2025-06-10 - BBI - Big Blue Insider with Dick Gabriel

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Big blon Sider Dicabrielle with you on
a Tuesday edition of our program. Coming up tonight, we'll
talk to John Clay, who is retiring from The Herald
Leader after nearly five decades. He's in his fifth decade
as a writer for that newspaper, first as a sports
writer than sports columnist. So we'll talk to John as
well as the voice of the Wildcats, Tom Leach and

(00:22):
Keith Farmer from LAX eighteen and BBN tonight, and of
course we'll talk to all three of them about a
number of things, but chief among those topics Vince Merrow's announcement,
or really the story breaking on Twitter late yesterday afternoon.
Pete Thamil of The Athletic at it that Vince is
finalizing a deal with the University of Louisville and he
was going to go on a Louisville radio station today

(00:45):
to talk about it, but had to cancel because U
OFL has to make it official and at that point
he'll have a news conference, and I guarantee hope I
can go, but there are going to be media people
from both cities who cover that, or if they don't,
they'll get the video and audio shipped over from their
sister stations in Louisville. Dear Vince Marrow talk about why

(01:07):
he's leaving his childhood buddy, Mark Stoops, who built this
program at Kentucky and Marrow his fingerprints are all over it,
and now leaving for the arch rival, both in ballgames
on the field once a year, but in recruiting every day.
And I hasten to say that, yeah, to Kentucky fans

(01:29):
and Louisville fans. Game day is probably the most important,
of course, but recruiting is even more vital. You got
to win the recruiting battles if you want to win
those games, not just against your arts rival, but every
Saturday during the season obviously. And when Brian Brohm, I'm sorry,

(01:51):
when Jeff Brom, Brian works for his brother, got the
job at Louisville, you could tell Mark Stoops, through a
big smile, was kind of thinking, oh, because I remember
his predecessor, Brom's predecessor was struggling, and UK had its
way with Louisville back then, well not now, and you

(02:13):
kind of saw that coming. Brom was successful at Purdue,
not easy and has of course you all know about
the bron pedigree in the city of Louisville, and he
got it done last year and they beat Louisville, or
they beat Kentucky last year. You know, the year before
they won ten games but lost to Kentucky. Wildcats played
a great game that day, not so much this past season.

(02:35):
So we'll talk to John Keith and Tom about Vince
Merrill and some of the other things coming up. Basketball
course will take an Oway. Brandon Garrison talked to us
today and we'll have a chance to share some of
those comments with Oway today. Garrison will probably hear from tomorrow.
And we're told we're going to be able to chat

(02:55):
with some of the players, especially the new players, all
year long or all summer long, I should say. So
that's great in this time of year when generally things
are kind of slow unless your team's in the College
World Series. Now, Kentucky was one went away from a
super Regional. It was disappointing, of course, the Wildcats blew
those games against West Virginia even so, I didn't see

(03:20):
Kentucky getting out of the Lashoe Regional. Would have been
nice to see, though. That would have been great experience
for a guy like Tyler Bell, freshman who has been
named a Freshman All American, as you might expect, and
he is the future, the immediate future right now. Baseball
writers voted him. But as Aaron Gershan pointed out from

(03:40):
the cast, Boss, we were talking baseball last week, what's
to stop other teams from raiding the Kentucky roster. That's
the way business is being done right now. And you know,
if they have money to spend, they will come after.
I gotta think first and foremost Tyler Bell, and they'll
come after Ben Cleaver, who has been voted as second

(04:02):
team All Regional Player left handed pitcher by the American
Baseball Coaches Association six and three on the year, ninety
two strikeouts in eighty three innings opposing hitters, a one
eighty five average against Ben Cleaver. So maybe he pitches
in Omaha next year. Maybe Tyler Bell helps his team

(04:25):
get there. It's going to be a fascinating World Series.
And I didn't realize this until Murray State finished up
knocking off Duke and the word got out. Although this
wouldn't have mattered, but for the first time since nineteen
fifty seven, none of the eight teams in the Men's

(04:46):
College World Series were there last year. None Arkansas eliminated Tennessee,
the defending champion, Kentucky eliminated by West Virginia. I mean,
there were four SEC teams last year, there were four
ACC teams. None of them got back to Omaha this year,

(05:09):
which is actually pretty cool when you think about it.
You know, new faces, new blood, kind of like that.
I'm kind of gonna root for I want to root
for Murray State, of course, but I'm gonna root after
that for Arkansas because they van are a pretty good dude,
and they blew on. They dropped a pop up that

(05:33):
would have given him the World Series championship a few
years ago. I do root for Murray State, obviously a
Kentucky team, only the fourth fourth seed ever to make
Omaha after winning the Missouri Valley Conference championship, then winning
the Oxford Regional not easy against Ole miss and then
winning at Durham. By the way, Duke's coach is now

(05:55):
the new head coach at Virginia, so congrats to him.
There's a guy, a sports podcaster named Garrett Armbrust who
deals with college sports based in Knoxville. He tweeted this.
He said, Murray State, their own players tarped the field
at home games. Enrollment ninety nine hundred and forty one.

(06:18):
My nephew went to schooler by the way, four seed
in the four seed in the regional and this was
only the fourth NCAA tournament appearance for Murray State and
now our first trip to Omaha. Very cool. Another Kentucky
football note and this was I first saw this reported
by Aaron Gershaan of the Cat's Balls. Wilson Barry is

(06:41):
coming back for his senior year. He was not with
the team in the spring, but he has been re
added to the roster. That's been confirmed by UK to
the Cats Balls. He of course is Australian. He has
been here since twenty twenty one after a career with
Australian rules football. Only pointed four four times as the
freshman and then started the final four games of twenty

(07:05):
twenty two after remember Colin Goodfellow got hurt in that
Missouri game and Barry took over. Then he was a
full time starter in twenty three, started all thirteen games,
averaged thirty nine points seven yards per kick, ninth in
the league, burying thirteen punts inside the twenty and had

(07:25):
nine fifty plus yarders. Started the first five games last
year after beating Aiden Larros in fall camp, but then
he fell behind Larros on the depth chart. Remained the holder,
but was not there in the spring. But we'll be back,
according to Aaron, in the fall to compete with other

(07:48):
punters this year in the NFL. The Bengals and this
is not a surprise, after confirmed that Trey Hendrickson is
not attending mandatory minutes. He and the team are in
an impasse about his contract going into the final Gear
wants to raise from the sixteen million he is scheduled
to make this season. He will lose some money for

(08:11):
skipping mini camp. The Bengals will find him a total
of one hundred and five thousand dollars, but he's hoping
that it helps the team give him the kind of
long term deal he's looking for. Thirty years old, one
of the best in the business, Pro Bowl all four years,
as seventeen and a half sacks each of the last

(08:32):
two seasons. They've told out all this money for receivers
and they're trying to protect Joe Burrow better. How do
you let this guy get away? I don't know anything
about their salary structures and all. I just know, if
you've got the best sack man in the league right now,
you do what you can to hang on to him.
But again, if he would rather play elsewhere, let me

(08:54):
tell you a little bit about Green Bay, Wisconsin, I'll
be happy to tell you. Coming up next, we will
revisit one of the greatest performances in sports history, and
for its particular sport, I think the greatest ever on
six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big bullon Cider.
Coming up in just a few minutes, John Clay at
the Harold Leader. We'll talk about his impending retirement. Also

(09:17):
Vince Merrill moving on, we'll get John's thoughts about that,
and we'll talk about that with Tom Leachs, the voice
of the Wildcats and our number two, and Keith Farmer
from BBN. Tonight quite the headline making story. I will
say that yesterday came and went, and I was so
busy doing other things that I missed the fact that
it was the anniversary of Secretariats winning the Belmont. And

(09:40):
it's not, you know, a ten, fifteen, twenty fifty year,
but it was. It's always special to me. It's one
of the greatest performances in all of sport. From my money,
it's the single greatest performance in thoroughbred racing history because
for one thing, Secretariat wins the Triple Crown a mile

(10:01):
and a half distance and breaks the American dirt track
record by more than two seconds. I mean, a fifth
of a second is impressive. Anything beyond that is unbelievable,
and I don't know that that record's ever going to
be broken. And if you're a fan at all, even
a casual fan, you know Secretary had won the Triple Crown,

(10:25):
breaking the track record each time, set the record for
the Derby one f nine and two fifths. Only a
couple other horses have come even close to that, and
then set the record at Preakedness at Pimlico, although they
screwed up the clock and it was unofficial for many,
many years, and they finally did what so many of

(10:46):
us were screaming to do, and that's go back, use
the video and digitally figure out what the time of
the race was. And they did, and now the race
time is official. Secretariat owns the Freakness record and of
course the Bellmont record when he wins by twenty five lengths,
and again, even if you're a casual fan, you know

(11:08):
what that video looks like. You know what the photo
looks like. It's one of the greatest photos ever because
it's Ron Turcott nearing the finish line, looking back under
one of his arms. That's the way riders would would
peek back and see where the other guys were. And
I wonder if if he can see the other horses

(11:28):
because they were so far behind. And I've talked about
this on the show proudly. I will do it again
at some point. But when Kentucky in twenty fourteen, the
fourteen to fifteen season, the team that nearly went undefeated
in college basketball, do you want remember the UCLA game
when I think Kentucky was up like forty one to

(11:49):
seven or nine or something at the half, just completely
obliterated UCLA up in Chicago. And during the first half
it was such a route that we were running out
of things to tweet. And I was sitting next to
Brian Milin from wdkyt and he and I can get
silly at times, and we were having a big time
just talking about how bad this game was for UCLA

(12:13):
and how good Kentucky looks so at halftime, I pulled
up a photo, a copy of that photo, and I tweeted,
now UCLA knows what the rest of the field felt
like in the nineteen seventy three Belmont and said something
about secretariat. And I found out later on that ESPN

(12:35):
used that tweet in its game story coverage of the
Kentucky win over UCLA and the six o'clock edition of
Sports Center. I never got to see it. If those
shows were archived, they couldn't find it, but more than
one person told me I was very proud about that.
But again, if you're a racing fan, you can quote

(12:56):
that particular call was by Chick Anderson. CBS owned the
rights to the Belmont TV and radio. He was their guy.
And I've talked before about sports catchers and what we
want to do on the air. I can't say that
sports catchers never root for the teams they cover. Yes,
many of them are big time homers. They say we,

(13:19):
they say they. I do not. I came up under
Kable Lefford, he did not. But you just try to
give an honest account. But what you want going in
is you want something cool, you want something engaging, you
want a good game. And win or lose. You want
a good game, something that either is so incredible or

(13:43):
goes down to the final seconds or both. Well for
Chick Anderson, you know, this was not a neck and
neck finish. And there have been many of those, and
a lot of racing announcers have done a great job
of those calls. But this was an absolutely route. This
was the biggest route when you talk about important the

(14:04):
race was in the history of thirdbred racing. And nobody
saw it coming because Sham had run well against Secretariat
and the Derby and the Preakness, and on this day,
Sham was hanging with Secretariat through the first half mile.
Really through the first three quarters there's only a five
horse field, but at three quarters of a mile, that's

(14:26):
when Secretariat hit the gas and started to pull away.
And I don't know how where most race horses are.
I've got to think because the best horses I think
are intelligent. Most race horses are not. They're highly strung,
they're so purely bred. A lot of them are just idiots.

(14:47):
But Secretariat was really intelligent, and a lot of these
great horses I believe are, and I believe Sham was.
Sham was a good race horse. But I firmly believe
that when Sham saw Secretariats start to make his move,
He's thought, to hell with this and just quit running.

(15:09):
I don't believe. Maybe down the stretch the rider put
him away. But from so I've read somewhere Secretary Hat
broke Sham's heart. That may be true. But Sham and
these horses know each other. They really do the smart
ones do. And I firmly believe that Sham's like, Nope,
I'm not doing it today. I'm done. It's hot, I'm
up here in New York in June. I'm simplifying. But

(15:32):
he shut it down. That's why he was at the
back of the pack when Secretariat hit the finish line.
But this is what it sounded like. Go to see
CBS Radio Sports and CBSTV Chick Anderson's famous call of
the stretch run for Secretariots Belmont back in nineteen seventy three.
He's going into the turn, Secretariat holding onto a large lead.

(15:54):
Sham a second and then it's a long way back
to my gullon.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
And twice a month they're on the turn that Secretariat
is blazing alone the first.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Three quarters of a mile at one O nine and
four pens. Secretariat is lightening now, he is booming like
a tremendous machine. Secretariat by cloth, Secretariat by fourteen lengths.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
On the turn.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Sham is dropping back. It looks like they'll catch him
today as my ballot and twice the Prince are both coming.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
Up to him now.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
But Secretariat is all alone.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
He's out there almost the sixteenth of a mile away
from the rest.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Of the houses. Secretariat is in a precision that's in
compositive account.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
He's into the steps. Secretariat leads his feel by eighteen
lengths and now twice a Princes.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Take him second.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
The black gallop has moved.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Down the third.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
They're in the steps.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Secretariat has opened the twenty keen length leaves.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
He is trying to be the triple crown winner.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Here turn Secretariat from the wire and ibelievable, an amazing performance.
He hits the face twenty five lengths from black.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
It's going to be quite.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Third amazing. I wish i'd been there. I've been to
the Belmont three or four times. I was not at
that when I was a high school or just graduated
high school, frankly, and I would love to be sitting
on one of those tickets, because so many people have
win tickets from that Belmont that they never cashed. I mean,
clearly they're priceless. If you cash it, you win ten cents.

(17:26):
The winter the winning ticket was two dollars and ten cents.
I mean, that's how big a favorite Secretariat was. But
I just get so excited whenever I see that, whenever
I hear that. And it happened in nineteen seventy three,
yesterday June ninth, seventy three. And this year's Belmont was

(17:48):
a great race. It really was. I don't know that
any race will ever match secretariats, and I'm happy to
say I got to go see Secretariat after he retired
more than a year later. Tried to reach out and
pet him. He was in a stall, like an idiot
that I am. I mean, a horse right off the racetrack,

(18:08):
very fractious, and he almost bit me. I kind of
wish I'd let him. I'm sure it would have hurt,
might have lost a finger, but what a hell of
a story I would have had. All right Up next,
John Clay at the Hair Leader on six thirty wlap,
Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider. Joining now celebrity hoighline,
he's a celebrity for a little while longer. John Clay
the Hair Leader, a long time sports writer columnist, announcing

(18:30):
his retirement. John, Congratulations. I remember when Rob Bromley stepped out.
I remember when I left KYT, people would tell you you'll
know when it's time. Was that the case with you?

Speaker 5 (18:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (18:42):
I mean I went into this, uh at this season,
this past football and basketball season, thinking this might be it.
And then by the end of the end of the year,
at you know, the end of the season, I'd made
up my mind that, yeah, that I that it was
time for me to time for me to go. You know,
forty four years at the paper, for twenty five years
of sports columnists. Enjoyed every minute of it, ups and

(19:06):
downs and whatever. But you know, feel very lucky to
have the job that I had. But you know, I
feel like it's time let somebody else have a crack
at it.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Was there one element in particular, one one factor that
pushed you in that direction, No.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Not necessarily. I have three grandchildren now, so that probably
played a role in it as well. And you know,
I'm knock good, I'm in pretty good health, and I'm
sixty six years old, and I feel like you know
better to you know better to you know, to do
what my wife and I want to do, better to

(19:45):
get out now and you know, and I feel very
lucky to have survived all the changes that have happened
over the years, and in the media business and in
the newspaper business in particular. So I just felt like
it was a good time for me to call it
col It's I may keep writing, I may not. I
don't know. I'm gonna kind of see what happens once

(20:05):
how I feel once football were uh rolls around, But
it won't be a job if I do it is,
if I keep writing, it will be more of a
hobby instead of a job.

Speaker 5 (20:13):
You know.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
And it's interesting because you have a job that has
required you, excuse me, to travel so much. People when
they retire, I want to travel now. I got to
think just the thought John, of packing and going to
an airport makes you a little queasy. But when you
can do it on your own terms.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right right, right, Yeah, it's different. You know, maybe go
go to places that they didn't get to travel to.
My wife and I, you know, during the during and
you know, for the most part, I enjoyed the travel.
But obviously the older you get, the more you know
taxing it is. I don't recover like I used to.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
I used to.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
You know, you go on a trip, uh, you know,
a road trip, cover a game. A lot of times
when my kids were a little I tried to take
the first flight out the next day, how much asleep
I get to, you know, come back and see my
kids and help my wife. But uh, you know, you
feel okay the next day, but it might take now
a couple of days before I feel not, you know,
I get over that travel lag or whatever. So but no,

(21:11):
I mean, like I said, I enjoyed. I enjoyed all
of it. I feel very lucky to have gotten a
job at the hair Leader right out of school and
to be there all that time, and to write about
the things that what I said in John Hale's story.
To be able to write about, you know, the teams
that I follow growing up, and do it in my
hometown or close to my home area, you know, it
has really been a blessing.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Like a ballplayer who played for just one team, you know,
y Mantle, and you know, not very many. We talked
in the past about how you transition from beat writer. Well,
generally you were an all around writer, you've got the
UK Beat. Now you're a columnist and that job is different.
And sadly, so many people who still read the papers

(21:55):
didn't really understand what a columnist job was. He's so
by as you know, he's supposed to be objective, but no,
not a columnist. But how do you approach that job, John?
And what was? What did you believe your mission to
be as a columnist?

Speaker 4 (22:10):
Well, I think my mission and commist is to let
the readers, you know, know, what how I thought about things,
Not always an opinion, but maybe a point of view
about something. I mean, that's what a colmist, uh is
allowed to do. Like you said, a beat writers supposed
to be more objective and more here are the facts
where the commists may present his opinion on the facts.

(22:32):
And the one thing I wanted, you know, I wanted
to do is that this is how I feel and
you I may you may agree with me, you may
disagree with me, but at least I hope that i'm
you know, understand my point of view, that I'm being fair.
I was wrong about a lot of things, a lot
of things, Uh, I was I say this all the time.
I was wrong about Rich Brooks. I thought he was

(22:53):
a terrible hire. When Mitch Barnard hired, I thought he'd
been out of football too long. I thought he'd been
out of college football too long. He wasn't from the South,
he had no recruiting ties in the South, and he
proved me wrong.

Speaker 5 (23:03):
I thought he was.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
He turned out to be a great hire and building
the foundation of the football program.

Speaker 5 (23:10):
You know that that's one.

Speaker 4 (23:11):
There's you know, Mitch and I did not get along
at all when he first came here. I was very
critical of some of the early moves in Mitch. May
we got to know each other and I got to
like and respect Mitch, especially the job he's done here.
So you know, uh, you know, those types of things.
But hopefully people thought that I was fair and even

(23:31):
if they disagreed with me, you know, they could see
the point of view of where I was coming from.
So that's that to me, that's kind of the main
job of the columnists when I read a lot of
comps home, and I know what they think about something,
and that's kind of what it's kind of what I
tried to do here.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Billy Reid used to talk about columnists, and of course
he wrote a general entertainment column and then he wrote
sports columns off and on, and he said one of
the things he said was he believed that a columnist
isn't good to necessarily be great every day or every
day that he or she is required to write, whether
it's three, four or five days a week or more.

(24:08):
But they need to be there. They need to show
up with their best effort, which is the biggest challenge
of a sports columnist. Did you agree with that?

Speaker 5 (24:17):
Oh? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
I always thought the one thing the Billy's best attribute,
one of his one of his strengths, maybe his strength,
was he had his finger on the pulse of what
the fans were talking about. You may not agree with Billy.
You may go you may have been infuriated by what
Billy wrote about. I know what Billy and Joby went
round and round towards the end. Yeah, you know, you

(24:39):
may not agree with Billy, but Billy knew what the
fans were talking about, and he could respond to that.
And I always thought that was a strength of Billy.
I always thought for year from louisvill I always thought
I was very fortunate from I had an uncle who
lived in Paris, who took a great uncle who took
a He took the Courier Journal. He was a big
horse racing.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
He took the.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
Courage Ural on Sundays and we used to go I
used to go up to his house on Sundays and
read the Courier. Read, Yeah, read Dave Kendred, Yes, Dick Finland, Yes,
Mike Barry, Rube, Mike Barry, Earl Ruby, you know, Earl Cox,
Billy Reid, all those people, and that those people had a,
you know, tremendous influence on me, especially people like Dave Kendred,

(25:22):
you know, and Billy you know, of what they wrote
about and how they went about it. And of course
those were the glory days of the Courier and just
the newspaper as a whole. And those guys had had
a big effect on me growing up.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
I wanted to be Dave Kindred when I was growing
up reading them. That's why I became a sports ride.
Of course, there's only one. Billy Reid became a very
good friend and mentor to me, and when I was
an intern with the Louisville Times, he introduced me to
the executive sports editor who hired me to be the
Central Kentucky sports correspondent for the CJ, So I owed
Billy a lot. Billy did a lot of TV and

(25:58):
radio with me. And when Billy would do commentaries John
at Channel twenty seven for a while, he would ride
over the election and with Mike Barry in the car
so they could just talk. That's what sports writers do
a lot. And so Mike would be up in the
sports office. You'd been upstairs in our office a few
times and just tell me stories. And instead of going
down and watching Billy tape stuff, I'd sit up there

(26:19):
and listen to Mike Barry. You talk about the best
of all worlds, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
Well, yeah, I'll bet, Oh yeah, I'll bet and uh
you know uh and you know Billy Currier and they
went to Sports Illustrated, came back to the career, and
then he came to the heir a leader, uh with
with us for a few years there. You know those guys.
You know, it doesn't get any better than Day Kindred
as a writer and a commas and as a person.

(26:44):
You know, those you know, those were the as.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
I said, those were the.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
Glory days of the career.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Journal which brings you.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Good, not not the slight. The people that come behinds
that Pat forty ye, a lot of a lot of
great Scott Pallor, a lot of great people have worked
at the career in the sports department. Rick with a
lot of great a lot of great people as the
hero Leaders.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
You know, I had Rick on the show last night.
You're right. That's how I first met him, was when
he was at the CJ. And that brings this full
circle though, because you mentioned Kindred. Of course he retires
and then he becomes even more famous from going to
a girls' high school games up in his hometown in
Illinois and posting stories on Facebook about him. So as
he said, writers, right, and so yeah, you haven't you

(27:24):
haven't scribbled your last We're talking to John the HEROLD Leader,
longtime sports writer sports calmnist who's announced his retirement. When's
the last day.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
Technically June thirtieth.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
End of the fiscal All right, we'll come back and
talk sports with John in just a minute here on
six thirty WLAP. Welcome back. We're talking with John Clay,
longtime sports writer and columnist for The HEROLD Leader, who's
announced his retirement effective officially at the end of the
fiscal year June thirtieth, and it was all over Twitter yesterday,
the official announcement and then Vince Merrow to use an

(27:57):
antiquated term, knocked you off the front page. Brother. Uh,
you said you guys had heard some rumblings about that,
But were you as surprised as most of us?

Speaker 5 (28:08):
Not?

Speaker 4 (28:08):
If I hadn't heard some rumblings. Uh, Our UK football
beat writer John Hale had been hearing this the last
couple of weeks but couldn't get anybody to talk about
it on the record, and we weren't sure that Vince
was actually going to go through with it to go
to Louisville, So so, uh, it had not heard that. Yeah,
I would have been very surprised by when you know

(28:28):
about the initial report yesterday, that looks like it's going
to happen, so you know Vince's Uh, this has happened
before with Vince. You know, we played futsye with Michigan State,
I think in Michigan and Michigan other schools and Louisville. Yeah,
and uh, but then to finally finally for it to
finally happening for him to leave, and I know it
looks from a perception standpoint, it looks like a big

(28:50):
blow to Mark's story in Kentucky. Obviously, Vince's the Mark Story.
Mark stoops in Kentucky. Mark Story also wrote a column
about that. You can find that on Kentucky dot com. Uh,
but you know, you know, we'll I think you can
have pros and cons on both sides. But the timing
doesn't look very good from the standpoint. You're coming off
a four and eight season. It's right before the start

(29:11):
of the or not, you know, a few months before
the start of the twenty twenty five seasons. So the
timing from a perception standpoint, sure does not look good.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
No, and the perception would be that there are real
problems inside that building well beyond is needing to bounce
back from a four and eight season.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
Right right, right, absolutely, and you got so many new
players coming in. You could also make the argument on
the other side, the Mits did a great job, but
there were diminishing returns in the last few years. As
you mentioned, there were four and eight last year. They
were what seven and sixty two years before that. You know,
it doesn't seem like they're getting quite as many or

(29:48):
quite the quality players that they got out of Ohio
when Vince first got here, and maybe maybe it was
time for change. I think a lot depends on who
Mark hires to take Vince's place. You know that maybe
they didn't need to shake up from an evaluation standpoint,
and now that there's more at least that's much, if
not more about the transfer portal than it is from

(30:09):
high school, and than it is about high school we're
bringing maybe need somebody else with a different approach. The
problem is, as you mentioned, they're coming out before and
eighth season, there's a lot of pressure on Mark to
produce this year where this might be something where if
you take a new approach and I are a new person,
it might take them a couple of years to really
get it going. Is he going to have time to
do that?

Speaker 1 (30:28):
And although this is happening as the SEC is just
growing stronger and stronger like a big blog, and you
wrote about the conference and the spring meetings when they concluded,
you wrote a piece about whether or not the growth
of the SEC the power it's developing great for the league. Obviously,
I've talked about this a lot. Greg sank works for

(30:50):
the league. Greg sanki answers to the presidents of the chancellors.
His job is to make the SEC incredible, which he's doing.
But is that good for college sports? And you wrote
about that recently. Is this a trail, John, that you
think is inevitable?

Speaker 4 (31:08):
Well, I mean, it's it's gonna be interesting to see
how it plays out. I don't think it's good for
the game overall. That power is con I mean, we've heard,
you know before that it's going to end up being
like fifty schools or thirty schools or forty schools controlling
everybody else, and we look like we're headed in that direction.
And you're right. I mean I've been critical of great
thank You's others had well, but you're right, Greg, thank
you service at the serves at the pleasure of the

(31:30):
presidents at the school the sixteen now sixteen schools in
the SEC. So he is doing his job. I would
question whether you know this is good for college football
overall as a sport, and that you know, the main
conflict right now is over the College Football Playoff, which
is going to expand from twelve the sixteen teams. How

(31:51):
many automatic bits should they get the SEC and the
big tenor boat pushing to have four automatic bits, which
that would be half the field right there, the SEC
and the Big Ten. We'll see how that plays out,
but I don't overall, I just don't think it's good
for good for college football. I think part of the
charmucks college football is that you know, you have a

(32:13):
Boise State or you have schools like that who who
feel like that they can be a contender. It can
build a program and be a contender where it looks
like now if you're not in the SEC or not
not in the Big Ten, those two conferences want to
keep the other conferences out, or at least they want
to have more power for themselves.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
SMU and Indiana we're going to play out there. We're
improperly seeded. I think they've moved to fix that. But
they were compelling stories. And look at the College World
Series this year. Last year was half the ACC, half
the field was acc fully half was the SEC. I
was thrilled to be there and covered it. We all
had a great time, but it's it's more compelling this

(32:53):
year with the Coastal Carolina returning. They've been there multiple times,
but still and now Murray State. I mean, it doesn't
get me better than that, right.

Speaker 5 (33:01):
Oh absolutely.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
And you know I think you know when you say
and people are stuff worry about nil and the transfer portal,
that it's going to be a consolidation of power with
the big schools because all the players will want to
go where the money is, which is in the bigger schools.
And then you look at baseball, baseball, and you said
the Murray State getting their coastal Carolina's build a power,
build a really good program. Opposite Louisville down the road

(33:24):
is build a good program. They hit a little bit
of a lull there, but now they're back. Kentucky was
in it for the first time last year. So and
I do think baseball has a little bit of an
advantage over the other schools. And the fact, as you know, Dick,
you you covered a lot close, uh, you know, more
closely than I do. You know, the transfer portal has
been around for a long time and baseball it's just
like you've got you've got almost a new roster every year.

(33:45):
With baseball teams, I think they know how to handle
it and they know how to take advantage of it,
where the other sports are maybe learning, uh learning how
to do that. But you know, it's hard to go
against the money, but it's also to me, it's very
coouraging to see what happened, what's happened with the.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
Culture World Series.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
If you are a fan of college athletics and you
believe that it shouldn't be just consolidated into a power,
shouldn't be consolidating just the piece schools.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Not that long ago, if you transferred in baseball, you
didn't have to sit when everybody else did. So, you know,
then they changed that rule. Then things slowed down. Bud,
You're right. A few minutes up with John Clay, the
Herald Leader retiring after forty four years with the newspaper,
I was talking to Jan Weisberg, the new EKU baseball coach,
who was part of the greatest baseball story. There was

(34:34):
a couple of years ago when Birmingham Southern made a
run at the D three World Series, when the school
itself had shut it down. I mean, the entire school
had closed. But now Jan, who had coached as an
assistant and played, as you know at Kentucky, is a
head coach on the D one level. John, at the
most challenging time in the history of college sports. You know,

(34:55):
and he welcomed the challenge. Of course good coaches do.
But I'm curious, man, you know, you're I can't say
you're getting out of it a good time. But it's going
to be interesting five years from now for everybody to
look back and see where we are compared to what
we're doing today.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Right Yeah, And we and you know, as you know
you and people in the media business, whether it's you
know you and TV or radio and myself and you know,
print websites. We don't want we don't really want to
write about anil. We don't really want to write about
the money aspect of it. We want to write about
the games. We are writing about the people playing the games.
We run a bread you know, the whole thing about

(35:33):
competition and winning and losing. I want to write about
Mark Pope and what he's done, you know, what he's
done at Kentucky and his approach to basketball and that
sort of thing, which I think is fascinating. I want
to write about Mark Stoops going into such a pivotal
season this year. I don't want to write about nil collectives,
but unfortunately that's part of the game. That's part of
it right now, and it's a big part of it. So, yeah,

(35:53):
you know, talking about the KAU and the baseball hire.
And I'm not just saying this because I've done Kyle
Motes a long time and he is a friend of mine,
but I think that was a great hire by Eastern.
I think hiring and the baseball coach looks like a
really good hire. I'm really interested and excited to see
what Kyle does at EKAU because I know he's a
smart guy with a lot of experience, and he's a

(36:15):
good guy to hire to tackle what's going on right now.
So I think EKU is in good hands with Kyle Mots.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
I agree with you, and I thought it was a
great hire of jan I mean, any coach at any
level who's won more than six hundred games. Yeah, and
I'm with you on that. And you know you mentioned
in Illinois I flashed just now. When I was a kid,
and you probably did too. I took the Sporting News
right and I just love reading about all the baseball teams,
and even if you didn't read the feature story on
each team, there were notes on every team. And that's

(36:43):
how I kept up with the American League, the National League.
More and more those notes those those thumbnails included dollar signs.
You know, as the salaries began to grow, and I
began to skip them, and if a story had a
dollar soun in it, I would skip it, like I
don't want to read about this guy's con track. I'm
going to read about baseball. And that's where we are now, unfortunately,

(37:04):
isn't it. And you know, interestingly, I thought the Texas
Tech coach made a great point when he said, yeah,
you know, they they basically bought a pitcher for a
million dollars. But he said, nobody talks about that when
you've got a basketball player making three and four million.
That's not repeated over and over. So the times are changing,
aren't they?

Speaker 4 (37:23):
Absolutely? And I think if you look at Kansas State
basketball last year, I think they spent more money in
the portal than anybody else than they didn't even make
the NCAA.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Is that right?

Speaker 4 (37:31):
So it's not Yeah, So it's not a guarantee that
you're going to get there. Of course that's another thing
about then. I on the transfer portal, and none of
it's transparent. We don't know how much exactly anybody is getting.
Whether that will change with the new House settlement. And
the revenue sharing. I don't know, but you know, it's
not a guarantee that just because you spend all those
money you're going to get that you're going to get

(37:51):
the most wins.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
I've only got about a minute left. But do you
think in the wake of the House settlement, uh, basically
appointing a commissioner or the CSC and all that it's
got to be a good at least to try it, right.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah, I mean it helps whether it solves the problem
of having guidelines and keeping everybody in line. I'm a
I'm a retiring journalist, but I'm still a journalist, and
we're taught to be skeptical, so I'm skeptical. Put it
that way.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah. Yeah, There's always going to be somebody out there
trying to break rules and cut corners. That's why the
rulebook's so thick. And I mentioned last night, Buddy my
years only a couple of years I spent down on
the Southwest conference. That taught me that time the SEC
wasn't that far behind.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
Right, right right. What Tail was saying, if you ain't cheating,
you ain't trying. So I think there's always going to
be cheating involved.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, I said, that's charming when you're talking about NASCAR.
But otherwise than that, John Clay, the hero leader, thank
you so much. Has been a pleasure. We'll talk again,
I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (38:50):
But congratulations, Thank you, Dick, Thank you, Dick.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
And up next that we number two with Keith Farmer
and Tom Lee here on six thirty w L anything any.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Such tack tacking do they anything?

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Welcome back to the Big One insider joining us down
our celebrity Eyeline is my good friend and colleague. As
we used to say in the business, mister Tom Le
used the voice of the Wildcats. And before we talk
about anything, Tom, we got to talk about the news
that kind of I'm sure rock the Big Blue Nation
late yesterday afternoon, Vince Marrow, you know, one of the
chief architects in terms of recruiting of UK football in

(41:18):
their March troops now going to the arch enemy. I
got to think you were about as surprised as anybody
or were you?

Speaker 3 (41:27):
Yeah, surprise, not stunned, just because you know the Vince
and U of L talk had popped up once or
twice before. So that always when you you know, when
that happens makes you thinks, well, there's you know, something
there on one.

Speaker 5 (41:42):
Side or the other.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
And the fact that it happened in Jews kind of
an odd timing, although you know that as is, we
always don't think about these things. There's a business element
to this. Some you know, contracts end at the end
of Jews contracts, it's the fiscal year, so maybe that's
you know, why this is happening at this time to

(42:06):
make the hire for the next you know contract wave
that would start on July first, so could well be
related to that. But that's just you know, the business
part of it. The fact that he's actually leading their
story obviously, and yeah, it's yeah, definitely a surprise. You know,

(42:29):
it's on one hand surprising that it's going to the rival.
On the other hand, I think, Vince, it's gonna put
down some roots here in Kentucky, Lexington specifically up until
this point married a girl from here in Lexington, so
you know, they.

Speaker 5 (42:49):
May well, you know, have if he was ready to
move on for whatever reason.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
The fact that he could do it and still stay
in the state may have you know, played a part
in it too.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
And the fact though that he is, as you said,
going to the arts rival, and not just on the
football field, but but you know, seven days a week,
three sixty five for a recruit field. Yeah, I got
to wonder about the relationship now with with Mark Stoops,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah, And you know, I don't know if we'll ever
you know, find out about that to the extent that
people would be curious, But yeah, I mean they go back,
they have a lot of history, Yeah, you know, to
their days. I mean there's teenagers in Youngstown. So and

(43:39):
Vince has talked often about, you just the respect he
had for Mark's mom and dad and you know, time
he spent you know at their house and all of that.
So and you know, they made a great combination when
they came on the scene through I'm assuming Vince was
maybe the first call Mark made when Mark got the

(43:59):
job here and Vince didn't have this role. I think
he was at Nebraska at the time. So you know,
Martin gave him the chance to show what he could
do on the biggest stage in the SEC taking charge
of the recruiting, and Vince, you know, did a fantastic
job when given that opportunity. And so the two of

(44:22):
them together, particularly in the state of Ohio is what
kind of built the Kentucky program because you and I
have know covering Kentucky football for years. You know, coach,
so many coaches would come in here and talk about
wanting to get into Ohio and you could convince those
kids to come down and play in the SEC. It's
an easy trip for their families, etc. And it all

(44:42):
made sense, except nobody was ever able to execute the
plan until Mark Stoops and Vince Marrow did.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
You got to go back to fran Kersey to find
some guys, you know, Jim Kovas from the Cleveland area,
other guys, and he got up into Pennsylvania. But yeah, really, oh,
Adam and I remember having this conversation more than once
with Jeff Pacoro and he went to Joker Phillips, his
former teammate, and said, Joker, there are guys up where
I am in the Cincinnati area that want to be

(45:11):
in the SEC. And Joker just thought it was a
waste of energy, both as a head coach and as
an assistant under Rich Brooks, because you know, Ohio State's
so prevalent, Cincinnati somewhat, but big ten schools getting in there.
But now, Tom, I really think with the SEC footprint
becoming so large in so many ways. I mean, beyond

(45:32):
the borders of the SEC states. You're a fool if
you don't go to every state in the Union.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
You know, true, And you know it's now everything's you know,
everybody's got access to everything now. Yeah, not like it
was you know back in the day in terms of
being able to you know, see so few games on TV.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
All of that.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
And you know, Mark Stuce, Vince Merriw were uniquely positioned
to have success in Ohio because of their roots in Ohio. Yeah,
you know, it's not always easy to go into a
state where you don't have any background and just suddenly start,
you know, doing well and recruiting. Nobody's ever going to
be Ohio State in Ohio. But the thing has always
been is like there's not a natural second choice in Ohio.

(46:15):
And so if you once you know, Ohio State gets
the twenty five they want, you know, you could go
for the next wave of players. Hear these too, is
the game has changed in terms of you know, building
teams and it's not so much about recruiting and developing
as it is. The transfer portal now, yeah, that's a
bigger part probably.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Well, that leads you to the next question, you know,
whether Kentucky what happens now because so much of recruiting
revolves around the transfer portal now, you know, and talking
to high school kid in to coming to your school
is one thing, and Vince Merrow has a gift for it.
But boy, I tell you, you know, evaluation and contacts

(46:59):
and things like that, that involving the portal has changed
the game in so many ways, hasn't it?

Speaker 5 (47:05):
It has?

Speaker 3 (47:06):
And you know, now we've got this this house settlement
that has come down that's going to change things even more.
And then with Kentucky, look at Kentucky football has so many,
uh transfers for this year that remake the roster and
coach Toops has talked about, you know, getting it back
to the kind of culture that they had succeeded and

(47:29):
drived with earlier. And if he's right about that and
over in this team you know, exceeds expectations, then that will,
no doubt, uh, you know, impact kind of you know,
some decisions moving forward in terms of you know, how
they put the roster together, and if not, then it

(47:51):
could affect the other direction.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
You know, I know you've read about the House settlement.
I have to everybody has a spin on it, but
it's going to be really fascinating to see what the
reaction is and and how this affects schools everywhere. You know,
I always talk about this.

Speaker 5 (48:09):
You have to.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
I worry for the e k Us and the Murray
States of the world. And you know, Murray State now
celebrating a trip to the World Series. You got to
wonder in ten years are they going to have a
baseball program? Can they afford that? You know, So this
is is such a tumultuous time in college sports. Maybe
we shouldn't have been surprised that Vince Merrill took this

(48:30):
job because now he's the GM, and every school, either
by title or just by assignment, has a GM right now,
you know what I'm saying true?

Speaker 3 (48:40):
And you know we see them guys like uh uh
at Saint Bonaventure, WOJ the ESPN reporter is their guy. Yeah,
the uh it was in Oklahoma hired the guy that
ran the senior ball for years.

Speaker 5 (48:56):
Oh yeah maybe there.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
So I mean it's you know, all kinds of different
types of people are getting put into that role.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
You know.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Now, you know, guy's come up through coaching ranks. Now
we don't know fully what all his role is going
to be. That'll be explained when it all gets finalized.
But yeah, everybody's just kind of figuring it out on
the fly now. And yeah, it's settlement gets approved, but
there's always in everything, there's how it's going to work

(49:28):
in theory and how it actually works in real life
and what will that look like? And you're still trying
to get you know, Congress to help about and if
that doesn't happen, does that you know impact you know,
what they can what they can say.

Speaker 5 (49:46):
Is one thing, and what actually, you know, what they
can do is another. Sometimes. So there's just so much
we don't know it.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
It's you know, read a lot about your reaction and
thoughts on things like that settlement, but nobody knows because
it's very new, and you know, we get if you
get legal challenges involved, then who knows, you know, what
that's gonna would look like, and it's Congress gets involved,

(50:15):
what does that look like.

Speaker 5 (50:16):
It's just just so much that none of us know that.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
It's all this stuff is a great you know, talk
show topic because we can talk about it and nobody
knows for sure. There's no right answer.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah, exactly. We're talking to Tom Leach. Tom is a
voice of the Wildcats. Of course, in hear him every
morning on this very radio station on the Leech Report
at eight o'clock Eastern time. We'll come back and talk
more UK sports with Tom on the other side of
the break here on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back. We're
talking with a voice, Tom Leach. You hear him on
the Leach Report every morning. And Tom, we just got

(50:48):
back earlier today. I did at least from talking with
Otaga Oway and Brandon Garrison. They had a media available
those guys and of course we haven't seen them since
the end of the season, and of course since Oway
got back from NBA camps. What do you expect to
see from him this year in the wake of him
gathering all that information from NBA scouts.

Speaker 5 (51:11):
A really focused guy.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (51:15):
First thing, you noticed the new hairdoo look.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
He's changed his look, and you know, maybe that's, you know,
some kind of statement he's making about, you know, changing something.
Who knows or maybe just wanted to change. But you know,
he's a guy that I don't think has to It's
not like he went through this process and heard you know,
some massive question marks that they had, and everything I've

(51:43):
read is that as he went through the process, it
was you know, getting closer to pushing him in the
NBA direction because of what he was hearing. So that,
you know, tells you that he's you know, kind of
close to what they're looking for. So he's a guy
that it's not like he needs to come back and
you know make massive changes or suddenly you know, I

(52:04):
want to come back and be a point guard. Yeah,
I want to, you know, Uh, he just needs to
get ten or fifteen percent better maybe in two or
three different things.

Speaker 5 (52:13):
Uh, three point shooting is probably you know, one of them.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
To be able to be a little more you know,
comfortable in taking the shot, confident and taking the shot,
and just you know, I had Matt Norlander from CBS
Sports on I can't exact numbers, he said, but he said,
so that can you you know, get your attempts up
to you know, seven or eight a game and get
your percentage up to thirty eight to forty percent. Yeah,

(52:36):
but then that's that seems like it's a realistic thing.
He shot, you know, in the mid thirties basically has
been a career mid thirties shooter, so it's not again,
not like a huge leap he has to make.

Speaker 5 (52:48):
Hope has talked about that. He thinks.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
He said this more than once in interviews we did
with him, whether it's the coach, a show or a
pregame or something that Otega he thinks has elite level
skills as a playmaker. Doesn't mean he's going to become
the point guard all of a sudden, but you know,
just in terms of decision making. So he's you know,
a guy that can get to the the rim to
create his own shot. But maybe he adds a little

(53:14):
element of being have a you know, showing some of
those point guard skills while not playing the position in
terms of he gets into the lane and doesn't try
to you know, score every time, takes the opportunity to
set up you know, kick it out to an open teammate,
and maybe you know, his assist straight goes up a
little bit. If you look at kenpom dot com where
they track all that stuff. Uh, he was pretty deep

(53:37):
negative assists to turn assist percentages versus turnover percentage into
two years at Oklahoma. In his one season at Kentucky
was basically one to one. So let's could he maybe
you know, get that assist percentage higher and have a
you know, significant plus assist to turnover ratio in terms
of those percentages.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
You know, that's that's where the you know.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
Playmakings, last decision making comes in. One of the stories
I read about him going through the process was somebody
wrote this at one point. One of the little of
the feedback he got was like, could get in a
little better shape. And it certainly doesn't look like any
of us, he's out of shape. But for that next level,
you know, they're thinking, Okay, what you're in great shape. Now,

(54:20):
what if you took that to another little higher level?

Speaker 5 (54:23):
And what would that look like?

Speaker 3 (54:24):
And could you sustain your peak production for a longer period.
So all of those things, None of that's massive improvement,
but those kinds of things I would think, you know,
Will should be powerful motivators for him, because the better
he gets at making that ten to fifteen percent improvement

(54:44):
on two or three things, the wealthier he is likely
to be a year from now.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
And you know what's interesting is that when we talked
to him today and asked him about what he had
heard from the scouts of GMS or whatever. He brought
up three point shooting and he said, you know, they
told him, we think you're pretty good, but we want
to see more in which year falls right in line
with what you know, Pop have been saying about volume shooting.

(55:11):
And he was not a volume shooter, but you know
Pope wants those thirty to thirty five.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
Right exactly for the team.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
And and you know there was a time like early
last year Otegas started out, Uh, he was, you know,
shooting a healthy percentage there early and then I thought
there was a stretch where he you would see the
ball swinging to him and you know, the first reactions
take that and.

Speaker 5 (55:38):
Yeah, and so to get to the point where you know.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
He's you know, he's confident enough in it himself, uh,
to you know, to look for it and to take
it when the when the shot presents itself, rather than
you know, think about it for a second. And part
of you know, this as far as improvement, something Mark
Pope has talked about just in general, not just with Otaga,
but just with all the players that go through his.

Speaker 5 (56:05):
System.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Into the second year, the decisions, it's easier to make
the decisions faster and a lot of what he is,
how he's designed his system has to do with being
able to, you know, make decisions fast and as the
ball you know, moves around the perimeter or in and out.

(56:26):
And with that year under his belt, Otega should be
able to make those decisions faster and all those things.
Can you lead him to be just a little bit better.
It's not anything particularly, you know, massive improvement in numbers,
it's just you know, making a few tweaks that kind
of take him from the book.

Speaker 5 (56:47):
A few years ago good to great.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Interesting, and another guy with a chance to go from
good to great talk to us today. Brandon Garrison, and
you know, a returning veteran, talked about the effect that
he had or that working with the Mariy Williams had
on him when he said, you know, number one was
Amari telling him don't take any days off, you know,

(57:10):
work hard every day. And he said that was the
biggest lesson he took. So I'm going to be really
curious to see not just his skill set improving. I
don't know that we need to see Garrison chucking up
more threes, but uh, you know, does he stand in
a foul trouble? Does he play more minutes, what kind
of minutes? Who does Pope pair him with in terms
of the other bigs. You know, he's going to be

(57:31):
I really think, uh, kind of curious this year, you
know what.

Speaker 5 (57:34):
I mean, He's got a lot of upside. And I
talked to MIKEL.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
McClain, assistant coaches after he got his new contract, and
he mentioned, you know, camera of the exact number once
there's maybe you know, maybe he's taken you know, five
to seven threes a game or something, so they they
are looking for him to take more of them, and
I think that for him, for him, I think back

(58:01):
to that Oklahoma game where Kentucky won the one out
in Norman where he it was one of the first
games where they played a little longer stretch with Brandon
and Amari together and it worked in that game. Anyway,
there were times when you know, from it fears the
Oklahoma guards during my fears being a top ten draft pick,

(58:24):
and he was having a big game that night, but
there were times that Beg would switch off on him
and could guard him and showed the ability to guard
him for short stretches anyway. You know, as a as
a five on a one, you know you can if
he can, you know, build on that that that would
be a valuable skill for him for you know, his
overall game at the next level, you know, and with

(58:49):
Brandon it was a lot of flashes, and I think, uh,
you know, what the best version of him could look like.
And I think the challenge is to make those kind
of periods last longer. One thing Michael talked about was
they and I think BG had some little physical things,
nothing major, that kept him from maybe being in peak

(59:11):
shape at the start of last year.

Speaker 5 (59:13):
So I think one of the big emphasis points of
emphasis for him is to.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
Get yourself into you know, elite level condition and then
be able to, you know, because they track all this
stuff with their analytics, be able to sustain your high
level of play for longer and the better you know
he can do because he does. There's a lot of
different things he could do for them, you know.

Speaker 5 (59:38):
And but.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
You know, the old thing is, you know, from the NFL,
you can't make the club and the tub. You know,
it's hard to make an impact on the court when
you're not on the court. So you know, be able
to be in that elite level shape to stay out
there for longer, stretches and the way you do that
is stay in the productivity, and this is a lot

(01:00:03):
of different things he can do for them, And I'm
kind of excited about what his next year can look
like because I think, because you know, I'm Aari played
so well that we didn't see as much of Brandon
last season that I think people may be sleeping a
little bit on what he could do. And then all
the excitement of Quaintin's and Elevitch and the new big

(01:00:25):
guys that are coming in that people may be sleeping
on beg a little bit for what his second year
in the system could look like.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
I'm also curious about his passing ability. Amari Williams was
so good at it, and now that Garrison's got that
year under his belt and is making that year one
to year two move that Mark Pope's is almost always
his players and coaches get better. It's going to be
fascinating And whatever happens, Tom Leach will call the action
and you can hear him chat about this and other

(01:00:53):
topics every morning on The Leach Report Monday through Friday
on this very radio station, following him on Twitter at
Tom Leachka. Why I thank you, brother, we'll talk football
next time because the season's coming up, all right, have
a good one, you do, and up next. Keith Farmer
from l EX eighteen and BBN Tonight here on a
Big Blue and Sider six thirty wlap. Welcome back to

(01:01:13):
the Big Blueing Sider, joining us now a long time
friend of the shower buddy, Keith Farmer from BBN Tonight,
l EX eighteen earlier today covering a story putting a
feature together at the Chris Loft and Darius Miller camp
over in Maysville. They've been doing this for two or
three years now, right, came in shoot more than that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
Man, I feel like they've probably got some guys that
have played up, even some ladies have played up in
the high school by now.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:01:38):
I'm interested in, you know, and just finding out so
much more about him and seeing about this camp because
they've done it for a long time and obviously well
known names that are from the Mason County area. So
it's really cool to see them still doing this.

Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
I'm older than dirt, as you know, but I remember
being over there for both players, one then the other
when they committed, and I remember Darius committing to Kentucky.
And I remember one of the questions somebody put to him,
because he was a really good you might recall it,
it's really good football player receiver, and somebody asked him,
you know, are you going to try to play football now?
He said, I'm tired of going over the middle. I

(01:02:18):
think the right joy yeah, oh yeah, a national title,
state championship, and a pro title over in Germany. And
then Chris Lofton was a great high school player, but
he just didn't have many D one programs interested in him.
And we had heard you he was looking at Georgetown College,
and then Tennessee had a kid back out of a

(01:02:39):
Scollie and Buzz Peterson had liked Chris a little bit,
said okay, how about it? And now that's one of
the greatest success stories in the history of the SEC,
isn't it. Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:02:50):
And I think just people thought he couldn't let his
size get his three pointers off, and he taught everybody,
no big deal, right, that it was easy to do.

Speaker 5 (01:02:59):
Man. I think does he.

Speaker 6 (01:03:01):
Still hold the record for three pointers at Tennessee?

Speaker 5 (01:03:04):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 6 (01:03:04):
If not, he's got to still be top three. I
would think, you know, not but yeah, amazing, And you
know the great thing that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Happened for him. I know a lot of people later
should have gone to Kentucky, but because he went to Tennessee,
he got to play. And he wouldn't. He didn't was
not going to get the minutes at Kentucky. That he
got to Tennessee right away because Tennessee was struggling. But
the other thing he did came in this is a
good lesson for the campers. And I'm sure they'll hear
about this if they haven't already. He I'm told he

(01:03:33):
lived in the weight room and when he wasn't doing that,
he was getting up five hundred shots today. And look
look how it served him. Look what he turned into.

Speaker 6 (01:03:42):
So he is one of the great stories, isn't he
because of his work ethic and because he wanted to
prove people wrong and so hated that it was Tennessee.
But at the same time loved the kid, and you
know what he became and all of that, and it
doesn't matter where it was. I mean, you know, he
he taught people, especially campers. Now, hey, you put in

(01:04:03):
the work ethic, you got a chance to make yourself
special no matter where you go.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Yeah, especially as a shooter. I mean, if you're not
seven feet tall, that's one thing. But yeah, uh, you know,
if you're he's not the biggest kind of world. But
his mechanics were great. H he didn't have Darius Miller size,
but he sure has the dead eye. Anyhow. Yeah, in
the middle of all this, we get the news about
Vince Marrow. A lot of chatter about that over the

(01:04:27):
last twenty four hours he had flirted with jobs before,
he had flirted with Louisville before. Uh that said, were
you not totally stunned when he took the job, because man,
when you see it on the internet and you know
what goes now for in black and white, it's pretty sobering,
isn't it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:45):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 6 (01:04:46):
I think you know, it felt like we had passed
all that you said, Like you said, there have been
head coaching jobs, There have been tithed in jobs, you know,
different conferences, different school and it just felt like one
of those that we were past that, and that he
a just gonna ride ride it out with stoops. And
so I was a little bit shocked this time because

(01:05:06):
I didn't I just didn't feel like it was ever
gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
Uh so hard to hear it.

Speaker 6 (01:05:12):
And hopefully it doesn't have as big an impact as
we think it could on the Kentucky program, because you know,
he he really brought a lot of great players in
and we'll see where Kentucky goes from here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
But of course, recruiting has changed so much over the
last few years. I just got done talking to Tom
each about this. It's maybe more so now the transfer
portal versus going into a kid's home and asking mom
and dad to you know, let us have your son
for four years when in fact it maybe you sure
won two or three years. Do you think that had

(01:05:46):
I mean, there's no way of knowing. We're speculating, but basically,
schools are having to change ways they do business now, right, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:05:54):
And I think at the same time, one of the
things that he was good at for Kentucky he was, hey, Okay,
you're going to this school for now, but don't forget us,
because you know, we're here if you want to come back,
you know. And I feel like he was always having
those relationships that you could always count on a kid.

(01:06:15):
Maybe you know, hey, three years down the road, I
want to go back to Kentucky. Because they're they're still
maybe not in contact trying to recruit me, but hey,
they've always been so nice and there was never a
burned bridge, you know, with that, and so I think
that might be something that I don't think they'll totally
miss that because I feel like Kentucky has a program

(01:06:35):
has been good about that. But certainly Merrill was good
about building those relationships.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Well you think Wandale was the best example.

Speaker 6 (01:06:43):
Yeah, Yeah, I think so, I totally do, because you know, hey,
you go off to Nebraska, but we're not gonna, you know,
bad mouth here. We're just gonna, you know, wait on you.
And if you want to come back here, we're waiting
on you. And sure enough it happened. He came back,
and you know the rest of history.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Yeah, and even more. And I'm sure through the years
coaches have said, well, if you ever change your mind
or something happens. But now with the portal, that's, uh,
that's going to be more prevalent than ever. We're talking
with Keith Farmer of LAA eighteen and BB in tonight.
We're moving into that period of year came in and
of course, earlier today, your colleague Maggie Davis was over

(01:07:21):
there talking with us at the otega Oway Brandon Garrison gathering.
And as you know, in the summertime, that is manna
from heaven, you know, to get something like that in June, July,
August or whatever. But tell me about the challenges of
putting that show together bb in tonight. And this isn't
the first summer you've done it, and you know, again

(01:07:43):
just having to fill the time and make it entertaining.

Speaker 6 (01:07:46):
I feel like, you know, really that first year we
were like, oh boy, what are we going to do
in the summer, you know, and it just seemed like
we always had something pop up. I don't know what
it would be now, I will say there's occasional times
when you get into like July, right before the SEC
football meetings, you know, come up and the coaches and

(01:08:08):
the players go there, there's just a little bit of issue.
They are trying to find something going on. But as
you know now, I mean, you know, the basketball team
reported June fifth, I think it was, and you've got
you know, football players, you know, reporting pretty soon if
not to come in and just work on their own
or you know a lot of them don't leave. So
we always seem to find, you know, things to talk

(01:08:30):
about and stories to tell. It just gets a little
more creative, you know, with it and makes it a
little more difficult. But we certainly have a couple of
those days where it is kind of tough, you know,
finding some things going on.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
But yeah, but there's also I think more cooperation or
whatever between the schools and the media because with social
media now, I think universities, not just UK but everywhere
realize the value of getting their message out, you know,
every week, every day, every of the entire year, you know,

(01:09:06):
because if we don't do it, somebody else is going
to do it. So let's let's go with stuff out
on social media. And that can lead to people like
you and me calling up and saying, hey, let me
talk to this person of this.

Speaker 6 (01:09:16):
Coach right yeah, and like even you know, we haven't
done it yet, but there's a chance we might go
talk to Tony Neely. Now the Sports Information Directord just
went into the coast side of Hall Fame, I believe
it was, and you know we did it when Susan
Lax went in. So again you get a little more
creative and you find those stories that maybe we would
be telling during the regular school year, and obviously we

(01:09:39):
have a fondness for those two and so maybe we
would be telling those two story. But still, I think
it's so cool to be able to just branch out
and show a little bit more about what all goes
into the University of Kentucky athletics department instead of just
the you know, football, basketball, And that's what's been fun
about it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Well, and that's what's great about being tonight. As you guys,
I mean, you were all over the track meet. You know,
you've got the airtime, therefore you need to fill it,
but that gives you the freedom to go out and
to cover the other sports, women's sports, you know, softball, everything.
So again it's a shameless plug for your show, but.

Speaker 5 (01:10:15):
I do appreciate it so well.

Speaker 6 (01:10:17):
And I will say this real quick. It's like one
of those things where before you know, I'm getting three
minutes and we'd go to a Nottago Away Brandon Garrison
press conference and you might hear just a few sound
bites problem about something seconds in. But now we can
tell so much more. You know, we have that half hour,
we could we could spend a whole first block talking

(01:10:38):
about those two guys and different topics that they want
to bring up. So that's what makes it fun is
to hear more.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
Yeah, is Keith Farmer. We'll come back and talk to
you k football and other stuff on the other side
of the break here on six thirty w LAP Welcome
back to the Big Blue Sider. We're talking with Keith Farmer.
Came in of course with l e X eighteen and
BBN tonight and thanks to our man Corey Price, eighty
one days until the start of UK football. It's going

(01:11:04):
to be on top of us before we know it.
And with that we just talked earlier about Vince Merrill leaving.
But it is so vital for this program, this team
to get off to a good start this coming season
with a real challenge Toledo. We have no idea yet
much about their roster, with the portal and all that,
but we know they were good last year. They'd beat

(01:11:26):
Mississippi State, they'd beat Pittsburgh. They have done damage before.
MAC teams have come down here and played well and
then right after that is Old miss So on this
pivotal Mark Stoops year, Keith, this could not be a
greater challenge, am I right?

Speaker 6 (01:11:41):
One? I mean, you know we'd like to believe that
some of these portal guys they've brought in are the
ones that are gonna help get it turned around. Kind
of we saw in the last couple of years where
they had some portal guys that maybe didn't pan out
the way we thought. But I think they've addressed the
situation with certain position groups that well, we'll get that done.

(01:12:01):
But we're not going to know until we get into
training camp, until we get into that first game and
see how they're gelling together. Especially I'm thinking, you know,
along the big blue wall, one of the places that
we want to see, you know, fixed, and I believe
from what I've seen that they have those guys that
can get it done. But again, in this day and

(01:12:22):
age of the portal, you just don't know how guys
coming in for one year, or you know, guys that
come in expecting maybe two years and only give you
one year, You just don't know how they're going to
gel right so quickly. So hopefully they're working on that
right now with themselves. In the summer, a little bit
of coaching I think is allowed now, is that right
in the summer. I don't know if I'm seeing that
correct or not a little I know exactly. I don't

(01:12:45):
know if that's just in like a room situation where
they can go over things or what. But in any case,
I just want to see some of those situations develop.
You know, it looks like they've got the pieces, but
as you said, it's going to have to come a
lot quicker.

Speaker 5 (01:13:00):
This year with on this coming week two.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
I think we all stipulated O line play is going
to be the key, and there are obstacles for the
defensive line as well. I'm really curious Caman about the
receiver room because minus being key, minus Bearing Brown, those
guys who are going to rup for huge plays at
any moment of different types. I want to see now

(01:13:24):
where where they come from. And I'm I'm not convinced
that it's not going to happen. I really think that
that might be a pleasant surprise for this team. Maybe
I'm whistling past the graveyard. I don't know, what do
you think?

Speaker 6 (01:13:35):
I think having Jimore Acklin come back, I think that
was huge. I think just to have that voice in there,
especially in year two of bush Hampton's offense, I believe that's,
you know, so key and so big for them to
have a guy that knows what's going on that can
teach it on the field. And I believe that there's

(01:13:56):
a chance, you know, I like the quarterback room, whichever
one they go with. I really like the different options
that they brought in at wide receiver that can you know, smaller, bigger, faster,
you know, different different guys have those different characters. Yeah,
and can make this a fun offense to watch if

(01:14:16):
it again all comes together and they're all ready to
take on bush Hampden's offense and learn it quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Yeah. And you know, you look back at last year
when Hamden got here and inherited you know, this player,
that player, the O line, that struggle guys ad the
learners terminology, just as Mark Kope talked about year one
to year two. I'm really curious to see this Bush
Hampden offense in year two. But some of the guys
who have the background with it now, A lot of

(01:14:45):
guys won't, but including O linemen. But they're mature and
I have a feeling they'll be able to pick up
on things fairly quickly.

Speaker 6 (01:14:53):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:14:54):
Yeah, I think so too.

Speaker 6 (01:14:55):
And and you know a lot of times you hear
guys say this is a similar offense to something I did.
It's just the terminology, and so you know, I think
they can pick up on that pretty quickly.

Speaker 5 (01:15:04):
I will say this.

Speaker 6 (01:15:05):
I talked to one guy who has now departed through
the portal, and I said, what do you think about
bush Hampton's offense? And he's like, oh, I loved it,
he said, I really liked it, and I thought it
could be successful. So I think that there was not
any of that. Like if anybody's trying to say it
wasn't a good offense or guys didn't catch on or
this or that, I think that's wrong. Yeah, And I think,

(01:15:28):
you know, again, now he's had a chance. He came
in so late that I think now he's got a
chance to really, you know, put his finger on the
offense and make it what he wants. And they went
to the portal and he's got the players probably that
he wanted to get and that he thinks fits that offense.
And so that's why I have, you know, some beliefs
that in year two it can be something special.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Before I let you go, we're talking with Keith Farmer,
or the sports director at l e X eighteen and
the co anchor co host of BBN Tonight, I must
ask you, as a fan of the Black and Gold,
the Pittsburgh Steelers, I knew this was going I know
you did, and I talked to Jeff Drummond yesterday. You
got a new quarterback. Brother. He took my team to
a championship but failed lost four other conference title game.

(01:16:12):
We should have been in more than one super Bowl
with him. So I will always believe he underachieved as
a Packer, but I appreciate what he did do. Uh,
what does this mean? Do you think for your beloved Steelers? Playoffs?
Deep run?

Speaker 5 (01:16:26):
What?

Speaker 6 (01:16:28):
I think that they can smith playoffs and maybe make
it in I don't think they're gonna be division winner,
but I was okay, Like at first, I wasn't excited
about him even being an option. When they got Mason
Rudolph back, that gave me hope. That okay, Now I'm
okay with it, really, you know, because yeah, because Mason's

(01:16:51):
been in Pittsburgh, he knows about it. I'm not sure
he ran the same offense before, but he had that
year playing down with the Titans where he had more
experience on the field. So I thought, okay, if it
comes down to it, and Aaron doesn't pan out, then
Mason Rudolph's there and can pick up the flack, or
they can, you know, even just take the option of

(01:17:12):
going with the rookie and just kind of bring Will
Howard along. So I am better with it now with
the two that they had there. I feel like Rogers
has still a strong arm, and I think he's probably
going to read the field better than other guys that
have even been in there, and so that gives me
some excitement. And I know he's not going to take

(01:17:33):
a hit, so there's probably gonna be some thrown thrown,
you know, to no man here or there. But I
still think he's got the arm, and I still think
he can read the field, so I think it can
gives them a chance at sniffing playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
You got rid of a high profile receiver, but you
go ahead and get DK Metcalf, who at his best
I just though was phenomenon and I remember him beating
Kentucky on a catch in the corner of the end
zone in the last play of a game. But yeah,
we still have a target or two. But uh, yeah,
who is this guy? I mean, which which Aaron Rodgers

(01:18:07):
are we going to see, yeah, and is he going
to be what kind of presence will he be in
the locker room? That sort of thing. You got to
wonder about that.

Speaker 6 (01:18:13):
Yeah, that's the big key, Yes, I think so, because
that that can be the worry. You know, if he's
not all in on being a good teammate, then that
can make it more difficult. I'm actually more worried about
running back right now. So you know, which, you know,
Warren got some playing time, but he wasn't an everyday back,
and then you got a rookie after that, so well,
we'll see how it all pans out. But I'm I'm

(01:18:34):
a little more excited about it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
Then need to go re sign Benny Snow, Yeah, that'd
be great. Yeah, I mean, and Benny did okay, but
then the next thing, you know, the draft, Now they
drafted over him a nag was a Najie Harris, Yeah
it was, Yeah, and then he's gone. So but running
backs generally last about three years in the NFL. So yeah,
I don't know that I'm going to root for your boy.

(01:18:57):
I really like Mike Tomlins, I mean I do think. Yeah,
I've said before that if he left the Steelers eighty
five percent of the teams in the NFL would look
it away to hire him. So this is going to
be an interesting mix, isn't it.

Speaker 6 (01:19:10):
It is it is Yeah, and you know Tom has
been a little bit on the hot seat, so we'll
see how. You know, he's he's kind of sticking his
neck out there as well, taking this chance. So but
I agree with you. I think people would definitely take
him in a heartbeat as the head coach.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
He may be the toughest head coach in the NFL,
so it's hard not to root for him. He is
Keith Farmer of la X eighteen, BBN Tonight. Watch for
him each and every evening and on the both shows
on the News and on BBN tonight. Came in we
will see you down the road.

Speaker 5 (01:19:40):
Thanks, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Thanks so much to Keith, to Tom Leach, to John Clay.
That's it. Good night from the garage in Lexington.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
Yes, is of making you tuck what your little go card, battery, golf, god.

Speaker 6 (01:19:52):
Whatever, and would you pick an accent and stick with it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
At such such tact, taking anything anything on such cana?

(01:21:16):
I think then don't

Speaker 5 (01:21:43):
Do

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