Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 7-29-25 - The Sean O'Connell Show

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
He's the Shan O'Connell Show, brought to you by Big
Willies on Utah's number one sports talk and home of
the ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one alf AM,
a proud part of Utah's ESPN Radio network.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Heavy Tuesday. Everybody, Welcome to the Shan O'Connell Show. Glad
to have you with us.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
As is always the case, We're brought to you today
and every day by Big Willies, Utah's Sports Bar, seventeen seventeen,
South Main lunch specials every day. Tell them, OHC sent
you go, grab a sandwich a salad. They always throw
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(00:56):
The sandwich is enough, the burger is enough, but they'll
it'll be the Buffalo chicken egg rolls or they'll be
four chicken wings as a side. Who man, I'm hungry
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them to deliver again. Today seventeen seventeen, South Maine. And
if you're not watching as an order of habit on

(01:17):
our YouTube stream at ESPN seven hundred Sports Utah or
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for you to start because we have a little bit.
We have some new decor in the studio right over
my left, my right shoulder, so you're left. We've got
the Neon sign and I'm a big fan of Neon signs.

(01:38):
I don't know how you out there feel about Neon signs,
A big fan of Neon signs, and Big Willies hooked
us up. So boom Sean o'connells show, brought to you
by Big Willies. Glad to have them as a part
of the show, Glad to have you as a part
of the show, and glad to be able to bring
you a fun show.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Today. We got a little overs.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Gordy Chiays is gonna join us at eleven thirty, Jerem
Jordan our first Red and Blue segment of this upcoming
football cycle. Jeff Schwartz. I said, we're gonna catch up
with Jeff Schwartz and the t's we're gonna that's gonna
happen another day now. Jeff is a busy man. He's
got some travel to do, betting shows and things like that.
So we'll get to it when we get to it.

(02:22):
A start bench cut for you today, and I'm actually
gonna crowdsource a little bit. I'm gonna need a little
help perhaps for our start bench cut, because man, it's
narrowing down who it should be that makes these lists
is actually getting harder and harder as we talk about,

(02:44):
you know, the actual careers of some of these individuals,
or even just the single seasons that might that might
give people, you know, a case in being in there.
So we'll get to it. We'll get to it on
the start bench cut. A question that I have today

(03:05):
sparked by some of what we discussed on yesterday's show,
some of what has happened in the news, very tragically
and unfortunately in the news, and hauntingly given that we
just had an hour long conversation about this yesterday, but
for I think pretty obvious reasons, my question for you

(03:26):
is on the Twitter poll at realoc sports eight seven
seven three five three zero seven hundred, if you want
to weigh in on the phone line of the text line,
are you letting your kid play football? And beyond that,
are you letting your kid play contact sports? Collision sports?

(03:48):
As a parent, is that something you're even hesitant about?
Is that something that you feel you don't get to
make the decision on because it's not quite so black
and white as that in my experience and my experience,
I'm not pretending is everyone else's experience, but I can't.

(04:08):
I grew up in a family that had my grandfather
was a college football player. On one side of my
maternal side, my grandfather was a college football player, and
I grew up with him as kind of my hero.
And he wrestled, he boxed, he played football. He was

(04:29):
actually cal Poly was his alma mater and will be
a Utah. Will be welcoming cal Poly in week two
of the season first home game will be my grandfather's
alma mater. I have his cal Poly letterman jacket hanging
in my office at home in a frame, and I've
this is like the fourth time a team that I've

(04:50):
maybe fifth time the team that I've been around his
faced off against cal Poly.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
And it's like, oh yeah, okay, go Mustangs. But not today.
In any case, my grandfather was a great college football player.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
I don't actually maybe he wasn't a great college football player.
He was a college football player. He was in the
era in the nineteen fifties where you started both ways,
and he played both ways, and he I've said it
many times on the air. He would always be kind
of like, hey, man, why don't you just play? When
I was having a hard time getting reps at linebacker
at the University of Utah, He's like, well, why don't

(05:29):
you play nose tackle? Why don't you play d line?
And you know that era was so different As a
two hundred and fifteen pound guy, he could excel there.
He was teammates with John Madden at cal Poly.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Anyway, my mom was not a fan of sports, probably
because my grandfather was way too big of a fan
of sports, and probably because my grandfather spent a disproportionate
amount of time focused on my mom's two brothers and
their sports careers and so, and my dad came from

(06:07):
a very academic family and had no reference, no background
for sports really hardly at all, didn't participate in little
league sports growing up, didn't have sports culture in his family.
And so for me, I wanted to play because my
friends were playing, and it was like I had to
convince my parents that it was something I should be

(06:28):
doing rather than the other way around.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
They were always very.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Supportive of everything I wanted to do in terms of
like trying things out. They had us in baseball and
t ball and soccer really young, because that's what you
do with your kids. But when it came to tackle football,
my parents had no real frame of reference beyond my
grandfather and my mom had a complicated relationship with football

(06:55):
because of that, right, and so I had to convince
my parents that I should be allowed to play.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Ultimately, it worked out fine.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
As I said on the show yesterday, I'm lucky, and
we you know, as far as I can tell, I
don't have a lot of the issues that some other
people might have with CTE related symptoms, at least at
this point in my life, thank goodness.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
And obviously you know that.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
I went from football, where, let's be honest, didn't take
a lot of damage in college football because it was
mostly practice stuff, and that's scaled back a little bit.
And then I went into the MMA world and that's
a different animal. But I still think football is worse
for your brain. I don't have a scientific reason to
say that, but I still think at least the way

(07:50):
I played the positions I played the football is probably
a little.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Bit more damaging.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
Is like, because you talked about boxing as well being
one of those the the combat sport that's probably the
most damaging for your brain because you're probably taking more
head shots in boxing.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Maybe maybe you're not than in MMA.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Uh, I mean, I'm sure, if you I'm sure, if
we could probably look it up, I'm sure that there's
I'm sure there's more impact on your head in boxing.
I don't know how how if it's a more if
it's like a drastically significant difference.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
The issue with boxing, and the issue that has been
brought up with boxing and that people have talked about
with boxing for years, is that in boxing there's a
reset with the ten count, you know what I mean,
So well trained boxers, and it's true of MMA fighters
as well, but it's less pronounced than MMA. Well trained
boxers will get knocked down or even get knocked like

(08:51):
a flash knockout. You get knocked basically unconscious, right you
fall back into the ropes. The next punch or the
next two punchers or whatever kind of wake you back up.
Maybe you get a standing eight count something like that.
But the point is, in boxing, fighters are allowed to recover,
and well trained boxers recover a lot faster than is

(09:13):
really good for them.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
I see, I see what you're saying, so you're taking
a lot, taking a lot more hits period, whether it's
to the head or other parts of the body, because
you have more opportunity to recover and continue the fight
than you do in MMA.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
In MMA, if you stop defending yourself intelligently, which of
course happens if you lose consciousness, or even happens before
you lose consciousness, in most cases, the fight's over. In boxing,
I mean you could, you could spend all day finding
examples of this. Right, Guys, they turn their bodies into machines.
That's the point of training, right, And what happens is

(09:51):
they get knocked out and they're on autopilot. Their body
still knows what to do, and it's a reflexive action, wow,
to keep the hands up up to stay standing. Sometimes
boxers and there's a trillion anecdotal stories about this boxers,
and it's true of MMA fighters too, but again more
common in boxing. Boxers will have conversations with the corner,

(10:13):
with the referee, with the doctor and they're like, I'm fine,
let's go. I want to I want to keep fighting,
And then the boxer after the fact will say, I
have no idea that conversation happened.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
I don't remember doing that now that that has happened
to me. In an MMA.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Situation, I got knocked out in a local fight. Here
shout out Hank the Wece Weiss still hate you for it.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
I got knocked out, unexpected knockout.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
I was the favorite in the fight, especially in the
stand up exchanges.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
He's more of a grappler.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
He faked a takedown overhand right, put me dead, dead,
out out out, okay. I. I had a conversation with
the doctor in the ring, told him I was okay.
I sat down with the athletic commission, told them I
was okay.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
I didn't need to go to the hospital.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
I walked back with help from my corners, I walked
back to the locker room. It was at the Salt
Palace convention center, and so it was like a three
hundred yard walk. Probably had to walk out of the hall,
up an escalator into a room. And where I truly
regained consciousness was when my coach was cutting the wraps

(11:28):
off of my hand. That's where my memory is continuous
from that point forward. And I had been talking to
these people the whole way, right, that's insane, so and
it's like not because I'm not saying that, like I'm
so tough, I can talk even when I'm knocked out.
It's just like your body does that, right, you go
on autopilot. And the point I'm trying to make is

(11:50):
in MMA, you don't have the chance of standing back
up and pretending to be conscious and then the fight continuing,
you're taking more damage.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
Well all of this, which you know, troubling to hear
that you could do this. I'm sure it's it was
after the fact you're like, Wow, I I don't like
that that I can fool people.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
That I'm that I'm okay when I'm clearly not.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
And maybe a bad example because I was like asleep
on the canvas for a little while before that.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
Yeah, But the point is, but yeah, the the fact
that the big difference is what you're saying is even
though that that took place, and it's kind of troubling
that that you could fool people that you were okay
when you were not. The fight was over while that
was happening, and you weren't allowed to take more hits.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
And in boxing, that is not true. In boxing, there's
been many, many examples of when a guy is not okay,
but he's able to continue fighting. He's able on autopilot
to continue taking prob damage.

Speaker 4 (12:54):
He's probably having some of these conversations with his corner
and not realizing that he had these conversations. Yeah, And
the tragic, unfortunately rinse and repeat story in boxing is
there's many guys who have come out of the fight
after a brutal fight, after several knockdowns, sometimes no knockdowns,
just an accumulation of punches, right, they'll go and they'll

(13:15):
take a shower and then they pass out in the
shower and they never wake up again. And like, that's
something that is less common, far, far, far less common
in MMA. I don't know what the numbers are in
the last half decade or so, but there was a
time when I was an active MMA fighter where I've
paid close attention to it, and you were averaging about
six or seven deaths in boxing per year.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
And that's a worldwide thing. Obviously that's not just in
the United States. But also that's just the most acute
and dramatic and drastic of those consequences. That says nothing.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
That is zero percent of attention paid to the guys
who just like they don't pass, but they're handicapped by
what happened to them. They're the CTE build up. They
used to call it punch drunk, right, mental illness side
of things because of or whatever.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
One of the great sports movies I have ever watched,
all of you.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
I encourage you if you can find it. I don't
know what streaming service it's on, if it's on any
there's a great collection of stories. It's called Facing Ali,
and it's all the fighters who fought Muhammad Ali.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
In his prime.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
I think he was made either after Muhammad Ali had
lost most of his capacity, or perhaps even after he died.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
But it's a great show.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
It's really like celebrating kind of the golden era of
boxing and some of these incredible epic fights and one
hundred thousand person crowds and sixty five thousand person crowds
and like cultural moments and all that stuff. And it's
from the perspective of the guys who fought him and
the relationships they had with him, Right, and James. It's

(14:56):
great to hear the stories, you know, it's not great
listening to the way that these sixty and seventy and
eighty year old boxers talk because you're like, I don't
think that's how you would have talked if you didn't box. Yeah,
And so that's and I'm not trying I'm not trying
to get too far afield here.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, a big tangent with boxing and him curiosity there.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
But well, and it's important to note the difference of
boxing and MMA and and football and I look rugby,
they've had a big head injury problem in rugby that
they've tried to address on both the union level, meaning
like the the national and international competition level, and in

(15:37):
the rugby leagues in South Africa, in Australia, there's a
rugby league in Japan.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
They've really tried.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
To shout out major league rugby here in the United States,
let's go people.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
They've they've honestly, rugby is there are a lot more
strict about the rules of dangerous tackling and that's something
that obviously when you don't have equipment, yeah, you gotta
be a lot more careful. And they've done a good
job of it. Right, rugby, there's been a problem. I
don't know what the numbers look like in hockey. I

(16:11):
know that, you know, soccer shockingly like soccer has more
head injuries than people think it does.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
Yeah, it was interesting to hear Chris Comerannie bringing that
up when he was he was talking about what doctor
McKee I believe is her name from bu that is
the lead researcher for CTE and head injuries in the country,
if not the world, and how Camerannie was saying that

(16:39):
she had cited soccer as a as a sport where
this can happen. You are risking this even when you
play soccer, which I was shocked to hear that too.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
So are you, as a parent willing.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
To let your child participate in contact sports? And there's
a lot like I get it's a binary answer on
the pole yes or no, but I know that there's
actually a huge spectrum here that you can't really do
justice to in the in the Twitter poll world where well, yeah,
I let my kid do it, but I don't like it,

(17:17):
or no, I'm not letting them do it because they're
only eleven. When they get to sixteen, maybe I'll let
them do it, or vice versa. Maybe yeah, I let
my kid play Little League football because at age eleven,
they're not moving fast enough and they're not big enough
to be hurting each other. Yet I don't let them
do tackle. But and yeah, I mean tackle. That's that's

(17:38):
what the questions about. If the kid's playing flag football.
That's not a context, but the reason I bring it
up in the like. There's plenty to talk about in
the sports world, but one of the unfortunate headlines today
after we had a big conversation yesterday, is that somebody
walked into an office building in downtown New York, York

(18:00):
City looking for the NFL head office and opened fire
and took the lives of five people.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
I think there's four people, maybe maybe one yacht added,
but as of a couple hours ago, it was four people,
including an off duty police officer, and as you said,
got off on the wrong floor. Would have been NFL uh,
would have been NFL office employees, but none of them,
none of them from at least that have passed from

(18:29):
a link to the NFL because he got off on
the wrong floor. It was a financial services in this company.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
This, by the way, is a person from Las Vegas.
Never played in the NFL as far as anyone has
reported so far, didn't play college football either, but was
a high school football player who then blamed somehow, and
we know that the mind doesn't work and connect properly
when when it's damaged, and had a three pay in

(19:01):
his wallet suggesting that the NFL needed to be punished
for his own battle with CTE. And again, I know
that those two things don't jive and connect on a
logical landscape. When you're talking about someone who participated only
in high school football but a damaged brain, you can't
expect to operate like ours does.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
And should be noted too that the only way to
diagnose CTE right now is posthumously correct. So you can
suspect that you might have CTE, you can spect CTE.
You can suspect that people around you are are exhibiting
because they might be exhibiting those symptoms that you've heard
of or whatever has it, but you don't know for

(19:45):
sure till they've passed.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
So there's just there's a lot here to unpack, and
there's so much nuance to all of it. And I
barely scratched the surface of that nuance when we had
Chris Camerannie on yesterday. But I wanted to put the
pole question out there as we get ready for another
football season.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
The Hall of Fame Game is this week.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
Yeah, We've got it on the station Thursday night at
six and the open NFL preseason.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
I am not standing on a soapbox. I promise you
about anything, I would be the last person to do so.
I went from football to mm A. I went from
playing linebacker and fullback and newsflash, not exactly a finesse
type athlete.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
You're running into people.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
And I went from I went from that to being
a fighter who never dodged a punch, never never met
a punch. I didn't want to hit me in the face. Okay,
so I'm not wagging a finger at anyone.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
I be honest.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
What is it that you said you you kind of
had disdain for people, the friends of yours. They would
watch you fight be like, oh man, you were getting killed.
Then you're like, I won. Yeah he got killed.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yes, I took a lot of punches, but I landed
the ones that knocked him out. Any it doesn't matter,
it's not This conversation is not about me. I'm just
making the point that, like, look, there's a lot of
nuance to this conversation, and I'm not trying to cast
any aspersion on people who don't want their kids to
play contact sports. I'm not telling people who do that

(21:18):
you should rethink this. I'm asking a question. Yeah, because
we're about to sit down weekend after weekend from now
until February, and we're about to celebrate this thing that,
in the dark recesses of our minds we know is
potentially hurting at least a few of these people.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
I don't think the majority.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
I don't think it's the numbers tell us it's not
even well, I guess it depends.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
On what number I want to look at.

Speaker 4 (21:49):
Yeah, because and the numbers change every day because it's
a new field of research.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
So, but look.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Of the brains from former NFL players donate to the
Brain Bank, it's like a ninety five percent hit rate
that they have signs of CTE.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
And of the college players.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
That have not been in the NFL that have been
donated to the brain Bank, it's like an eighty percent
chance if I'm not mistaken. However, that's not to say
that each of these individuals had severe mental illness. That's
not to say that any of them that's such a
drastic outcome is the one I'm talking about with this
this shooter in New York City. We don't even know

(22:31):
if that person has CTE. Yeah, we just know he
claims to. Just he put a note in his wallet
that like this is why I need like something is
related to this, I know it and yeah, so, but
we do know that there are risks associated. Now as
a sports viewing public, we can no longer be ignorance
to this. We know it exists in boxing. We know

(22:53):
it exists in MMA, we know it exists in hockey,
we know it exists in baseball. There's the guy, the
rookie for the Cubs a few years back who got
being in the side of the head and he never
got to play again.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:05):
And another guy that who's whose career ended quicker than
it probably should have was was Mets legend David Wright,
the third baseman. They actually just retired his number, I
think last weekend at City Field, Like he had a
whole it was more than a season where he that

(23:26):
he missed because of concussion he got from baseball, Like
and I don't think he got being in the head.
I think it might have been a collision at home
plate or something like that. But like, yeah, severe head
injuries happen in can happen in just about every sport,
because of just about every sport there's some contact. But

(23:48):
certainly the obvious one is The obvious ones are football,
combat sports, and hockey and lacrosse, those ones that you're
encouraged to hit people.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
And the thing is is right as again, I've asked
this question of parents, will you allow your student or
encourage your student athletes or your young person to participate
in sports like that? If your answers know, then where
is the line?

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Right?

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Because I mean, soccer is not considered a collision sport.
Basketball is not considered a collision sport. Soccer head injuries exist.
Dunny are a guy, Brian Dunseif who you can hear
on these airwaves a lot, and we've talked about.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
We've talked to for years and years.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
He has issues with the concussions he sustained as a
professional soccer player football, right, not football, not strap a
helmet on and use it as a weapon.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Soccer. So where do you because you have to help your.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Kids make these decisions, or when they're young enough, you
have to make these decisions for them, like, hey, that's
too dangerous. Okay, Football's two dangerous. We've decided football is
too dangerous. What about hockey? Nope, also too dangerous. Okay,
what about cheerleading? Yes, cheerleading is fine. Oh actually no,
look up the numbers on cheerleading. More severe injuries and

(25:11):
cheerleading than in either of those other two sports I
just mentioned. So it's like, how do you help make
these decisions for yourself, for your spouse, for your family,
for your kids. I've got three girls. I don't know
what they're gonna want to participate in. I feel like
I'm probably gonna let them participate in everything, and I
know that there are a lot of risks. There's a

(25:32):
ton of risks associated, Like what if your kid wants
to do motocross?

Speaker 2 (25:36):
What are you supposed to say?

Speaker 3 (25:37):
It's your child versus one hundred cc engine versus gravity
and the earth? Like, what are you gonna say?

Speaker 5 (25:48):
No?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Though? I don't know. So it's tougher.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
It's tougher than the binary yes or no would suggest
it would be because there is just like there is
what they everything, there's so much nuance with me personally.
Oh see, I would probably discourage my my newborn son
as he gets old enough to I would probably try
to steer him away from football.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Because it's not just head injuries.

Speaker 4 (26:13):
The guy you blow your knee out, Yeah, you blow
you screw up your shoulder. You can do that with
a bunch in a bunch of other ways too, but
like it feels like it's a lot easier to do
that in football, And so I would I think I'm
going to try to steer him away from it. But
at the same time, as we as you pointed out yesterday,

(26:34):
you can't control what your children find passions for. And
you can you can try to influence that by only
exposing them to certain things. But like as you get older,
you the less as your kids get older, as I
understand it, the less you can control, right, so about

(26:55):
what they're exposed to. So your your kid is probably
my son is probably going to We're certainly going to
watch football. He's probably gonna have friends who play football
and say, oh, this is great, why don't you play?
And he's probably he might develop a passion for it.
And in that case, I don't think I can stand
in the way of that.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
And by the way, James, you're a big guy. I
don't know if your wife has large genetics in her family. Yeah,
but there's going to be a lot of people like,
I'm gonna make some assumptions here on the two month
old baby, Like if you're a if you're a teenager
walking around at like five ten six foot six one

(27:35):
six y two, it's not just one.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Hundred and fifty to two hundred something pounds. It's not
just going to be your peers that are like, hey,
you should play football. There's going to be grown adults, coaches,
what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (27:47):
Not pro team walking up to you at school and saying, hey, son,
you should come out for the football team.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Absolutely, that's gonna happen, right, And.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
And if if that's something that he wants to do,
I don't know that I can stand in the way
of it. You kind of just hold your breath at
every hit, right and enjoy and you enjoy it. You
enjoy it because I will enjoy it if that ends
up being the case, because I'm a big football fan.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Right.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
But it's funny you say you're gonna have coaches and
other people come up to you and be like, how
come we have playing football? I didn't play football, which
is surprising probably people who look at me like you
look like a football player.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
I didn't play football. But the head football coach.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
One time, I'm walking in the coming out of pe
I'm walking out and he looks at me, he takes
he stops dead in his tracks, looks at me, and he goes,
you want to play football?

Speaker 2 (28:38):
And I said, nah, see.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
So, like absolutely I had the exact situation happened to me.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
I could make a list of probably twenty names long,
of all the guys that I grew up with that
should have played coach, should have played that, the coaches
wanted to be playing who didn't like would have been
better than me. But they just that's not you know,
that's not how it played out for them, And.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
And it was.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
And I did not play because my parents tried to
influence me not to. It's just basketball was was the
sport we gravitated to, and I didn't really have an
interest in learning many other sports.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
I just wanted to play basketball.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
And look, the options for female football are pretty limited
at this juncture.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, maybe they will be growing, though it's growing.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
If my daughters are like gravitating more towards basketball and
volleyball than football, I'm probably not gonna be the one.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Who's like, let's have you play football.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
Yeah, well, there's there's obviously there's a lot more opportunities
to play girls and women's hockey in North America. That's
always has been, so that could be and there probably
will be more now that there's an NHL team here.
So that's a that's a collision sport that they might
have an interest to. It's certainly a harder question than

(29:56):
a quick I'm gonna hate yes or no. I kind
of to land on. I still kind of land on
what I said yesterday. I think that with collision sports
and combat sports in particular, it probably should take you
probably should take a lot of thought and take a
long time to consider all of the all of the factors,
all the risk factors before you just say, yeah, let's

(30:19):
go ahead and do that right now, then football or
then basketball and soccer and other sports.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
Right now, sixty two percent of the votes coming in
on yes, I will allow my person my child to
play contact sports. Thirty seven and a half percent are
saying no, not worth the risks and brick. Ben Williams says, yeah,
but probably not until later seventh or eighth grade flag
football prior to that. I think that's a smart way
to approach things. I think that's great. I also think

(30:48):
if you put your kid out there in little Gremlin football,
it's probably okay too.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
The thing that we all have to understands parents, myself included,
is like.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
When your kid is young.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Seventh and eighth grade is probably when you start to
like puberty is probably when you start to figure out, like,
all right, my kid might have the necessary whatever build height,
speed in order to excel at whatever your sport is.
The crazy thing that you see is all these parents
that at like eleven nine are like, yeah, my kid's

(31:27):
gonna be my kid's gonna be like a scholarship player
in at the University of Utah.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Or you're like you.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Are five foot eight, your wife is five foot four,
they're nine years old. What makes you think this? You
know what I mean? Like, I mean, we were joking
about this. I think the other day brock Lesner's daughter
is dating a San Francisco forty nine ers guard. If

(31:58):
they end up getting married and having a child, you
can offer that child a scholarship today, all right. Just
because we're playing the percentages here, most of us like
you gotta kind of wait and whether that means you
don't let your kids participate in whatever sport until their
body becomes what, you know, something closer to what it's

(32:18):
going to be as an adult, or as at least
a college age athlete.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
I'm not telling anyone what to do with their own
parenting style, but I am asking the question, are you
going to encourage your kids to play contact sports on
the precipice of football season? It's time for It's a
good time to think about how much we love the sport.
And I love it probably just as much or more

(32:44):
than you do, and whether or not that love is
affected by the consequences for some, not for all. I'm
not going to vilify football or the people who sell
us football, or the people who field football teams or
coach any level of football. I'm just gonna say it's
probably worth thinking about for all of us.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Eight seven seven three five three zero seven.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Hundred at Real OC Sports, the show today and every day,
brought to you by our friends at Big Willie's at
seventeen seventeen, South Maine. Gordy Chierson Next on Utah Number
one Sports Talk ESPN seven hundred.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
He sound, Let's get the latest on the Utah Jazz
with former Jazz assistant coach Gordy Chiasa. He's forgotten more
about the NBA than any of us will ever know.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Let's not get crazy.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Come for the hoops talk.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Stay for his list of the day and list today.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Here's oc with basketball Sabban Gordy Chiasa on the Sean
O'Connell shown goodhead Bond.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Come on Mi Sean O'Connell's show, ESPN seven hundred ninety
two on Gordon jes Our resident.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
NBA guru in a downtime for the NBA, if there
is such a thing, gory welcome, How are you, Sean?

Speaker 6 (34:10):
I'm doing fine, thank you. In a downtime, it's still
going on. However, in about ten days from now, that's
when it's a visibility line where most of the people
will already signed contracts and they'll be just one or
two left, and the other people that wanted to get
a contract with the NBA, they're definitely heading overseas. Usually

(34:32):
the first ten days of August they decide to go
overseas them.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Is there anyone out there right now who hasn't signed
that contract that surprises you that you thought would have
already found a destination at this point.

Speaker 6 (34:45):
Well, again, it's a Jonathan Taminga. He's the guy that
everyone's looking at with the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors
recently offered him a two year contract at twenty million
year equals forty million, and he's restricted free agent and
they rejected it so far, so he's out there right now.
And then Edward's looking at Josh Skitty, a Chicago Bulls,

(35:08):
also a free agent restricted, and Josh Skitty's representation and
the Bulls they're not on the same page at all.
And we'll see that plays out, which means that Malcolm Rodrick,
who's really a good player, is also on hold to
see whatever those guys where they go. He'll try to
counter that and get to a different team then away

(35:31):
from the Wizards.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
We talked about this on the show yesterday, Gordie, the
the Luka Doncic trim down. You know, the cover of
Men's Fitness magazine and you know, maybe some abs showing
through for Luca, who's always been kind of a bad
body guy. And I somewhat facetiously was talking about, you know,
there's a few reasons why this happened. This is like

(35:55):
the post breakup body where you're trying to make the
ex jealous, the X being the Dallas Mavericks. In this
particular equation, there's the I think more positive outcome here
that he's around Lebron James on a daily basis, and
Lebron sees that professionalism and is like, let me invest
in my body the way that Lebron invested his. But

(36:15):
no matter what the reasoning is, is it going to
have some kind of concrete effect on Luca as a
player in the immediate future and maybe long term?

Speaker 6 (36:25):
Yeah, very much. Answer is yes. When you're usually speaking,
when you're an athlete, when you get lighter, you play better.
Just generally speaking, you get lighter and you're more agile
on your feet, you're less accessible to injuries. Now, Luca
was hurt last year and by him slimming down dramatically

(36:46):
help more bounce to his game to be able to
last play longer as far as at a high level
and conditioning and as Sean also, a part b of
that him slimming down is that he's saying to the
Lakers that I'm worth next week when you got signed
me to an extension for four years to in twenty
million and I'm serious about leaving the Lakers post Lebron.

(37:07):
So next week Lebron's excre me. Luca's eligible for an
extension four years to twenty million total. And that's part
of the reason why that he's serious about his conditioning.
He's matured now, he's twenty six years old. He's accomplished
many things in sports, but never as far as a heim,
as far as being a champion, and that with the Lakers,

(37:30):
he thinks he could help them go very deep in
the playoffs, and by swimming down it's indicated that he's
as serious about it now.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
So we've seen this like extreme version of this.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Even in his Cantered famously got in incredible shape one year,
and I mean they're always in good shape, But how
sustainable is it for somebody like Luca who that wasn't
that's not who he has been. I know he's still young,
but it's not who he has been. To the point,
is this something you if you're his coach, if you're

(38:04):
in that front office, you're looking at it and you're saying, yeah,
this is what I can expect from him, not only
for the next six months, but for the next six years.

Speaker 6 (38:12):
Yeah, very much answer is yes, that's what they expect
them to do. Your professional athlete, and you have a
chance to show greatness besides individually, but to lead your team.
And we know it's the behavioral You have to change
your lifestyle. You're eating habits. You know, it's so easy
to eat the wrong foods. You know, they call it
quote comfort foods. So you need discipline and you need

(38:35):
those around you that the professional cook. You remember, these
guys have their own cooks around them and they should
they can afford it. So there's no reason why that
professional athlete should be out of shape because they have
all the luxuries of people helping them to be in
tip top condition also both mentally and physically. And obviously

(38:57):
we know what you eat is absolutely and as far
as how you perform, and I've seen it with cal
Malone or we had called with the Jazz how you
absolutely paid the price and so that John Stockton as
far as conditioning, and that's why those guys played for
at a high level for so many years. And that's
Lebron James right now. Luke is trying to use the
same thing Chris Paul also in that group. Chris Paul

(39:19):
again he's this twenty eighth year playing in the NBA
and at a high level. As far as both offensive defense,
he's in great shape. There's no, there's no as far
as the easy paths, You've got to pay the price
both on the court off the court, as far as conditioning.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Gourdy, there's the Karl Malone end of the spectrum, and
then there's guys at the other end of that spectrum
that have similar outcomes. Carl Malone didn't have a ton
of injuries. There's some guys that don't look great right,
they're a little bit flabby, but they seem to be durable.
You can't pull fat, is the joke that people pull
on that one. Is there anything too, you know, a

(39:59):
risk in getting two lean or anything like that, creating
different I guess conditions for your body that make you
more susceptible dangery.

Speaker 6 (40:08):
Yeah, the answer is yes, there is. And that's why
the professional help where those trainers, they understand your each
person's body individually and how we perform at a high level.
And that's why again with these professional athletes, they're around
the elite of the elite as far as medical staff
and training staff, and that's why they perform the exception.

(40:33):
There is those one outlier, and we love this guye
at Devin Nuggets. Nikolai, he's the opposite. Now he's still
has that body frame that's a very uninspiring, but he's
an incredible basketball player. And so he's the one exception
in the present tense that can play this high level

(40:55):
and just bounce around in the lane and play outside.
But he's the out layra Gordy.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
J is our guest here for a couple of minutes
on the Sean O'Connell Show. We've touched on this a
couple of times in past conversations, Gordy, the television contracts,
the broadcast contracts changing in the NBA, and for fans,
that alters your perception of the product and the broadcast
might look and sound a little bit different. Obviously, there
was a big outcry that people wanted, you know, the

(41:24):
TNT's halftime show to stay intact, and the people were
given what they wanted there. How is the broadcast rights
deal actually going to change the way we interact with
and the way the NBA looks and sounds.

Speaker 6 (41:37):
Next year, Well, if you have it to be different now.
So it's so programmed into watching ESPN, NBA TV and TNTs.
You mentioned about TNT the show goes to ESPN Intact
with Charles Kenny, excuse me, Charles Barkley and a few

(41:57):
guests as far as periodically. But now with NBC Sports
and Peacock Streaming, they bought rights very similar shown to
the NFL you know where. Now it's on every different platform.
So just quickly, here's the main guys to the analysts
for NBC Sports and Peacock Streaming for NBA Basketball, Reggie Miller,

(42:20):
Jamar Crawford, Grant Hill, Brad Dougherty, Brian Scalabrini, Derek Fisher,
Austin Reeves and Robbie Humble, and then in studio with
NBC will be and it's calling I this morning. This
announced it today Vince Carter, Tamelo Anthony and Tracy McGrady.

(42:40):
So those guys will be in studio pre post, pre
halftime and posts and they'll be chopping it up. Now.
The other partners of the Amazon, the Big Boys, Amazon
Prime Video, those guys that is fine Ego's elite voice
to play by play, which is absolutely sensational and it's
hard to imagine, but Kevin Harley is the second and

(43:01):
up group, so that both it should be like almost
like co one. But the analysts are going to be
Stan Van Gundy, Dell Curry, Steve Nash, Brent Barry, Dwyane Wade,
and Candace Parker. And in studio of the pre half
time post will be Dirk Miwitsky and Blake Griffin. So
those are the new partners that the NBA has plus

(43:24):
now obviously with ESPN and ABC that's the main focal point.
And now they're negotiating with different people as far as
being some of the analysts, but we know right now
that Mike Breen is your time record most ever NBA Finals.
As far as broadcasting, he's the number one voice there
and Richard Jeffson has done a good job, and so
it's Tim Legler.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
You mentioned Dwayne Wade is going to be on some
broadcast duties now there.

Speaker 6 (43:50):
Was on Amazon.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, Okay, So there was.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
A question when Tom Brady was going to be doing
broadcasting and wanted to get into the ownership group for
the Las Vegas Raiders, whether there's a conflict of interest there.
Obviously Dwayne Wade is a minority owner for our own
Utah Jazz and now he's going to be doing some
analysis work as well. In your mind, is there a
conflict of interest when you're trying to play both of

(44:15):
those roles?

Speaker 6 (44:17):
No, there really is, And that's the same thing it's
in discussion with Grant Hill. Grant Hill is the marity
owner of a small state of the Atlanta Hawks. So
whatever they worked out with the NBA office and the
other governors, meaning the other other owners, they worked it
out and that there's no conflict of interest. And so

(44:37):
I'm assuming that they did the same thing with Wayne Wade.
And again, those guys they offer such an unbelievable perspective
as far as what it takes to be at an
elite level. So I know you like you love in
the NFL when so and so is talking on the
air and they describe perfectly perfectly what is happening and
why it's happening, and then they state and Layman's it

(45:01):
described John Madden in his heyday, And that's that's a
great that's a great analyst that can describe things in
everyday language, but it's still very descriptive.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
It really is what separates great analysts from just okay, analysts,
the folks that can simplify complicated terms, complicated concepts in
the game enough for the average fan, but also speak
to a fan who's a little bit more educated. It's
a delicate balance, and people somehow find a way to
maintain that balance and are really good at in football

(45:33):
and basketball everywhere.

Speaker 6 (45:35):
Well, football is the ultimate because you have a built
in chance to describe what's going on in between when
you're in a huddle. See basketball, it's more most times
it's a dead ball or the ball coming up the floor,
and the analyst is talking, then gets out of it,
and then they're played by a play person takes over
and so and yesteryear was confusing, where sometimes in jazz

(45:57):
basketball there's a simulcast. Hot Rod Hunley was doing the
games on TV but also with a radio description because
they were on both. And then thank god, they came
to the sense of it and divided it up. Well
hard By did the games only on TV, and then
they brought in a very talented David Locke to do
the games in the radio about roughly I'm guessing about

(46:18):
fifteen years ago. So that's what that's the beauty of it,
and it's so important to enhance the viewership because you
want to listen to that person what they're saying.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Did you ever did you ever have a little itch
to maybe try some broadcasting stuff, Cordy, Yeah, the.

Speaker 6 (46:36):
Answer is yes. I have a long, long time of
the in between jobs. I was an analyst also it's
called USA TV back East, and so we did some
games there and it was a good learning experience and
it helped me become a coach also later on, as
far as you might have got back into coaching, because
again you're able to have to speak almost like in

(46:57):
sound bites because you have to get out of it.
And likewise, now this generation, you can't ramp as a coach.
You cannot ramble on. The players can't process it. So
we as the adult in the room, we have to
adjust to the players versus the players adjust to us.
As far as communication skills, and I say it all
the times when I do these workshops with our coaches

(47:19):
that you've got to be able to talk and get
out of it, but you can't overtalk, and it's that
unbelievable find line.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
All right, Gor, do you have a list for us today?

Speaker 6 (47:29):
You know, let's today, Sean, I've been thinking about banging around,
you know, showing like throne elbows, and so this is
my list today is Utah Jazz career franchise leaders in
total rebounds. So let's bang in the running showing total
rebounds wearing a jazz uniform. Quickly, what are some of
the attributes one technique and that's everything timing, physicality, positioning,

(47:55):
multiple efforts, instincts and foot speed, especially down along miss
point shots. So here's my list today. They are the
top ten jazz career rebounders. Number ten vastly underraty before
I say his name, Paul millsp grabbed three thousand, seven
ninety two, number nine. The bouncy Russian comet Andre Carolinko

(48:21):
grabbed three thousand and eight thirty six number eight, our
colleague often on the radio shown Big t Fell belly
eighth all time three thousand, eight hundred and eighty one,
number seven. Rich Kelly played back to the jazz in
the seventies and early eighties three thousand, ninety seventy two,
Number six. Greg Osa teg three thousand and nine seventy eight,

(48:46):
number five at six foot one, fifth all time. Most
of his rebounds were chased down Carums with who won
the foot race. John Stockton grabbed four thousand and fifty
one rebounds Number four, vastly underrated. Derek Favors fourth all
time in jazz history with four thousand, six twenty six

(49:09):
Number three, Mark Eaton six thousand, nine thirty nine, Number two.
The Frenchman Rudy Gobert, he played for the Jazz for
nine years. He gribbed seven thousand, one hundred and nineteen rebounds,
which comes to eleven point seven rebounds per game and

(49:29):
the number one rebounding and history of jazz franchise. I
saw most of them throwing flying elbows in the lane.
Call Ma Malone with the Jazz eighteen season call a
miss fourteen thousand, six hundred and one rebounds, which comes
to ten point two rebounds per game. In the present

(49:50):
tense probably Walker Tester's on to join his list someday
where Walker right now is entering his fourth NBAC and
what has got one eight hundred and eight total rebounds
for nine point two rebounds per game. Thus sean Let's
battle in the lane.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Wow, Gordy, you're the man.

Speaker 6 (50:16):
Sure, I know, sure you'd love to hit people as
far as legally.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
Here's the thing.

Speaker 5 (50:20):
I wasn't late.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
I was not good at anything in basketball except for
using my fouls and rebounding, and occasionally occasionally I would
make a defensive play without fouling anybody.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
So I like that, list.

Speaker 6 (50:36):
Well said, I love it.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Thank you, Gordy. I always appreciate your time.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Look, basketball season, the downtime where we're gonna we're gonna
we're not terminating our our visits, but we're gonna scale
them back for the for the uh, the rest of
the summer.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
It sounds like starting when.

Speaker 6 (50:55):
I think starting next next Thursday, August seventy.

Speaker 5 (50:57):
Yeah, all right, so one.

Speaker 6 (50:58):
More week because usually in the NBA nick this week
right now, there'll be a lot of still signing check
so a last day will be for this season will
be next Thursday, August seventh, fort To listeners, please listen
in to show tonight. And we've had a great time
in the meantime.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
All right, Gordy, talk to you soon, Thank you, sir.

Speaker 6 (51:15):
Thanks Sean, peace out.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Fine Now that's Gordon Chias, our resident NBA guru on
the Sean O'Connell show. All right, I made I made
some decisions and the start bench cut is up on
Twitter also at eight seven seven three five three zero
seven hundred. I'll tell you who you're starting benching and
cutting next on the Sean O'Connell Show. You tells them
one Sports Talk ESPN seven hundred.

Speaker 4 (51:37):
Sing Us as you have the piano man sing us
assole tonight.

Speaker 6 (51:45):
Well on in the mode.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred at ninety two one
a half am.

Speaker 4 (52:07):
Now John at the bar is a friend of mine.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
He gets me all right.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Hot lunch coming at you on the Sean O'Connell Show
in about five minutes, we'll check in with Jerem Jordan
for our first Red and Blue of the season. By
you like Utah starting football camp this week, talk about
how the expectations lay out in provo after. Of course,
the big news in this offseason was that Jake Rhetz Love,
the presumptive starter, is now at two lane after the scandal.

Speaker 4 (52:38):
Were more like two lame. You don't like too lane,
They're fine. I just thought I throw that out. Now
there's a former by U quarterback. There There a lot
more lame. Fair enough see.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:52):
Oh, by the way, we're gonna check in with our enemy,
Jerem Jordan.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Love this, I love I love red and Blue time.
Like you like a pretend hostility towards Jerem Jordan. Oh yeah, yeah,
I like that absolutely. If you have not played, by
the way Stansbury Park golf Course yet, maybe this weekend
Tuila County's historic golf course. It's Stansbury Park, perfect combo

(53:17):
of challenge, pace and price. This is my kind of
course because it's really gonna get you mad.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
It's gonna get you upset. There's water on almost every hole.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
The greens roll nice, okay, but you're probably gonna go
sail it over the green or come up short of
the green into the bunker or something like that. It's
the perfect course to go to and be talking trash
on your friends in that foursome for their terrible round.
You're probably gonna have a rough round yourself at some
point as well at Stansbury Park. But it's the perfect
course to go out there and experience it. There's no

(53:50):
long waits, there's no overpriced green fees. It's pure golf.
Eighteen holes for forty five dollars on weekdays, fifty dollars
on weekends. It's super easy to get to right off
I eighty and it's become a go to spot. So
check out Stansbury Park Golf Course. Take your friends out
there and just prepare to talk a little bit of trash,
which is really what it's all about when you're golfing

(54:11):
with your buddies. Great rates, gorgeous greens, minutes away. Totally
worth it. Stansbury Park dot gov slash golf Course Stansbury
Park dot gov slash golf Course. I'm cheap, so I
want affordable golf. That's a great place to fight on.
You're if it's a tough it's a tougher course to play.
It sounds like.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
And if you're like like you and me, if we're
bad at golf anyway, we don't care.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
It does that matter. We'll have a good time.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
At least it's like a cool At least everyone's gonna
have a rough day instead of just you, you know
what I mean, instead of just me.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
You'll have a rough time on the scorecard, but you'll
have a great time otherwise.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
All right, start bench cut today.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
It took me some time to decide who else gonna
put on it, because we're talking cornerbacks corners, all right.
In the Power four, Power five, the Pac twel era
start one bench, one cut one, Clark Phillips the third,
Jalen Johnson, Eric Rowe eight seven seven three five three

(55:11):
zero seven hundred. Eric Rowe, by the way, he snuck
in there because three years at safety, one year as
a corner, and then ended up as a staple on
NFL rosters play in a position. He only played at
Utah for one year, but he had a phenomenal season

(55:31):
as a corner at the University of Utah. You want
me to give you some numbers, Yeah, I'm ready. I'm
ready for some numbers.

Speaker 4 (55:37):
I'm a lot more familiar with Clark Phillips and Jalen
Johnson's time at Utah than with Eric roach Eric.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
He finished his career in twenty fourteen, and again this
is his loan season as a corner. Fifty nine tackles,
three tackles for loss, one interception, thirteen passes defended at
the cornerback spot for Eric Rowe Clark Phillips. His best
season at the University of Utah was actually his second year,

(56:06):
twenty twenty twenty didn't count, right, so he's still a freshman.
In twenty twenty one, fourteen games, sixty three tackles, one
tackle for loss, two interceptions, thirteen passes defended in his
best season as a corner. Jalen Johnson's best season as
a corner at the University of Utah was two thousand

(56:28):
and eighteen. That was his sophomore year. His junior year
was still pretty dang good, but his sophomore year he
had forty one combined tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack,
four interceptions, and four total passes defended in twenty nineteen
and eleven passes defended, so twenty one total in three

(56:52):
years for Jalen Johnson.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
On the passes defended twenty one total for.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
Clark Phillips the third twenty eight passes defended total for
Eric Rowe, but thirteen of those were as a corner
because he played safety. Do you have the pick six
numbers on Eric Rowe's loan interception was on.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
A pick six?

Speaker 3 (57:15):
And guessing maybe Clark Phillips had had in his career
four interceptions return for a touchdown.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
I think that's tied for the program record. If I'm
not mistaken, I think you're right. Career pick six, Jalen
Johnson had two in his career, two very memorable ones,
and Eric Rowe had one in that also his one
interception one he took it to the house. You did
take it back to the house. Good, good for him. Yeah,

(57:44):
I feel like Jalen. Jalen Johnson wasn't in one hundred
yard interception return for a touchdown against Stanford in twenty eighteen,
and then he had the the even more memorable one
I think that against Washington at Washington the year after
in that great twenty nineteen season. So only the didn't

(58:05):
have as many as Clark Phillips. But I don't remember
all of Clark Phillips. I remember all of Jalen Johnson.
So I'm starting Jalen Johnson.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Uh huh. He had a sack too.

Speaker 4 (58:16):
Oh see, like those other guys like Jalen Johnson was
everywhere and as I said, two very memorable. Clark had
a sack in his SOPHO. Okay, Clark Clark did too.
I missed when he read that, but anyway, both those
guys were everywhere. I'm giving the slide edge to Jalen
Johnson just always always made big plays, as did Clark,

(58:39):
but he just Jalen was was even more different right,
and he showed that in his career in the NFL too.
Clark's had a nice start. Jalen Johnson's like all pro
at corner which which I know we're only taking college
into consideration, but it just tells you just Jalen's just
even at an higher level than Clark is good Clark was.

(59:01):
I'm benching Clark and I'm cutting Eric Rowe. I think
for me this one. The longevity at the position separates
those two even more so than in other start bench
cuts between them and Eric Row even though Eric had
a fantastic single season. Can I give you another name

(59:22):
that I think people might throw at me. He's unsung, underrated.
Zamaya Vn. Yeah, Zamaya Von.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
He played three years at the cornerback position at the
University of Utah. His career numbers are look like this, Okay,
one hundred and forty four total tackles, fourteen tackles for loss,
three sacks, three interceptions, and twenty four passes defended. That's
Amaya Von really good. Okay, his tackle number better than

(59:53):
Jalen Johnson. His tackle for lost number better than Jalen Johnson.
His interception number not quite the same as Jalen Johnson.
Same thing with Clark Phillips. Clark had nine total interceptions
in his career as a corner at the University of Utah,
Eric Rowe had. He beats all these guys in total tackles.

(01:00:14):
He had two hundred and sixty one total tackles, but again,
three of those were safety years.

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
His safeties typically do get a lot more tackles than corners,
so that he had eight tackles for loss. He had
one and a half sacks. He had three interceptions in
his career. One of those was a pick six.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
But Zamaiavan he matches a lot of these numbers and
we don't talk about him the same way. The other
two guys were all Americans. Clark was a consensus All
American and Zamaya Van was like barely getting All Conference recognition.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Was he was really good.

Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
He was the guy after Clark left, as like, now
he's the number one corner and he now not as
good as Clark and Jalen in that regard, but he
more than held his own as the number one guy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Really good. Number one cornerback.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
Yeah, that's it deserves an honorable mention.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
At the very least.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Start one bench one cut one corners in the Power
for Era, I went Eric Rowe, Clark Phillips, Jalen Johnson.
If you wanted to substitute Zamaiah Vaughn for Eric Rowe
because he played three years at the position instead of one,
I wouldn't be mad at you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
It costs you ninety nine cents to substitute, like it's
your favorite fast food restaurant.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
But you can do. It costs you one James Peterson
bonus point, which is equivalent to one one hundredth of
ninety nine cents.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Yes, all right, got to take a quick one. Here
we come back with some red and blue. Jerem Jordan
joins us to talk a little koogs. If you can't
stomach it, just come back with us later. Sean O'Connell
Show on ESPN seven hundred and ninety one FM.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
My fatherly Pought named many things here.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
You know what they say.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
They taught me, keep your friends close, put your enemies close.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Time to check in on that two down south.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
They have done absolutely nothing wrong, but they're blue.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
I think it's just the Red and Blue on the
Sean o'connells Show. Hey, Utah's number one Sports Talk, the
ESPN seven hundred ninety two one half.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
N Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN seven ninety two one FM.
I know that some people have a hard time with
our next guest because he is true and blue. We

(01:02:34):
love Jerem Jordan. This is Red and Blue on the
Sean O'Connell Show, our first one of the football season.
As we check in on the team down south. Jerem,
how are you, Sean?

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
What's up?

Speaker 5 (01:02:45):
It's been too long? How are you going, man?

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
I've been I'm being really good. You've been enjoying You've
been enjoying the summer with the fan.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:02:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's been relaxing. It's been good. I feel refreshed.
I feel ready for fresh cut grass and sweaty pads
and breaking down four string nose tackles, and I just
feel like ed Helm's in the hangover.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
We are bad, and we are all holding our breath
for October eighteenth, Utah down at BYU. A lot is
going to happen between now and then, obviously including camp
for both of these teams. Give me your overarching thoughts,
your expectations in the broad strokes for BYU football, given

(01:03:26):
the context of Jake Retzlaf's departure, what they've had to
deal with as a team this offseason, et cetera.

Speaker 5 (01:03:33):
Yeah, biggest conversation is, hey, who's the quarterback? And you
got a three man race, McKay, Hillstead, Trayson Borgay, bear
Bachmeira the three Hillstead Skyridge kid. Utah State was in
the system last year with Trayson Borgay kind of battling
as QB three and four. Obviously Gary Bohannon and of
course Jake Ritzloff not there anymore. So Hillsted and Borgay

(01:03:55):
are your two guys that come in with some starting experience.
Hillstead at four games be where Gay had about eight
games at Western Michigan. And then bear Bachmeyer has a
really high upside recruited by Bama in Notre Dame, Texas
and m Oregon Michigan. So high profile kid that didn't
get the starting quarterback job at Stanford. They fired Troy Taylor,
he's out. He comes over, He's gonna get a look too.

(01:04:17):
So he brought his brother, Tiger, a receiver that maybe
from Utah. Fans are familiar with as well, who played
last two years at Stanford there. So that's the big question.
The other question is okay By replaces two of their tackles,
the left and right tackle. Isaiah Jada, who is on
the team previously at Colorado, had some experience, got in

(01:04:38):
a little bit last year. Andrew Gentry is the guy
that comes from Michigan that helways feels like can plug
and play in there and be good. They returned the
interior three of Lafwaho, Mitchell Makassini, Lausa kind of those
guys they feel good about the OL line. Of course,
Carson Ryan comes from Utah. He's tied end one TVD
on who's in that group wide receiver, feels pretty experienced
and go Chase Roberts, one of the best in the

(01:04:59):
country is back, Jojo Phillips, Parker Kingston, with some other
names in the mix. But you got some good experience there. Defensively,
replacing seven starters, but from the Big twelve, top defense
statistically in a bunch of categories. But j Hill played
a lot of guys, a lot of reps. And so
when you say, hey, crew Wakeley left for produce strong safety,

(01:05:21):
well tellin Alfred and raided the money played a lot,
so you return three guys that played it free. In
wall Prastus thoughts, well, you turned Jack Kelly and Isaiah
Glasker two of your three linebackers who feel like NFL guys,
Harrison Taggert and middle linebacker left for cal see Alia
Ferah plugs in. They feel like it's the feelings higher
than Taggerts Quarterback's hard to lose the starting two that

(01:05:43):
were pretty good, and Jacob Robinson is making an impact
with the Niners as an undrafted free agent. Guy Mark
Collins is out. They like Evan Johnson, Morey Bamba. You
lose all four starters on the defensive line, that feels
like a big deal. Obviously, the conversation around Keana Tonabasi
is a massive ad, of course, but they like some
of the guys who have been in the mix playing
a little bit as backups, and we'll see how that

(01:06:05):
group fits in de tackle a little thin outside of Keanu,
it feels like. And then the ends they're looking for playmakers.
So that's the broad strokes I gets special teams. Will
fans back the punter, Sam vander Harts back Parker Kingston,
is the punt returners back TVD with kick returner with
Kielan Marion going to Miami. So a lot of experience, excitement, motivation,

(01:06:28):
But ultimately I think I BOI has decent enough quarterback play.
I think they can compete in the eight, nine to
ten win category in the regular season.

Speaker 3 (01:06:37):
So there are a lot of people in my sphere,
of course, generally Utah centric, that there's almost a sigh
of relief all they've got some quarterback questions at BYU,
because everyone knows this team is incredibly dangerous in other places.
I don't think that it's always a loss when you

(01:06:57):
lose an experienced starting quarterback, and especially when it's unexpected
like this, there's an added layer to it. But from
the numbers standpoint, and I know that's not telling the
whole story of the position, but from a number standpoint,
I look at the three names that you just mentioned,
and I say, why can't those guys give this BYU

(01:07:17):
team the exact same numbers that Jake Retslaf gave them.
Maybe less moxye, maybe less experience, maybe less confidence in
mastery of the offense, but the numbers weren't overly spectacular.
I guess it's a complicated way of saying, like, you
didn't lose the best quarterback in the conference. You lost
a guy who was solid for you and didn't make
the same mistakes that people worried he might make most often,

(01:07:40):
and he helped the team win, but he wasn't the
reason the team won a lot of games.

Speaker 5 (01:07:46):
Yes. No, I agree with you, and I've heard some
staffords say, hey, we feel confident that exact point one
of these guys are a combination of these guys whatever.
That looks like they're not going to do the dual thing.
That's not what I'm saying. But yes, can they produce
a fifty nine percent passer who throws for twenty nine
hundred yards, twenty touchdowns, twelve picks?

Speaker 4 (01:08:04):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (01:08:05):
Now, the thing that you can't replace, like you mentioned,
is the experience that Jake one has, the offensive two.
He's been in the fight in Power for the Hill.
Stenenboorg Gat played in G five systems. They're now in
Power four. Bear Bachmeier is a true freshman. That's just
a time to ask, especially for a team that is
in win now mode. Sean if Byu was on the
uptick and they were feeling like they were getting better.

(01:08:28):
It's different. You could tolerate something and go, hey, eight
and four regular season building, this is good. You know
I got high profile recruits coming in the next couple
of years kind of thing. No, this is a win
now situation. This is you don't have I don't know
that Buoy has j Hill forever, like he's too good
of a coach. You have to seize the moments that
you have this staff and this group of talented players

(01:08:50):
right now. And if Jake Redsloff was the quarterback, we'd
be talking about Buoy competing for the Big twelve title.
That is not the conversation externally. Now Internally they feel like,
hey that people don't feel like we can do it again.
So they have that chip on their shoulder. And certainly
it's a fair question given how important quarterback is. I
failed to mention running back by the way I should

(01:09:11):
mention LJ. Martin back, Jenny Molly had some really good
moments last year, Enick Nawahine and then some unproven guys.
They're hoping Hinkley Rapati gets an extra kind of juco year.
Not sure on that one. That may or may not
happen if he Joins. That's good at running backs. But
to your point, can one of those guys put up
those kinds of numbers. Yes, if the defense can be

(01:09:31):
as good as they were last year and the special teams,
if you always got a lot of playmakers, skill positions back,
that guy doesn't have to win boa a ton of games.
But like you said, Jake Retsov had a few moments
where he was pretty clutch. Obviously against you, Ty, you's
got to make a couple throws there. Oklahoma State, that's
a massive drive. There's a fourth down there, there's a
throat to Darius Plaster to win against Oklahoma State. Didn't

(01:09:51):
make it against Kansas. But boy goes four to two
and one score games. Utah went one and five. That
was the difference between those two seasons in my opinion. Once,
obviously Utah was trying to find the offense. I feel
like you got it with the job back as we
call him down here running the show. Now, one score
games matter. You can always just make it a two

(01:10:12):
score game and make it not close. But there will
be close games, clutch moments which BOI quarterback can make
it happen. In those situations. They have yet to be
in the fight, so it'll be new to them.

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
Uh you failed at first to mention the running backs.
I'm kind of glad you did.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Deep.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
I'm scared of the running back room at BYU more
than I'm scared of any other offensive position, because.

Speaker 5 (01:10:35):
More than receiver interesting, I just feel.

Speaker 3 (01:10:39):
Like Moa is maybe one of the most underrated players
in the entire Big twelve Conference, and you've got a
one to two punch with him in LJ.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Martin. If your offensive line is even good at all,
those two guys can make massive, massive gains and be
huge problems for every defense.

Speaker 5 (01:10:57):
Yeah. LJ is a guy that if Helsey should a
thousand yard back, He's five point two a carry, super solid.
He's not a game breaker, like, he's not going to
hit homers. He'll had doubles if you will, but he
is super solid. And then Moa surprised a lot of
people five yards of carry last year, three touchdowns apparently
Kansas State you know, was trying to tackle with hands

(01:11:18):
of butter, like he was bouncing off the wools, sliding
through everybody. He's impressive because he's not the biggest dude,
but he plays big and so yeah, I like I
like those two. If if Hinkley Ropazzi is eligible, that
would really help that group a lot because the Enicknallaheen
is there. He scored a big touchdown against SMU. But yeah,

(01:11:40):
you need like three dudes that you're like, hey, we
can we can get through twelve games with kind of
these guys. And here he plays a lot of twenty
one personnel. We thought we saw thirty personnel, three backs,
no tight ends against Houston. At the end of the year,
they're getting creative. Aaron Frederick is I'm interest to see
what that depth looks like in that position.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
Jerem Jordan is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell show.
It's Red and Blue time. We're talking about BYU and
the rivalry game is played on October eighteenth. You mentioned
the defense, and that's kind of really where you have
to start and end a lot of the conversation with
BYU football, even with that quarterback situation for me, because
that was the driving force behind the somewhat surprising but

(01:12:23):
whether you're surprised by it or not, really incredible season
that the team had last year. One of the things
that this defense was so good at is in my opinion,
hard to replicate the turnover margin and the takeaways that
they created. I mean, there is some luck involved there.
I don't like to take credit away from any team
that can make that happen for themselves, but you know

(01:12:45):
there were times even I mean Kladie admitted it down
at Big twelve media Days. He's like, man, we had
a lot of situations where the ball bounced our way
and staying that that far on the positive side of
the turnover ledger is a different a thing to do
year over year over year. So even though I think
this defense is going to be at least as good
as it was last year, can they replicate that in

(01:13:09):
your mind?

Speaker 5 (01:13:10):
It's a big ask. It really is. Because BIOI led
the country. They were tired with Texas, who played a
game or two more than DA with twenty two interceptions,
and then they had twenty nine games seven fumbles. I mean,
that will equalize a lot of situations. Duoi goes to
SMU and they turn it over a couple times, and
then SMU costed up. BOI gets takeaways inside the red

(01:13:35):
zone multiple times, they forced field goals. Bury went that
game eighteen to fifty. That's the playoff team that Boi
went and beat on the road because of their ability
to take the ball away. I mean, it's it was
an unbelievable thing. Yeah, you got it be in position,
but you also need to be lucky. All of it
is combined. I'm with you. Third in turnovers game total
in the country. Margin was the top twenty five at

(01:13:57):
plus eight. Offense turned over a little too much, frankly
in the twenties there, but I'm with you if you
can approximate that number, like let's say you a seventeen picks.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:14:08):
The good news is Joey basically returns all of its
safeties and the backup corners that will be the starters.
They've played quite a bit. And then, of course your
top two playmakers are in rushers Frankly all Isaiah Glasker
and Jack Kelly. Jack Kelly is a Balie's on the
Kursky watch lists warning for best defensive player in the country.
Isaiah Glasker is the closest thing we've seen down here

(01:14:30):
the Kyle Vanoy and Fred Warner. He is just stat stuffer.
He s feels like a fourth or fifth round outside
landbacker NFL draft pick. Next year, the student makes play,
so I'm excited, and Jay Hill calls a great game.
He has a great scheme before the Colorado game, which
we felt like might be a fifty five to fifty
two kind of shootout thing. He made Colorado look silly

(01:14:51):
and he was actually a pregame talking to Spencer Linton
and he was smiling like he knew that they were
going to give Colorado some problem. So in Jay Hill
we trust down here. He's done an amazing job. And
like I said, as long as BOYU has Klannie and
Jay Hill, I think I think they can do some
real special things here.

Speaker 3 (01:15:10):
It feels like up here at Utah there's a lot
of folks who are like gearing up for Hey, this
is the last year that you have Kyle Whittingham on
the hill. I think most people feel bittersweet about that.
I guess there's probably some contingent of fans that are
ready to turn the page. Don't count me among them,
not just yet. But is that the feeling at BYU
about Jay Hill. You already mentioned you don't get to

(01:15:31):
keep him forever. He is too good of a coach
to keep in provo as an assistant. Presumably if you know,
a big time job offer comes, and I think one
will are the fans and I guess more importantly the
other coaches and the players having that in the back
of their mind that this is maybe the last year
you can take advantage of his expertise.

Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
I don't think so. It's just I'm just being super
present about it and realistic because I just think he's
an unbelievable coach, Like he is a power for head coach.
He should be at some point, and he's too good,
Like if this defense keeps playing like they did last year,
there's no way he won't be. So I cherish the
moments we have with them, like at some point, you know,

(01:16:14):
I helpe Kevin Young's here twenty or thirty years, but
the reality is probably not. You know, like every season,
just enjoy greatness when you see it, and it's rare
you see and go that player or that coach is
truly great. I just think the world of j.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Hill.

Speaker 5 (01:16:29):
I think he's unbelievable. I think they have a great staff.
He retained its entire staff. It's very rare from an
eleven and two teams and now all these coaches are back.
They're building like the twenty sixth recruiting class at top
twenty in the country. But he's never had kind of
that momentum. And that's all because you have great culture,
great coaches, You're winning, you know, competitive and all the

(01:16:50):
good things. So that's just me personally with Jay. I
just think he's awesome and I cherish the time he's
calling the defense because when he's calling it, I feel like, hey,
you always got a chance here, regardless of who this
quarterback is. Is you always not going to walk into
too many games this year where they have the better
quarterback on paper, but they'll have the better defense and
that gives you a shot. Is that what it feels

(01:17:12):
like to be a Utah fan? You always have the
better defense.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
You always have the better defense. Was that a shot
at the quarterback situation where you probably.

Speaker 5 (01:17:23):
Maybe mildly maybe Mileley?

Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
Yeah, look, I mean this that game October eighteenth. The
teams don't get to focus on it, yet I do
because we.

Speaker 5 (01:17:35):
Think about it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
Yeah, it's my favorite game of the year every year.
And and by the way, it's massively massively important for
Utah to win this year for so many different reasons.

Speaker 3 (01:17:46):
And they got to go down to provo to do it.
What do you think October eighteenth looks like? And of
course I'm asking you this question in July.

Speaker 5 (01:17:54):
Yeah, who knows what the path will be from both
these teams to that situation? What what it has been
better than expected? What has been underwhelming? The boy habits
quarterback figured out?

Speaker 6 (01:18:06):
You know?

Speaker 5 (01:18:06):
Is that person they is a smooth sailing right is
Dan Pierre running all over the field like they're hoping
as Jason Beck and the crew installed that offense to
that degree, the defense and Lander Barton and smith Snowden
and the boys that they do in their thing, like,
I think it could be a really really compelling matchup.
What I hope, honestly is that it's a massive swing

(01:18:29):
game in the fortunes of whoever goes to the victual
tidle game. That's what it always used to be in
the Whack and the Mountain West and whatnot. Is like,
you've got to win that game because you need the
edge to get to the championship game in this league.
And that would be awesome. I think obviously two great
programs and it's it's gonna be fun. I can't wait
to see kind of what happens before then, in the game,

(01:18:49):
after the game. The only thing that's tough is there's
so many teams in the league. It's going to come
down to some dumb tiebreaker and it's just just that
killed the OU last year and it was their own
opportunity to win, you know, two of three and they
lost two of three and the mixed time game blah
blah blah. So that's the only thing with the league
that's sort of tough, is like all this expansion, it's

(01:19:11):
not truly kind of yeah, we beat them, we're in.
It's well, hopefully So and So wins because it's dumb
tigreker plants.

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
Not only that, but it's okay to talk about now.

Speaker 3 (01:19:22):
I promise we're going to get really, really sick of
talking about Big twelve parody and how everyone in this
league can beat everyone in this league. I spent enough
time in the Pac twelve to know exactly how that feels,
where you're just like, oh, yeah, this league has no
elite team that crushes everyone else. So who knows who's
going to end up in the playoff right now? The
betting odds even are all over the place. Some books

(01:19:44):
have it Kansas State's the favorite, Utah's second, Arizona State, second,
Texas Tech up there, Baylor up there, BYU before the
Rets left transfer was in that conversation even with the
sports books. Now they've fallen kind of to that second tier.
I've already made my thoughts on that pretty clear. But
outside of Provo, who do you think is the scariest

(01:20:08):
team in this Big twelve conference.

Speaker 5 (01:20:12):
It's a great point. It's hard to look at Arizona
State and evaluate because Cam Scataway with such an important
piece of their offense. Yet Sam Levit's back, Jordan Tyson's
like a first first round, second round kind of receiver,
and they returned nine started on both sides of the ball.
It's hard to not think that Arizona State has some real,
real juice. Iowa State in Kansas State feel like they're

(01:20:34):
super consistent. If every Johnson takes that next step for
Kansas State feels like offensively they would be hard to beat.
Iowa State super solid, hard to lose two thousand yard receivers.
So Utah always feels like an offensive way from being
right there if they're not there right and so if
if that clicks, like that could be dangerous. If he
already gets decent quarterback play. You'd like to think you

(01:20:55):
always in the mix, but that's a massive question. But
it feels like, you know, it's pretty interesting. Finished on
a six game win streak in the regular season last year,
lost the Bowl game, but they returned Sorier Robertson and
a thousand yard running back. So it is it is
pretty open, and it's not good for the Big twelve
to have this much parody. By the way, there needs

(01:21:17):
to be an elite team that you kind of say, hey,
they're probably getting the benefit of the doubt of an
at large bid if they don't win the league. Because
what we don't want is what happened last year. You're
just a one bid league. We need the two in there.
Then when it goes to sixteen, you got to push
for a third. So's I would like to see a
team or two kind of emerges one of the top teams,

(01:21:39):
But I think it's going to be difficult because you
have a lot of good to very good programs. Is
there a great program right now in the league. I
don't think so quite yet.

Speaker 3 (01:21:47):
How much were were going to talk about be talking
about Colorado? They made sure we talked about him yesterday.
I thought we were going to get this bomb drop
type news, and it was right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
It was happy news. I'm glad that Deon's cancer free.
It wasn't. It wasn't the football press conference. I thought
it was going to be.

Speaker 5 (01:22:04):
Yeah. I mean that that one depends too on what
are they going to get from the quarterback position. Kayden
Salter was unbelievable at Liberty two years ago and that
was good last year. But is he the guy or
or is the stud freshman jj Juju lewis going to
be the guy at five start? Like that kind of
all depends you lose Travis Hunter. There's a lot of
losses there. You don't Dean doesn't have a kid on

(01:22:25):
the team, Like, what's the motivation? Of course he's motivated
to win, come on. But I think I think they'll
be interesting. But I don't see them as a contender.
But yet again, last year we weren't talking about Arizona State.
They went from worse to first and in the poll.
I agree with the idea, by the way, not to
do a preseason poll to the teams. I think that
was smart because you're trying to get that second team in.
I think that was a good move. I also want

(01:22:47):
to get rid of the AP preseason poll. I don't
think that helps us. It's fun for marketing, it's fun.
Hey we beat so and so early in the season,
but ultimately it don't really matter. Like the college football
playoff all we wait till October before that comes out.
AP provides some context, marketing, whatever, but in terms of
actually being rewarded for what you did, Arizona started too

(01:23:10):
far back right in the pack to kind of catch up.
I'm hoping the Big twelve can get two teams in,
albeit at like eleven and two or whatever, because it's
just hard to someone's running the table in the fleet.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
Jerem.

Speaker 3 (01:23:22):
I look forward to our conversations every week as we
will continue Red and Blue to the chagrin of sum
but to the delight of so many more.

Speaker 5 (01:23:31):
They don't have a choice in the programming. But you
can tweet at shon O'Connor see. Yeah, thanks for having
me on. It's gonna be fun to jet. I appreciate
it all.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
Right, look forward to it, man, Thank you for your
time as always. Thanks Shaw, Jerem Jordan.

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
That's your picture of what BYU is going to look like.
This year will get a weekly update. It'll not be
much more than that. You are probably not liking my
sentiment and probably well certain not liking Jerems. This BYU
team is going to be a factor in the conference
championship race.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
They just are.

Speaker 3 (01:24:08):
Their defense is too good for them not to even
if it's disastrous at the quarterback position, which I don't
think it's going to be. Their defense is just too
good and too well coached. They are going to either
be a team that beats somebody who's in that conference
championship race, or they're going to beat in that conference
championship race. And October eighteenth is one hell of a

(01:24:31):
test for Utah. The Utah football schedule lays out pretty nicely,
but Arizona State and BYU back to back.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
With BYU being a road game, that is tough.

Speaker 4 (01:24:41):
Man Yeah, and uh, I love our red and blue
check ins every week. Jerem Jerem makes a lot of fun.
I cannot wait to see for both of these teams
to be competitive at the very least. Once again, I
I kind of lamented at the end of last season

(01:25:02):
on the show Oh See with You that I just
I might have aired as a grievance.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
In fact, I just.

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
Want a year where they're both good and nationally relevant
because it makes things so much more interesting here locally
in college football. I know that there's certain fans that
get hot and bothered by the trash talk from the
opposite fan base, but that just makes it more fun, guys,
Like when your rival is good, it's more fun. So

(01:25:32):
you can secretly hope that BYU is good when they
don't play Utah, It's okay, it's okay, and it makes
it It makes it that game much better, even though
it usually is pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:25:43):
Anyway, no matter what the situation is.

Speaker 3 (01:25:45):
You want to win over your rival to mean something
like last year, if things go very slightly differently, if
cam Calhoun picks that off, if the referee keeps the
flag of his pocket, whatever, if you make a stop
on the.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Going with that.

Speaker 4 (01:26:00):
Even though Todd Newcomb and Jeff Triplett both said it
was the right call.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
They have to. By the way, the screens the screensaver
on this uh, this studio computer right now is Zebras.

Speaker 3 (01:26:14):
It's very strange. Wow, someone's listening, and look I said
it back then I'll say it again. You know, the
call by the referees is disappointing for everyone in that
in that stadium and sucks the ability to make a
play to change that game and leverage the outcome in

(01:26:37):
Utah's favor was still there and BYU made the place right.
If you had beat BYU last year, broken the undefeated
start to their season, that's a meaningful, meaningful win in
a rivalry game, right for BYU, after a decade plus
of misery, going back to back in the rivalry game

(01:26:57):
was meaningful for them when like they got they they
broke the nine year the nine game streak at home,
they still had a big losing streak of Rice Cycle Stadium,
so that I'm sure for the for BYU fans, for
the players in that locker room, and the coaching staff
that's aware of that, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:27:15):
Sure that was that was huge.

Speaker 4 (01:27:17):
But if that hadn't been the case, beating a mediocre
last year, mediocre record wise rival, I mean, that's not
as big a deal as it would have been beating
a rival who also had a chance to win the
conference like you did.

Speaker 3 (01:27:33):
And when Utah goes down to Provo this year and
beats b YU, you're actually gonna hope that that's like
a solid BYU football team that they win all the
other games outside, because that looks good on Utah's resume,
and that makes them a more compelling team for a
college football playoff bid if they can win the Big
Twelve Conference, which I mentioned this with with Jerem. There

(01:27:58):
is just a random sort of turnstyle in the sports
betting books. Kansas State right now in all of the
relevant books is number one in betting odds okay plus
five hundred to win the conference championship. Beneath them, it's
Texas Tech, Utah, Baylor, or Arizona State, and not a

(01:28:20):
lot of separation, and they just rotate who's in the
top position, the third position, the fourth position, the fifth position.

Speaker 2 (01:28:27):
It's wild, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:28:29):
Because now less than two weeks ago, we were Brian
Brown and I were telling you as you were guests
on the show, when you were on the road, I
believe in South Africa telling you that it was the
opposite Utah was or not the opposite, but Utah was
the one in as the betting favor in these books.
And now you know, twelve days later it's Kansas State.

(01:28:51):
It's very interesting. Now we heard Phil Steele say it's
one of those three or four teams that should win
the conference too.

Speaker 3 (01:28:57):
And by the way, we have no new information in
the time between two weeks ago and now. If if
camp had started and they were just like in Vegas
was like, oh yeah, we found out that, you know,
Kansas State has a secret transfer that they brought in,
or that Arizona State Sam Levit got hurt on the
first throw of camp. Now we can change our odds.

(01:29:17):
It's just like it's just rolling around. It's just based
on money coming in and what's not. It's really it's
an odd deal. All right, We're way overdue for a break.
Another watch list is out. There's not just one ute,
but two utes on this one. I'll tell you who's
up for which award in college football this year. It's
the Shat O'Connell Show on ESPN seven ye FM.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
You're listening to a Shad O'Connell show for the Murdoch
Hyundai Studio M Sweetest Candy, It's tasted it some.

Speaker 2 (01:30:02):
Where You got me.

Speaker 3 (01:30:04):
Junk mail update for you on the Sean O'Connell show.
Keenan mcjenkin, Assistant Athletic Director for Strategic Communications, also known
as the sid for Utah Football sent the email. Caleb
Lomu and Spencer Fano have been added to the Outland
Trophy watch list. Fifty total players on the Outland Trophy

(01:30:30):
watch List this year.

Speaker 4 (01:30:32):
Really narrowing it down, Utah has got two of them.

Speaker 2 (01:30:36):
What in twenty five chants that wins this? Bad boy?
I like that?

Speaker 4 (01:30:39):
So that's best offensive lineman. That's best lineman, best lineman
also offense or defense? Yes, okay, you can win.

Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
Like you can win the Outland Trophy as a defensive lineman.
Jason buck at Buyu did it as a defensive lineman.

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
Utah has the two.

Speaker 3 (01:31:00):
They're one of thirteen programs with multiple players on the
watch list. Alabama's got three guys, Oh my goodness, Oregon's
got three guys. Ohio State's got two, Ohio State's got all,
got all eight to ten, right, pen all nine. Penn
State's got multiple on here. I'm seeing two from Penn

(01:31:23):
State as well. There are ten preseason watchlist guys on
the from the Big Twelve Conference. There are ten of
the total fifty that are defensive linemen. Oh okay, so
it's more likely that an offensive lineman is gonna win
this that it seems to me, and maybe I'm off base.

(01:31:44):
I haven't tracked it, but it seems to me that
offensive lineman typically wins they Outland Trophy, right, it's it's.

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
The only offensive lineman award really that besides the Group
one that what's that one called.

Speaker 3 (01:31:59):
Joe, there's also the Remington Award for US for the
best center.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Okay, so there's three that linemen can win.

Speaker 3 (01:32:07):
It's effectively a tackles award if we're being honest. But
there have been I mean, there's been plenty of defensive
guys who've won it. Let's see if we go back,
just just talking about the recent history of the award.
Last year it was Kelvin Banks from Texas. In twenty
twenty three, it was a dtackle to Andre Sweat from Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
Okay, yeah, he was good.

Speaker 3 (01:32:32):
The Michigan Center won it in twenty twenty two, and
that is they had an outstanding offensive line. He was
the first center to win it since nineteen eighty two
when Dave Remington, who the Remington Award is named after
us won it. All right, So yeah, since nineteen eighty two,

(01:32:54):
only one center has won the award, and it was
lussagon Ola Wa Temi the guy from Michigan. Jordan Davis
from Georgia won it in twenty twenty one. Alex Leatherwood
from Alabama won it in twenty twenty doesn't count. Pinney Sewell,
Utah High School product, won it in twenty nineteen as

(01:33:16):
a sophomore, as a true sophomore.

Speaker 2 (01:33:18):
Shout out to Desert Hills Thunder.

Speaker 3 (01:33:21):
Yes sure so, actually, wow, this this actually surprised me.
In recent history, the detackles have over indexed. You go
through the whole history of the of the award, and
it's it swings a little bit in the favor of
the offensive player. But you go back basically to two

(01:33:42):
thousand and five, let's see how many that will say,
in the last twenty years. I wonder, I wonder how
many of these guys you could name James if I
wanted to, uh, oh the detailed think of okay, think
of d tackles.

Speaker 4 (01:33:56):
Well, okay, I'll I'll tell you one that seems like
an no brainer to me. Yea and Dominican Sue Yes, Nebraska,
that was nine.

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
That was on nine. Think of another one who's kind
of a no brainer.

Speaker 5 (01:34:11):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:34:11):
If you base it on his NFL career. He was
the next defensive tackle to win it.

Speaker 4 (01:34:17):
Oh sec no, no, think of someone who played West
Coast NFL football and is considered one of the best
defensive players in the history of the league.

Speaker 2 (01:34:31):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:34:32):
Aaron Donald, Aaron Donald, Aaron Donald, Aaron Donald at Pittsburgh.
Oh okay, At Oliver from Houston won it, and at
Oliver didn't end up having like a superstellar NFL career.
Quinnon Williams from Alabama won it in twenty eighteen, so
back to back defensive tackle years. Jordan Davis from Georgia

(01:34:53):
to Andandre Sweat from Texas. Yeah, it's a fairmountain, nice
little sprinkling in if you go back to that's what one, two, three, four,
five six. They're seven in the last twenty years of
defensive tackles, all right, but it's starting to go in
their direction a little bit there.

Speaker 4 (01:35:14):
Yeah, wouldn't it be something if if not only one
of them wins it, but they're both finalists. And when
you're talking about Spencer Fano and Koblomo because right now
we talked about this with watch lists, there's fifty guys
on this list, Like cool, thanks for.

Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
Writing me.

Speaker 4 (01:35:31):
In a is along with all the other offensive and
defensive linement of the country as a chance to win
this award. But once you get to December or late November,
when they start actually deciding this and giving out and
publishing the finalists, it would be sweet if one, if
both of them are finalists, and you know only one
of them can win. You know, who knows if one

(01:35:54):
of them wins it. But if they're both finalists at
the very least, I mean, what a feather in the
cap for this program.

Speaker 3 (01:36:01):
When do you think the last time a current Big
twelve school the current Big twelve teams, yeah, the sixteen there.
When do you think the last time one of those
schools produced the Outland Trophy winner was current Big twelve? Okay,
not Big twelve at the time of when they won,
but current.

Speaker 4 (01:36:20):
Big twelve ski yeah, twenty fifteen, nineteen ninety three, okay,
way off Arizona nose tackle Rob Waldrop won it. Aaron
Taylor won it at Nebraska in nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (01:36:42):
Not Big not current Big twelve, doesn't count, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:36:45):
Jamal Brown at Oklahoma not current Big twelve. Don Kung
Sue at Nebraska not current Big twelve and Tovandre Sweat.
I guess Texas was still in the Big twelve when
he won it, right, Yeah, in twenty twenty three is.

Speaker 4 (01:36:57):
The last their last year there, but not current Big twelve.
So on Nebraska, those Nebraska guys they were in those
were Big eight, Big twelve, whatever the name of the
conference was.

Speaker 3 (01:37:08):
In the nineties, Will Shields at Nebraska won it. Zach
Wigertz in Nebraska won it. The Nebraska's had a bunch.

Speaker 4 (01:37:16):
That's one of the reasons why Nebraska was such a
powerhouse until about the year two thousand was because they
just dominated the line of scrimmage.

Speaker 1 (01:37:23):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:37:23):
Oh see, Like it does not surprise me that historically
they've they've had a bunch of these guys they won
it's Outland Trophy.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
Dave Remington won it twice at Nebraska in nineteen eighty one,
in nineteen eighty two. Dean Steinkooler won it in nineteen
eighty three, so Nebraska had three years in a row
where they produced the winner. So Remington, it's only it
only forty years is a long time, but it's only
been less than fifty years since he played. Some of

(01:37:52):
these trophies have been like we talk about the Maxwell Award.
He played college football in the eighteen nineties. Yes, so
that's that's the prize. Surprised me a little bit. I mean,
Remington must have been he must have been that guy
if he played that recently in the early eighties to
get a big time college football award named after him. Yeah,

(01:38:13):
I mean, being a two time Outland Trophy winner. There's
not a lot of two time Outland Trophy win.

Speaker 4 (01:38:18):
And apparently not a lot of centers that have won
the Atland Trophy since him. Yeah, so that that makes
a lot of sense the center Outstanding Center of the
Year award would be named after him. But I would
have guessed he played a lot left farther back in
the past, so see, not in the eighties. So Spencer
Fono has a legitimate shot to win this award because

(01:38:42):
he's a name that's already on people's minds and on
people's tongues. Caleb Lomu would have to have like the
best year in the history of offensive line play because
he's just now people are just now becoming aware of him. Yeah,
we were talking about breakout players versus guys who burst
on the seen.

Speaker 2 (01:39:00):
We started we learned their name, like nationally, Calee Lomu
is it.

Speaker 4 (01:39:06):
They're they're expecting a breakout year from now, even though
he's broken out as far as Wilkinson, he's already a
great player.

Speaker 2 (01:39:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
Spencer Fono, though, is the guy he was on. He
was a first team All Conference player last year. He
was on All American lists last year, he's on preseason
All American lists. Lomo is now. Lomu's starting to enter
that conversation. But these awards are all based on UH
conversation and confirmation bias in a lot of cases. Right,

(01:39:34):
if Spencer Fano is healthy all year long and Utah's
in the hunt for a Big twelve championship, he's going
to be a semi finalist for this award. Then he's
going to be a finalist for this award. And then
as the schedule condenses down and people are only watching
conference championship games and they're only watching playoff games, if
Utah is involved in those, the people who decide this

(01:39:57):
are gonna be looking for Spencer Fonna well and by
extension a little bit, Caleb Lomu. But that's when people
are really making the decision on this, and they want
a name that they've already heard. It's this familiarity thing
that we all as human beings lean on. So he's
got a legitimate shot to win this award if Utah
has the offensive year that we hope they can have,

(01:40:17):
and if he has the healthy year that we all
hope and pray that he has. And by the way,
Utah's overdue for one of these. Utah states got one
and BYU's got two. So Outland Trophy needs to be
a thing for the University.

Speaker 4 (01:40:32):
Of No no Outland Trophy winners in the history of
Utah's program. Now for Utah that surprises me because of
recent years, how good which since Jim Hardy's been the
offensive line coach, how good the offensive line has been.
Also that twenty nineteen defensive line leaky fo two John
Pennesssini like Bradley and I like that was ends don't

(01:40:58):
get nominated for the outlet but but like that defensive
those defensive tackles were some of the best in the
PAC twelve.

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
I mean Stars and.

Speaker 3 (01:41:08):
Star Lot Star had had a shot at an Outland Trophy,
so that the ends don't get considered.

Speaker 2 (01:41:16):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:41:16):
Garrett Bowles, Garrett Bowles had a shot at an Outland
Trophy in his one year. If you'd have stayed another year,
Garrett Bowles would have the next year he probably would
have been on like at least on this list. I
mean to narrow it down, be like, there's fifty guys
that people are aware of right now, and you gotta
beat Oregon's guys. You gotta beat Penn State's guys, you

(01:41:36):
got to beat Ohio State's guys. You gotta beat Alabama's
three guys that are on this list. You're gonna have
to have a really, really good season at Utah for
Spencer Fono or Caleb Lomo to have a shot at this.

Speaker 4 (01:41:48):
Is there a because just because offensive linemen and some
and sometimes interier defensive linemen, you don't necessarily unless they
go to your favorite school, you don't necessarily know who
you are who they are?

Speaker 2 (01:42:00):
Is there?

Speaker 4 (01:42:01):
Who are some names that you recognize from this list
that maybe our listeners would recognize from him?

Speaker 3 (01:42:06):
Well, Isaiah World is the transfer to Oregon that a
lot of people are saying it's either him or Fano
that is the best tackle in the country this year.
And so that's one that you're probably gonna want to
pay some attention to at least. Francis Mawingola at Miami
is a person that we talked about in recruiting circles
for a long time and now he's really bloomed into

(01:42:28):
being one of these guys at the college football level
that you got to pay attention to.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:42:34):
Fight from Arizona State is on this list. He's a
f I T E.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
But CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:42:41):
Fight is he was at Big Twelve media Days. He's
supposed to be the best defensive lineman in the Big
Twelve Conference this year. I think that there are going
to be several people that are gunning for that exact honor,
but you're going to want to pay attention to him.
And the same is true of Lee Hunter, who is
one of the huge gets for Texas Tech in the

(01:43:02):
transfer portal. So there's a couple names on here that
you would probably recognize just as a college football fan,
and then the rest of it you just sort of
rely because this is the hardest one for the average
fan to gate. Yes, like who should be winning the
Outland Trophy. Your eye is almost never on the players
winning the Outland Trophy until the replay.

Speaker 4 (01:43:21):
Even you you for me, as a guy who doesn't
watch it the way former players watch it, you know,
more of a casual fan. I see defensive linemen more
than I see into your defensive lineman more than I see.
Those guys stand out to me more than the offensive
lineman do. But even those guys, like you're watching, you're

(01:43:45):
seeing wherever the ball is going and the pass rushers.
That's right, Like that's about it, and you and you
would be going, well, of course you're seeing the tackles
and if you're looking at the pass rushers, but I
don't necessarily notice that how good the tackles are doing.
I just see how good the pass rush is doing.
So it is. It is a very hard one for
fans to be able to be able to figure out

(01:44:07):
who's who should be winning this award.

Speaker 3 (01:44:10):
Jordan Seaton at Colorado, by the way, and Dante Corleone.
Dante corleon one of the coolest names in the Big
Twelve Conference, one of Cincinnati's great players, one of the
only great players of Cincinnati if we're being honest, But
Jordan Seaton was if you remember Deon Sanders. When he
landed at Colorado, he had this recruiting history where he'd

(01:44:30):
already convinced five star guys to go to Jackson State
FCS and Jordan Seaton was the number one recruit in
his class on some rankings, and Deon got him to
come to University of Colorado. He was the number one
offensive lineman and some people thought the number one best
overall player in that class. And Deon got him to

(01:44:50):
come to the University of Colorado and he has stayed.
I promise you, Jordan Seaton could have gone anywhere he
wanted in the transfer portal after Shador's gone, Travis Hunter
is gone, Jordan Seaton could have been like, all right,
that was fun. I'm going to Ohio State. Now, I'm
going to Alabama. Now I'm going to Oregon. Now he
has stayed at the well one of the only places

(01:45:12):
you would want to go because he'd be in a battle. Yeah,
because they have two great starting tackles. So just move
seating down inside and play guard. Let's do that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:45:21):
Anyway, keep an eye on that Outland Trophy list. We'll
give you a give you updates as the season progresses.
Before we take a break. A reminder to all of you, gentlemen,
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Speaker 2 (01:45:57):
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Speaker 3 (01:45:58):
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Speaker 2 (01:46:02):
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as always, TELEMOC sent you. All right, we're gonna double
up and we're gonna get to hour three. Next on
the Sean O'Connell show, Utels number one Sports ESPN seven hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:47:06):
This is the Sean O'Connell show. You were home of
the best inside of your huts. Let's get back to
OC from the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred
ninety two one af AM.

Speaker 3 (01:47:24):
The start bench Cut today is Utah football corners from
the Power four Power five era. After some deliberation and
debates internally, I settled on Clark Phillips, Jalen Johnson, and
Eric Rowe, who, of course three years at safety for

(01:47:45):
the University of Utah and then one really great year
as a corner as well. I'm fine if you want
to replace Eric Rowe in your start bench cut with
Zamia Von because Zamia Von had a sneaky productive career
a corner throwaway the twenty twenty season he was a

(01:48:05):
safety then anyway, you could even throw out the twenty
twenty one season where you're still playing safety. In three years,
he played fourteen games, thirteen games and twelve games as
a corner, twenty five tackles, fifty three tackles and forty tackles,
one tackle for loss, five and five a half sack
and two sacks for him in twenty twenty four half

(01:48:29):
sack in twenty twenty three. I should say two interceptions
as a corner and eleven excuse me, twenty passes defended
as a corner for Zumaya Von. Pretty damn good for
a guy who did not get nearly doesn't get nearly
the love conversationally as those other guys didn't have the
interception numbers, certainly, but I mean he's right on par

(01:48:52):
with total pass breakups with guys like Jalen Johnson and
Clark Phillips. That's lofty company to be keeping at the
cornerback position.

Speaker 4 (01:49:04):
If here's a Maya Van, it is, and like like
we said before, it's certainly deserving of an honorable mention
if though, if there are those of you listening that go, oh,
he was better than Eric Rowe or I don't think
you can say he was better than the two All
Americans and Clark Phillips and and Jalen Johnson. But if

(01:49:24):
you want to substitute him for Eric Rowe, just want
James Peterson bonus point, you can substitute him out.

Speaker 2 (01:49:29):
Yeah, what's how much it costs? But Eric Roough, Eric
row is a corner, has won his lone season as
a corner.

Speaker 3 (01:49:36):
He traded all the tackles right, Well, he didn't even
trade that many tackles.

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
He's still had fifty nine tackling machine.

Speaker 3 (01:49:43):
Yeah, fifty nine tackles as a corner is bananas. I mean,
that's a that's a crazy number. Clark Phillips had sixty
three in twenty twenty one, which is also an absolutely
insane number. He went from in twenty twenty one, Clark
Phillips had sixty three tackles. In twenty twenty two he

(01:50:04):
had twenty four tackles. Now, part of that is the
way teams are attacking the utes with him on one
side of the ball versus not. Part of that is
him following the best receiver for the other team, to
different sides of the field, things like that. But man,
you're pushing fifty sixty tackles as a corner. That's really something.

(01:50:24):
Jalen Johnson his best year, he had forty one total
tackles as a corner, and Zamia Von's best year he
had thirty five.

Speaker 2 (01:50:31):
Total tackles as a corner.

Speaker 3 (01:50:32):
So these guys great players eight seven, seven, three, five
three zero, seven hundred start one bench one cut one
corners from the Power four, Power five era, and it's
Jalen Johnson, Clark Phillips the third or Eric Rowe who
really took to that position, playing it one year for

(01:50:54):
the University of Utah and has obviously built a very
long and successful NFL career on top of that, which is,
we don't do enough justice to the incredible difficulty of
not only making the league but staying in the league.
I mean, you could spend every day of your show

(01:51:15):
an hour on just that on how many guys were
great college football players who just couldn't cut it in
the league. And I'm talking great college football players. I'm
talking guys that are like decent, they were solid. I
mean Jason White the former Oklahoma quarterback Heisman Trophy winner
got like exactly five seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:51:35):
In the NFL.

Speaker 4 (01:51:37):
Yeah, one of the days that Scott Mitchell was filling
in for you. Recently, oc he talked about this about
the Heisman Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks and how historically you
could say most of them did not end up being
good NFL players. John Gruden went on in his podcast

(01:51:59):
he taught talked with the former Miami Heisman Trophy winning
quarterback whose names escaping me right now from the eighties,
I believe, Yeah, yeah, And he asked him just a
question that only John Gruden could ask a guy of
his standing can ask. He just asked him, point blank,
how come how come a lot of you Heisman Trophy

(01:52:20):
winning quarterbacks weren't ever good in the NFL. He kind
of just asked him just like that, about as bluntly
as that, And they had a good conversation about hey Man,
college is a different NFL is a different level. Obviously,
the situation you get drafted in matters. But yet so
so many quarterbacks who won the Heisman, in particular, Jason

(01:52:43):
White's a good example of one. Sam Bradford spent a
decent amount of time in the league, but he wasn't
that good.

Speaker 3 (01:52:50):
Well, he never lived up to the contract. Remember he
was the big He was the last of the inflated
signing bonuses, number one draft picks signing before they put
the scale scale. And that I mean that he never
lived up to that contract. Even when he was good,
he never lived up to being paid more than a

(01:53:11):
lot of the top veterans in the league. I mean
Tim Tebow. Tebow is probably the best example. It's hard
because there are some people who are NFL fans, and
then there are some people who are college football fans,
and then there are people who are football fans who
like to watch both. And unless you were a fan
of both, you really don't have the proper context for

(01:53:31):
Tim Tebow. Like he had one moment in the NFL
where he threw a touchdown pass that helped him win
a playoff game, right, But a lot of Tim Tebow's
NFL career was just like, Eh, yeah, the dude's not
that good.

Speaker 2 (01:53:47):
They were going to keep giving him chances anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:53:49):
Tim Tebow is a college football quarterback, and more importantly,
just a college football player. Was more he was absolutely
deserving of the Heisman Trophy. But he was as impactful
of a college football player as we have ever seen.

Speaker 4 (01:54:06):
Yeah, you could argue he's the you could make an
argument for him being the greatest college football player of
all time.

Speaker 2 (01:54:12):
It's why I'm not sure.

Speaker 4 (01:54:14):
I'm not sure that he is, but you he's I
think in the most recent in the in the one
hundred and fiftieth season, he was He was a top ten.
He was named to the top ten on the official
one one hundred and fifty team, maybe even top five.
He was honored at the College Football Playoff. How many
guys they had on the field there like he is?

(01:54:36):
He was that good in college and and Florida was
that relevant mostly because of him.

Speaker 2 (01:54:45):
I'm looking at the ESPN put out a top one
fifty list. That's the one.

Speaker 4 (01:54:51):
That's the one they did it in year one fifty,
what three or four years ago or probably longer than that.

Speaker 2 (01:54:57):
And there.

Speaker 3 (01:54:58):
Here's the tough thing about comparing across eras right, So
their number one player was Jim Brown. Jim Brown had
eight interceptions and twenty six touchdowns to go with two
thousand rushing yards.

Speaker 2 (01:55:13):
Jim Brown.

Speaker 3 (01:55:14):
I don't know how you call Jim Brown the best
player in college football history overall, when his career numbers
don't even match Barry Sanders' single season record at Oklahoma State.

Speaker 2 (01:55:26):
It's again, how do you compare ears? Jim Brown is?

Speaker 3 (01:55:30):
The reason people love him is because Jim Brown always
left you wanting more at the NFL level, and also
he just was a freak of nature everywhere he was.
We don't know if we ever scratched the surface of
his true potential as a player because the game was
so different back then. They've got herschel Walker as number two.
Herschel Walker had more than twice as many yards and

(01:55:51):
twice as many touchdowns as Jim Brown. But somehow ESPN
has elevated Jim Brown above him. Bo Jackson number three.
Archie Griffin won two Heisman Trophy. They have him at
number four. Jim Thorpe. How do you compare someone who
played from nineteen oh seven to nineteen twelve to anyone
in the modern college football world? Red Grange is number six.

(01:56:14):
Do you know when Red Grange played James?

Speaker 4 (01:56:16):
I had no idea in the early twenties, okay, right,
football was a different thing back then. Yeah, I mean
a guy Guys like Thorpe and Grange are names that
you hear as college football fans, as football fans, but
that you don't necessary unless you really do a deep dive.
You don't really know why you know those guys so

(01:56:39):
they but so it's okay to put just out of
like a respect factor. We're gonna put you in the
top ten or whatever wherever you're gonna put them. Jim
Brown kind of the same thing, although he's played a
lot more recently than those guys, so you know, you
at least know he was a great running back. Right
out of respect you pay those guys near the top ten.

(01:57:01):
I'm not sure, like you said, I'm not sure how
you can have guys who's whose numbers completely dwarfed their's
behind those guys. I mean, you've got again, no disrespect
to any of these individuals, because we truly don't have
the context for it. But number thirteen on the list

(01:57:23):
is Doc Blanchard. I'll give you one hundred.

Speaker 3 (01:57:26):
James Peterson bonus points if you can even tell me
the position the school he played at.

Speaker 2 (01:57:33):
Let's go.

Speaker 4 (01:57:34):
Doc Blanchard sounds like a mean, nasty center offensive lineman. Unfortunately,
he's a running back. Running back, Okay, and he played
for Army.

Speaker 2 (01:57:45):
That's true. Let's go you got was the last what
was the last part? Army at night? When he played?

Speaker 4 (01:57:51):
Yeah, the forties nineteen forty five?

Speaker 2 (01:57:56):
What did you look this up? I did it, James,
I got the school and the year. Are you kidding me?
Be honest with me? Did you look this up?

Speaker 1 (01:58:07):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:58:07):
Look I got I got boring, James. If you're watching
on YouTube, James is showing like I got boring radio
station website up here?

Speaker 3 (01:58:16):
Okay, radio running back Army nineteen forty four to nineteen
forty six.

Speaker 2 (01:58:22):
Let's go.

Speaker 4 (01:58:24):
I didn't get the I didn't get the position right though,
So it's not that impressive.

Speaker 3 (01:58:28):
It's pretty impressive. That's a hell of a guess. Okay,
So he had in those three years. He had one thousand,
six hundred and sixty six rushing yards, he scored thirty
eight touchdowns, and he intercepted opposing quarterbacks that seven times.

Speaker 2 (01:58:46):
That's the other part of this.

Speaker 4 (01:58:47):
That maybe another reason why these really old school legendary
guys probably get elevated over some of today's the modern
players is they played both ways right, and they put
up numbers for their era, really impressive numbers. Both ways,
so that you have to factor in. But at the

(01:59:08):
same time, it's like, it's like what we talk about
because the NBA, who's the goat has been such a
big part of the pop culture around the NBA. It's
like when we talk about, Okay, George Miken, who dominated
when it was like basically all white guys playing in
the NBA, unathletic white guys playing in the NBA. Like

(01:59:29):
out of respect, maybe you put him in the top thirty,
but then you look but then you look at it
specifically and you're like, Okay, you're putting them ahead of
Charles Barkley or whatever wherever you end up landing him,
like Chris Paul is not as good as George Mike,
And it's like it's hard to show those guys, to
give those guys the respect that they that they earned

(01:59:51):
for how good they were in their era. But then
and then also without going, yeah, but there's no way
they're better than any of the guys that are playing today.

Speaker 3 (02:00:00):
Okay, So here's the thing you kind of have to
put if you're going by the list that ESPN published,
When was this we decided this was a couple of
years ago.

Speaker 4 (02:00:11):
Was it twenty twenty season, in the twenty twenty one season,
whenever the one hundred and fiftieth season of college football was.

Speaker 3 (02:00:18):
This was twenty twenty January thirteenth, twenty twenty. All right,
Jim Brown was judged by a panel of one hundred
and fifty experts to be the greatest college football player
of all time. This was in twenty twenty. He did
play both ways, So Travis Hunter has more yards produced

(02:00:46):
offensively and more interceptions than the guy they put at
number one. So is Travis Hunter the greatest college football
player of all time?

Speaker 2 (02:00:53):
I guess?

Speaker 4 (02:00:54):
So if you're saying a guy like Jim Brown, who
was outstanding both ways and his era, I guess I
guess you put Travis Hunter.

Speaker 3 (02:01:03):
I mean, Jim Brown has Travis Hunter beat by two touchdowns. Okay,
but Travis has more yards and more interceptions and is
playing in an era where indisputably the competition the whole
thing is much more difficult now. So Travis Hunter best
college football player of all time? Perhaps A I'm not

(02:01:27):
trying to hot take anybody here. I'm pointing that out
to say, like we may have been witnessed to it
last year and the year before truly something historic, just
based on even these comparative numbers, right, and you don't
always appreciate it when it's happening, just like I'm sure

(02:01:49):
people in the fifties didn't fully appreciate Jim Brown for
what he was going to be in football lore. By
the way, Travis Hunter, for those of you been paying
attention to NFL training camps, Travis Hunter is spending most
of his time on defense in the NFL right now.
There is doing snaps both ways though, yes, in practice correct.

(02:02:14):
So there are a lot of people that were like,
no way they tried to Jacksonville does that with the
NFL the at least in training camp they're doing that.
I just there's no reason in training camp not to.
I guess if you're trying to limit injury risk and
things like that. But you invested a lot of capital

(02:02:35):
with a number one or a first round your first
round draft pick into a guy that's a lot of
money guaranteed with that. Now you better find out exactly
what that person gives you. And that's Utah Football is
about to start camp. B YU football is about to
start camp. Utah State football starting camp. You have to

(02:02:58):
find this incredibly delicate balance. As a coach and as
fans and as media members, I wish we could go
watch and see how these things flesh themselves out. No
longer allowed, never probably going to be allowed again. But
that training camp is a time, just like springball is,

(02:03:18):
where you have to figure out what you've got with
some of these players. And in the NFL, this is
the first option. This is the first opportunity for the
Jacksonville Jaguars to see exactly what they've got with somebody
like Travis Hunter. For every team who spent a first
round draft pick on somebody to say, all right, I
know what you were able to do at the college

(02:03:40):
football level.

Speaker 2 (02:03:42):
That's why we gave you this vote of confidence.

Speaker 3 (02:03:45):
That's why we put our faith in your abilities, and
in not your only your ability that you showed us
in college, but your ability to continue to develop to
translate that to more success at the next level.

Speaker 4 (02:03:57):
But you got to find out in training camp. And
it's something that is going away in other pro sports,
or it's being so carefully approached in other pro sports.
And I'm talking to you NBA where you're just like
there's this bubble wrapped philosophy where Oh my gosh, we
got to make sure we don't.

Speaker 2 (02:04:16):
We don't spoil the investment.

Speaker 4 (02:04:18):
Heaven forbid the eighteenth overall pick in the draft gets
hurt in summer league?

Speaker 2 (02:04:23):
Oh no, what are we gonna do? Looking at you
Utah Jazz.

Speaker 3 (02:04:28):
At the end of the day, there has to be
a time where the rubber meets the road. And if
it's me, if I'm the GM, if I'm the coach,
if I'm the well in college you got gms and coaches. Now,
if I'm the person who has put this player on
my field but yet have yet to see them in competition,

(02:04:49):
you don't have to figure out what you got in Spencerfano.
You know you don't have to figure out what you
got in Caleb Lomo. You don't you already know you
kind of do have to figure that out with Devin
Dan Pierre, and you spent some time doing that in
spring football. And they were letting they were letting him
do things in spring football that the cautious ute fan
probably would be like, no, no.

Speaker 2 (02:05:10):
No no no no, don't don't don't.

Speaker 3 (02:05:12):
Like they weren't making him live contact and telling people
to tee off on him. But they were letting him
run around and do the crazy stuff and jump over
bodies and all that.

Speaker 2 (02:05:21):
And you kind of have to do it.

Speaker 3 (02:05:23):
And so at the NFL level, Yes, Travis Hunter, let
him play both ways. Let him return a couple of kicks.
See what you've got for the University of Utah where
there are Look, I'm confident, I'm probably more confident than
all of you are that Utah is going to put
together a really solid year this year. But there are
still questions that have to be answered, right and the

(02:05:45):
only way to answer those And I know fans are
so shell shocked by what's happened in the last two
years with the compilation of injuries. Remember that Utah's training
camp last year, they came out relatively healthy. It wasn't
until actual competition started that the bad luck started to happen.

(02:06:08):
And I think it is bad luck because of the
nature of a lot of those injuries. If you go
back a couple of seasons ago feels like ancient history now.
But remember when Utah was going down to Florida Sec
Road Game Swamp open the season.

Speaker 2 (02:06:27):
You've got high hopes. They've got high hopes.

Speaker 3 (02:06:30):
Interception thrown by Cam Rising at the end of the
game unfortunately makes it so you don't want the problem
with being in that situation was you had been too
careful in training camp, so people didn't tackle, they weren't
able to tackle, they weren't tackling.

Speaker 4 (02:06:43):
Well, how many twenty something mistackles in that game.

Speaker 3 (02:06:46):
Which is such a gross number for a Kyle Whittingham defense,
And so they had to make adjustments. And then maybe
then it's like, well, now you went too hard in
training camp. You have to find out what you've got.
And the way to find out what you've got with
players who are still question marks is to let them
play football. And you got to let them play football
in limited doses.

Speaker 2 (02:07:06):
How they are actually going to be expected to play football.

Speaker 3 (02:07:12):
If a player that you brought in to be a
pass rusher is only allowed to rush the passer and
then tag off at the end, you don't know if
that guy can finish his sex. Like I'm talking to
I'm talking cash Dylan, Okay, big time recruit out of
Corner Canyon High School came in, had that great Dane

(02:07:35):
puppy body. You got to put some weight on him.
Right this year, should be ready to start making a
couple plays for you. Maybe he's not defensive end number one,
maybe he's not defensive end number two. He might not
even be number three, But I expect to see his
hand in the dirt and him playing. You gotta know
if that guy can not only rush the passer, beat
the guy blocking him, can he finish? You know how

(02:07:59):
many times you're allowed to do that in springball, in
that training camp?

Speaker 2 (02:08:04):
Not ever? Yeah, hardly ever ever? Right, like you, you
have to know if that guy can finish.

Speaker 4 (02:08:10):
You know, we we joked about you, joked about how
you the Jazz ought to name you the head coach
when they're tanking because they don't need a good coach.

Speaker 3 (02:08:20):
That's right, you need a bad coach. I would be
the worst one.

Speaker 2 (02:08:23):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:08:24):
I feel like we need a bad quarterback that you like, Yeah,
go ahead and tee off. He's not actually on the roster,
just like a ringer quarterback, like someone to stand up there.
We just want to see if our guys can finish tackles.
All right, Can I tell you something?

Speaker 3 (02:08:37):
You have those guys on the team, they're called walk on,
they're called walking That was like that was the Ferrari
for a while. Okay, that was Luke Patari. You know
how bad it sucks, dude. So so this was by
my high school career. I like I thought I was great.
Nobody on them our team was probably that great. But
you think you're good because you're starting both ways and

(02:08:58):
you're getting like some pre seasons, postseason honors, whatever. Right,
and so like you're as a junior and senior in
high school when you're a solid player, like you've got
some of what you're seeing in college where it's just like,
all right, you don't have to do any of the
crazy stuff. Okay, like we already know you're good. You're fine,
you've established yourself. All right, cool, thanks, you still got

(02:09:19):
to run, you still got conditioning and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:09:21):
But like people are not allowed to cut block you
in practice.

Speaker 3 (02:09:24):
Maybe one of my first practices in college football freshman
year as a walk on, literally we were cannon fodder
for cut blocks. Like, okay, walk on linebackers and safeties
come over here. We're teaching our running backs how to
cut block at full speed out on the edge. So,
like the technique was, see this cone, take an angle

(02:09:49):
run to that cone. He's going to take an angle
run to that cone and he's going to dive at
your knees.

Speaker 2 (02:09:53):
You know how sobering that is when you're an eighteen
year old who thought that you were valuable and a
good football player, and it's just like, hey, we're gonna
let the older guys, the bigger guys, the fully grown man,
they're gonna dive at your legs while you're running full.

Speaker 3 (02:10:06):
Speed, and you know what if you get hurt whatever, Yeah,
and they're just like and they're just by the way
and by the way. They don't want you to take
on the cut block properly. They don't want you to
like post your arms in your hands on them and
try to keep your feet out of the way. They
don't want you to do that. They want you to
pretend like you don't know the cut block is coming.

(02:10:26):
So that was That's an extreme version of how humbling
it can be. And I'm sure they did they I'm
sure they don't do as much of that nowadays. I
bet they don't do it at all.

Speaker 4 (02:10:39):
They probably don't do things like that at all. But yeah,
like they need unfortunately for the walk on quarterbacks for
the fourth and fifth during quarterbacks, when we're going back
to what you originally said about you need to know
if a guy like Cash Dylan can finish tackles in
the pass rush, can get to the can get home
and and take the core back down. Uh, that's your

(02:11:02):
that's your role, is the guy to be taken down
by the by the d end. You want to make
sure can do it. It's fine, I'm not. I'm not
mad about it anymore anymore, like anyway, But twenty years
of therapy and you're good.

Speaker 2 (02:11:19):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:11:20):
All you do is you just you do something else
and then you convince yourself that you're good at that.

Speaker 2 (02:11:24):
Whether it's true or not, it doesn't matter. I got
to be able to convince yourself.

Speaker 4 (02:11:28):
Say you got to you got a belt somewhere that
in a million, but you had a million bucks at
one point that said you were pretty good.

Speaker 3 (02:11:35):
Pretty good is fine? Pretty good is good enough for me.
All right, don't have to be great at anything. If
you're pretty good at stuff, and by pretty good it
means you can get paid for it. Yeah, that's good
enough for me.

Speaker 4 (02:11:46):
See, that's I unfortunately resigned myself to that in a
lot of in a lot of areas, especially athletically, like
I mentioned before, unfortunately did not play varsity level basket
ball would have been a dream, would have would have
been the dream at the time to do that, but
like I had to learn. It's funny Spence talks about

(02:12:08):
Spence and Porter talk about playing against future NBA players
and how that humbled them and said, Oh, that's when
I realized I'm I'm not very good at basketball or football.
Like for me, it was like when I got cut
my junior year of high school from the JV team.
So it's like, there's always a time you gotta you
gotta resign yourself. I've had lots of practice resigning myself too.

Speaker 2 (02:12:30):
Let me just be good. I don't have to be great.
I'll tell you. I can thank Chris K.

Speaker 3 (02:12:34):
Mo Oyatu for my like ultimate wake up call in
realizing that, like, oh, I'm not at the level I
need to be here. And I say that while still
believing in some weird part of my brain that like
I should have had more opportunities to like be on
the field more. But even if that had happened, even

(02:12:57):
if I had like been penciled in and put in
as a star or whatever, there was always going to
be that level of player on every team that I
played against, and that that's a different sort of human being,
if they're even human beings.

Speaker 4 (02:13:11):
Yeah, I mean I still I still have if I
allow myself to think back to high school days, I
still have guys in my head. I'm like, I was
a better basketball player than that guy. Yeah, it's like
the coaches disagreed like whatever.

Speaker 3 (02:13:24):
And that, by the way, that's what's That's another funny
thing about this whole deal with now there's nil components
to it as well, but like just with the playing
time currency, right is yes, I can like I'll sit
around a campfire with my old buddies that were all
like walk on, nobody's right, and we'll be like, yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (02:13:41):
We were better like so and so kind of sucked.
If they would have put us in, we would have
had more tackles than him.

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):
Maybe true for some of us, probably not, but maybe right,
But there was always going to be a Chris kim
Oyatu on that other team that was going to tell
you like, oh, you might have been better than so
and so, but you're not better than me, and I
will destroy you. Like imagine how many guys had to
go up at some point against Pittsburgh. Right, You're playing

(02:14:10):
Pittsburgh and Aaron Donald is on the other side of
the ball.

Speaker 2 (02:14:13):
You're playing against Pittsburgh.

Speaker 3 (02:14:15):
You are a Big East school at the time, I guessed,
and you're like, so you're good, but you're not like
big ten. You're not Packed ten at that time, you're
not SEC and you're just like, I can do this, man,
I'm gonna I'm the best. And then Aaron Donald, who
ends up being a generational Hall of Fame level talent
in the NFL, is in front of you, and you're

(02:14:36):
just like, oh, okay. Now, Utah has probably four of
those guys on the team right now, maybe more that
are that litmus test for everyone else on the team
that you could be Cash Dillan, I'm gonna use your name.
Shout out to you, all right, Cash Dillan. You might
be incredible as a football player. You were a great

(02:14:58):
high school football player. You might be an awesome Big
twelve football player. You might be going up against Caleb
Lomo and Spencer Fano and one on one pass rustrils
every day and thinking I am terrible at this because
there's just levels to every game like that.

Speaker 2 (02:15:16):
That's also something, by the way, that you have to
figure out as a coach.

Speaker 3 (02:15:22):
My best friend is an All American high school wrestler. Okay,
I think I've told this story before I wrestled. I
wrestled him every single day of practice and got beat
every single day of practice, over and over and over
and over again. I probably scored ten total points on

(02:15:42):
him through an entire season of wrestling practice, which is
great because then you go up against guys and those
guys aren't as good. But it's also not great because
you never win your practice, so you never learn how
to win. You're never doweet like you're not good because
you're That might happen to get Utah football practices and.

Speaker 2 (02:16:02):
He's won on one pass rush drills. All of your
pass rushers might think that they're terrible because you're starting
left tackle and you're starting right tackle.

Speaker 4 (02:16:09):
Are gonna be first round draft picks. They're all nation right,
like all American?

Speaker 3 (02:16:14):
Like yeah, so like Logan Fano might actually be super
awesome and think he's terrible. I don't think that's true
with Logan because he's a he's a veteran college football veteran.

Speaker 2 (02:16:24):
He probably he probably gets here. He probably knows that. Wow.

Speaker 3 (02:16:27):
Okay, when when I'm actually on the field against Mortals,
I can do this.

Speaker 4 (02:16:31):
Yeah, He's like he's like his his takeaway a veteran
like like him. His takeaway is probably like, I'm just
excited we have those two on our team, and that is.

Speaker 3 (02:16:41):
The right that look, that's the ultimately, that's the right
stance to take. But I would love to and maybe
when we get Devin Dan Pierron here for our visits.

Speaker 4 (02:16:50):
Which should be in the next couple of weeks, we're
gonna get him at least hopefully one time before the
first game.

Speaker 3 (02:16:56):
Get him, yeah, every week during the season, once before
the first game. We'll get him during the seat. And
very much looking forward to those conversations. Everyone on the
Utah staff that I've talked to, everyone on the Utah
State staff that was at New Mexico, everyone I've talked
to about Devin is just like, this kid is incredible,
and we've had a couple opportunities to catch up with

(02:17:16):
him and he seems like an awesome guy.

Speaker 2 (02:17:18):
So very much looking forward to those conversations.

Speaker 3 (02:17:20):
But I actually look forward to having like this conversation
with him because I want to know if there's anyone
that has done that to him. It's more likely that
he is the one who does that to other people.
But I want to know if there's ever been like a, Oh,
I can't throw that ball near that guy because that
guy is something like Tao Johnson is a dude that

(02:17:42):
you have to treat differently than everyone I saw in
the Mount West Conference. Everyone that I saw at New
Mexico practices. That guy moves different smith Snowden is a
different level of player than what I'm used to.

Speaker 2 (02:17:56):
So I can't do that thing.

Speaker 3 (02:17:57):
Or I put the ball now next to my hip
and I try to juke him out because instead of
missing me, he punches the ball out and that's a fumble.

Speaker 4 (02:18:05):
And whatever else? Did did Devin say it was he
and lander Barton? Didn't he say it Media Day? Those
two are the ones talking the most traddle talk trash together,
so Lander Barton might be that guy too, although although
if they're talking trash, he may not, he may not
admit it. Also, going back to Logan Fano and call
back to Media Day with that one too, Spencer Fano

(02:18:26):
said he's won every battle, So.

Speaker 2 (02:18:29):
You we got to get both of them in here
at one time, all right.

Speaker 4 (02:18:33):
We're worried that was so amazing, so amazing, he says,
He says, I love this.

Speaker 3 (02:18:38):
No one can dispute me. That's right, like a that's fine.
I can say whatever I want. We gotta take a break.

Speaker 2 (02:18:45):
It's the Shatt o'caddle Show, ESPN seven ninety twofm proud
part of Utah's ESPN Radio network.

Speaker 1 (02:19:08):
But you were listening to the Sean O'Connell show. It's
your source for the best Hutes football couple. Here's OCN
from the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred at
ninety two to one a half am.

Speaker 2 (02:19:24):
Updating the poll we put out this morning, and again
I acknowledge that there's not nearly enough nuance to the question.
As a parent, will you or do you encourage and
allow your children to play contact sports, especially football? Sixty
five percent of the responses coming in as yes, thirty
four percent thirty four point four percent saying no, not

(02:19:47):
worth the risks.

Speaker 3 (02:19:48):
The reason we started this conversation today, well, really the
conversation started yesterday when Chris Camaronni came on and we
had a great conversation with him about Greg Newman's story
and and the you know, the role that CTE appears
to have played in the downfall and eventual demise of

(02:20:08):
a guy who was an important part of Utah's Sugar
Bowl defense fifty tackles, nine tackles, nine and a half
tackles for loss, a sack of the Sugar Bowl. He
was not just like an also ran and a guy.
He was an important player on that team. And you
know the article, I encourage you to read it. Go
to the Athletic search Chris Cameranie, search Greg Newman. It's

(02:20:32):
a great, great, great article, and it is sobering, and
it's something that's hard to read at parts, and it's
going to make you emotional. And there are excerpts in
his own handwriting from the journals that he kept that
are heavily redacted but still just punch you right in
the gut.

Speaker 2 (02:20:51):
And then.

Speaker 3 (02:20:53):
A headline today, fresh off that conversation, that a gunman
walked into New York City office building looking for the
NFL offices and killed people in a mass shooting incident.
And he had a three page note in his pocket
about how he thought CTE was something that you know,

(02:21:14):
people should be paying for, should be punished for, and
he never played in the NFL. By the way, we
talked about this earlier on the show, but we have
I mean, most of you know that there's people in
their right mind, and there are people and factors that
can pull you out of the right mind. In this
individual in New York City, who also is no longer
with us, thought that you know, ct was to blame

(02:21:37):
for something in his life and was looking for the
NFL offices because the NFL obviously has been the entity
most attached to CTE stories in the United States of America.
So with all those risks in at least the back
of your mind, are you allowing your children to play

(02:22:01):
contact sports? Are you encouraging your children to play contact sports?
Maybe you're right down the middle and you're not actively
encouraging or discouraging, and you're just kind of seeing how
it plays out. Eight seven seven three five three zero
seven hundred.

Speaker 2 (02:22:16):
Tell me.

Speaker 3 (02:22:18):
We've had people way in and say, look, my son
is having too much fun playing football. I'm encouraging it now.
Chris Hoop a guy I know personally. He's been asking
me since he was three to play football. He's twelve,
and I finally caved. Original plan was to stick the

(02:22:39):
flag and learn the game until thirteen or fourteen, but
figured his game knowledge is ready, so we would.

Speaker 2 (02:22:44):
Give it a go.

Speaker 3 (02:22:45):
There's gonna be pressure from your kid, there's gonna be
pressure from other adults. There's gonna be We talked about
James is a big man. For those who don't watch
it on the YouTube stream, James is you're what six three?

Speaker 1 (02:22:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:22:57):
Six two six three? Say over two hundred pounds?

Speaker 3 (02:23:01):
Over two hundred pounds, will say, well over two d
which is you know, like you see James walk down
the street, You'll be like, oh, it's a big guy.

Speaker 2 (02:23:09):
It's like a it's a football body. Right.

Speaker 3 (02:23:11):
So you've got a son now and that will probably
at some point and by.

Speaker 4 (02:23:16):
The conversation, by the way you you mentioned you probably
have lots of other big people in your family. Yes,
his his great grandfather who passed away about eight years ago.
He played offensive line at b y U had a
try I learned later that a couple months ago to

(02:23:36):
try out with the New York Jets. Uh and by
the he played in the fifties. Can you guess his
height and weight offensive lineman in the fifties six and
forty five pounds six four huge, two thirty something. I think, okay,
that is that is giant. So we were talking about
the Colorado Ring of Honor. Yeah, I forget the guy

(02:24:00):
his name, but he was five ten under two hundred pounds, yes,
and an offensive lineman for in the same era. So
I asked, I asked my father in law. It was
his dad, and I'm like, how big was he when
he played? And he said he said he was six four,
two thirty something. He had to try out with the Jets.
I'm like, yeah, well that with that size, I'm not surprised.

(02:24:22):
So so anyway, he's got that in his family. We
have lots of other athletes in the family played football
and basketball at various other sports. So yeah, he The
likelihood he's a big guy like me is is is
very It's very likely. And I imagine he's gonna get
lots of outside pressure, lots of people asking, hey, when

(02:24:42):
are you gonna start playing football, And that's gonna be
a I think that that's gonna be a tough thing
for me. And if he really likes it, if he
if he's convinced that he really likes it, I'm not
I don't think I can stand in the way. But
I think that I would rather steer him away from
it at this point.

Speaker 3 (02:24:59):
And there is a version of that conversation that probably
happens with every parent every child over what the activities are.
I'm asking the question about sports and contact sports specifically, They've.

Speaker 2 (02:25:14):
Been a huge part of my life.

Speaker 3 (02:25:16):
I don't have the career that I have, or the
history that I have, or the money that I have,
the home that I don't have anything that I have
without sports in my life, and specifically contact sports and
combat sports take it to a different level in some ways.
But as I've said many times and I've already said
on the show today, I still think football is harder

(02:25:37):
on your brain and body even than getting punched in
the face, which is probably counterintuitive for some people, but
they're the physics are just different, and people like me,
I'm an idiot. You put a helmet on my head
and I start using the helmet as a weapon.

Speaker 4 (02:25:50):
Yeah, they talk about that a lot when comparing football
with rugby. Now, you also pointed out that rugby has
a lot of problem with head injuries, which makes sense,
but there's anecdotally people who have played both sports say
rugby tends to be a lot safer because they because

(02:26:11):
they know that we're more fallible that rugby players know
they're more fallible because they got nothing to use as
a weapon and nothing to protect them.

Speaker 3 (02:26:19):
They also they more heavily adjudicate illegal tackles in rugby. Yeah,
it's a it's something that the NFL is now.

Speaker 4 (02:26:27):
There's no false security of a of a helmet and
pads in rugby.

Speaker 5 (02:26:31):
Year.

Speaker 3 (02:26:31):
I've said this many times, and I think, you know,
if the player safety conversation continues in football, which by
the way, it hasn't. The player safety conversation in football
has gone away in a lot in recent years, at
least at the level it was had before. There was
so many times in like I'm talking pre COVID where

(02:26:54):
every year you were introducing a new potential rule change
to address players safe. Now the only meaningful and correct
me if I'm wrong or if you have a different
opinion here. But now it seems like the the kickoff
and the rules around the kickoff is sort of the
last place that they're willing to make a change in

(02:27:15):
the interest of player safety.

Speaker 2 (02:27:17):
Yeah, that I would agree with that.

Speaker 4 (02:27:20):
That I think that we've gotten to a point in
the NFL in particular where they've said we got to.
We feel really good about the concussion protocol we've put
in place since the since concussions became such a big
topic talking point in the NFL how many years ago.

Speaker 2 (02:27:40):
We feel really good.

Speaker 4 (02:27:41):
About how we we've outlawed, you know, diving at people's
legs and and those kind of tackles that that end
people's seasons because of ankle knee injuries. We feel really
good about the defenseless receiver rules. We think we're in
a good place for that. Now that we've started to
put our attention on the kickoff, we're starting to feel

(02:28:01):
really good about that. So, Okay, players are safe. It
feels like that's where we are with that. It's safe
enough that we want to add a seventeenth game, which
they did, and we want to add an eighteenth game
at some point.

Speaker 2 (02:28:14):
It does feel like that's where we are.

Speaker 3 (02:28:16):
By the way, the players will fight against until they
get paid enough for it and then all agree.

Speaker 4 (02:28:21):
Yeah, it's gonna happen. Particularly, the NFL players Union just
has never had the leverage to beat the owners or
stop stop something that the owners really want really maybe
ever in their history. And that's unfortunate from the players perspective.
Other unions, like baseball in particular, have made those kind

(02:28:43):
of grounds in throughout their history. But if there's a
union that you just are like, I don't trust that
they can get it done, it's the NFL Players Union,
unfortunately for them.

Speaker 3 (02:28:55):
All Right, taking our final break, we'll come back on
the Sean O'Connell Show.

Speaker 4 (02:29:00):
Don't close things out. Who's doing the drive today? It
is Scott Mitchell all week. Oh heck yeah, Scott Mitchell.
I believe he will be. He's out, not un remote
and like a at a business or anything, but he'll be.
He will not be in studio doing. He'll be doing
remotely somewhere, so we will not see him for crosstalk.

Speaker 3 (02:29:19):
Jan O'Connell Show ESPN seven hundred and ninety two NFM,
proud part of Utah's ESPN Radio Networks.

Speaker 1 (02:29:33):
You're tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven and a half.

Speaker 2 (02:29:41):
All right handed baton to Scott Mitchell will be hoping
it down for spend checkers on the drive to day.

Speaker 3 (02:29:55):
Scott, what's coming up on the show? Maybe maybe, maybe not.
Never mind, Well, Scott Mitchell is gonna be on the
Drive today. We won't get a chance to talk to him,
but I will let that question hang in the ether.

(02:30:18):
What's coming up on the Drive today? Scott Mitchell filling
in for Spence Check. It's the only way for you
to know is to listen on ESPN seven hundred ninety
two one FM, or if you don't catch it live,
you can always find us on the app at ESPN
seven hundred Sports at UTAH on YouTube, you can find
the on demand section at ESPN seven hundred sports dot com.

(02:30:40):
My point is that you are able to find whatever
you need from a broadcasting standpoint on demand if you
can't catch it live. Had a fun show today chatting
with Gordy Chiasa as the basketball cycle winds down. Will
next week it could be our last check ins with

(02:31:01):
Gordy as we really gear up for football season. In
the preview of football season, and then of course we'll
we'll catch up with him when basketball's back. Jerem Jordan
joined us for our official Red and Blue segment. We'll
get more of that as the season progresses. Utah BYU
on October eighteenth is going to be a hell of

(02:31:23):
a game. Hopefully a large contingent of Utah fans can
make the trip down to Provo. And you have not
just my permission or my blessing, nay, my encouragement to
make sure while they're while you're there, to go ahead
and grab a cougartail. All right, maybe they'll do like
a take some red food coloring with you and just

(02:31:45):
slather it on that cougartail to make it a red doughnut.

Speaker 4 (02:31:49):
Sure, yeah, you'll like. I like what I like your
suggestion from a few weeks ago. I think it was
when Brian and I were filling in for you. Smuggle
some jam in, make it a bloody cougartail. Let's go,
let's go smugger some smuggle some smuckers.

Speaker 2 (02:32:06):
You know what I was told by the way we talked,
rawberry jam or something.

Speaker 3 (02:32:08):
You can no longer get the cougartail brought worst.

Speaker 2 (02:32:12):
They don't sell it anymore, they don't do it anymore.

Speaker 4 (02:32:14):
I never I never actually tried the cougartail brought worst.
I'm disappointed. It was unbelievably delicious. I've been to a
fair amount of BYU games over over the years and
had had a number of cougar tails. I did not
know that that was an option before. I think I've
only been in the last well since college.

Speaker 3 (02:32:34):
I've only been to I think two BYU games, and
at one of them I got one and it was wonderful.
But I guess it's not an option. It hasn't been
for a long time anyway. Thanks for the reason to
be mad at b YU whatever. Yeah, where you got
on that one, Jerem Jordan, come on. Thank you for
listening to the show today. Thanks you to everyone who
participated in the poll and sent your feedback on our

(02:32:56):
start Bench cut Let's do it again tomorrow shot on
the show. ESPN seven hundred ninety TWOEFM proud part of
Utah's ESPN Radio network

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