long term deal. I just don't know that we're
going to see it. But how do the Astros keep
this window open? How do they keep going? If you

(01:16:36):
tell me it's going to be Zach Dezenzo at first
base and Shay Wickham at third base. Next year, I'm
going to tell you that they're not World Series contenders.
They're not going to compete with the likes of the
Orioles and the Yankees and some of those other teams
in the American League.

Speaker 8 (01:16:50):
Only the only one I'll give you is if they do,
if they do give out a big fat contract, I
think it would be Kyle Tucker, but certainly that market
has shifted with what so is it?

Speaker 5 (01:17:01):
Willie?

Speaker 8 (01:17:02):
Is it a Domis or at him a damas? I
believe his pronunciations. I'm sorry the one with the guy
where he says he produced it was with the Rangers.

Speaker 5 (01:17:11):
Oh it kills me.

Speaker 8 (01:17:12):
Then they the two guys with the same last name,
but one was pronounced and Low. Yeah, Low and Low.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
It's Daniel Low and Brandon Loud. Your name's pronounce how
it's pronounced?

Speaker 5 (01:17:25):
Hello, w Low, Rob Low.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
Nobody says, let's all go to Laos. Yeah, let's go
to Loos and pick up a circular stall. I guess
it doesn't normally happen that way. Yeah, we'll see what
happens with Kyle Tucker. I meant to bring it up
earlier because we were talking about it with now. Of course,
Kyle Tucker didn't play a full one hundred sixty two
game season, more games played by One Soda only seventy

(01:17:50):
eight by Kyle Tucker. But he had an higher OPS
this year than Jan Soda did. And One Soto is
a butcher out there in the field, honestly, I mean
out there in right field. He's not good. And now
he gets on base like crazy. But a nine to
ninety three ops from Kyle Tucker again in a small
sample size, and we look at both of their careers,

(01:18:13):
Jan Soto is the better hitter, but a nine eighty
nine OPS from Soto this past year, and you're talking
about a gold Glove for Kyle Tucker. And he's gonna
be was he gonna be when hits free agency twenty
seven to twenty eight, He's going to be, I mean,
not that much older than Juan Soto right now, at
this moment, Kyle Tucker is twenty seven years old, Okay,

(01:18:37):
so I guess he'll be twenty eight.

Speaker 8 (01:18:38):
If you want to give out the big fat contract,
he's the one to do it. I would I would
be fine if you want to give out a ten
year deal with Kyle Tucker. I'd be fine with that,
but six if we're getting above six years on Bregman
And I love Bregman. I mean he's he's an LSU
guy and Wahsington Walter College getting drafted by the Astros
and I mean everything.

Speaker 5 (01:18:58):
I hate to see him go. But it's the business.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
Yeah, I do as well. But you're you're gonna have
to figure something out. If if now now you have
to have Are these two things going to be true?
Jim Crane has a very hard line stance. He doesn't
line signing deals over five years. Looks like six years
maybe his maximum. But also he has also said has
come out of his mouth as long as I am
the owner, the window is open.

Speaker 6 (01:19:22):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
How do those two statements?

Speaker 5 (01:19:24):
Jack? Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:19:27):
I I also think when you say he drives a
hard line, it sounds like he's being I don't know,
mean tyrant about it. Like it's the smart business thing
is to not sign. It is the very massive long
term deals with it is the smart business thing. And
may not now we'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
Now, the Mets, as we mentioned, have been spending a
ton of money. They haven't won World Series but the
two teams that were in the World Series last year
are two huge spenders. Astros really can't keep up with
those Joneses. So they are gonna have to have some
element of building from within and then picking and choosing
when it comes to free agents or the free agency
or their own free agents. And if is some of

(01:20:07):
that picking and choosing going to be either of Alex
Bregman or Kyle Tucker, that's what remains to be seen.
Probably not an Alex Bregman. And like I said, the
market for Kyle Tucker just went up huge with what
he provides in the field over one soda. Yeah, but
he's not the I mean, Soto had every big hit
for the Yankees this year and Kyle Tucker has had

(01:20:29):
some postseason swoons. We'll call it the last couple of years,
but we'll see. Certainly remains to be seen. Gordy, thanks
for hanging out for a couple hours. Appreciate you. Matt
Thomas is out, Gordy has been in, but now it's
going to be Adam Wexler. It's also you if you'd
like to get in at seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven one three two one two

(01:20:50):
five seven ninety tweets at sports r V and at
Connor d McGovern our. Number three of the program with
Adam Wexler starts next here on Sports Talk seven night. Lunchtimers,
this is the Matt Thomas Show, twelve O two and
ah down. What's happening? Lunch timer's hello and welcome into

(01:21:12):
a Monday edition of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross
Without Matt Thomas. We've already been going for two hours.
We've got two more to go. Thanks to Chris Gordy
for hanging out in the first two hours. Who do
we have now? I'll tell you when we get two
the news at noon? All right, truth be told. I

(01:21:33):
forgot that we did this segment on Friday. I've just
been getting back from out of the country, so I forgot.
Adam Wexler is here. Adam, thank you for hanging out.
How are things? We don't have to talk about the
Longhorns in these two hours? Do we disappointed? A playoffs?
Want to talk about the home game? They get I
would have rather than won, and then I mean the
Georgia path. It's not easy, as people are saying, but

(01:21:55):
what is it? The winner of Indiana Notre Dame and
then probably State. The path not too difficult for the Longhorns,
but you have to win four games.

Speaker 6 (01:22:05):
Got to win four games. So yeah, like you said,
we're not going to talk about it as we head
our way into it. You know, not a bad thing
to open at home against a team that earned their
way in with a win on Saturday, A pathway that
takes you through Arizona State, potentially through a home game
at the Cotton Bowl after that. Yes, and then the

(01:22:26):
National Title game. Got to get three wins to make
it all the way to the National Title Game.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
We'll see, we'll see. All right. Anyways, all the top
sports news items of the day, we're going to conta
McGovern What is the news at noon?

Speaker 12 (01:22:38):
Outfielder Juant Soto and the New York Mets agreen to
a fifteen year, seven hundred and sixty five million dollar contract.
And with that signing, we also get new trade rumors
on Alex Bregman with the Red Sox and the Yankees
reportedly interested in the third basement.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
Yeah, so, first of all, what was your reaction when
you saw fifteen I had to like triple check that
with the real Jeff pass it on Twitter fifteen years,
seven hundred and sixty five million dollars. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:23:04):
First thing was, Okay, he's howled now, so he's going
to be getting paid to at this level to what age?
And he's twenty six. He'll be twenty seven late next season,
so through age forty one. Figured it was headed this way.
When people are saying what might get to five hundred million,
He was offered over four million by three teams ago
when he was with the Nationals, so I knew it
would be well over that, knowing both New York franchises

(01:23:26):
were in on it. But it's still an alarming figure.
No deferrals more than showhy and the possibility that the
option it turns it into an even bigger deal. My
second thought was, okay, the I want to spend money.
Yankees just didn't spend any money on Juan Soto, so
now they have money to spend on any of the
other remaining top tier free agents, whatever their names and

(01:23:49):
positions might be. Yes, yeah, I mean hockey like it
might be an Alex Bregg. If you don't think that,
then you're just hoping and wishing that how could they
not be interested?

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
It feels like this is going to according to plan,
who's plan that would be Scott Boris's plan to where
you have the biggest domino fall as he is one
Soto's agent, and well, Scott Boris also very happy with
his fifteen year, seven hundred and sixty five million dollar deal.

Speaker 6 (01:24:14):
Yeah, I would wonder one other thing that maybe is
in the Astros favor. He wants to break records. He
Scott Boris wants his players to get the most they can,
wants to reset the market, wants to do well by
all of his other clients. Because of that, he now
put this unbelievable deal together. Is there some benchmark that
Alex now has to reach or is that now kind

(01:24:35):
of out the window because he's done this already. If
Alex wants to play for one to eighty and Scott's
trying to get him that magical two hundred figure, is
it that big of a deal now? To Scott, he
always wants the most money for his player. But I
wonder if this allows for a different figure to be
the end figure, a lower figure for Alex wherever he goes.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
I think, of course, we talked about it when it happened.
The Matt Chapman deal was probably a benchmark. And now
though the Willia Damas deal, although he's a shortstop with
with the Giants for one hundred and eighty two million
dollars there obviously, what is it that leaked out six years,
one hundred and fifty six million that the Astros have
offered Alex Bregman. I don't think that's anywhere close. And

(01:25:15):
I think you were going to have. The analogy I
was making earlier in the show was, let's say you're
shopping for a house that's that house being won Soto,
and it's well, well well above what you really want
to pay, but you were willing to do it, but
you missed out. You being the Yankees, Well you went
that far over budget before, so maybe you're still willing
to go over budget, maybe to a lesser extent for

(01:25:36):
Alex Bregman to miss out, because in comparison now, you're
your mind is just it's up in the clouds. It's
up in the seven hundred and sixty five million dollar clouds.
Two hundred million doesn't sound so bad in comparison, doesn't
sound so bad. You could also spread it over multiple
players to help you win. And you know, a two
hundred million dollar pitch or a one hundred and fifty
million dollar pitcher, a ninety million dollar Christian Walker, and

(01:25:59):
all of a sudden, maybe you've actually made your team
even better than with just one guy. The Adamis deal
is interesting in that it's basically Bregman's deal with one
more year. It's twenty six million dollars a year for
seven years. Bregman's offer from the Astros was twenty six
million dollars a year for six years. That, like you said,
I don't know that the Bregman offer is that far

(01:26:20):
out of whack. Yeah, so I just I just wonder
where it is, where it's going to go from here.
Of course we have much discuss with a couple hours
with you WEX, but it's news at noon. Let's get
focused on the news. What else is going on? Conna?

Speaker 12 (01:26:33):
Aaron Wilson tweeting out that the Texans have designated Christian
Harris and Kenny and Green to return to practice.

Speaker 6 (01:26:38):
Yeah, surprise on one and no surprise on the other.
Demiko Rans will be hearing from shortly. I'm sure we'll
acknowledge the same figured as the reports from Aaron were
coming the last couple of weeks it was all trending
towards Christian Harris being available to practice this week with
the practice window open, and hopefully being available beginning Sunday
in the first of the three games. Asis Al Shaier

(01:26:59):
will miss Devin White, Neville Hewitt, Henry Toatoa, and hopefully
Christian Harris. I'm not as good as probably you are,
Ross even though it's gone now Reading into social media posts,
Christian Harris is not super active on his Instagram account,
but during the off week he posted a story that
made it seem like he was returning.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):
You know, a picture of it.

Speaker 6 (01:27:19):
I think he was maybe walking down the hall, or
he was in the hall in his uniform of the
Texans facility, not a recent picture him in uniform.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
Like I say, all right, my time to come back
is there. The other part of it is rather surprising.

Speaker 6 (01:27:31):
Is really good news for the individual Kenyon that the
opportunity for him to return before the end of the
season is there. But I sure hope that, yeah, I
sure hope the Texans don't intend on putting him on
the field. You can dislike the play of Juice Scruggs
all you want, but you can't possibly analyze his poor
play at guard and say, yeah, it's worse than Kenyon.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
Get him back out there, because it just isn't. No,
I don't think so, But I mean, is that what
the Texans believe? I don't think I continue to put
him out there. They did.

Speaker 6 (01:28:00):
They benched him and then returned him to the game
when his replacement, Patterson got hurt. Then he started the
next game, which happened to be on a Thursday. So
a little bit of understanding there.

Speaker 2 (01:28:10):
But he's his play.

Speaker 6 (01:28:12):
He wasn't playing well. The interior of the line has
gotten marginally better. I think the only real upgrade is
Patterson's outplayed Scrugs at center. Scruggs hasn't been great at guard,
and Shack is the same as he's been all year.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
It's still the weakness of this team.

Speaker 6 (01:28:27):
An additional body on game days in uniform shouldn't be
more than that if he's healthy.

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
There's one of the fantasy writers I follow. They do
a lot of data and they put a frequency of
blown blocks and pressures allowed in football. Kenyon Green the
third worst in football. Six percent of the time he's
giving up either a blown block or a pressure.

Speaker 6 (01:28:46):
Yeah, his blown block number was out of control. The
only reason he wasn't number one overall because somehow the
pressure number was much lower.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
But yeah, the blown block number was through the roof. Yeah,
and Titus Howard actually on the list of worst in
football as well, unfortunately around four point six seven percent
on these data points. So Kenyon Green, we welcome you back.
Maybe you need some depth if somebody gets hurt. So
that's why he's activated, But I would be to return
designated to return right, doesn't have to get three weeks.

(01:29:16):
So yeah, twenty one day practice window opened up, So
we don't know if he'll if exactly he'll be back,
but we shall see what else is in the news.
Connor McGovern Jalen Green had thirty one points.

Speaker 12 (01:29:26):
Men Thompson had twenty two last night when the Rockets
to the Los Angeles Clippers one seventeen to one oh six.

Speaker 6 (01:29:32):
Rockets were able to handle the uh the wall the
former Houston Rockets left handed point guard last night.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
Yes, they did do that, Kevin Alders and I like
them in Thompson now Joe jokingly in the post game,
like we're not scared of a wall. I went eight
for eight from the free throw line. We ain't scared
of no wall. Rockets shot eighty four point six percent
from the free throw line. If you're not aware, the
into a dome has this steep I don't even want
you to call it just steep standing that has been

(01:29:59):
throwing players off. They're very rowdy fans. Rockets didn't seem
to mind. They got the win, and well it was.
It was an up and down Jalen Green game in
the middle of one game because he had thirty one points.

Speaker 6 (01:30:10):
Yeah, they started eight of fifteen as they had the
lead most of the night, finished one for five, so
overall he was nine for twenty. Was this only his
third thirty plus point game of the season. His allotment
for the month is now used. He has one a month.

Speaker 5 (01:30:24):
Is this just who he is?

Speaker 2 (01:30:25):
He's just the guy that's gonna have some bad games.
He's gonna make us believe and then he's gonna go
have some more bad games.

Speaker 6 (01:30:29):
As long as the basketball he played, I'm totally fine
with how he plays. I've said this many times, and
I know his turnover numbers aren't always great. He still
drives in the lane and doesn't finish when he gets hammered,
and they don't call it but he doesn't make enough shots,
and that doesn't look like through three plus seasons, we're
ready to see that consistently change. October he was unbelievable.
November a huge downturn, and he's leveled a little bit

(01:30:52):
here in December, but it certainly hasn't come back up.
One thing to note about that game last night, they
were no fred at fifteen turnovers in the first twenty
eight minutes of the game and then they didn't have
another one the final twenty minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
That was very nice. That was very nice for them.
The turnovers were a concern, I believe on the launch
pad the key to a victory was limiting a turnovers
if memory serves correct. All right, we're gonna take quick break.
AD's Adam Wexer, I am Ross vior Real, Matt Thomas
is out, Connor McGovern is in. You want to get in,
you can didn't even get to the college football playoff.
A lot to discuss with mister Wexer. What is going

(01:31:25):
on with the Astros after this huge SODO deal? What's
the fallout from that other stuff? To get to as well?
And you at seven one three, two, one two five
ninety more.

Speaker 11 (01:31:38):

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
Welcome back to the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Without
Matt Thomas, he is out sleeping or I don't know.
I imagine he's awakened by now who knows. Adam Wexler
is here. Cono mc govern is here as well. You
can get in if you'd like it. Two one two
five seven ninety seven one three two one two five

(01:32:18):
seven ninety So. I was talking about this a little
bit with Gordy. That's why I like it, you know.
I think two co hosts is the move. By the way,
on this four hour show, just between you and me,
Now I can talk about it with you, wex get
a fresh perspective on the matter. We kind of talked
about this as far as where it lands the Astros
with Alex Bregman and possibly in the future with Kyle Tucker.

(01:32:41):
How much do these types of deals that have been
made now with Shoho Tani, with Juan Soto, with some
other players in the long term deals and stuff like that.
Does this affect the thinking of Jim Crane in the
stance that he's had on not signing these long term deals,
or do you think he kind of stays dead fast
or maybe somewhere in between. A little bit depends on
the players.

Speaker 6 (01:33:01):
I mean, if you were unwilling to go past five
for such a long period of time, and now you're
willing to give Alex six and you watch a Damis
get seven, those are still think are properly termed long
term deals. Fifteen years is not a long term deal
that's out of control a marriage. Yeah, that's not something
that I really think is a part of the conversation.
Kyle's Tucker named Kyle Tucker's name came up almost immediately

(01:33:23):
because I think he's viewed by some as the next
great free agent outfielder, not this marketplace, but potentially next
year when his last year of control is up, if
there is no extension to remain. I'm not sure that
the wide view, the Major League Baseball view, the general
manager's view, the team owner and president's view of Kyle's

(01:33:45):
Tucker is quite that high.

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
I think he's really, really good.

Speaker 6 (01:33:49):
I think he might be the best player available in
any said outfield free agent market. But I don't anticipate
him getting some unbelievable deal if he was there when
like Trey Turner and Corey Seeger and Marcus Simeon got
ridiculous money. Yeah, he was probably in the Turner Simeon category.
And I just don't think anybody that signed any of

(01:34:12):
those deals is like, yeah, we need to do that again.
And I know Bryce Harper and Manny Machado got crazy
big deals Tatis as well.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
I'm not I don't.

Speaker 6 (01:34:21):
My guess is he's not viewed quite like that, although
the next one hundred and sixty two might change that.
He was really good last year, he just missed half
the season.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
Yeah, I mean last year ops plus Juan Soto won
seventy eight ops plus of Kyle Tucker won eighty one.
And we're talking about gold glove right field. Of course,
I'm not saying fifteen years, seven hundred plus million dollars
for Kyle Tucker.

Speaker 5 (01:34:44):
But what is it?

Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
I mean, tell me what, not necessarily what I'm missing,
But if we go to career numbers, I think it's
one sixty for Soto and one thirty nine for a
big difference, big difference career wise. Yeah, but what Kyle
Tucker can also bring in the field. I just maybe
I'm just getting worried. Maybe I'm just getting scared. I
don't think it's going to be fifteen years anywhere near
seven hundred million or anything like that. You're also talking
about a bidding war between two New York teams. That's

(01:35:08):
not gonna happen in this case. I don't think either.
But I mean, is it crazy to think now that
maybe some sort of ten year deal for Kyle if
he follows up last year, his best career year at
the plate, with something similar, he's going to be two
years older. But I mean it's some kind of ten year,
four hundred million dollar deal. Is that going to be
the craziest thing ever? The way that the market look

(01:35:29):
as it looks like it's going. I think it is.

Speaker 6 (01:35:32):
But what it does probably do is ensure what we
already knew, what would possess Kyle Tucker to stay in
this next year. I mean, he might stay after the year.
He might sign with the Astros after he hits the market,
after he sees what he can get and they go
above and beyond to keep him.

Speaker 2 (01:35:47):
But he sees what money is out there.

Speaker 6 (01:35:49):
I'm sure he has a pretty good idea of what
players might be out there which won't include wan Sota,
which won't include Sho Heeo Tani but will likely if
he wants to include him. I think that's what it
really tells me. It tells me that he's gonna want
to get to the market he probably already did. I
think is that he and his agency probably already did
their dealings with the Astros might have also sent him
in that direction, because I don't think he's been too

(01:36:09):
pleased with how each of the one year deals, whether
it's through arbitration or however they've gotten there, each of
these last few years has been too pleasing to him.
But you do have to on the other side of it.
Those numbers are great. In all last year in seventy
eight games, has he not had another seventy eight game
stretch in the middle of one of these other seasons
where he was really really good or the opposite. They

(01:36:30):
were pretty far above and beyond for a one thirty
his OPS plus. I imagine heading into last year it
was probably like one thirty six. It's one thirty nine
now and he went to one eighty one. His career
OPS was in the eight sixties. Last year was nine
to ninety three. Who those are pretty big four hundred
million dollar numbers if he had done it more often.

(01:36:53):
And that's the difference between him and Soto. Every single
season of Soto's career has been incredible from the moment
he got here, and last year was even better as
he had the best possible offensive protection ever or certainly
in the last twenty years hitting in front of Aaron Judge.
The kind of year Aaron Judge had was incredible, and
he took advantage of it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
Ah. Well, first of all, I'm gonna agree with you
on Soto's better than Kyle Tucker, but I'm just I'm
just saying that the way that he played, and it
also was two different stints because he got that he
was still really good at the plate when he got
back from that injury. It's not like he completely fell
off a cliff. He was keeping up to that numbers
that he did early on in the season. So we're
gonna get a whole another year of sample size. It's

(01:37:32):
also going to be another year that he's gonna have
to stay healthy. Not that it's ever really been a
question mark, but to me, I mean have argued ad
nauseum with Matt about the the the injury prone thing
and how much that factors, and that could if he
suffers another major injury and he misses a significant time
next year. So the time will tell. But I mean,
you just put it all together that he's young, he's

(01:37:54):
under thirty, he's got a gold glove, he is, I mean,
he has shown the capability to be one of the
plus plus hitters on the planet. Obviously, he's hitting the
free market and we'll see what happens. But I'm just
thinking even more so that he was gone. It feels
like after this deal, it's even more in my mind

(01:38:15):
further away that there's any opportunity where the Astros entertained
keeping Kyle Tucker, which also says, what does this team
look like in a couple of years with no Alex
Bregman and with no Kyle Tucker.

Speaker 6 (01:38:27):
You should be saying that in an office next to
Jim Crane because he has to see that too. Like
this window that he claims is always going to be open,
he said it is right, So okay, don't spend one
hundred and eighty to two hundred million all on Alex Bregman.
Don't spend three hundred million on Kyle Tucker. If you
don't spend significant money because we know what the system

(01:38:48):
is like. Or make some significant trades because Kyle Tucker
obviously could be a trade ship. If you so choose,
how is that window going to even remain slightly a jar.
You're not I'm gonna have the strength to pick up
a rock and break the window. Those two players aren't
teammates with Jose al Tuov and ord On Alvarez, and
nobody of significance becomes a teammate.

Speaker 2 (01:39:08):
That's just why I'm glad you brought this up, because
I had this epiphany. I was actually I was in
out of the country for a couple of weeks and
one of the people that I was traveling with is
a Houston sports fan, and we just ended up talking
a lot of Houston sports and that's kind of this
I don't want to say realization. It wasn't necessarily an epiphany,
but it's like, I think they should be looking to
move Kyle Tucker this offseason. I think they should be

(01:39:29):
looking to move from Ervaldez this offseason. Rip the band
aid off, get a couple of prospects. If you're not
going to sign Alex Bregman, if you're not going to
resign Kyle Tucker anyways, Sure you can maybe make one
last dance next year, but jose L Tuove is getting
older and older. You're missing out all in all these guys,
you do have some young pitchers who are still going
to be under control in a couple of years. But
if you can get some fruit born from those two

(01:39:52):
marquee players to where two impact players from those trades,
if you're lucky three and then you still have jord
On Alvarez his prime, some of the young pitching will
be coming into its own.

Speaker 5 (01:40:05):
Then in a couple of.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
Years you can talk about prying another window open with
jord On Alvarez as the marquee name on that jose
L Tuve being at the end of his career. And
that's kind of the only path I can think of
to where the window closes for a couple of years,
but then you can try and pry it back open
in a couple of more years if you get the
right prospects.

Speaker 6 (01:40:24):
Yeah, that's a tough one in Fromber's case to me,
maybe more so than Tucker, even though I like the
idea of moving on from him, just not in the
super short term this last year. If you move on
from him now, I'm not sure what you're getting in
terms of twenty six man help for twenty twenty five.
Who's going to actually be on this year's team that
can help you in the fact that he's gone and

(01:40:45):
you're one couple. You know, if one of your starters
has a two month injury. I'm not even trying to
say something crazy. You're in awful, awful shape from a
pitching standpoint, where if you're trading Fromber, you're counting on
Hunter Brown to be an ace immediately right now, right
out of the gate. He's your opening day starter and
has to give you thirty plus starts at the level
he pitched last year. You're counting on Luis Garcia to comeback.

(01:41:08):
You're counting on the good Spencer Arraghetty from late in
the season to be there with you all year after
he just threw a career high in.

Speaker 2 (01:41:14):
Innings by a lot.

Speaker 6 (01:41:15):
You're counting on Renel Blanco repeating his first ever strong
major league season. As much as it might make sense
for the long term with Fromber, I don't know how
you could have twenty twenty five Houston Astros starting pitching
and feel good about it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:29):
If he's not in it, you're not gonna feel good
about it. You're you're not gonna win next year. You're
probably not winning next year anyways. Even if you signed
a can you win the Divorced Series?

Speaker 5 (01:41:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
Probably?

Speaker 6 (01:41:38):
And if you can do that, isn't the Baseball Playoff
makeup just a little bit different.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
You're looking to roll the dice and get lucky rather
than be a favorite. I would rather, you know, we're
used in the year's Pass for the Astros being a favorite,
not one of the plucky underdogs, and we're the Cleveland
Guardians and we're looking to, you know, surprise some people
in a seven game series. So I'm saying, if you
could take that now to where you trade both of
them away and then in a couple of years, it's

(01:42:04):
all in exact science, right, But if you can do that,
you punt basically punt on the next couple of years,
and then by the end of Jordon's prime, that's when
you're hopefully back in it with some of these draft picks,
with some of the prospects that you've traded for.

Speaker 6 (01:42:19):
It's tough considering what Altuve said the day he signed
his extension. What he said all year about Bregman staying,
and you're getting the five worst years of jose Al
Tuovay's career, probably hold the course of his contract just
for where he is. You got four more years of
Josh Hater, none of which look like elite Josh Hater.

(01:42:40):
Very good Josh Hater, but not elite Josh Hater. And
then there's Jordan. I mean, these guys are going to
be out there making their money on a team that's
winning eighty three games.

Speaker 2 (01:42:51):
I mean they could if they lose out on Bregman.
How many games are gonna win next year? Anyways? Well,
also was saying, you go from lou You're hoping to
win ninety games to just going to eighty seventy five
games and then hopefully you can kind of hit the
reset button. Rather than a full five year rebuild, you
try to, uh, you try to just short up for

(01:43:11):
a couple of years, kind of like a soft take
like what what Day, Like Darryl Morey did with the
Rockets when they were going like forty to forty two
for a couple of years.

Speaker 6 (01:43:18):
All that sounds not so awful, but why couldn't you
envision the Astros basically doing a Rangers. Rangers won ninety
games in twenty twenty three in the World Series, and
last year they won seventy eight games without trying to
do a soft like we're talking about the Astros winning
eighty five or why wouldn't they fall to seventy five
or seventy.

Speaker 2 (01:43:35):
Six or the third or fourth place? And that's okay,
it's gonna hurt. We're gonna take a lot of fire,
Joe Aspota calls here on Sports Talk seven ninety. But
if if you've got if, you're gonna get prospects in
the pipeline from it, I just don't know what the
other solution is.

Speaker 6 (01:43:50):
They have to be at the top of the pipeline
and with very as as close to being obviously stars
as you can be. If you haven't played any Major
League baseball, nobody's a given. Ben, they're not gonna get
anybody at that level. But you've got to get players
that you don't have any question about. They're gonna be
major leaguers for you almost as soon as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:44:08):
All Right, we got to talk about this more, but
it's time for a break here on the Matt Thomas
Show with Ross. That's Adam Wexler. I'm Ross VIIa, how
hair brained? Is my idea? Just trade away Tucker and Valdez,
rip the band aid off and hopefully contend in a
couple more years. Seven one three two one two five
seven ninety seven to one three two one two five
seven ninety. Of course, still have to get into college

(01:44:29):
football playoff stuff. We got NFL stuff, A ton of
stuff to get to here on the Matt Thomas Show
with Ross with you till two o'clock. The most talkward
nooner you'll ever be a part of. This is the
Matt Thomas Show. Rolling along here on Sports Talk seven

(01:44:58):
ninety the mount time, I'm a show with Ross without
Matt Thomas with Adam Wexler. Wow, that's the longest show name,
I think in the history of sports radio. Connor mcgutrin
here as well. Seven one three two one two five
seven ninety is the phone number if you'd like to
get in seven one three two one two five seven
ninety From our friends at mlbtrade rumors dot com. The

(01:45:21):
latest on Alex Bregman, Rob Bradford of w EEI reporting
last night that the red Sox quote may immediately be
prioritizing end quote, a pursuit of Bregman in the aftermath
of Soto's signing as they look to use those funds
to sign other top free agents, and Bob Nightingale reporting

(01:45:41):
this morning the Yankees are expected to make a run
at free agency's top infielder as well.

Speaker 5 (01:45:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:45:49):
I mean there's maybe four or five Anthony Santander, Christian Walker,
Pete Alonzo, Willie to Damas, Juan Soto, Alex Bregnan.

Speaker 2 (01:45:56):
This is a top free agents available.

Speaker 6 (01:45:58):
Offensively speaking, two of them are off the board, Adamis
and Juan Soto. Any team that was interested in them
is probably interested in the ones that remain. While they
are all essentially corner infielders. Bregman might give you a
touch of positional flexibility if he's willing and you have
any reason to. But bottom line is these teams that
were willing to spend on those other two players, Okay,

(01:46:20):
well if they didn't get them, they're gonna be willing
to spend on them. I think Bradford's one of the
things he said. You think he did a radio interview
this morning speaking on that or earlier today speaking about
the Red Sox, whom he covers. I think what they
are focused on is Alex Bregman, and I wouldn't have
said that twenty four hours ago. It checks off a
lot of boxes. From what I hear, this is a

(01:46:41):
very very real thing.

Speaker 2 (01:46:44):
This is the master plan. Scott Boris, You're gonna have
people scrambling to spend somebody. They're gonna swing and miss
on Juan Soto, and then that means you're gonna go
after the bridesmaid. You're gonna scramble for something else, and
you're gonna still want to make a splash, and two
hundred million dollars or whatever it's gonna end up being,
it's gonna pay in comparison to seven hundred and sixty
five million dollars. I think this is just I think
everything's going according to plan for for this offseason for

(01:47:07):
Alex Bregman.

Speaker 6 (01:47:07):
It Scott Boris, Yeah, six years, one fifty six, the
Astros offer twenty six million dollars a year, six years,
one pint eighty. That's thirty million dollars a year, six years,
two hundred. Well, now you're been thirty three and change
per year, which is nothing compared to what was just
signed by right Wan Soto. It's nothing compared to show. Hey,
I don't think Alex pregnant is on either one of

(01:47:28):
their levels. It shouldn't be anywhere close to that. But
it also very quickly from twenty six per year to
thirty per year to thirty three per year. Just going
from one fifty six to one eighty to two hundred.
Those sound like the figures that have the Astros looking
elsewhere and knowing this is not an area they want
to go. I mean, I could be wrong, but that's
what it sounds like.

Speaker 2 (01:47:48):
If it gets to that point, Yeah, it feels like
it's going to be long gone for the Astros. I
just think they're not going to be able to keep
up with the bidding from these other teams. And I'm
starting to lean. The Yankees just lost out for Juan
Soto to the New York Mets. Do you think they're
gonna want to lose out on Alex Bregman to the
Boston Red Sox. I mean, how much does that factor in,

(01:48:08):
do you think?

Speaker 12 (01:48:09):
Well?

Speaker 6 (01:48:09):
It probably does, but you also have to consider just them,
just their own They should be worried about themselves, and
they never seem to be.

Speaker 2 (01:48:15):
They're worried about everybody else Kristan is worried about everyone else.

Speaker 6 (01:48:18):
Come on, man, everybody, like I know, the Astros live
rent free in his head, but I feel like everybody does.
Like you went to the World Series finally, after what
clearly was the best external move he's ever made, adding
Wan Soto better than Garrett Cole, better than anything else
he's ever done, to put a player that wasn't a
Yankee to begin with on his team, And because Aaron

(01:48:42):
Judge is so awful in the playoffs one of the
reasons they still came up short. How far short are
they going to be without Juan Soto. Alex Bregman's not
going to put them in the same position they were
in a year ago. It's gonna take much more than that.
I go back to what I said earlier this the
Yankees without Sodo need three or four major side I
think to put them where they were, just where they

(01:49:02):
were a year ago. Right now, they're just another American
League team. There's five or six teams the fans of
themselves as World Series contenders. Maybe the Astros are part
of that. The Yankees are no better than any of
them today without Wan Soto. Oh, their defenses get a
lot better if they signed Bregman.

Speaker 2 (01:49:18):
They're sure. Maybe they're base running to get better too much.

Speaker 6 (01:49:22):
I mean, that's the other part that's so funny about
the Yankees and all their spending and all their talent
and all their millionaires and billionaires. They play baseball so badly,
Like they can hit gargantuan homers and they can throw
ninety nine mile an hour strikes, and they've got all
these guys who throw nothing but gas coming out of
their bullpen. But then the game itself, the part of
the game that ten year olds know how to play,

(01:49:44):
they can't do it well.

Speaker 2 (01:49:45):
A lot of the defense, in positioning and base running
and stuff like that. I think a lot of that
is intertwined with analytics. And you know, Brian Cashman always
brags about how little they how little they spend, or
how little their staff is with analytics, and that's a
huge part of that.

Speaker 6 (01:49:59):
It's awesome they are making it easier for teams who
have less money and arguably less talent. But you know,
I was looking at their their roster without just look
at what they had last year, and there's a few
other free agents that might not be back. Rizzo and
Glaber Torres, obviously now won Soto. They literally have one
good hitter, it's Aaron Judge. They don't have any other
good They don't have any plus hitters. Austin Wells is

(01:50:20):
close because he's a catcher. Who's to say what he'll
do in year two? But everybody else is a below
average hitter, below average OPS, below average OPS plus. They
don't have good plate discipline, they're miserable base runners if
they even have any speed, and they're not awesome defensive.
I mean, is it's not a great roster now. It
was made to look great when the two I mean
outside of Bobby Witt, the two of the top three

(01:50:41):
hitters in the American League, and they were healthy. A
four guys play one hundred and fifty plus games last year.
You think it's gonna happen again?

Speaker 2 (01:50:49):
Probably not? Probably not? And what do you make of
I always talk about short sample sizes in the playoffs,
and maybe there were under the microscope, and when we
make too much of it, For example, Kyle Tucker is
bad in the playoffs the last couple of years, and
Jose L two. They had a horrible twenty twenty two,
but the Astros still won the World Series. But he's
obviously come up clutching big situations. Is Aaron Judge just

(01:51:12):
a bad playoff hitter because of his style or is
he having some bad luck?

Speaker 14 (01:51:18):
Ah?

Speaker 2 (01:51:18):
I don't That's what I wonder. Bad luck is tough man,
it just doesn't seem like bad luck. He's been terrible.

Speaker 6 (01:51:23):
He's facing different teams, different pitchers, with different arsenals. His
book remains the same. They're studying the same hitter. They're pitching.
Coaches and their catchers and their department is saying, this
is what works against him. Do we have the pitchers
to throw these pitches? And the answer is always yes,
and they keep making him look bad. His strikeout numbers
aren't accidental. They're astronomical. They're always like that, right, and

(01:51:44):
in the postseason they just do nothing but get worse.
I mean the Higostiaka signing earlier this offseason, Someone's like, oh,
who's this guy?

Speaker 2 (01:51:53):
The Rangers added him as their backup catcher.

Speaker 6 (01:51:54):
I got said, well, he's one of the many players
who had the same number of postseason home runs as
Aaron Judge did last year. He only played in a
couple series. Aaron Judge played all the way through to
the World Series. He just has been so under and
the Astros have had firsthand knowledge of it. It's uh,
you know, the Astros. If the Astros had less talent,
then Kyle Tucker's postseason issues would be glaring. But they

(01:52:18):
have Alex Bregman, and they have Josel tuv and they
have Jordan Alvarez. These are all plus postseason performers. These
two of them are historical postseason performers. Before that, they
had George Springer winning MVPs, they had Jeremy Panya winning
a pair of MVPs, and of course Korea.

Speaker 2 (01:52:34):
The Yankees don't have that.

Speaker 6 (01:52:36):
I mean, Stanton's a better postseason hitter than Judge, but
he also is so bad at everything else.

Speaker 2 (01:52:42):
Can't move, can't run, can't.

Speaker 6 (01:52:46):
This is, this is even though it might end up
hurting the Astros in a different way because he went
to a National League team Juan Soto. So all these
American League teams that need to get better, including the Yankees,
they might be willing to spend more money on Alonso,
on Bregman, on Christian Walker because now, well, the Yankees

(01:53:07):
window is no more open than ours. The oriel anyone
could think we can get past them.

Speaker 5 (01:53:12):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:53:12):
The good thing is, though, is that Aaron Judge, he's
a bargain now, forty million dollars a year. I mean
that's a steal.

Speaker 6 (01:53:17):
Hey, Sary, how fast are you gonna go to Brian's
door and knock and say, hey, man, can I get
a raise?

Speaker 2 (01:53:22):
You got nine years, three hundred and sixty million dollars
of forty million dollars a year? And apparently that's a
bargain now in today's Major League baseball with that deal
from soda. Okay, time for a quick break here on
the Matt Thomas Show with Ross without Matt Thomas, with
Adam Wexler. You want to talk some baseball, We're doing
that now at seven one three two p one two
five seven ninety seven one three two one two five

(01:53:43):
seven ninety You can also send tweets to at sports
RV at Adam J. Wexler as well. With you until
two o'clock Here on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 7 (01:53:50):
Ninety Matt Thomas Life Goals, Watch Sheer Win repeat. Well
you thought I was talking about sports, Well, no, Matt
has serious prices right dreams. How he has time for
sports in between reruns just boggles the mine.

Speaker 2 (01:54:25):
Welcome back to the Matt Toms Show. And there are
also a lot of stuff to get to here until
two o ko ok, at which point it will be
Adam Weser, who is with me now put in six hours.
I'm proud of you. You were working late last night too,
Sunday night NBA basketball.

Speaker 6 (01:54:42):
It was good night for the Rockets to get back home,
you know, to play on the West Coast for the week,
not be very happy with the way they played in
Golden State, not winning in Sacramento, and then taking care
of a team that was beyond wounded. They barely had
any available players by the end of the game. Talking
about the Clippers to just take care of it, take
care of business. You've won sixteen of your first twenty
four games. You've had a lot of impressive wins there.

(01:55:04):
You're winning on the road, which they could not do
a year ago. And they're able to do that on
any given night because they play defense every single night.

Speaker 5 (01:55:13):
Yes, some nights they don't make three.

Speaker 2 (01:55:14):
This is what happened. What happened in that game against
Golden State where it was a ninety nine to ninety
three in twenty twenty four, an NBA basketball game I
couldn't believe it, except I could, because, well, sometimes the
Rockets don't shoot so well from three. They are in
the bottom five in the NBA in three or six
last night, and then they had a little bit better night,

(01:55:34):
they might have moved to twenty five or twenty. That's
hope they could get to the top twenty five, baby Like,
that's what I'm hoping for.

Speaker 6 (01:55:40):
One of the things I mentioned before tip off thirty
seven percent. If you shoot thirty seven percent for three,
you'd be thirteenth in the NBA. So it's not overwhelming.
It's the middle of the pack. It's good, but it's
not unbelievable. The Rockets have shot thirty seven percent on
threes in seven of their twenty four games.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
They're undefeated in those games.

Speaker 6 (01:55:56):
Okay, if they shoot a reasonable number, which is more
than what you'd expect for the players that they have,
they win. It's if they can just make a few
more and they're getting wide open looks. That's that's what
is both unfortunate and worrisome at the same time. Their
shots that you would expect most teams to have players
that can hit, and there's a little balance of well,

(01:56:17):
we're putting out a team that's going to stop the
other team, but it's not an ideal lineup of or
roster maybe even of three point shooters.

Speaker 2 (01:56:26):
Thirty three percent on the season, which is still good
for twenty six So you brought up the thirty seven number.
When is the last time you think they shot at
or above that number, like twenty eighteen? Maybe oh first
season a team like as a team the Houston Rockets
because Darryl Morey brought the three ball revolution here to Houston.
And it feels like you just not had any sharpshooters

(01:56:47):
this entire run, except for like Ryan Anderson.

Speaker 6 (01:56:50):
Yeah, and the group they out road should be a
little like you should be able to get Dylan Brooks
to thirty six percent. He's getting nothing but wide open looks.
Fred van Vliet probably shoots more than he could to
reach that number because he isn't wide open nearly as
often as everybody else. A lot of them are off
the dribble, a lot of them are off the stepbacks.
Same thing for Jalen Green. I wonder what his numbers

(01:57:10):
look like. There's probably a tiny sample size what he
shoots when he's catch and shoot or coming off a
Steven Adams screen, and there was one game where it
was just like five or six trips over a one
quarter period. He got five great three point looks just
because he was playing two man game with Steven Adams.
He made three out of those shots. But they've had

(01:57:33):
year like you brought up more and that everybody should
be thinking of how awful it was. Then awful in
a bad way because the green light was so bright
for Corey Brewer and Josh Smith, some of the all
time literally all time worst three pointers in NBA history,
that shoot it at their volume. Guys that are Russell Westbrook.

(01:57:54):
These guys are good basketball players, and they help the
Rockets do some of the things they wanted to do.

Speaker 5 (01:57:59):
But he did.

Speaker 6 (01:58:00):
Danatis, you want to shoot a three, go right ahead,
Terrence Jones, fire away.

Speaker 2 (01:58:03):
I don't care if they go in.

Speaker 6 (01:58:05):
Was their attitude, which clearly was maddening because you certainly
could have gotten better shots. But threes, dunks and layups,
that's are down, free throws, threes, shots at the rim
and free throws. It was clearly followed by a lot
of NBA teams and now there's a little bit of
a shift in the other direction. Mid range shots aren't taboo. Amen,

(01:58:26):
Thompson is working on having a mid range game.

Speaker 2 (01:58:29):
He needs to stop working on that. It's too flat. Yeah,
but you can't not do it, yeah, Jibari Smith Junior.
Same thing.

Speaker 6 (01:58:35):
If you eliminate it from these young players Arsenal, they're
not gonna get any good looks. Ever, I do want
to commend amend for where he's shooting his threes from.
He made that corner three last night that made him
nine of twenty on the season on corner threes. He's
awful everywhere else, pretty much unmakable from everywhere else. So
just shoot corner threes. You keep getting in the corner

(01:58:57):
and they keep leaving you. Well, teammates go find him there.

Speaker 2 (01:59:00):
Well, hopefully they are going to go find all right.
I think I found it. I went back into the archives.
They've been thirty six point six and thirty six point
seven recently, But to go back to thirty seven percent
from three two thousand and seven Houston Rockets. Do you
know where that ranked them league wide?

Speaker 6 (01:59:18):
I think fifth, So and again, thirty six point eight
percent now is probably fifteenth or sixteenth the fifth. That's
pretty good. I mean, that's maybe what you should be
looking at. You need to be one of the If
you're fifteenth, I mean, fifteenth would be great from twenty sixth.

Speaker 2 (01:59:35):
The last time they were in the top fifteen and
three point percentage was twenty nineteen. Are they were twelve.

Speaker 16 (01:59:41):
And is?

Speaker 6 (01:59:42):
It just sounds like there's a little give and take,
there's a little balancing act. They are elite defensively. They're
one of the five best defensive teams in the NBA
pretty much by anything you want to look at. They're
one of the best rebounding teams in the NBA. Another
reason why they won last night they hammered the Clippers
on the boards at twenty one second chance point. It
does come at the expense of apparently guys that can't

(02:00:05):
shoot quite as well.

Speaker 2 (02:00:06):
Fill in the blank for me. If Jalen Green could
consistently shoot thirty eight percent from three, he would be
a top blank player in the league. No worse than
the top thirty. You know, uh, I'm thinking like top fifteen.

Speaker 6 (02:00:20):
I'm wondering if if that would be enough to get
him top fifteen, because when we start walking through the
best fifteen players in the league, it's gonna sound pretty awesome.
But yeah, it's true. I think that's probably what you
would have because it would be with ease. He goes
from averaging nineteen points a game to twenty four points
a game. It's gonna make his drives to the basket
that much easier because they have to close out on
you a little bit harder.

Speaker 5 (02:00:40):
You're not going to go under screens as much.

Speaker 6 (02:00:42):
All those things come into play when you shoot at that.
It's not even that thirty eight such a crazy number.
It is when you compare to where he is now
in thirty two or thirty three range. That's a huge jump. Yes,
but he's a high volume shooter.

Speaker 5 (02:00:55):
Very high volume.

Speaker 2 (02:00:56):
Maybe a little too high volume, but I mean at
least his thirty I think he's right around thirty three percent,
which is basically what the average for the team is.
So you go under when you're talking about guys like
i'm In Thompson overall, who's been making the corner threes,
but Albrin Shangun Fred van Vliet's numbers, I do expect
to go up at some point. So it will go up,
it will get better. But I think, of course, limiting

(02:01:17):
the ceiling of where these this Rockets team can do go?
Is their their lack of three point shooting?

Speaker 6 (02:01:22):
Yeah, and we mentioned Jalen Green. He clearly shoots more
than anybody else on this team. It's far from a man.
Jalen can't shoot, but everybody else can't. It's the opens right,
Nobody on this team is on the plus side. It's
been a very tough start in rotation minutes, reed Shepherd.
He's not done anything that wows you yet. As a shooter,

(02:01:43):
he's missed out far more often than I think people expected.
You've got Jabari Smith Junior's in a nice little groove
right now. He's upped his season numbers to thirty five.
I mentioned Dylan Brooks. He's up at thirty eight plus.
But everybody else is is at thirty three percent or worse.

Speaker 2 (02:02:00):
All of them not good. That's why the team is
at thirty three percent over rough. I don't want to
talk about it all right, quick break here on the
Matt Thomas Show with Ross. That is Adam Wexer. When
we come back, what if anything needs to be changed
with the college football playoff and did the committee get
it right? I will ask Adam Weser when we come back. Also,
I want your thoughts at seven one three two one

(02:02:22):
two five seven ninety seven one three two one two
five seven ninety Our number four of The Matt Thomas
Show with Ross is next.

Speaker 1 (02:02:32):
Launchtimers. This is the Matt Thomas Show Ower number four.

Speaker 2 (02:02:39):
Of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross Without Matt Thomas.
He is out on a travel day back from Los
Angeles as the Rockets defeat the Los Angeles Clippers last night.
He will be back tomorrow in his stead well, for
the first couple hours, we had Chris Gordy talking a
lot of college football with him about to talk some
college football with Adam Wexler, and you can get him

(02:03:01):
at seven one two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven ninety So let's
just go ahead and get this out of the way.
Wex Now, I think you were a little bit busy
during some of the Longhorns SEC Championship Game of four A.
I really wanted them to win, not necessarily because of

(02:03:21):
the playoffs or the buy or anything, just so that
you could say, oh, what, winning the SEC is hard?

Speaker 5 (02:03:27):
Of what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (02:03:27):
Texas did it in their first year, but they didn't.

Speaker 6 (02:03:29):
I also liked the opportunity to say, well, Texas beat
every team on their schedule this year.

Speaker 2 (02:03:34):
Yes, exactly, they'd be cool and unefeated, but still say
they're undefeated against anybody not named Georgia.

Speaker 6 (02:03:39):
They are, But it also gives everyone the ammunition if
they don't respect Texas A and M of saying, yeah,
but who did they beat? U. Texas A and M
obviously was a respectable team late in the season. They
certainly weren't playing their best and obviously suffered most, if
not all, of their losses. There were so many teams
that were just like Texas from a scheduling standpoint, though.
Indiana's probably the biggest case. You have these bloated conferences

(02:04:05):
and they put out the schedule. Indiana had a cake
walk of a Big Ten schedule. If you sucked that,
you were on Indiana schedule. Oh and then they played
Ohio State and lost. And in Texas's case, if you
were in the lower tier of the SEC, well then
you were on Texas's schedule this year and they beat
them all. I mean, that's just the way it was.
Oh and they played Georgia and they lost. I mean,

(02:04:25):
Penn State was in a similar situation. Oregon was in
a similar situation. Oregon happened to win that one game
against somebody, but so many teams just didn't play the
top tier. I mean, even you could argue Clemson was
similar to that. Miami like these teams, Miami, SMU, Clemson, Well,
they didn't play each other. These are the three best
teams in the conference. They never played each other until

(02:04:47):
the conference title game. It's going to happen again and
again and again. If they don't change the way that
these conferences operate. They certainly should. Hopefully the SEC is
planning on going to a ninth conference game after this
upcoming season. I think that would alleviate some of some
of it, not all of it, but some of it.
And it won't necessarily be Texas, Indiana and any of

(02:05:08):
these teams in a couple of years. It will be
some other team where you're trying to guess exactly how
strong they are, knowing that it's clear other teams played
a tougher schedule. All that being said, the twelve teams
that are there four autobids plus Boise's essentially an auto bid.
Notre Dame by winning I didn't mention Notre Dame nobody
had an easier schedule than Notre Dame. And again, it's

(02:05:29):
some years, USC and the other teams on their schedule
are reasonably good opponents.

Speaker 2 (02:05:33):
This year they weren't.

Speaker 6 (02:05:34):
Texas lined up Michigan early in the season off a
national title.

Speaker 2 (02:05:39):
Okay, Michigan wasn't very good.

Speaker 6 (02:05:42):
It looked like Georgia did the same thing with their
non conference Oh great, they scheduled Clemson.

Speaker 2 (02:05:47):
They're always good, well until this year.

Speaker 6 (02:05:49):
Oh wait until the end of the year when they
are good because they just won the ACC. I do think,
based on all the results and watching the team's play,
these were the twelve teams that they should have placed
in the field.

Speaker 2 (02:06:02):
I tend to agree with you, and I also think
we kind of forget this year to year. It feels
like there's something that happens. It's a wild year, and
this this year to me wild more than others, with
Alabama losing late to end the season, or losing to
the Vanderbilt in Oklahoma, with Ole Miss losing to Florida,
like the water's got more muddy this year than then.

Speaker 5 (02:06:23):
Maybe.

Speaker 2 (02:06:24):
I mean, we'll see going forward to I don't know
that there'll be as many crazy upsets as there were
this year and in a vacuum, you know, you have
the Alabama a D talking about we're not going to
schedule anybody already didn't did anybody? They tried with Wisconsin
like Texas tried with Michigan. I don't even feel that's
the same.

Speaker 6 (02:06:42):
Wisconsin's a reasonably good team, regionably playing for national titles.

Speaker 2 (02:06:46):
Right, But that was also when when did the Michigan
home and home get six seven years ago or whenever
it was?

Speaker 6 (02:06:51):
And that's the thing with scheduling these non cons But
the sill like, at some point in the season, you
have to turn your radar onto here's how we make
the playoffs, and I'm sure Alabama did, and how easy
would it.

Speaker 2 (02:07:01):
Have been to get there.

Speaker 6 (02:07:02):
Don't get embarrassed by Oklahoma embarrassed Vanderbilt earlier in the year. Clearly, yes,
Vanderbilt played six teams with a winning record this year.
They lost to all of them except for Alabama. Vanderbilt
is not good, Oklahoma not good. You lost to both
of them, there's no argument left. And still you were

(02:07:23):
rated above South Carolina and Ole Miss, who also didn't
make it because of the same things.

Speaker 2 (02:07:28):
I think we've put the exact same resume, and we
call the Mississippi State they're they're not anywhere to where
they were, and the Alabama ad isn't whining. And as
Gordy pointed out earlier in the show and put it
a good way, if Oklahoma and Vandy don't beat Alabama,
they're not Bowl eligible this year there were five win
teams without wins without their wins against Bama. So no

(02:07:51):
argument for me with Bama. But what do you think
about going forward about the paths to the playoffs and
especially the autobi's Boise State being a top four seed,
Arizona State being a top four seed? Do you think
they should two questions? Should they change that? And will
they change that?

Speaker 6 (02:08:11):
Let me start with Arizona State. Arizona State's four. So
you got eight teams seeded behind them, the five through twelves.
Who do you think is better than Arizona State. Who
do you feel supremely confident in that eighteen group is
better than Arizona State besides Texas?

Speaker 2 (02:08:27):
All of them? Okay, I'm curious, like I don't know
that everybody knows state not in Viganta.

Speaker 6 (02:08:32):
I mean, I don't think Tennessee and Arizona State's close
to an even matchup SMU Arizona State, Penn State, Arizona State,
they're close enough. Like, what did Pennas State tell you
about their team this year that makes you so confident
they're clearly better than Arizona State.

Speaker 2 (02:08:44):
I wouldn't say clearly, but I would say that I
would say who would be who would they be favored against?
In that in a Vegas sense, in those teams, I
would say they be favored against Boise State, probably Indiana.
And then outside of that, I don't.

Speaker 6 (02:08:59):
Know on a state had a loss without their starting
quarterback this year. Otherwise they might have been twelve and one,
but they were eleven and one when their starter was out.

Speaker 2 (02:09:07):
There and just took cut. Then why is Georgia number two?
What do you mean their quarter they're starting quarterbackas that game? Yeah,
he handed the ball in the worst half. The good
half was when he left. I still don't want to
talk about this.

Speaker 6 (02:09:21):
Well there is There are no confirmed reports just because
we're on it. Indications for those close to the program
are that it is some sort of UCL entry for
back and he's probably unavailable for the Sugar Bowls. Sugar
Bowl is George's first game the first game for the
four teams that are off. They don't happen until either
December thirty first or January first, so there's still three

(02:09:42):
weeks between now and then they have the last of
the four quarterfinal games, the evening game on January first.
Did you get some appreciation from Ohio State's football social
post about their game against Tennessee a night game in
Columbus on December twenty No, I did not see. It
was a picture of a player basically breaking these shackles

(02:10:05):
away from the noon kickoff that they are saddled with
all year long because of their Fox contract. The big
game for Fox, they always want it to be at
noon or eleven AM, and that's where they've been playing
all year. Now they get a primetime night game off
what primetime is against Tennessee. So they were celebrating that
a little bit. I think it's because of the It's

(02:10:28):
almost like they were trying to be nice to the conferences. Look,
we want you to be a part of it. You
might not be as good as us. This is the
SEC talking, So we'll give you an additional off week
and you don't have to win four times. You only
have to win three and it turned out that two
of the four teams that got that are not anywhere
near two of the four best teams. Yeah, I just
do you want to reseed another time?

Speaker 2 (02:10:50):
I think reseed should be actually absolutely happen receeding rather
than the bracket is. And then but do you go
on the seting based on the seating with the conference
championships or do you go to the seat eating based
on the playoff rankings?

Speaker 5 (02:11:01):
After that?

Speaker 2 (02:11:01):
I think once you've set to one through twelve, you
receed off of that. You the Yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:11:06):
I think many people who favor that are looking at Oregon.
Oregon's the number one team in the country. They went undefeated,
they went to a new conference and won every game,
and should they win or should obviously they're they're waiting
for an opponent. They're gonna have to beat Ohio State
for a second time. They're gonna have to beat Tennessee
just to move on, just to get a win in
the playoffs. And Texas is on their side, But at

(02:11:26):
some point somebody has to be on your side. I
don't think their path is hard to per se. They
also get to play in the Rose Bowl. They didn't
send Arizona State to the Fiesta Bowl. They did send Georgia.
I mean, there's some some benefits to where these teams are.
I don't know that it's a home game for Georgia
at the Sugar Bowl, but it's probably pretty close.

Speaker 2 (02:11:46):
Yes, And you know, and they're taking on the winner
of Indiana Notre Dame. That's why I wanted Texas. Texas
should have won. Man, if they'd have won that game,
it's not an easy path. Yeah, but it's only three games.
It's an easy year.

Speaker 6 (02:11:58):
If all you change is the outcome of the SEC
title game, and you put Georgia at five and Texas
at two, Texas plays in the Sugar Bowl against the
winner of Notre Dame Indiana. Yes, then they play the
winner of Boise Penn State SMU. Yes, now they would
be going to the Orange Bowl instead of the Cotton Bowl. Okay, whatever,
You're worried more about the opponent than how loud the
fans are.

Speaker 2 (02:12:20):
I'll give me, give me one second.

Speaker 6 (02:12:21):
I'll Quinn, at what point in the game did you
feel confident, if at all, that the Longhorns were winning.

Speaker 2 (02:12:28):
I think when they were driving for a field goal,
I said to myself, they're going to get a touchdown.
They're going to win this game the last drive of
the game where they're tied game and I was wrong
and I was let down by now. So this is
only five minutes of game time after the Yewers interception,
but the defense stopped and they were on the move.
They got into great position to have opportunities to score
the game winning touchdown when it hit overtime. How as

(02:12:49):
you would say, how we feeling.

Speaker 5 (02:12:51):
How we feeling?

Speaker 2 (02:12:51):
I was actually feeling they were going to win in overtime.
Did you like, like, you get the backup quarterback, You've
got this dominant defense, They're going to be just good
enough over time. They just have to slightly edge over Georgia.
They have to stop the run. Because I didn't think
the backup quarterback was gonna be able to do much
of anything. And I thought they were gonna win the game.
I thought they were gonna.

Speaker 6 (02:13:10):
Bird Auburn connects and you're up nineteen sixteen in overtime.

Speaker 2 (02:13:13):
How we feeling? I thought we were gonna go to
a second overtime, Okay, and then Carson back limp arm
Carson Beck hands off, and the whole world knows that
they're running and then they can't make a stop.

Speaker 5 (02:13:26):
It was quite deflating.

Speaker 6 (02:13:28):
Yeah, well, then again, these are the end of the
game scenarios. We're pointing out. There were fifty five other
minutes of football. This certainly could have provided for a
very very very.

Speaker 2 (02:13:37):
Difficult don't blot, don't block the receiver when you should
be getting a pick six. Yes, I was.

Speaker 6 (02:13:44):
I was busy during most of the second half of
that game. Was sitting court side at U of H
Butler little hoops thanks to bud light hooking me and
some winners up.

Speaker 2 (02:13:53):
To go see that some bud lights.

Speaker 6 (02:13:55):
But I will say and I did enjoy some bud
lights their court side. The people sitting to my left
tour the winners, and the people who have season tickets
to my right. Pretty much everybody was still keeping an
eye on what was going on there. In fact, the
person sitting next to me had it up on her
phone and I said, what's your interest in the Texas game?
And she said, well, my husband played here at u

(02:14:16):
of H, so we hate Texas. Yeah, their interest was
in the Georgia game.

Speaker 2 (02:14:20):
Don't kid me. Don't even get me started on those
koops fans. I understand it.

Speaker 6 (02:14:24):
There's a lot of built up frustration over the years
of playing together and then not playing together.

Speaker 2 (02:14:29):
Yes, seriously, you've been out of each other's conferences for
what twenty five plus years now at this point. They
weren't they in the same conference last year? Oh yeah,
I guess for one year. That doesn't county anyways, Now
I'm upset. Thank you, WEX, good job. All right, we're
gonna take quick break here on the Matt Thomas Show
with Ross. My name is roth View Real. Adam Wuser
is here. Matt is out resting Kandama governs.

Speaker 5 (02:14:48):
Here.

Speaker 2 (02:14:49):
You can talk with us about anything. We've been talking
about the Sodo contract, what it means for Bregman and
the Astros, what it means for Tucker and the Astros,
did the playoff committee get it right with their twelve teams? Anything?
You want to get to seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven to one three two, one
two five seven ninety But before we do get to

(02:15:09):
that break, I have an important question. How are you feeling?
What about yourself in your day to day life? How'd
you feel when your alarm went off this morning? Did
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That's cool, that's you. But if you're somebody that's been
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with libido, with energy in general, maybe you should get

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Speaker 11 (02:16:12):
Matt Thomas returns on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (02:16:28):
One at twenty in the PM. Here on Sports Talk
seven ninety. It's the Matt Thomas Show without Matt Thomas,
with Ross and with one of the Adams. Adam Wexler
is here. Adam Clanton will join him two to six
here on Sports Talk seven ninety. Happen to be with you, folks,
where the phone lines are open if you'd like to

(02:16:48):
get in at seven one, three, two, one two five
seven ninety talking a little bit of college football. In
the last segment about the bracket that was made, so
you said, you've feel like they got the twelve teams
in that needed to be in.

Speaker 15 (02:17:03):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:17:04):
I don't necessarily they're not going to change anything about
the automatic bids, but do you think they changed to
receding and or the not top four for conference champions
I would like them just go one through twelve and
they Okay, Arizona State gets in, that's fine, But you're
whatever seed they are by the as deemed by the committee.

(02:17:26):
That's where you are.

Speaker 6 (02:17:27):
So Clemson twelve, Arizona State would be eleven, Boise State
would be ten, and then everybody else probably in SMU
maybe nine or somewhere in that neighborhood, and everything kind
of slots in place. Although again interestingly SMU is eleventh
and Clemson is twelfth, even though I think we know
which team is better because they.

Speaker 2 (02:17:45):
Just played, so I could see that happening.

Speaker 6 (02:17:49):
And I wonder do you think there would be coaches
pushback if they even had a voice to the receding,
like Georgia for instance. I know Kirby Smart was asked
about Indiana and Notre Dame and he doesn't really know
anything about them. So how many teams are you going
to be scouting? They have?

Speaker 1 (02:18:07):
Right?

Speaker 6 (02:18:08):
And about twelve days between when the game was played
and how much then they know who they're and well, yeah,
about ten days to prepare. That's more than enough time, right,
I would say, so have a huge staff your billion
dollar organizations. Should they have any concern about having no
knowledge at all who they're playing basically until all four
of the quarterfinals have been played out?

Speaker 2 (02:18:29):
Yeah, I mean the the NFL reseeds every week, and yeah,
you do a little bit of studying on both teams
they have God knows how many people are on the
staffs of these college football teams with graduate assistants and
all that type of stuff. I mean, nah, I think
receding to.

Speaker 6 (02:18:45):
Me would be the way to go, yeah, you want
if you're especially I think if you do both, that
makes the most sense. I mean, organ is the number
one team, Okay, it's a second bonus if you do
receive because now any huge upset, they're really benefiting from you.
I think they're catching a twelve seed or whatever seed,
the worst seed that has advanced. Plus they've already got

(02:19:05):
an additional week off. Plus they're playing most of the
time in a reasonably regional helpful spot, and they are
they're at the Rose Bowl. I can see these things
being discussed, and I would think that at least one
of those things probably gets pushed forward. How loud is
the ACC's voice, how loud is the big twelves voice,
because they're I'm sure they're ecstatic that in Arizona State's case,

(02:19:27):
we got a four seed.

Speaker 2 (02:19:29):
We're definitely not the fourth best team in the country.

Speaker 6 (02:19:30):
Didn't play that way, but you know, somebody, they're essentially
five auto bids and Boise State. This was probably unexpected.
The committee put this hole together, whole thing together. There's
nobody in the room that ever said, well, what if
this other team ends up as a three seed?

Speaker 2 (02:19:46):
He would have been laughed out of the room. It's
ridiculous or she it's what anybody could be laughed out?
Are they them? All of them are out of the
room where Boise State is the three seed. That's what
I'm saying. Like this, now, again, we don't I want
to overreact to one year, and this could be an
outlier year and things could turn on a lot more
normally in the next couple of years. But it's it's

(02:20:08):
just absurd to say Boise State is a number three
seed in the College Football Playoff this year.

Speaker 6 (02:20:13):
If Boise State had lost to UNLV, UNLV would be twelve.
If boise or excuse me you and LV would not
even be in, it would be army, I think. Okay,
and that's what I think they were really the most
concerned about. Well, we're putting a twelve team field together
and we're welcoming the twentieth best team in the country.
I mean, Boise State is in the top fifteen or

(02:20:35):
the top ten, depending on how you Okay, it's a
twelve team playoff. They absolutely belong here. I don't think
they envisioned most years there being a team that played
their way into that spot, Like if Boise State had
nothing at stake. They weren't when this group of five, Yeah,
they would have made the tournament. They played good enough
football to make it regardless.

Speaker 2 (02:20:54):
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety The
phone number Brian in Parland holding along, just here on
the phone.

Speaker 5 (02:21:00):
What's up Brian?

Speaker 13 (02:21:02):
Hey, what's going on?

Speaker 17 (02:21:03):
Ross?

Speaker 10 (02:21:03):
Welcome back from your world wind journey all across Asia.

Speaker 2 (02:21:07):
Yes, I've been back since Wednesday. It's my third day. Welladay,
what's the day Monday?

Speaker 10 (02:21:14):
I think okay, yeah, No real quick on Bregman. I
think that price tag last night from Soto, I think
that great in different players, different situations, but I think
that's gonna put the Astros out of the market. Unfortunately,
they may have to get a crafty with trading. I
wouldn't have a problem with someone like Aeronauto if you

(02:21:37):
can get the money right, and you know, maybe you
trade a prommer and get Aeronauto and a couple of
pieces in there.

Speaker 1 (02:21:44):
You know.

Speaker 10 (02:21:44):
I don't know, but I think they'll have to do something,
maybe Polanco on a short term deal until they determine
the status of Bryce Matthews. But I really think what's
gonna determine on Tucker is what Jacob Melton does this year.

Speaker 5 (02:21:59):
If Jacob and I think.

Speaker 10 (02:22:00):
As the huge leap forward, that could help in terms
of the Tucker piece of.

Speaker 5 (02:22:05):
It going forward.

Speaker 10 (02:22:06):
But I'm not sure Crane is willing to go that far.
But I agree with what you guys were saying earlier.
He's the player you have to make that leap for.
But and on the college football playoff, I think overall
they got it right. But I gotta say ROSSI and
I was there in College Station, awesome atmosphere. It's to
shame you missed that game. But Texas got to do
something about their offense. They are not They're moving the

(02:22:28):
ball at a great clip, but they are not scoring
the way they need to to go deep in this
in the playoffs, I don't think and this is coming
from a neutral observer, but you only put up twenty
against the not a not great Uh well, my wife
went to Texas, so I gotta I gotta be a
little bit more diplomatic here and there. But you know

(02:22:51):
they didn't they didn't beat a great Arkansas team.

Speaker 1 (02:22:56):
Uh.

Speaker 10 (02:22:56):
You know, you only score twenty there in Kentucky with
the outlier, but getting every opportunity to blow that game open,
and they just could not take advantage of it, and
then to only get thirteen against granted George is a
great team, but only took thirteen. They're sixteen. Sorry with
the overtime, but they're gonna live in They're gonna live

(02:23:19):
and die by that defense. And unfortunately, you know, how
much long are you going to ask them to keep
holding out?

Speaker 2 (02:23:27):
Is gonna be tough in the long run if that
all beens.

Speaker 10 (02:23:29):
They're more the ball grateful when they.

Speaker 2 (02:23:31):
Get in the twenties down in the red zone.

Speaker 10 (02:23:34):
For whatever reason, it just seems from the games I've watched,
they just kind of they can't capitalize when they when they.

Speaker 2 (02:23:40):
Absolutely need to.

Speaker 10 (02:23:41):
But uh, good work without Matt. Of course, the show
flourishes when he's gone, So you know, maybe the sports
are you're gonna get a sports r V show with
Matt is more so the.

Speaker 2 (02:23:51):
Appropriate name for it. But you all have a good,
good Monday, guys. You know you're making a lot of
good points, Brian. Uh, but yeah, I'm absolutely terrified as
a longhorned. Yeah, if you told me the one number
one concern, it's the offense. It's moving the ball, it's
getting threes and it's getting sevens. Instead of threes. They
have a national championship winning defense. I just don't know

(02:24:13):
that they have a national championship winning offense or quarterback.

Speaker 6 (02:24:18):
Yeah, we didn't really specifically shine the light on Quinn
during this conversation.

Speaker 2 (02:24:23):
We certainly could moving forward.

Speaker 6 (02:24:25):
If everything's perfect, Quinn's fine, You're gonna win a national championships.
The running game is working well, if the pass pro
is in line, he's gonna find his open receivers, he's
gonna get the ball there. It's pretty unlikely you're gonna
play defenses that allow that to happen. Now at this
point in the season, it's not gonna happen against Georgia,
might not happen against Clemson or whoever else you might see,
and that's where the issues come up. I'm a little

(02:24:49):
bit surprised they didn't run the ball a little bit
better this time with the change at running back, because
he'd been playing so well and I thought his style
suited them a little bit better for their matchup against Georgia.
I still think they've run too many obvious pass plays
and the ball's not getting there fast enough. If you
don't get the ball there fast enough for your quote,
unquote playmakers to make their plays. Well, the ball gets

(02:25:12):
there and there immediately hit. They can't even make the
move that gets the He got the ball to DeAndre
more perfectly perfectly on a play they should be running
way more often, hits them on a slant, makes one move,
it's forty one yard touchdown. So many other plays that
are sideways passes and behind the line of scrimmage passes,
the ball's taking forever to get there, whether it's either
the decision or the zip that's not on the ball,

(02:25:34):
and by the time it does, they don't have the
opportunity to make the play because the one defender that
wasn't blocked or the defender that has that responsibility, they're
already on top of the receiver.

Speaker 2 (02:25:44):
Yeah, and I mean they were driving the ball down
the field to Matthew Golden like early in the game,
and then that just completely went away. I don't know
if it was protection or if that was just start
trying to do go with this prize script and then
going back to the go to tried and true bunch
of screens games Greg Davis style. I don't know, sideways
passing games, sideways passing game, whatever you want to call it,

(02:26:05):
but it can be frustrating, well for for me personally
watching the offense time and time again, just just come
up short and Quinn Ewers not go out as you
were kind of alluding, to go out and put the
team on his back and go win those games that
we've seen other quarterbacks do in the right moments. I
think there is going to be a moment where Quinn

(02:26:25):
Owers is going to have to win the Longhorns a game.
Can he do it? So far, we've seen a lot
of history that says he cannot. But we'll see going forward.
Of course. First matchup against Clemson on the twenty first
of December. Time for another break here on the Matt
Thomas Show with Ross without Matt Thomas or as you
know what, Brian, You're right, it's the Sports RV Show

(02:26:46):
sometimes featuring Matt when he's not resting with the Rockets.
Adam Wexler is here. He's going to be here till
six a freaking clock. Connor McGovern is here. You want
to get in you can as well at seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five. Coach Sark here, touchdown, Texas.

Speaker 5 (02:27:03):
You've got Sports Talk seven ninety, Houston's home of longhornor Football.
The Matt Thomas Show continues now.

Speaker 2 (02:27:18):
Horns Talk seven ninety with you until two o'clock. I
don't know how this happened. I'm not that mad about it,
but I'm not that happy about it. I'm honestly not
super confident. I don't know where you are. I'd say,
I would say in general, my fandom when it comes
to about any team is I think of everything that
can go wrong, and I think it's probably gonna happen
that way. I'm like a I guess I'm just like

(02:27:39):
a scared more than confident fan because of the years
and years in disappointment. You know, if you said expectations low, wex,
you'll never be disappointed.

Speaker 6 (02:27:46):
It's definitely true. Except I know you see what everybody
else sees, and you said it last segment. When the
defense is on the field, you that looks like a
national championship football team.

Speaker 2 (02:27:56):
Correct. When the Ovens is on the field, feel a
little bit different. I like quinn Ewers. I think Sark
I understand why he sticks with him because he structures
his offense and when you were stays within the structure
of that offense. He's smart, he's a veteran, he's been
through some wars. But uh, and I'm not even saying

(02:28:18):
that arch is actually a better option, despite me tweeting
hashtag free arch Manning over the weekend. But I just
I can't get excited about Quinn viewers at quarterback. It's
just he's just too much of a good not He's
like that. He's like the Honda a Cord of quarterbacks.
He's solid. It's gonna get you where you need to go.

(02:28:38):
But no one is ever gonna be looking down the
street like, oh my gosh, look at that.

Speaker 6 (02:28:41):
That is nice, even if you really detailed it up
some rims. Oh put okay, put some put some eighty
four's on it. Something okay with some white walls.

Speaker 2 (02:28:51):
If it's bumping, you know, No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (02:28:54):
You can.

Speaker 2 (02:28:55):
You can put a mullet on it, you can put
whatever you want. I'm still that you can put the
forearm tat.

Speaker 6 (02:29:00):
Did you catch the picture of he and Cad Klubnik
from their high school days?

Speaker 2 (02:29:05):
No, I didn't see that.

Speaker 6 (02:29:06):
They played in the state championship game against each other
here in Texas. Most one of the highlights that's been
floating around is quin Yours drops back, goes deep, intercepted
by Michael taff.

Speaker 2 (02:29:16):
Oh wow, I did see the Mankel Taft thing. I
did see. I think I did see that player or
maybe maybe last week. But okay, well who won that game?
I believe Michael Taft's team, the West Lakers. That could
be wrong. Sorry, I know, I don't know. I'm just asking.
All right, Well, a couple of phone calls here. We'll
get to some Dimico Ryan's stuff in the next segment
as he spoke to the media. But it's Horns Talk

(02:29:37):
seven ninety, so let's keep it going with Roy and Richmond.
What's up?

Speaker 17 (02:29:42):
Yeah, guys, it is Horns Talk because we're all pissed off.

Speaker 2 (02:29:46):
Yes, let me ask you guys this.

Speaker 5 (02:29:48):
Let me ask you guys.

Speaker 12 (02:29:49):
This is.

Speaker 17 (02:29:52):
Manny not as advertised, because I would assume if they're
putting the bionic knee of the ankle on yours all right?
Or is it there's something wrong with Manning? Is it
not as good as advertise? That the reason why they
haven't gone to him. That's what I was thinking. You know,
it is a national championship, uh not national championship? But

(02:30:13):
it was with the SEC first time there. You would
assume they would like to win it as being the
first time there, and they were just they were they
were going with yours, and it seems like.

Speaker 2 (02:30:25):
It's you can't say that, Roy, I mean, we let
the this. I was so close to putting him on
hold of them, like he's a Lettle finishing sentence and
then oh uh, Quinn. Can't trust those Hawks fans. What
are we gonna do? No class, absolutely no class.

Speaker 6 (02:30:45):
The amount of time Arch got earlier this year because
of the oblique injury, I don't think said, wow, look
at what they could be.

Speaker 2 (02:30:54):
He had some moments against Missippi State.

Speaker 6 (02:30:56):
He was obviously used in smaller spots in different games,
very smartly used in the Texas A and M game.
I thought these were perfect spots for his skills, and
it obviously worked against A and M, certainly on that
touchdown run.

Speaker 2 (02:31:11):
But there's no given.

Speaker 6 (02:31:12):
I mean, you know what you have in yours, so
you might be willing to say I'm okay finding out
what I have here with Arch, and he's probably still
in the motive. He might make the spectacular scramble and pass,
he might make the great deep throw, he's definitely going
to try it a lot more often than newers, and
he's going to put your team at risk more often,
but you might get the reward off. And I think

(02:31:32):
that's what I've seen in the very brief, very brief
playing time that he was out there was at the
Mississippi State game, and there was never a threat that
they weren't going to win the game.

Speaker 2 (02:31:46):
And his overall numbers looked very very good, very very good.

Speaker 6 (02:31:49):
But I still thought some of the decisions he was
making where he's putting the ball, what coverages he's throwing into,
instead of look, this guy's wide open.

Speaker 2 (02:31:56):
Why are you trying to thread the needle here or
throw a bombit seventy five yards rather than taking the
check down.

Speaker 6 (02:32:02):
There's even as a bally Heed Prize recruit who you've
seen on campus at practice for two years.

Speaker 2 (02:32:10):
That's the thing.

Speaker 6 (02:32:11):
We can talk about it all we want. I think
there's some risk in putting him out there, but you
might get the reward.

Speaker 2 (02:32:17):
He sees him every day.

Speaker 6 (02:32:18):
He doesn't get the kind of reps clearly the number
one guy does, but he also did get those reps
for about a month because yours wasn't doing much practicing.
He knows he's Sark, they see him every day, and
they still thought this was the better safer route.

Speaker 2 (02:32:33):
Yeah, that's what I think. I think it's I think,
especially on this safer part, is that Sark wants to
stay in the structure of his offense. He knows he
has a championship level defense, so he needs a quarterback
that is going to limit mistakes. He doesn't need somebody
to go out there and be a hero and throw
for four touchdowns with two picks. So I think that's

(02:32:55):
what's happening here. And then as you mentioned, he's in
the meeting rooms, he's in practices, he knows him, he's
been on him for a couple of years. So if
he's saying that the best chance for us to win
on Saturdays is with quinn Ewers, then then I do
have to put some level of trust in that. And
and there also is an element of we always want
to back up and when you know, when when quinn

(02:33:17):
Ewers looks good and he's making five six good throws
in the first half, kind of just let ourselves forget that,
or me personally, let myself forget that when he's not
making the plus throws late in the games. So you
can understand, I bet you would have.

Speaker 6 (02:33:31):
You have looked at these four games to close out
the seats. You played Arkansas, Kentucky, Texas, A and M
and Georgia. Only one game was in Austin, one was
a neutral site, and two were on the road. You
scored eighty seven points and three of those points came
in overtime.

Speaker 2 (02:33:47):
That is not a lot of offense. No, it's not.

Speaker 6 (02:33:50):
That's a lot less than you'd expect. And I was
talking to someone specifically about the Georgia matchup, and you
look at how Georgia got in trouble this year, Trouble
with Georgia, Tech, trouble with Ole Miss, trouble with Alabama.
Jalen Milroe, Jackson Dart Haines King, All three of them
ran wild on the Georgia defense. Milroe had three touchdowns

(02:34:11):
one hundred plus The three combined for five rushing touchdowns
and two hundred and eighty seven yards rushing. Ewers played
them twice and combined he had minus sixty one yards rushing. Again,
in college football, your sack lost yardage goes into your
rushing total, which is of course stupid, but that's what
they do. That's what makes George's defense susceptible to losing

(02:34:32):
and susceptible to having bad defensive days. Quarterbacks who can
move the Texas long. Orange chose to not have one
of those quarterbacks by playing yours exclusively.

Speaker 2 (02:34:43):
Yeah, that's the thing though, too is. I thought we
would at least saw them saw more whatever pack you
want to call it, the eighteen wheeler package. I don't
know the whatever it's. You only saw it a couple
of times. One time they just faked a dive with
him and snapped it and ran outside, and then the
other time he ran for like five yards. I thought
we would might have saw it a couple more times.

Speaker 6 (02:35:02):
All that being said, can we at least take a
minute to recognize the play with arch Manning where they
snapped it through his legs to Blue for the first down.

Speaker 2 (02:35:11):
I love that sweet. The creativity was great and the
execution was perfect. Sorry that you said you could play caller,
You said you could play designer, and then something then
you score? Boys? How does this happen? How does this happen?

Speaker 5 (02:35:24):
All?

Speaker 13 (02:35:24):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:35:24):
We got to take another break here, one segment to go.
Those you on hold? I promise we'll get to you.
We also have some Demico Ryan stuff to get you
as well. Here on the Matt Thomas Show, with Ro's
final segment coming up next here on Sports Talk seven
nighty from h Town.

Speaker 12 (02:35:38):
This is a.

Speaker 11 (02:35:40):
For h Town.

Speaker 2 (02:35:41):
This is this is Sports Talk seven nights.

Speaker 15 (02:35:45):
Because right now you see it.

Speaker 2 (02:35:46):
Let old Houston right now. Now back to Matt Thomas.
All right, quickly, only a few minutes left in the show.
A lot of stuff to get to. It's Horns Talk
seven ninety continues. Matt Thomas out rossby real in Adam

(02:36:09):
Works or in He will also be in with the
eighteen from two to six. Tito in Sebrook has been
waiting patiently. What's up, Tito? Yeah, I just wanted to
talk about the Ut quarterbacks. The guy's already answered a
couple of my questions. But I'll try to be a
little nicer than Roy was.

Speaker 16 (02:36:27):
It seems that when viewers gets down around the twenty
to thirty yard line, his pants.

Speaker 2 (02:36:33):
Get a little tighter, Let's put it that way.

Speaker 5 (02:36:36):
But I don't know.

Speaker 16 (02:36:38):
I think Manning has an energy about him that Quinn's,
for some reason, just doesn't seem to have. I had
a crazy idea. I don't know if coach Steve's ever
thought about doing this. Maybe they should have a competition
here in practice this week for a couple hours one
day or two, and whoever does the best against the

(02:36:58):
starting job this week in the in the playoffs game.

Speaker 2 (02:37:03):
What do you guys think about that?

Speaker 6 (02:37:05):
I think it'd be awesome for him to go into
the locker room or the team auditorium and get in
front of the team as they get ready for their
practices over the next two weeks before this game, say hey, guys,
we are getting set for our first trip to this
year's postseason. We're going to the playoffs, and I don't
know who I'm going to start a quarterback. Let's get
out there and have some fun. You have an orange
and white game in December.

Speaker 5 (02:37:24):
I like this.

Speaker 2 (02:37:25):
I like this idea a lot. Everything on the line.
Who's gonna know. I mean, he sees him in practice,
he sees him in meeting rooms and film rooms and
all that type of stuff, and he has chosen that
made the decision that this is their best chance to
win despite benching him in the first benching, Quinn, you
were was four arch manning in the first matchup against Georgia.

Speaker 5 (02:37:44):
By the way.

Speaker 2 (02:37:47):
I put him, Oh well, I did not know that.
That's okay, weird, Sorry, thank you, Tito.

Speaker 6 (02:37:52):
I think that they're probably going to do exactly what
they did for this last game. Quinn's going to be
healthier in two weeks. Quinn's going to be the starter
in this game. Hopefully Kelvin Banks is healthier. That's enough
star left tackle for the Longhorns. I'm sure there's no
question it impacted the game. I don't think it didn't
allow them to do That's what I'm going with. They
were able to do some of the things they want.

(02:38:13):
Georgia happens to have. I mean, that's the other there's
no question about who's the best defense they've played this year.
It's not even really close. Both times, that's far and
away the best defense they've played. And maybe that's a
little AMMO for yeah, exactly, how good do you really
think Texas is?

Speaker 5 (02:38:26):
Well?

Speaker 6 (02:38:27):
Conversely, Georgia didn't a didn't do a whole lot offensively. Heck,
Carson Beck's two games against Texas an interception fest that
they won because he had a billion short fields and
then a total disaster of a first half They owned
Georgia in the first half when their defense was on
the field, they were awesome. They were unbelievable, they were overwhelming. Unfortunately,

(02:38:47):
they were close but not quite as overwhelming in the
second half with a quarterback they didn't know much about.
Georgia's clearly wasn't as confident in And it does look
like they'll be counting on Stockton moving forward. But that's
for somebody else to worry about. Texas and Georgia are
not likely to see one another anytime soon. They could
still play again, it's gonna be way down the road.
All these being all these things being said.

Speaker 2 (02:39:10):
Are there any other issues?

Speaker 6 (02:39:11):
Is there anything that you saw from this game or
the Aggie game or the first Georgia game that gives
you any pause? Or they need to do this better,
or the receivers need to not do this, or the penalties.

Speaker 5 (02:39:22):
We haven't talked.

Speaker 2 (02:39:22):
They had a billion penalties, is what I was gonna say.
And I was also gonna say, uh, what is the
right thing, Cam Williams, what's the right tackles?

Speaker 11 (02:39:29):
Name?

Speaker 2 (02:39:30):
There was racking up all the penalties. What about the
receiver's penalty? Cam Williams penalties receivers holding. Now, one of
those was tiki tak for sure and probably shouldn't have
been called. Both of them shouldn't have been called throw
too low or is a bad throw? He was under pressure,
and also he was also third and long. I mean, yeah,
it's didn't to me. That didn't impact the game. They

(02:39:51):
were like on the forty I think on a third
and long, so they're probably gonna punt anyway, So if anything,
that just cost you a little bit of field position.
So I wasn't super worried about that, but I am
worried about Cameron Williams. I felt like he was getting
blown up a little bit. And uh and the penalties.
I think he's like the Laramie Tunzel, the Texas Longhorns
offensive line, the leader constantly getting called the man. Yeah

(02:40:13):
well no, he's constantly getting called for penalties and well
he's also probably not that good. But uh, okay, did
is like Tito? Final word if you'd like, well, I
just want to thank you guys for your time.

Speaker 16 (02:40:25):
Let's say a prayer for you guys in the playoffs,
and if viewers doesn't make it, put in and let
him go because of the energy brings.

Speaker 2 (02:40:32):
All right, thanks a lot Tito appreciate it. How about
both on the field play or two or three? Oh
both of them? I left that, I'm down. Or how
about just yeah our arch Manning and you get into
the red zone, you go to arch Manning Quinn yours
didn't get it done in the in the red zone.

Speaker 6 (02:40:47):
It's a it's a weapon to be able to use.
I mean, Josh Allen's the elite of the elite Lamar
Jackson two and I'm not putting arch in their category,
but the ability that Josh.

Speaker 2 (02:40:55):
Allen guy is pretty good. Yeah, that's our fantasy team,
no question.

Speaker 6 (02:40:58):
The ability to keep guys on their toes in the
red zone can often create a wide open receiver.

Speaker 2 (02:41:06):
Oh my god, he's running.

Speaker 5 (02:41:07):
I'm leaving my man.

Speaker 6 (02:41:07):
I gotta cut him off before he gets the end zone. Absolutely,
ball the what Travis Kelsey probably has twenty five touchdowns
that way.

Speaker 2 (02:41:14):
I'm playing with that. Absolutely. It's a dynamic element that
that I think you do need to help open up
space in the red zone, and I think should be
employed a little bit more by Steve Sarkisian. Will they
even need that, I would say so. I Mean it's
not like there are eleven point favorites now against Clemson.
But it's not like they're just gonna the biggest favorite,
the biggest favorite. But and it is a home game

(02:41:35):
at dk R. But I think taking Clemson too lightly
would be a mistake.

Speaker 6 (02:41:40):
During the holidays though during the break, where are all
the students? Uh, they'll they'll make time, you think so?
I think so about the sup text where they're getting
those from? Uh they don't get those is? How does
that work able? To get that answer?

Speaker 2 (02:41:55):
Second, my day was a last but the long Horn
All Sports package. God knows what they have these days.
I don't think it applies to this game, and I
think it costs a lot more than it did in
my days. Anyways, all right, Adam Wexer, thank you for
hanging out. Oh you gotta appreciate the opportunity. Is I
appreciate you. Matt Thomas will be back tomorrow. Thanks to
Chris Gordy for hanging out as well. Thanks to Connor
McGovern for producing the show. Thanks to all of you

(02:42:18):
for listening to the program here today, and well, uh
we'll be back tomorrow with Matt Thomas and The Matt
Thomas Show with Ross with Matt Thomas Because he will
be done resting from his late night West Coast road
trip right now. It's the guy you just heard, Adam Wexler.
It is another Adam. His name is Adam Clinton. They
call themselves DA Team. They're coming up next two to

(02:42:40):
six here on Sports Talk seven

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