January 8, 2025 • 15 mins
The Head Coach for UConn Football on the Show with Rob & Ben in the aftermath of a 9-4 season, the portal, NIL and what's next
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for making time for us.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Oh, thanks for making time for me. Ben, It's been crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I bet I can only imagine a.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Whole new world of college football.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
I was going to ask you a little bit about that.
I'm in this new world that you're embarking on. But
uh Man, great season, first and foremost before we get started.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Super proud of you. I just want to say.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
I'm not you should have been undefeated.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
I just want to say I was screaming at least
six wins, at least a bullsey. I was fighting the
masses for you at the beginning of the year, coach,
and you made me proud.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, we had a chant I hate to ever say
we could have, but we had a chaan at eleven,
which is you know that'll stay with me, that'll eat
me alive all off season. Oh yeah, game, wait for
us game game? Oh god, you know, if we just
did a little bit better in a couple of.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Hey, what are my chances of bringing some high school
kids up to watch you guys practice?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
As long as it's an open period, than you always can.
You know, the recruiting calendar is so strict, but if
it's called a quiet period or an open period, you can.
You can do that anytime you want. Okay, and you
guys are always welcome.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Yeah. No, that my friends. His son's a quarterback at
Fairfield Prep.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We have John Morris from faild Field Prep. We have
a field for prep guy.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
So, and and he is like he knows more about
Yukon football than anybody have ever met.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
He teaches us about the portal and everything.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I had no idea about some of your players, and
so he was telling me everything.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
He and he know he's not big enough to ever
be like maybe a college quarterback, but he wants to
be a coach. So it's more more seeing what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You need to send them to a therapist.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Hey, listen some of my baseball guy, I got a
kid that pitches at Lincoln University and he knows he's
not going to go pro, and he's like, well, how
do I get into coaching? So he's going to help
me coach in the summer. So these kids are great.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, we have amazing student assistants here that are trying
to get into coaching, and they work in equipment and
then they come up and they sit in our meetings
and then they're given signals. During games, and it's it's been.
It's really incredible to see like their passion to this
thing and and their help is amazing. I mean they're
like the unsung heroes of this program. The student assistant.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You ready to go, sir? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Yeah, let's just start with you know, have have you
had any time to I know, you're recruiting and you're
you're onto the next year and stuff like that already,
but have you had any time to kind of look
back and process the season?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, a little bit. You know, you're right, it hits
you right in the face the next season because of
this portal and recruiting and uh, you know, you're recruiting
your own players recruiting other players. But we've had a
chance to, you know, reflect a little bit, and we're
proud of the progress we made, but there's really no
illusion to where we want to be. You know, we
(03:04):
all aspire to win ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen games eventually,
and that's what motivates us. But it's nice to see
some progress. Finally, I thought that the way we enter
the seasonast UNC was probably as true to who we
are as a football team as we played all year
(03:26):
besides that kickoff return for a touchdown. It was a
pretty darn You never play a flawless game, but we
played a very complete game as a team, and so
that made me happy.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I thought you guys were definitely on point that day
on defense and all season long. The way some of
these kids we didn't know a lot about the beginning
of this year, this year developed into superstars.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Some of the ones we know, we're huge.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Jelani Stafford fans, really fans of everyone on that defensive front.
Toy f I mean to Brown turned some heads all year.
Ronte Jones is a superstar on our airwaves. He loves
to tell he's great. Listen, but just talk about that defense,
in that brotherhood that you've kind of cultivated over the
last three years, and some of those names and how
much they mean to the program.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, the guys that you mentioned specifically Ronte and Jilani
and you know, I throw gallon there in two. What
you love about those guys is the way they've stuck
with it here and they've been through some pretty tough
times and for them to go out with a nine
win season and a Bowl win against an ACC team
is big because They've been the backbone of this thing
and they could have pulded their panton left and they didn't.
(04:33):
So you know, we got to continue to honor them
by the way we play. And we're going to miss
those guys. I mean, just you know, they were they
were culture builders, they were huge to this. I got
to give Matt Brock and the defensive staff just a
tremendous amount of credit for coming in. And you know,
once I fired that other defensive coordinator from last year,
things seemed to say, yeah, me, seems things team to
(04:56):
take an uptick. So I'm going to give myself credit
for recognizing that that OLDBC stuck and getting a new
one in here. And Matt just did a great job,
and those guys bought into what he was was presenting
in terms of our system. The assistant coaches did a
great job, but it always comes back to the players,
and it always comes back to their commitment and their
(05:17):
selflessness and their toughness and their belief in what we
were doing, their belief in each other and themselves. And
we played about as well as you can play defensively
against UNC considering you know, we were missing Dalmont. You
know we were missing Langston hardy, you know, and we
were still able to play a good game. So I'm
(05:38):
really proud of those guys.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Talking to Jim Moore Junior, the head coach of Yukon Football,
I actually took a chance and drove up on buses
with the fan base for the Fenway game. So it's
four hours of listening to the fans, which I'm not
a good fan by the way. I'm actually playing in
the major leagues and I don't like to watch anything.
I want to play. Yeah, they were so excited. I
can't even put it into words what it was like
(06:02):
to sit. I was on the fifty yard line up
under the grand stands, and having played on that field,
having you know, watched years and years and years, I
thought the coolest thing on the bus right up was
seeing that you got an extension. I before the game
even started, I was already pumped. I was telling people
on the bus and stuff, and you know, people couldn't
(06:22):
be more excited that you've stuck with this program, like
Dan Hurley coming back and not taking the Lakers job.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Things like that.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
You have no idea how pumped up the people are
for the coming years of yukun football.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, I'm equally excited. I'll tell you this. It was
a magical experience being on that field. It was you know,
I've been to baseball games. Obviously you've played on the field,
but I've been to games there. But you know, on Thursday,
they took us behind the scenes and so when guys
were hitting in the batting case behind the Green Monster,
kind of all the enters of of the ballpark, they
(06:56):
had baseballs and gloves down there, Guys were throwing around,
it was the lights were on. It was really special.
And then during the game, you know, looking up and
just seeing Thinway Park and home play was cool. But
the best part, honestly was that was the best crowd
that I can remember in a long time in my career.
(07:19):
It was just really cool to feel the energy from
Yukon fans, you know, and we feel it at the Rent,
but it was just different because it was it was packed.
I mean, the place was packed, you know, and they
seemed to be a lot closer and it just I
don't know, man, it was it was special. If we
can create that energy at the Rent on Saturdays, it's
(07:40):
gonna be tough to beat us. Now we've been pretty
good at home two of the three years. You know,
we've done five and one and six and one. That
second year we weren't so good. But that energy and
that building from the Yukon fans that day, I'm going
to tell you it had a major impact on our players.
You could just feel these jews coming out of the
stands and our guys tapped into it. It was awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
We're trying to get that same feeling at the Rent
next year every Saturday that Yukon Football is playing home
as a mission for our show. Hopefully that that place
is a lot more crowded than it was even this year.
I thought we had some good crowds, but still it
could be a lot better than what it was. Coach,
take us through your world now moving forward, like this
recruiting session in this particular summer has got to be
(08:22):
bonkers more than any other year in college football, with
the NIL, with the transfer portal, with just the basic
recruiting of the old school, high school senior. I take
us through your world a little bit of just what
you're dealing with in the world of ABC's the college
sports always becruiting.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
As it phones, is it emails?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Do you have like one phone taped your head while
you're making some kind of visit somewhere, like, how are
you doing it all already?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Here?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
We're not done officially with the college football season.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well right now we're one hundred invested in the portal
and trying to you know, replace some of the great
players that left us. So it's all about that right now.
Starting in a few days, we got to go out
and start to you know, attack high school recruiting. But
right now we have to focus our energy on the
(09:12):
portal and uh, and that's what we're doing. So it
never really stops, you know with the nil. Uh, it's
become a little more business, not necessarily as personal with
the with the portal guys, but we're trying to be
very selective and who we bring in because we've built
something here in terms of the environment and the expectations
and the selflessness and like you used the word brotherhood earlier,
(09:34):
that commitment to the team, and we got to make
sure that we protect that with the men that we
bring in through the portal. So it's we're talking to
high school guys, but we haven't been out seeing them
at the end, you know, the later part of January
we'll be out seeing high school kids, especially in the
in the New England area and maintaining those relationships. But
I'll tell you what it's. It's it's a challenge, but
(09:56):
it's also fun at the same time. And we were
getting a lot more people respond to us and we
having the pass just because they've seen that we are
making progress and our guys are going on and having
some success in the NFL Eric Watson and Christian Haynes
last year, you know, going on and doing some good things.
So that's very helpful for us.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
I was watching the FCS Championship last night and the
line of Sandy or South Dakota. Every guy was six
' five. Was in North Dakota. South North Dakota every
guy was six five, three or four. And I was like,
it was insane.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
How big they are? What you have?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Man?
Speaker 4 (10:31):
You guys ever scout FCS and even Division two or
three schools for talent.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Oh sure, but they have to be in the portal,
you know. And I don't know how. You know, when
those guys doing the portal, we evaluate them. Listen, there's
good football players everywhere. And I think one of the
great things about the portal is it gives players a
chance that developed late to maybe go to a school
that they've always dreamed of going, or playing at a
different level than maybe they were capable of playing at
(10:59):
coming out of high school. So, I mean, our eyes
are always open. You certainly can't contact those guys, and
we wouldn't do that, but uh yeah, we're always looking
for good football players and you're going to find them
at every level and at different stages of the development.
One of the great things about the portal is that
you you get to see players play against, you know,
(11:19):
like players guys that you're you know, in high school.
There's a wide there's a big gap between the really
good ones and the not so good ones, and so
the level of competition is sometimes hard to gauge, where
when you're working the portal, you you kind of know
the level of competition that those you're evaluating are going against,
and so that helps you make an evaluation of that
player for your program.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
We've gotten some good ones too in the last couple
of years. I would say that wide receiver on the
outside was a really good score. Last year, Skyler Bell
a little bit of an emotional roller coaster, at least
for us as fans with Skyler of is he going
to be on the team? Is he not going to
be on the team. He ended up playing in the
bowl game. He went into the portal. Now he's back
out of the portal. What was that like for you
(12:02):
as a coach? And I haven't talked to any coaches
that have had to deal with this yet, You're the
first one that I've spoke to just for you going
through all of that with just that one particular player.
And I know that's one of many circumstances, but Skyler's
a big one.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
How was that conversation and what was that like for you?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
It was great. Skyler's a really classy young man, straightforward, honest,
very mature, and you know, we had a discussion after
the season, and he wanted to see what was out there,
so he went in the portal. But he also made
a commitment to playing the bowl game, and he took
some trips, and he took his time, and he really
(12:41):
thought things out. He weighed all of his options and
all of his offers, and he decided the best thing
to do is come back here. Because of the way
Skyler handled it, had he left, had he given him
a hug, and said, go after a pal, you know
what I mean. And I kind of feel that way
about all our guys. We're losing some good players to
(13:02):
the portal who feel like maybe there's just a better
opportunity out there for them on the field and financially.
You know, when you lose a player to a school
like Michigan, which fortunately we didn't with Skyler, or you
lose a guy to a wake for us, or you
lose a guy to a UNC and those schools are
able to pay them double the money that we can.
(13:24):
It leads, but we're in the fight. To me, that
indicates progress. And I'll tell you this, Like you know,
in this nil day, having a guy like Mike Burton
on our side, and you guys remember he played here
in this buildings named after his family and he's kind
of running our collective. It's huge because he's so committed
and we're able to do some really good things because
(13:45):
of a commitment like Mike and our players, guys like Skyler.
You know, he comes back because of a guy like
Mike and the way Mike treated him through this whole
process and how honest he was about what we could
and couldn't do for him, and how certain we were
and how how much integrity Mike handle this with. So
right now we're doing a really good job of working
(14:07):
together and trying to keep the guy everyone, every significant
player we can. But if they think they're going to
go somewhere, we're also going to try to help them
get to the spot that they want to be and
where they can be successful. Uh.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
My final question is down to the four teams in
the college football playoff Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas. Uh,
and those two games? Who do you like?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I don't even know who plays each other? Who plays.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Notre Dames playing Penn State and Ohio State's playing Texas?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Oh Man, Okay, Well, first of all, I like all
four coaches. I know them all, and I think they're
all awesome. Uh. I grew up a Notre Dame fan. Uh,
I'm not going to answer you. How about that? I
(15:00):
want I'd like let's see overtime. Let's get like a
two games that go into like six overtime. That'd be awesome.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Hey, well we'll end it right there. Coach, thank you
so much for your time, and again, like Ben said, uh,
everybody in New England's proud of what you've done uh
and and and bringing respect back to Yukon football. We
we appreciate and love you for it.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Thank you well, Thank you guys. You take care okay, excellent,
We will we will.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Man, good sir, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Jim.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I got a meeting right now with a portal guy,
so he's coming in.
Thanks for making time for us.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Oh, thanks for making time for me. Ben, It's been crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I bet I can only imagine a.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Whole new world of college football.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
I was going to ask you a little bit about that.
I'm in this new world that you're embarking on. But
uh Man, great season, first and foremost before we get started.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Super proud of you. I just want to say.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
I'm not you should have been undefeated.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
I just want to say I was screaming at least
six wins, at least a bullsey. I was fighting the
masses for you at the beginning of the year, coach,
and you made me proud.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, we had a chant I hate to ever say
we could have, but we had a chaan at eleven,
which is you know that'll stay with me, that'll eat
me alive all off season. Oh yeah, game, wait for
us game game? Oh god, you know, if we just
did a little bit better in a couple of.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Hey, what are my chances of bringing some high school
kids up to watch you guys practice?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
As long as it's an open period, than you always can.
You know, the recruiting calendar is so strict, but if
it's called a quiet period or an open period, you can.
You can do that anytime you want. Okay, and you
guys are always welcome.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Yeah. No, that my friends. His son's a quarterback at
Fairfield Prep.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We have John Morris from faild Field Prep. We have
a field for prep guy.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
So, and and he is like he knows more about
Yukon football than anybody have ever met.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
He teaches us about the portal and everything.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I had no idea about some of your players, and
so he was telling me everything.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
He and he know he's not big enough to ever
be like maybe a college quarterback, but he wants to
be a coach. So it's more more seeing what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You need to send them to a therapist.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Hey, listen some of my baseball guy, I got a
kid that pitches at Lincoln University and he knows he's
not going to go pro, and he's like, well, how
do I get into coaching? So he's going to help
me coach in the summer. So these kids are great.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, we have amazing student assistants here that are trying
to get into coaching, and they work in equipment and
then they come up and they sit in our meetings
and then they're given signals. During games, and it's it's been.
It's really incredible to see like their passion to this
thing and and their help is amazing. I mean they're
like the unsung heroes of this program. The student assistant.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You ready to go, sir? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Yeah, let's just start with you know, have have you
had any time to I know, you're recruiting and you're
you're onto the next year and stuff like that already,
but have you had any time to kind of look
back and process the season?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, a little bit. You know, you're right, it hits
you right in the face the next season because of
this portal and recruiting and uh, you know, you're recruiting
your own players recruiting other players. But we've had a
chance to, you know, reflect a little bit, and we're
proud of the progress we made, but there's really no
illusion to where we want to be. You know, we
(03:04):
all aspire to win ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen games eventually,
and that's what motivates us. But it's nice to see
some progress. Finally, I thought that the way we enter
the seasonast UNC was probably as true to who we
are as a football team as we played all year
(03:26):
besides that kickoff return for a touchdown. It was a
pretty darn You never play a flawless game, but we
played a very complete game as a team, and so
that made me happy.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I thought you guys were definitely on point that day
on defense and all season long. The way some of
these kids we didn't know a lot about the beginning
of this year, this year developed into superstars.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Some of the ones we know, we're huge.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Jelani Stafford fans, really fans of everyone on that defensive front.
Toy f I mean to Brown turned some heads all year.
Ronte Jones is a superstar on our airwaves. He loves
to tell he's great. Listen, but just talk about that defense,
in that brotherhood that you've kind of cultivated over the
last three years, and some of those names and how
much they mean to the program.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, the guys that you mentioned specifically Ronte and Jilani
and you know, I throw gallon there in two. What
you love about those guys is the way they've stuck
with it here and they've been through some pretty tough
times and for them to go out with a nine
win season and a Bowl win against an ACC team
is big because They've been the backbone of this thing
and they could have pulded their panton left and they didn't.
(04:33):
So you know, we got to continue to honor them
by the way we play. And we're going to miss
those guys. I mean, just you know, they were they
were culture builders, they were huge to this. I got
to give Matt Brock and the defensive staff just a
tremendous amount of credit for coming in. And you know,
once I fired that other defensive coordinator from last year,
things seemed to say, yeah, me, seems things team to
(04:56):
take an uptick. So I'm going to give myself credit
for recognizing that that OLDBC stuck and getting a new
one in here. And Matt just did a great job,
and those guys bought into what he was was presenting
in terms of our system. The assistant coaches did a
great job, but it always comes back to the players,
and it always comes back to their commitment and their
(05:17):
selflessness and their toughness and their belief in what we
were doing, their belief in each other and themselves. And
we played about as well as you can play defensively
against UNC considering you know, we were missing Dalmont. You
know we were missing Langston hardy, you know, and we
were still able to play a good game. So I'm
(05:38):
really proud of those guys.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Talking to Jim Moore Junior, the head coach of Yukon Football,
I actually took a chance and drove up on buses
with the fan base for the Fenway game. So it's
four hours of listening to the fans, which I'm not
a good fan by the way. I'm actually playing in
the major leagues and I don't like to watch anything.
I want to play. Yeah, they were so excited. I
can't even put it into words what it was like
(06:02):
to sit. I was on the fifty yard line up
under the grand stands, and having played on that field,
having you know, watched years and years and years, I
thought the coolest thing on the bus right up was
seeing that you got an extension. I before the game
even started, I was already pumped. I was telling people
on the bus and stuff, and you know, people couldn't
(06:22):
be more excited that you've stuck with this program, like
Dan Hurley coming back and not taking the Lakers job.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Things like that.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
You have no idea how pumped up the people are
for the coming years of yukun football.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, I'm equally excited. I'll tell you this. It was
a magical experience being on that field. It was you know,
I've been to baseball games. Obviously you've played on the field,
but I've been to games there. But you know, on Thursday,
they took us behind the scenes and so when guys
were hitting in the batting case behind the Green Monster,
kind of all the enters of of the ballpark, they
(06:56):
had baseballs and gloves down there, Guys were throwing around,
it was the lights were on. It was really special.
And then during the game, you know, looking up and
just seeing Thinway Park and home play was cool. But
the best part, honestly was that was the best crowd
that I can remember in a long time in my career.
(07:19):
It was just really cool to feel the energy from
Yukon fans, you know, and we feel it at the Rent,
but it was just different because it was it was packed.
I mean, the place was packed, you know, and they
seemed to be a lot closer and it just I
don't know, man, it was it was special. If we
can create that energy at the Rent on Saturdays, it's
(07:40):
gonna be tough to beat us. Now we've been pretty
good at home two of the three years. You know,
we've done five and one and six and one. That
second year we weren't so good. But that energy and
that building from the Yukon fans that day, I'm going
to tell you it had a major impact on our players.
You could just feel these jews coming out of the
stands and our guys tapped into it. It was awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
We're trying to get that same feeling at the Rent
next year every Saturday that Yukon Football is playing home
as a mission for our show. Hopefully that that place
is a lot more crowded than it was even this year.
I thought we had some good crowds, but still it
could be a lot better than what it was. Coach,
take us through your world now moving forward, like this
recruiting session in this particular summer has got to be
(08:22):
bonkers more than any other year in college football, with
the NIL, with the transfer portal, with just the basic
recruiting of the old school, high school senior. I take
us through your world a little bit of just what
you're dealing with in the world of ABC's the college
sports always becruiting.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
As it phones, is it emails?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Do you have like one phone taped your head while
you're making some kind of visit somewhere, like, how are
you doing it all already?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Here?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
We're not done officially with the college football season.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well right now we're one hundred invested in the portal
and trying to you know, replace some of the great
players that left us. So it's all about that right now.
Starting in a few days, we got to go out
and start to you know, attack high school recruiting. But
right now we have to focus our energy on the
(09:12):
portal and uh, and that's what we're doing. So it
never really stops, you know with the nil. Uh, it's
become a little more business, not necessarily as personal with
the with the portal guys, but we're trying to be
very selective and who we bring in because we've built
something here in terms of the environment and the expectations
and the selflessness and like you used the word brotherhood earlier,
(09:34):
that commitment to the team, and we got to make
sure that we protect that with the men that we
bring in through the portal. So it's we're talking to
high school guys, but we haven't been out seeing them
at the end, you know, the later part of January
we'll be out seeing high school kids, especially in the
in the New England area and maintaining those relationships. But
I'll tell you what it's. It's it's a challenge, but
(09:56):
it's also fun at the same time. And we were
getting a lot more people respond to us and we
having the pass just because they've seen that we are
making progress and our guys are going on and having
some success in the NFL Eric Watson and Christian Haynes
last year, you know, going on and doing some good things.
So that's very helpful for us.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
I was watching the FCS Championship last night and the
line of Sandy or South Dakota. Every guy was six
' five. Was in North Dakota. South North Dakota every
guy was six five, three or four. And I was like,
it was insane.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
How big they are? What you have?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Man?
Speaker 4 (10:31):
You guys ever scout FCS and even Division two or
three schools for talent.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Oh sure, but they have to be in the portal,
you know. And I don't know how. You know, when
those guys doing the portal, we evaluate them. Listen, there's
good football players everywhere. And I think one of the
great things about the portal is it gives players a
chance that developed late to maybe go to a school
that they've always dreamed of going, or playing at a
different level than maybe they were capable of playing at
(10:59):
coming out of high school. So, I mean, our eyes
are always open. You certainly can't contact those guys, and
we wouldn't do that, but uh yeah, we're always looking
for good football players and you're going to find them
at every level and at different stages of the development.
One of the great things about the portal is that
you you get to see players play against, you know,
(11:19):
like players guys that you're you know, in high school.
There's a wide there's a big gap between the really
good ones and the not so good ones, and so
the level of competition is sometimes hard to gauge, where
when you're working the portal, you you kind of know
the level of competition that those you're evaluating are going against,
and so that helps you make an evaluation of that
player for your program.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
We've gotten some good ones too in the last couple
of years. I would say that wide receiver on the
outside was a really good score. Last year, Skyler Bell
a little bit of an emotional roller coaster, at least
for us as fans with Skyler of is he going
to be on the team? Is he not going to
be on the team. He ended up playing in the
bowl game. He went into the portal. Now he's back
out of the portal. What was that like for you
(12:02):
as a coach? And I haven't talked to any coaches
that have had to deal with this yet, You're the
first one that I've spoke to just for you going
through all of that with just that one particular player.
And I know that's one of many circumstances, but Skyler's
a big one.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
How was that conversation and what was that like for you?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
It was great. Skyler's a really classy young man, straightforward, honest,
very mature, and you know, we had a discussion after
the season, and he wanted to see what was out there,
so he went in the portal. But he also made
a commitment to playing the bowl game, and he took
some trips, and he took his time, and he really
(12:41):
thought things out. He weighed all of his options and
all of his offers, and he decided the best thing
to do is come back here. Because of the way
Skyler handled it, had he left, had he given him
a hug, and said, go after a pal, you know
what I mean. And I kind of feel that way
about all our guys. We're losing some good players to
(13:02):
the portal who feel like maybe there's just a better
opportunity out there for them on the field and financially.
You know, when you lose a player to a school
like Michigan, which fortunately we didn't with Skyler, or you
lose a guy to a wake for us, or you
lose a guy to a UNC and those schools are
able to pay them double the money that we can.
(13:24):
It leads, but we're in the fight. To me, that
indicates progress. And I'll tell you this, Like you know,
in this nil day, having a guy like Mike Burton
on our side, and you guys remember he played here
in this buildings named after his family and he's kind
of running our collective. It's huge because he's so committed
and we're able to do some really good things because
(13:45):
of a commitment like Mike and our players, guys like Skyler.
You know, he comes back because of a guy like
Mike and the way Mike treated him through this whole
process and how honest he was about what we could
and couldn't do for him, and how certain we were
and how how much integrity Mike handle this with. So
right now we're doing a really good job of working
(14:07):
together and trying to keep the guy everyone, every significant
player we can. But if they think they're going to
go somewhere, we're also going to try to help them
get to the spot that they want to be and
where they can be successful. Uh.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
My final question is down to the four teams in
the college football playoff Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas. Uh,
and those two games? Who do you like?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I don't even know who plays each other? Who plays.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Notre Dames playing Penn State and Ohio State's playing Texas?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Oh Man, Okay, Well, first of all, I like all
four coaches. I know them all, and I think they're
all awesome. Uh. I grew up a Notre Dame fan. Uh,
I'm not going to answer you. How about that? I
(15:00):
want I'd like let's see overtime. Let's get like a
two games that go into like six overtime. That'd be awesome.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Hey, well we'll end it right there. Coach, thank you
so much for your time, and again, like Ben said, uh,
everybody in New England's proud of what you've done uh
and and and bringing respect back to Yukon football. We
we appreciate and love you for it.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Thank you well, Thank you guys. You take care okay, excellent,
We will we will.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Man, good sir, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Jim.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I got a meeting right now with a portal guy,
so he's coming in.
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