1/13/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show - Mo Egger

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chance to win one thousand dollars entered this nationwide keyword
on our website. Bonus. That's bonus. Enter it now, bonus. Hi,
what's up on my leg? A? Four after three? This
is ESPN fifteen thirty. Good afternoon, Thank you for listening.
I hope you had an awesome weekend. An awesome weekend,

(00:20):
nice and relaxing. Would have been better had the Bengals
been playing. Would have been better had.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
UC not played.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
At least from where I said forty points in forty minutes,
I'm not going to start the show with them. I'm
tempted to just see how long I can go. I'm
not talking about the barricats, but I'm not. We'll get
to them here, I promise you shortly. Show preview video
is brief today, but it's on X go watch it.

(00:47):
Thanks to our friends at Emory Federal Credit Union, your
credit union with heart since nineteen thirty nine. Go to
EMORYFCU dot org. We got a lot of stuff to
get to. Today is a bit of an open canvas show.
That's right, It's me and you for the next three hours,
across a variety of topics, including an extension of what

(01:09):
Tony and Austin and I were just talking about as
it relates to the Reds, who their new TV deal
is just like the old TV deal, except with a
new name on the network. We'll get to that a
little bit later on. We'll do the college basketball. Some
thoughts in the college football playoff as well, and the
NFL Playoffs as a whole, which the first round winds
up tonight with the game in Arizona between the Rams
and Tarum Blands beloved Minnesota Vikings. The playoff game that

(01:33):
I would imagine folks here watched most closely or closest,
kept most kept closest attention to the folks that people
here watched the game. Boy, what a great segment the
game that people watched here most, even though it was
on Amazon. Pittsburgh and Baltimore to AFC North teams, two
hated rivals. From an emotional standpoint, I'm guessing you are

(01:57):
like me, and you hate the Steelers more, and so
you rooted for Baltimore or I'd bet on Baltimore, and
so I was rooting for Baltimore. The Steelers lose in
the postseason again, Mike Tomlin. Now that's eight consecutive years
without him advancing in the postseason. That's a long time
and you could kind of see this coming if you
watch them play down the stretch. Frankly, you can kind

(02:19):
of see this coming if you watch them play the
Bengals that last regular season game. The better team won
and was dominant physically, and frankly, the game was not
as close as the final score would indicate. The Ravens
just ran the ball down their throats, and as cliche
as that sounds, that's exactly what they did. I referenced
this to Tony in Austin before, but watching the ESPN

(02:41):
NFL pregame show yesterday, they were talking about the Steelers
and Ravens and Tomlin and the game itself. And this
was not a game that turned on a turnover or
some sort of wacky play. The Ravens didn't hit the
Steelers with a whole bunch of weird offensive designs or
come at them with a bunch of trick plays. They

(03:01):
lined up and pushed them around. And as somebody who
has watched his favorite team get pushed around, I cannot
imagine what that must have been like for a diehard
Steelers fan watching that. It's helpless, right, your team line
up and can't stop the other guy. Can't stop Derick Henry,
can't stop Lamar Jackson, can't stop the Baltimore Ravens, can't

(03:22):
win a playoff game for an eighth consecutive year, which
has created some conversations about Mike Tomlin, which have been
there before, but get louder and increase in volume with
every subsequent postseason defeat. That's now eight straight, and folks
have wondered, could Mike Tomlin be traded? Could the Steelers

(03:42):
really walk away and hire their fourth head coach since
what nineteen sixty nine? I don't know. Mike Tomlin's going
to the Hall of Fame. Mike Tomlin would be a
hot commodity if he was a free agent. If the
Bengals had a head coaching vacancy, I'm not gonna say
that I would be totally opposed to them hiring Mike Tomlin.
But that's not gonna happ and they don't have a
vacancy right now. In chances our Pittsburgh is going to

(04:03):
have their current head coach next season. The owner, the
president of the Pittsburgh Steelers is Art Rooney. The second
I don't know if Art Rooney the Second listens to
sports talk radio. I don't know if he listens to
sports talk radio segments. I don't know that we have
Art Rooney the Second's email address, but you know, we

(04:25):
record everything and we put it on the app. But
podcasts of the show, by the way, are a service
of long next Sports Grow a great place to watch
the NFL playoffs, tonight, rams and vikings. If this clip
of this show could somehow make its way to Art
Rooney the Second, I would be appreciative because what I
want to say to Art Rooney the Second is, hey, man,

(04:46):
don't change a thing, because from where I sit, well,
you guys are doing great.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Stay with it.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Pay Russell Wilson please, Like I know you essentially Paige
your two quarterbacks this year or what at three mil
this season?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's working great. Stay with it.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Stay with it at Russell Wilson, guy, man, I lock
into him long term. And your coach, hell yeah, where
as a badge of honor the fact that you have
a head coach who has never had a losing season.
Every year his team ends with more wins and losses
in the regular season. It's great. Stay with it. Do

(05:26):
not change a thing. Don't be tempted, Okay, don't don't
fall into the trap of listening to what maybe the
public sentiment in Pittsburgh is.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Just listen to me. It's going really well, stay with it.
It's really really good. In fact, not only would I
keep Mike Tomlin, I'd sign him to a long term contract.
I'd maybe sign him to a lifetime contract. And I
don't know what your cap situation is like as it
relates to your quarterback, but you had Russell Wilson for

(05:57):
next to nothing this year. Keep it going, baby. I
try to see if Russell Wilson could play as many
seasons in a Steelers uniform as Ben Roethlisberger did. Like
this is great. I don't think I don't think you
should change a thing. I don't think you should alter anything.
I don't think you should rethink the level of patience

(06:20):
you've always as an organization exhibited with your head coaches.
Don't think you should do something splashy. I certainly don't
think you should hire a new offensive coordinator. That Arthur
Smith guy. I'd tell you I'd stay with him too.
Just leave well enough alone. In fact, i'd give everybody

(06:41):
on the coaching staff a bonus, great year made the postseason,
kept the streak of law is kept the streak alive
eighteen years that losing a playoff game. Dude, what else
do you want? That's remarkable? Consistency, Like, that's the sort
of thing over the last eight or so years that
the Reds would aspire to a baseball team here in town.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
No peaks, no valleys. It's great.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
It's consistent, something you can count on every year Steelers
win more than they lose.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
What else do you want?

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Stay with it, Stay with it, don't don't listen to
trade offers. In fact, get rid of your phone after
you listen to this, entertain any trades for your coach.
Don't entertain even moving up for a quarterback. Not that
there's maybe one worth moving up for this year, but
at any point, just stay where you are. It's going really,

(07:33):
really well. Your coach's press conferences are always a lot
of fun. He talks in a way that columnists always
get a free column out of once or so a year,
kind of the star of hard knocks. It's fun, it's great,
Stay with it, don't change a thing, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
You know, in a job like yours man. You running,
you want an NFL.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Team, You got a lot of people tell you you're
doing it wrong or you should do it different. I'm
here to tell you you're doing it right and you
should stay the course. Keep this coach, keep that quarterback
that I cannot ask for anything more. I mean, like legitimately,
and I I'm obviously biased here. I'm a Bengals fan,

(08:21):
and look, man, there's a lot to envy and like
about that organization, and there's a lot to respect about
Mike Tomlin, the way that franchise has operated out for
a while. They're not competing for a championship. We'll make
the playoffs, make the playoffs on a regular basis. They'll
always be tough to play week to week, and you know, you'll, you'll, we'll,

(08:45):
we'll do the whole thing every year to talk about
how much you respect to coach and never has a
losing season, and no one will take them seriously as
legit championship contenders like I take the Ravens seriously as
championship contenders. That they've got some big, big mountains to
climb here in the postseason. And you know, Lamar Jackson,
you might argue has some demons to exercise, and that

(09:05):
wasn't a game where he was gonna do it because
they could just you know, beat Pittsburgh up and you know,
run it at him and use Derrick Henry. But I
take them seriously almost every single year's championship contenders. And
you might argue, well, didn't take the Bengals seriously as
championship contenders, and I never did once the season began either.
But I could see a path. I could see a

(09:25):
path with Joe Burrow or the Bengals are championship contenders.
With the Steelers with what they're doing, I can't. So
I'm here for what they're doing. I wanted to continue.
I mean, is there another coach? And you know, Mike
Tomlin's gotten a lot of criticism and not all of
the issues that have cropped to the surface with that

(09:48):
franchise are the head coach's faults. But boy your ear,
national media still does love themselves and Mike Tomlin. I
can't think of many head coaches, including some who have
been here, that would get that would be as excused
after winning zero playoff games in eight years like Mike
Tomlin is zero. Let me say what you want about

(10:12):
the Bengals and say what you want about you know
us as Bengals fans. Zach Taylor had won a playoff
game in three years? Right, it was the last playoff win?

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Was hell?

Speaker 3 (10:21):
What two years ago? It's two seasons he doesn't won
a playoff game, and we're kind of ready to examine
whether or not they should move on with him, and
understandably so, so Pittsburgh, stay stay with what you're doing.
Stay with what you're doing, because I don't know what's
gonna happen with the Bengals this year, this offseason.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
They have a lot of work to do.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
It goes without saying, and a lot of different interesting
balls are being kind of juggled, and a lot of
different things they could do. We talked pretty extensively on
Friday about what may or may not happen or what
should or shouldn't happen with Trey Hendrickson. And and obviously
the t Higgins thing is going to have some resid
to it, and regardless of what the resolution is, there's
going to be some very fair questions about what's next,

(11:05):
regardless of whether or not he's with the team in
twenty twenty five. And this is a very very important draft.
It's a very very important Bengals off season. But I
do believe, I do believe this that they they have
the capability to have the sort of offseason that can
put themselves in a position to win the title. Maybe

(11:25):
you wouldn't consider them preseason favorites, Maybe you wouldn't consider
them preseason favorites to win the AFC North, but I
do think they have the sort of offset, if they
have the sort of offseason we all hope, and by
the way, that could take multiple forms, that there is
a chance that come mid August we are talking about
them having a legitimate chance to be on the short

(11:47):
list of teams that can win an AFC title. I
don't feel that way about the Pittsburgh Steelers, So that's awesome. Hell,
the Steelers fans, if you're listening, and I appreciate you
doing so, but yeah, you're you're rolling your eyes and
you can bring up the titles from back in the

(12:09):
seventies and the early Tomlin the year whatever. Just where
things stand right now, that franchise, which people love to glorify,
is not closer to a championship than the Bengals are,
even though Pittsburgh just played in the playoffs and the
Bengals didn't. So by all means, man, stay with it,

(12:31):
stick with it. Please keep Mike Tomlin in place. Let
him be the tomato can for the elite teams in
the AFC every year. Stay with Russell Wilson, stay stay
with the endless cycle of bad offensive coordinators they have.
I'm sure we'll get laughed at, but I believe the

(12:53):
Bengals are closer to a championship than the Steelers are.
I think going into next season, I know what I
can hang my hat on. They could say the same
in Western Pa. Art Rooney, man, stick with it, working great,
You're doing a great job. Everybody's doing a great job.
Don't change a thing. Seventeen after three o'clock, we'll have

(13:14):
a poll question kind of related to this coming up
a little bit later on on X at Moegar. I
have I have a question about Red's off seasons. So
they got their TV situation squared away, which is nice.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Uh, and it's gonna.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Pay them a little bit more money than they were
maybe gonna get had they done the thing they were
gonna do with Major League Baseball, which is nice. I'm
just I'm dying to do one thing. Legitimately, I so
badly want to do this one thing. I'll tell you
what it is. Coming up in the four o'clock hour.
Five point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty is our

(13:53):
phone number eight six six seven oh two three seven
seven six. The noise you heard at Fifth Arena on Saturday,
not the constant clanging of the ball off the rim
and the backboard after missed Bearcat shots. That's not the
noise that stood out. I'll tell you what the noise
that was, or the noise that did stood out. I'll
tell you what the noise that did stand out was.

(14:16):
I'll tell you what. I'll talk about the Bearcats next,
and then I'll figure out how to use the English language.
On ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports station is the SPN
fifteen thirty. You could send a tweet at my leg
thanks to Delta Dental. Delta Dental is building healthy, smart,
vibrant communities for all good of Delta Dental, oh dot com.

(14:41):
More on the NFL playoffs a little bit later on,
because I noticed two things watching the NFL playoffs this week.
One applies to the Bengals. The other has nothing to
do with the Bengals. That coming up been just a
bit and a bit of a response to the pole
question thrown out today by the guys on Sincy three
to sixty that you could still vote on. Go there

(15:01):
and check that out on Audie's X page. Forty points
and forty minutes on Saturday for the UC Bearcats, Cincinnati
falls to Kansas in a game that was remarkable number
one for how quickly it was played.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
There were a grand.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Total of twelve fouls called in the game, three in
the first half. UC went nearly the entire first half
without committing a foul. And the defensive effort was there,
and if you were looking for the Bearcats to show
effort and play scrappy basketball on Saturday, you saw that. Unfortunately,
you didn't see the Bearcats score many points a point

(15:38):
a minute. They took a one point lead with about
ten minutes to go and then went three to fifteen
the rest of the way with four turnovers, And on
an afternoon where they hold Kansas to fifty four points,
they don't even come close to winning. They lose by fourteen.
Tony and I were talking about this off air. If
you would have told me that on Saturday, Kansas is
held to fifty four. I say the Bearcats win by

(16:00):
eight to twelve, instead they lose by fourteen. Let's begin
with Wes Miller on his team's offensive issues.

Speaker 4 (16:11):
We've obviously spent a lot of time this week on offense,
a lot.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
We did well.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
We got into the lab, we broke things down, We
worked on execution, not just of like five man plays,
but in small combinations. You know, we're doing everything that
we can think to do that's within reason of what
our players can handle this time of year. So we're
working our tails off in every way. Thought I thought
there was possessions where you could see our offense really

(16:37):
taking a step with ball and player.

Speaker 5 (16:39):
Movement, with things freeing up.

Speaker 4 (16:41):
Okay, And it's because it's been stagnant at times here
over the last two weeks. You get some good looks
and you don't convert them. Like I said, there's a
lit on it right now. It will come off.

Speaker 5 (16:53):
It always does, and we have good players. It'll definitely
come off. They'll find their rhythm and their feel and
their flow. Okay. I believe in that.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
And if it would have come off tonight, just in
a little way, I think we feel a lot different here.
So we're not gonna let things like this that happen
over the course of a season define us or make
us stop believing in what we're doing. But the answer,
how can you continue to get the lid off is
could keep working at the stuff you can control, and
you can control your approach, you can control your belief,

(17:21):
and you can control the work you do. And we're
gonna buckle into the work. We're not gonna pout, put
our head down. We're gonna buckle into the work.

Speaker 6 (17:28):
Now.

Speaker 5 (17:28):
I'll say this too, guys.

Speaker 4 (17:30):
These are the best leagues in the country, the best
leagues in the country. Teams have won national championships and
gone through bad stretches in these leagues in the same season.
Go look at it. Everybody goes through bad stretches in
these leagues. Everybody, all right, It's part of the deal.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
You want to play at this level. It comes with it.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
Sometimes we got to respond to it, and I believe
my team will.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
All right, there you go, Wess Miller Saturday, after his
team scored forty On the heels of scoring forty eight
against Baylor, I actually thought that there were times where
the offense did work and the shots just didn't fall,
and yes that does happen, and yes it does happen
to good teams, and had it happened on Saturday in
a vacuum, I think most of us would have shrugged

(18:15):
our shoulders and said what Wes said. After the Baylor game,
which was just one of those days. Those things happened,
but unfortunately the offensive issues have been prolonged. Like I
said this a bunch of times last week, and it's
not to take credit away from them for winning the
games they won. When they beat Xavier, the story after

(18:36):
that game was Wes beat Xavier. You see, finally beat Xavier.
What a catharsis for the Bearcats? Kind of washed away
the bad taste that was in everybody's mouth from how
you see lost on the road to Villanova. The story
wasn't you see shot poorly and played poorly offensively? And

(18:58):
it should have been the story, But if you were
to dive deep into the game, that could not help
but be one of your takeaways, maybe not your biggest takeaway,
but one of your takeaways. A week later, they beat Dayton.
By the way, UD has its own issues right now
with consecutive road losses to teams that, frankly, the Flyers
should beat. But anyway, Bearcats beat Dayton. The immediate aftermath,

(19:20):
in the immediate aftermath, the story was that might be
the best team the Bearcats have played so far. That's
a really, really good win. Hey, can they keep this
series alive? How do they expand upon that event and
make it up a multi game event?

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (19:38):
Look at how hard and well coached the Bears the Bears,
the Bearcats were on defense. Look at how they took
that Dayton team offensively out of what the Flyers wanted
to do. The story was not The Bearcats again struggled offensively,
specifically in the half court, and that shouldn't have been
the story. Those things do get obscured when you win,

(20:00):
but that doesn't mean they're not things. And so going
into Big Twelve play, there's a lot of us who wondered, offensively,
can this team be as good as they need to be,
not to win the Big Twelve, but to have the
sort of season that'll have Cincinnati's name on the screen
on Selection Sunday. Frankly, to this point the answer has

(20:21):
been no, and so Saturday might have been tip of
the iceberg. It might have been rock bottom. It might
end up being a positive turning point depending on how
things go starting on Wednesday night when the Bearcats go
to Colorado. But the troubling thing for me was it
was just the latest poor offensive performance in what has

(20:43):
now turned into a long stretch of them. That's an
issue like that, that's an issue. That's an issue that's
not confined to Saturday, and it's not confined to last Tuesday.
Last Tuesday and on Saturday are merely really, really, really

(21:03):
glaring examples of something that's been an issue now for
a while. They shot less than forty percent when they
beat Xavier and Dayton, So now the question becomes not
so much how do they get better offensively, although that
obviously is something we would like to see. You can't
score forty points in the Big Twelve and expect to
beat anybody home or road, whether it's Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, UCF, Houston, Arizona,

(21:26):
no matter, it doesn't matter. Can't score forty and expect
to beat anyone. I guess The question I have, though,
is are they going to be able to do the
other stuff well enough in order to make this season
one that we can be.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Happy with.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
I'm just I'm left to conclude that offensively, at least,
the pieces just don't fit. That's not a rash hot
take based on one really awful game. It's not some
rash hot take based on two bad games. This has
been a thing now for a while. Offensively, they have

(22:03):
left a lot to be desired. When that is the case,
you can't help but ask this season. I'm not even
talking about what happens at the end of this season.
This season, can they do the other stuff well enough
to still make this a successful year. The obvious comparison
that a lot of people are gonna make is, well,
you know, when mc cronin was here, they had some

(22:24):
off some teams that offensively left a lot to be desired.
Number one, most of those teams were not playing in.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
The Big twelve.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Number two, they did everything else really, really well, and
it was good enough, at least in the regular season.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
That's the question I have.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
It's it's not unlike the Bengals defensively in the middle
of the season, right, Okay, this team stinks on defense.
Are they going to be able to outscore people? Are
they going to be able to do the other things
well enough? To figure out how to at least get
this team to the playoffs, and the answer, unfortunately, was no.
That's where I am with this basketball team offensively. Yeah,
it was a bad shooting night and those do happen.

(22:59):
But when was the last time I felt really good
about this team offensively after they played Georgia Tech, Like
I thought, like this, the ceiling is reasonably high. That
was a month and a half ago, right that that
was before Thanksgiving? Forever ago, And so yeah, man lit

(23:25):
on the basket, bad breaks, good offense that didn't result
in very good in shots that went in. Like I'm
here for all that if I'm looking at it in
a vacuum, but I'm not. In each of these four
Big Twelve games they've had major offensive issues. Kept them
from winning against Kansas State far too many turnovers, kept

(23:47):
them from winning against Arizona because they didn't execute lateon
because they dug themselves a nineteen point hole, didn't against
Baylor because they were horrific, and didn't against Kansas because
they shot it poorly on a night where the execution
I do think was a little bit better. These are persistent,
long lasting, prolonged offensive issues. They may get better they

(24:09):
may get dramatically better, but until they do, what I
want to know is can this team defend well enough,
do the other stuff well enough, play hard enough, change
their style enough, perhaps because I would like to see
him get up and down the floor a little bit more,
enough to take a team that offensively is this bad,

(24:31):
and still get it to where we all assumed it
was going to go just a couple of short weeks ago.
Then there was the booing go ahead and play. Tarren
West talking about the fans booing on Saturday.

Speaker 5 (24:45):
Hey we're humans, we hear, I mean, we're human beings.

Speaker 7 (24:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
I signed up for this, so I'm never going to
be the guy that stands, appear and complains about fanfare
like I love that.

Speaker 5 (24:55):
I love our fans, I love the support that we
have here.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Don't want to.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
I understand it.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
They're frustrated because we haven't played well for two weeks.
But as I said, people that stick with us and
keep fighting force thank you. And the people that don't
thank you, because we'll prove you wrong. And that's what
I told the team in the locker room.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
I hope he's right about that.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
Look, I think I've been to ninety seven percent of
the games in that building for the last thirty years,
I've not heard booing like that. I've heard opposing coaches
get booed. I've heard the officials get booed. I've I
don't know that, I've heard booing aimed at the performance.
And they weren't booing them as human beings. They weren't
booing West as a guy. They were booing a performance.

(25:36):
And they were booing a season that has very quickly
gone from one of great promise where some were wondering
can this team be a top five seed in the
tournament to now one where it feels like the smart
money is on them not even making it. And it
was booing that was loud, It echoed throughout the building,

(25:58):
and I think there was a little bit of a
point to it beyond just I don't like how this
team is performing right now. I think it was about
the state of the program. I think it was about
the approval rating of the coach. We are late twenty
five away from four o'clock. Phone calls are welcome today
five to one, not that they're not every day, but

(26:19):
maybe some days more than others. Five one, three, seven, four, nine,
fifteen thirty and eight sixty six seven two threety seven
seven six sports headlines and a question about Red's offseasons
coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station Beyond time,
I have not been good at that sports head lines.
The service of Kelsey Chevrolet, home of lifetime powertrain protection

(26:41):
and guaranteed credit approval from their family to yours for
life Kelsey chev dot Com. Over the weekend, the Bengals
let go of two more coaches. Senior defensive assistant Mark Duffner,
who has had a couple of different stints with the Bengals.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
He has gone.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Same for defensive quality control coach Louis Yafi, who was
with the Bengals forever and then left and then came
back in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
He is out as well.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
The Cowboys and Mike McCarthy are not going to keep
their relationship relationship going for.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Some reason, I cannot talk today.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Cowboys need a new head coach because Mike McCarthy's not
the head coach anymore. There, there you go. What else
do we have? It's a light, light light list of
US sports headlines. NFL tonight, the sixth and final Wildcard game,
in Arizona pits the Rams versus the Minnesota Vikings. College
basketball Tonight the Mark Pope Shows at six on ESPN

(27:38):
fifteen thirty Kentucky with an entertaining win over Mississippi State
on Saturday night in Starkville. Also tonight, the Sean Miller
Radio show Xavier goes to De Paul and blows out
the Blue Demons. X You will host Villanova tomorrow. Sewn
show is tonight at seven on fifty five KRC. Kentucky

(27:58):
fell to eighth in the AP Top twenty five pole
as a result of their loss on the road to Georgia,
and they are now ninth in the coaches pole.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
You see and Xavier not ranked. There you go one
thing here quickly.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
On the playoff games this week, these games weren't great,
and last night's game between Washington and Tampa Bay was
a lot of fun. But the games themselves weren't awesome.
They weren't. Houston and La kind of got out of hand.
Baltimore Pittsburgh. It was fun to watch the Steelers lose.
It was fun to get bet against the Steelers. It

(28:37):
was fun to watch the Ravens cover. It wasn't an
overly competitive game. Denver and Buffalo was not very good.
Green Bay and Philadelphia was not as close as the
final score would indicate, in large part because it felt
like on every other play the Packers had a guy
get hurt.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
We'll see if the game tonight is good. It was.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
If nothing else, maybe a reminder. The college football Playoff
has been good. It's been good from the standpoint of
we've had more games. The semi final games were terrific.
Congratulations to the buck Gys for making the national championship game,
Congratulations to Marcus Freeman for making the national championship game.
But the College Football Playoff, I think though at the

(29:20):
format you could argue should be tweaked, and I think
it will be. Its main purposes were number one, to
make a lot of people a lot of money, and
number two to create more interest in college football and
in the pursuit for a championship. Because now I believe
more fans feel like their team has access to the championship.
That is, that's good, that's a good thing, as Marvin

(29:43):
Lewis might say. But there was like this whole round
of criticism after the first two rounds, really after the
first round about how bad the games were Tennessee versus
Ohio State and Notre Dame versus Indiana. Not great games.
Penn State de troid SMU in the first round, and
then you know, even in the later rounds, the Arizona

(30:05):
State Texas was awesome. Ohio State Oregon was a blowout.
We've had a lot of blowouts now. In the first round,
the blowouts became a referendum on the teams that got
blown out, and he had an endless array of voices
screaming and yelling that well, SMU and Indiana shouldn't have
made it, and maybe even Tennessee shouldn't have made it.
In Miami, Hurricane should have made it. In Alabama should
have made it. And Lane Kiffins was NonStop on Twitter

(30:26):
losing his mind about SEC teams not getting in. And
I felt like, I felt like that batch of criticism
was very misguided for two reasons. Number One, blowouts happened.
Blowouts happened in the postseason. We had a National championship
to the championship game two years ago where Georgia BTCU

(30:48):
sixty two to seven. We've had four game sweeps in
the NBA. We've had four game sweeps in the World Series.
We've had blowouts Super Bowls, We've had blowout NFL playoff games.
We had bad NFL playoff games weekend. The larger your
postseason is, the more games there are, the more bad
games that are going to be I wish that wasn't

(31:11):
the case. I root for good games. Who among us doesn't.
But it felt like the criticism of the college football
playoff and especially those first round and the selection of
some of those teams, came from a place where it
was like, I can't believe there are lopsided games. I
can't believe these games aren't that good, especially in the

(31:32):
first round.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
It's gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
I know the NBA and NHL have their critics when
it comes to the size of their postseason. If you
count the play in, the NBA has twenty teams playing
beyond the regular season. Not all of those teams are
championship were worthy. I feel like in college football there
was this, I don't know, desire to ensure that every
team in the playoff had a legitimate chance to win

(31:57):
the title. That's not ever going to be the case.
The Denver Broncos were in the playoffs were largely non
competitive yesterday. Even had they won, they weren't competing for
a championship. Buccaneers, I think are a really fun story.
The Buccaneers were not going to win the championship. Like
it's just if anything, this weekend's games maybe served to

(32:22):
notify college football fans and critics that, yeah, sometimes in
the postseason, especially with larger, expanded playoffs, we're gonna have
some bad games and not everybody's going to be in
a position to legitimately win a title. Again, I wish
all five games that had been played this weekend were
as good as the one last night was between the
Commanders and Buccaneers. But the larger the first round has gone.

(32:47):
And this is year four, Yeah, year four of the
fourteen team playoffs in the NFL, we've had more bad
games in the first round than good And you know
that's unfortunate if you love great games. But that's kind
of a byproduct of expansion that's not exclusive to college football.

(33:10):
We do have blowouts in the playoffs. We do have
lobsided results in the playoffs, and in no playoff do
we have a system where every team in the playoffs
is a legitimate championship contender. It's not the case in
the NFL. It's never gonna be the case in college.
Twelve away from four o'clock five one, three, seven, four nine.

(33:32):
Your phone calls are coming up. I swear on ESPN
fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (33:37):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the.

Speaker 9 (33:43):
UC Health Traffic Center. Don't let injuries slow you down.
The UC Health orthopedics and sports medicine experts can help
keep you moving. Schedule a same day appointment at UCHealth
dot com. Southbound I seventy five at Galbreath Rode. The
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on main street, this one over at Garfield Avenue, Gilbreath Roade.

(34:06):
It's an accident at La Voito Avenue, that one west
of Hamilton Avenue. On that ezelic with trapping.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Or This is ESPN fifteen thirty on Oiger. Thank you
for listening today. It's time to talk to other people.
Five one nine, fifteen thirty. Mayso, Mayso, you're on ESPN
fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
How are you?

Speaker 10 (34:28):
What's going on though?

Speaker 6 (34:29):
How you doing? Man?

Speaker 2 (34:30):
I am wonderful yourself?

Speaker 6 (34:33):
Oh you know, well, I've been better interesting being a
UCY fan, as you know, and I was trying to
get your perspective on this. So I was watching on
TV and when UC took the lead thirty eight thirty seven,
was about seven minutes ago. I was very shocked that nobody.

(34:57):
I couldn't see the student section, but the no fans
stood up, like that place should have the top should
have came off of that place at that moment in
time because it was a close game. Granted the offense sucked,
but I just felt like there was no energy being
brought from the fans. And I'm the biggest UC fans

(35:20):
out there now. Then obviously we see what happens and
then the boos come, but it's like, why couldn't the
fans have maybe been a little bit more positive earlier
in the game and maybe helped push this team to
the end, not saying they win the game. So, like
I said, I wasn't there, so I just kind of

(35:40):
wanted to get your perspective on what you thought, because
I was there last week against Arizona and you know,
they got down big, made that big run in the
second half. That place was nuts, like it was loud,
everybody was going crazy, and you know they didn't pull
out the w which obviously sucked, but you know, at
least there was energy, and I felt that fans just

(36:03):
weren't bringing it against Kansas. I don't know what are your.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Thoughts on that, relative to what that building has been
like for other games, including the one you just referenced,
I would agree about the lack of energy now, I
also feel like it's the team's responsibility to energize the fans.
And even though they did take a lead, you know,
midway through the second half their performance, their performance left

(36:28):
so much to be desired offensively at least that I
kind of felt I could put everybody to sleep. I
was thinking about that. I was thinking about that on
the way home that game. A game lasted like an
hour and forty minutes. There were so few fouls called
there was no reason to get mad at the officials,
So that typically kind of wakes people up. The team's

(36:48):
offensive performance could be described as sleepy, and that's putting
it generously. I also think there's a weariness that comes
with the three losses, coming in, a pensiveness that comes
with feeling like the season is on the verge of
slipping away, and then again the overall offensive performance. I
feel like those things added up to a relatively speaking,

(37:09):
low energy crowd on Saturday.

Speaker 6 (37:12):
Yeah, that's what I felt. I felt like we were
just like the and like I said, they just felt
like they were waiting for the inevitable to happen, Like
they kind of felt like they were going to lose
the game. The fans kind of did, like we hung
in there, but it was like, all right, when's when's
the shoe going to drop? And when's it going to
fall apart? And then obviously it did, and then everybody

(37:34):
just kind of let loose and you know, let their
frustrations out.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
There was there was a moment in that game where
I felt like, if it goes differently, they honestly, I
still don't think they win, but I feel like the
crowd would have come to life. And that was when
Arrington Page missed the one handed dunk which would have
cut the lead to one. With you know whatever, it
was five or six minutes to go, and then Kansas
went down the other end, got a bucket, made it
a five point game, and you could whatever energy there

(37:59):
was in the bill, you could feel it leaving. I
felt like, if that goes he throws down a one
hand jam in you know, it wasn't really in anybody's face,
but he throws down a one hand jam to cut
the lead to one. I think the crowd would have
come alive. Unfortunately he didn't make the dunk, and the
crowd soon thereafter left. But yeah, I think I think

(38:20):
there was a I think when you add up three
game losing streak, a sense of apprehension about the season,
a sleepy offensive performance, I think that adds up to
you know, look, you're right. The Arizona game, I thought
the atmosphere was awesome. You know, it goes without saying
the Xavier game, the atmosphere was awesome. Saturday did not
have anywhere close to the same field.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
Got it all, Man, Well, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
May so good to hear from you. I'll do my best. Yeah,
I mean, I think it's I think it's up to
the team to energize the crowd. But if if you
would have walked into fifth third Arena on Saturday and
you didn't know who was playing, and he didn't know
the score, you would not think that that was a
team playing for It's really playing for its season against

(39:07):
the biggest brand that will come into the arena all
year long and has come into the arena in quite
a while. But you know, again, it's up to the crowd.
I say the same thing I said when Ryan Ludwick
at the end of the twenty thirteen season talked about
the lack of energy in the crowd at GABP for
a late season game against the Mets when the Reds

(39:30):
were trying to clinch home field advantage in the wildcard,
and he said there was no energy in the stands.
In My take was, well, it's up to the team
to energize the fans. And I feel the same way
about this past Saturday at Fifth Third. The performance of
the team coming in and the performance of the team
during didn't energize a lot of people, and I think

(39:51):
that was abundantly clear. It's funny. I met some folks
for a drink after the game, each of whom were
at the game, and then I talked with folks later
on Saturday night who were not at the game, and
they had the same observation, like just felt like the
crowd was dead. And I think that is a byproduct
of three straight losses coming in, how the team played
and how the game itself was played. More of your

(40:13):
phone calls are coming up. It's four o'clock on ESPN
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Speaker 2 (40:20):
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Speaker 8 (40:27):
You enter it now you found Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 10 (40:31):
Sh you have.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
It's a six half before this is ESPN fifteen thirty.
I'm olegar. I appreciate you listening. Hopefully your Monday at
Pina's going well. They had a great weekend, and maybe
the snow will go away soon. Apparently the the attempt
tomorrow that I hear before the high tomorrow's eight I

(40:53):
believe though tomorrow's high is going to be eight degrees.
Here's the annoying part of like does extreme cour old temperatures,
and I know in other parts of the country they're
dealing with twenty eight natural you know, disasters and events
that are are far worse than this. I have one.
I have one like home paranoida. It was sixteen In fact,

(41:19):
it was sixteen years ago on Monday. Because I'll never
forget it.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Was. I don't know why I remember this.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
It was a inauguration day two thousand and nine and
I got home at the time, I was living in
Sharonville and I walk in and we were doing our
show at the time from nine am the noon.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
So I got.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
Home in the middle of the afternoon and my pipes
had frozen, which if that has happened to you, you
know what a train wreck that could be. And so
you know, we good homeowners insurance and got it taken
care of. But since then, I am beyond paranoid about
my pipes freezing. And so this drives everybody at my

(42:03):
house nuts because I insist on having our faucets drip,
and I've got at nights space heaters with the sinks open,
and it just I I don't know if.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Those are the right remedies or not. I don't care.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
It's been sixteen years so far, I'm so good, but
I know it's driving everybody in my house nuts. But
I that is that is the one thing like when
it comes to owning a home. I just I live
in fear of my pipes freezing again because it was
such a mess and ruined so much stuff six years
ago and again is as things can happen to your

(42:35):
home as we've seen over the last week or so.
That's that's pretty benign. But when the attempts get into
the low, into the single digits, I start to think
about my pipes freezing, and so I one day I'm
going to live in a place where I never have
such a worry. I don't know where that place is
going to be, but I will live there. Uh, all right,

(42:58):
that's not important. Interesting, let's uh talk to folks. Five
point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty. Had something else
I needed to say, and I totally forgot what it was.

Speaker 6 (43:12):
I have.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
I wrote myself during the break. I wrote myself a
note of something I needed to get in, and I
don't know that anything would highlight what sort of disorganized
mess I create every day more than that. Three minutes ago,
I wrote myself a note because I needed to get
something in, and I have misplaced the note and forgot
what I wrote. And I literally wrote it at four

(43:33):
oh one because I was listening to the top of
the hour update. Good god, Uh, it is remarkable. Sometimes
they keep bringing me back to do this show. Dan,
You're on ESPN fifteen thirty good.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Afternoon, Dan.

Speaker 10 (43:48):
Hey, what's up, Moe.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
I'm sitting here doing a talk show. How about yourself?

Speaker 10 (43:52):
Ah, you know, I'm just trying to get home. Uh,
you know, just left Walgreens.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Okay, what's what's on? What's on your mind?

Speaker 7 (44:02):
Hey?

Speaker 11 (44:02):
So you know this John Cunningham guy, the A d Hey,
I'll tell you a story. So I was at that
TCU game. I got season tickets with a buddy of
mine that actually played up there, and I just, you know,
I was just getting angry and upset because of where
we were a few years ago, and to see this guy.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
This is the last the TCU football game, the last
game of the season. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 11 (44:30):
So I left my seats and found my way making
my way over there to the tunnel, you know where
they leave and come on and off the field. And
I look over and John Cunningham was standing right there.

Speaker 10 (44:43):
And I had a few choice words with that guy.
And uh, he.

Speaker 11 (44:46):
Looked up at me and said, write me an email
with your concerns. I said, dude, I wrote you two emails.
You don't respond back, he said, He said, write me
an email. I'll get, I'll get, I'll address your concerns.
I said, right, I'll give the guy the benefit of
the doubt. So I wrote this dude to another email
and uh left my phone number and everything. And this

(45:11):
guy calls me from his personal cell phone number.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Okayunningham. Huh John Cunningham called you from a cell phone.

Speaker 10 (45:21):
From his cell phone. I was shocked. I was on
my way down to Georgia when he called. And uh
he he Uh.

Speaker 11 (45:30):
First he wanted to ridicule me for boo booing booing.

Speaker 4 (45:35):
Uh.

Speaker 11 (45:35):
He thought I was booming the players when they was
leaving the field. I was bulling him, and I said,
you need to you need to fix this mess that
you created. And uh this was before the basketball season
had started. And you know, so while I was talking
to him on the phone, it was about fifteen to
twenty minute conversation, and he was honest about some things.

Speaker 7 (45:58):
Uh.

Speaker 11 (45:58):
I'm not going to discri off the air. I could
talk to you about what was discussed, but uh, I
am excited about you see athletics going in the future. Uh.
But this guy, he he botched And I'm not.

Speaker 10 (46:14):
A West Miller guy. I said this. I think maybe
on previous shows. Uh he was.

Speaker 11 (46:21):
He was averaged at wherever the heck he came from
was it UNC.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Wilmington, Greensboro?

Speaker 10 (46:28):
Greensboro? He was average there.

Speaker 11 (46:30):
It took him like five six years to get to
where he needed to go. But he really didn't do anything.

Speaker 10 (46:35):
Awow you you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (46:37):
Did you watch Did you watch a lot of UNC
Greensboro basketball when he was the coach there?

Speaker 10 (46:42):
I did not.

Speaker 11 (46:42):
I did not, but I this is what I go
off of THO. I believe there are coaches that can
Chris Mack and Charleston. He's got them at like thirteen
and three. You know, Granted Kelsey. I wanted them to
get Kelsey. Get what Kelsey's doing down that little I
believe if you can coach, you can do it anywhere.

(47:03):
And you you watch this guy's offense, and it's it's trash.

Speaker 10 (47:08):
Nobody moves.

Speaker 11 (47:10):
They all three of the guys will go down the
base line and just staying there. They play isolation basketball.
Reminds me of NBA stuff, And I feel bad for
the players because they're just sitting there dribbling the ball
for you know, twenty eight seconds out of the thirty
second shot clock and trying to make something happen off
the dribble.

Speaker 10 (47:28):
And and put up chucks, you know what I mean?

Speaker 11 (47:31):
Yeah, And and that's the only weather scoring baskets is
off alley oops or fast breaks. And that's no offense.
That's not that's not basket. It's cool for the fan
because they like dunks and and that, But this guy's
gotta get creative. The La coastiest guy, he's your three

(47:52):
point shooter. You watch him in games and all he
does is stand there.

Speaker 10 (47:56):
You got to get that guy moving, set some.

Speaker 11 (47:58):
Screens, get him over to where he can get a
good shot off. Instead, they got hand in his face
almost every possession.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yeah, where I will, I mean, I can't disagree with
anything you said. I think the point that stood out
to me more than anything is how long it takes
for them to initiate. You know, there are way too
many possessions where it feels like a lot of time
has elapsed before anybody does makes any sort of move,
whether it's a move to the basket, a move to
create a shot for somebody, a move to break down

(48:30):
a defender, a move to throw a pass to somebody
in a scoring position, a move to set a good screen,
it just it feels like it takes way too long
for the offense to initiate. So there's where I think
the fix could begin. I think the thing for me
that I'd like to see him run a little bit
more and play at a faster pace, and play at

(48:52):
a faster pace and maybe try to speed teams up.
And for the most part, they have defended well this season.
They did not against Baylor, but they rarely score off
a turnover. And when they when they when they have
kind of turned up the heat a little bit, especially
in the half court, they've been able to get out
in the open floor. I look, you, you might not
have a team that's very good in the half court.
I certainly believe they should be better, But but that

(49:15):
doesn't mean you can't come up with other ways to score.
And I would start by running. I would start by
getting Jizzle and Day Day to go downhill a little
bit more, which they do not do. I would start
by initiating the offense earlier in the shot clock, before
the defense could get set. And I try to figure
out ways defensively to to create opportunities that I could
score off turnovers and score off uh miss baskets.

Speaker 11 (49:38):
Yeah, they get they gotta get it going. But I mean,
I think you are who you are at this point
in the season. I mean, you're going to scratch everything
that they that they've been teaching these kids midway through
the season and putting in so a new offense. I
don't know if they're going to do all that, and
that's what.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Well, But the thing is they they may be, they
may be who they are, but but it's that's not
the job of a head coach is to do more
than just say this is who we are. I mean,
I think that's where Wes Miller and any coach in
his situation would be very squarely under the microscope. These
are your pieces, You've assembled them. Now you have to

(50:16):
figure out a way to make the pieces work together.
And so yeah, I do think this team's offensive ceiling
is lower than we thought it was going to be
at the beginning of the year. But it's the responsibility
of a head coach to figure out a way to
make it work. And that doesn't mean that suddenly they're
going to turn into a team that's scoring ninety points
a game in the conference. It has to turn into
the sort of team that offensively is more proficient than

(50:37):
it has been and still figures out ways to win.
All Right, your offense isn't great, So what can we
do defensively to create some more offense? Your offense in
the half court isn't great. Are there things we could
do in terms of making it a more ninety four
foot game? Can we be more aggressive offensively and get
to the free throw line a little bit more?

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Frequently, like the.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
Job of a coach, the job of a coaching staff
is to come up with solutions within the parameters that
are built in. And what's built in is the roster.
So the roster has created certain parameters head coach and
the coaching staff within those parameters has to figure out
a way.

Speaker 11 (51:13):
Yeah, yeah, gotta figure out a way because you know,
you know, I'm not thinking all glenmen dom, but man,
we're about to maybe go on what our fifth year
of maybe not making the tournament?

Speaker 10 (51:24):
Football?

Speaker 11 (51:26):
Hey, football, the guy this guy fires Kerry times the
only link.

Speaker 10 (51:31):
Hey, I'll tell you another thing.

Speaker 11 (51:32):
I'm not going to name names, but local high school
coach here in the city, he kind of talks to
me via social media and he calls this guy this, uh,
what's that guy's name there? At the coach the Satterfield
calls him. He calls him Tommy Coverville two point zero
and doesn't make any sense to him because this high school,

(51:54):
they're a pipeline in the UK. They send a lot
of UK kids. They send a kid to Alabama this year,
and he's shocked because you got kids here locally that
want to go to UC and he just ignores them.
You know, we got to get back to what makes
Cincinnati basketball and football great. And I think that starts
with getting rid of John Cunningham. This guy is from Minnesota.

(52:18):
He's uh, he's one of those northern boys.

Speaker 7 (52:21):
We need to get one of these.

Speaker 11 (52:22):
Guys in here that know, that knows the city, that
knows you see basketball, and we just got to get
it back.

Speaker 7 (52:29):
Man.

Speaker 11 (52:29):
I just I don't have good confidence right now. I
want to have confidence, but man, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
Look, it's it's Dan, It's it's hard to feel good
about football giving the way the season ended. You are
correct and making your assessment that you see football in
the past has been really good on the shoulders of
local kids. And the last couple of recruiting classes, obviously
recruiting has changed because now you bring in kids from
other you know, established college football programs. But uh, the

(52:57):
high school recruiting has not yielded many local kids when
it did under Luke Fickle and it did under Mark D'Antonio.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
And until they win.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
With players from other parts of the country, that criticism
is going to be fair. And you know you mentioned
the athletic director. Look, the reality is ads have jobs
that have a lot of different facets to them, but
what resonates most with the public are how your coach
is fair in football and men's basketball. Scott Saderfield may

(53:25):
get this thing turned around right now is deeply unpopular
and there's a lot of skepticism and Wes Miller's unpopularity
is increasing by every loss, and there is some built
in skepticism. And as long as that is the case,
the athletic director is going to be in the public's crosshairs.
And I think he would be the first to tell you,
maybe in an email, that the criticism he is getting

(53:46):
is not going to go away until at least one
of those programs gets things completely turned around. Dan enjoy
talking to you man.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Thank you.

Speaker 10 (53:53):
Hey, one more thing?

Speaker 11 (53:55):
Yeah, Hey, so you know you said you like you
see to get out and run. You know, when I'm
not watching you see. One of my one of my
teams that I like to watch is Alabama nat oates.
They like to get up and down. I would love
to see UC do that. So maybe, uh maybe west
Miller could install some of that. But we gotta get
something going. We gotta we gotta make the tournament this year.

Speaker 10 (54:16):
But I'll leave you alone.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
My favorite team in the country to watch dan is Alabama.
Look there, They're not gonna score like that. Bama has
like dudes, and but I just I look at Jigsel James,
who we've talked a lot about. How do they get
him going this season and get him playing at a
level that we thought he would be playing at right now?

Speaker 2 (54:36):
And I I can't help.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
But wonder if you said to Jizsel, you're in charge
of the offense, You're in charge of how you play
that that he would want to go downhill a little
bit more. I used to make this argument when when
Mick was here, that I'd watch how slowly they brought
the ball up the floor, and I would go, you know,
you go to an open gym.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
That's not how guys play. Like, go to an open gym,
guys are running guys.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
You got to open gym when I still played over
thirty basketball, Like guys are running over thirty basketball, wheezing
an out of shape. But like I just I can't
help but think that Number one, they've got to get
him playing at a higher level. He is, He is
the engine, and I think everything really does flow from him.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Okay, how do we get him going? Do we allow him.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
To to to play faster, to play downhill, initiate offense
more quickly and run And maybe the answer is no,
And maybe they'd try that and the results aren't that
much better. But you know, Wes did try some other things.
On Saturday, played Josh Reied was his first guy off
the bench. Josh does not play a lot. He played CJ. Frederick,
I think was his second guy off the bench. CJ

(55:44):
does not play a lot. Reid I thought gave him
some some good minutes. So he is trying some things.
But I would like to see him pick up the
pace just a little bit. I am very late as usual.
Twenty one after four o'clock five point three seven four nine,
fifteen thirty is our phone number. This is ESPN fifteen thirty,
Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 12 (56:03):
Cincinnati's ees ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's sports station.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Twenty six after Board. This is ESPN fifteen thirty on Moegar.
I appreciate you listening today and every day. All Danner
Junior on the show tomorrow three o'clock hour and the
whole slew as we say, of Bengals off season, of
related topics, anything you might miss on this show on
the iHeartRadio app. I thought last week our buddy Kelsey

(56:29):
Conway was particularly good talking about the Bengals defensive coordinator search,
which this weekend we found out is going to include
former Bears head coach Matt Eberflus. So as long as
he is not in charge of any sort of clock
or timeout decision. Fine, Because when you asked me about

(56:52):
the Thanksgiving of twenty twenty four, I'm not going to
talk about the meal that I had. I'm not going
to talk about the people that I was with. I'm
going to talk about out what it was like to
uh stand in my brother in law's kitchen watching Matt
Eberflus screw up that game against Alliance.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
I was that Uh yeah, it was against Allons, right, whatever.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
It is, twenty seven after four o'clock. Uh, let's see here.
Go ahead, Mike, Mike, what's up? You're on ESPN fifteen thirty.
I got a lot of emails about you this weekend.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
How's it going?

Speaker 6 (57:26):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (57:27):
Okay, you already checked me off. God, I got we
got moved.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Okay, you got moved. The the Placi'er Living, you got moved,
you got evacuated. You're out there in Los Angeles. Did
they move everybody in the Placier Living?

Speaker 7 (57:41):
Yeah, the hostice veterans, hostage, cancer hostage, right, and they
moved it Ala Joia down to uh so the fire
book out uh in San Quomenty, which isn't too far away, right,
So they this was going huh Friday night at about
three am Saturday morning, three am, and they brought us

(58:04):
over to Camp Pendleton, which is the largest Marine Corps
base in America, and it's right right on the ocean
near Ocean side, California. So they moved us down here,
about one hundred guys.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
And the area you're in now is deemed safer than
the area the facility you're typically housed in is correct.

Speaker 7 (58:30):
Yeah, correct, And and we still nobody's told us if
if our hospital or Little Plantic hospital got burnt down
yet we can't find nothing else. I'm sleeping on a
cot in a barracks with all of us. Other guys
were taking up two barracks normally, how's marines going through

(58:54):
boot camp? And we've got all over our medical equipment
here they brought. It was incredible will how efficiently they
moved all this stuff down.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
So those obviously aren't the most comfortable accommodations. But are
you still able to get the care you need? Are
you still able to get the you and the other
men and women you're with, are they able to get
the you guys able to get the medication and stuff
you need.

Speaker 7 (59:18):
Yeah, we're able to get the bear necessities. Of course,
no testing or anything yet. But we're just thankful to
be here. But I forgot You know, I can sleep
on a cot really good. You know, if you're tired enough,
you can sleep on anything.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
And yes, this is true, this is true.

Speaker 7 (59:35):
Yeah, and so it's not that bad. But it was
kind of spooky because we could see this fire burning
up the road. It was about five miles away, and
the winds back down, thank god. But now the winds
have picked back up. So I'm telling you Southern California
it is not over a few canaanas your back. They're

(59:56):
blowing about one hundred and twenty miles an hour over
the alcohol pass and it is on.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
So I was watching the news this morning and they
were talking about having a percentage of the blaze contained,
but that a lot of that work, many of them right,
but that a lot of that work could be undone
because they're really fearful of the high winds that they
believe will start tomorrow.

Speaker 7 (01:00:22):
Yeah, actually over night to night. And the thing is
the firefighters, when you're dealing with one hundred mile an
hour plus even eighty mile an hour plus wins, they
can't get The helicopters in the here or the airplanes,
and the firefighters just they it's too dangerous. They can't
get they can't go into the wind. They just can't
because they can't run fast enough. If the thing changes direction,

(01:00:47):
you don't. The fastest guy in the NFL can't run
that fast.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Well, the good news is you're with us, h and
everybody that you are housed with is is safe. I
know it's pain in the neck for everybody, but the
good news is you're with us. And I've I've watched
a lot of the coverage of what's going on out there,
and it's, uh, it's it's it goes without saying it's sad,
it's it's heartbreaking. And I've tried to put myself in

(01:01:15):
the shoes of somebody who is, you know, watching their
house go down in flames, and you know, it's in
many cases material stuff that can be replaced, but it's
still got to be just beyond helpless. So I'm glad
that as we talk today that you're okay, and uh,
I hope that remains the case beyond that, Mike, what's
on your mind?

Speaker 7 (01:01:37):
I think they're reds. Well this is all we got
to talk about. Well no, well let me start with
you see if.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
You'll indulge, Sure, yeah, go ahead, Mike.

Speaker 7 (01:01:47):
So I listened to West Miller's post game, and uh,
I'm wishing it would weaning more towards Nick. I mean,
I know these guys know their players better, they know
their idiosyncrasies, their ins and outs mentally, all these things
that I have no idea or you don't either, But

(01:02:11):
I just feel like it's signed for West to try
and start cracking the whip in public, because it looked
to me like that last four minutes the other night,
looks to me, they quit. I mean, I hate to
say that, but it looked like they quit. To Memo,
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Know, you're you're referencing the Baylor game.

Speaker 7 (01:02:32):
No, I'm referenced at Kansas Kansas.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
Yeah, you know, I felt like as the walls closed
in late in the game, there was a definitive lack
of fight. And I felt that way about Bailor. Like,
here's the thing about post games. I have rarely heard
a coach after a loss in a postgame press conference

(01:02:57):
or doing an obligated interview where they said anything that
made anybody feel better, you know, So I tend to
really frankly not care that much about what the coach
has to say. And then the public opinion of it,
the public reaction to it. I you know, I watched

(01:03:20):
I watched Mick Cronin lose his mind again on Friday night,
and I listened to the UCLA radio broadcast after, and
you know, and then I I thought to myself, like, well,
the Mick's going to be crushed for what he has
to say about the officials, and then prior to that,
he was crushed for what he had to say about
his own players. And then Wes Miller loses a game,

(01:03:40):
and I mean like, losing coach speaks after game is
gonna get crushed no matter what he says. So I
tend to feel like if if the team wins and
the coach does the interview or the coach does the
press conference, regardless of sport, there's nothing that he or
she can say that's gonna make anybody feel any better.
So I don't care about the postgame interview. I care
about the product that I watch, and I care about

(01:04:01):
the results the team achieves. And the results the team
has achieved over the last four games has been sobering.
But the way they have played, and I think specifically
what you're referring to the way they have played latent
games has been really, really troubling and perhaps very reflective

(01:04:22):
of the head coach. And that matters to me a
lot more than anything the coach says after a.

Speaker 7 (01:04:26):
Game, Okay, that makes sense now having said that, these
next five games where they're playing lower half Big twelve.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Teams, right, sure, I mean they're there.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
This is the part of the schedule that I think
a lot of us looked at at the beginning of
the season and said they could stack some wins here
and they have to.

Speaker 7 (01:04:47):
Now, I mean, Wes Miller's up against it at this point,
so you know, and hopefully they'll come out of it.
But it's just something doesn't feel right to me. Mos
And I'm a big the UC fan way longer than you,
but you know it better than I do by a
long shot. So what is want to eaton at you

(01:05:07):
more than anything about the program right now?

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Uh that over the last two games, I haven't loved
the effort late and specifically against Baylor that defensively they
were as porous as they were.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
That the pieces don't seem to fit.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
I think there are pieces on this team that a
lot of coaches would like to have, and individually some
guys who are you know, big twelve players, all big
twelve guys, No, but big twelve players, and they don't
seem to fit.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
And what troubles me just talking.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
About it purely emotionally, Mike is like, I'm like a
lot of UC fans in that I was spoiled where
for twenty three of twenty five years, for twenty three
of twenty eight years, they made the NCAA Tournament and
my favorite team in my favorite sport not playing in
the tournament for a six consecutive year as a prospect.

(01:06:03):
That really bums me out. If I'm being completely honest.
I mean, my favorite team in my favorite sport not
playing in the event that I care about most, not
being in it for the six consecutive year that they
obviously have a lot of time to change, that that
bums just I'm being completely emotional here. That bums me out. Now,

(01:06:23):
they aren't a portion of their schedule where you go, Okay,
it's Arizona State. I'm sorry, it's Colorado on the road,
Arizona State, Texas Tech BYU Utah. Those are winnable games
if you look at those opponents in a vacuum. But
I am less interested in who they play and more
interested in how they play and how they have played
offensively for a while now. Is not good enough. It's

(01:06:47):
not good enough on the road. It's not good enough
against most big twelve teams. It's not good enough against
most powerful teams. I'm more interested in how they play
than who they play, and that's effort, but it's also execution,
and it's also seeing a for my money, at least
a revamping of how they play stylistically.

Speaker 7 (01:07:06):
In the designation that you make in your usual brilliance
is what's key that you be in a vacuum, because
you can analyze things in a vacuum and completely miss
the boat. And this is what you're trying to allude to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
I believe, Well, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
The Baylor game on Tuesday. West after the game said well,
these these games happen. Sometimes you just get beat. Absolutely
could not agree more. Sometimes you have a terrible night.
Sometimes the other team is just better. Sometimes you're not
at your best. Sometimes the ball doesn't go in. Sometimes
whatever you drop and the whiteboard's not going to work,
and you lose, and you lose by a lot. It happens,

(01:07:47):
and happens to good teams. The problem for me isn't
any individual result. The problem for me is when I
have watched this team for the better part of a month.
On the offensive end, they haven't been good enough, and
the way they've looked recently would suggest they're not good
enough of doing the other things for this team to
have this sort of season that a lot of us
thought it could have. And that's again, that's frustrating, Mike.

(01:08:09):
I hope you guys, stay safe and get what you
need man, Thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:08:13):
Hey. One quickie is Jaden Daniels working his way through
top sixty seven. Because if they beat Detroit, does Dan
Quinn suddenly become the coach of the year and does
Jade and Daniels move up on that quarterback skill?

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
Well, the coach of the Year is a regular season
award that's been decided. I'd give him more than a
puncher's chance against the Lions because the Lion's got a
lot of hurt guys now the Detroit's at home. They've
been awesome indoors. I think much of the country is
rooting for them. Jaden Daniels is awesome. He was terrific
last night. That dude's upside is insane. What I love

(01:08:51):
most about him is he's made Terry McLaurin a household name.
But I give him a shot against Detroit. I give
him a shot against the Lions. Lions defense for most
of the season was not great. Played very well against
Sam Darnold, who turned into a pumpkin at least for
a week in that last game of the regular season.
But there's a lot of hurt guys and not a
great defense top to bottom. I think that's going to
be a fun game. We are late twenty one from

(01:09:13):
five ESPN fifteen to.

Speaker 8 (01:09:14):
Thirty Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 9 (01:09:20):
Traffic from the uc Health Traffic Center. Don't let injuries
slow you down. The uc Health orthopedics and sports medicine
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It's an accident blocking off the left lane that on
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(01:09:42):
It's an accident between Glenwood Avenue and Clinton Springs Avenue.
Police there on the scene expects some delays at he's
not like with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
This report is sponsored by Top Sports Network.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
They're going to spend any time promoting our show. But
the Reds television deal is well, it's it's a lot
like the old deal. So, as you probably know, the
company that owned Bally Sports has gone through its own
series of financial issues which are not really worth getting into,
and so it looked like the Reds were gonna go

(01:10:17):
off and do their own thing and make it direct
to consumer and try to get it on different carriers
and talking about TV deals is very, very boring, so
we're not gonna we're not gonna bore you with it. Well,
as it turns out that's not the case, and what
they're going to do is put the games right back
on FanDuel Sports Network, which was Bally Sports they renamed it.

(01:10:37):
There are and because I don't want to get in trouble,
I'm not going to mention who they are, but there
are area television providers who have pulled FanDuel Sports Network
from their lineup. So like those folks haven't been able
to watch the Blue Jackets games and the Cleveland Cavaliers games.
I've got to think they're going to rethink that and

(01:10:58):
put it back now that the Reds are going to
be back on Fandels Sports. Reading a few different things
here and some of the quotes coming from Reds management,
it does feel like from a financial standpoint, this will
be a little bit more profitable than they were forecasting
what they were going to do. Being that doesn't mean
they're going to be in the Anthony Santander sweepstakes, and

(01:11:20):
some on the internet will argue they shouldn't be. Nonetheless,
there you go. Now what I expect is on Fandel
Sports Network. They spend a few minutes promoting us would
be nice, would you take a podcast show? Everyone else
got a podcast on there.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Well that's what I So.

Speaker 3 (01:11:38):
The provider that we use pulled Fandel Sports Network, which
you know, okay, So I've been waiting to see what's
going to happen come baseball season and how the Reds
TV deal was going to work, and how this was

(01:11:59):
going to work was going to determine what I ultimately
did with.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
How I get my TV.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
I don't want to get in any trouble, but not
having FanDuel Sports Network, I you know, I like watching
the Cavs games, and the Cavaliers are a blast to
watch this season, and I'm a very casual Blue Jackets fan,
so not being able to watch those games has been,
you know, kind of disappointing. But I also have missed,

(01:12:29):
you know, watching Enter the Jungle and some of the
other podcasts that have been given airtime on that network.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
And now what if.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
They gave me one, I'll be I was asked while
I'm in the business of potentially getting myself in trouble,
I was asked prior to last baseball season, if I
would do a REDS podcast.

Speaker 7 (01:12:54):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
And I told the person, well, like, first of all,
I have to okay that with the people.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
That I work for. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
But before I do that, do you mind telling me
you know what it would pay? And on the other
end of the phone, the gentleman who I talked to said, nothing,
I'm not going to get into who had that conversation with.

(01:13:26):
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into, you know,
the ins and outs of that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
So I didn't even.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
But let me just say, believe me when I tell
you that conversation actually happened.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
Oh yeah, what's it pay? How about nothing? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
Which, like you you want to you want to know
in life, like how how much someone thinks of your work?

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
Have them offer you an opportunity?

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
And and and when you ask, okay, cool, what what's
it gonna nothing? That'll tell you how they feel a
sure work, Like how many people had they offered the
job too? Before they're like, ma, will say yes and
do this for free. Believe me when I tell you
that that happened, it's not entirely true. It was like, well,

(01:14:16):
we're not gonna pay you anything. And then if you
get like one hundred subscribers, we'll pay you like thirty
bucks or something like. No, that's that's not going to
be the case. And I think this gentleman had designs
on getting that podcast on what then at the time
was Battle Sports Ohio. So I never I have no

(01:14:36):
idea if the folks that I worked for would have
said yes or no, but I didn't. We didn't have
to go that far up the ladder. Yeah, I'm interested, Yeah,
to be fun to do a Reds podcast. Who do
I get to do it with? And I was told
and that was kind of cool, and then it was yeah,
in exchange, we'll give you zero dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
Oh, thanks so much.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
I'm a terrible negotiator, but even I negotiated my way
out of that. So, yeah, the Reds are gonna be
on FanDuel Sports Network, and very very good and fair
questions about like what's this going to mean for the
team's budget, because let's be honest, like all off season
a long, that's been the question. Do they have the
budget to go and get what they need? Do they

(01:15:17):
have the money to go and get And it's not
for my money, It's it's not do they have it,
it's are they willing to spend what it's gonna take
to go get in the off season the upgrade that
we're all hoping they get, which is an outfield bad
And I I'll be honest with you man, when I
when I hear when I hear, well, you know, we
have some to spend and not much. Whatever the financial

(01:15:39):
realities are for the Reds or whatever they choose their
financial realities to be for this season, are not excuses.
If the Reds don't win this year, then I'm gonna
look at like this entire stretch of time and go like, well,
that's a major disappointment. And it's a disappointment, or would
be a disappointment because of a lot of different, very variables,

(01:16:01):
but that would be a disappointment. Right in the summer
of twenty twenty three, we were talking about like, all right,
they're probably a little ahead of schedule, but by twenty
twenty five, like on schedule is mean seriously contending. Tony
and Austin had this earlier today, the over under for
the Reds, and I've seen it at seventy nine and
a half. I just want once for the expectation to

(01:16:21):
be that the Reds are serious contenders, not for the hope,
and again, we're gonna do it this year, and I'm
certainly hopeful that the Reds can exceed everybody's expectations. But man,
wouldn't it be great if at least once we could
talk about the Reds not being a sleeper team or
not hoping to exceed expectations and actually have us talk

(01:16:42):
about them going into the season as a team that
we should expect to win big I don't think that's
gonna change as long as we keep talking about the budget.
It's coming up on five o'clock. I made a lot
of friends in that segment. This is ESPN fifteen thirty,
Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Men, your chance to win a thousand dollars on.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
Our website, Grand Grand, Grand Grand Now now.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Brands. What's that got us?

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
We're not eligible where employees have I heard me? Hi,
good afternoon, Oleger.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
That's me.

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Thank you very much for
listening today. We've we've had good calls this afternoon. We've
been uh heavy on college basketball and specifically the Bearcats.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
And that's not to slide anybody else.

Speaker 3 (01:17:33):
Forty minutes on Saturday, I'm more on that in a bit.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
I just I thread the poll question on X.

Speaker 3 (01:17:39):
I did it a few minutes ago, and I'm late
on this today.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
My apologies.

Speaker 3 (01:17:42):
Our poll questions are a service of United Heartland Insurance.
Go to UHI ands dot com. Which franchise is closer
to winning a championship? Bengals or Steelers? Uh that to me?
There were five games this weekend. Four of them were
not great. The game last night between the Buccaneers and
Commanders was good. I think tonight's game has a chance
to be pretty entertaining. Buffalo Denver, you kind of you

(01:18:07):
kind of didn't think was gonna be great and it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
Uh, which, which we could do the college football.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
Thing and talk about how well the Bengals should have
been in the playoffs, because you know they they would
have put up more of a fight to the Broncos.
But the Bengals didn't deserve to be in the playoffs
because they didn win enough games. And U Joe Mixon
looks Joe Mixon ran tough and hard, and I know
a lot of folks here watched the Texans through the
lens of Joe Mixon. And how he I love, I

(01:18:33):
love how he played on Saturday. And that's that's not
to relitigate letting him move on, because I understand why
they did. But let's be honest. Maybe if you're a
Buckeye fan, you're watching through the lens of C. J.
Stroud getting to the second round of the playoffs for
a second straight year. But Houston physically overwhelmed the Chargers,
I thought, and Justin Herbert stunk. Justin Herbert, I I, well,

(01:19:00):
I will make a bit of a guarantee. I don't
know how many more times Joe Burrow is going to
play in the playoffs. I hope he's in the playoffs
this coming season. I wish he was in the playoffs
right now. And look, there are a lot of teams
that would like to have Justin Herbert. Joe Burrow will
never throw four picks in a playoff game.

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
How's that for you?

Speaker 3 (01:19:22):
The game Saturday night Pittsburgh and Baltimore, And let's be honest,
we're in AFC Northtown. We root against both franchises. I
think that was I think who you rooted for on
Saturday dependent on I guess who you hate more. For
most Bengals fans, that's the Steelers, or if you like
to bet on football, which team you bet on? For me,
that was going to be the Baltimore Ravens. But I

(01:19:43):
said during the season, when Pittsburgh was playing really well,
including thrashing the Bengals here in Cincinnati, that when Pittsburgh
got to the postseason, the dynamic was going to be
interesting because it's been forever since the Steelers have advanced.
You know, think of how much people respect that franchise
and glorify that franchise, and at times understandably and deservedly so,

(01:20:07):
and sometimes it's over the top. They haven't done a
lot of winning. And it's not just been the eight
years they've lost postseason games since their last Super Bowl
appearance that they were heavily favored in or to quarterbacks
who are not that good.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
But eight years, eight years is a long damn time.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
And I said this back in November that when we
got to the playoffs, one of the interesting things to
me was gonna be what would happen, what the fallout
would be, and what people would say and write about
Mike Tomlin if if they lost in the postseason without winning,
if they didn't advance, And that's exactly what happened. And
you know Kirk Kurbstreet. Kirk Kurbstreet has become kind of

(01:20:43):
a polarizing figure, and for some of his comments about
the college football playoff, I understand why, and I've disagreed
with many of them, and for his social media persona,
which you know, look, Kirk, just say it's you going
at people on social media. Don't blame your son. It's fine.
But I watched that game on Amazon Prime on Saturday,

(01:21:04):
and I thought Kirk was as pointed as an NFL
announcer can be regarding a team's lack of energy and
effort early in a playoff game where you didn't see
it from the Steelers.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
And here's this.

Speaker 3 (01:21:18):
Franchise, the Pittsburgh Steelers, that, more than maybe anything else,
you associate with physicality and being the bully.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
Instead they were pushed around.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
Teddy Bruski talked about this on ESPN yesterday morning, that
this wasn't a playoff game where some fluky stuff happened,
like a weird turnover like there was one last night
in Tampa Bay versus Washington where the Bucks turned it
over in their own end and it kind of swung
the game. There was nothing like that. There were no
turnovers in the game. Baltimore didn't try any trick plays.

(01:21:49):
There were no unsung heroes. They didn't dig deep into
their playbook. They lined up and handed the ball to
Derrick Henry. And when they didn't do that, Lamar took
it himself and just said to pitch R eleven are
better than your eleven. We're gonna run over you guys,
and you're gonna be helpless against it. I mean, as
much as like we go overboard and talking about AFC

(01:22:11):
North football, uh, and you know the physical nature of
this division and how old school like that was, old
school football. Man, R eleven versus your eleven, you can't
stop us. Is that Mike Tomlin's fault? Maybe maybe not,
but it is the continuation of something that there has
been an issue for a while. And I feel like

(01:22:32):
the Steelers, you know, Tony and I make fun of
the Mike Tomlin trope, which is, you know, he's never
had a losing season, and it's true, and it's a.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
Really cool record.

Speaker 3 (01:22:43):
I mean, you know, you coach that many years consecutively,
you've never had a season where the losses outweigh the wins.
That's worth celebrating. In my opinion that's worth respecting. But
it's also been a long time since I think you
took them legitimately serious as a title contender. They feel
like they're in absolute NFL purgatory. From a quarterback perspective,

(01:23:08):
from a philosophical perspective, from the perspective of continuing to hire.
I need somebody who knows a lot more about football
than me to understand why Arthur Smith is so coveted.
Because I watched his offense in Atlanta closely, because I
root for Dez Ritter didn't work. I watched it in
Pittsburgh this year. They didn't score more than seventeen points

(01:23:29):
in any of their last five games. I watched that team,
and they they feel to me like, maybe, tarn you
can help me with this.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
I'm older than you, but like they feel to.

Speaker 3 (01:23:40):
Me like a good guy wrestler from back in the
eighties that you know you'd watch on Saturday morning and
they beat up on jobbers, and they cut fun promos
and they had cool theme music, but you knew they
were never going to be given a chance to win
the title. I don't know who that is. Kocobe Ware

(01:24:00):
comes to mind, the Birdman, Maybe it's not the best analogy,
Like it feels like they're perpetually going to go ten
and seven or nine and eight, and Mike Tomlin's gonna
say some fun things at the podium, and we're gonna
slobber over the fact that he never has a losing record,
and he's gonna be the hit of hard knocks, and
yet you don't take them seriously as championship contenders. I'll

(01:24:23):
admit there was a time during the season where I
felt like they were the best team in the AFC.
But when we got to December and you saw how
they were playing, and you saw how they were playing
at times against good teams, you know, Philadelphia kind of
had their way with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Baltimore at
the end of the season had their way with the

(01:24:44):
Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Kansas City Chiefs had their way
with the Pittsburgh Steelers. And when you saw them play
those games, even the Bengals say, which one about that
game the Pittsburgh played here when they scored forty four points,
Bengals came back, made it at least somewhat interesting and
offensively did a lot of good things. You just didn't
really take them seriously. Even when they beat the Ravens

(01:25:04):
on six field goals, You're like, am I am I
trusting that team to win three times in the AFC.
And so I joked about this at the top of
the show. Mike Tomlin's being written about today. The Steelers
are being written about today, And I think from the
perspective of, like, how does this get fixed, who do
you blame? Why is it kind of gone sideways? What

(01:25:26):
should happen next? And from a Bengals fan perspective, I
don't want them to do anything. I want them to
sign Russell Wilson and I want them to give Mike
Tomlin a lifetime contract, because.

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
What they're doing is it's not like the Browns.

Speaker 3 (01:25:43):
You know that they're not some hopeless, happless franchise like
the Jets, but they're also not a team that I
take seriously as a championship contender. Now I know, I
know you're gonna will you take the Bengals seriously as
a championship contender?

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
Well? This year?

Speaker 3 (01:25:59):
No, I mean by about week four, I think we
knew this team wasn't a championship contender.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
But I could see a.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
Path with this coach, as beaten up and as criticized
understandably as he has been. With this coach and with
this quarterback, that ends with them at least being considered
a serious championship contender. The Bengals have a lot of
work in front of them this offseason, a ton and

(01:26:30):
some really interesting decisions. This t Higgins thing is not easy,
and it's not without fallout no matter what they do.
It's not like we love to pretend it's easy. I'll
sign them, Okay, well but then what right? Like, then
how do you fix all the other stuff? Or hey,
let them walk? And then it's like, well, how do
you replace a guy like that? Same with the Trey
Hendrickson thing. But you certainly could lead me down a

(01:26:54):
path where the Bengals have done the things they need
to do this off season and we are talking about
them in serious championship terms. I don't think that's gonna
happen with the Pittsburgh Steelers. I could be dead wrong
about it won't be the first time. Then, yeah, I'm
having fun with this because I am a Bengals fan.
But just you know, stepping away from it for a

(01:27:14):
second and looking at it objectively, they feel like the
You know, I used to always compare teams to the
Atlanta Hawks. You know, in the postseason every year, some
good players, they're not winning it. The expectation there is
not with those individual teams that they win. So is
a Bengals fan that's awesome? I that's the Paul question

(01:27:35):
on X. I threw it up during the top of
the hour at five o'clock thanks to United Heartland Insurance
UHI ands dot com. Which franchise is closer to winning
a championship? I have no issue saying the Bengals. That
doesn't mean they're that close. I didn't include the Ravens
in it. I didn't include the Bills, didn't include the Chiefs,
it didn't include any number of good NFC teams. I

(01:27:57):
think the Bengals, like Joe Burrow, got wasted this year.
Joe Burrow still has the capability and almost did it
to obscure a lot of warts. They almost got to
the playoffs in spite of that awful defense, a below
average offensive line, and some shakey coaching. Get some of
that stuff rectified. You wouldn't consider this team a championship contender,

(01:28:22):
might not consider them the favorite, might not bet an
amount of money on them that matters to you that
they would win it. But if I said to you,
you have to bet on one of these two teams
to win the title next year, neither may, but you
have to bet on one. You're not putting your money
on the Pittsburgh Steelers. There's a very long now track
record of that team having a low ceiling, very high floor,

(01:28:44):
no doubt about it, very high floor. And that's to
be respected because I always do the how good you're good,
how bad you're bad. The bad for Pittsburgh is not bad,
by the way, the bad for the Bengals the last
couple of years has been nine to eight. The bad
is not bad. The good isn't that good. The good here,
I think can be, so if nothing else, you can
cling to that if you're a Bengals fan, our bad

(01:29:08):
is not that bad, and our good could be better
than Pittsburgh's.

Speaker 2 (01:29:11):
And I think it will be. I think it can be.

Speaker 3 (01:29:14):
I think there's such a long now track record of
you know, Ben Roethlisberger, that front office did not prepare
for life without him while he was still there. We
used to joke about this and not to make this
a Pittsburgh Steelers show. But we used to joke about,
like in Pittsburgh, like Ben keep coming back, man, because
you know how he would embrace the drama and do
the thing about like, well, Ben's announced that he is,

(01:29:36):
this is not it, He's gonna come back. And at
the end we were like, awesome, can can you announce
your coming back for the year after that too, they
never addressed their quarterback situation post Ben while he was
still there, which is a mistake. And since then Russell
Wilson was a nice pickup. I like what they did
because they they took a flyer on Justin Fields, got
Russell Wilson. It didn't cost him that much. Oh, winning

(01:29:56):
a championship with those guys they're not and so long
track record of the coach not winning stuck in sort
of quarterback purgatory franchises kind of stuck. They're the the
Milwaukee Brewers right always in the postseason, but when the

(01:30:16):
playoffs begin, you don't look at them like you do
the La Dodgers. I could come up with others. I
let the Coco beware five point three seven four nine,
fifteen thirty vote now at Mulegar. That that got me
away from talking more about the Bearcats, which we'll we'll

(01:30:38):
jump back to here in a second. The Saturday was
awful and not not too I am sometimes wary of
going too heavy all in on the Bearcats and ignoring
other teams, and there was some good and some not
so good college basketball this weekend. The not so good
would be what you see did against Kansas, And where

(01:30:59):
do you want to begin with it? I think this
thing that stood out to me more than anything in
the game itself was the sound from the crowd. We
had a caller before talked about the lack of energy
in the stands. It It was not what you would
expect for a game of that caliber. I put more
of that on the team, but there was booing in
the second half that was not aimed at the officials,
and it was not aimed at we're stuck in this gym.

(01:31:19):
It was aimed at the encore product and the way
the season has been going forty points in forty minutes
is really hard to accomplish. Losing by fourteen when you
only give up fifty four in your building is really
hard to accomplish. But I think for me, at least,
what was what is so sobering about it isn't that

(01:31:40):
they scored forty points against Kansas. It's not even that
they scored eighty eight points last week in two games.
It's that some of the things that kind of sat
beneath the surface when they were winning, that some of
us were fearful of, have gone on to just fire
our fears. You know, when they beat Xavier, if you're

(01:32:04):
a Bearcat fan, that was cathartic and it was overdue
and it was worth celebrating, and it helped Wes Miller
cross check a box.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
In the immediate aftermath of that game, nobody.

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
Talked about the fact that they shot less than forty
percent and just really didn't execute in the half court.
And they beat Date in a week later, good win
against the team that really played well, and Maui had
just beaten Marquette, quality resume win, revenge for losing to
the Flyers the previous year. A lot to talk of

(01:32:39):
can that series continue, should they still play in that thing? Well,
there'll be other schools involved. How good the Bearcats were
on defense that night, nobody really talked about offensively, weren't
very good, and understandably so, because nobody wants to be
negative after a loss. But the one of the what

(01:33:00):
are the sort of side topics to both of those
games was man, you see, offensively has to play better
well in the four games they have played, no knock
on Grambling state that we have really paid close attention
to since the offense has either not gotten better or
in the case of the last two games, it's gotten worse.
And so it's not just how they played on Saturday.

(01:33:23):
It's not just scoring forty points in forty minutes. It's
a team that all of a sudden, offensively you talk
about having a low ceiling, has a very low ceiling,
and it's broad. I think for most of us, the
ceiling of the team for this season down with it.
So the question now for me is not how do
they get better offensively? Obviously they should still work on things.

(01:33:45):
I'd like to see them run a little bit more.
It'd be great if they can come up with some
ideas to get better looks in the half court. Although
I'll be honest with you, they had some really good
looks on Saturday. It just didn't go. It's can they
figure out ways to overcome what they're not on defensively
enough to still accomplish what we all thought the goal
was at the beginning of the season, which was to

(01:34:06):
make the NCAA tournament and have a respectable record in
the Big Twelve. You're free to answer that question too.
Five point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty is our
phone number twenty one after five o'clock. We've touched on
the Reds here and there as well, and we'll continue
to do so. I uh, I don't know, man.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
It just I once want.

Speaker 3 (01:34:32):
The calendar to flip to February and feel like we
are expecting the Reds to win and not hoping for it.
And I've said often hope is not a strategy. It
feels like hope is outweighing expectation yet again. More on
that later on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports station.

Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
Hoople that has the person with the annoying laugh? Is
that a do? Is that a month long thing? Is
that this week?

Speaker 3 (01:35:00):
What do we It's Clarax, which is a great product.
Love Clorox. We use Clarox at our house with Clarox wipes,
love them, love them. When you got a seven year old,
you invest heavily in Clarox wipes. So we love clarax,
annoying laugh commercial when the college football speaking of commercials,

(01:35:21):
when the college football playoff ends, or can we be
done with the high tide?

Speaker 11 (01:35:24):
Guy?

Speaker 3 (01:35:25):
Is that a state farm had high tide? That is
that is rough? That was that was rough the first
time I saw it. By the seven thousandth airing of
it during these college football playoff.

Speaker 2 (01:35:36):
Games, I'm good, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:35:40):
I'm getting a lot of inquiries as to the company
that offered me a chance to do a podcast and
not pay me. You know, we're going to get to
a point and it's it's not happening anytime soon. We're
gonna get to a point where I I care so
little about fallout from stuff we say that I just

(01:36:00):
I share more of those secrets. And let's be honest,
if you were listening to today's show, which obviously, if
you're hearing my voice right now, you are, you could
probably understand why I was offered the lucrative some of
zero dollars to host a podcast. All right, Bob, Bob,

(01:36:22):
you're on ESPN fifteen thirty. Hi Bob, Hey Mom, how
you doing. I'm awesome. How about yourself?

Speaker 10 (01:36:29):
Hey man, I'm good.

Speaker 13 (01:36:30):
You know, listening to your zero sum for that podcast
thing you were doing.

Speaker 2 (01:36:34):
Yeah, it reminds me of.

Speaker 13 (01:36:36):
A place I once worked at where they came to
me on a Friday and said, hey, next week, we
want you to go to second shift. And I said,
we don't have a second shift.

Speaker 3 (01:36:49):
Said exactly, very good, very good, offered a chance to
do a podcast. I asked what it pays, and I'm
told zero dollars. And then I was waiting for like what, Okay, well, here,
you're gonna pay me in Hamburgers or something like. There
was no like next it was like, we're gonna pay

(01:37:10):
you zero dollars, but dot dot dot it was like no, actually,
we're just we want you to do it for free.
So I turned down that amazing opportunity.

Speaker 13 (01:37:22):
Hey, mom would listen on the on the UC front.
One thing that I don't know. I don't know that
it would be good for the university or for coach Miller,
But you know what, in the preseason, instead of playing
Arkansas Pine Bluff, play Arkansas. Instead of playing Northern Kentucky,

(01:37:45):
play Kentucky. Instead of playing Alabama State, play Alabama. And
you know what, I know you're going into a real
tough schedule with a Big twelve, no question about that.
But you know, I think everybody got so hyped up
that these guys are going to really be good, and

(01:38:05):
I don't It seemed like for the first month, month
and a half, we really I don't know that we
were getting any better because we really weren't playing anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:38:14):
Yeah, you know, I will admit I said on social media.
I don't know when this was, but somebody brought up
their schedule and I said, I don't really have a
problem with it, because they they did play three true
road games, they played two big E schools, they played
a really good date where it was supposed to be

(01:38:35):
a really good dating team on a neutral floor. But
you judge a non league schedule, I think by what
it does for your NCAA tournament resume and how it
prepares you for Big twelve play. This schedule did not
appear to get them ready for Big twelve play. Now, look,
they're not going to play one off games against Kentucky.
They're probably not going to get a home and home

(01:38:55):
against some of the schools you just mentioned. But I
do think you have to figure out way, and I'll
defend I'll defend Wes in the program here to a second,
to a degree that some of the things you've seen
from a scheduling perspective have been the result of what
they walked into. You know, they haven't played in an
MTE in two years, since Maui two years ago, because
they've had some built in contracts. They had to go

(01:39:18):
and play at NKU, which as a local college basketball fan,
is something I really like. But are you better off
playing that or a school that's a little bit more
representative of what you're going to see in the Big Twelve.
It's a fair question, but as a general rule, yeah,
you would like to see them. You would like to
see them play the sort of schedule that doesn't hurt
them from a metrics perspective, and you would like to

(01:39:39):
see them play the sort of schedule that better prepares
them for Big Twelve play and this year's pre conference
schedule it doesn't appear to have done either.

Speaker 13 (01:39:50):
Hey, well, I think my biggest question about Saturday's game
was I would say most people and maybe yourself included,
Dan Skillings is the best player on the team.

Speaker 7 (01:40:05):
Isn't he?

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
I believe he is? Yes, Why does he.

Speaker 13 (01:40:09):
Take one shot in the second half?

Speaker 3 (01:40:12):
Outstanding question outstanding question. I don't know that Dan's the
kind of guy they want to run stuff for. And
if you're not going to do that, well why But
if you're not going to do that, you're asking him
to sort of be a little bit more assertive. And
among Dan's many traits, assertiveness is one that I wished
he uh possessed more emphatically so to speak.

Speaker 13 (01:40:35):
Then that kind of reminded of Dylan Mitchell when they
said something about are you going to do more and
he said no, I'll just kind of wait and see
what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:40:44):
But like I think, I think that kind of speaks
to one of the issues that a lot of us
have watched this team, Like there it feels like there's
no alpha, so to speak. Right, there's no one who's
going to say, screw it, We're not going to let
that team go in a ten oh run because I'm
getting us a bucket or screw it. I you know,
we're in a bit of a scoring drought here. Our
offense isn't working, so I'm gonna go get us a bucket.

(01:41:04):
Like they seem to not really have that. And now
you might argue that that is kind of a byproduct
of the pace that they play at, because they do
play at a somewhat slow pace. But it feels like
they have a lot of guys who are really good
athletes and in some cases talented players, who don't seem
to be willing or allowed to go and take control

(01:41:25):
of the team and take control of individual games offensively.

Speaker 13 (01:41:29):
Final thing, though, have you ever seen a guy in
a month go from somebody and I gotta admit I
thought this guy is a very good player. What has
happened to CBS?

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
Yeah, it's remarkable.

Speaker 3 (01:41:47):
I mean, in the first I had the stats in
front of me, I wrote him down last week, and
I don't have him with me right now, But if
you looked at him through I think it was the
Dayton game compared the shooting percentage compared to what he
has been shooting from outside and really from the field,
but mainly outside. Since I think the Dayton games, it's remarkable.

(01:42:11):
I don't know if it's lost confidence. I don't know
if it's an all Look, he's not the most athletic guy,
so you're gonna have to come up with ways to
get him open. Number one, it doesn't feel like they
have anybody who can break down a defense and allow
Semas to benefit maybe from a defender leaving him and
number two. Offensively, they just they haven't been able to
scheme away to get him open looks, and when he

(01:42:32):
has had looks, he just hasn't made him and this
team's we talk about ceilings, I'm with you, Bob. I
think this team's ceiling is is much much, much lower
than we thought it was gonna be if Semas Lukashis
doesn't get going offensively. When when the Bearcats were at
their best last season on a team that we thought
was not as talented, Seamos was a big reason why,
and he was a big reason why we had so

(01:42:53):
much optimism early in the season. And I hate to
pinpoint any one guy, but his production and shoot drop
off over the last couple of weeks has been I
think the primary reason why offensively this team has fallen
off a cliff.

Speaker 13 (01:43:07):
Yeah, I don't think there's any down about it. An
offensive coordinator in basketball, though, or is there such a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:43:14):
There are?

Speaker 3 (01:43:14):
There are programs, There are teams that have an assistant
coach who specializes an offense and might not call the plays,
but is essentially in charge.

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
Of the offense. Yes, do we have one?

Speaker 3 (01:43:26):
We don't have a person who I think has their
hangs their hat on their ability to draw a half
court offense.

Speaker 7 (01:43:33):
No, can we get one?

Speaker 2 (01:43:37):
Are you signing up for the job?

Speaker 12 (01:43:38):
Bob?

Speaker 3 (01:43:39):
No, I'm not well then, Unfortunately, I think for the
time being, the answer is no. But it's a good question,
all right, it's a it's it's a it's a good
and fair question. Again, like a lot of this feels
like an overreaction to how they played on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (01:43:53):
It's not how they played on Saturday. Like Pike and
I talked about this.

Speaker 3 (01:43:57):
On one of our Monday shows where we always you know,
out a chunk for basketball, and the Monday after the shootout,
we both we talked about what what's next for both
because there's there's such a finality to that game, there's
such build up to it that you kind of forget
like there's an entire season for both teams after that game,

(01:44:19):
and we talked about like what's next for both And
from a bear cat perspective, it was they got to
be better offensively, man, because the schedule is about to
get a lot more difficult. And you know, we even
talked about, like, you know, They're gonna have to be
better against Dayton offensively because their guards can control a
game and take you out of what you want to do.
And the good news is the Bearcats were elite defensively

(01:44:41):
against Dayton. They have not been elite defensively against anybody since.
And the offensive issues have been amplified right, so much
so that they scored one point a minute in the
game at home in which they lost by fourteen despite
holding the other team to fifty four. That, uh, let's

(01:45:03):
be honest, that shouldn't happen. It is twenty four away
from six o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (01:45:09):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 9 (01:45:14):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center. Don't let injuries
slow you down. The UC Health orthopedics and sports medicine
experts can help keep you moving. Schedule a same day
appointment at UCHealth dot com. Eastbound two seventy five at
Reed Hartman Highway, the right lane blocked off from an
accident southbound seventy five before Ezer Charles Drive, another accident

(01:45:38):
blocking the right lane, and northbound seventy one at Smith Edwards,
the right lane blocked from a crash that he's not
like with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:45:46):
This report twenty minutes away on ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:45:49):
There is a Sean Miller show tonight on fifty five
krer See at seven o'clock. And we've got the NFC
wildcard tilt between the Rams and Vikings. Taren, how do
you feel about your beloved Vikings tonight?

Speaker 2 (01:46:00):
A little nervous? Yeah, I'm Donald's first playoff game, neutral
field favorites, the Vikings are.

Speaker 3 (01:46:08):
Should Should I be jaded by what I saw from
Sam Darnold in that last game against Detroit?

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
A little bit?

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
Yeah, there was a real sort of uh okay, is
Sam's going to turn back into Sam?

Speaker 2 (01:46:22):
I don't want that to be the case me neither Moore.
I won't be fun to work with tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
More more, more, less fun than me After UC scores
forty point forty.

Speaker 2 (01:46:33):
Minutes, maybe even less than that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:37):
I was not a very pleasant man to be around
on Saturday afternoon. All right, what else do we have?

Speaker 2 (01:46:44):
Greg? You're on You're on ESPN fifteen thirty high Greg, Hey, Well.

Speaker 12 (01:46:49):
Thanks for taking Mark.

Speaker 2 (01:46:51):
Of course.

Speaker 7 (01:46:53):
I have a disappeale.

Speaker 12 (01:46:54):
That't real quick in my UC take, we were talking
about the Pittsburgh situation, I think they're stuck in the
worst position that you want to be a knowledge sports
when you're just stuck in the middle, you can't get
out of the middle. That you've been stuck there so long.
You're too bad to get a high pick, too good
to really be a continue to win at all. So

(01:47:15):
you just you know, you eight and eight every year.
I don't know if that's where you want to be necessarily.

Speaker 2 (01:47:20):
They feel like the Bengals.

Speaker 3 (01:47:21):
They feel like the Bengals with Andy Dalton, right, they
I mean to a degree, they feel like they.

Speaker 12 (01:47:25):
Feel like, yeah, yeah, you know it was going to
be good enough to compete, but you wouldn't win.

Speaker 3 (01:47:31):
In no Super Bowl, right, They feel like the Bengals,
like twenty and Look, the Bengals had some really good rosters,
and Andy did some really good things, and Marvel Lewis
did some really good things here. But but you never
you never really looked at the absolute best in the
league and felt like the Bengals really belonged.

Speaker 2 (01:47:48):
He held out hope.

Speaker 3 (01:47:49):
You know, we always talked about them winning one simple
playoff game, which they never did. But it kind of
felt like they were at the upper edge of the
middle where they were never gonna have With Andy, a
guy who is considered an upper tier quarterback, they were
gonna need a lot of things to go right, and
they didn't have an elite head coach.

Speaker 2 (01:48:06):
That's what the Steelers feel like right now.

Speaker 12 (01:48:09):
Yeah, definitely, definitely good analogy. I didn't even think about
that the shore real quick on the Baboos tip though,
you know, featured the fire. If we don't if we
don't give Hickerson some more years, this thing, you gotta
hold out.

Speaker 2 (01:48:24):
I don't think he'll like not play.

Speaker 3 (01:48:27):
There are a lot of millions of reasons why he
won't not play. But could I see him not coming
to camp on time.

Speaker 6 (01:48:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:48:34):
The thing is different between him and like some of
the guys we've seen in the past, is like Jesse
Bates didn't come, but he technically wasn't under contract. So
if Trey holds out, they could find him. But as
we saw with Jamar Chase this year, there is such
a thing as a hold in where he's there and
he's doing stuff, but he's not practicing uh, and it
turns into a bit of a spectacle. I hope that

(01:48:56):
doesn't happen with Trey, but I think you have to
at least acknowledge the possibility, and looks he did ask
for a trade this past offseason, he did come to
most of the workouts. I would wonder if he alters
what he typically does during the offseason if he doesn't
get to get an extension.

Speaker 12 (01:49:13):
Yeah, I definitely agree, but feature of the fire though,
I think given trade two more years and I hate
to say cut bait with see Higgins, but I don't know.
I like the way the offense looked when he was injured.
They played really good even without him, still was putting
up thirty points with the autose tight ends that was

(01:49:34):
throwing out there. I think Agall is going to be
a really really good playoffs. Sad to see him going down.
Think the offense kind of went down when he went down.
His versatility, blocking and everything he was doing. But I
don't know hop if he can afford I don't know.
It just doesn't seem like a smart idea to me
to put all the money in those three guys and

(01:49:54):
the defense looked like it looks It's like, I don't
see how you improved the didfense society if you do that?

Speaker 3 (01:50:00):
Yeah, I mean, look it's it's it's it's part of
the equation because you could bring back T Higgins and
there's a lot of reasons why you would want to,
and I'm I'm I will I will waive the flag
for a lot of those reasons.

Speaker 2 (01:50:11):
But it does there is a ripple effect.

Speaker 3 (01:50:14):
It's you know, it's it's not inconsequential that that deal
as you look at what they're going to do to
the rest of the team. But I think they've kind
of shown you how they want to build their defense.
They want to do it mostly through the draft. And
where I think it gets interesting is if you keep
T Higgins, do you trade trade Hendrickson for draft capital
that you could really use to address the defense. I'm

(01:50:36):
glad you brought up a name of a player thought
that I think we often forget because Eric, all, before
he got hurt, we all said, that's a dude. What
I wonder is, back to back years where he has
suffered in acl tear, how much does that compromise his
ability to be a dude.

Speaker 12 (01:50:54):
That's a good question. The other tough days to come
back from the hear mm hmm. That uh part you'll
see though, though I don't know you know, we planned
obviously the competition is much much higher than the conference
of playing in now. But and this paid a college
basket in the state of college sports period, It's a
pay to win situation right now. So we don't have

(01:51:18):
the talent. We don't have any We don't even have
a friend. You gave player on the roster right now
and ain't had it.

Speaker 10 (01:51:24):
I don't know when.

Speaker 12 (01:51:25):
It was the last NBA listen, last the last guy
we had to really a legit NBA talent.

Speaker 3 (01:51:30):
Well, the Jacob Evans was a first round pick. His
NBA career really never took off, but that would be
the last. That's the last draft pick they've had.

Speaker 12 (01:51:40):
Yeah, so I don't know what about what the NIO
budget looking like for us so as we. I think
west Moller is a great coach. I think he is
the guy. But is he being hamstrung because we don't
we're not working over the money to uh to get
the players.

Speaker 2 (01:51:56):
Well, I think they're paying what they can.

Speaker 3 (01:51:58):
I mean, I think if you get some of the
guys they have coming in next year, a lot of
a lot of schools would like to have Keishaan Tillery.
I mean, I think these guys are pretty well compensated.
But I think big picture, it's a fair question. If
you want to compete with Kansas, if you want to
compete with Houston, if you want to compete with the
programs that you expect to consistently be at the top
of the Big twelve? Can can you can you match

(01:52:20):
their salaries? Can you get can you pay for the
sort of players those teams? I still think that UC
has guys that would play for other Big twelve teams.
I do not think they have an all Big twelve guy,
and until they do, it's perhaps hard to expect them
to finish near the top.

Speaker 12 (01:52:36):
The tough tough sled and I think we all I
don't think everybody would admit this, but because it what
you want about mid Cronin though he held his head
on one thing, and when that team came out to
locker room, somebody was going to be going right away,
but the team was always tough, no matter what a
matter of talent they had, because he just played great

(01:52:58):
deeds year after the year. I don't know what's.

Speaker 11 (01:53:03):
Right now.

Speaker 12 (01:53:03):
I don't see a direction.

Speaker 3 (01:53:05):
Here, but I think Greg, thank you. I think that's
the complaint that a lot of people have. I do
appreciate the phone call it. I think that's the complaint
that a lot of people have, Like good or bad,
you knew what a Mick Cronin coach team was going
to look like, and you knew that even if it
had some shortcomings offensively, even if it didn't have this

(01:53:25):
it had, it was going to defend, is going to rebound,
and you were going to get maximum efforts. As hokey
as that might sound. For thirteen years, you knew that,
and for the last nine got pretty good results. We
all wish they would have done more in the postseason,
and oftentimes their lack of offensive firepower did catch up

(01:53:46):
to them. But you knew, here's what it looks like,
here's how they're gonna play, here's what they're gonna have.
And maybe that's a little bit more difficult to sustain
in the era or in now where players can move around.
I think with Wes, as a likable as he is,
and I think he's a really good guy, and as
much as I think he deserves credit for getting the
program back on stable footing, and as hard as all

(01:54:09):
acknowledge it is to move up a level, and really
I think they've moved up two levels. If you really
want to talk about competing with the best of the
best in the Big twelve, I think there's still legitimate
questions about, like is what is what can you hang
your hat on? What is the identity? What do you
really suppose? What are these teams year in and year out,
going to have that you can count on. What is
this supposed to look like? I think that's a fair observation.

(01:54:35):
It's one that I have often shared myself. Eleven away
from six on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (01:54:41):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.

Speaker 9 (01:54:48):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. Don't let injuries slow
you down. The UCE Health orthopedics and sports medicine experts
can help keep you moving. Schedule a same day appointment
at Ucehealth. Doc East found two seventy five at the
Reed Hartman Highway, the right lane blocked off from an accident.
Sub found seventy five traffic is stop and go between

(01:55:09):
Hopples Street and Fort Washington Way. Looking at a twenty
five minute delay in through there. I'm at Ezalak with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:55:18):
It is now nine years I think since it's been
the DL we got a couple of minutes. Mark Pope Show.

Speaker 3 (01:55:24):
The Mark Pope Show is coming up Kentucky with a
good bounce back win over Mississippi State. Fun game to
watch on Saturday night, and then stick around for the
radio call of Rams versus Vikings right here on ESPN
fifteen thirty. That broadcast we'll start at seven thirty since
E three sixty tomorrow at noon. We are back tomorrow
at three oh five. Paul Danner Junior joins us for

(01:55:46):
the first hour. Robin Dayton, thank you so much for
your patients. Go ahead and close us out.

Speaker 7 (01:55:52):
Hey, No, how's it going?

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
I'm good man.

Speaker 14 (01:55:54):
Look look like you said earlier there, there's a lot
of things that the Bengals need to do to fix
a lot of things in this offseason, and one of
those things I believe is being able to draft the
right players for the right positions in the upcoming draft,
which this team is, let's be honest here, hasn't hasn't
been the greatest at it, unless it's a wide receiver

(01:56:16):
or a quarterback. I couldn't help but watching the Ohio
State game Friday night, and it was like the football
gods were yelling out at us, you know, to Duke
Tobin in the front office. You know, I know it's
unpopular that a lot of people don't want to admit
the Sam Hubbard's best days are probably behind him.

Speaker 2 (01:56:34):
He is aging.

Speaker 7 (01:56:35):
But you have a guy in.

Speaker 14 (01:56:37):
Jack Sawyer to Ohio State who is projected late first round,
you know, which obviously there's a lot of time between
now and then. You know, he could raise or lower
in the draft. But I just couldn't help but think,
right there is your replacement for Sam Hubbard. He's also
he's Ohio born through and through, younger, faster, I believe,
is a better pass rusher.

Speaker 10 (01:56:59):
I just nervous.

Speaker 14 (01:57:00):
You know, once again, this team's not gonna do what
they probably should do. And it's right there in their face.
There's a replacement for Sam Hubbard. There's the help you
need for you know, pass rushing.

Speaker 7 (01:57:13):
I don't know.

Speaker 14 (01:57:13):
I just I had that feeling, you know, in twenty nineteen,
twenty twenty with Joe Burrow and the college playoffs and
they were screaming out, there's the Bengals next quarterback. I
feel like this guy, Jack Sawyer, you know, they're screaming
out again, there's your replacement. There's your help opposite Trey Hendrickson.
Will they make the right decision with the number seventeen

(01:57:33):
pick who.

Speaker 2 (01:57:34):
Knows well what I want to know?

Speaker 3 (01:57:36):
Rob, Thank you very much and I do appreciate you
hanging on. The consensus was late first round, early mid
second I wonder how much he shot up the boards
that are out there, which are very preliminary, based on
his performance on Friday night. If he is there, I
don't know how you don't consider him. I'm not a draftnick,

(01:57:58):
but I see a six foot five, two hundred sixty
pound guy whose physical is good against the run, is strong,
can close the gap and made a remarkable play on
Friday night.

Speaker 2 (01:58:11):
Why you wouldn't want that guy in your team?

Speaker 3 (01:58:13):
I have no idea. We got to go have a
great night. Thanks for listening. Thanks to Tarran as well.

Speaker 2 (01:58:16):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty

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