Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 8-4-25

OC talks Utah FB 26 days before the season opener with Scott Mitchell, More over/unders, Eric Weddle & Alex Smith Pro FB Hall of Famers (?), CFB preseason coaches poll released + more

Episode Transcript

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
b ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one af AM,
a proud part of Utah's ESPN Radio Network.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Happy Monday, every everybody, Welcome to the Shan O'Connell Show.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Happy to have you with us.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
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Speaker 3 (00:49):
Big Willies brings you the Shaan O'Connell Show.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Today and every day, Utah is Sports Bar seventeen seventeen
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Speaker 3 (01:00):
Either're fourteen or fifteen bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
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food is great, the company is wonderful. And if you're

(01:26):
so inclined to sit and watch Little League World Series,
for example, perfect day, perfect place to go spend your
afternoon watching Metro Southwest, Great Lakes, Western, and of course
International Little League World Series teams.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
The Metro region is about to have their first pitch.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Let's see ten to twelve year olds modified double elimination format,
six inning games. The field is two thirds of a
Major League Baseball field side. Yes, for anyone out there,
that's actually I've never known that off the top of
my head. The Metro region does include most of New England,

(02:13):
in New York, Connecticut, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
James, did I remember right from last year? I see
that you are anti Little League World Series? Or is
that someone else?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm I'm probably as close to anti Little League World Series,
and not because of the kids, and not because of
the game, because baseball. Baseball for me has become like
the fourth of the four pro major sports where I'm like, yeah,
I'll watch I'll watch.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Baseball on occasion when the Twins are good.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
When the Twins are good, which may never actually happen again,
at a World Championship, at a World series level. The
reason I get fatigued very rapidly on the Little League
World Series thing is because parents have taken over all
of this stuff.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
And it's not just a Little League World Series.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
This is like the the crown jewel of the I'm
going to insert myself into the to the kids sort
of realm, and I'm going to overspend.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
I'm going to.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I'm going to force my kid to care more about
baseball at age twelve than he probably should. We're gonna
do the travel team thing. They're gonna have the best
equipment all the time. They're way too many curveballs, by
the way. We're gonna have Yeah, we're gonna have breaking
balls and specialized equipment and all that stuff. I heard
Scott Mitchell talking about this on his show, like, you know,

(03:42):
his kind of introduction to sports. And I think for
most of us, most of us come from normal human families.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Were you just like fall backwards into the thing that
you end up liking.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Right when I was this age, when I was ten, eleven, twelve,
baseball was it.

Speaker 5 (03:59):
Man.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
I didn't get to start playing tackle football until I
was ten, and I guess kind of got good at
it eventually, not really but you weren't doing MMA at
eight years old. I was not, although a lot of
people do that now, which is do they really Yeah,
there's like why am I Why should I be surprised?

Speaker 3 (04:18):
I I but I am a little surprised that starts
that young.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, it's actually really crazy, but you know, I mean,
it's not that crazy as long as you it's conducted responsibly.
Like you, there's safety equipment, you can do amateur rules
which eliminate some of the big impacts and things like that.
But Uh, the reason the Little League World Series gets
a side eye for me is because you just want

(04:44):
kids to be able to be kids. And when these
teams are like touring around all year long doing elite
competition stuff, I'm like, man, I don't know if that's
the right thing with Little League sports. Again, it's really
an I don't know, and it's probably says more about
me than it does about anything else, because I just

(05:06):
now have kids that are aging into like the all right,
let's find what they want to do, what they're good at,
and see how dedicated they want to be to this.
My oldest is only six, and so she's done soccer,
jiu jitsu, gymnastics, swimming, t ball, and has taken exactly

(05:26):
zero of those things seriously. Yet maybe all of these
kids are like, mom, Dad, you have to put me
on this travel team where I spend nine months of
my year playing baseball and caring only about baseball.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
Maybe it's the kids, but I don't think it is.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, yeah, I I also wonder, are are these little
league coaches getting too much shine and too much too
much money for what it is?

Speaker 5 (05:57):
Right?

Speaker 3 (05:58):
They don't I don't know, like maybe.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
They're absolutely got to be volunteer culture, they're probably volunteered.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
Maybe I'm maybe I'm totally off base and saying that,
But the money thing, maybe to williams Port, to these
regional sites, makes you go, really, you're you're turning You're
using a bunch of kids too to make a bunch

(06:24):
of money too. Like I don't know that part in
the back of my head. That's not the front of
my that's not in front of mine as I'm watching this,
But in back of my mind, I'm like, I'm not
so comfortable with that idea, And maybe I'm completely off base.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Maybe it's not.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Maybe maybe no one's Maybe it's really just covering the
expenses and not much more. How long how long until
the Little League World series participants create a class action
house settlement type a class should suit against ESPN and
are just like, Hey, you made a lot of money
off me when I was eleven, and I got nothing.

(06:58):
See that's that's the tough part of that's the tough
part of being like uncomfortable with the amount of money
that's being made off of these kids, is that I'm
also uncomfortable with mass litigation to jut to bring justice
to it. Like I there's no right answer to it.

(07:18):
Oh see, I guess is the way to as get
I guess is where I land. It's just I guess.
I just gotta be And those of us that think
this way just gotta live with being uncomfortable with this,
all right, Ari Temkin is gonna join us.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
On the show. We've got We've got a lot to discuss.
Scott Mitchell's gonna join us on the show. We're gonna
have a little bit of fun talking about some more
overs and unders. We we spent probably way too much
time on three different numbers last week, but we haven't
even scratched the surface on really all the numbers. You

(07:56):
can put together to project for this upcoming football season.
Camp is underway right now. You are only going to
get a certain amount of information from camp. Media availability
is between nil and zero when it comes to watching
practice and even the interview periods. I mean, we get

(08:17):
players for now two minutes apiece, so you get five
or six questions, depending on how long winded the response
and how long winded the question is. And then of
course you get a little bit more information from the
coaching staff. But by design, it is now a lot
closer to the vest than it used to be, and
I think it's only going to get more and more

(08:37):
that way as the years go by. It has been
that way, and the lockdown will continue because a mass
paranoia in the coaching world, which I point out many
times a year, and I will point out again is hilarious.
Because the NFL preseason is underway right now, and NFL
training camps are underway right now. As an NFL fan,

(09:03):
you can just drive to wherever your team does training
camp and sit there and watch practice with your camera
out and everything. Do they do they even charge for that?
Or maybe they charge a little bit. It's like a
nominal fee for a lot of people. It is the
thing they can afford to go to.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yeah, because they're way less than game ticket, way, way
way way less than game ticket. And it's just like
that's the You watch Hard Knocks and you see like
the stands, the little the little rafters that they put up,
the risers, whatever, the temporary stanchions that they put up
to fit people in, thousands of people in.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
They're always full.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
And I assume that's the entire practice, right or is
it only certain Maybe it's only certain hours of when
they're practicing.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Like my experience with it is that you can watch
that day of practice.

Speaker 4 (09:54):
It's just but yet in college college football coaches lower level.
Let's let's remember you are a lower league compared to
the NFL.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's a state secret.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
Everything about practice is a state secret, except for we're
required to allow media to ask some questions, which I'm
totally fine with limiting, right I am. If you're like, hey,
we're installing a new opening series, we're installing a new
red zone package, whatever, I don't want the media to
watch that. I don't want fans to watch that, all right, fine,

(10:29):
I'm like that's fine. If that's the thing, the idea
and By the way, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone,
because Utah is far from being alone in this effort
and in this regard, and believe it or not, there
are even more closed down, tighten it whatever words you
want to say, practices yeah than the University of I

(10:51):
mean in this state.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Even the University of Utah is actually pretty cool about
you know, like they do their best. The sports information
staff and the coaching staff to an extent, does their
best to try to like meet people halfway, like we're
gonna we'll get the coaches on and have a conversation
with you as as often as we can. All Right,
They're busy, and the coaches when you do get to

(11:13):
talk to them, are usually really cool about it. Right,
But it's just wild that there is such a thirst
for any kind of information and maybe it's playing hard
to get maybe less is more, right, Yeah, And the
fans come game day are so starved and so thirsty
for it that they're just like, yes versus cal Poly,

(11:37):
we'll sell the place out.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
That's all I want to see. Give me some real
football now.

Speaker 5 (11:41):
Yeah. I mean.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
Counterpoint to that, though, is this could be in a
creative revenue stream like you could like it. You're not
gonna make a killing off of it, but you could.
You could look at what an NFL teams charge to
let fans watch, like, oh, five bucks ahead.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
James, I'm telling you that if you had an uh
AN exclusive, not even exclusive, you had a streaming all
access pass where just trading camp, Yeah, the Hard Knocks
style for every team, it's fifty bucks to watch training camp.
You know how many UTE degenerates would be streaming that?

(12:24):
How many BYU degenerates would be streaming that.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
Aggie's Aggie's fans would watch Utah State trading camp.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Absolutely, Aggie.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Utah State needs it more than anyone else does because
they don't have the funds necessary. Bronco, here's a million
dollar idea for you. Probably you need to talk to
your guy, Jan Bronco. Here's one hundred thousand dollars idea
for you. Just have a couple of cameras set up,
have some student, you know, media person set up cameras

(12:54):
on you know, the same stuff that all twenty two
that you're watching, and then a couple of the field
angles and just allow people to stream that. Bad Boy
And it's a subscription service that goes right into your nil.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Phone when edit the crap out of it if you want,
and Eric later like you edit it as much as
you want, like do Hard Knocks style. That you don't
see everything in Hard Knocks obviously especially, but it's still
great content and thousands millions of people still want to
see it.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
The idea that there are best kept secrets that are
going to change the outcome of these games is I
think a misnomer.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
I just don't believe.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Now, if you wanted to lock things down before a
transfer portal window opened because you don't want certain teams,
and we talked about this in the spring. There are
teams and Utah State was among them. That was like
they had to have a conversation about whether or not
they were going to allow even school coaches who attend

(14:01):
their camps to watch practice because if that high school
coach knows Kyle Whittingham or Kalanie Sataki or Lincoln Riley
or whoever, and that guy is just like, hey, dude,
they've got this number ninety eight for Utah State is
a way better player than should be living in logan.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
You guys need to get this dude right.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
And I know that there are Utah fans who feel
like it's a double edged sword because the amount of
access that you got to Utah Spring was very, very limited,
and the conversation information you got out of Utah Spring
football was very limited. And yet some people think that
it was excessive and you lost your number one wide
receiver in camp because of it.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
I don't put it on I don't point the finger
in that regard.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
I don't think Kyle Whittingham saying yeah, he's our best
receiver in camp right now.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
I don't think it has anything to do with him leaving.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
I just don't because you have to remember, we all
have to remember that coaches have relationships with players through
their initial recruiting process that don't just evaporate and go away.
Right If you're a guy who was recruiting X, Y
or Z from JUCO, from high school, from whatever, to

(15:23):
your school and you were like, you know what, I
really liked this kid at the end of the day.
We didn't have a scholarship for him too bad, or
we really liked this kid at the end of the
day he decided to commit to Michigan instead of us.
It's not like the next year you forgot that you
really liked the kid, and it's not like the next

(15:44):
year the kid forgot that he almost committed to you instead.
I know that there were a lot of Utah fans
who were very discouraged and very bothered by the fact
that the number two athlete recruit according to multiple recruiting
services Fremont High School, son of Ben Moa, Celesima, committed

(16:04):
this past weekend to Tennessee. All right, so that means
Utah is now zero for three on ben MOA's kids.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
All right, so far.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Ben MOA's kids have not stayed at the school they
initially committed to, So I'm not as discouraged as you are.
Probably he was very close to committing to the University
of Utah. Tennessee gets to throw around a little extra incentive,
if you know what I'm saying, to get guys to
go to their school. We've seen some of the insane

(16:41):
numbers that Tennessee is able to throw.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
Around, and listen, you don't be defeatist. You shouldn't have
a defeatist attitude. But also in the back of your mind,
if you lose to a top program in the SEC
or the Big Ten, you kind of have to go
which Tennessee is not Alibet or Georgia, but it is
a top program. It's become a top program in the SEC. Again,

(17:06):
in the back of your mind, you gotta go. You
gotta kind of shrug your shoulders and go, well, at
least we didn't lose. At least we didn't lose Arizona State.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
If you lost out to BYU or by which you
did on a previous MOA commit, yeah, then you're like, dang, dude,
I don't want to like.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
That feels a lot worse and you should take that
a lot more.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
You should.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
You should take that a lot harder than losing to
Tennessee or Ohio State.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
There were a lot of teams when Nico Imava committed
to Tennessee that were just like, oh my gosh, how
did we lose out on that? That is so that's devastating.
I had so many eggs in that basket.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Darn it.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
We should feel this way about everyone who doesn't commit
to Utah and everyone who does.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Commit to Utah.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
You have a temporary stay, if you're here for the
short term at Utah, great, Let's see what you can get.
Let's see what that relationship can become let's see how
good you can be right now, and let's hope that
you stay for three years or four years or five
years too, even like give us a couple of years
at the very least. If you don't come to the

(18:19):
University of Utah, I wish you luck wherever you end up.
And I hope that the relationship, that the almost commitment
is something that you say, all right, well, if it
doesn't work out at Tennessee, if it doesn't work out
at Alabama, if it doesn't work out at BYU, we'll
see you on the flip side.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
Because listen, like, obviously we would like Big twelve, the
Big twelve to be equal footing with the Big ten
and SEC. That's obvious. That's probably not going to happen,
But that's the hope. That's the hope you got to
sell yourself on someday.

Speaker 5 (18:54):
Right.

Speaker 4 (18:56):
But you do have a bit of an advantage being
the perceived lesser conference because these because of what you're
talking about, these top nationally ranked recruits, five stars, four stars,
whatever that are being considered and they end up going
to Tennessee, they end up going to Penn State, they
end up going to LSU, even though they were really

(19:19):
close to going to your school, University of Utah. If
they end up going, if they end up getting two
shell shocks and they're like or they're they're stuck, They're
buried behind a couple other really good players at their position.
It is a bit of an advantage to be like, hey,
to be in the University of Utah's position, to say, hey, like,

(19:42):
maybe you're not SEC caliber, but if you are borderline
SEC caliber, you ought to be able to kill it
in the big twelve. I mean, it's a weird, bizarro
world kind of way to look at it, but it
can be an advantage on like the secondary recruiting out
of the transfer portal.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
The other thing about it, for me when it comes
to recruiting and you, I feel like I play it
down the middle because you won't see me trying to
dunk on anyone. When a guy that Utah really wanted
does commit to the University of Utah, you won't see
me be like celebrating that excessively. I'll do what I

(20:21):
always do, a little polight, little golf clap. All right,
Let's see what he Let's see what he can do.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Let's work.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Let's see what he's got because the reality of the
situation is that in every single training camp, in every
single spring football training camp, and in every single fall
football training camp, something surprising happens. On both ends of
the spectrum. You have a guy come in who this

(20:47):
coaching staff was high on. They man, I really like
this cold Bishop kid. Wait until you see what this
guy's able to do. And he's not anyone that you
were celebrating about when he signed.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
He's not right.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
We get hung up on these ratings, and we get
hung up on these star evaluations, and we say, oh
my gosh, you have to get this guy now. The
moa thing. For me, it's like a little bit more
of a twisting knife because I know Ben, I know
the dad, and I know he loved his time at

(21:22):
the University of Utah.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
He is an awesome dude. He's tough as they come.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
He's still doing bare knuckle fighting, by the way, at
like forty five years old.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
He's an absence. He's a monster of a human being.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Right, good for him, And I know, like I guess
I don't know, but because of how well I know
him and what he is made of, I'm like, I
want some of that oh, and by the way, his
wife is a member of a family who I played
with her brother at Utah and at Weber State, and
the other brother got a cup of coffee in the

(21:55):
NFL and was a big time player at BYU, much
like Ben was at the University of Utah. So both
mom and dad and that family have like really excellent
football pedigree. So because I know all that, I'm just like, ah, man,
I'd really like to see one of these Moa kids
end up at the University of Utah.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
But I'm still not going to be like, oh no.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
And I'm also if Celestimo had had committed to the
University of Utah, I would have talked exactly this long
about it, and I would have been like, all right,
that's great, Let's see what he can do. He's recruited
as an athlete. He could be a wide receiver, he
could be a running back. Most likely he'd end up
as a defensive back at a place like the University

(22:38):
of Utah, or maybe if he hits another gross bird,
he ends up being a linebacker. And then on we
go where Utah is at, where every big twelve school's at.
To the point you just made James Peterson right now
in the recruiting landscape is you just have to be
better at the job than these Tennessee guys and these

(22:58):
Alabama guys and these USC guys. You just have to
be a better coach in the Big twelve Conference. And
Utah has been equipped with that for how many years now?
And by the way, it is the staple of Kyle
Whittingham heading into his twenty first season as a head coach.

(23:19):
It is the staple of his career talent recognition and development.
You have to be better at that at Utah than
Ohio State has to be. Ohio State gets to pick
from the top of the pile. Notre Dame gets to
pick from the top of the pile. Utah never has,
and in my estimation, forgive me for saying this, Youute

(23:42):
fans probably never will be picking from the top of
the pile. Spencer Fano is the top of the pile now,
but he wasn't when he was coming out.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Of high school.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Caleb Lomu was actually a little bit closer to the
top of the pile, I believe than Spencer was.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
And Bill wasn't the top of the pile. Right.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
We've had a couple of those guys that were homegrown prospects,
that were in the state of Utah type prospects. Right,
We've had a couple of those top of the pile
type recruits and they haven't committed to BYU. And they
haven't committed to Utah. Those guys, the panay Suls, go elsewhere.
And it's gonna be sometime Utah or BYU is gonna

(24:26):
have to get an invitation to the Big Ten Conference,
to the SEC Conference, to the Super Conference. That ends
up being birthed of those conversations before those individuals, especially
now in this new system of pay for play, before
those individuals say all right, I'm coming, I'm gonna stay
at the hometown school, there's.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Just an allure. There's a pull when you've.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Got a four or a five star evaluation next to
your name. As much as this state is fantastic, it's
so wonderful. It's the same thing you get with Hawaii kids.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Right.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
You could not if I lived in Hawaii now as
a forty one year old man, you could not get
me to leave there for pretty much anything. Right, But
the kids who grow up there, and that's all you know,
growing up, what do they want? They want to get
off the rock. They want to get the bleep out
of Laia, or they want to leave Honolulu. They don't

(25:24):
want to be in Maui anymore. They want to see
what else there is out there. And that's why Utah
has been able to get those guys. B Why you's
been able to get those guys. Why now Alabama and
Ohio State and Tennessee and Florida are getting those guys
because Ron McBride and Lavelle Edwards and company. They started

(25:44):
this pipeline that slowly spread to the east and everyone's
just like, oh my gosh, look at this, Look what
they have out there. It's the biggest mystery in the
world that the University of Hawaii is not a football powerhouse.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Have you seen we were talking? Who was I talking
about this with? Ohs?

Speaker 2 (26:07):
I was in I was in Atlantic City and our
our cage side with beachfront, Oh terrible? Our cage side
reporter James is a Texas A and M graduate, all right.
She ran track at Texas A and M. And there's
friendly trash talk back and forth because she cares about
college sports, and of course I do. And she's just like, oh,

(26:29):
A and M's gonna be great. I'm like, A and
M's never gonna be great. They can throw as much
money as they want at whatever they want, they're never.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Gonna be great.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
And she's just like and she lives in Houston, Texas,
and she's like, Texas produces the best talent. The I
was like, actually, per Capita, Texas doesn't do as good
of a job as you think in producing elite level talent.
It's Florida's number one, and Utah is actually a lot
higher than you think.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
And so we looked it up.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
I'm sitting there, I've got, you know, this super computer
in my pocket at all times now, and I'm like, oh,
let me just look it up. Let me refresh myself
on per capita, who's producing the most talent? And I
look and on the list, at like number six, it's
a bunch of sec territory type places. And then there's Hawaii,

(27:14):
and I'm like, how is Hawaii not good at football?
Even like if they even if the situation's the same
where everyone's got mawana fever.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
I want to see how far I can go. Well
done there? Yeah there?

Speaker 5 (27:29):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
They want to leave, they want to get to the mainland.
They want to They want to spread their legs. The
leftovers ought to make the University of Hawaii really good,
right the guys who the holdovers are like, you know what,
I actually want to stay home and go to University
of Hawaii. Those guys ought to be talented enough they are.

(27:53):
The University of Hawaii ought to be able to capitalize
on those guys enough to be a much better program.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
But it's it's very strange.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
And you see what happens every time, like a good
coach ends up there for any length of time. Right, Yeah,
when June, when June coached, When June's when June Jones
was there, he had he had Hawaii up to like
a top ten team.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
And then of course who was the quarterback?

Speaker 4 (28:15):
I know Colt Brennan at one time, but you had
Jimmy Chang. I think was the guy tim Timmy Chang
who was the first that I the first time I
noticed that June Jones could coach football and really and
like the the air Raid in particular, it was Timmy
at quarterback.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
So yeah, they they he had it really rolling. Anyway,
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
I never intended for this segment to go in the
direction of Hawaii but what I'm saying is for Utah
right to build that fence that now USC is trying
to build again and not let any of the top
flight talents out of Southern California get away from USC.
They they've been able to do a better job of
that because of money, and Utah I don't know if

(29:00):
they're going to be able to do it because of money.

Speaker 5 (29:03):
Right.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
We've discussed this with Spence, We've discussed this with Scott,
We've discussed this all over the place, that there's such
an outsized influence on money now. So Utah is going
to have to continue to be one of the best,
if not the best coaching staffs in the conference at
finding guys that are unsung, that are like, wow, he's

(29:25):
a pretty he's a pretty decent wide receiver as a
college player, and Kyle Whittingham has this ability to see
the future and go actually, he's not a wide receiver
at all. He is a defensive end who's going to
go down and eventually be part of the Ring of
Honor at the University of Utah.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
I feel like there's a there's a social media campaign
in there. Drum roll he is drum roll, Please, here's
what we need a offensive lineman.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
When Kyle Whittingham retires from coaching at the University of Utah,
here's what he's gonna do.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Here's what I think you should do.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
All right, Just every January, Kyle Whittingham evaluates the crop
of guys who are going to be high school seniors.
We just send him a bunch of film and we say,
all right, what's he gonna be in college? And Kyle
Whittingham just watches, and he's like the oracle or something

(30:25):
from the matrix, and we just wait. Eventually a hush
falls over the room. Coach wit stirs and says, he
will be I don't know why I'm making him sound
like he's one hundred years old, but all right, just
go with me on the visual.

Speaker 5 (30:41):
He will be.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
An all Pro offensive tackle.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Now, coach, what are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (30:48):
He plays quarterback right now, he takes a hit from
his oxygen tank.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
I know he's six or five, but he's got a
big arm.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
He's a quarterback right now.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
He will be in a pro offensive I don't need
to who explained myself? And then and then somebody's got
to give the kid a scholarship to play offensive line. Right,
he's got future site. When it comes to football, we'll
do some over under numbers. We'll talk a lot more
about the Hall of Fame presentation this weekend. There was

(31:17):
some good sound from it, and a couple of questions
have emerged for me from the Hall of Fame class
of twenty twenty five and who becomes eligible next year
in twenty twenty six. We'll get to all of it
on The Sean O'Connell Show on a Monday. It's Utahs
number one Sports Talk ESPN seven ninety two one FM.
That's me and Connor.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
You tune to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred ninety two to one am.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show. We got thirty
one days of football brought to you by Baskin Robbins
Great Football Monday through Friday. We got classic calls every
Saturday at noon leading up to the season opener. Our
next one will be the Utah State game from last September.
Just whetting your appetite for Utah football. Going to the

(32:17):
text line eight seven seven three five three zero seven
hundred sixteen twenty four. You're telling me it's okay to
lose a recruit to a worse school, but it's a
it's not okay to lose recruit to a worst school,
but it's okay because they're in the SEC or the
Big ten. Sounds like a loser's mentality to me. Look,
it's always okay to lose a recruit. Here's a spoiler

(32:38):
alert for you. Here's breaking news. It's always okay to
lose a recruit. You know why, because that's the game.
That's how recruiting is. Every school in the country loses
the recruit that they want every year.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
Oh but occ on signing day they always say, we
got everybody we wanted.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
It's Here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Recruiting is, as we have talked about ad nauseum on
this show, is such an inexact science. We actually have
very little idea who's going to end up working out
the recruiting services, the evaluations, the camps. It's getting better
and better. It's getting to be more accurate than it

(33:23):
used to be. But if you go back, just do
this exercise. We've done it before, so I'm not gonna
do it today. Go to whatever you think is the
best recruiting service. Okay, and go back as far as
there archives go, which most of them is like the
ubiquity of the Internet. It's about early two thousands, all right,

(33:45):
And just take the top like ten guys and see
how many of them landed in college football, how many
of them actually ended up being great football players in
college football. If you go back to like two thousand
and four, it's like for the top ten, or you know,
go bigger than top ten, go like top twenty five.
It's like ten of the top twenty five guys ended

(34:07):
up being really good college football players, which is that's
a pretty good hit rate, right if we're talking baseball,
that's a Hall of Fame career. Now you're in twenty
twenty five and the top twenty five guys, probably like
sixteen of them are gonna end up being really good
college football players.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
At least I bet eight of them make it to
the NFL.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
But guess what that still means That you're looking at
double digits that are maybe not gonna be what you
thought they were gonna be. And someone out there was
literally crying in their cheerios over the fact that that
seventeen year old kid decided to do something else with
his life than you thought was the best choice. I

(34:48):
promise you it's okay to lose recruits. It's okay to
lose five of them in every damn cycle. What matters
to you and what matters to me is whether or
not the coaching staf have can put together a roster
that is competitive, that is going to win you games
in the fall. Winning recruiting battles is wonderful for exactly that.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Winning recruiting battles.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
It's great publicity like that, especially while games aren't being played.
That's when these things are happening typically, I mean a lot.
There's there's a fair amount that happened in season two,
but a lot of the things that make huge national
news or when games are not being played, it's a
great way for your program to stay relevant. Well, they're

(35:36):
not on the field, but that's just gravy. Like it's
not the end all be all. You know, it's gonna
be the most fascinating study.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Take it.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Zoom out from your University of Utah session, all right,
because we all have it. This is the time of
year where it really ramps up, as it should really
ramp up. This time of year. This is where it
gets extra aggressive for you. Zoom out from Utah and
cast the map folks on south and not to BYU
all right, because that gets too personal for people. Also,

(36:05):
look at Arizona State, all right, since we're somehow on
this train.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
I didn't think we were going to get on today.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Arizona State won like four recruiting battles at the tail
end of the Herm Edwards era. Everyone was leaving. Nobody
wanted to be part of that mess, all right. And
then Kenny Dillingham gets elevated and becomes the head coach
at Arizona State University and is a dude who's thirty

(36:34):
four years old at the time, who has a great
reputation as a coordinator, is incredibly enthusiastic about being back
in his home market and wanting to turn the sleeping
giant that much like Hawaii we just talked about in
the last segment, it absolutely makes zero sense that Arizona
State is not a bonafide football powerhouse. Every year for

(37:02):
the last thirty years. Should have been the case. It's
a great place to live, it's a great athletic department
on campus, it's a great campus, period it's easy to
recruit to a little too hot for me, but at
least it's a dry heat, you know, Like there's just
nothing not to like about Arizona State. They've got a
good history of guys who have been sun devils and

(37:25):
then moved on into the NFL, and nobody's been able
to capture the magic until it seems like this guy,
Kenny Dillingham. But let's watch and see how it plays out.
Because what he did last year is he overperformed with
a bunch of guys who everyone else had overlooked, aside
from the Tyson kid, the wide receiver who's back this year,

(37:48):
aside from Levitt, who had a bunch of good offers
including Utah wanted him.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
Right he was also Levitt was a transfer, right did
he not start?

Speaker 3 (37:56):
Or yeah?

Speaker 4 (37:58):
So Michigan State's the Michigan State's a good, good place.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
Stand up, it's not.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
It's not Michigan or Rileo State out of a big
ten or Penn State, but it's the It's it tells
you how highly touted he was out of high school.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
And they had, like.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
His name's escaping me an offensive one offensive lineman, maybe
one defensive lineman, one safety. They had one guy in
each position room last year that you were just like, okay, yeah,
that guy could be a starter anywhere. The rest of
that team was a bunch of dudes that nobody was
crying when.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
You lost that recruiting battle. They just weren't and they
ended up pluting Camp Scataboo. By the way, Camp Scataboy
twice over. Yeah, like he was their best player by
far last year, but even he is not one that
teams thought could play anywhere. And by the way, apparently
he's just destroying people in New York Giants camp right

(38:57):
now for him, which is so fantastic to hear coming
out of coming out of high school, Cam Scattaboo had
basically one option to go to Sack.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
He's like the Sacramento State Eric Weddles story or just
like nobody. It was the best offer I got, so
that's what I took. And then even though he was
an All American level producer at Sacramento State and was
a huge piece of why a team that used to
be a laughing stock at Sacramento State, with the right coach,
a guy we know well and Troy Taylor, suddenly became

(39:29):
nationally relevant at that level.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
And even though Cam Scattaboy was like.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
The best part of that, why didn't Alabama or Auburn
or Michigan or Ohio State or Florida come get Cam
Scatabu or like anybody else in the Big twelve?

Speaker 3 (39:45):
Why did even why didn't you Tuk go get camp Scattaboy.
Why had they?

Speaker 4 (39:50):
I mean you mentioned they have a tie to the
head coach. Why didn't Why didn't BYU?

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Why didn't BYU be like, oh, this scataboo kids, Because
it's an inexact science. And even though the dude had
proven it on film at a lower level, Yes, but
he had proven it on film over and over and
over and over and over and over.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
And over again, there's still this resistance of this.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
I know exactly what I'm doing, and those guys, you know,
I want the better raw material. He's a little too short,
he doesn't look like most running backs.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Look, you know, I'm very elusive, Like he's not gonna
be able to run over people at our level. Get
us that weird helmet twitch thing.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
It's just it's not for me.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Right twice, everyone in the country got it wrong on
Cam Scataboo. Every college football team in the country except
Arizona State got it wrong on Camp Scataboo. And guess what,
he ended up being one of the best players in
all of college football ast year. He was the second
best running back in the land behind Ashton gent who

(40:51):
was this close to winning a Heisman Trophy. That's how
good Camp Scataboo was. And there were still hundreds of
cod and many, many, many, many thousands of college football
fans who were just like, oh, I don't care if
he goes to Arizona State. Now watch Arizona State and
see if what Kenny Dillingham does with dudes who are

(41:16):
highly thought of, who have maybe a little bit less
of a chip on their shoulder, who are a little
bit better compensated. Now, let's see if those guys end
up overperforming expectations. Let's find out if those guys end
up developing at the rate that the previous class did.
Let's find out if Arizona State is the developmental program

(41:37):
that Utah has been for a long time. That matters
so much more than your four and your five star recruits.
You know why Alabama was freakishly good under Nick Saban
because they had both instead of being an either or
they had all of it. They could get the four

(41:58):
and five star guys to come. So that was the
raw material, and Nick Saban knew how to lead a
developmental program, so he took four and five star guys
and developed them from that much higher elevated starting point
into first round draft picks.

Speaker 5 (42:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
What Kyle Whittingham has done for years and years and
years is he has taken two and three star guys
and developed them into draft picks. If you had given
him four and five star starting point material, they would
be first round draft picks. Right, That's the difference. So, yes,
is it a bummer when you lose Celesi Moa to Tennessee?

Speaker 3 (42:40):
Sure? Is it the end of the story. Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Is he the only guy that can help you and
can be a pro level player and can be an
all conference level player?

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Not even close, not even close.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
If Cole Bishop had gone somewhere else than the University
of Utah, you never would have thought about him or
ever cared. And instead he goes down as one of
the best safeties you've had in the Power four Power
five era, and he will be making an appearance, by
the way on that start bench cut when we get.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
There, all right, all right, definitely worthy, definitely worthy of
the Power era defensive backs safeties in particular. And by
the way, shout out to that Texter for completely missing
the point of what I said, Like.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
I love the this is you know, we get constant
interaction from this particular number, and I love that. And
it's good because you just gave me an extra fifteen
minutes of radio, like I promise, Like there's there's a
difference between getting your hopes overly wrapped up in a
seventeen or eighteen year old's decision and knowing you got

(43:46):
to put a winning football program on the field.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
Yeah, and but like because he because he clearly took
offense to me saying that the self awareness of Utah
not being Tennessee is a problem competitively, Like sure, if
that's actually if that's actually front of mine, Like, we're
never gonna We're never gonna.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
Compete with Tennessee.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
Obviously, the coaches need to believe that they can compete
with Tennessee and Ohio State and and Michigan and Florida
and Alabama and all those all those other teams in
the Big ten in SEC and notred and throw Notre
Dame in there too, But like if it doesn't work out,
and that's who you lose to. I don't see how

(44:33):
Kyle Whittingham or Morgan Scaley or any of the position coaches,
Jason Beck, whatever, whoever, I don't see. I don't see
how they're losing much sleep, like because they know they
know that they're not thought of, like even Tennessee is
in the SEC hey and.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
By the way, Utah's football history under Kyle Whittingham has
been more more successful than Tennessee's, like from a conference
championship perspective and things like that. But the reality of
the situation right now for Utah fans, and we have
to be used to this and have to be okay
with this, is that Tennessee is swimming in a pond,

(45:18):
a Scrooge McDuck world of riches that right now Utah
is not and probably forever Utah is not. And half
of that is because of their affiliation with the SEC
conference and the television deal and the revenue distributions that
come with that, and the other half of it is
just from like the cultural dedication in the state and

(45:41):
in the city to needing Tennessee football to be good
in order for you to feel happy about living in Knoxville.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
Yeah, we just we don't as passionate as Utah and
BYU fans are in particular, Aggis fans certainly too. We
don't lose, We don't lose too much sleepover the team's
not being national championship contenders.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Tennessee fans do difference in the craziest way.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
Yeah, and and that's that's true of just of almost
every program in the SEC, and at least half of
the programs in the Big ten.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
All right, we're gonna take a quick one here, We're
gonna come back. I'm gonna give you my first over
under number of the day. We might not get much
further than that because I think this one is gonna
spark some debate. I've set a number for over under
receiving yards for the Utah top receiver. Whoever that ends
up being. How productive will this person be? Will take

(46:44):
the over and the under? And by the way, eight
seven seven three five three zero seven hundred at RIOC
Sports always love to hear from you.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
I hope you can tell me who you think.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
That person is going to be, because that is maybe
the biggest question mark before we even get.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
To the number.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
By the way, too, we've got two different we've got
two pairs to two different concerts. Get two different concerts
to give away tickets today, really, So the first one,
if you're up for it, oh, c we can give
that away. Next segment, that's to all time Low, Simple
Plan and topical trivia at the end of the show,
let's do it.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven hundred ninety TWEFM, proud part
of UTAHS ESPN Radio Network.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
You were listening to a Sean O'Connell show from the
Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
one a f M.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show. Eight seven seven
three five three zero seven hundred. We got some tickets
to give away, Simple Plan tickets, Is that right, James,
Simple plan?

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Yeah, simple plan.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
At the end of the show, during topical trivia, we
have all time low tickets right now.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
Oh, all time low right now.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Okay, we're giving away all time low at the Union
October sixteenth.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Yeah, all week long.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
But and but we had an extra pair to give
away today, so we thought we so I thought we'd
do it during the hot line.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred lunch
question coming your way this past weekend. Excuse me? Pro
Football Hall of Fame inducted. How many players in the
twenty twenty five class?

Speaker 3 (48:35):
Easy? Simple, Yeah, don't google it. You just gotta know.
You should know.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
There's also a hilarious One of those players was making
all the other players take pictures with all of the
other They like shuffled the deck and we're taking pictures
with each other's busts, with each other's like little statue's.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
That's good.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
That sounds like something. Sounds like something you and I
would just stand there, go take a picture with him there,
All right? Cool, he was making everyone do it.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
Anyway, it sounds like something you I would do if
we were inducted in the halls.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Probably won't happen for us three five three zero, So hey,
that's a loser mentality. Oh see, James, all right, here's
what we're doing over under for the receiving yards for
Utah's top wide receiver in twenty twenty five. Now, this
is actually a two part question because in your mind

(49:29):
you're gonna have to figure out, well, who that person
is going to be. I'm not asking you that, but
if you want to tell me who you think is
going to get this over under number, If that helps you,
if that helps inform your your answer, go for it.
I don't have to do it great. And actually I've
had to reduce the number. I said it probably a
little bit too high. So what I'm doing now is

(49:50):
I'm reducing the number, and I found a more scientific
way to approach this, Okay. I what I did is
I went back ten seasons for the University of You,
and then I remembered that you have to throw out
the COVID year because that's Kyle Whittingham's rule. So I
decided to go back nine seasons, and I took the
top receiver of the last nine seasons. I added up

(50:11):
all their numbers, I divided it by nine. All right,
So I just want to know if you think that
this year's top receiver can be the average of the
last nine years top receiver and have six hundred and
ninety three yards or more all over under six ninety
three and yeah, that's it was exactly my original My

(50:36):
original number was seven forty nine and a half. Can
someone get seven hundred and fifty yards, but no, I'm
going we'll do six ninety two and a half because
if you hit six ninety three, then you're the average
of the last the last nine seasons.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
Okay, yeah, that man, we knew, we know, or I
knew that the nun that the average number had to
be lower than expected because we haven't had a thousand
yard receiver and that time he had an almost one
thousand yard receiver with I think Darren Carrington's year probably
fell into that, but like, that's still I would have

(51:17):
I would have guessed with you that it would have
been in the seven hundreds at the very least six
ninety three.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
I mean it's basically seven hundred. But that's that's lower
than I thought.

Speaker 5 (51:25):
It would be.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
You go back far enough.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Okay, this is twenty fifteen at the University of Utah.
The top receiver that year was Britain Covey. He was
your top receiver and his freshman year, Britain Covey. Yeah,
five hundred and nineteen yards was the best that your
your best receiver, your most productive receiver gave you five
hundred nineteen yards In twenty sixteen. Your most productive receiver

(51:51):
was Tim Patrick. Seven hundred and eleven yards. Darren Carrington's
nine hundred and eighty yards came in two thousand and seventeen.
Yard you mentioned him, You go to twenty eighteen Britain Covey, Hey,
we love Britain. Covey realized he had two years where
he was the he was the top receiver yardage wise,

(52:12):
a more mature Britain Covey had six hundred and thirty
seven yards in twenty eighteen. In twenty nineteen, your leading
receiver was Brant Keithy six hundred and two yards. In
twenty twenty one it was Brant Keithy again six hundred
and eleven yards. As a leading receiver in the Utah offense,

(52:35):
Dalton Kinkaid had eight hundred ninety and twenty twenty two
as your leading receiver, Devon Vele in twenty twenty three,
five ninety three and last year Dorian Singer had seven
hundred and two yards.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
I mean when you when you have two of those
years where your top receiver fails to get over six hundred,
that's how you get under seven hundred yards.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
So six ninety two and a half over under on
Utah wide receiver, leading wide receiver number eight seven seven, three,
five three zero, seven hundred, Tell me the over the under.
Tell me who you think that's going to be on
this Utah roster, and tell me whether you hit the
over or the under for the leading receiver.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Now it's again, it's not. It's one of these things.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
These numbers are fascinating to me because you can have
a conference championship year, you can even have back to
back conference championship years without anyone killing it as an
individual wide receiver, even in a passing league like the
Pac twelve Conference, where there were plenty of guys. I
mean some of those years the Pac twelve Conference had

(53:40):
draft pick Aman Ross, Saint Brown, like these types of guys,
top top, top flight wide receivers, and that's great, but
it didn't translate. There's been a lot of years where
the University of Oregon was contending and was a top
team in the conference and didn't have thousand yard receivers.
So it doesn't translate all the time. Ohio State has

(54:01):
done a good job with it. As of late, Alabama
had a Heisman Trophy winning wide receiver Colorado had won
last year, who's split half his time at wide receiver right.
So it's great when you have guys that are that
freakishly productive, but it's not a requirement for you to
have a good season. It's not a requirement for Utah's
offense this year to have an eight hundred, nine hundred

(54:21):
thousand yard receiver. It's been a long time since they've
had one shout out Dres Anderson. It's been a really
really long time. Even if you don't, you could end
up winning eleven games this year. You could end up
winning ten games this year. You could be a conference
champion and a playoff team. If you have a guy

(54:42):
topping your wide receiver room at seven hundred and eleven
yards helps a lot more if you have eight hundred
and ninety out Dalton Kincaid, But it's not a requirement.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
So by the way, Dalton probably doesn't get that many
yards if Keithy doesn't get hurt in Week three, right,
the rest of the season after the ASC.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Games, there's no way that Dalton kin k becomes as
big of a feature, even has that iconic game against
USC where he's the only option if Brant Keithy is
there to balance the offense out.

Speaker 4 (55:16):
So they probably both get six something at the most.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Yeah, because we I mean, look, there's been years with
for bran Brand, Keithy was the top receiver in a
couple of those years just over six hundred yards, Yeah, six.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
Hundred and two and six hundred and eleven yards.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
So now I'm asking you to add to tackle on
effectively one hundred yards to that. Does Utah have one
of those guys Utah's top wide receiver this year six
ninety two and a half over or under.

Speaker 4 (55:44):
I think I'm gonna go over because that seems very
attainable despite Utah's history. I'm also gonna give the benefit
of the doubt to Jason Beck being a new offensive coordinator,
to Devin dan Pier being a brand new quarterback, to
the guys that they've brought in since spring football in

(56:04):
the transfer portal, including Tobias may may excuse me, Merriwether,
who certainly looks the part I'm gonna I'm gonna give
the benefit of doubt to that group of guys that
they're gonna they're gonna find, whether it's Tobias Merriwether or not,
you'll find one guy to get over seven hundred yards
or six ninety five.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
In as a receiver in this offense.

Speaker 4 (56:28):
It could be maybe maybe it's out of the tight
end room, like like with Bran Keithy in the Dalton Kincaid.
Maybe it's a Hunter Andrews or someone else at the
tight endingroom Auto Tea who's gonna play a lot of
tight end I think one of those guys is gonna get.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
There for your edification as someone who may be listening
in the New Mexico offense. Last year, Luke wisong five
and seventy pounds wide receiver for the New Mexico. Lobos
finished the year with sixty nine catches for eight and

(57:03):
forty yards. Isn't they over? So he he would have
hit the over in this offense, and uh, he was like,
you know, he's a Britain Cuby type.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
That should inform your over under decision.

Speaker 4 (57:20):
You know what, Lander Barton is gonna get over seven
hundred this year. If that happens, probably not a good
year for that. Probably means there's too many injuries, right,
not that.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
If that happens, I just don't know what. I don't
know what's going on. If Lander Barton, Lander Barton is
gonna have like, well, you know what we're gonna do.
We'll set in, we'll wait, and we're gonna send it.
For Lander Barton offensively and for Sill more touchdowns than yards?

(57:51):
Will he be this year's Will he be? This year's uh?
Where every catch he has as a touchdown? Eight seven
seven three five three zero seven, Hunred. Scott Mitchell going
to join us next on the Sean O'Connor Shows, Utah
number one Sports Talk ESPN seven hundred ninety tw one FM.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
This is the Sean O'Connell Show. You were home of
the best inn side of your use. Let's get back
to OOC from the Murder Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven
hundred nine M.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
Show Connall Show on Monday. Scott Mitchell, the Utah quarterback
legend color analyst on Utah Radio broadcast. He's going to
be calling Utah football this month.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
How about that, Scott.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
We're in August and Utah's first game is also in August.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
We're almost there, pal, Scott you there? Oh there he is? Sorry?

Speaker 5 (58:55):
Sorry sorry, yeah, hello Hi everybody.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
It's not game week, but it is Game month.

Speaker 5 (59:01):
No, it is, and it's really exciting. I mean, the
Hall of Fame game it always it always kind of
jumps up and bites you and go oh at the
Hall of Fame game is right now, and then it
just seems to just all be downhill from there. But
I'm super excited about this season for one reason, and
that's coach Winningham. He kind of said, look, I wasn't

(59:21):
going to go out on a note like I did
last year, and there just seems to be this renewed fire.
Seems to be coming from a place of being the
underdog and being counted out, and that's when he's at
his best coaching. I'm just really excited. I just I
just feel a really good energy with the new players,
the new coaches, and new direction, the new found commitment

(59:43):
from the school, and I can't wait for it to start, all.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Right, Scott, We're having some fun as the season approaches,
doing start bench cut and also doing the over, some
overs and unders on Utah numbers, offensive numbers especially, and
I sent today over under the yardage total for Utah's
top individual wide receiver.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Now, we don't know who that's going to be.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
You know better than I that at this in this
Utah football offense, sometimes a guy emerges that we we
have no idea who he's gonna be. Sometimes it's a
tight end. Sometimes it's a slot wide receiver. Occasionally it's
it's the uh, you know, the big body, tall Tim
Patrick or Devon Vley types. I took the average of

(01:00:31):
the last decades worth of top wide receiver numbers and
that comes up to six hundred and ninety three yards,
So six ninety two and a half over under the
top wide receiver whoever that ends up being for this
Utah offense in twenty twenty five, do they get more
than that or less than that?

Speaker 5 (01:00:51):
I'm gonna say under that, and that's not a bad thing.
I really think this offense is gonna be one of
patchwork for production, and I just think you're going to
see a lot of different people contribute in a lot
of different ways. I just I don't see with Utah
being able to run the football and having a way

(01:01:11):
Sean Parker and having a quarterback that can run, I
just I don't I don't see that happening. But being
able to run the ball, it allows you to throw
the ball and if you can do it effective, which
I think Utah will be able to. I just I
just don't think there's a guy there that they're going
to rely on. I think they're going to rely on
a group of guys, and I think it's going to
come from a lot of places, including the tight end.

(01:01:33):
I think the tight end will be a part of
what's going on. So I don't think it's a bad thing,
but I think it's under that number.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Okay, yeah there, And we looked at we looked at
individually year by year. I mean, even in the back
twelve championship years, you didn't have these like stellar, super
huge numbers. I mean dun Kinkaid had eight and ninety
in one of those championship years. But there's been plenty
of times where Utah's had really good teams contended for
or even won a conferenceampionship, or your top receivers looking

(01:02:02):
at it, you know, about a seven hundred yard season.
So we'll we'll see how it plays out. But a
fun number to try and play with. I was listening
to Down and Dirty today as I was driving, and
you were talking about a lot of different things, your
own start in sports, which is really interesting to hear.
As you know, I'm watching Little League World Series right now,
but I know, like the Hall of Fame, the NFL

(01:02:22):
Hall of Fame Weekend is a special thing for sports fans.
I imagine even more so for guys who played in
the league for a long time to see, you know,
the best of the best honored in that way. And
I just wanted you to expound on your thoughts on
you know, Hall of Fame Weekend and especially what you
saw from Sterling Sharp and Jared Allen and company.

Speaker 5 (01:02:43):
Yeah. I usually like the Hall of Fame and it's
really the speeches and it's I love to hear the backstory.
I love to hear why these guys got into it
or who was that person or there's always some great
story or multiple stories from from how kids grow up.
And you know, you have Sterling Sharp and Shannon Stark Sharp,

(01:03:06):
only two brothers to make it into the Hall of Fame,
and man, I can't imagine what their parents feel like,
you know, and you know one would be incredible, but
to actually have multiple and then kind of how they
were interacted and just I was just really touched by
you know, Sterling giving his gold jacket to his brother

(01:03:28):
and and genuinely doing that, and and it was a
return on something that Shannon had done for Sterling because
he knew Shannon knew that how much it hurt Sterling
not to his career being shortened, and and and knowing
how much it meant to him and giving him a
super Bowl ring was really quite a tremendous thing. I mean,

(01:03:49):
we're all killing to get one super Bowl ring, and
here Shannon Sharp has given it away like it's candy.
Was a very very touching thing to me. And and
people like Jared Allen, who's someone who kind of comes
out of nowhere, and it's really a testament to you know,
having that drive and that burn, and that that you know,

(01:04:10):
that work ethic, and that willingness to just take your
body to places that most people just don't want to do,
and and and so many of these guys that they're
just there's willing to just make unbelievable sacrifices, uh to
to play consistently at a high level for such a
long period of time. But I just I just love,

(01:04:32):
I love the backstory. I love I love you know,
there's I think of John Randall, who was undrafted. We
were drafting the same year. Well he wasn't drafted, he
was a free agent when they had twelve rounds, So
twelve times teams went through and nobody picked John Randall,
who became a Hall of Famer. And the only way

(01:04:53):
he got a shot was he was undersized. He went
the way in for the the Minnesota, the Vikings, and
he went to the hardware store because he was too light,
and he bought a chain and a lock and he
wrapped it around his stomach like a belt, but he
had sweats on and he rolled it up so they
couldn't see it, and he barely made it like on

(01:05:15):
the number, and they signed him as a free agent,
and that was a Hall of Fame career started by
you know, Shane from a hardware store, you know. And
I just love the story, you know, and because so
many of them, they're just not cookie cutter and they're
really like I just really think they're an American story,
you know, where these you have dreams, and you know,

(01:05:37):
I had a dream as a kid and it became
a reality and it was a cool thing to to
accomplish that and to do it, and so many people
do it in so many different areas of their life.
But on this week it's it's that celebration from football,
and what an amazing thing, you know, I just I've
always been I wonder what that luncheon's like with all

(01:05:59):
the Hall of famers and you're in that room and
people talk about it who are there, and they say,
it's just an incredible experience to be among the best
of the best of all time and you're in that room.
Just really, I mean, who would not want that?

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
So one of the interesting things about Halls of Fame
for me is that there's very few that have a
written criteria of what you have to have accomplished in
your career in order to qualify. I mean, Utah just
established this ring of honor on the stadium and they
actually put some parameters on it and said you have

(01:06:40):
to have been part of two conference championships and things
like that, and it's like, Okay, that gives us a
framework to decide who gets to go in, at least
for Utah football, and I like that. But I also
like in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the
basketball Hall of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame,
you know, there's these debates and these other questions you
can have. I want to know the Scott Mitchell criteria

(01:07:03):
for what makes a Hall of Fame career because there's
there's nuance to it at every different position. We'll we'll
go with quarterbacks because that's the position you know best,
that you played at such a high level for so long.
But what makes a Pro Football Hall of Hall of
Fame quarterback? In your mind, it's more than just winning
Super Bowls. Obviously, there's plenty of guys in there who

(01:07:23):
haven't won one and still made it. You tell me,
if you get the vote, what does a guy have
to have done in order to get the Scott Mitchell
endorsement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Speaker 5 (01:07:34):
So it kind of you have to go on eras
really quick before I answer your question. I've had I've
had people who have a vote for the Hall of
Fame actually call me about players and and kind of
because did I contemporaries that I played against, you know,
and on on multiple, uh you know times, or you know,

(01:07:57):
like lol Roy Butler, who was a defensive back for
the Green Bay Packers, who I thought was one of
the best safeties in my era, you know, better than
several guys who made it into the Hall of Fame.
But you know, so it's kind of easy to speak
of that debate, you know, I've been a part of
that debate, and it's a fun debate to have and

(01:08:18):
to be a part of. But for quarterbacks, you know,
you look at a guy like Dan Marino, where like
if you talk to anyone, everyone says he was the best,
Like he was the best, like how he threw the football,
the era that he was in and the production he
had was not a common thing. And then you look
at someone like Joe Montana, who was of the same era,

(01:08:41):
who won multiple Super Bowls and was just masterful, Like
those two guys were, you know, the class of the
class of that era, and yet Joe Montana will tell
you that Marino was the very best. And then there
are other people like you know, Troy Aikman, who won
multiple Super Bowls and was a part of really really

(01:09:03):
good teams and didn't have the numbers but certainly had
you know, he was very successful within a very successful team.
And that's similar to a guy like you could say
that about Terry Bradshaw. You could say that about Bob Greasy,
you could say that about someone like Roger Staubach. But

(01:09:25):
I think also, and this isn't my vote, but there's
certainly there certainly is name recognition, popularity, a guy like
Kenny Anderson, Kenny Anderson played every year against the Pittsburgh Steelers,
and well, you know, one of the greatest defenses of
all time and he had to face him his whole

(01:09:46):
entire career twice a year and went to a Super Bowl,
and the numbers for his era, you absolutely could say
that guy was in the Hall of Fame and being
around him and just the production against the competition in
the era. You know, Kenny Anderson has a better career
than Ken Stapler than then you know, you could argue

(01:10:09):
against then Roger Stopbach other than winning the Super Bowls
and he was a really really good player that's really
gotten bypassed and probably won't make it, but should make it.
And then you have a guy like Kurt Warner who
had kind of a shorter window but really kind of
made a punch, you know, won a Super Bowl, lost

(01:10:31):
the Super Bowl, went to and you know, lost two
Super Bowls. And I would have said, had Kurt Warner
not had a resurgence with like the Arizona Cardinals, don't
I don't know that he got in. I don't know
that I don't you know, I don't know it's I'm
kind of I'm like, you got to play for a
long time, and and you got to throw for a

(01:10:51):
lot of yards, and you got you just have to
consistently be productive at that position. And and so I'm
going to say, guy's got to play, you know, at
least twelve years. I mean, now it's it's it's it's
like playing with monopoly money because these guys five thousand
yard seasons are like normal. So it's just so different

(01:11:12):
today and it's harder, it's harder to gauge. But you know,
these guys are going to be upwards of like Philip
River is probably going to be in the Hall of Fame.
He and Eli Manning are kind of the two guys
right now. I was surprised Eli Manning didn't get in
this time. I mean because numbers wise, he's certainly up there.
But it's there's a perception thing that it's almost like, well,

(01:11:36):
they won kind of in spite of him. He wasn't
really because Eli's kind of frumpy, you know, he's not
really he's not really that entertaining or engaging or but
he you know, he was, he was pretty productive. He
was a percentage wise, it's much more productive than than
Peyton in the playoffs and the Super Bowl era. I

(01:11:57):
mean Peyton Manning lost his first five years is in
the playoffs, didn't even win. I mean, if Peyton man
doesn't have a great playoff record, but he has the personality,
he has the name, he has the kind of thing
that and I think that's part of why some guys
get in the hall. I mean, you could argue Paul
Horning shouldn't be in the Hall. There's a lot of

(01:12:18):
guys that you could argue about. I'm not like John Lynch.
I know we're talking about quarterbacks here. I just think
I think it's super subjective. I know I'm probably not
answering your question like specifically with numbers, but certainly it's numbers.
But I think there's also like it's kind of the

(01:12:40):
respect of the players around you, like being not in
the Pro Bowl, but being like an All Pro. I
think there needs to be so many because the Pro
Bowl is kind of a that's just a joke, that's
a that's a popularity.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Contest, is a popularity contest, and All Pro is more
prestigious in the locker room.

Speaker 5 (01:13:01):
Yeah, and it's kind of one of those things. Where
players just know, you know, you know, like you know
who the best guys are, even even if they're like
I you know, I remember sitting in a meeting with
Dan Marina watching game film and he goes, you know
who was playing really good? Is that Troy Aikman. Like

(01:13:23):
he's like he like Troy Aikman was and he probably
could have had bigger numbers had he been on a
different team, but but he, you know, he was a
good guy. And it's it's the same. I mean, you
think back of like it's Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach
in kind of that seventies era, Like those were the names,
those were the guys, like they just were the they

(01:13:46):
just were looked at as the best players, you know,
and you look at the best players today, it's like
Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Matthew Stafford, Joe Burrow,
like you just know, those are the best guys. Like
Matthew Stafford will be in the Hall of Fame. And
he had a really you know, terrible win loss percentage

(01:14:09):
when he was with the Detroit Lions. But he's he's like,
he's one of the best quarterbacks. I guess you know,
I would pick him on my team. I think he's
really good.

Speaker 3 (01:14:19):
Are wins the quarterback staff for you?

Speaker 5 (01:14:23):
Oh man, it's it's not as it's not as as
important as it is production. I think it's I think
it speaks well for someone who you know, you look
at Joe Johnson or who played for the Cleveland Browns,
who's in the Hall of Fame, like to go you know,

(01:14:44):
almost a decade with like barely winning a game and
showing up every week and playing and playing well and
playing at a high level. I mean, you look at
a guy like Warren Noon never never won a Super Bowl,
but certainly played. I think I think Warren Moon's best
trade is that he played a long long time and

(01:15:07):
played at a pretty high level for a long period
of time, but it wasn't really very successful in the
playoffs or you know, but he so so winning total.
I mean, Jim Kelly was extremely productive for the Buffalo
Bills and never won a super Bowl and I got
to the Super Bowls. But you know a lot of

(01:15:30):
I mean, Philip Rivers, it's going to be that conversation.
I just you know, and you know, I think what
they do is they get they put super Bowls on
it for guys that maybe don't have the same you know,
like Troy Aikman won a lot of Super Bowls, and
but I don't know that his production was as much
as some of these other guys. Or I mean, you

(01:15:51):
could even say, like Drew Brees whould be in the
Hall of Fame and should be in the Hall of Fame.
But you know, he did win the one Super Bowl.
But the other thing you have to realize, Sean, it's
freaking hard to win a Super Bowl, especially when Tom
Brady just gobbles a bunch of them up by himself.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
There's gonna be documentaries someday, and if nobody else makes them.
I want to about the people who stood in the
way of other people's championships. In the NFL, certainly in
the NBA, we saw that. You know, John Stockton and
Carl Malone are two of the best fifty players ever

(01:16:27):
in the history of the NBA. They were on the
same damn team for twenty years and couldn't get a
finals win because of Michael Jordan.

Speaker 5 (01:16:35):
Right, if Michael Jordan just could have played baseball a
little bit longer.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
If the NBA would have just suspended Michael Jordan a
little bit longer for his gambling and made him go
play baseball.

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
Then Carl and John could have won it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
I mean, there's just there's so in combat sports, there's
great examples of this where you can beat everybody in
the world as a boxer or as an MMA fighter,
but you just can't beat the champ, the one guy,
and you're just so you go down as the also ran.
It's a It's fascinating And Tom Brady is that dude
for I don't know how many players in the NFL, Well, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:17:10):
I mean Peyton Manning. I mean you could say each
Ton guys. You know, there's no question. Maybe it's the
Pittsburgh Steelers and Ben Roethlisberg. I mean there's you know
that they were really good and maybe they got robbed
a little bit. I mean who knows that, But yeah, definitely, definitely.
Brady heard a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Okay, somebody calls somebody calls Scott Mitchell and says, hey,
is Eric Weddle going to be an NFL Hall of
Fame or what do you say?

Speaker 5 (01:17:35):
Oh? See, I think safeties are really hard, I really,
I really do, because your value to a team in
so many ways is not you know, it's not it's
not measured on interceptions, it's not measured on you know, tackles.

(01:17:56):
It's it's there. There's just a lot of interests in interests, well,
there's a a I can't even say that word right now.
I'm trying to there's some value that you can't put
into into statistics. And I think Weddle's one of those guys.
You look at what he did for the Rams, you know,

(01:18:17):
he was just this calming influence in this kind of
piece that I think really helped them get over over
the top. And he was just very productive. They kind
of their gamers, you know, they just tend to show
up at the right time, at the right place. And
I think he's one of one of those guys. Like,

(01:18:40):
let me just say this, if John Lynch is in
the Hall of Fame, Eric Weddles should be in the
Hall of Fame.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
I'm glad you said exactly that, because I'll be saying that.
I pulled up the numbers for both guys. John Lynch
played from ninety three to two thousand and seven, so
he's fifteen seasons, right, and he in those fifteen seasons,
he had twenty six interceptions Eric Weddle in his thirteen seasons,

(01:19:05):
plus the little stint with the with the Rams that
ended up giving him the Super Bowl ring he so
long coveted. He had more. He had twenty nine interceptions
in fewer years. John Lynch never scored a touchdown. Wedell
scored four touchdowns U and he was a five time
All Pro and a six time Pro Bowler. So it's

(01:19:29):
right there, right. I mean, you're talking about a guy
who's on that, in that same conversation, and if one
guy's in that conversation and he gets in, what would
keep the other guy in the conversation out that that becomes,
I guess something above my pay grade.

Speaker 5 (01:19:45):
But if Eric Weddle, if Eric Weddle wants to get
into the Hall of Fame, he needs to go out
and publicly be public. I just think I just think
John Lynch was a part of being out and kind
of about because a lot of the voters are sports
writers and a lot of people you know, and you
you kind of are when you put front of mind,

(01:20:08):
it does. I think it does play into people's psyche
and and you just you've talked about more, you know,
when you when you're out there, it's like, you know,
I'm on the radio talking about my career, which was
never a Hall of Fame career, but you know, I'm
I'm talking about my experiences, and I think it's one
of those things would bode well from I mean, if

(01:20:30):
I had a choice between the two, I would take
Eric Weddle, and not because he's a Utah guy or whatever,
but just because of how he played the game. John
Lynch never put the fear of God into me, like
I never thought, oh man, John Lynch is going to
make a play. But there are you know, Benny Blades
I played with in Detroit, thought he was a better safety,
Mark Carrier who played for the Bears and we played

(01:20:51):
together in Detroit. You know, Leroy Butler, A lot of guys,
Darren Woodson, Steve Att. I mean, there's a ton of
guys that I would put ahead of a guy like
like John. That was a shocking one to me actually,
And I know he's a great guy and he's a
smart guy. Went to Stanford and he was a really
good player, But that defense he was in just you know,

(01:21:13):
it wasn't it almost in some ways kind of protected
someone like that. I just I never saw anything from him.
I go, Wow, John Lynch's kind of got the it factor.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
Well, the the eras obviously, what ear you played in
affects things pretty drastically, the teams you played on, if
you collected those rings, this Pro Bowl, the All Pro,
all that stuff. It's really fascinating to see how it
all kind of shakes out. I mean, there's Alex Smith
his first year of eligibilities next year. I don't even
think he's going to be talked about as a Hall
of Fame guy. He's got some pretty tang impressive numbers,

(01:21:48):
some longevity, and how do you factor in like the
comeback after you know, almost dying, almost losing your leg
and then you come back, Like what is that in
terms of like, you know, a reputation builder or a
way that that people might consider you more strongly because
of what you did, even if it's harder to measure,

(01:22:11):
you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:22:12):
Yeah, And and Alex is out, you know, he's he's
he's doing commentating and and and so he's he's able
to kind of tell his story because his story is
compelling and and and there's certainly a sympathy vote for
it or you know, it's it's one of those great
story kind of things, and and you you get a
lot of you know, uh, it's like it's it's the

(01:22:35):
magic of marketing and promotion, and you know, you just
you say it enough, you're repeated enough, and people hear
it enough and then they engage with it, and and
you know, that's that's where I think some of these
Hall of Fame decisions come from. For sure.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Well, Scott, I've chewed up way too much of your time.
I always appreciate you jumping on.

Speaker 5 (01:22:55):
That's fun conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
Uh we're almost there, man, just a few more weeks
and then we're you're.

Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
Calling you tough football games.

Speaker 5 (01:23:02):
Can't wait. It'll be a lot of fun. Thank you, Sean.

Speaker 3 (01:23:05):
Scott Mitchell.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
You can hear him on The Down and Dirty immediately
preceding my show Monday through Friday here on ESPN seven
hundred ninety TWOEFM, and when I'm off on my broadcasting
duties for the PFL, which we've got a couple more
of those before the season, and then things slow down
a lot during the season. Very happy about that we
could stay focused on Utah football. But you'll hear Scott

(01:23:28):
Mitchell filling in for me on those days. I'm gonna
give you some Hall of Fame resumes, and some of
these you're gonna be like, Wow, what a what a career.
Some of them you're gonna look at and say, wait,
that guy's in the Hall of Fame. We'll do that
next on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven ninety Tom Proud,
part of Utah's ESPN Radio Network.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
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manufacturers problem. And our manufacturer is in North Carolina, so

(01:25:17):
you're gonna have to call them. It is Advance Windows.
They are accountable for the entire process. They are accountable
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you now and in the future the whole life of
your home. Advance Windows dot com or eight one a
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eight ish weeks, and before you know it, we're gonna
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get on the schedule now twenty five hundred dollars off
ten windows or more. We were just talking some NFL

(01:26:04):
Hall of Fame. This was the past weekend Hall of
Fame game on Thursday. We talked about how underwhelming that
was on Friday and my airing of Grievances and then
you know, Sarah was.

Speaker 4 (01:26:14):
Great on the radio though, on on Utah's Everyone Sports
Talk for everyone tuned in. I'm sure the forty five
to seven game or whatever the final score end up being,
was outstanding on the radio. Yes, absolutely, what people were
excited about Trey Lance game.

Speaker 2 (01:26:29):
Yeah, it's got to be. It's got to go down
in history as the Trey Lance Game.

Speaker 3 (01:26:33):
It really will.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Okay, No, we're talking about the Hall of Fame and
I asked Scott Mitchell his kind of criteria for a
Hall of Fame induction. There's some there's some guys coming
up for their first year of eligibility. Alex Smith is
one of them. Another one that I really like Frank
Gore is a guy that no bias.

Speaker 3 (01:26:52):
There though for you at all. Well, look, I.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):
Don't pretend to be unbiased, which is another conversation we
need to have, because Dan Patrick was on his high
horse this morning about how you can't work in sports
and be a sports fan. That's a common theme with
with Dan.

Speaker 4 (01:27:07):
I think exactly he he I think what happens is
he grew up in an era where people who even
TV guys like him because he didn't. That's that's all
he That's what he was at the very until he
until he left ESPN Dan Patrick Show here at the
rest time he was, he was TV guy. You you

(01:27:29):
let you checked your fandom at the door. But also
it seemed to be even more of a personal thing
for him in that he did it on purpose, not
just because that's how things were in the era, because
he didn't want being a TV guy. TV guys want
need to be liked more than mostly everyone else so

(01:27:51):
and and that their bosses need the TV guys to
be super likable. He didn't want anyone to criticize him
for top talking about something bad that happened with the
Cleveland Indians at the time, because oh, oh, we found
out that you're we know you're a Reds fan, so
that's all that's the only reason why you're doing it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:11):
But it's fine. I understand his stance. I do because.

Speaker 2 (01:28:16):
All the time about it, especially in that generation, like okay,
But now it's done the opposite. It's made Dan is
exceedingly likable, and that is the thing that is the
least likable about his personality, perhaps on air, is that
he's just like, no, you can't be uh, you gotta
play it right down the middle. I mean they were,
they were really pressing him today. The Dan ants were

(01:28:37):
just like, what about after you retire, because everyone knows
that's coming sooner than later for Dan, then can.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
You pick up?

Speaker 2 (01:28:42):
If he's like, no, can't do it, it's like, knock
it off, Dan. Anyway, That's not where I wanted to
go here. We're talking about the Hall of Fame criteria,
and it's different for everyone. Frank Gore is an interesting case.
I asked about Eric Weddle. If John Lynch is in
Eric Weddle is in Okay, Like that's if there's no

(01:29:03):
other reason for John Lynch to be in the Hall
of Fame. Hell yeah, you're in the Hall of Fame,
and that means Wet should be in as well. Uh,
there's there's a different way. Like I think one of
the things you certainly look at numbers. How much did
you win does matter, Although there's players like Joe Thomas
who is never on good teams. It was the best
guy in the league. If you're the best, if you're

(01:29:25):
a top three player at your position in your era
for multiple years, you probably deserve to be a Hall
of Famer. The more interesting, the more important way I
think you should decide is can you tell the story
of twenty tens football with and not put that person in?
Can you tell the story of twenty twenties football and

(01:29:46):
not put that person in? Can you tell the story
of nineteen eighties pro football and not put that person in?
If the answer is, well, no, you got to talk
about him and what he did, absolutely you belong in
the Hall of Fame. Frank Gore is the third leading
rusher NFL history, and that is a longevity play for him.
You could make an argument he was never one of
the best five running backs in the game.

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):
But yeah, you all pros Frank Gore maybe one or two.

Speaker 2 (01:30:12):
But you know how good. He like the longevity should matter, right.
There's a big conversation about this with a guy in
the fight world.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):
His name is Jim Miller.

Speaker 2 (01:30:21):
He has been like a like a middle of the
roster level fighter in the UFC and had more UFC
fights than most people have had fights in their career total.
He's been part now of three decades of fighting and
he's never been a champion. He's never really even contended hotly,
like been close to a championship. I'm like, yeah, but

(01:30:41):
that guy's done it longer than anyone else is able
to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):
He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
There are a lot of people who think, no, that
longevity is not a thing that should get you into
the Hall of Fame. I think it should. That's a
Frank Gore thing too. Yeah, but just looked it up.
By the way, zero all pros for Frank Gore.

Speaker 4 (01:30:58):
Wow, But he was name to the NFL's All twenty
tens team, five time pro bowler. So as far as
like individual accolades, if you if you set career numbers aside,
because those are certainly individual accolades, he set career stats aside.
He has his resume is really lacking in the in

(01:31:22):
the really important individual accolades. No MVPs, no, no All pros,
five time Pro bowler, but we talked about Pro Bowls,
not near as important as all pros. On the All
twenty tens team, that's significant. But then but then you
consider the career numbers, which speaks to his longevity, like

(01:31:43):
you say, oh, see third career, third career rusher in
the history of the NFL, and career rushing yards like
you look at that and go, well that you can't
keep that guy out of the Hall of Fame. So
he's he's such an interesting case. So we'll see.

Speaker 3 (01:31:58):
I'm going to give you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:59):
I'm going to get maybe some numbers, and I want
you to tell me before I tell you the names.
I want you to tell me if this is a
Hall of Fame resume. All right, Okay, I'm ready. This
person played for seventeen no excuse me, fourteen years in
the in the NFL at the quarterback position.

Speaker 3 (01:32:16):
I'm just going to tell you because I kind of
don't want you to guess who it is.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
Yeah, first, I'm going to tell you no Super Bowl victories,
multiple time Pro bowler. Okay, No, All pros, No All pros,
fourteen years, sixty two percent completion percentage on thirty five
thousand yards, one hundred and ninety nine touchdowns, and one

(01:32:41):
hundred and nine interceptions. Okay, so that's a that's a
pretty darn good career.

Speaker 4 (01:32:48):
This is and this is someone that they may have
played recently, they may have played before, or is this
someone who's who's a candidate for the Hall of Fame?

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
Now, this is someone who is eligible for all of
I'm not gonna tell you if they're in the Hall
of Fame or not.

Speaker 3 (01:33:02):
Okay, here's another here's another person.

Speaker 2 (01:33:05):
This person played thirteen seasons in the NFL, twenty seven
thousand yards, fifty point one percent completion percentage for a career,
fifty percent passer, twenty seven thousand, six hundred and sixty

(01:33:25):
three yards, one hundred and seventy three touchdowns, two hundred
and twenty interceptions, and Super Bowl winner. I just based
on those two, who is the Hall of Fame?

Speaker 4 (01:33:38):
I mean, the first one seems like the Hall of Famer.
The second one is pro is seems like definitely not
a Hall of Famer. But I'm gonna guess that it's
the opposite.

Speaker 2 (01:33:47):
The first one is Alex Smith, who I don't know
is gonna get any kind of real consideration for Hall
of Fame even though he becomes eligible for twenty twenty six.
So now that the twenty twenty five classes in he
is eligible.

Speaker 3 (01:33:59):
Okay, okay. The other is Joe Namath.

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
Oh, my goodness, Joe Namath threw two hundred and twenty
interceptions and one hundred and seventy three touchdown fifty more basically,
fifty more interceptions than touchdowns. Now career quarterback rating is
sixty five and a half. Goodness gracious, a fifty percent
career passer.

Speaker 3 (01:34:22):
He see.

Speaker 4 (01:34:24):
Couple of things that I think Scott the I agree
with him having a hard time on the spot coming
up with this should be the criteria with for quarterbacks,
because like Joe Namaths, Era and Johnny Unitas, even that

(01:34:46):
those guys who played in the sixties and seventies, it
was a different standard for what stats. I mean, first
of all, they didn't even keep most of the stats
we tracked today. Secondly, the stats that they'd did that
they did track back then, it was a different standard
of that's what a good quarterback does, which obviously today

(01:35:07):
it looks really bad. And thirdly, Joe Namath is a
Hall of Famer because he was a Jets Super Bowl
winning quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:35:17):
That's right, that's it. It was the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 (01:35:20):
He was famous, so that's and and he had a
great moment with the Jets in nineteen sixty nine over
speaking of Johnny Uniteds and the Baltimore Colts, and he
rode that into the Hall of Fame Broadway.

Speaker 2 (01:35:36):
Joe rode that in the Hall of Fame. If he
plays for the.

Speaker 4 (01:35:42):
At the time, if he plays for the I mean
the can't say the Green Bay Packers because they were
super famous.

Speaker 3 (01:35:49):
He plays for almost for.

Speaker 4 (01:35:52):
Any other team besides the Packers and the and and
the New York City team at that time, and he
puts up those numbers, he probably isn't a Hall of Famer.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
I'm looking at uh, you know, like fran Tarktin was
his contemporary. It was also okay if he's a if
he's a Minnesota Vikings quarterback and he performs like that
wins the Super Bowl, even I don't think he's a
Hall of Famer. Fran Targetin was played a lot of
the same year as Joe nama did. So the position
was similar. Fran Targetin was a fifty seven percent career passer,

(01:36:27):
so again significantly better. It's significantly better, but it's also
not like fifty seven percent.

Speaker 3 (01:36:31):
Now you're not the starter for your team. Yeah, that's
really bad. He had three.

Speaker 2 (01:36:36):
Hundred and three hundred and forty two touchdowns and two
hundred and sixty six interceptions. So at least he's like
one and a half to one, yeah on his on
his touchdown interception.

Speaker 4 (01:36:46):
But also you notice Frank that he didn't win a
Super Bowl with Minnesota. But fran Tarkenton had to be
significantly better than Joe Namath to get into the Hall
of Fame because he did not have a famous Super
Bowl win with the New York Jets. The the era thing,
it's gotta be wild to be a quarterback now and

(01:37:07):
look at like fran Tarkentin fifty seven percent, Bart Starr
fifty seven percent, Joe Namath fifty percent career passer. It
just was a it's just a different time of football,
it's a different style of football.

Speaker 3 (01:37:21):
It's a different everything.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
Bob Greasie fifty six percent passer, one hundred and ninety
two touchdowns, one hundred and seventy two interceptions. I mean,
these guys didn't have to take care of the ball
at all.

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
Let me give you another.

Speaker 4 (01:37:34):
Let me give you another completion percentage that probably blows,
you know, old school football fans' minds. Fifty four point
six percent was was That was the career completion percentage
for one Johnny Unitas. Wow, one of the most famous
quarterbacks in the history of the game. He was not

(01:37:58):
even a fifty five percent passer, dude, like Len Dawson was.

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):
Fifty fifty seven percent was the magic number for quarterbacks
who played in the sixties. Terry Bradshaw's career passing percentage
you want to you want to guess, fifty eight percent,
fifty one point ninety two hundred and twelve touchdowns, two
hundred and ten interceptions.

Speaker 5 (01:38:24):
He was.

Speaker 4 (01:38:24):
But again not that's not big market New York City guy.
But the maybe the most famous, well not maybe the
most famous team of his era, one of the most
famous players in the history of the league. Hall of Fame.
Some guys get in off their fame. Fascinating stuff. Yeah,

(01:38:45):
why the Hall of Fame works? I don't totally agree
with that. By the way, I think that there should
be more than fame, even though that's in the name.
But that's how a lot of guys get in is
they were they were famous, and they had some they
played really well in some big moments.

Speaker 2 (01:39:06):
The let's see, who's the most recent quarterback inductee into
the Hall of Fame according to the official Hall of
Fame website. Is it Brady? Someone after Brady? Right, they
didn't even have Brady on their list. This is the
official Pro Football Hall of Fame and they don't have

(01:39:29):
Tom Brady in as a quarterback.

Speaker 3 (01:39:31):
What that's weird. They gotta refresh, You gotta.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):
Revents, you gotta refresh the list Official Hall of Fame website.

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):
Peyton Manning's one the most recent one on there.

Speaker 4 (01:39:41):
Okay, but Brady made it a couple of years after
because he were tired a while longer.

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
Yeah, Peyton Manning Class of twenty twenty one. He had
five hundred and thirty nine touchdowns two hundred and fifty
one interceptions. So these the modern quarterback has to be
so much better at taking care of the football and
has to produce four times as many touchdowns in order

(01:40:07):
for their name to go into the Hall of Fame.
And you got to win Super Bowls basically, and like,
I don't know how many thousands of yards too, like
almost like way more passing yards to Peyton Manning's official
career number is seventy one forty passing yards.

Speaker 3 (01:40:26):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:40:29):
Hot, take additional career statistics for Peyton Manning. One reception
for negative two yards.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
Let's go. Let's go Peyton.

Speaker 4 (01:40:39):
Hell yeah, dude, two receiving yards.

Speaker 2 (01:40:44):
I'm now going to try to find all of the
additional career, uh career stats for these random quarterbacks to
see who else, like, oh, one interception? How'd you get that?

Speaker 4 (01:40:56):
That reminds me so at the at the Old Sports
Center fifty States in fifty days event that we did
at the at the University Utah Softball Stadium Dunkey Family
Stadium a couple of weeks ago, Scott in his bag,
Scott Mitchell had a few of his own football cards
that he says, yeah, I just keep them on me

(01:41:17):
in case people want an autograph.

Speaker 3 (01:41:18):
Oh wow, and they.

Speaker 4 (01:41:19):
Don't have anything like if they say they like it's
like the actors headshot, right, That's that's what he has.
Some cheaper, not like super not not super nice football
cards like paper football cards of his and on the
back of these there's some stats from that from that

(01:41:41):
season and seasons before, So I would I picked up
one of the cards and I said, Scott Mitchell, did
you know that Scott Mitchell had this had this many
touchdowns in this particular game in this season? And you know,
he would be like, I don't remember it being that,
but I do remember that game, and so I bring

(01:42:01):
that up to say, it's funny. It's funny to quiz people.
He told me about his ancillary statu He's like, how
many rushing touchdowns do you think I get? I had?
I said, I made a guess, I was a few.
I was a few off. And he's like, I'm like,
how many of those were quarterback sneak? And he said
it was like sixteen I think, he said. And he's like,

(01:42:21):
he's like, probably fourteen. So I'd love to hear Scott's
longest run if we were able to find that ancillary that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:31):
For sure, try to find that.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
Now I'm I'm gonna start campaigning aggressively for Wetll to
be in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 (01:42:39):
Let's go, let's go, because he's not gonna campaign for himself.

Speaker 3 (01:42:42):
Right, No, he's too busy coaching high school football.

Speaker 4 (01:42:45):
Well, and it's just not necessarily his personality to be
doing that sort of thing, so we gotta do it
for him.

Speaker 3 (01:42:50):
Right. Wow?

Speaker 2 (01:42:55):
How many tackles did John Lynch have? One fifty nine?
That's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of combined tackles.
How many did Eric Weddle have in fourteen years? One
seventy nine. I'm telling you, man, significantly more our guy.
Weddell had more interceptions, more interception return yards, more touchdowns,

(01:43:19):
more passes defended. Just he was a better player. He
had thirty more passes defended statistically, and Lynch only played
one more year.

Speaker 4 (01:43:29):
Who's the real quick who's the running back equivalent to
that for Frank Gore? If that guy's in, Frank Gore's
gotta be in. Oh, that's a good question. You know what.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
I'll give you the answer to that question after we
double break on the Sean O'Connell Show. He has PN
seven hundred ninety TWOEFM. Also, preseason Coaches Poll is out.
Where are the utes Utels?

Speaker 3 (01:43:54):
Number one?

Speaker 2 (01:43:55):
Sports Talk? He has PN seven hundred and ninety TWOFMI.

Speaker 1 (01:44:01):
Hi, you're tuned to The Shan O'Connell Show from the
Murdock Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven.

Speaker 2 (01:44:13):
Candy, It's tasted some of My Girls You Got Me
Thursday for another Live That Events presents the twenty twenty
five Granary Live Concert Series, powered by Nightingale College and

(01:44:34):
Murdoc Condy, Utah's number one dealer outdoor concerts in the
heart of downtown Salt Lake City's Granary District. Details are
available at ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Welcome to
our number three on a Monday of The Shawn O'Connell Show.
If you can't catch the whole show live, which we
understand on demand section at ESPN seven hundred sports dot com,

(01:44:56):
download the ESPN seven hundred app Tell You're Smart speaker
to play ESPN seven hundred. You can catch us on
YouTube at ESPN seven hundred Sports Utah.

Speaker 3 (01:45:08):
All right, a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (01:45:12):
We're talking NFL Hall of Fame players becoming eligible next year.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
There's an interesting class coming.

Speaker 2 (01:45:19):
Frank Gore is one of those players that is going
to get a lot of debate because his career. His
case is built on longevity, which, by the way, at
running back, should probably be enough James, before the break,
you said, well, who's the guy for Frank Gore that
John Lynch is for Eric Weddle. If John Lynch is

(01:45:42):
in the Hall of Fame, Eric Weddle deserves to be
in the Hall of Fame, all right? If you compare
their very close era comparisons, right, they played in the
same style of football, they overlapped their careers. Lynch won
more Super Bowls, Weddell had more meaningful stats. Lynch played
one extra year, which means Weddell was a more potent

(01:46:06):
player year over year, more Pro Bowls, more All Pros
for Weddle, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, so if Lynch
is in, Weddle should get in. You said, well, who's
that guy for Frank Or if Frank or is in,
or if this person is in, then Frank Gore should
get in. And I went to the list, the official
Hall of Fame list, which we found out is a

(01:46:26):
little outdated of players by position, and uh, James, I
regret to inform you that you you're gonna have a
really hard time finding anyone who played as long as
Frank Gore did at the running back position. He played
sixteen years at running back where the average career is

(01:46:49):
less than three there's no Hall of Fame running backs
who played sixteen years in the league. That that by
itself is kind of anough.

Speaker 3 (01:47:00):
Em ITTT.

Speaker 2 (01:47:00):
Smith played fifteen years. There's a lot of guys who
played twelve or thirteen. Doak Walker played sixteen years. They're
just not dudes who played in this ara of football.

Speaker 4 (01:47:14):
Is there someone among the twelve or thirteen guys that
it's like? That's like Frank Gore was definitely a better
player than the US.

Speaker 2 (01:47:20):
Well, I don't know if you'd say a better player,
but if Frank o'harris is in the Hall of Fame,
which he is, Yeah, then Frank Gore deserves to be
in the Hall of Fame. When you talk about how
many thousand yard seasons did this guy have, how many
touchdowns did this guy score? What was the kind of
average output of this individual over a long career. Frank

(01:47:40):
o'harris played thirteen years in the NFL and Frank played sixteen,
and their numbers are very very similar, with Frank getting
the favorable comparison on everything except for the All Pro
and the Pro Bowl, which I know matters to people. Yeah,
and you gotta when you're when you're comparing guys from

(01:48:01):
two very different eras like that, you have to take
some of those all pro stuff with a grain of
salt because, and this is across all sports, but because
h NFL in the seventies, there was there were way
less teams in the league, so way less players for

(01:48:25):
frank O Harris to be competing against to get those
All Pro nods than Frank Gore did. So you gotta
you gotta take into take those into consideration. But yeah,
that that seems that seems right to me because even
though we're comparing two very different eras with their when
frank O Harris was in his heyday, you were teams

(01:48:47):
were basically only running the ball, like there was there
was some some passing, some guys who were prolific passers,
but not the same way that prolific passers are today.
So I think that uh, running back one that you
can you don't have to do too much to go too,
you don't have to do too many things to go.
Oh well, it was like this back then and it's

(01:49:09):
like this today. Well, hey, like they ran the ball
more with frank O Harris than they did when Frank
Gore was playing for the San Francisco forty nine ers.
By the way, I misspoke when I said Doak Walker
played Doak Walker. I thought it said nineteen fifty to
nineteen sixty five. It was nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty five. Oh,
so he did not play played five years, five or six.

(01:49:29):
He was the opposite end of that spectrum.

Speaker 3 (01:49:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:49:31):
I mean, like you look at guys like Jerome Bettis
ninety three to two thousand and five. That's a long career.
That's a as a running back. That's impressive. Earl Campbell
seventy eight to eighty five is kind of like that
sweet Spot wheelhouse. Eric Dickerson played eighty three to ninety three.
There's just not a lot of running, but there's There

(01:49:52):
are no running backs who played as long as Frank
Gorer and so.

Speaker 3 (01:49:57):
And only two that had more yards than him. It's
really impressive, all right.

Speaker 4 (01:50:04):
By the way, with Frank Gore, he was kind of
a forgotten guy in the NFL despite his longevity. Like
during his run, he was also a forgotten guy at
the University of Miami. He played he started out behind
Clinton Portis at the University of Miami then then he
got he had won maybe two years as the lead
as the lead running back, but then for the University

(01:50:26):
of Miami. But then that was kind of the beginning
of University of Miami going from being national champions or
considered be national champions every year to what they are now.
So he's just a really productive guy that did not
get as much shine really at any level.

Speaker 2 (01:50:45):
Uh, as long as we're talking about Frank Gore, I
want to bring up the fact that Frank Gore, he's
officially two and zero as a pro boxer, and he
boxed an exhibition bout against someone that you know, well,
Darren Williams.

Speaker 3 (01:51:01):
Oh yeah, I forgot about that, Darren Darren one.

Speaker 2 (01:51:06):
So but exhibition so doesn't show shout out to our guy,
Darren Williams, who's actually like, you don't want to fight
Darren Williams. He knows what he's doing. He's actually really tough,
good boxer.

Speaker 4 (01:51:18):
Uh, he was a great He was in the gym
with him before we've trained together.

Speaker 3 (01:51:22):
Yeah, he's he actually knows what he's doing.

Speaker 2 (01:51:24):
He's uh, before he had to focus only on basketball.
He was also a really good like Uh, he was
a really good wrestler. Unfortunately, high school wrestling and high
school basketball are during the same time of year, so
you can't do both. But he was like a state
champion level middle school wrestler before he had to focus
on basketball.

Speaker 4 (01:51:44):
So watch out for Darren Williams he shows to focus
on basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:51:48):
What a bad what a bad idea?

Speaker 5 (01:51:51):
That was? What?

Speaker 2 (01:51:53):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:51:54):
What a foolish errand that.

Speaker 4 (01:51:55):
Was he was on a Hall of Fame trajectory his
first five or four or five years in the league.

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):
If he had stayed healthy, then things would have worked out.
But as it stands, you know what, he did really
well for himself. Yes, and he won a couple of
gold medals and he's he's done. He lives a good life,
like he's really good at being retired, and his kids
seem like they're happy, which is the most important thing

(01:52:22):
to him. So very impressive. And you know, got a
got a little boxing win over a potential NFL Hall
of Famer that you can lean on, an undefeated career
boxer and undefeated professional boxer.

Speaker 3 (01:52:35):
All right, the AP Coaches Poll is out.

Speaker 2 (01:52:39):
Where is the University of Utah in the first preseason
rankings that have been released that we would call.

Speaker 3 (01:52:45):
Anything like official.

Speaker 2 (01:52:47):
This is a poll that people pay attention to, and
your utes are outside the top twenty five. The points
that they got from the other in the others receiving
votes category would effectively put them at thirtieth ranked number
thirty in the country grievance. So this is a really
interesting reflection of again, preseason expectations in the SEC and

(01:53:12):
in the Big Ten. You could close your eyes and
just recite in your right you're correct when you talk
about how widely differentiated the opinions are.

Speaker 3 (01:53:23):
Oh, by the way, the same is true for the ACC.

Speaker 2 (01:53:26):
Like everyone's just like, yeah, the ACC, it's Clemson, and
it's Miami, and it's everyone else, and people think SMU
is going to be good, although I still have a
hard time calling them an ACC team because they bought
their way in which why not. But the Big Twelve,
you look at one publication's preseason poll, one betting books, uh,

(01:53:51):
you know, likely champion or whatever, and you're probably gonna
get some level of expectation. It's not like the the
Big Twelve has no representation in this preseason poll. The
highest ranked Big Twelve team in according to the coaches
is number eleven. Arizona State, right behind Miami at ten

(01:54:12):
and right in front of Illinois at twelve.

Speaker 4 (01:54:15):
Eleven's a good spot to be is for a top
ranked team in a conference preseason, that's a.

Speaker 3 (01:54:22):
Pretty good spot.

Speaker 2 (01:54:24):
Kansas State is the next highest ranked team, number twenty,
Iowa State twenty one.

Speaker 3 (01:54:30):
Then it's Texas A and M.

Speaker 2 (01:54:32):
Also, they technically are tied at twenty one because they
receive the same number of points in the preseason polling system.

Speaker 3 (01:54:40):
So we'll just say Texas A and M is twenty two.

Speaker 2 (01:54:42):
BYU at twenty three, Texas Tech at twenty four, Boise
State at twenty five, and then the also receiving votes Oklahoma, Missouri, Louisville,
USC Utah, and Baylor. And again Baylor in some people's metrics,
is the favorite to in the conference. Here they're number
thirty one in the country and number six in the conference.

(01:55:06):
It's wild how all over the place this is now.
I actually think that Arizona State being eleven as the
highest ranked team in your conference.

Speaker 3 (01:55:17):
That sucks for the.

Speaker 2 (01:55:17):
Big twelve because listen to this, Texas number one, Ohio
State two, Penn State, three, Georgia, Notre Dame, Clemson, Oregon, Alabama, LSU, Miami.
So as one would expect, the SEC has multiple teams,
the Big Ten has multiple teams, and even the ACC's
highest ranked team is number six in the country. Your

(01:55:41):
highest ranked team being number eleven is a reflection that
you are again, just like it was in the Pac twelve,
and just like it was last year in the Big Twelve,
you are again going to have to overprove that your
conference is worth being part of the conversation. You're gonna
have to overprove that even if Arizona State being the
best team in your conference, like oh wow, these guys

(01:56:04):
rolls all.

Speaker 5 (01:56:04):
The way up.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
It's like you have to have Texas, Ohio State, Penn
State in Georgia lose twice before Arizona State can.

Speaker 3 (01:56:13):
Leap frogdam in any kind of a situation.

Speaker 2 (01:56:16):
Now, I know these are all just rankings discussions and
preseason rankings don't mean jack, but the perception against your
conference is a very real thing. That happened to Utah
in the Big twelve, excuse me, in the Pac twelve conference,
and is still happening to Utah in the Big twelve conference.
And there's no foreseeable way out of this that you

(01:56:40):
are gonna have to overdo it on being considered one
of the best teams in the country. You're you're really
gonna I mean, you have a harder time being taken
as seriously. You can be the fifth best team in
the SEC right now and everyone's just like still better
than the best team in the Big twelve.

Speaker 5 (01:56:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:57:00):
Yeah, when you.

Speaker 4 (01:57:00):
Put it that way, it's you know, I have to
I have to mend what I said before.

Speaker 3 (01:57:04):
It's really not that great at spot.

Speaker 4 (01:57:06):
I didn't anticipate there being both Clemson and Miami ahead
of them.

Speaker 3 (01:57:11):
So that's that's part of why.

Speaker 4 (01:57:14):
Uh, that's part of why I was like, eleven could
be a lot worse for the for the top ranked
team in a conference that that people don't give any
attention to nationally. But when you're not just when you
when it's not just one other, when it's not just
one ACC team ahead of you, but two, that's uh yeah,

(01:57:35):
that's probably that's an indication that nationally, the folks don't,
at least the coaches don't give you too much credit
for being the best team of the Big twelve.

Speaker 3 (01:57:48):
And I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:57:50):
Coaches probably didn't even vote in this thing. The ones
who did I have only watched film on the teams
in their own conference. So we could probably grab Smart's
preseason poll, right if Kirby actually voted on it, and
it's gonna be Georgia one, Texas to Alabama three, and
it's just gonna be And then he'll go.

Speaker 3 (01:58:10):
Through sixteen as SEC, and then he's.

Speaker 2 (01:58:12):
Gonna be like, uh, well, we can't put Vanderbilt in
there in good conscience. So one through fifteen is SEC.
Now let's look at Uh we'll do Ohio State, sixteen,
we'll do Michigan. You know, like they only care about
the conference that they're in, and and the SEC coaches,
going back to their media day and even the coaches
meetings before that, they there's been some agreement verbal or

(01:58:36):
otherwise where they're just like, hey, we're going to elevate
ourselves above everyone else conversationally at every opportunity. We're not
going to give anybody else any kind of credit at all.

Speaker 3 (01:58:49):
And that's what they've done so far. And it's.

Speaker 2 (01:58:53):
I mean, it's gonna be that way as the season
plays itself out.

Speaker 3 (01:58:57):
But the Big.

Speaker 2 (01:58:59):
Twelve, at least for the foreseeable future, is going to
be occupying this place. Between eleven and twenty five. And
for Utah to climb above that, for BYU to climb
above that, for Arizona State to climb above that, they're
going to have to overdo it. They're gonna have to
be much better. And there's, by the way, for Arizona

(01:59:22):
State already thought of as your best team, there's not
really an opportunity until October to climb much higher than
that because your your preseason is Northern Arizona an SEC game,

(01:59:48):
but it's against Mississippi State, who is like the bottom
bottom half. Texas State at home, shout out Wildcats of
San Marcos Earth they Bobcats, so I always forget. And
then at they've got one at Baylor, they're home against TCU.
Then they're on the road at Rice Cycles, and I'm

(02:00:10):
saying that that's an important game. That's a game that
I think Utah will probably be ranked at that point.
And if airs on a state can beat Utah in
that scenario, now they're able to jump up to like
number nine or something.

Speaker 5 (02:00:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:00:23):
What's tricky though, is like Baylor might be ranked by
the time they play TCU, might be ranked by the
time they play Utah. I would guess like you that
they probably are ranked if everything goes the way that
everyone hopes it will up to that point for Utah.
But Utah, if they're ranked, will probably be lower than ASU.

Speaker 3 (02:00:45):
So how much do.

Speaker 4 (02:00:47):
They really do they really go further up the standings
if everything in front of them stays the same.

Speaker 3 (02:00:55):
I could see the AP voters because.

Speaker 4 (02:00:57):
The Ape Pole at that point, going well, yeah, you
beat a good Utah team on the road, but they're
also we also thought they were worse than you going
into that game, so we're not going to give you
too much credit in the standings.

Speaker 2 (02:01:10):
It's why the UH and many coaches have expressed this,
and they are correct. It's why a preseason poll is
actually no good for anyone except us in the sports
talk radio industry, because it gives us fodder and it
allows us in the dol drums the dog days of
summer to have conversation points that hopefully people want to

(02:01:32):
engage with. But from a team standpoint, there's a reason
why the college football playoff rankings don't come out in
the preseason, and they don't come out after week one, two, three, four, five.
They they want to sample size for a good reason, right,

(02:01:53):
setting this level, setting this expectation. Even for the people
who kind of reject the premise offhand, it still subliminally
tells you that the Big twelve Conference, their best team
is not even top ten right now, and that's.

Speaker 3 (02:02:13):
Maybe true. I mean, we'll be honest, I've been honest.

Speaker 2 (02:02:17):
I think that this conference champion in the Big Twelve
this year is gonna be a three loss team. I
think best case scenario for the University of Utah, much
like in the Pac twelve championship years, you are probably
a three loss team who is the best in your conference,
who overcomes maybe some tiebreaker situations because how large these

(02:02:39):
conferences are, not everybody gets to play everybody, and then
you know, you win the games that matter, You win
the contests against the teams that are up there at
the top of the standings with you. That's how it
was done in the Pac twelve conference, and that's how
they're gonna have to do it.

Speaker 3 (02:02:53):
I think in this Big twelve conference.

Speaker 2 (02:02:55):
I think that the SEC, the conversation around a two
loss SEC champion or a two loss Big ten champion
is so drastically different than around a even two loss
but probably three loss Big Twelve champion, whether that's Utah
or it's Baylor, or it's TCU or it's Kansas State

(02:03:15):
or whatever. Just the way it plays out, Just the
way that this this, I mean, it's a conference where
we've talked about it, We've talked about it at Big
twelve media days. There are eight teams that I can
look at and say, yeah, I would be surprised if
they're at least in the conference championship game. Would they

(02:03:36):
be favored in that game?

Speaker 5 (02:03:37):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:03:38):
But would I be surprised if they found a way
in that game because the schedule works out. I mean,
that is crazy and ultimately not great for the league.
I look at you said, well, what if TCU's ranked
by the time, TCU.

Speaker 3 (02:03:52):
Could be the resume builder here?

Speaker 2 (02:03:54):
Okay, North Carolina, that's how they say in North Carolina
is now a respected team that is going to get
a lot of information conversation attention because of the Belichick situation. Right,
So if Sunny Dykes can go beat Bill in his
North Carolina collegiate debut, suddenly people are like, oh, hey, TCU,
what's up. I've seen them. They got Abilene Christian at home.

(02:04:18):
Doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (02:04:19):
SMU is a preseason ranked team and then the.

Speaker 4 (02:04:23):
Off team last year, so that's going to give him
some respectability.

Speaker 3 (02:04:26):
And then they got Arizona State.

Speaker 2 (02:04:27):
Now, the best case scenario for TCU is you're three
to ohero before you play Arizona State. You're now a
probably number nineteen in the country, kind of a situation
number twenty in the country, and Arizona State, assuming that
they don't stub their toe in a game that they
absolutely should win in their first three, that sets up
a nice little Big twelve slug it out two ranked

(02:04:50):
teams in the Big twelve in game four. So I
like the point you made that maybe Arizona State does
have some meat on the bone with that schedule once
you get down week four to five, and it's a
tough stretch in there for the sun Devils. And by
the way, you can do it the same thing with
Baylor's schedule. You can do the same thing with that
we just did with TCU schedule. Uh, Baylor's got Auburn

(02:05:12):
and then SMU, we're gonna find out right quick whether
or not Baylor gets to keep this. Uh, this sort
of I don't want to call it momentum, but it's goodwill.

Speaker 3 (02:05:25):
Yeah, that's the word that came to mind for me preseason. Goodwill.

Speaker 2 (02:05:31):
There are people that are just like, hey, Dave Randon,
we were wrong the conversations we were having about him
last year at this time, we were wrong about that.

Speaker 3 (02:05:40):
He's a good coach. This is a good team.

Speaker 2 (02:05:43):
They've got a good quarterback, the Sawyer Robertson kid is
gonna be good. If they beat Auburn and then they
go on the road and beat SMU, and then they
come back home against Samford, they're gonna be fine. Then
it's a bye week, and then it's Arizona State. Like
all right, now, Baylor, maybe, But if you lose the
everyone's gonna hate you because you lost not only to

(02:06:03):
an SEC team, you lost to a not spectacular SEC team.
If you lose to SMU, you probably get away with
that because they're gonna be considered a really, you know,
high quality.

Speaker 4 (02:06:14):
Team, but you might get you I could also see
lots of people saying, yeah, we think they're a high
quality team, but they're also like the third best team
in the ACCA. Then you just lost to them, like
I could see them getting It's skewing negative for those
reasons and for Utah, like you can you can make
a similar you can make a similar case. Do the

(02:06:36):
same thing with Utah schedule. They start the Big Twelve
play against Texas Tech, right which is gonna be which
is a tough way to tough way to start based
on the preseason hype. Now Texas Tech's got to prove it.
But right now, that feels like it's gonna be a
tough game. And then and then in October you have
a SU and BYU and back to back weeks a couple.

Speaker 3 (02:06:59):
Of weeks so that.

Speaker 4 (02:07:02):
All three of those teams that we just talked, all
four of those teams we just talked about, that could
that people could see winning the Big Twelve conference this year.
They got some They've got three or four weeks in
a row end of September into October. That's that's gonna
really that could make or break their championship hopes.

Speaker 2 (02:07:22):
And I using the Big Twelve placement in the preseason
coaches poll here and then you go through, all right, well,
where's the where's the room for upward mobility?

Speaker 3 (02:07:34):
Knowing full well.

Speaker 2 (02:07:35):
By the way that those SEC teams that are stacked
above you, there's there's there's what twelve of them in
the conference that are ranked higher than Utah is right now,
and the Big ten teams they're gonna have to play
each other at some point, all right, So maybe you
have to build in a couple of losses there, which

(02:07:55):
is why the margin for air for Arizona State, your
highest rank Big twelve team, for Kansas State your second
highest rank Big twelve team, and everyone else all the
way down to Utah and beyond, the margin for error
just is not there because any loss, excuse me, any
loss that one of these SEC teams have, or even

(02:08:16):
that SMU has, or that Miami or Clemson have, if
it's to the right team in their own conference, it's
considered a quality loss. And I cannot stand the quality
loss argument. Hate it, hate it. Quality wins matter, quality
losses should not. A loss is a loss is a loss.
They should all be punished equally, unless we're talking about

(02:08:36):
a loss to like an FCS team or something like that.

Speaker 3 (02:08:40):
But the resume builders.

Speaker 2 (02:08:44):
Have to be there for the Big twelve conference, and
for example, Utah doesn't have one on their preseason schedule.
There's not a way for Utah to build its resume
from a national standpoint. On the preseason schedule. UCLA's not
thought of highly enough. Wyoming is dangerous without being thought of,
So it's the opposite for Utah.

Speaker 4 (02:09:07):
Yeah, the only chances is you beat UCLA and then
UCLA has a surprisingly good year. That's the only chance
for the for the non conference resume to be built.

Speaker 2 (02:09:20):
I will say this though, and this will be my
last point on the preseason coaches poll that again is
not worth anything. It's not even worth the paper it's
printed on because they no longer print these things on paper.

Speaker 4 (02:09:32):
When the AP poll is the is the preseason poll
that gets any shine anyway, So this is the This
is the poll that really doesn't matter to people very much.

Speaker 2 (02:09:40):
They and they probably will have a lot of similarities
the AP and the coaches poll. But if you're a
Utah fan who's been paying attention to the Kyle Whittingham
era of Utah football, this is actually the perfect spot
to be BYU and Kolonie Sataki are in a great

(02:10:02):
spot as well. But for Utah, my favorite seasons of
Utah football, your favorite seasons of Utah football has had
Utah ranked twenty one or lower in the preseason and
there's absolutely no mobility upward from there until they're four
and oh, and then all of a sudden, it's like, oh,
and coming in now at number twenty is four and

(02:10:24):
oh Utah. Coming in now at number twenty two is
four and oh utah. And that's when you start to
build the steam. This is every great season of Utah
football history save that rough PAC twelve championship year started
rough into great. All the other great Utah football seasons
have been like, no one's talking about you, No one's

(02:10:45):
talking about you, No one's talking about you.

Speaker 3 (02:10:47):
Wait a second, what are these utsa up?

Speaker 5 (02:10:49):
Two? Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:10:50):
Now they're six and oh oh hello, Okay, now they're
seven and one. Hey, still a really good team. What
do we have here with this Utah team? So I
know that what happened in past years doesn't technically matter
to what happened this year, but I will never feel
that way because I'm a superstitious person. Oh man, someone

(02:11:11):
just got hitting the inside of the ooh bicep bicep
hit by pitch in the Little League World Series.

Speaker 3 (02:11:18):
Ouch storming the mountain though he did not, Oh smart.

Speaker 2 (02:11:24):
Get the camera, get the camera off him, don't show
the kid crying on TV.

Speaker 3 (02:11:29):
Man, not cool that it looks like Texas East player. Maybe.

Speaker 2 (02:11:38):
Oh here comes big Big Burley, Oklahoma catcher to tell
him sorry for I didn't do it.

Speaker 3 (02:11:43):
It was the picture. I swear I didn't put the
beans signed down. I swear kids, that is the great
hand Beano just right there.

Speaker 2 (02:11:51):
Oh man, all right, I take back everything bad I
said about the Little League World Series.

Speaker 3 (02:11:57):
Gotta take a quick one here.

Speaker 2 (02:11:58):
Sean O'Connell Show continues next on ESPN seven hundred ninety
two NFM.

Speaker 1 (02:12:09):
Nothing last Foe, Sorry Cady perfect Now it's by Sean
O'Connell's show. You were home of the best inside of
your utes. Let's get back to OC from the Murdoch
Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two to

(02:12:29):
one a f M.

Speaker 2 (02:12:35):
Sean O'Connell Show wrapping up here. I've got two tickets
to Simple Plan August sixteenth at America First Field, where
RSL plays their home games. If you could answer this
trivia question eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred.
We were talking about the NFL Hall of Fame class.
We were talking about who's eligible, we were talking about
how you get yourself in, and we we landed on well, look,

(02:12:58):
if John Lynch is in and our guy Eric Weddle
needs to be in, how many career NFL interceptions did
Eric Weddle have?

Speaker 3 (02:13:06):
Eight seven, seven three five three zero seven hundred.

Speaker 2 (02:13:09):
I be labored that point aggressively when we were having
that conversation about who gets in and who doesn't to
the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Simple plan tickets. If
you have the answer to that, Spence check Its is
back in the building and it's good to see you, sir.

Speaker 3 (02:13:28):
Hello, Sean's great to be back.

Speaker 6 (02:13:29):
Nice job today running Sam Aaron So caught a decent
bit of the show.

Speaker 3 (02:13:33):
What did I miss?

Speaker 6 (02:13:34):
Outside of our new Big Willie sign which makes the
studio pop a little bit.

Speaker 2 (02:13:37):
Today and every day the show is brought to you
by Big Willies. It's seventeen seventeen, South Maine. We talked
some NFL Hall of Fame stuff. We did another over
under playing with some numbers for were you tell Football?

Speaker 3 (02:13:51):
Did you hear that one? Did you hear that.

Speaker 6 (02:13:52):
Part of say I had to get out of the
car to go in to Harmon's as you were broaching
that topic.

Speaker 3 (02:13:56):
It's a little offensive thing.

Speaker 2 (02:13:57):
You don't just pop the AirPods in and immediately go
to the ESPN seven hundred app But whatever left.

Speaker 6 (02:14:02):
The air pods in Dallas, and that's a true story. Well,
getting into the airport, left left my AirPods and the
uber I shared with you.

Speaker 3 (02:14:08):
I didn't realize it until I got on the plane.
Oh yeah, I hope I didn't contribute to that.

Speaker 2 (02:14:13):
You do not six hundred and ninety two and a
half for the Utah's leading receiver yardage, not touchdowns. That'd
be great, though, be a record six ninety two point five.

Speaker 3 (02:14:25):
Which how did I come to that number?

Speaker 2 (02:14:27):
That is the ten year average of the top receiver
at the University.

Speaker 3 (02:14:32):
Of Utah the last decade.

Speaker 6 (02:14:35):
I hate to say this, I'm smashing the under Okay,
A couple of reasons.

Speaker 3 (02:14:39):
Who who's the guy?

Speaker 2 (02:14:40):
Correct?

Speaker 6 (02:14:41):
Reason one is who's the guy? Reason two is, if
we're honest, Devin through the air last year was not
necessarily dynamite. You know, Coach wit I has talked about
it a lot. I was listening to a lot of
camp sound today getting ready for the show today Dual
Threat Morgan Scalley talking about the advantages of his def
to be able to practice against a quarterback with a

(02:15:03):
intentionally designed QB run game. So I'm not saying that
I don't believe Devin can you get done with his arm?
But you know, P five situation, G five situation. Last year,
his numbers in the throw game, as Kyle would say,
weren't great, and I just don't know who these wide
receivers are.

Speaker 3 (02:15:18):
So I'm smashing the under and I'll hope for the over.

Speaker 2 (02:15:22):
Just under twenty eight hundred passing yards for Divin Dan
Pierre last year, seven point one yards per completion, as
we have talked about twelve and twelve, all the touchdowns
and interceptions.

Speaker 6 (02:15:33):
Not atrocious, but not great, and you hope with that
oat line. And again, I just go back to who
the wide receivers are. It continues to be the one
positional group where you ask, it's like, yeah, we got
a bunch of new guys. Devin was talking about this
himself on some of the practice sound that I was
listening to today and then catching up last night. He's like, yeah,
there are a bunch of it's a new group, trying

(02:15:53):
to get familiar with them. So just because of those dynamics,
I'm inclined to smash the under.

Speaker 3 (02:15:59):
All right, I like that. What's coming up on the drive.

Speaker 6 (02:16:02):
You had a question for me though that if you don't,
If you don't ask me this question, it's good. See
the way my mind works, Sean, It's it's a complicated, scary,
scary place. You know how There's the scene in the
office where Michael Scott and Pam are talking about something
and she realizes he has to sing a lyric or
else he's gonna have a headache all day.

Speaker 3 (02:16:21):
That's me.

Speaker 6 (02:16:22):
So if you don't ask the question, for the next
four hours of radio, I'm gonna be like, Hey, what
was Sean gonna ask me?

Speaker 3 (02:16:26):
That's gonna stick in the back of my head. I
think I'd know the answer to the question.

Speaker 6 (02:16:31):
I'm a little nervous based off of val you started
it right before we launched into segment.

Speaker 2 (02:16:35):
Well, how the thought process is going in my mind?
I just got back from Atlantic City, very nice. A
lot of people from the New York City area do
take trips down the shore and go to Atlantic City.
And I was about to ask you did the Spence check.
It's family ever go and spend any time in ac
very much?

Speaker 3 (02:16:54):
Now, of course not.

Speaker 6 (02:16:55):
We were going north, Okay, if anywhere we're going we're
talking and talk it, you know, but we're going north.
Atlantic City was certainly my parents would. I don't know
what they would do in Atlantic City.

Speaker 3 (02:17:06):
That place is an absolute dump.

Speaker 5 (02:17:09):
It is.

Speaker 6 (02:17:09):
I think I could have a good time, but it
would be if you could, well, just get me on
a cheap blackjack table and I'll throw some cards for
a few hours. But Dave and dev Check it's they're
not They're not throwing cards, they're not having cocktails.

Speaker 3 (02:17:21):
Atlantic City would not be there scene. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (02:17:24):
I've spent a lot of time there. We've done a
bunch of shows there in the PFL. During COVID we
did the COVID bubble there and it was so I've
spent way too much time there. And I thought like, oh,
twenty twenty, that's what that was. Everyone's low point, right,
It was just it was economically stressful. Its difficult for
everyone in the country. No way could be worse than
twenty twenty. It's worse.

Speaker 6 (02:17:45):
Yeah, it's good now, Think Cape Cod, think Nantucket, think Hampton's,
think North.

Speaker 3 (02:17:52):
Give respect to my friends in Jersey.

Speaker 6 (02:17:53):
The check Its family was not frequently taking road trips
to Atlantic City.

Speaker 2 (02:17:57):
I can promise you every once in a while there's
like a big concert or something at Boardwalk Hall. I
thought maybe you'd, you know, you'd slum it down there
for a minute.

Speaker 3 (02:18:05):
But we don't have to say slumt. I was waiting
for him to land on something. Yeah, well, slummitt is
very much accurate. It's a dump. Well did did you
ever watch Jersey Shore on MTV?

Speaker 2 (02:18:15):
I saw some Jersey Shore? Yeah, Me and Jan Jorgenson
when we lived together with we'd sit on the we'd
sit on the love sack in the living room and
watch the watch some Jersey Shore.

Speaker 6 (02:18:29):
Because I'll tell you this, I had friends that moved
to our hometown from Jersey and so on a couple
of different occasions, I would frequent The Jersey Shore with them.
And the reason I loved that show so much is
it perfectly captured who those people are, all of them.
Like you know, the six or seven characters in the house.
You expand that out to a couple of million people.

(02:18:49):
That is the Jersey Shore, that is Atlantic City, and
it's phenomenally entertaining, but not necessarily a group or a
place I'd like to spend a lot of time with.

Speaker 3 (02:18:57):
So my my my sister in love.

Speaker 2 (02:18:59):
My brother's is from Philadelphia and her family had a
shorehouse in a place called Ocean City, New Jersey, which
is nice, lovely. It's very nice. It's quiet, it's antique shops.
It's a dry county, like you can't sell alcohol there. Interesting,
it's a very it's just like it's beautiful. It's very picturesque.
And so my first experiences with the Jersey Shore, like

(02:19:22):
actually visiting the Jersey Shore after having watched the TV
show was that Jersey Shore, and I was like they
got it wrong.

Speaker 3 (02:19:28):
Much different Jersey Shore.

Speaker 2 (02:19:30):
These people are just like polite and rich. And then
then I spent a bunch of time in Atlantic City.
Oh no, there's the situation. There's poly D with the blowout.
Yeah yeah, And the best part about it is that
this will be my last thing at age sixty. They're
still like that for sure. In Atlantic Atlantic City is
just populated with take poly D and the situation and

(02:19:54):
Vinnie and age them three decades and that's who's on
the boardwalk in Atlantic City.

Speaker 6 (02:20:00):
I mean it's great people watching. Uh, but yeah, you
gotta you gotta be careful because you might find yourself
in a sideway situation.

Speaker 3 (02:20:08):
Oh It's always great to see you. Good to see
if Sean gonna be back, James, good to see you.

Speaker 2 (02:20:12):
Stay tuned for the drive. Thanks for listening to The
Sean O'Connell Show, brought to you every day by Big
Willie's at seventeen seventeen South Maine, Utah. Is number one
sports bar. Go check him out. Let's do it again
tomorrow on ESPN seven hundred and ninety TWOEFM