KD GAME WINNER! Tatsuya Imai is Loving H-town, Texans/Steelers Preview

KD GAME WINNER! Tatsuya Imai is Loving H-town, Texans/Steelers Preview 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Is The Matt Thomas Show with Ross ten o one.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
An Age Town. Good morning, and welcome to a Tuesday
edition of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. This is
Sports Talk seven ninety. I gotta be honest, I am

(00:29):
not a cegul opera fan at all. I think girls
just want to have fun is one of the most
irritating songs I've ever heard of my entire life. It
sounds like you don't want to have fun, but I
like time after time, and I figured it made perfect
sense with that disastrous first half when it came to
the clock and the scoreboard malfunction. The hell was going
on out there? Oh my god, it was a hot mess.

(00:52):
There was no announcements or anything that was in the stands. Yeah,
thanks to a good friend of mine, great friend. That
could be better. All right, that's fine, that's fair. Friend's
going to get you a new daytime or two two,
and we'll see. I've been hearing that for six months.
I got water damage in this one. You gotta get
a bigger one. And that's not the first time you

(01:13):
ever heard that before. Well, there's nothing I can do
about that.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Shake your head of this early and down it is
what it is and.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Go to Turkey. All right, So so the first half
and I actually aired. I didn't think that Jonathan Sanford
was going to announce the time he did. He did
eventually at the time, and the Chief started off not
doing any of it right. Then he started doing it
for the Rockets. He would do ten seconds and then

(01:46):
he that would it, and then he was doing full
on like five four, three two one right, which was
weird because he was doing it even after the ball
left his hands, which is kind of defeats the purpose.
Look tough situation last night. The scoreboard wasn't working, and
thankfully at halftime there to replace the CPU or whatever
they want to call it, and slowly but sure that
we had ourselves a fluid second half. Yeah, in the

(02:07):
game where the Rockets, I mean that would would have
stung Sports every for a variety of reasons. They tried
their damnedest to lose that game. They just really did it.
Sloppy play, bad turnovers, can't hit Craze again for the
second straight Now you make a three to save their lives.
I mean, we knew they weren't going to be the

(02:27):
number one three point shooting team all season long. I
just knew that wasn't going to be the case. So
the water is finding its level there. Unfortunately, or I
would I should say fortunately, you go nine of thirty
seven from three, you have all those turnovers, was it? Yeah,
four fourteen turnovers. It's not that little bit of a
lot of more bade a lot of more bad turnovers

(02:50):
that ended up into Phoenix Sun's buckets. Well, they turned
a couple of they were turned over on inbounds passes,
which is you give them extra possessions right off the
get go there. I mean a couple time Shepherd like
Kevin Durant is blanketed and reach Sheperd just lazily throws
it to Kevin Durant and he gets stolen for a
bucket the other way. Just just frustrating. You can have
bad turnovers, so look, as we kind of talked about

(03:11):
offensive fouls that kind of thing. Nobody on the team
is a great ball handler. Kevin Durant's gonna dribble the
ball off his ankle every now and then, Yes, since
the day he started playing Winching Guon's gonna, you know,
have a loose handle, get double team and lose the ball.
Even though he wasn't playing last night. But those types
they turnovers, they're kind of gonna happen, the bad lazy passes,
those are the ones that become such a frustration. Yep,

(03:32):
and Phoenix played the night before, won a game on
the buzzer with a three pointer by Devin Booker to
beat Oklahoma City. Then they went to the airport and
they're playing was the mechanical issues. So they didn't even
leave Phoenix until yesterday morning, got to Houston with like
four or five hours before tip time. So you're thinking

(03:53):
that it's funny. I was telling the Phoenix Suns announcements
either this Rockets are gonna win by twenty or lose
by twenty. That's how these things work. I didn't anticipate
this thing and back and forth game I thought the
Rockets and they had times showed they were going to
run them out of the building. In the second half,
it looked like the three point shot was failing the
Suns until Devin Booker heated up in the fourth quarter.
And you know he has not been a good three

(04:13):
point shooter for them at all any point this year.
He had the game winners I mentioned against the Thunder
a couple nights ago, and he almost single hindly brought
them back to win the game yesterday, but a men
Thompson terrorized the paint. We've Jabari Smith had a couple
of big threes and then obviously Katie with that right
side three, as he said, and you were gonna hear
f him coming up a little bit. Everything is advertised,

(04:35):
Everything as advertised. He has been healthy. He is playing
top five minutes in the NBA, which I know an
email and I have talked about this. The plan is
to get them off that list. Two of the top
five players in the NBA, if you include Shingoon, three
of the top six I believe in terms of minutes
played per game belonged to the Houston Rocket starters. Now

(04:57):
men's twenty two to twenty three, So who cares Shingun's also,
But I don't banged up? Yeah, well that was that
was just flukish on that one. Well you just don't
want capturing before that, Yeah, you just don't. I don't
think you want Kevin Durant in that mix. But if
you need him right now to score, And that's the
one thing that's the difference between this year's Rocket team
and last year's is that you questioned, who was going

(05:19):
to be that. I've got the ball in my hand,
I'm gonna lee let the building leave with a bunch
of happy, smiley faces. And he hit that one, and
I mean it was awesome. It was It was great,
the crowd exploded, It was fun, and that shot is
why he is here. He is here because the Rockets
needed a closer. They did not have one in the playoffs,
and that exact moment is what he is here for. Yeah,
that was a closer moment last night for Katie and

(05:41):
the rest of the Rockets, who, by the way, that
was only a second three pointer in eleven tries. He
is was clanking them open ones too, the whole team,
second straight night. I mean the last two games. I
did the math room the broadcast and I was like,
I don't think I want to mention that anygain because
it was it was not good. The Rockets did win,
and the Thunder played a back to back game two,

(06:03):
just like the Phoenix Suns dead. They had a home
game against the Charlotte Hornets and they got destroyed by
the Hornets. That thought of us thinking the Thunder seventy
four and eight, well, that's an afterthought. Now I'm feeling
great about it. Now you can't feel great about it.
They got doing like forty in a row.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Now.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
No, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm feel great as
a Rockets face. As I told you, I have the
thunder cloud. No pun intended, but kind of pun intended. Well,
how's that pun now you? It feels it's dissipated, Yeah,
it's it's it's whispy. Yeah, you ever noticed that that
term whispy's I only talked about with clouds mustaches. That's true,
two things. Can you name a third? Whispy mustache? Whispy,

(06:44):
clouds and whispy? Think about that for a minute. I did.
I'm gonna hold my tongue. I don't care what you hold. Okay,
what is that? Welse you gonna tell us? Is there
something else a whispy? Tell me that during the break? Nope, okay,
all right, second, get you mad at me? What about me?

(07:04):
Is whispy? Nothing? Clearly?

Speaker 4 (07:15):
All right?

Speaker 2 (07:16):
The radio show today is going to take you till
two o'clock. M hmm. I got it back out a
little early because the Rockets fight too. Poortland. I know
we're playing more road games. That's good. Do you know
it's good? Rack them up, rest up, and be rested
in the second half. Do you get home? That brings
us up on the shore? You should? If I did,
I apologize. OK, so we're gonna play three more on
the road this week. Yeah, back home on Monday.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
All right.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
That will be thirty nine games after that point, we're
almost the halfway point of the season. Then that course,
it is crazy. Twenty six of the thirty nine games
will have been on the road. That's literally two to
one there is. That ties the biggest discrepancy between road
and home games in NBA history after thirty nine games.

(08:00):
I like it because I mean that they're gonna be
They're gonna be resting, ready and refreshed in the second half.
I hope you're right already in a good spot because
again I don't know my family that's doing these days.
They just take money from my debit account, which is fine,
but I don't I don't know what they look like. Yeah,
but they got a five game homestand right after that
three game roachs to me Meatia homestand some big games

(08:22):
thunder Spurs and Timberwolves and Bulls and Pelicans, so it's
it got some of the openers. It's like a buffet.
You got the appetite, do you think at the main courses.
But yeah, I'll clamba san Antonio Santonio series. Get a
little worried about them. No, I think it's just going
to be super uber intense. I want to make sure

(08:42):
to figure out if the San Antonio team is real
or they're just trying to. I mean, they have three
wins against the Thunders so far this year. Things they're
kind of real, but the thunder are faultering, so they're
a little bit all right. On the show today, we
will have We're gonna move gut fieldings from eleven thirty
to twelve thirty today because at eleven thirty we're gonna
talk to Sam Cohn. He is one of the best
college football writers in the country. He works for The

(09:03):
Athletic which we love. His specialty is following the transfer portal. Nil,
so I wanted it's not necessarily a lot of a
bunch of opinions. I'm curious about some of the logistics
behind this, because I don't know if you've been noticing
this ross. Every time a player signs with a particular
team and a reporter announces it. It says represented by there

(09:25):
are major major agencies in this country representing college kids. Now, yeah,
and I cannot I could not believe. No, man, I
know what's going on now, but the thought of this
ten years ago is crazy. Yeah, And Steve Sarkisien was
talking about there are some good agents who know what
they're doing, and then there's somebody who was like this
guy's cousin and he doesn't know how to negotiate her
out to go about his business. In the NBA baseball

(09:47):
and basketball, you have to be certified by the league
to represent There's There can't be any way these kids
are these guys are being certified. Probably not because there's
three hundred schools that are doing this. Yes, like I said,
there needs more structure. I love that the kids are
getting paid. Certainly there needs to be more structure though.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
All right, So we got that going on at one
and I'll be in the car listening. I've remember listened
to the Rotten Five live. I mean, I've been in
studio with you. But we have the final Rotten Five
of the year. Who was the worst football team in
the NFL this year? I have a pretty good guesstimation
who that is. There's really down there to about two teams,
but I think one separated himself from the rest over
the last month or so. Uh So we got the

(10:26):
final Rotten five at one twenty, We've got feelings at
twelve thirty, Sam Con eleven thirty, Well of the news
at noon, and we come back we're gonna hear not
necessarily because Kevin Durant is always thoughtful, but he's not
one of a guy that lets his guard down. But
I thought it was as human of a moment as
we've had. If Kevin duran is a rocket And it

(10:48):
was an interview that Vanessa Richdon did on Spacity Network
last night. We're gonna play it for you next ten
to fourteen. Y'all got there?

Speaker 5 (10:55):
What was that?

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Seven one three two one two five seven niney If
you want to join the show, if you watch the game,
listen to the game. Uh, I want to get into
some Texans uh, Pittsburgh'steeler conversation. We can something to do
that as well. Uh and any other impressions about by
our By the way, our guy Emi is all over
tennis of the Rockets game. I say, was I love I.
I I'm really excited about that. I don't know why,

(11:21):
seem it seems ridiculous, but he's going the extra mind.
I like that. I am anti throwing up hes Yes
you are, and that's okay, but it's but it's not
something about me. It's about him and endearing himself and
he throws up the h yeah, but that's about your guy.
That's he is my he's from Port Arthur. Though it's
harder to throw up a p and a. Seven one

(11:42):
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five seven ninety Matt Ross Jonathan with
you on a Tuesday edition of The Matt Thomas Show.
Ross here on Sports Talk seven. Honey, thank you very
much for spending some time your time with us, you
ten o' clockers. We have extra affinity towards you. We
love all our four hours listeners, but we we really
appreciate y'all taking the time to be a part with

(12:03):
this right at the start of the show. Seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five seven nine zero. If you want
to follow us on Twitter, you may do that as
well at sports MT at sports RV and of course
our station account is at sports Talk seven ninety all right, So,

(12:25):
and again I don't want to read too much into this,
but it was just kind of nice. And look, Kevin
Durant's a human, he's ridiculously rich. He's one of the
greatest players ever play in the NBA. But I thought
he was kind of I'm trying to think of the
term of it. It was. It was such an endearing moment,
is what I'll say. Here is the conversation that he

(12:45):
had with Vanessa Richson. If you if you're in the
arena last night, you got to hear this in the
in the building. It was also on a Spacity network.

Speaker 5 (12:53):
But yeah, Kevin, here, you're second up the game, left
the crowd, Kevin, your second three pointer of.

Speaker 6 (13:08):
The game, and it couldn't have been better timing.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
What did you see on that shot?

Speaker 7 (13:12):
All my three pointers felt good leaving my hand and
someone was back rim too strong, and I'm like, I'm
a hit one at some point. I kept telling the
team that I'm gonna hit of three at some point,
and you know, God, the grace of God was the
last one.

Speaker 6 (13:24):
How would you describe the feeling as that shot left
your hands, you looked like you knew you had it
the whole time.

Speaker 7 (13:29):
Yeah, I mean I got to my spot. I feel
like on that right wing, that pull up is my shot,
and I just tried to, you know, leave my follow
through up there and follow my focus on my fundamentals,
and they went through.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
We needed it.

Speaker 6 (13:40):
It was a game of runs the entire time. How
were you all able to put together that final run
to seal the deal?

Speaker 2 (13:45):
I mean it was. It was a physical game.

Speaker 7 (13:47):
Both teams played extremely hard on defense on the defensive
side of the ball. I just think we made more
shots to end the game. To be honest, I think
it was a pretty even game, but we made more
shots at the end.

Speaker 6 (13:56):
I'm in playmaking and ball handling in that fourth quarter
was really elite.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
What did you like about that?

Speaker 7 (14:02):
Yeah, I mean just being able to control the offense.
That three point play set us up for this game winner.
And without that three point play him getting getting down
to the rim and finishing the free throws, he wouldn't
be in this position.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
So toy was big for us.

Speaker 6 (14:13):
Would you like to hear everybody at Toyota Center channing MVP,
you are.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
I mean being booed in here. So many years.

Speaker 7 (14:27):
Being an opposing player and being booed you know it. Still,
it's good to come out here and get some love.
I love Houston, I love Texas. I'm just grateful and
representing the Rockets.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Thanks kV. He loves him from Houston, loves him from Texas.
Let's go hook them horns. If I was to relinquish
my role as mister Texas, oh my god, I would
give it to Kevin Durantes. You are not mister Texas.
The worst candidate. Not about food, is about culture. It's
with the lifestyle you in general, Santa Ana the worst

(14:56):
candidates for mister Texas.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
And then Kevin was in a lit I Care after
the game last night and basically said, you know what,
I enjoyed beating my old team because I felt like
I was the fall guy there the problems in Phoenix.
They blown to blame me for it, and that wasn't fair. Yes,
it was like the first time he was forced out
of somewhere rather than leaving on his own or wanting
to be traded like with the nets and stuff.

Speaker 8 (15:19):
Right.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, so uh again, you and I had one first impression.
You only get one of those and we we we
thought it was awesome. He's great, you've not shaken, You've
not cleaned your hand, but washed your hands since you
shuck yours. Uh, he remembered when you slapped five fives
with him way back in the day at the university.

(15:40):
I didn't, but he pretended. And that was very nice.
That was very sweet. I've had him on the radio.
Post came with me two times, Yes, two for two.
When it comes with thoughtfulness is yeah. Now he is
savage af on Twitter. He will he will elihlate you
if you.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
Need to be.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
I think that's great. Yeah, I love that he does that.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Where's the hard on his sleeve?

Speaker 4 (16:00):
Matt.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, and he's one of the one of the fifteen
greatest players ever to play. He's thirty seven years old, yes,
playing top five minutes in the NBA. Not at fifty
forty ninety at this moment, but he's eighty nine thirty nine.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Kids.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Certainly he's not as quick as he used to be. Nope,
he's got to force his way. He's got to throw
in a little more fakes, a little more shoving, a
little more off pushing measure. He's measured, He crafty, Yeah,
he's got to be throwing a couple of little extra
fakes and body feints and stuff like that to get
the wiggle to wiggle to get that space. But he
only needs a sliver of space, and if you get

(16:40):
him in him any space, he can make the shot.
And I also brought this up last week. It's worthy
of repeating again. Is that you know, I've always been
concerned about his minutes. He's not really he's running eighty feet,
he's not running ninety four. He kind of camps out
of the top of the key a little bit beyond
at mid court. Then if he makes his move towards
the back game, fifteen foot spot has been his sweet

(17:03):
spot his entire NBA career. He's not putting his back
to the basket, he's not necessarily going in there and
fighting with everybody else for the loose rebounds. So physically,
he's not nearly his taxi. So I think he's just
being a smarter, more methodical basketball player in terms of
plotting where he is on the floors, being economical with
his energy. Matt, Yeah, all right, So I'm gonna bring
up just a good old fashioned generic question, and I

(17:24):
don't know if we're gonna get any response. I'd like
to get some response. Okay, Look, the Rockets are playing
about the same level of basketball win loss percentage than
they or a year ago. Maybe it's a game or two,
often it's not much. And you obviously have a better
team on paper. You have that go to threat like
Adi had, and Auburn's taking its next step up in

(17:45):
his development, a mean Thompson has, Jabari Smith has. So
there have been some blips on the radar. I mean,
the loss of friend Van Vliet cannot be overstated. The
turnover count is high. This team has struggled from three.
It's got a little bit of injury issues, and not
every every team, certainly, and to have that, and I'm
coming from a purely biased perspective on this. I'm really

(18:06):
having a good time and I really hope the city
Houston is having a good time. We have a good
sports culture right now. I thought the for a Monday,
the crowd was good. I thought the crowd was pretty
much filled in for the most part early on, which
it's still got some work to do on that. Yes,
even sucky Brooklyn had a full crowd at tip time
for a Monday at the suns. It was pretty pretty solid.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Uh, are y'all buying it a little bit? Is that
your question? That's my question, and I don't mean to
make it. We're buying the Rockets, let's go. Are you
buying it a little bit? Am I I'm asking you
for two to go buy shirts. I'm asking you to
go buy a season ticket plans. I'm just saying, hey,
are you buying it a little bit? Fun? Physical? I
think a lot of people complain about today's NBA, like, oh,

(18:48):
they don't play hard or what like, this team plays hard.
They play hard, hardy, they plays a men. Thompson going
up and down the floor is fun to watch. I mean,
Steven Adams rebounds, Kevin Durant's one of the greatest players
ever walk the planet out bring shingoon when he's playing
is extremely entertaining. And they are they're They're winning twenty

(19:08):
two and eleven in the fourth bott in the West,
and I think once they settle in and get more
home games, they're gonna be better. So I'm just gonna
ask you you haven't enjoying it? Yes, well, you and
I would as wear a basketball final. But you know,
to the general population, give us a call. Yeah, seven
one three, two, one two five seven ninety. Now, if
you're losing to the New Orleans Pelicans after giving up

(19:28):
a twenty five points that was that was your parent
not calling and saying I'm having a great time, Matt.
This is fantastic. But last night was for alby play announcer.
Was great for me because that's what you do it
for you you you you call forty seven minutes and
fifty five seconds of a basketball game hoping you get
a five second dramatic finish, and you certainly got that
last night. And it's fun. It's fun to see them

(19:49):
do their thing. There's different heroes every night, but Katie's
been remarkably consistent. Now, the MVP chants were cute. You're
not gonna be in a category, but for the rest
of my vote. Yeah, I had a men Thompson the
post game show last time. I said, man, you didn't
want to lose that game. As twenty two year old
kid who could very easily say you know, it's our
off night, he didn't want to lose that game Yesterday.

(20:12):
He knew how bad it would be having a Phoenix
Suns team who played the night before flew in the
day of the game. How bad that would have looked.
Also said it was his most fun moment as a
rocket so far. Think about this. You're a man, you're
twenty two years old. You grew up watching that guy. Yes,
and that guy's your teammate now, yeah, he was a toddler.
When Kevin Durant was starting his career, it would be
like for me, you know, having you know, the great

(20:37):
like Jim Nantz, Like, hey, Mat, let's dose some games together.
What excuse me? What?

Speaker 9 (20:42):
Hm?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
You want? You want to work some basketball games with
me or football games? Well, he asked you to refill
his coffee. That's close. Yeah, I did. I did shine
his shoes. Yeah, seven one three two one tight shoes.
I mean I would add though, seven one three two
one two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven out eight is the Matt Thomas Shield? Ross.
Are you enjoying it? And I'm gonna We're gonna ask

(21:04):
about this every ten games. We are, yes, because now
I'm a lot of official standing to watch. It's a calendar,
you'd that's true. It is the calendar tured. Well, we
have full standings breakdown coming up. No, I'm not gonna
do that. Number one three, two, one, two, five seven,
all right, and another clock this morning in twenty five minutes,
Ross is going to go deep into the archives and

(21:27):
he's gonna tell us what our predictions were for the
playoffs in the regular season. I'm definitely afraid because I
know yours is wrong and my gases. If yours is wrong,
mine's wrong. No, I mean, don't even say. What was
I thinking? You know what injuries you have? All here
we go. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to say this.
You're wrong. I want you to be mad with me.

(21:47):
That's fine. You have too much faith in Lamar Jackson,
you just do. They had a lot of injuries, I know.
But they were Super Bowl favorites. I know. He is
a two time MVP. Yeah, who doesn't perform all on
the post He's had some good games in the postseason.
Stop it's been great. Okay. Now, those two touchdown passes
through to eight Flowers were very impressive. He should have

(22:09):
won the game. Yeah, they got in position to win
the game. Tyler Loop missed the kick, and then everybody
in their grandma was gonna be deathly afraid of Lamar Jackson.
Facing the Houston Texans. You know he didn't want to
face Lamar Jackson. You know who holds Lamar Jackson in
high regard to Miko Ryans, who's zero and three against
Lamar Jackson. Pat Mahomes is not necessarily worried about Lamar Jackson.

(22:33):
Josh Allen's not worried about Lamar Jackson. I think he
should be. Josh Allen needs to be worried about Josh Allen.
Josh Allen? Why we acting like josh See? That's the thing.
This makes me laugh. Josh Allen? Is this some kind
of unstoppable can't do everything? He hasn't gone anywhere either,
same category, same category. Let's talk to the people of Houston, Texas.
Frank north Side ten thirty six of The Matt Thomas Show. Frank,

(22:55):
good morning to you.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Hey, what's going on that? I got one problem with
Kevin Durant.

Speaker 8 (23:02):
The only problem I got with all these barber shops
we got down here and you mean Timmy, he can't
get a free half cut nowhere?

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Hmm. I think he just doesn't mind looking like that, Frank.
He always walks around like that.

Speaker 10 (23:19):
Well, we got to introduce him.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
To what is the what is the phrase from Friday?
It looks like a bunch of spiders are having a
meeting on his head.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
The ball got to go.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Frank got he's gonna find out about that is Frank, I.

Speaker 9 (23:35):
Wouldn't he's gonna find.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Kevin does not care. Kevin clear I mean Frank clearly,
Kevin does not care. Why don't you like he wants
to hoop? What old guy Jeff Green?

Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, he got really his ye. Why don't you let.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Kevin live his life? Why you haircut checking another man?

Speaker 10 (24:03):
Well, if you living in Houston, he got to go
with the cod Well.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
I think he knew that one at home zero zero
guard all the way around.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
He got this.

Speaker 10 (24:15):
We can't have him walk around here with the lebron
James sn drum.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
No lebron James actually takes care of his beard in
his in his you know he dies his hair. Oh no, fla.
He goes to Tim Duncan Green. I've been arguing for years,
why don't they just go like in the seventies, guys
would walk around with the half ro It makes them
more impressive. If Kevin Durant, he's got his hair is
falling out and he's out there dropping twenty five thirty

(24:41):
at night. It's impressive. If Lebron James would have go
full gray with no hairline and he's flying like twelve
feet above the rim, it's more impressive. I'd be more impressed.
I don't care if Kevin Durant in drag you score
thirty points a game Tom Brady had to carve his
face up and get seventeen surgeries. Just go out there,
Look at old man. Look like Philly Rivers. He let

(25:03):
himself go. It's more impressive. You think I'm gonna shame
everybody about hair, you can forget it. I love my baldness.
Kevin Durant clearly does. What do you think about his hair, Frank?
I mean he goes out there and like he got
crushed for having like ashy legs and stuff like that.
Like he just he just wants to hoop. I respect

(25:25):
that he loves hoodies in or in buildings too. He
puts that hood on as soon as he's going to
the bank because he knows how how drafty it is
an NBA Arenas, because he's the the slim reaper whatever.
I guess he must have gotten the okay from basketball
ops right on that because they put it on the scoreboard. Now,
I thought he didn't like that nickname. I've never had
a conversation about him. They had to have cleared that

(25:46):
with him, right, what they would they would ask, right, yes, yeah,
because now his is his instagram is sniper, right or
easy money sniper. Yeah, that's hard for me to say
that that's the easy money snapper of the basket and
you should say it. It makes it makes it an
easy money sniper. I did call him slim River one time, okay,
and it was kind of ba accent. I wasn't trying

(26:06):
to intentionally do it, uh huh, but I was thinking
of different ways of Katie Durant, like for for a man,
it's a men, I mean Thompson, Thompson, I call him
twin occasionally. Yes, So I mean you're just you're just
trying to change the vernacular to you know, this is
strange saying the same thing over and over and over.
You got to mix it up there. They got two games, yeah,
and two hundred possessions of game and get that right.

(26:28):
Let's uh talk to Roger on seven ninety and ten
thirty nine, Roger, good morning.

Speaker 11 (26:32):
To you, A good morning, Matt and Ross. Uh so, yeah,
you're asking that we're having a good time. I was
having a good time. Well when they hired he made
because you know that the culture, you know, it's gonna
be different around here when the second got to Nico Ryan.
Now the Asher has already had a built in culture. Now,
it took a hit last year, but it's still good culture.

Speaker 5 (26:54):
No, the.

Speaker 11 (26:57):
The culture change in Houston is nice. Uh, of course
you need some rings to go with that. I really think. Uh,
yesterday was you know, Kevin Durant watched the face off
a loss just as one shot because that was that
was ugly. We need a point guard. I don't know.
I don't even know if that's even argument. That offense

(27:19):
is wonky right now, even when Shag Doune comes back,
it does kind of bog down. You do need a
point guard if you're gonna go really really deep in
the playoffs to facilitate now reach out with all his efforts.
I love the kid, he needs to just be a
shot maker. Just look on a shot. He can't do
both obviously, But you know that doesn't say you might
be in the future, guy, but just right now you can't. Man,

(27:39):
that was that was a crazy game yesterday, man, and
I love I love Dylan Brooks. That is awesome. Still
wish we should have but yeah, that's it, man. Yeah,
of course we're having a good time watching watching on guys,
and that's fine.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
All right, guys, I'm gonna go with thanks. You know, dB,
he can't even really be really Dylan Brooks here because
he loves his old teammates so much. It get it
was chippy for about the first sixty seconds, but then
it was foe chippy because nobody could re You could
see him smiling like he was kind of like push
shoving on Jabari Smith Junior and Tom and Thomson. Then

(28:13):
they kind of smile like, eh, I think he and
he and Kevin Durant though, I think we're talking some
trash like they were teammates, so that helps. It looked
a little serious between them two for a little while.
Not serious, you know what I'm saying, Like they weren't
gonna throw hands, but like serious trash talk. Yeah, there's
one building in America that Dylan Brooks can't be Dylan Brooks,
and it's here. He go to Memphis and they hate

(28:34):
him there already, he was getting emotional the first time
he came and they did the tribute video, he was
tearing up. Yeah, I Jalen Green wasn't not so much.
I said this before, and there's a handful of athletes
in sports that when they're wearing your gear, you love them,
and when they don't wear your gear, you hate them.
And that could happen for It's in all sports, but

(28:54):
dB maybe the top of my list. I mean, I
loathed Dlen brook as a Memphis Grizzly and then he
comes to Houston and he just he met the swagger
that he may demanded from his team. Yeah, he's still
it's still fun now, even now that he's not he's
a son I don't really root against him because I mean,
he was a rocket and I understand. I understand. It's like,

(29:16):
I get it. It's Dylan Brooks. He's gonna go and
start a bunch of bleep. He's gonna play hard defense. Yeah,
he's gonna throw up a bunch of fifteen foot fade aways.
He's gonna hit open threes in the first half and
then he's gonna break them in the second. Well, Royce
Sonil did that too, Yeah, yeah, Royce by Jordan Goodwin's
face mask. That guy was legitimately very last night. Yeah,

(29:36):
I was gonna affected shot because he was knocking down
threes left and right. Phoenix seems okay, Yeah, twenty one
to fifteen. Yeah, uh, but Rockets are three and zero
against him and fourth in the West against the Mavericks.
Tech standings watch, Oh, We're we do a lot of
standings watching the show. We're We're, We're gonna do too
much of it. There's another show in the talent in

(29:57):
the market that gives you more standings coverage. I want
to know it is all right, ten forty three. It
is Matt and Ross. We are with you today until
two o'clock. Actually one of us is seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seventy. Rockets back on the road for
a three game Western road trip two to Portland prod

(30:18):
in the high forties. It's not great. Don't enjoy that.
You'll be you stay inside, go outside. I don't wanna
walk tonight. Gona walk to dinner. Yeah, you would be
surprised how much walking a do on the road. Actually,
maybe I would try and get your steps in. I
got mean because I mean, you can only spend so
much time in a five star. You're gonna get to
get out and miss what I'm saying. Those massages cost well,

(30:40):
I'm come in to per diem do they I go
to the other end of town for those seven one three, two,
one two five seven anty and coming up in seventeen minutes,
We're going to embarrass ourselves with what we thought was
gonna happen this year in the NFL. Plus the final
edition of the Rotten Five at one twenty Ross Jonathan,
do you hear me? Jonathan? One twenty for the final
edition of Rotten Five. Now, now, it's nothing up to
you to prepare it. He just gotta play the music.

(31:02):
And that's gonna put Ross under a lot of pressure.
It's Sports Talk seven Natti, baton Ross here on seven Nati.
We got a busy next hour coming up. We're gonna
go over our predictions, which we goofed excuse me, goof
don but I feel like most people goof on them.
Has somebody ever gone man? I knocked I got there

(31:23):
were fourteen playoff teams. I got twelve of them. Nobody
ever does that? Probably not, I don't know. I don't
know how bad it is, I'll have to pull them up.
We're doing this the next segment. Yeah, next segment. Excuse me,
I got the okay, yeah uh. And then we're going
to go over the MLB win totals, which had just
been out in the last hour. Oh yes. Then we
got Sam Kahn, we got we got a nice busy show.

(31:44):
Excuse me, Okay, that's all right, take it. Yet he
burned the brakes. Somebody brought us tacos this morning. Yeah,
we appreciate that. Breakfast tuckals potato and egg underrated, that's
what I got. Yeah, that's a mister Texas staple. Oh dear,
I knew he was under that too. You don't know
anything about me. I know it so bad. He does

(32:05):
it just to trigger me, and it works, so I
gotta stop. But I just can't help it because it's
so bad. It's so bad. You might as wells keep
calling yourself the sexiest man alive. That's not far off either, exactly,
especially with my bald head. The delusions this man lives
with her, this is astounding. All right. Then we got
cut Feelings coming up as well, and then the Rotten

(32:27):
five and mentioned Sam conn All right, So, by the way,
the Cowboys a couple of hours ago fire their defensive coordinator.
That's four defensive coordinators in four years. And I think
is what it is? Really? Yeah, you know, it's hard
for me to fathom at this point you would even
want to be a Dallas Cowboy fan. I mean, you're

(32:48):
talking about Jerry Jones, Like, no, I don't have bad
defensive players. Matt ebra Flus got like go today. So
that's that's thirty years of futility, right. Ibra Flus is
a very respect the defensive coordinator. Now, they were awfulas year.
They couldn't stop a nosebleed. His part's got that fault. No,
And when you tell Michael Parsons go away for you know,

(33:09):
a ham sandwich, Yeah, I guess Jerry Jones has to
say is it is it my players or is it
the defensive coordinator? It's the defensive coordinator, do you think?
And I don't know if you guys know who Stephen
Jones is, but that's been I don't know how many
kids Jerry has. Well he has that one for that
floozy at the Little Rock Airport, but that's a different issue.
What happened he had a little affair with the United
with the American Airlines girl. Oh okay, and chief said,
that's my dad, and so he's been paying her off

(33:31):
on the side. That's good. I don't know if it's
good money. I mean't got money, but no relationship. So
Stephen Jones, Jerry's right hand son for decades and decades
and decades. Huh, how much does he bear responsibility?

Speaker 12 (33:45):
This?

Speaker 4 (33:45):
Why?

Speaker 2 (33:47):
I don't know. How do you how do you have
that conversation?

Speaker 10 (33:49):
Dad?

Speaker 2 (33:49):
You are way past your prime. No, granted he was
way past his prime ten years ago. Daddy signs your paycheck.
You do what Daddy says. But hell, when Jerry no
longer runs the operation, Jerry's gonna be Stevens gonna be
in his sixties. Yeah, okay, So there's Jerry Jones junior.
He is the chief sales and marketing officer. But he's

(34:09):
not He's not in football.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
Ops.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
I don't think. I think Steven's the only one that's
in football. Ops. So yeah, I have a crazy idea.
You get some football people in football. Ops. I know
Jerry Jones played with Arkansas back in like that nineteen
sixty count He's been around the game for forty years
and there's nothing he can do. There's nothing he can't
do in terms of bringing in the number one talent.

(34:32):
The reason why the Dallas Cowboys job has not been
very attractive over the last few years is because the
general manager gets in the way. I mean, if you
Buck stops with him, I mean the last who is
the last super quality, I mean just immensely respectable. Dallas
Cowboys coach Bill Parcells is gonna say, Bill Parcells, I
don't know Dave Campbo. We love Wade Phillips and we

(34:54):
love Campbell, and we love Jason Garrett. Maybe McCarthy was
Jason Carrett was just a yes man. Mike McCarthy. I
think he was a super Bowl winner, but he did
burn out in Green Bay and thought he'd catch lightning
in a bottle in Dallas. It didn't last very long.
He wasn't that bad. I think he's probably can get
one more job before it's all said and done. My
point is this, when does the when does the family

(35:15):
step in telling Steven is it's not like Jerry is.
He's not having He's in dementia, like a succession type
of thing. He's getting, but he's not all one hundred percent.
He's eighty three years old running a football franchise. I mean,
we make fun of Aby Crunk Strong. They're you know,
I noticed this. There are a lot of bad owners

(35:37):
in the NFL. A lot of them are nepotized. Oh,
speaking of that, you see Carly Ursay's a little press conference. Yes, okay, yes,
and no. I saw that the video. I did not
click play on the video. I watched it. It was two
and a half minutes. It was a monologue. It had
a script. Okay, she was looking down, looking up like

(35:58):
she was a TV news reader out of college. It's
not getting a lot of positive reviews. Really. It was
was a NEPO Jim the father Jim. So this is
NEPO times two. Yes, this is this is a third
generation to the team. Robert, then Jim and then now Carly.

(36:22):
That'd be nice. Well, I mean Cal's gonna hand it
off to his kids. Yeah, but Cow's got an NBA
from Rice Matt. Please, he's got business smarts. I shouldn't
have said please. I was saying, you should have said
please and then grind at your teeth in silence. I said, okay,
that's fair, that's it is what it is an NBA

(36:44):
is an NBA all the well, I don't know. Tony
Busby would dispute it going on with that, by the way,
Carrie carry by the way we dispute it. He's like
that brother brother of mine. Well, okay, anyway, what's that
going with? I got you up, I spoke and I
don't want to play because it's it's too long. It
doesn't okay, represent what's going on here in town. But

(37:07):
I would ask you to look at it. Okay, you
might have watched it. Yeah, it's a little cringey.

Speaker 4 (37:12):
All right.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
What's her name, Carly Ersay? I believe it's on the
cults Twitter account. Okay, but basically she's like, I'm disappointed,
we're disappointed, we underperformed. And by the way of bringing
back our general manager and our coach for one more year,
Chris Ballard and Shane Stikeen, I mean they they were
going to be Daniel Jones went down, but they were

(37:34):
they were actually starting to free follow it a little bit. Yeah,
well he also started to not play that. Well, he's
Daniel Jones. He's Daniel Jones. You spent the number four
pick on Anthony Richardson. Who will be probably either door
dashing or working in the CFL. I will continue to
go with my conspiracy theory that Jim Ersay told he
wanted Anthony Richardson and he told Ballard take Anthony Richardson

(37:59):
and I got you. That would be very logical based
off the fact that a team, most teams that open
up a year at eight and two and don't make
the playoffs usually fire front office and coaches. Maybe maybe
Jim was told Carly, do not let him do not
let him be the freaking Now he didn't see the season,
so that's the kind of weird one. But yeah, that
you need to protect these guys. I don't care what happens,

(38:22):
protect them. But it's it's almost like, and look, when
you own something like a sports franchise, you're not expected
to be a public relation savon or you're not supposed
to be an orator, you know what I mean. But
you better get trained enough to know your strengths and weaknesses.

(38:43):
And if Carly was super nervous about doing it, she
probably would not have had that. She shouldn't have had
the press conference, she shouldn't have had the red statement
that went two and a half minutes long. It just
came across as inauthentic or inauthentic. Yes, I think so
over the prepared, like, for instance, the Texans don't put

(39:05):
Cal out there by himself. No, they know better. He's
not a great or a tour Hannah can do all
the heavy lifting. She's She's a much better speaker. It's
got a podcast I heard, I mean, and frankly, Hannah
just does every I mean, look, Hannah's a gotta be
running things here. I don't. I'm not speaking guess what
the franchisees. There are better spots since that happened, and

(39:25):
since and since she's run things. You don't have easter Bean.
You know, Bill O'Brien, you got a respectable coach, you
get it, a respectable general manager, and you don't. You're
at the laughing stock. Now. The biggest in trend Jack
wants to pray. Now, the biggest issue is going to
be off the field. I've already told you about this.
There's gonna be some strife at some point about either
renovating energy or getting a new stadium. And we're you

(39:48):
gonna put it in the more point, who's gonna pay
for the super Bowl? Let's go get the Super Bowl.
Of a sudden, you got a resolution on the docket
for next year. You know what, you put that. You
lose to Pittsburgh this week, you can put the you
can put that following for a while. You get to
the championship game of the AFC the first time ever,
or you get to the super Bowl. You know what.
But then you have a nice little party, little press conference. Hey, everybody,
look how good we are. Now we need a better

(40:09):
fasoda to keep to maintain this. Everybody's like, yeah, we'll
do it. Isn't it crazy how stadiums can go based
off of how your team does. It's not every time,
but sometimessy time. But yeah, yeah, this Tennessee sucked and
they got a new stadium. That's good. It doesn't hurt though.
It doesn't hurt when you it's it would be public

(40:31):
relations nightmare one o one if they lose to Pittsburgh
or they frank that ment to losing divisional playoff. I
mean this, we're used to divisional playoff losses. The super Bowl.
I mean the Oilers should probably be here if they
won one of the Super Bowls in their early nineties, right, yeah, yeah,
all right, how bad were our NFL predictions. We'll tell
you about that next ten to fifty eight. It's a
Matt Thomas Show. Frame it that way, all right, how
do we do? You'll find out that.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Hour number two of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross
continues here on Sports Talk seven ninety day two of
year number seventeen of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross
with Jonathan Allen as well, where were you seventeen years
ago today? Jonathan Ooh, okay, I'm twenty three, seventeen years ago. Okay,

(41:39):
Actually I regret asking asking this question.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
All right?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
First grade? Okay, so the first time or the second time?
Third time? Okay, okay, you're learning, you're learning. Wow, Okay,
so you were in first grade when the show started.
So we're in the year number seventeen of the Matt
Thomas Show with Ross, and I think this will be
the seventeenth straight year nobody is correctly to the Super
Bowl champion. Preseason. There are three things that are guaranteed

(42:03):
in life death taxes in our lossy NFL P I
have archives of predictions back to twenty twenty two. Just
saying fine, we're Okay, twenty twenty two, you and I
said the Buffalo Bills were gonna win it all. I
think I've had Buffalo. I remember him taking Dallas in
the last couple of years too. If I'm not we
both had Philly in twenty three. I don't remember who wanted.

(42:23):
I think maybe the Chiefs. Yeah, went doubt the Chiefs
win things. But we're always trying to figure out a
way to I had the Chiefs, somebody except the favorites.
I had the Chiefs last year, and you had the Bengals.
Oh god, Now the Bingles were great in this last December,
not this past Umber, the previous one. And uh Monerman
mcmovern had the Niners. We're all wrong, all right, So

(42:46):
let's most importantly go to how we did ok September
of twenty twenty five. All right, First of all, I
spelled Jonathan's name wrong, so that was that's on me.
Are you you don't go by John anywhere? Is that correct?

Speaker 13 (42:57):
No?

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Because my dad's name is John. Okay, that's right, we've
been Dad was not John. Would you go? Would you
go with John?

Speaker 5 (43:02):
Or no?

Speaker 2 (43:03):
I just don't like it the name at all.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Okay, you don't like it at all, Maybe because I'm
at them like cognuts much better, don't you.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
I can go with that. But that's a car, that's
you're just trying to hit bingo squares at this point,
Maggie True. I was doing the same thing yesterday. If
you have not seen it, I read tweeted it on
my Twitter at sports RV. You can see that. You
can see the bingo card that a listener made for us.
It's pretty funny. It's hilarious, and that means that person

(43:32):
is an avid listener and for that we appreciate them.

Speaker 8 (43:34):
All right.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
So okay, uh so we NFC North, You and I
had the Packers, Matthew, we lost. Nobody had the Bears.
Jonathan had the Lions. NFC East, You and I had
the Eagles. That's a win. Jonathan had the Commanders l
For the South, I oh, I went and I went

(43:54):
off board to the Falcons. You had the Buccaneers and
Jonathan did the Falcons as well. For the West, I
had the Niners. You had the Rams, matt Nobody had
the Seahawks. Jonathan had the Niners as well. For the
AFC North, I had the Ravens, as did you. Matthew,
as did Jonathan. It was consistent for Ravens. AFC East

(44:16):
was consensus as well. We all had the Buffalo Bills,
of course we You and I had the Cheese for
the West. Ah, Jonathan, you know who you went with
for the AFC West. Go charw jozs goal. We at
least they made it. You've been better than we did. Yeah,
all three of us predicted the Houston Texans to win

(44:36):
the AFC South. Ouch, we were close, but no Cigar
AFC Champions. Matt, you had Kansas City, the Buffalo Bills. Oh,
so I got a shot at that. Still alive, Jonathan,
I had the Ravens. So we'll see. We'll share out now.
The Ravens were real. Okay, Texans record. Matt, you had

(44:56):
ten and seven, Jonathan went nine and eight. I went
eleven and six. Well, I got closest. I'm feeling good
about that. You did? You did? We also all predicted,
Oh sorry, let's do the NFC champions.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Matt.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
You had the Eagles. I had the Commanders. Oh, I
had a Commander's Ravens. Super Bowl. How's that look? You
have the old what they called the Metro d Yeah,
they connected two cities with the Highway or something Commander's
Ravens belt Way series. That is what you had. I
don't think that's happening. Jonathan had the Lions. He had

(45:35):
Lions Ravens. So we're both out, completely out in the
super Bowl. You're alive in both Eagles bills. If I
get that right, that'll be the second greatest prediction I
get behind Kyle Tucker's seven and a half years. No,
I was gonna say that the Mavericks and eleven is
the greatest prediction, even though you pulled that way out
of it, way out of ASA. Yes, being Miami, they

(45:55):
were a four seed. I don't even want to talk
about it. He got so when they clenched it. We
were in Vegas. He's jumping up and down on the bed,
so happy with himself and his prediction. He launched a
character off of this, Jonathan. This is how vane. He
made one right prediction that he pulled out of his ass,

(46:17):
and he launched a character called Noster Thomas after it.
That's why I have the no stra Wrongest file where
I keep all the wrong things, because he likes to
peacock about things he gets right. So I'm like Hey,
somebody's got a tug on these feathers when he gets
something wrong, and you're my noble steed. Yeah, good time.
We actually had went and got a costume, got costumes
one year and did it at a show appearance. Yes, really,
we get costumes. And he was wearing like, I don't know,

(46:40):
like a wizard outfit with a giant I was like Karnak, yes,
with a giant head on a helmet, not a helmet,
but I don't know hat It was a whole ordeal
at the mardmuck Mafe. Yeah. By the way, do you
know who Karnak is? Jonathan? By no chance, zero chance,
I barely know. You know, you know what Johnny Carson is?

(47:00):
Sounds familiar? Okay, that's all I can give you. Okay,
we're gonna have you've been off the year air ten years. Oh,
no longer than that, he's been off the year thirty years.
I'm saying since he'd been born. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
crazy that Johnny Carson ended in nineteen ninety one, and
yet still Adam Clant loves him so much that he

(47:23):
named his son Carson literally after Johnny Carson, Carson, Ross
after and then Ross after me. Uh no, that you
were nowhere near it. Now, Carson Ross, I don't think so.
That's his name. I know it says name, but you
had nothing to do with it. You're welcome, man, Adam.
Unless I know somebody, I'm so honored. I was very tight.
Unless there's something going on with you and Teresa, I
don't know about it. No, that's that's no, that doesn't
make any sense. It's Adam Clanton is honoring me with

(47:44):
the name of his son. Teresa hates me because I
talk about her cheese sticks. Yes, that's for more reasons
than one. By the way, that's actually more than that.
You're right, I mean they're all they're all pretty valid,
all right, So I still have a puncher's chance here
Philadelphia versus Buffalo. You had the Bills winning at all.
I had the Ravens winning it all. Then we also
predicted the end result of the year for the Houston

(48:06):
Texans as in how far would they go? Oh, I
really don't remember. All the three of us answered the same.
Let me guess division around again, correct, because that's what
you're supposed to do. History repeats itself. Feels about right,
feels about right. So there you go TBD. The Texans
are eleven to one to win the Super Bowl is

(48:29):
what I saw last time. I think really got the
short these odds so much. Yeah, eleven to one is absurd.
That puts them I think seventh or eighth among all
the teams in the NFL. Now getting let me tell
you something. If you get to the Super Bowl, that's
a super big win. Wait a minute, did I do
this last year or the year before when I bet
twenty the Texans twenty? I think it was the year

(48:51):
before I bet I'm on twenty seven to one. Eleven
to one feels fair. I mean, if again, the numbers
are small to begin with, so eleven one's fine. Yeah,
there you go. We all have a Mountain Division round
and Matt, you have a Bills, Bill's Eagles with the
Bills winning, and I had Ravens Commander. I feel like,
and we're going to do this officially coming up at
twelve thirty, Okay, are we going to predict who's going

(49:13):
to win the Super Bowl? We can? We can change
off what we decided back many months ago, I think so,
I mean, I certainly have all right, I can't stick
with Ravens commanders, The big question is going to be
in an hour and twenty minutes, will you change your
thought about how the Textans are going to end their season.
We'll discuss. We'll do that in an hour and twenty minutes.
All right, Speaking of Las Vegas, the win totals are

(49:35):
out for Major League Baseball. We'll tell you about that
coming up in the next segment of the show. Because
I do I'm a little nervous about it, because the
number we're going to give you in about ten minutes
from now is not going to be the number that
we've seen these parts in a very long period of time.
That is correct, and I do What I do want
to do is I want to figure out why Vegas
believe that, like you had to come up with a

(49:58):
number four a reason. Discuss what that reason may be.
It seems reasonable, you know you Okay, the volume is
turned up, seems reasonable mm hm.

Speaker 13 (50:10):
Me.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
But would you not consider I'll save it, you know,
we'll talk. We'll talk. Seven one three, five, seven ninety
seven one three seventy Rockets again win last night on
a buzzer beater by Kevin Durant. Looking forward to that,
h We got a couple of calls in the first hour,
but that was nice. Yes, The reality is we're not
going to get a lot of rockets chatter, if any

(50:31):
until everything's done. Textan has got to be done, uh
and the playoff scene's got to be set up. But selfishly,
I'm really hoping that we're in a spot. I think
interest is ticking up. It's not a tidal wave, but
we're getting a splash, yeah, tidle wave splash. Can we

(50:51):
get more like a storm slash? Storm surge? I want
to like a a a spring shower, A little rumbles
of thunder depends on what you eat Oklahoma City thunder.
By the way, the thunder or average. We coofed on that.
You were you were scared knelling You got me caught
up into that too. They're still championship favorites. Come on

(51:14):
now easily. How do you lose again? It's the NBA games? Yeah,
I know, but back to back law there's six and
six in our last twelve game. Yeah, they're so horrible.
There are four games up of the two seed. I'm
gonna tell you this right now. We got the best
record in the NBA. A lot of people listening to
us in San Antonio. We cannot have you involved in this.
They're gonna be We have a relationship between us and

(51:35):
oklanm and say we got to resolve. I don't need
another side piece getting in the ways. They're not going anywhere.
Yes they are, they're not. I know you and Adam
Clinton think they are. I'm hoping for it. I'm not
saying they're going to I'm just saying I'm hoping for
I'm hoping Wimby gets thrombosis again. I'm hoping the Stefan.
I'm hoping. Dearreon, Fox just wanted to anyway. He didn't
play in their last game. What's one on Wimby? No,

(51:56):
he's fine. He didn't play last night, didn't play against Portland.
Is he rested the arresting him. It's not even listed
on the box score, so I'm not sure. All right,
let's get a call him before we get to our
baseball numbers for from Vegas. Todd by Rice at seven
ninety eleven twelve, Todd, good morning, Yeah.

Speaker 10 (52:13):
Good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (52:19):
What are the chants?

Speaker 11 (52:20):
Are Texans and.

Speaker 4 (52:23):
Eat Pittsburgh? What are we thinking?

Speaker 2 (52:25):
We're thinking it's going to be strong possibility even in
the cold weather Texans one went to Kansas City, Todd,
and they beat the Chiefs in cold weather. Now, granted,
how do you think the Chiefs are? How do you
think the Steelers are? I don't know. It's a Monday
night game. Steelers with a big home win to win

(52:47):
the AFC North. Granted, was a missfield goal that did it.
But Aaron Rodgers playoff tested. Aaron Rodgers may have DK
metcalf back this week. There's a chance looking forward to
my Texans, I think you get nothing to worry about.

Speaker 11 (53:06):
I don't worry.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
You shouldn't be. You should be a little worried. Don't worry.
Don't worry. It's not gonna be gimmy, you know what.
Don't worry. To be happy. You're a little worried. Todd,
be very very happy. R.

Speaker 4 (53:13):
Todd.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
You can go back to sleep, Todd. Todd. Great hearing
from me.

Speaker 11 (53:16):
Todd.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
We thank you very much. We'll see he's calling us.
In the middle of an app, I think I respect
that I got invited to one of my great the
greatest concerts in my entire life in the middle of
an app and I almost didn't answer the phone. I

(53:41):
went we were in Vegas taking a nap during the
NBA playoffs and uh Rockets pr Tracy says, Hey, let's
go see the Eagles at the sphere at the what sar? It'sphere,
there's no there's no h in there, fear there. There
we go. It's sphear, yes, sphere. And if I didn't

(54:05):
wake up that wake up to take that phone call,
I would not have gone. And I did and it
was the most amazing concert ever been to my entire life.
And you took it to the limit one more time.
Afterwards you had a peaceful, easy feet all right, I'm sorry,
you know what? Can you start this? I'll finish this.
Let's go, let's keep going, all right, win totals from baseball.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
I was gonna go with it. I like doing that,
but you don't want doing it, and somebody want to
do it. Take it easy.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
You know what I need? I need a new kid
in town. Eleven fourteen on Sports Talk seven ninety It's Matt,
It's Ross. Jonathan we us here as well on a
Tuesday edition of the program, Matt Thomas Show with Ross
Sports Talk seven ninety seven one seven ninety is how
you reach the show? We got Sam con joining us

(54:53):
from the athletic He is their college football water with
a special emphasis on the portal, and nil, I bet
his that is spending the last handful of days seriously,
real quick before we get to the baseball totals. So
they're always trying to adjust the calendar. Why would you
do a portal in the when the college football season
isn't over with. It's crazy they're doing it right now.
It's stupid. They I don't know what's going on or

(55:16):
what it has to do with academic years or whatever.
But football especially needs to be it's its own animal.
It just a Division one football. College football is I mean,
it's it's number one. It's nothing about academic. You have
to be exactly. You have to make exceptions for for this.
And I don't know what they're doing with that. So
we'll talk to Sam about that coming up in a

(55:36):
few minutes. All right, So, uh, you are big on
win totals. They're just them. They're just sounding boards and
they're they're conversation pieces. We like them. They they they're
just season expectations. Yeah, teams every year go above or
under there there in the astros. I believe by most

(55:58):
books down every one of them. It was about eighty
seven and a half. Last year they won eighty seven games.
They won any seven, so not perfect. Oh yeah, because
they didn't win the half. No, I said, that's really good.
I mean, that's that's as close to nail disease. Not easy.
It's not easy to do that. I mean I wouldn't
want to do it because put it this way, if
you're a book maker and you are in charge and
you put a crazy number out there and people find

(56:20):
out about it, you're losing money. You're going to be
in trouble. That's why they make good lines. If you
make bad lines, you lose money and you get fired.
But it's such a grandiose, long six month season. You
don't know about injuries, you don't know about free agent.
I mean, we do only have many free agents. We
don't know where Kyle Tucker or Alex Bregmant or Farmer
Valdez are going to play. Does that not impact things?

(56:41):
But they can obviously change them based off of what
you do in the off season. But right now, the
initial win totals are out and the Houston Astros are
where among the American League elite. The Houston Astros win
total is eighty four and a half. If you want
some other America League teams, Detroit Tigers are at eighty

(57:03):
six and a half. How about the Red Sox at
eighty seven and a half. This is before a lot
of that. I mean Bregman hasn't been signed, Kyle Tucker
hasn't been signed. There's still a lot of question marks.

Speaker 4 (57:14):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
New York Yankees ninety three and a half. I'm a
little high, right, Texas Rangers eighty three and a half,
Seattle Mariners ninety I'm gonna ask you a stupid question.
Do the Vegas bookmakers because you can only look, there's

(57:36):
there's one hundred and sixty two games, So if you
give if somebody has to win ninety, does that mean
somebody has to be seventy two they add them all up? Yeah,
I don't think they do. Okay, I don't think it
all adds up to There's no rule that says they have.
It doesn't add up to a zero sum win loss,
I don't think.

Speaker 12 (57:56):
All right.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
More importantly, let's go to the Rockies. Fifty four and
a half Astros by the Rockies first week of the season.
I think it's their first road trip of the year.
Ooh mean a little chili? All right? So go to
the arrest of American League West teams, that's what okay? So, yes,
the Mariners, as I said, ninety and a half. The
Texas Rangers are eighty three and a half, the Los
Angeles Angels are seventy one and a half, and the Yeah,

(58:22):
I know, but it's where they just called. They just
called the Athletics I was looking for. Oh, oh, okay,
not Oakland. I'll have you guessed. The A's. Actually, it'll
be fun because they finicky closed the year strong Astros
at eighty four and a half. So the Astros are
predicted to finished second according to this win total. Yes,
I'm going to go seventy eight for the A's. You're

(58:45):
pretty close, seventy five and a half. Seventy five and
a half. That's interesting. So Rangers only one game behind
the Astros at eighty three and a half. So the
question is does eighty four and a half or in theory,
eighty four or eighty five get you into the playoffs? Well,

(59:08):
eighty seven didn't get you there last year. That is
accurate by one game. So no, when did I drop
the gut feeling they're not winning. Oh no, it was
to tell the truth when you were out said they're
not winning the West. It's because Seattle is finally going
to act like a grown ass team and play consistent baseball.
I mean they did. They won ninety games last year.

(59:30):
They closed down the stretch. The big dumper is not
gonna have the impact that they had. Like, no, he's not.
But I mean they came into your house and took
your lunch at the end of the year. That was painful,
and they the Mariner's September was not only did the
Astros underperformed, but the Mariners went away and hid they

(59:52):
Yeah it, well, I think I think they kind of did.
They they go as off landing at the end. It
only ended up being a three game deficit, but it
wasn't in depth, didn't feel that way. Astros at one
point were up by six in the division. You wind
up losing by three, and they charged hard at the end. Okay,
So let's do this before we get to Sam Conning
in a few minutes. Let's deduce why the win tolls

(01:00:15):
eighty four and a half. Okay, eighty four and a half.
If you're going off of the most recent standings does
not get you in the playoffs. I think the Astros
are a playoff contender. I would even with all still
certainties at backup catcher, the congested infield, the uncertainty in
the outfield. Yeah, you just named a lot of stuff.

(01:00:41):
How healthy is Josh Hater going to be? What's the
ord and Albaretz going to play this year? Will he
get to one up thirty one? Absolutely? You sound so confident.
Now let's see. You know what I love about yours
get hurt? He could get I mean to never mind,
I don't even want to argue about this. To say
he's never going to play one hundred and thirty games
the rest of his career career is a ridiculous statement.
It just is. And then when it's proven wrong. Hey, Jonathan,

(01:01:03):
three of the last five years he played over that.
But he's like twenty seven. Jonathan knows what I'm talking about.

Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
Learn. He's learned that a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
You got to see the injuries. Okay, all right, Stephen V.
Austin's gonna beat you of h He's gonna learn. He's
gonna learn, Jonathan, I'm with you on this, man. I
don't I don't see it. Okay, let's I'll make a
bet with you too. I don't want to make a bet.
I want to beat I got it. I don't bet.
I want to be wrong about that because I don't
think the Astros can win the a potential World Series
if if he's missing more than thirty games a year,

(01:01:31):
I'm just definitely afraid that the injury bug continues to
be on him. Okay, twenty twenty four, he played one
hundred and forty seven games. Because here's the reality. He's
not gonna play one sixty two. So if you play,
if he's completely healthy, he's gonna take fifteen games off.
Here's where I my deduction came in. Okaya puts him
at one forty seven. Okay, if you go on the

(01:01:51):
fifteen day disabled list, that's fifteen more games, or a
theory that's about one thirty two. Okay, So you're hoping
that he avoids the injured list this year. I don't
want to keep him out of the field just swinging back.
All we're asking you to do. None of you is
weird slip sliding on home plate? Can we get can
we dry off home plate to start the games now?
Or put his hand on the base. Have we learned

(01:02:12):
our licess? Please? No running into the scoreboard. No, what's sliding?
In a second? I think you heard either trot or
don't do anything.

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
You're done.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
The reason why I said one thirty was for a
guy who has been injury prone. It's just the reality
of it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:29):
Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
And the fact they're going to you're gonna treat him
with kid gloves and you're going to have ross if this,
if Parrettes is still on this team, you're going to
have to fill somed No. I said he needs to
be traded, so I don't know if he's gonna be
there the Rise of Right now, he is eleven thirty

(01:02:55):
one Sports Talk seven ninety. It is the Matt Thomas
Sherwood Ross and we are very pleased. We joined by
the best dressed sports writer in America. Great Fedora game.
Uh what are other types of headwear? It is a
sam Con wear. Did you think have you seen Samon
Fall on TV doing some appearances here and there? Yeah,
I think he had one of those cheese graders, the
anti paser. No, no, no, he's is at a cago before.

(01:03:17):
What are you wearing right now? Sam Con? I'm not
talking about your closet.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
I'm wearing sweat because I just walked my dog out there.
Just a tad tad warmer than you would expect for January.
But but yeah, I'm wearing sweat right now.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
It's great to have you on the show. Thank you, friend.
He's the University of Houston graduately is a fine young man.
He's also covers college football, especially with an emphasis on
roster management and transfer portals. Sam con Junior s k
sam con Junior on Twitter. So you are externally busy?
Was your timeline is as crazy as mine was on Sunday?
With players going left and right from one score the next.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
Yeah, I mean really, A lot of it was the
build up to the opening of the portal on Friday.
A bunch of players hit really at midnight when the
clock struck minut on Friday, I think we were at
a thousand players in within the first hour, and a
lot of that I think was done ahead of time
and just ready to go as soon as we started.

(01:04:17):
But yeah, that Sunday was especially busy because a lot
of players made their initial visits on Saturday, and these
visits are not like traditional recruiting visits. Where you go
spend forty eight hours at a place as a high
school recruit. These are more like NFL free agent type visits.
You're in there for a day, they do your physical,
you know, maybe you get a quick tour, talk to

(01:04:37):
the coaches, and then you know, you talk contract and
get it done. So, yeah, Sunday was a pretty fast
and furious and I wouldn't say that it's slowed down
a lot. It's a lot has happened since then as
the domino start to shift, But a busy first few
days with I think more than I think a few
thousand FBS scholarship players in the portal, and and even

(01:05:00):
more when you add the fcs in there as well.
So it's definitely been hectic. We've got about a week
and a half left. Next Friday is when this thing closes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
But a lot of activity going on, for sure, Sam,
I know many of these young men, maybe all of them,
are being represented by agents, and Ross and I were
talking earlier. Some are with legit agencies and some are
with friends of friends of friends. How many have you
dealt with and what is it like talking to these
representation this representation group talking about getting eighteen nineteen twenty

(01:05:31):
year olds multimillion dollar deals to go from one school
the next.

Speaker 4 (01:05:34):
Yeah, I think I think it's just like anything did
you come across. There's actually a lot of pretty good ones,
and then there's someones who are not initially the most
qualified or maybe you're not going to get the best guide.
And I would say most of the ones I've dealt
with are pretty solid. And you do have more NFL
agents NFL player agents coming to the college side. I've

(01:05:55):
come across paths with a lot of guys who represent
NFL players and are now stepping into the college game.
Even with the bigger agencies, you know your CAAs your
athletes first, you're you know, some of the big ones
out there that people know they're getting into this game
as well. So I think it really depends on what
kind of choice. Obviously, obviously the families and the recruits

(01:06:17):
are making the choices on who represents them. But I
will say there is a cry amongst the coaches and
the staffers who are managing this of they wish there
was some type of certification like in the NFL level
you have to be certified by the NFLPA, and there
is no real baseline for that in college Some states

(01:06:39):
have certification requirements that you have to do to be
able to represent someone, but not every state does, and
I think there is a desire for across the board
certification to just establish some menimum standards that people have
to meet to be able to represent a player.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Do you think there will be change coming with that, Sam,
as far as I mean, what exactly is the solution.
I know CBA tries to keep their hands off of
this stuff so they can still claim amateur athletics, But
what do you think there will be some kind of
solution coming with that or like federal legislation. What would
it take?

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
Yeah, I think he would have to be either the CSC,
the College Sports Commission which was established by the powerful Conferences,
which is supposed to be managing all the salary cap
and the enforcement of everything that's going on. I think
you would have mixed results and different claims on how
well that's going so far. Or I think some federal

(01:07:33):
legislation possibly could be in the mix for that as well.
I don't sense I think it is something that is desired.
I don't sense that it is the highest priority on
the list, though I think there are other things that
people want to solve before they get to that. But
I do think at some point it is possible, but
it would take either either the CSC or sometimes federal

(01:07:53):
legislation we get there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
I think Sam Khan Junior of the Athletic with us
here on Sports Talk seven ninety and h I kind
of need this explained, Like I'm five, Sam, Like we're
talking about these agents and these players and they hit
the portal, Like, what what are the you can go
through the legal and then maybe the illegal procedures. If
if there is a player who has an agent and
they're thinking about hitting the portal, I mean, how much

(01:08:16):
of that is negotiated or talked to other teams as
far as tampering with other schools before deciding to enter
the portal. Also, you have guys who enter the portal
when it figures out that maybe somebody else is coming,
so they're gonna their playing time is going to go down.
Like it just seems like a big mess from that standpoint.

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Yeah, no, it absolutely is. And again when I talked
about the CSC, they everyone hasn't agreed to what the
enforcement model looks like. Like there's you know, we have
a body, and we have you know that their task
with trying to enforce this stuff. But they sent out
an agreement for everybody to sign, and not everybody signed it,
and it doesn't go intoffect unless everyone signs it. So

(01:08:56):
at this point we don't have an enforcement arm with
a real piece yet, and so tampering run has been
running rampant for years and continues to do so many
of these players. The portal didn't open til Friday, but
many of these players announced either after their regular seasons
were over sometime in December, that they were going into portal.
And I can promise you and yeah, I know because
I've been talking to these people. As soon as some

(01:09:17):
of the bigger names announced they were going in, we
already heard where they were likely going. And that that
is an issue that I think coaches and general managers
complain about, but there also doesn't seem to be anybody
really stopping it at this point. I think that the
tampering issue is probably one of the top complaints you get,

(01:09:39):
and it is these are things that happen right away,
And to your point about a player having to jump
in if somebody happened, I talked to an agent last Night,
who said he had a client at an ACC school
who was a tight end and he was gonna stay.
He was going to resign our repshare contract to come
back for twenty twenty six, and then his team took
a tight end in the portal. He's like, well, now
I got to get in. Now I could get in
the portal because now my playing time gonna getting eaten into.

(01:10:01):
And that's what's gonna be fascinating to me, especially as
we get outside the portal window, because this year we
only have the winter portal window. There is no spring window.
So to me, I'm curious to see what happened when
we get to spring football and depth charts are getting
set and you find out, well, I'm not where I
thought I was going to be on the depth chart.
Well there's no spring portal window anymore. So what are

(01:10:21):
you gonna do? Are you gonna stick it out? Are
you gonna withdraw and then hope you can end up
enrolling somewhere else. But there's no really guarantee you can
end up somewhere else at that point. So it is
very messy at this point, and that is what I
think makes it so difficult, not just for the people involved,
but even the fans to follow is that these things
can change in a blank and the guy who may

(01:10:42):
be your star quarterback today may be on your rival
school tomorrow.

Speaker 10 (01:10:45):
Sam.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
If you were in Times Square yesterday, you happen to
see a big billboard video of Brandon Sorosbee welcomed to
Lumbock and Texas Tech after assigning his deal, going to there.
Take me through the process. So Brandon Storesby's quarterback at Cincinnati,
and word travels that he is open for free agency.

(01:11:07):
Does Cody Campbell whan he's the most recognizable nil donor
probably out there in the college courts today, does he
lab a phone call to Storesbe's representation says, Look, I
know the school can't give you the money directly because
they can't give you five million. They could, but that's
a budget that they don't want to spend. But I'm
going to put you in terms with my group, with
my collective, and we're going to make sure that five

(01:11:28):
million dollars reaches your client's piggybank by the time he
arrives in Lubbock.

Speaker 4 (01:11:33):
So that that is the part that is a little
bit unclear at this point with some of the bigger
deals because the what is the divide between the refshare
pool in the aisle pool, Because as we know, the
ref sharepool is capped at roughly twenty million dollars. It'll
go up a little bit this year by four percent,
but it's still going to be around twenty one to

(01:11:53):
twenty two million dollars. And that's for all sports, not
just football. Right, So a power force roster is probably
somewhere in the fourteen to seventeen million dollar range. So
if you spend five on a quarterback, that only leaves
maybe nine to twelve for the rest of your roster,
which is a lot so certainly, but if you are

(01:12:16):
trying to compete for a national championship, it's not enough.
One of the biggest things that you see big time
programs trying to do in this cycle is take money
off the cap, and doing that is through the third
party nil beast. The interesting part about that is the
CSC just sent out guidance in the last couple of
forty eight hours that they're saying that if you promise

(01:12:37):
someone nil money ahead of time from the third party,
whether it's from your in house multimedia rights deal or whatever,
other collectives, that you have that cannot be counted, that
cannot be taken off the cap. If you promise it,
it's got to be counting toward the cap, whether or
not you pay them out of your ref share pool.
Now again I go back to is that going to

(01:12:58):
be enforced? And they send out that guidance with it
being backdated to December first, so saying that basically, if
it's anybody in this portal window, that you can't take
money off the cap that way. So I don't know
how that's gonna work out. I don't know if they
can even enforce it. But that is the way that
a lot of programs that are operating above the cap

(01:13:20):
they're they're doing it that way is trying to figure out, Okay,
how much do we put into third party nil and
how much do you guarantee through repshare because you've got
Ultimately they're gonna do whatever they got to do to
get the player.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
So a big picture, I know you've got still another
week or so left of the portal. Who is killing it?
Obviously when you get the number one quarterback and texta
tech is not afraid to spend money. We've already seen
it in the last couple of years beyond Tech, Is
there anybody else that is in your mind, has really
made a lot of significant movement by grabbing kids in
the portal because of the money they're offering.

Speaker 4 (01:13:52):
In Indiana, Indiana did really well. They landed there, the
TCU quarterback, Josh Hoover, landed marsh the Michigan State receiver,
a couple edge rushers from Kansas City who are really
really talented. I mean, they're the number one team in
the country right now and clearly paint at I rate.
I think Josh Hoover's deal, from what I understand, is
set in the similar ballpark to Brendan Swaresby in that

(01:14:15):
high four to five million dollars range. So they definitely
broke the bank to get Hoover, and I think he's
a really good system fit for them. Tech, as you mentioned,
has done really well. I think Texas A and M
has had a really quietly They haven't made a bunch
of splash editions, but made a lot of really solid additions,
and they didn't really lose a lot. They were tinged
a lot of their guys. They only lost I believe

(01:14:37):
one full time starter into the portal this this year.
So they're in good shape. And the other one is
Oklahoma State. Eric Morris, who we know was the coach
at North Texas and took them to the conference championship game.
He went up there to Oklahoma State. He's brought his
quarterback Drew Messimaker is running back Kayleb Hawkins, his top
receiver Y Young, and several others with them. That's a
team that was one and eleven last year, maybe had

(01:14:58):
one of the worst rosters in the Power and they
look like a much improved team so far in this
first weekend. So they've done that. All those schools have
done pretty well. I would add Penn State to that
list too, since Matt Kimball got over there. Obviously he's
brought a lot of his Iowa State guys with them too,
But I think Penn State has made some ways early
in the first few days of the portal.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
Sam Coin Jr. Of The Athletic with us here more
of a general question. Sam, We've talked a lot on
this show, myself and Matt and argued about donor fatigue,
and I thought it was going to come pretty soon.
It doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon, but I
guess to ask you to predict the unpredictable. I mean,
for example, Cody Campbell, as Matt mentioned, shelling out a
bunch of money. I mean, if he's not seeing the

(01:15:37):
results year after year, how much does he continue to
pour millions? And these other schools as well, whether it
be Texas or A and M. Where do you see
as far as I mean just the long term economic
ecosystem of this nil money potentially drying up or it
just seems like it's a full steam ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
I think it becomes a case by case basis on
a couple of factors. One, what is your institutional want
to how badly do you want to win? And and
by proxy, how badly do your donors want to win? Two?
Do you have someone to that degree? Because there are
I think a lot of the SEC and the ten
programs are going to be in okay shape because of

(01:16:21):
where they are in terms of their media rights and
how big their budgets are just from the start. But
it's your when you get to your maybe middle tier
power for lower tier power forward, do you have a
booster like a Cody Campbell. Like if you're Kansas and
you have David Booth, you're in good shape. But if
you're Iowa State who is struggling to reach the revenue
revenue share cap, they're not operating over the cab. They're

(01:16:42):
They're having a hard enough time just trying to get
to the cab which they are at. But that's hard
enough for them. They don't necessarily have a Cody Campbell
in their in their back pocket to help them. So
I think it a case by case issue with them
as far as do I see donor fatigue long term,
Maybe in some spots, but I'll I'll just say this
this we are in twenty twenty five, almost forty years ago,

(01:17:06):
SMU got busted for paying players and then got the
death penalty. It was nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty seven.
That was almost forty years ago, So if and that
was obviously a different era. But paying players or trying
to do the most to get the best players on
your team is a tradition, as it's a tried and

(01:17:27):
true tradition in college football there for as long as
college football has existed, alumni have always won. Boosters have
always wanted to get players for their teams and wanted
to make sure they had the best teams, whether it
was coaches, whether it's facilities, whatever, the mechanism was that
they told you how to do it. For as long
as I can remember, and as long as I've been
covering this sport, there's always been somebody who's wanted to

(01:17:50):
push the envelope to do that. And I don't see
that changing long term. Now. With the money getting as
high as it is, could it get a little bit unsustainable, Certainly,
I do think there's a agree to that, but I
don't think we're ever gonna come to a point where
people say, well, I don't care about my school enough
to pay this money for this player. There's always gonna
be Cam Coleman and everyone receiver in the portal right now. Everybody,

(01:18:12):
everybody in the on Earth wants that guy, and I
cannot see a donor saying no, I'm gonna walk away
because he's not that important. Ultimately, these guys want their
teams to win on Saturday, and they're going to want
to do what it takes to get the players to
make that happen.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
I got forty more questions for you, but I'm gonna
leave you with this, and I thank you so much
for your time. Daleen Austin's a guy that no one's
ever heard of, and at least here he was a
cornerback at Oregon. Didn't play a whole lot. Apparently numbers
are just okay, but he did play. He didn't have
an i INT this year for the Ducks. Ducks are
still playing for a chance international championship and he's leaving.
He's going to leave the team because he entered the portal.

(01:18:49):
It may be a much more high profile name that
does is. But I have a feeling and this is
kind of the sickening part of the spirit of trying
to win and compete is we're gonna have other players
like this down the road. Disagree that we're going to
see kids that are still playing for a national championship
or any deep playoff run saying you know what, I
got four million dollars waiting for me to school down
the road.

Speaker 4 (01:19:10):
I think having it happen with starters is not going
to be something that becomes a trend. I think it's
more going to be typically guys who are backups or
who are guys who don't have as big a roles
and they stand to make a lot of money and
get a bigger role on another team. But I will
say this, we long didn't think a coach would do it,
and Lane Kiffin has done it, and so once you

(01:19:33):
kind of cross that threshold threshold, I think anything goes.
So I wouldn't say I would never say never on
that front, but I do think having a starter do it,
if it were a starting quarterback or a starting running
back or a starting corner, I find that would be
very either rare or unlikely to happen. But with backup players,

(01:19:54):
and we already saw it last year both Privula the
backup quarterback at Penn State, when once Drew out decided
he was coming back, he went ahead and got in
the poorol and obviously ended up starting Miszoo last year.
So that part has already been going on with some
playoff teams. It's not again, not high numbers. It's only
really a small handful. But I do think that the
reserve players that stand to have bigger roles at other

(01:20:15):
teams that I don't think is gonna stop. I do
think seeing star players do it, I think it would
be a real shock to the system. And we saw it,
but again, Lane Kiffin did it, So who.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
Knows, all right, Sam, how are you a gift card
to a hat store, my friend. Thank you so much
for the time. Happy New Year and thank you and
we look forward to seeing many more articles on the
Athletic website very soon. No problem, Thanks for having me.
Thanks Sam Con. I mean, first of all, University Houston guy.
Second noses stuff. Third, what a mess. It just it's
a good mess for kids, but it's still a mess.

(01:20:46):
At least they're getting paid. But yeah, it's structural. It's
it's wild West. We keep using that term, and I
think that that works all right. All right, last night
after the Rockets game was done, if you happen to
have Peacock on, which I'm going to assume most of

(01:21:07):
you did not, streaming at ten o'clock at night is difficult.
It just is why it's easier. It's on your phone.
What's on your TV? Get it in your bed? Staring
at your phone at ten o'clock night it makes you sleepy. No,
put it on your TV. I guess you could. What
do they call that mega or crumb cast it? I
guess crome cast. You don't got a smart TV in
your house? That's okay. Point being is that I have

(01:21:27):
the Peacock but I was asleep. Okay, Uh. Golden State
play the Clippers last night. Clippers won by a single point.
The officials last night were Brian Forte, Justin Vandyne, and
Derek Collins. Somebody of those three gentlemen. The officials got
to the ire of Steve Kerr, who got injected from
last night's game. You're saying, well, who cares the NBA

(01:21:47):
coaches get ejected all the time. Yes, not when Snoop
Dogg is doing the second half of the color analysis
on the game on Peacock. Here's Snoop with the call.

Speaker 4 (01:21:57):
Beacuum up, Becuum up, gp Beckuum up. Stab Steve Inglewood
right now. Ingle War's team, the Arizona wild Cat came
out and look at.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
Him, Snoop Dogg like America's I don't know, it's like
American treasure. Now he's on everything. Yeah, he was a
halftime at during Christmas because he knows what his role is. Well,

(01:22:30):
he knows that a TV network's gonna hire him, pay him,
he's gonna go viral something. It's gonna get him into
his next commercials for everything. Yeah, it's crazy. He's everywhere. John,
Then you know that I don't know if you mentioned
since you've been with me. But I was in Los
Angeles on a Rockets game years ago and he was
walking one direction and I was walking the other, and
I completely froze. I don't ever normally ever freeze with

(01:22:51):
somebody I really wanted to meet. Oh, I froze starstruck Thomas.
I didn't know what to say to him, Like, what up?

Speaker 3 (01:22:58):
Dog?

Speaker 11 (01:23:00):
Hi?

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
Snoop, mister dog? You're holding? What's the real names of
real name? His first name is Calvin? Calvin brought us.
I think it's his name. I I don't think he
likes being called that, so it's good to do. Like
what what are his like nicknames? Like A snoop duck,
snoop deal, double G? Do I keep bland? Does A

(01:23:22):
there's a fifty year old white man go what I
have do? Double G? Does he go like, what are
you doing?

Speaker 12 (01:23:26):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
I bet that happens every day for him? So what
would I have? The dog father if I ever happened
to me? Zilla Jonathan helped me out, what do I
do if he's walking one direction by himself? I was
walking in the direction by myself. I don't want to freeze.
How do I refer to him. Yeah, say with so
much drama in the LBC, say that to him and

(01:23:48):
he's gonna say, it's kind of hard being Snoopdale double g.
Thenk you a little dap? Can you give it puss? Yeah?
Be cool. I have to memorize that, like the Fonds.
Be cool.

Speaker 3 (01:23:59):
You never listen to old Snoop Doggs. You think Matt's
listen Come on, now, you know what, We gotta give
him some suggestions. He's listening to old Glenn Campbell. He's
not listening to old Snoop Dogg.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
That is unfortunately accurate, but he's listening to the Little
River Band that is also accurate. Can I go on
one moment? So the first Super Bowl I ever covered
was the Tech was the Patriots versus the Packers. No
Patriots versus No no no no, no no no no Patriots. Who

(01:24:31):
would have Vinitary kicked the field goal with the win
the game? Other Rams Rams Patriots One. It was in
New Orleans and we were walking into the French courters,
me and my bosses, and we saw this old, old
vehicle moving up and I mean it was in the
same spot. There was a green haze jumping and there
was jumping thousands of people around this car. It was

(01:24:54):
Snoop dogg. Okay, I've been infatuated with his career ever since.
I thought, this is a guy that is an middle
of Bourbon street in an old nineteen seventy five, I mean,
old old car, bumping up and down playing music and
people are just losing their minds. Yes, a rapper came
up from Long Beach, was on trial for murder in

(01:25:15):
like nineteen ninety three, and and just is like America's sweetheart. Yeah,
he's on all the TV shows. So awesome story. Okay,
so let's go this one more times long as Jonathan.
He's walking one direction, I'm walking the other. I want
to say hello to him. I don't want a deep conversation.
I'm not looking for a selfie or an autograph. I
just want to say hello. How do I properly accept

(01:25:38):
it saying I could say hello? I could say hello dog?
That sounds weird? Do you get it? Just be cool?
We have you two? You can't what's cool?

Speaker 6 (01:25:47):
Man?

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
Can I say? Can I just simply say what up? Snoop?
That sounds okay, that's right? Yeah, just say snoop doo
double g. Yeah, say. It was like the Pa Pipes
and Snoop Deo to Geeze. Yeah exactly, Yeah, Okay, like, oh,
what's up?

Speaker 10 (01:26:02):
Cuz?

Speaker 4 (01:26:03):
What up?

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
Cuz? So don't say that I'm saying. That's what he's
gonna say. All right, all right, take a break. Uh,
time after time. Kevin Durant makes big baskets. That's the
news at noon after time. Snoop Dog's making hits, and
he's all over America, and he's also on America's got talent.
He's also serving your subways. And he did a good
game show too, right, jokers, wad it was Wrigidal? I
got you upset on that one. I knew it'd got

(01:26:24):
My teeth are clenching. Ah seven two five seven got
feelings of one half hour here on seven ninety is.

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
The Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Speaker 2 (01:26:46):
All Right, Sidney Lauper, thank you very much. Thank you
Kevin Durant, time after time making big baskets, whether it
be for a Oklahoma City thunder Team, the ageless Kevin
Durant who wants the hand of a young, impressionable Ross
Villera is true. Mm hmmm question I had I don't
even know the answer to if he would have gone

(01:27:07):
to Arkansas, would you have loved him as much as
you do now? I think part of your love for
him is because of the Texas background. Of course, why not?
I mean, I love your own, don't care? Yeah, I'm sure.
I mean, that's why you love chicken noles so much.
It's such a cougar legend. Got you good on that one?

Speaker 8 (01:27:27):
Did?

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
That's what you love? I don't know, Jaris Walker, Jamal
shed who's the best? Amran oh? Current? Oh? Oh, Quentin
Grimes probably? Okay, yeah, that's why you love Quentin Grimes
so much? I do, guess, yes, I do. I mean, yeah,
I was impressionable. I was on campus. I touched his hand.
I loved going to the UH to the student section

(01:27:52):
for Texas basketball back when they called it the ozone.
I don't know what it is now it's a stampede
or the herd or the whatever, or it's that nobody's there.
I was flipping through the of a serious extemp channel
ourday and on the college channel, which is, you know,
like serious college sports, they had the women's game, hunting
Craig Ways calling the game. Oh that's good, they're the

(01:28:13):
women are good. They are the men lost to Mississippi
State at home in overtime? Women's sports better than the
men's sports this year, that's every year. Longhorns. Yeah, you knew.
I didn't want to say that out loud. That's okay,
They're good, Laby, Longhorns are bowling twelve or nine time.
Now for the news at dude, all right, Matt, you

(01:28:34):
just heard the highlights there. Rockets do get the game
the eventual game winner, not at the time a game winner,
not at the time a buzzer beater from Kevin Durant,
but they get to win all the same one ninety seven.
It was an ugly game last night at the Toyota Center.
Multiple clock issues, Matt. I was talking to you about
this at the game. Game. I had never I've seen

(01:28:58):
the shot clock go off, and you know what, they
got to figure something out with that. But the entire
clock system, scoreboard, everything went down for a stretch there
at the Toyota Cente. But I didn't learn that only
by deduction was when the scoreboard downstairs, like manual things
being out, it affects the big board. The stats were
all good on the big board, but the score itself

(01:29:19):
and the time on the game was affected, so thankfully
by halftime it was all figured out. The game took
extra time. The Rockets shot just nine of thirty seven
from the three point line. Three point numbers continue to
go down, but hey, if I tell you they they're
going to shoot nine to thirty seven from three and
still win, you would take it. Rockets get to win.
They are number four in the Western Conference right now,

(01:29:42):
six games behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and in a
virtual tie with the Los Angeles Lakers, who were in
the fifth spot. Yeah, the Rockets would have the tiebreaker
over the Lakers because they beat them. Now, the Lakers
and Rockets played two more times this year, both games
in Houston, and both games will have a lot of
Lakers fans or Doncha fans or Lebron fans or all three. Yeah,

(01:30:03):
combination of who brings in more more Golden State fans
or more Laker fans or Lebron fans. You know, especially
when Steph Curry was at it's all these kids. There's
like you'll see whenever Golden State comes into town, You'll
see a bunch of kids wearing Curry jerseys. Yeah, imagine
raising children that love individual players over teams couldn't be

(01:30:24):
me for shame, I tell you for shame. I know
all right. Elsewhere in the news, more NFL heads are rolling.
The Cowboys have fired their defensive coordinator, Matt eberflus four
defensive coordinators in four years. Is it the bad players
at general manager Jerry Jones' fielding, No, it's a defensive coordinator.

(01:30:44):
Let's fire another guy and bring in a new one. Nuts. Yeah,
very nuts. Also this one a little bit surprising. Washington Commanders,
who went to the NFC Championship Game one year ago
have parted ways with offensive coordinator Kingsbury. So when your
franchise quarterback misses eighty percent of the season, you fired

(01:31:05):
the offensive coordinator. Has he ever lived in Houston? He has? Yeah?
You page, Oh, you're saying, why are you trying to
get rid of our guy? They also fired defensive coordinator
Joe Witt Junior, so Dan Quinn staying. Both coordinators fired
in that's the precursor for your being fired next year. Colts,
by the way, keeping general manager keeping the head coach. Yes,

(01:31:27):
have you seen the video? I want you after the show?

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
Right?

Speaker 11 (01:31:29):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:31:30):
I tried, I couldn't find you said it was two
and a half minutes. Yeah, I couldn't find the full video.
I could only find like thirty seconds. Yep, so I
know I did not go click it. Okay, I'm sorry.
What else, Scott h that's you Newsy? You got a
big basketball game that night, Text Tech versus Houston over
at the Fertida Center. That's wonderful. Eight o'clock start time
here going on, So get a little napin before that's
gonna be a little CHILLIY nights to wear a jacket

(01:31:51):
and it's gonna be a little rough over there. So
we're a keler. The view expressed by him is not true.
I'm just trying to get the game. Bingo throwing shade
at u h I think is on the bingo card.
I'm sorry you have h fans. You guys are the greatest.
You guys are the greatest program to never win a
national championship ever? Did you not win basketball? To my

(01:32:11):
six things I wanted you to improve next year? The
greatest program in basketball history that has never won a championship.
Did you say, scravlaar. Yeah, he's rude, he's hateful, and
he's rude.

Speaker 4 (01:32:22):
Drum.

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
I want you to be safe what do you mean
most schools have sketched. I mean you tell me the
universe texta nine o'clock, a nineties catch on campus. No,
it's not one about one about one block over, maybe
like eight blocks over. Once you get to know, the
Moody Center is in the heart of campus. Now, now,
where where the what they called the puck what was

(01:32:45):
it called? I can't even remember now I'm old. The drum, Yeah,
the drum Ermin Center, Irwin Center, and who was the
E I was gonna say Edwin Center and I knew
that was wrong. And the Irwin Center a little sketch
over there. Okay. I'm just saying, give me a give
me a major metropolitan university that isn't a little sketch somewhere. Okay, man, Yeah,
you're right. Everything's all a okay. On the U of
H campus, I'm safest could be. I find. No, I

(01:33:08):
had no problems I was going I went there for
eight years. I had no problem many a lot. That's
because you were a stick up man. You were sticking
people up. I think I've got one thousand dollars of
parking tickets so to take care of too. Oh yeah,
I got a parking ticket in Austin not fun. I
used to use my media credential to get just going
to parking lot. This is when Robertson Citium used to

(01:33:31):
build a park cars over there. So what's the situation now, Well,
there's no more Robertson Stadium, it's gone. I don't I've
not parked in the student parking is I'm not a
student there anymore. I have no intention of getting my
master's degree. Did you get your PhD? I don't think so,
play a hating degree or whatever. All right, that was
the news at noon. We got feelings coming up in
fifteen minutes. Now we we alage. I don't believe or

(01:33:54):
not today. Oh that's right, you do have the rotten
five to work on at Oh can't wait, you'll be gone, Jonathan.
Is there a chance he will skip the rotten five
when I'm in the car driving. Do you think I'm
gonna be yelling at the car? No way?

Speaker 10 (01:34:07):
You know what?

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
Won't you do the rotten five? You're taking the hour
off reloader. It takes me one minute. I love vacation
days on the table lash years back off seven one
three two one two five seven dotti seven one three, two, one,
two five seven Donatti The Rotten five at one twenty Jonathan,
what time is the Rotten five? Twenty? Yeah, remind him,

(01:34:29):
you know what, even if he doesn't do it, you
play the music and you just play those all those
sound bites just to make him feel bad. We've got
gut feelings. In about fifteen minutes here on Sports Talk
seven hunty twelve twenty, it is the Matt Thomas showd Ross.

(01:34:51):
When Gordian Ross argue about college sports, it it makes
me laugh. Oh my god, I'm not arguing debating. Is
that fair? If you have on her first? Living Stone
is a wide receiver at University of Texas. He was
a good friend of arch Mannings. Yes, and apparently Sark
told Parker, we don't think that much of you that

(01:35:12):
maybe you want to go somewhere else. Yes, living Stone's like,
wait a minute, I'm a Texas for life. Well, come
to find out seven minutes ago he's committing to Oklahoma.
So he's so Texas that he's going to the number
two rival behind am. I think maybe he's doing that
on purposely. Hey, he's feeling sparred by Texas. Where would
you go if you want to get revenge. If you

(01:35:32):
want to prove that they did something wrong, if they
if you want to prove that Texas made a mistake,
you go to Oklahoma. And that's great. On Parker Livingstone,
who is a good receiver. What I was debating, and really,
first of all, the first thing you have to remember
is you talked to Chris Gordy about college football. Is
he's a hater. I mean he's gonna hate on everybody. Yeah,
and he's a huge LSU homer. And that's okay. So
hater Gordy's coming in here like, oh Parker Livingstone, he's

(01:35:54):
gonna blow up it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Oh you.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
I'm like, okay, well, let's pull up the game logs
in Parker Livingstone on Stophile Forrest. And this also has
to do with some Longhorn brethren that I've been texting about,
Like I like Parker Livingstone. By the way, before you
go any further, living stun Sorry, it's living Stone is correct.
He's spelled Livingstone. Living Stone is the correct. He's not
a real human being. That's not a name that we have.
Football player Paula Livingston, No pack eleves what's wrong with that?

(01:36:19):
Poker pager Livingston please come down. You got your coronation
here at the country club. Parker Livingston is not a
football name. Why not. It's a guy that runs the
country club and is running a mass mutual fund. Okay, Well,
he's a six foot four wide receiver who just signed
to Oklahoma, so he disagrees with you going. And he
also got some cash from Oklahoma.

Speaker 4 (01:36:37):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
That's the other rumor too, is that Texas wouldn't up
his money and that's why he had to leave. And
then he's go. He's tweeting out all my hand was forced.
I have no choice. You have a choice. You can
file paperwork and that's okay. But Gordy and some others
of my Longhorn brethren, which is why I was uh
so passionate about this argument, people are acting like he

(01:36:59):
he he got fifteen hundred yards and fifteen touchdowns last year.
He had twenty nine catches. Twenty nine catches. He played
every game. Parker Livingston is a good receiver. He's not
some all world guy. He had four catches or more,
you know, Like the most he had in one game
was four catches four for twenty two in an overtime

(01:37:21):
against Mississippi State and four for one hundred and twenty eight.
That's very good against San Jose State. So yes, he
made some big catches, some crucial catches, and he's a
good player. But like the act like they're losing prime
Roy Williams, it's not no, no, Well you call into
the philosophy that I go with. You ain't one of
us here against us? Well, now he's an o. No,

(01:37:44):
I'm wishing him the best, kind of I want Matthew
Golden to break his way. Well, see, I'm not like that,
I'm I am, I'm sory. I wish Parker Livingston to
break his leg. Oh come, I mean you wanted to
drop a pass in Dallas in October? That'd be nice
passes actually, But I mean look, I mean I respect
his game. That he is longhorned and now he's going

(01:38:06):
to owe you because he's got something to prove. That's cool, obviously.
It seems like a young man with a head straight
on his shoulders and has something to prove. So good
for him in that respect. Yeah, I don't want him
doing well. I don't want oh you doing well, and
I don't want him doing well against Texas given him
wishing him the best when he ends up selling working

(01:38:27):
for State Farm. Now that I can believe, because like
a good neighbor he is. Parking Livingson is going to
be there. Yeah. I think we've given Parking Livingston about
five minutes more airtime than any of the show cause
you and Gordie and I were I loved it. It's
why he's going to blow up. Well, I mean, you
know what, maybe he will. He's a good receiver. We

(01:38:48):
got not keep an eye. And also he I mean
he's just a freshman, so he can get even better
red shirt freshman onto o you, bigger and better things
for him.

Speaker 4 (01:38:58):
We'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
Well, I think it's funny with Sam brought up is
you know these colleges can spend twenty and a half
million dollars. That numbers is gonna go a little bit,
but I think inflation is going to move it up.
That's a direct payment from school to player. And he
said that college football programs are tying up sixteen to
seventeen of that. Then if you have a decent men's
basketball program, you're probably tying up about two to three

(01:39:21):
of that. So if you're a volleyball player, a women's
basketball player, golf team, you're sharing probably Chick fil a
gift cards? Can you give them those seeingsaakay with it? Why
wouldn't they be mean same difference? Right, Yeah, it was interesting.
He was talking about how, you know, some some programs
can't even hardly make the budget to get to the max,
like he was talking about it because you can't offer

(01:39:42):
doesn't mean you have to. Right, There's a lot of
schools that are low level, like I, you even have
the funds too, right, you're asking You're asking these schools
to find an extra twenty million dollars. Mean, while you
get professors in the biology department like any research stuff.
You know, I would like to read a book on this,
but I feel like the second isublish'd. Yeah. Well, I
mean think about how in the last five years of

(01:40:04):
this show, how much we've how much we've changed around
the topic of conversation, especially when it comes to college football.
The landscape has changed significantly just in the last couple
of years, and it's continuing to evolve rapidly. Before we
get to the oh, you know what, gout feelings are
very important for us this week is we're going to
make our playoff predictions, and you guys made some last week.

(01:40:24):
We did. Jonathan, you write them down and told you
to write him down. I did write them down on
his documentary.

Speaker 3 (01:40:29):
On the document that's not as organized, is there?

Speaker 2 (01:40:33):
And I don't even know what I did. I hope
I was right. We'll find out it coming a minute.
If you have any sports predictions, we would like for
you right now to make a prediction about what the
texts are going to do. If you are a Texans
observer like myself or a fan like battle Read, what
it's time for you to put your gut feelings in
right this minute about what the Texans are going to

(01:40:54):
do this postseason. What I hinted at yesterday, I'm rolling
with it seven to three one two five seven ninety
seven one three two one two five seven. Hunty, you
need to call in. Remember Brad calls in, you will
get heard from him. Did Hell called it a couple
weeks ago? Yeah? Then he sent me an email he
wants to help me with renting a high rise in

(01:41:16):
an Upper Kurby area. Oh really, Yeah, he's uh, he's
like a realtor. I don't know what he does, but
he was wanting to help, which was nice. I appreciated it.
That's good. Be it's alternative of saying we don't want
to help you. What you buy a place? You got
h a fees there now to prepare for that. Yeah,
it's a little pricey, a little pricey. Yeah, I want
to live Upper Kirby. These what's wrong with these? These
Galleria high rises are nice? And you're you're you're adjacent

(01:41:38):
to six ten fifty nine e ten. It's a good looking.
Do they have uh butler some dormans and stuff like that?

Speaker 4 (01:41:45):
You are?

Speaker 2 (01:41:45):
Is it dormant or requirement for uh? Preferred, especially when
I'm traveling that we like to be served by everyone.
Everyone's below you. Thanks Tom for this, by the way. Yeah,
speaking of all right, gut feelings, how will the text
is doing the playoffs? Let's hear from you right now?
Seven one three? You know what, I'm sorry, that was rude.
It was rude up Thomas, Yo.

Speaker 5 (01:42:07):
They got a gut deealing.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09):
This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas Show.
All right, before we get to how we did last week,
actually we'll do last week first. Then I got to
tell you that USA Today went to AI to tell
you who the playoff owners are going to be okay,
oh this year, yeah, this year. So they give us
some of their own gut feelings. But first, Jonathan, how
did you and I do last week? I have the

(01:42:32):
you do? Please? Now this is all under the Matt column. Jonathan,
is this two? Okay? You know I don't have mine,
but Jonathan Stift through this? Well, I know mine at least.
But did Matt make like six predictions? Yes, SFA on
the road Northwestern State? What does that mean?

Speaker 10 (01:42:48):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:42:49):
I had them beating Northwestern State in basketball? Go ahead,
I'll look that up. But you figured out I told
you was organized. I need help. Yeah, yeah, we got
to help you. Help you out here. Okay. The left
column is a date, y'all? Did this on New Year's
Day or New Year's Eve? The thirtieth? Yeah, and the thirtieth?
I'm sorry, Okay, go ahead. You know what SFA last Wednesday?

(01:43:11):
Seventy four? Northwestern State sixty four. That's a gut feeling hit.
Thank you, You're welcome, good job. We're all proud of you.
Thank you. You had looks like you had the Texans
playing Baltimore in the playoffs. Matt, oops, you had the
long horns. It looks like beating Michigan. That is correct.
Congratulations on all that one. Thank you welcome Horns. I
know you're horn fan. Number one. You had Ohio State

(01:43:34):
covering nine and a half against Miami. Sorry, how did
that go?

Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
I actually you know what, I had all of the
favorites winning. I don't is the Indiana one. Yes, Miami won.
Oregon was not a favorite and they won Georgia Lass
you had an over Yeah, I think I went to
and two. That's unfol it's fine. And all I said
was Miami beats oh State. You called that?

Speaker 4 (01:44:01):
I called that.

Speaker 2 (01:44:02):
How did you Miami Overhigh State? Are you serious? Everything? Wow?

Speaker 3 (01:44:07):
That He was like, you know what, I'm gonna go
to Miami Ohio Staten, that's gonna be just crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:44:11):
They had he only didn't want them. You It says
Pittsburgh over the Ravens. You had as well? Oh oh too. Honestly,
Jonathan is the upset king. Hold on, I'm looking the
document right now. It was edited twelve minutes ago. I
think you're making You're putting stuff in there the very
last second. God not, I'm editing. I mean I'm doing

(01:44:32):
some editing right now, just trying to figure this all out. Yeah,
this is all in one. Yeah, you had Ohio State
losing to Miami. Let me just write this down. I'm
taking you know what, I'm taking Jonathan as work.

Speaker 10 (01:44:40):
Matt.

Speaker 2 (01:44:40):
It's up to you to call him out. You were
here for the no no, no, no, you were scrolling ig
while he was talking. I'm gonna say yes. I may
have been returning some d MS or something. Yeah, getting blocked.
You had the rockets too, and zero didn't happen. Uh
Who they lose to Dallas? Oh that's right, and let's

(01:45:02):
see yeah Oregon. Okay, there you go. That's a lot
of good feelings. Yeah I was. I was feeling quite ambitious.
How your gut was full? Yeah, gotta emper this gup
for this four and a half hour fly. I'm about
to go on. Excuse me, you know the rules about that.
I don't want to hear about you and guts. All right,
that's fine, all right. So do you know what Microsoft
Copilot AI is? No, that is the Microsoft AI predictor. Okay,

(01:45:28):
And they simply USA today said, hey, let us know
how these playoffs are gonna go. Uh huh. So here's
what AI on Microsoft had to say, Patriots beat the
Chargers twenty three to twenty one. Okay, sorry about that,
Charger fan. Bills win at Jacksonville twenty six twenty three.

(01:45:50):
I could see that. Texans beat the Steelers twenty to sixteen.
On the NFC side, Bears at home beat the Packers
twenty four to twenty. Eagles win at home over the
Niners twenty three to twenty. Rams go to beat the
Panthers in Carolina twenty seven to seventeen. So ten point spread,

(01:46:14):
get off the fence. AI, all right, So AI said,
all right, we're now going to put some new numbers,
some new metrics in. Let's go to the Division round.
Buffalo would then travel to Denver, where the Bills would
beat the Broncos twenty four to twenty one. The Texans
would make their second ever playoff appearance in Foxborough. Well,

(01:46:39):
they will lose twenty three to twenty to the New
England Patriots. On the NFC side, the Eagles will play
the Chicago Bears. The Eagles will beat the Bears in
Chicago twenty six to twenty three. Okay. The Seahawks will
host the Rams in Seattle. Seahawks beat the Rams twenty

(01:47:04):
seven to twenty, which now sets up the AFC Championship
in Foxborough. The Bills win the AFC East twenty seven
to twenty three over the Patriots. The NFC Championship which
will be which will be in Seattle. The Eagles beat
the Seahawks twenty four to twenty, which sets up Super

(01:47:27):
Bowl sixty in San Francisco. The Seahawks beat the Bills
twenty seven twenty three. Wow, that's what Microsoft cole Pilot
says in an AI account. Agree or disagree the Seahawks
beating the who Bills Bills twenty seven to twenty three.

(01:47:48):
All these games are close? Oh would you like my
gut feeling right now?

Speaker 4 (01:47:50):
All right?

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
So were ready? We beat y'all? Better write these down
and don't lose them on any doc that you're typing
in there. Okay, here we go. Let's go to all
the games, and again, if youve got any gut feelings
any of the sporting events, whether it be the NFL, baseball,
uh NBA, colline hoops seven one three two one two
five seven eighty seven one three two one two five seven,

(01:48:11):
And we'll start with Rams and Panthers Rams ten point
favorite boys. I will say the Rams cover. The Panthers
won by at least ten, So, okay, I got it,
like twenty seven to sixteen? Sure went out? Okay you guys, yes,
Rams uh, Panthers cover, Rams win, Panthers win. Okay, what

(01:48:34):
already won before? He's Troy.

Speaker 4 (01:48:39):
Again.

Speaker 2 (01:48:41):
Already the upset came, but he calls a lot of
upsets wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:48:45):
This is the truth. They've already beat the Rams before.
Panthers know how again, Okay, they got it. Wow, that's
a massive one.

Speaker 2 (01:48:52):
Honestly, I'm gonna take the Packers to beat the Bears
in Chicago. Go against AI. Okay, super close game, Packers
given the point and a half, still beat the Bears
in Chicago. Okay, okay, I'm taking I'm taking the Chicago

(01:49:12):
Bears on the money line home in Chicago. A short dog.
I like him to win out right, Okay, Bears money line,
let's go, JOHNA. So's a lot of typing.

Speaker 3 (01:49:28):
I hate I'm gonna go Bears too, sick king, you
gotta go with the upsets.

Speaker 2 (01:49:35):
I feel confident, all right. Next game, I think the
Bills win in Jacksonville. I'm still not Trevor Lawrence skty.
I don't care what the fifty for me. Man, what's
the line on that one and a half by Buffalo? Oh,
that is such a tough toss up to me. Twenty
seven to twenty five. Buffalo covers the point and a half.

(01:49:57):
Two points have been hot the build as supert. But
the Bills are so beatable. Yeah, there's no run defensive
speak out, especially between the tackles. Etn can do that. Oh,
it feels like a fifty to fifty game. I will
go with I think you're right, Bills. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:50:14):
Since I have a high school high school colleague that's
on the team, Parker Watshston, I'm going with the Jags.

Speaker 2 (01:50:21):
Okay, Jaguars upset. These are three upsets for mister upset.
By the way, if I call you mister Pezo Bismo, Umm,
I think the Niners win in Philadelphia. Oh, I like that.
I'm with you. I'm going with the Niners against my
early prediction at the beginning of the year. But I'm
gonna go with Uh. It's okay, you can hedge. I'm

(01:50:42):
gonna go four to nine Ers. Seventeen weeks of information
getting the points. Eagles just seem so beat and I
was gonna say it straight up when I'll take the Eagles.
I'll take the excuse me, the Niners on the money line.
I will take them to fly out.

Speaker 4 (01:50:54):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (01:50:55):
Eagles and off. You know what we should parlay this?
Can you get to light your fun?

Speaker 11 (01:51:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:51:00):
I can get to Lake Charles link link Do you
want some vizine for those eyes too? I'm all right,
all right, Jonathan, I'm gonna stick with the Tamps. I'm
going with Eagles. Okay, yeah, I'm going Uh, okay, you're
going Eagles. That's the last upset. None upset. I try
to convince you guys during the tell the truth, but

(01:51:20):
I lied. I think the Patriots roll, the Chargers roll roll.
I will take Norman giving. Yeah, get out of here,
Chargers fan. I got the Patriots by at least a touchdown.

Speaker 3 (01:51:32):
I'm with you, I'm with you. I'm going with you, guys.
I mean, I'm charge of guy. I'm being realistic. I
don't think we got I don't think we'd be the Patriots.

Speaker 2 (01:51:38):
Here and Texans minus three not an issue. They'll beat
the Steelers by a touchdown. I'm sorry, who did Jonathan?
You got the Patriots too?

Speaker 4 (01:51:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:51:49):
Okay, you what do you got Manny Patriots, the Niners
winning at Texicos Steelers Texans giving up the three. I
like the Texans by a touchdown. Texans by double digits.
Oh did you swear your stutter? I ain't stuttering. Texans
by double digits, old man. Aaron Rodgers is gonna be

(01:52:14):
folded up into a wooden box. I got another one
for you.

Speaker 1 (01:52:17):
Let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:52:18):
You're ready for this.

Speaker 1 (01:52:18):
Gut Willy.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
Is gonna fold him in half. I am a Texans observer.
Here's what I'm going to observe. Aaron Rodgers does not
take every snap for the picture. Wow that it could
be right. You could be right. Write it down, gut feeling.
And Aaron Rodgers, Hey, wildcat doesn't count, by the way,

(01:52:41):
you trying to get some Kenneth Gainwell. Wildcat non wildcat
for some reason. He gets not either knocked out or
has a missile play for some reason. If the helmet
comes off, it's a misplay. You're funny. Okay, yeah, okay,
as long as not a wildcat. Aaron Rodgers does not
take every snap in the Yah Will Anders is gonna
hit him low, but legally deal Hend's gonna hit him high.

(01:53:02):
He's gonna get folded in half the same time, Taxans
by double digits.

Speaker 3 (01:53:05):
Okay, let's go. You heard it here first, Jonathan, I'm
just gonna say Texans. Uh, don't say Texans over. I
don't have the the three they win, they just win.
I don't think they e wound cover.

Speaker 2 (01:53:18):
All right, hold on, I'm writing down this, Aaron Rodgers,
not play every snap you're going with the Texans. I
got the Texas by double digits. What's up, baby? All
right now, we'll save everybody else with the divisionals when
we get there. Okay, Gut tells me Texans would go
to New England and would lose. That's as far as

(01:53:40):
we're going for the playoffs for me. Texans go to
New England and lose. Okay, Smiley, what you got say
it now? Say it proud for that first time. Oh,
here we go. He's setting it up in Texans. There's
no chance he's not going to direction. Now he's setting up.
I've never made it to an a FC championship game
one single time in two thousand and two.

Speaker 4 (01:54:01):
Until this year.

Speaker 2 (01:54:03):
The Texans are gonna beat the Steelers on the road.
They're gonna beat those fraud Patriots as well. And they're
going to the AFC Championship game.

Speaker 3 (01:54:11):
What's up?

Speaker 2 (01:54:12):
You heard it here? First, I ain't scared. The defense
is gonna be destroying people. The offense is gonna do
just enough. What do you mark?

Speaker 1 (01:54:22):
So you know?

Speaker 2 (01:54:22):
Three point five yards to carry is fine? Dalton Schultz
eight catches for thirty six yards, it's fine, And they're
gonna score enough. But I believe in this defense. I
believe in this team. They're making the AFC Championship Game.
They need the first mental health sure they're making it. Okay, John, again,
I'm not stuttering, johnthan would you like to back that

(01:54:43):
up or go to my point? We'll go to Matt's
point here. You could also wait a week. They could
be out this week, all right, I'm feeling so two
of the three of us say out after the division round.
After that we'll see who they play. I got you
all right? If you got any gut feelings, let us
know right now. Seven one three two one two five

(01:55:05):
seven ninety seven one three two one two Hello No,
seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven nine zero. Let's
go gut fillings yours next here on seven ninety All right,

(01:55:28):
your chance now to get in with your gut feelings.
It's seven one three two one two five seven ninety
seven one three two one two five seven nine zero.
Let's talk two. My computer is not up to speed,
so we'll start with line number four. Uh, ross and
go to Brandon. Brandon, what's in your gut this week?

Speaker 11 (01:55:49):
More afternoon, guys?

Speaker 10 (01:55:50):
Uh?

Speaker 11 (01:55:51):
First off, the Texas game. It's not going to be pretty,
but I'll see the Texans beating the Steelers ten to eight,
ten to eight, Wild Card game h ten to eight.
Like I said, it's not going to be pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:56:02):
That would be the ugliest playoff win maybe in the
history of the National Football League.

Speaker 11 (01:56:07):
It doesn't have to be pretty, Matt, I understand.

Speaker 2 (01:56:09):
It's a Win's a win, man. You could get like
a lot of odds on that one. That would be
a score of gom me for a playoff game, right, Yeah,
probably would be. I say, you run to the book.
You probably get at least thirty to one on that. Brandon.

Speaker 11 (01:56:22):
There you go for your virtual trip over to Lake Charles.

Speaker 2 (01:56:24):
Oh oh yes, right, virtual? Thank you, Brandon. That's all
I had to say. Thank you. That takes something special
to call the show, and we appreciate Brandon doing that.
To eight, I like that the Texans are going to
score four and the seventh to win the game twenty
four to thirteen. Uh, twenty one to ten. I got

(01:56:52):
one of them for a gut Texan scory defensive touchdown.
Does that happen when Aaron Rodgers gets hurt and folded
it half as you pretty? I didn't say fold and
a half, I said miss a snap. I said, I'm
not looking for him to be decapitated. Let's uh talk
to Patrick on seven out of twelve fifty three, Patrick
was in your gut this week.

Speaker 14 (01:57:13):
I mean, I agree with bros. I think this year
is the year that they can make it to the
Texans and plays as an outsider.

Speaker 2 (01:57:24):
Looking in at Texan.

Speaker 14 (01:57:27):
Yeah, good for the season, but no Mahomes, no Borough.
I mean, I think it's gonna be a Bills versus
Texans anty championship games.

Speaker 2 (01:57:35):
You're in Houston, being Houston. That would be.

Speaker 14 (01:57:38):
Sexy that Bills win and go to the super Bowl place.

Speaker 2 (01:57:42):
Hey, hey, you know what I'm passing up on this guy?
On Patrick? I know why you said that, because usually
you can't beat somebody three times in a row. But yeah,
well and so one was last year didn't count. I'm
just saying hard. Bobby Slowan was on that one. Wins
and threes are hard. Threes are not so hard. We

(01:58:02):
get celebrity desks all the time. That's my cross comparison.
You're like, Okay, I don't think you liked it. I'm sure,
thank you. Patrick. He's got Buffalo winning in Houston. Oh,
first ever heard, first ever AFC Championship game ever hosted
in Houston. I'm talking about orders never played at championship,
never not in Houston a f L. Yes, but not
all right, let's go to Always Texas. You anybody that's

(01:58:25):
from Orange Ross, No, I don't either. Cannone'th on seveny
what's your.

Speaker 4 (01:58:29):
Gut now, I'm not smering.

Speaker 11 (01:58:32):
That was that when I made my first call here.

Speaker 10 (01:58:34):
But anyway, I got a good chilling.

Speaker 2 (01:58:37):
I'm going to eat every last.

Speaker 13 (01:58:38):
Word I said it by day shroud and uh and
that this guy's likely.

Speaker 4 (01:58:44):
Take us all the way.

Speaker 11 (01:58:45):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:58:46):
Wow, Yeah, I think I'm gonna eat every LASB word
I said. If I having a glass Joe, oh.

Speaker 11 (01:58:55):
Yeah yeah, that's my prediction. Man.

Speaker 4 (01:58:58):
I'll thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:59:00):
Kennethy either way, whether the Texans go deep or they
lose in the first round, you get a call and
tell us, we gotta check how that jaw is doing.
That's not he isn't a glass straw. He got not
straw jaw. He got hit hard. Turf is hard in
the NFL quarterback spot's tough. Guys gonna get hurt. There
was a game a couple of weeks ago where he
got his head slammed into the turf and then he

(01:59:20):
just got up and everybody's like, oh, nothing is he here?
He said, my name is war Moon. I'm gonna be
very happy to lead this team to victory. Yes, all right,
let's go to a James to wrap up a gut feelings.
James with your gut this week.

Speaker 11 (01:59:33):
I'm all in on Indiana and making memories with Miami.

Speaker 2 (01:59:37):
I think i'm kinda I mean, how could you not
be all in on Indiana after that? Because I think
Kirky needs an ass. Okay, he can be oh a
successful college football coaches. Now, I know it's fraud, I know,
I know. I'm just I'm not rooting for him. I
just think he's a borish a hole. Really yeah, Okay,

(02:00:00):
Well James is all in. Thank you. I think they're
gonna win it all too. They're the favorites. By the way.
If if they win it all, that's three straight national
championships out the big ten. SEC, get them stay with
me on this tomorrow eleven thirty. If it happens, SEC,

(02:00:22):
I got news for you. You can s t b
at them, but sh s y, here we go. Cheez.
I don't want to want to say be cause I
don't want to steal the bid for tomorrow. Don't hurt yourself, Bobby.
I'll be on eight o'clock Pacific time tomorrow morning. That's early.
You're fine, that's true, even early. Oh now, I got

(02:00:44):
a four and a half hour flood ahead of me. Oh.
We'll take you on a private jet that is correct,
where you can you can stretch out. You have your
own rope correct, that is accurate. And the Wi Fi
is in credits at starlink. Now, oh my god, is
it good? Exactly? Stunna, you're the last gut feeling? Do
you got.

Speaker 10 (02:01:02):
What's up?

Speaker 4 (02:01:02):
Matt?

Speaker 10 (02:01:03):
What's up?

Speaker 11 (02:01:04):
Ross? Hey?

Speaker 3 (02:01:04):
Man?

Speaker 10 (02:01:05):
My good feeling is I C. J. Stroud is not
gonna finish that game, And and and and Davids mill
is gonna come in and and finish the rest of
the season.

Speaker 2 (02:01:18):
Man, I think c J.

Speaker 10 (02:01:21):
Stroud is still gonna take a hit from a I'm
gonna play that. He's gonna try to make and and it.
You know, but uh, I think stro gonna finish the
season and he'll be a.

Speaker 11 (02:01:35):
Man.

Speaker 10 (02:01:35):
What's the guy named that took the Egles to the
Super Bowl?

Speaker 2 (02:01:41):
Foles Nick Foles?

Speaker 10 (02:01:45):
And I think c J. Strale is gonna at least
get him to the title game, the LLC Title Game.

Speaker 2 (02:01:52):
I'm with you, NFC Championship, let's go. They could play
the Broncos in the next round. I would be if
the Bills and Chargers lost. By the way, I was
looking at my gut feelings from two weeks ago. I
said that the Texans would make the playoffs and not
be the seventh seed, be higher than the seven. Good
for you, thank you. We don't have to talk about

(02:02:13):
anything else I said that week. I've already forgotten. That's good.
It was. It was pretty bad. By the way. If
you noticed Jonathan in the last twelve seconds before I
get out of here, he's not played the Hibachi sound
effect and quite some time. Why is that? Why is that? Ross?
I'm just curious things are trending in your direction.

Speaker 3 (02:02:27):
Yeah, he's not thee the best confidences. All things are
trending in your direction. I gotta be honest. I'm I
am still like this should be your most worrisome.

Speaker 2 (02:02:35):
I went from like ninety nine point five percent confident
until now I'm like seventy three point eight. I went
from zero point one to twenty eight. So it's like
we're equally in verse in verse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but
I'm still nervous. Don't don't kid yourself. I'm still I
still have the money that's prepared.

Speaker 4 (02:02:53):
For that.

Speaker 2 (02:02:55):
Terrible He's gonna get an opt out to deal with
the Dodgers, God and John. And if you think I've
ever annihilated a partner of mine before, I already told Jonathan.
I already told Ross. I said I will I will be.
I will come unglued on this show when I win
this bet. And you know what, I'll deserve it because
he has been I will deserve it. Talking with the

(02:03:19):
sizzle adding scallops. It is your worst. Hey, you know what,
this is a must win bet. That's not true? Is
the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Yes, it is the

(02:03:45):
Matt Thomas Show with Ross for the final hour Without
Matt Thomas, he is traveling with your Houston Rockets, who
got to win over the Phoenix Suns last night. More
on that in just a moment, so he'll be out.
We'll bring you the Rotten Five coming up in the
next segment. Then later on we'll bring you the conversation.
Really good stuff. I want you to tune in coming

(02:04:05):
up at one thirty. Sam con junior covering college football
for the Athletic. I mean, there is just so much
to unpack. It felt like we could have had him
on for an hour. We schedule a ten minute interview.
We had him on for like fifteen minutes. I want
to play. We'll see if we have much. We have
to trim it down blas based on breaks and all
that type of stuff. But make sure you stay tuned
coming up at one thirty and you can find the

(02:04:26):
full conversation sports Talk sven ninety dot com. Sam sam Cohn, junior,
senior writer for the Athletic covering I mean, is this
this is not a writer job that existed even five
years ago. This is what his title is. College football
roster management and the transfer portal like that is what

(02:04:47):
his job is. There is so much to figure out
with what's going on with all this movement in college
football that the athletic has dedicated an entire writer's job
to covering it. And I'm sure he's got stuff to
do round so good insight from stam con Junior will
bring that with you for you coming up at one thirty.
Phone lines are open at seven one three two one

(02:05:08):
two five seven ninety seven one three, two, one two
five seven ninety I predicted in the last segment and
I'm gonna stick with it now. It's just a gut
feeling on a Tuesday, but I also did put it
on my Twitter account at sports RV. I just I
just have this feeling that the Texans are going to
make the AFC Championship Game for the first time, and

(02:05:29):
I know the Vegas line is three and a half.
I just feel pretty confident going into this game. I'm
not gonna be acting like I broke down a bunch
of Pittsburgh Steelers tape and all that, but I've seen
enough of them. I just don't think when you're talking
about Aaron Rodgers as the QB one they who is
the RB one. I guess Jalen Warren is kind of
a third down backup to me. Same thing for Kenneth Gainwell.

(02:05:52):
Quite frankly, both of those guys don't strike fear into
me as far as RB one's DK metcalf Is could.
And I'm worried about him coming back, but he's not
like he's gonna go off for two hundred yards or
anything like that. I don't think it's gonna be a
low scoring game. I think the Texans can do enough
scoring wise. I think they will do just enough to

(02:06:13):
win this game. And I'm gonna say just enough, like
I don't think it's gonna be thirty five to ten
or something like that. I said, I think twenty four
to thirteen something like that. That's what it feels like.
I don't think the Steelers are gonna be able to
score hardly at all against a fully healthy Texans defense.
So we'll see come Monday, and then after that, depending

(02:06:33):
on the way things break right, if a seed behind
them because they read seed in the NFL playoffs, wins,
then they will not be going on the road to Denver.
It'll be against the next highest whether it be whether
it be the Patriots or the Jaguars, Jaguars or whomever.
So I feel like all three of the teams that
they could end up playing on the road against will

(02:06:55):
be winnable games for the Texans, whether it be the Broncos,
who have a great defense but same thing, not the
same thing, but similar in that I don't feel like
the Denver Broncos offense strikes fear into my heart. Drake
May and the Patriots due to an extent, for sure,
especially when you add the fact that there is a

(02:07:15):
running element to Drake May's game. He's been playing very well.
I think it's overblown the criticism of them not playing
a lot of teams. Yes, they've played a lot of
bad teams, but they've played some good defenses, including the
Browns and some others who are not good teams but
who have good defenses, and Drake May has still played
very well. That's what a lot of people are getting
into the MVP argument. Whether you're gonna go with Drake

(02:07:37):
May and I think it's Matt Stafford. Are the two
primary candidates. A five seed who won twelve games and
a two seed they won fourteen games, and we know
team success matters when it comes to the NFL MVP.
That's just how it is. So as far as the Patriots,
I am kind of scared of them, I don't. Jaguars
are kind of a question mark to me is not

(02:07:59):
necessarily Q They won eight games in a row, and
they beat some good teams on the win streak, but
on the Winds streak, they have two wins over the Titans,
two wins over the Colts without their starting quarterbacks. So
I'm not saying that the Jaguars wouldn't be favored in
that game, but I would say the Texan shouldn't come
into that game quaking in their boots. So no matter
who they end up in if they get past the Steelers,

(02:08:21):
which is not a given, but in my mind, I
think they're gonna do it, and I think they're gonna
do it by double digits. I think the pathway to
the AFC Championship Game for the first time in their
history is there, despite the fact that they'll have to
go on the road in all likelihood, no, not in
all likelihood, they will have to go on the road
twice to do it. What do you think? Seven to one, three, two, one, two, five, seven,

(02:08:44):
ninety is the phone number if you want to get in.
Seven to one to three, two one two five seven
ninety mentioned the Rockets got to win last night against
the Phoenix Suns. We were talking about this earlier in
the first hour of the show with Matt like, where
are you guys at as far as your investment in
the Houston Rockets. I know we have not really been
a basketball town. Even when the James Harden era was

(02:09:05):
happening with Chris Paul, there was a lot of people
that didn't like James Harden's style of play. Dribble, rib ribble, dribble, dribble, dribble,
step back three.

Speaker 4 (02:09:12):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (02:09:13):
It wasn't exactly pleasing to the eye. But this team,
I feel like, is more embraceable, if that makes sense.
This is a team that plays hard nos defense. They
got a coach that doesn't take any bleep from anybody,
whether it be officials, his own players, opposing players, and
he's just fun to watch and they play hard. They

(02:09:34):
have Kevin Durant, one of the greatest basketball players of
all time, and Alprin shin Gun when he's on the
floor and healthy hasn't played in the last couple of
games with his hurt ankle, He's good a mean. Thompson
to me is one of the more fun players to watch.
And I don't know how he's getting some national recognition
as a first team All Defense guy, but I mean

(02:09:54):
just the way that he plays, how fast he is,
how crafty he's getting, how much he's improved offensively as well.

Speaker 4 (02:10:00):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:10:00):
Men, Thompson is extremely fun to watch and it's it's
just entertaining. I would say with the Rockets, despite all
the miss threes last night, they still got the game
winner from Kevin Durant against his old team. They got
the one hundred and ninety seven win last night here
on Sports Talk seven nineties, So that was fun to watch.
Kevin Durant with the game winner. He had twenty six points,

(02:10:22):
two of twelve from three point. Land did not make
his second three until the very end. He talked about
a lot of them feeling pretty good, and he had
an interesting just an interesting thought on the MVP chance
that he was receiving. He was interviewed by Vanessa richardson
Now if you're not familiar, after the game, it's on
Space City Home Network, and then they also pipe in

(02:10:43):
the audio into the Toyota Center. So it's it's a nice,
good immersive experience to get it to the TV broadcast,
also get it piped into the arena. Here's Kevin Durant
with Vanessa Richardson after that hundred and ninety seven win
last night. But richards right, Yeah, Kevin, you.

Speaker 4 (02:11:03):
Your second three of the game.

Speaker 2 (02:11:07):
Let the crowd.

Speaker 5 (02:11:11):
Kevin your second three pointer of the game.

Speaker 2 (02:11:13):
And it couldn't have been better timing.

Speaker 4 (02:11:15):
What did you see on that shot?

Speaker 7 (02:11:16):
All my three pointers felt good leaving my hand. Someone
was back rim too strong, and I'm like, I'm a
hit one at some point. I kept telling the team
that I'm an hit of three at some point, and
you know, go the grace of God, it was the
last one.

Speaker 6 (02:11:29):
How would you describe the feeling as that shot left
your hands? You looked like you knew you had it
the whole time.

Speaker 4 (02:11:34):
Yeah, I mean I got to my spot.

Speaker 7 (02:11:35):
I feel like on that right wing, that pull up
is my shot, and I just tried to, you know,
leave my follow through up there and follow my focus
on my fundamentals, and they went through.

Speaker 4 (02:11:44):
We needed it.

Speaker 6 (02:11:45):
It was a game of runs the entire time. How
were you all able to put together that final run
to seal the deal.

Speaker 4 (02:11:50):
I mean it was.

Speaker 7 (02:11:51):
It was a physical game. Both teams played extremely hard
on defense on the defensive side of the ball. I
just think we made more shots to end the game.
To be honest, I think it was a pretty even game,
but I made more shots out there.

Speaker 6 (02:12:01):
I'm In's playmaking and ball handling in that fourth quarter
was really elite.

Speaker 2 (02:12:05):
What did you like about that?

Speaker 7 (02:12:06):
Yeah, I mean just being able to control the offense.
That three point play set us up for this game winner.
And without that three point play him getting getting down
to the rim and finishing.

Speaker 2 (02:12:14):
The free throws, wh wouldn't be in this position. So
toy was big for us.

Speaker 6 (02:12:17):
Would you like to hear everybody at Toyota Center channing MVP.

Speaker 1 (02:12:22):
You are?

Speaker 2 (02:12:27):
I mean, Ben Boom in here so many years.

Speaker 7 (02:12:31):
Being an opposing player and being Boom. You know it's Bill.
It's good to come out here and get some love.
I love Houston, I love Texas. I'm just greatful and
representing the Rockets.

Speaker 4 (02:12:38):
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (02:12:39):
Having that goes back to that old Seinfeld bit we
root for laundry. I know I'm going to ask if
you not ever heard that, but I know you've never
heard that gilt and I know you haven't. Have you
ever even watched Seinfeld at all? No, Actually, Matt asked me,
it's a couple of I would say it doesn't count.
Especially the early seasons don't hold up really over time
as much as I thought. The later seasons are a

(02:12:59):
little bit better. But there's a bit that he does now.
The show started off. The idea of the show was
how does he get to his his ideas for comedy,
So it was the real life experiences of a comedian
and how he comes up with the comedy. So they
play the bit at the beginning of the show and
then that would be the foreshadowing of what would happened.
And one of the bits was he's talking about how
we root for laundry like we we boo like it's

(02:13:21):
the same human being. Kevin Durant is wearing a purple
sun shirt and we hate him. He's the worst boo Louis.
You know you're you're ruining our lives and I'll never
root for you. And then he changes shirts. He puts
on a red rocket shirt or last night we're in
the black alternates. All of a sudden, hey, Kevin Durant,

(02:13:42):
welcome you with open arms. Man, You're the best. And
so the bit is we root for laundry. We're rooting
for the laundry. We're rooting for the clothing that the
guy is wearing, not the human beings, which is true.
It's well, you know, all comedy, though the funniest comedy
I suppose is finding the truths. So yeah, it's funny
how we root for laundry. Kevin Durant, Now, I've always

(02:14:03):
root it for Kevin Durant, but not when he was
playing against the Rockets. I mean I would be booing
or upset or really just shaking my head at all
the crazy shots he's been what he is making. But
just a funny comment for him, like, hey, I've been
booting this arena and all of a sudden, I wear
this rocket shirt. Funny how that works. I'm the same guy,
same human being who have always been. Now I'm wearing
some Rockets red or some rockets black, alternate black, and

(02:14:24):
everybody loves me. So it was good for him and
also satisfying. He mentioned after the game that he was
able to get the victory over the Phoenix Suns and
it gave him a little bit of extra oomph because
there is a team that forced him out, which he
talked about never being forced out ever. So Kevin Durant
with the game winner last night, how would feel about
them Rockets twenty two and eleven? As I said, fun

(02:14:46):
to watch? I know I am biased as a lifelong
Rockets fan. Of course I do a lot of the
pre and post game shows. So you guys have been
showing some love and calling those a little bit more.
I do see interest there, see interest in the arena.
Just want to know from you are you gaining more
and more interest in the Houston Rockets. Seven one three
two one two five seven ninety is the phone number
if you want to get in seven one three two

(02:15:07):
one two five seven ninety. You can also send tweets
at sports RV. You can follow me on Instagram at
sports RV as well. Quick break here when we come back,
we'll take your calls and we'll also get you the
rotten five. I understand don't want Matt hitting his steering
wheel and traffic more than he normally does, so we'll
get to the rotten five of his goal along and
as I mentioned, good conversation with Sam Conn Junior coming

(02:15:29):
up at one point thirty here on Sports Talk seven
ninety the Matt Tommy Show with Ross. All Right, actually,
that's my bad. We are going to get to the
Rotten five. Don't get angry, Matthew. But a couple of
people have called in, so we're gonna get them real quick.
I was asking for a little rockets and some Texans conversation,
so we did get that. So let's go ahead and
go to the phone lines real quick. We got Sam
con of the Athletic coming up in the next segment,

(02:15:50):
and we'll have the Rotten Five coming for you in
just a second.

Speaker 11 (02:15:53):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:15:54):
You know, you got to build the drama on the
final Rotten five of the seasons. Let's get Jack in
here real quick with some rockets talk. What's up Jack?

Speaker 8 (02:16:02):
Well, I was at yesterday's game and the athletes were fantastic.

Speaker 4 (02:16:07):
It was a great game to attend.

Speaker 8 (02:16:11):
The rest of the Rocket staff did a lousy job
when the clock failed, the shot clock failed, the scoreboard failed.

Speaker 4 (02:16:22):
Where the second quarter, we had no idea what the
score was.

Speaker 8 (02:16:26):
They was just chanting the They were chanting the countdown
of the shot clock. Uh, you know, on every play,
which made sense, but they were trying to keep the
game movement. But if the announcer had at least summarized
what happened each time there was a break, it would
have would have been a whole nicer experience for those

(02:16:49):
of us that were trying to follow a game without
the usual UH.

Speaker 4 (02:16:55):
And I know the owner was there because he walked
right past my seat.

Speaker 2 (02:16:59):
Oh wow, nice seats, Jack, all right.

Speaker 4 (02:17:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know how much?

Speaker 2 (02:17:05):
I right, Well, you got your money's worth it that
game winner with Kevin Durant.

Speaker 8 (02:17:11):
Absolutely, it was the second quarter where we weren't getting
our money is worth. I would have liked to see,
uh an explanation at halftime and from the Rockets.

Speaker 4 (02:17:23):
I'm with you, Jack, thanks a lot, what better handling
of the situation. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:17:27):
I was in the arena as well as a fan.
I had some tickets, so I'm with you. We were
all wondering. I knew it was a clock issue, and
I was trying to tell people around me because everybody
was confused. There was no announcement if you didn't catch
your Rockets game last night. I have been and I
talked to to Matt actually at halftime of the game,
because you know he's been doing eighty two games a
year for seven plus years whatever it is with the Rockets,

(02:17:49):
and been following and working in PA and all that stuff,
been around the league for a long long time, and
never saw this. Bet I've seen times with the shot
clock goes down, or maybe the clock goes down for
a little bit, but it was everything the clock went down,
the shot clock wasn't working. They had to stop the game.
It felt like at least ten times in the first

(02:18:09):
half that it just none of it was working, and
everybody was left in the dark in the arena. Just
a quick announcement from the PA would have been nice,
just to say, hey, we were experiencing technical difficulties, please
bear with us, something like that. But I mean, most
people figured it out, and word was traveling throughout the
arenas there was some kind of big clock issue, and
of course we all figured it out when the clock

(02:18:29):
went completely off in the second quarter. But I have never, personally, never,
and Matt, who's been around the league a very long time,
has never seen it to that extent. That was bizarre.
That was very weird to see last night. But hey,
at least she got rewarded with a game winner from
Kevin Durant at the end. That was a nice not
even a consolation prize. It was what did you call it, John,

(02:18:52):
I'm searching for the word. It was a nice penance
or something like that, like, yeah, a little payback. Yeah,
that's the best basic win reward. I'm gonna come up
with a better word for that. But anyways, a nice
little reward for all having to bear all of that
clock stop. But you got a game winner from Kevin Durant,

(02:19:14):
So I'm glad you went to the game, had a
good time. I would encourage all of y'all to get
to the game. There's I mean, even at the top
of the rafters. The seats are pretty cool. You got
the big screens. It's fun. You get so much better
of a feel with how athletic and strong and fast
all these players on when you're able to get out
And oh, by the way, Rockets have been winning a lot.
They're twenty two and eleven. All right, let's ahead and
get to the run five here on the Matt Thomas

(02:19:37):
Show with Ross. All Right, the final run in five
of the season. A lot of bad teams in the NFL,
and you know, I don't think this one appeared on
the list all year. We're gonna go with number five,
the Arizona Cardinals. They finished the season on a nine
game losing streak. Of course, we know Kyler Murray went

(02:19:59):
down in the mid the season. They lost a lot
of games. They had running back issues, they had wide
receiver issues. Funny enough, they went on a nine game
losing streak. Before that, they were on a five game
losing streak. The one win in between that a win
over the Cowboys. So they lost fourteen of their last

(02:20:20):
fifteen games. Jonathan gall Jonathan Gannon out. Not you, Jonathan Allen.
Jonathan Gannon has been fired from the Arizona CARDINALI you
take that job a couple of million a year. Hey,
you're not gonna sneeze at that. But Arizona Cardinals terrible,
fifth worst team in the NFL. You suck.

Speaker 4 (02:20:39):
Gock asked, all right, how.

Speaker 2 (02:20:41):
Can this many bad teams be in? And we didn't?
I mean three and fourteen? They are terrible. All right,
Let's keep the Tennessee Titans on the list. They have
been there basically all year long. I mean, I do
have to give them some congratulations. I thought they were
going to end the year on the bottom five, but
they actually won a couple of games, laid over the
Browns and the Bad Chiefs, but getting absolutely dismantled by

(02:21:02):
the Jaguars. I mean Texans fans wondering, hey, did you
get one win in against the Jaguars? Help us out
get that AFC South Crown. No, they didn't do any
of that. Cam Ward played, but also Brandon Allen got
in the game and played the majority of it. So
Titans weren't even trying to win. They did it right,
They were tanking and they are terrible. Three and fourteen.

(02:21:22):
The Titans are bad, one of the worst teams in
the NFL. How about fourth worst to end the year?
I mean, we're keeping a book right now, we as, yes,
y'all are. Now, now it's time to go to New York,
the New York segment of the Rotten five. We will
go with the New York Football Giants as they finished
the season four and thirteen. Of course, they won a

(02:21:43):
couple of games at the end, but they didn't matter,
especially over the Raiders and the Cowboys who weren't trying,
so I'm not even really gonna count those. The New
York Giants are terrible. Jackson Dart. Maybe he's gonna turn
out to be something. But they were going up against
Joe Milton and the Dallas Cowboys who didn't want to
play anybody that had the actual talent. So I still

(02:22:03):
don't count that as a win. New York Giants fired
Brian Dable in the middle of the season. Apparently they're
gonna keep general manager Joe Shane.

Speaker 1 (02:22:11):
Why.

Speaker 2 (02:22:11):
I don't know, But the New York Giants are terrible.
They're the third worst team in the NFL. Sucky, sucky, sucky,
Yes they were, Matthew, all right, let's keep it in
New York. This hurts me as Nimitz graduate. Aaron Glenn,
by the way, hasn't been fired. Every coach fired so
far on this list. Jonathan Gallon, Brian Callahan, Brian Dable,
Aaron Glenn, to my knowledge, not fired yet. Could it happen.

Speaker 4 (02:22:32):
You never know.

Speaker 2 (02:22:33):
With Woody Johnson and the New York Football Jets, but
they are terrible. End of the game, end of the season,
I should say. On a five game losing streak. Did
you see the stats of the opposing quarterbacks of the Jets.
It was like fourteen and three a passer rating of
like one hund and fifteen. Oh and it was like
thirty here found it. Thirty six touchdowns, zero interceptions. If

(02:22:56):
you're the opposing quarterback of the Jets this year, these
are your stats e three thirty six hundred yards, thirty
six touchdowns, no picks. That is MVP all time stuff
going against the Jets all year. And Aaron Glenn was
supposed to be the defensive mastermind. They also, of course,
did trade away a lot of his players. Aaron Glenn
and the New York Jets terrible, second worst team in

(02:23:18):
the NFL. That fucks more than anything that I've ever
thought before. All Right, and last, but not least, old
man Pete Carroll wheeled out of Las Vegas. I don't
know why you thought this was a good Don't shake
your head at me, Johnas, I mean, come on, seventy
four years old, Pete Carroll should have never been hired
one year in fired, not deserving of the job, in

(02:23:41):
over his head, bad Las Vegas Raiders team. They get
the number one overall pick. Gino Smith, I actually liked
the signing. I was dead wrong on that Raiders absolute
worst team in the NFL. As they get the number
one overall pick.

Speaker 3 (02:23:56):
I've seen team suck before, but they were to suck
you a bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

Speaker 2 (02:24:00):
There you go, and you notice a theme in the
drops today in the rotten five, these teams suck. All right,
that's your Rod and five. We're gonna take quick break
here on the Matt Thomas Show with ross those you
on hold, we will get to you. I promise. We
will also hear from Sam con with some good conversation
on college football that is coming up next. You don't
want to miss it here on Sports Talk seven. Ay.

(02:24:22):
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Speaker 2 (02:26:53):
We run on dangers, dumps, and drive, not cold talk.

Speaker 4 (02:27:00):
Seven ninety guaranteed human.

Speaker 2 (02:27:08):
All right, Sam con Junior of the Athletic coming up
in just a second. It is a trimmed down conversation.
Like I said, you want to catch all of it
if you like college football, really knowledgeable, really good stuff
coming from him on the nil Era transfer portal, all
that stuff. We'll get to that in just a second.
But KESO has been waiting patiently, so let's get him
real quick. What's up Caso?

Speaker 4 (02:27:27):
Hey man?

Speaker 13 (02:27:27):
The massive field a gang star, what a what a
great song to come back from the break quickly. I
know the clock was an issue yesterday, so Johnson Sanford
had to do the clock correct the twenty four second clock.

Speaker 2 (02:27:41):
Yes, he was going ten and then five four three
two one. It was crazy.

Speaker 13 (02:27:47):
Well, I you know, after every win or every lou
like to hop on the subreddit see what people are talking.
And apparently on the on the Sun's page, they were
claiming that our Rockets PA announcer was doing the PA
doing the twenty four second clock for the Sun a
little bit.

Speaker 4 (02:28:05):
Faster than he was for the Rockets.

Speaker 13 (02:28:06):
Did Anyonet seem to catch that?

Speaker 2 (02:28:08):
I didn't notice.

Speaker 8 (02:28:09):
I was now.

Speaker 2 (02:28:09):
I will say this, when he first started doing it,
he only did it for a couple of Rockets possessions,
and I think he got the instructions to do it
for everyone he wasn't doing for twenty four I mean
they I think it s took him in a couple
of minutes to figure everything out, and then he started
doing the five four three two one for every possession,
which he wasn't doing at the beginning either. So I
think they were just kind of figure stuff out, and
it didn't seem like he was counting any faster to me.

Speaker 4 (02:28:30):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:28:31):
I mean, they could probably, you could probably pull out
the tape and go frame by frame on that bad
boy and figure it out if they really wanted to do.
But it didn't seem like that to me.

Speaker 13 (02:28:39):
All right, all right, and then my last point is,
you know, I think is a great coach. I think
Joe Mizzoula is a good coach. Boston folks think that
they got lucky with Emay leaving. You know, I disregard
any of that, but I do see one thing that
troubles me, and it's specifically this year, given the situation

(02:29:01):
with not really having or not having Fred VanVleet at
all so far, is that this team. I mean, it
was pretty ugly offense last year, but at least we
had Fred operating and making moves. It's so apparent that
the lineup that they dish out here with with I'm
in at the point guard, who's fabulous player, I just

(02:29:22):
don't know if he's ready, especially playoff basketball point guard.
It's you know, I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, man,
they just need to go get a point guard. I'm like, wait,
they have read and to a lesser extent, Aaron. It's
just I understand Aaron has been a third, third role
player for most of his career and Reid his second

(02:29:42):
year player. But when they have an actual point guard
on that court, you can see the ball moving a
little bit better and getting to their actions a little
bit quicker. What do you think why is email so
reluctant to especially in this the middle of the season
coming up here? Just get read those those early men
with a Sacramento or or Charlotte team coming to town.

(02:30:04):
It's just so, look, the team looks way better than
actual point guard. And I'll hang up the lists.

Speaker 2 (02:30:12):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (02:30:12):
Kay.

Speaker 2 (02:30:13):
So, yes, you know what, I almost start calling myself
mister America. I appreciate that case. So it's a couple
of things. First of all, the Rockets offense is way
better than it was last year. Of course you and
Jet Kevin Durant into that, but they are third in
offensive rating that's points per one hundred possessions, behind the
Nuggets and the Boston Celtics. Like they're one of the
best offenses in basketball. So even with all the warts

(02:30:34):
and and where they can look a little disjointed and
unorganized at times, and the turnovers and all that type
of stuff. They're still the third best offense in basketball. Also, yes,
it was especially highlighted last night because you don't have
alprin Shangoon. You start a lot of actions and run
a lot of offense through him. You've had him out
for a couple of games. He missed some games with
the calf, and then he came back and he twisted
his ankle.

Speaker 11 (02:30:55):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:30:55):
And then also if you watched last night's game, look
at with the Phoenix Suns were hunting almost every time
down the floor when Reed Shepherd was was on the court.
It's Reed Shepherd. Im Adoka has a defensive minded coat,
is a defensive minded coach, and he has a player
who is a work in progress. On the defensive end.
He can get some steals, he can get some block shots,

(02:31:17):
he can play some passing lanes. But also he needs
to hit the weight room. He gets pushed around a
little bit too easy. He doesn't fight through screens well
and and he can get torched defensively for stretches. He
just has to be better on that end of the floor,
and I think i Adka likes to start with better
defense and have him come in and play more offense

(02:31:38):
and normally read Shepherd no matter who's in the starting lineup,
whether it be Tarry Easton or sometimes Josha Koge or
whoever gets about as many minutes as whoever's he would
be starting for. So he does look good in that,
but there are defensive issues and im Adoka likes to
set the tone with his defense and Re Sheppard needs
to get better on that. And also you can have

(02:31:59):
him come up. It's a look sure to have him
come off and off the bench and score points and
kind of run the second unit, because who else is
your other candidate for that? Aaron Holiday to me, I mean,
he's good, but he's not necessarily a high impact player.
You're not going to run stuff through him. He's not
a ball handler, he's not a playmaker for the Rockets.

(02:32:21):
So you have Reed Shepherd as a guy who can
come in and playmake with that second unit. I think
that the benefits are certainly there for Reed, who's normally
getting around twenty five to thirty minutes a night as
it is. Okay went a little along with that, so
let's get Sam con Junior. Those you on hold will
get to you as well. But conversation with Sam con
Junior of the Athletic Full Conversation sports Talk seven ninety

(02:32:42):
dot com. Here it is as a Sam con started
off talking about the agents that the players have now
who are now getting involved with college players.

Speaker 4 (02:32:52):
Yeah, I think I think it's just like anything did
you come across, is there's there's actually a lot of
pretty good ones and then there are some ones who
are not insily the most qualified or maybe you're not
gonna give the best guideance. I would say most of
the ones I've dealt with are pretty solid, and you
do have more NFL agents NFL player agents coming to
the college side. I've come across paths with a lot

(02:33:14):
of guys who represent NFL players and are now stepping
into the college game. You're even with the bigger agencies.
You know, your CAAs your athletes first, You're you know
some of the big ones out there that people know
they're getting into this game as well. So I think
it really depends on what kind of choice. Obviously, obviously
the families and the recruits are making the choices and

(02:33:36):
who represents them. But I will say there is a
cry amongst the coaches and the staffers who are managing
this of they wish there was some type of certification
like in the NFL level, you have to be certified
by the NFLPA, and there is no real baseline for that.
In college some states have certification requirements that you have

(02:33:59):
to do to be able to represent someone, but not
every state does, and I think there is a desire
for across the board certification to just establish some minimum
standards that people have to meet to be able to
represent a player.

Speaker 2 (02:34:12):
Do you think there will be change coming with that?

Speaker 4 (02:34:14):
Sam?

Speaker 2 (02:34:14):
As far as I mean, what exactly is the solution?
I know in CAA tries to keep their hands off
of this stuff so they can still claim amateur athletics.
But what do you think there will be some kind
of solution coming with that or like federal legislation. What
would it take?

Speaker 4 (02:34:29):
Yeah, I think he would have to be either the CSC,
the College Sports Commission which was established by the powerful conferences,
which is supposed to be managing all the salary cap
and the enforcement of everything that's going on. I think
you would have mixed results and different claims on how
well that's going so far, or I think some federal

(02:34:50):
legislation possibly could be in the mix for that as well.
I don't sense I think it is something that is desired.
I don't sense that it is the highest priority on
the list. So I think there are other things that
people want to solve before they get to that. But
I do think at some point it is possible, but
it would take either either the CSC or sometimes federal

(02:35:11):
legislation we get there.

Speaker 2 (02:35:12):
I think Sam Khan Junior of the Athletic with us
here on Sports Talk seven ninety and I kind of
need this explained, Like I'm five, Sam, Like we're talking
about these agents and these players and they hit the portal, Like,
what are the you can go through the legal and
then maybe the illegal procedures. If there is a player
who has an agent and they're thinking about hitting the portal,

(02:35:33):
I mean, how much of that is negotiated or talked
to other teams as far as tampering with other schools
before deciding to enter the portal. Also, you have guys
who enter the portal when it figures out that maybe
somebody else is coming, so they're gonna they're playing time
is gonna go down like it just seems like a
big mess from that standpoint, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:35:52):
No, it absolutely is. And again when I talked about
the CSC, everyone hasn't agreed to what the enforcement model
looks like. Like there's you know, we have a body
and we have you know that their task was trying
to enforce this stuff. But they sent out an agreement
for everybody to sign, and not everybody signed it and
it doesn't go in effect unless everyone signs it. So

(02:36:14):
at this point we don't have an enforcement arm with
real piece yet, and so tampering run has been running
rampant for years and continues to do so. Many of
these players the portal in opuntil Friday, but many of
these players announced either after their regular seasons were over
sometime in December that they were going into portal. And
I can promise you and yeah, I know because I've
been talking to these people. As soon as some of

(02:36:35):
the bigger names announced they were going in, we already
heard where they were likely going. And that that is
an issue that I think coaches and general managers complain about,
But there also doesn't seem to be anybody really stopping
it at this point. I think that the tampering issue.
Is is probably one of the top complaints you get,

(02:36:57):
and it is these are things that happen right away.
And to your point about a player having to jump
in if somebody happened. I talked to an agent last
night who said he had a client at an ACC
school who was a tight end and he was gonna stay,
he was gonna re sign our refshare contract to come
back for twenty twenty six, and then his team took
a tight end in the portal. He's like, well, now
I got to get in. Now I could get in
the portal because now my playing time is gonna be

(02:37:18):
getting eaten into. And that's what's gonna be fascinating to me,
especially as we get outside the portal window, because this
year we only have the winter portal window. There is
no spring window. So to me, I'm curious to see
what happens when we get to spring football and depth
charts are getting set and you find out, well, I'm
not where I thought I was going to be on
the depth chart. Well there's no spring portal window anymore.

(02:37:39):
So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna stick
it out? Are you gonna withdraw? And then hope you
can end up enrolling somewhere else, but there's no really
guarantee you can end up somewhere else at that point.
So it is very messy at this point. And that
is what I think makes it so difficult, not just
for the people involved, but even the fans to follow,
is that these things can change in a blank and

(02:37:59):
the guy who maybe your star quarterback today, maybe on
your rival school tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (02:38:03):
Sam, if you were in Times Square yesterday, you happen
to see a big billboard video of Brandon Sorosby welcomed
to Lubbock and Texas Tech after assigning his deal going
to there. Take me through the process. So Brandon Sorosby's
quarterback at Cincinnati and Ward travels that he is open
for free agency. Does Cody Campbell, when he's the most

(02:38:27):
recognizable nil donor probably out there in the college courts today,
does he love? A phone call to Storsbe's representation says, Look,
I know the school can't give you the money directly
because they can't give you five million. They could, but
that's a budget that they don't want to spend. But
I'm going to put you in terms with my group,
with my collective and we're going to make sure that
five million dollars reaches your client's piggybank by the time

(02:38:49):
he arrives in Lubock.

Speaker 4 (02:38:51):
So that that is the part that is a little
bit unclear at this point with some of the bigger
deals because the what is thee between the ref share
pool in the anile pool, Because as we know, the
ref sharepool is capped at roughly twenty million dollars. It'll
go up a little bit this year by four percent,
but it's still going to be around twenty one twenty

(02:39:12):
two million dollars. And that's for all sports, not just football. Right,
So a Power four roster is probably somewhere in the
fourteen to seventeen million dollar range. So if you suspend
five on a quarterback, that only leaves maybe nine to
twelve for the rest of your roster, which is a

(02:39:32):
lot so certainly, but if you are trying to compete
for a national championship, it's not enough. One of the
biggest things that you see big time programs trying to
do in this cycle is take money off the cap,
and doing that is through the third party nil beast.
The interesting part about that is the CSC just sent
out guidance in the last couple of forty eight hours

(02:39:52):
that they're saying that if you promise someone nil money
ahead of time from the third party, whether it's from
your in house multimedia rights deal or whatever other collectives
that you have, that cannot be counted, that cannot be
taken off the cap. If you promise it, it's got
to be counting toward the cap, whether or not you

(02:40:12):
pay them out of your rep share pool. Now again
I go back to is that going to be enforced?
And they send out that guidance with it being backdated
to December first, so saying that basically, if it's anybody
in this portal window, that you can't take money off
the cap that way. So I don't know how that's
going to work out. I don't know if they can
even enforce it, but that is the way that a

(02:40:35):
lot of programs that are operating above the cap, they're
doing it. That way is trying to figure out, Okay,
how much do we put into third party nil and
how much do you guarantee through refshare because you've got it. Ultimately,
they're going to do whatever they got to do to
get the player.

Speaker 2 (02:40:51):
Sam Collin Jr. Of the athletic with us here more
of a general question, Sam, We've talked a lot on
this show, myself and madd and argued about donor fatigue,
and I thought it was going to come pretty soon.
It doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon. But I
guess to ask you to predict the unpredictable. I mean,
for example, Cody Campbell, as Matt mentioned, shelling out a
bunch of money. I mean, if he's not seeing the

(02:41:13):
results year after year, how much does he continue to
pour millions? And these other schools as well, whether it
be Texas or A and M. Where do you see
as far as I mean, just the long term economic
ecosystem of this nil money potentially drying up or it
just keeps It seems like it's a full steam ahead.

Speaker 4 (02:41:36):
I think it becomes a case by case basis on
a couple of factors. One, what does your institutional want
to How badly do you want to win? And by proxy,
how badly do your donors want to win? Two? Do
you have someone to that degree? Because there are I
think a lot of the SEC and Big ten programs
are going to be in okay shape because of where

(02:41:56):
they are in terms of their media rights and how
big their budgets are from the start, But it's your
when you get to your maybe middle tier power for
lower tier power forwards, do you have a booster like
a Cody Campbell. Like if you're Kansas and you have
David Booth, you're in good shape. But if you're Iowa
State who is struggling to reach the revenue revenue share cap,
they're not operating over the cap. They're They're having a

(02:42:18):
hard enough time just trying to get to the cap
which they are at. But that's hard enough for them.
They don't necessarily have a Cody Campbell in their in
their back pocket to help them. So I think it
a case by case issue with them as far as
do I see donor fatigue long term? Maybe in some spots,
But I'll just say this this. We are in twenty
twenty five, almost forty years ago SMU got busted for

(02:42:44):
paying players and then got the death penalty. It was
nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty seven. That was almost forty
years ago. So if and that was obviously a different era,
but paying players or trying to do the most to
get the best players on your team is a tradition,
as it's a tried and true tradition in college football.

(02:43:05):
There had for as long as college football has existed.
Alumni have always won. Boosters have always wanted to get
players for their teams and wanted to make sure they
had the best teams, whether it was coaches, whether it's facilities,
whatever the mechanism was that they told you how to
do it. For as long as I can remember, and
as long as I've been covering this sport, there's always
been somebody who's wanted to push the envelope to do that,

(02:43:27):
and I don't see that changing long term.

Speaker 1 (02:43:29):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:43:29):
With the money getting as high as it is, could
it get a little bit unsustainable, Certainly, I do think
there's a degree to that, But I don't think we're
ever going to come to a point where people say, well,
I don't care about my school enough to pay this
money for this player. There's always going to be Cam
Coleman and everyone receiver in the pointal right now, everybody,
everybody in the on earth wants that guy, and I

(02:43:50):
cannot see a donor saying no, I'm going to walk
away because he's not that important. Ultimately, these guys want
their teams to win on Saturday, and and they're going
to want to do what it takes to get the
players to make that happen.

Speaker 2 (02:44:02):
All right, there you go, Sam con Junior. That's only
a piece of the conversation. Full conversation you can find
sports Talk seven ninety dot com. Really great stuff with
him covering college football, I mean the athletics, college football,
roster management plus transfer portal writer. Wow, that is pretty
crazy stuff that we are in this day and age,

(02:44:23):
and a lot to cover when it comes to the
portal and college football at large. All right, quick break
here on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. When we
come back, we'll take a calls. If you are still holding,
then we will also well get out of here. Final
segment of the Matt Timas Show before the A Team
Adam Clinton and Adam Waxler are coming your way to
o'clock here on Sports Talk seven ninety Greig Bijo. Here,
the heart of the order is up right now, Matt Thomas,

(02:44:45):
the swinging for the fences here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
That one makes me laugh. That's a good one to
pop up this week because I think I mentioned this
on air of you Now and then that one plays.
That's like the first crop, Jonathan, that you were in
first grade when that liner was made. Craig Biggio came

(02:45:08):
up here to do a spot, and normally when we
have celebrities up here, we asked them to do a
couple of liners for various shows, many shows that are
not here anymore. So Craig Biggio knocking out a couple
of liners for other shows and then knocking that one
out for the Matt Thomas Show. Matt Thomas is knocking
it out of the park. And you always got to
throw the baseball put in there, of course. But we
are in the first week, second show of the seventeenth

(02:45:32):
year of the Matt Thomas Show. That's crazy. First of all, Yeah,
thanks thanks to all of you for listening to us
throughout the years. Look, if we weren't successful, if we
didn't have you guys's listenership and supporting our sponsors and
all types of stuff, we wouldn't have lasted as long
as we did. So can't do it without you guys.
Appreciate you'all supporting the show for as long as you have.
A seventeenth year and that was part of that was

(02:45:53):
among the first crop, if not the first, like maybe
the second maximum of liners. We had like sixteen years
of liners of talking about Matt Thomas and making fun
of his various food takes and other things like that.
So good liners always here. Shout out to Mike Bobian
who makes those so that one always makes me laugh.
Right winding down The Matt Thomas Show with Ross here

(02:46:14):
on Sports Talk seven nighty, we had a great show.
You just heard the Samcoon conversation. As I mentioned, you
can catch the full conversation. It's worth your time. Sports
talkseven ninety dot com. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross
podcast page. By the way, our podcast available on all
platforms starting with iHeartMedia because of course our iHeartRadio I
should say, as we are iHeartMedia, but Spotify, Apple Podcast.

(02:46:37):
Basically wherever you get your podcasts, you can find the
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so you know what, give a click for Jonathan. We
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(02:47:00):
I'm trying to build that bad boy up. All right,
before we get out here, Brad has been holding patiently, Brad,
go ahead. I wanted to ask you, all right, that's
all right, sorry, Brad. We're running low on time, man.
We gotta get out unfortunately. Appreciate you holding and getting in,
but out of time on the show. So maybe next time.

(02:47:22):
Thank you very much. All Right, that's gonna do it.
For the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk seven einety,
my name is Ross Viriel. That's a Mat Tomas show
with Ross. That's me. I'm the Ross part. I appreciate
all of you for listening, calling, tweeting, being involved in
the show. Thanks to Sam con Junior for being with
us earlier. Thanks to Matt Thomas for hanging out for
at least three hours of his own four hour show.

(02:47:42):
Appreciate him. Jonathan and I were here for the duration,
but don't go anywhere. Coming up next, not only one Adam,
it's two Adams. They call themselves the A Team, and
they are next here on Sports Talk seven, eightty your
home for your home teams that actually win championships YAM