2025-12-01 BBI Statewide

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
From border to border across the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This
is Big Blue Insider. Talk to Tick Gabriel. Call eight
five nine two eight zero cats that's eight five nine
two eight zero to two eight seven. Or state wide
that's one eight hundred six oh six game. That's one

(00:26):
eight hundred six oh six four two sixty three. Or
you can tweet the show. That's Big Blue Insider one.
Now here's Tick Gabriel.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hell, everyrunning through the facilities of the Ihart Media megaplexus
is Dick Gabriel. It is the state wide edition of
The Big Blue Insider on a newsy Monday, Kentucky. In
the same day at least publicly parts ways with a
head football coach and hires another one, apparently much to
talk about a cole Park of the cash Balls, Jeff

(00:57):
Mcorol the UK Football Network. And by the way, there
there's a huge basketball game coming up and and then
say volleyball tournament. We'll cover it all on the state
wide BBI.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
There're one hundred calories per serving. Farm press quality from
our family to yours, farmer owned prairie farms.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Water the border. It is the Big Roomsider. Dick Gabrielle
Cole Park of the catch bog joining us. Jeff pickaorl
is gonna jump in in a few minutes, and in
the second half hour we'll switch over and talk Entucky volleyball.
But Cole, you're typing on your computer right now. I'm amazed.
You have to strength the type you said. You've been
writing all day, probably will all night. But you've got
to cover the Mark Stoops his out story, and then

(01:46):
you got to cover the apparently they're hiring will Stein
in the same cycle. I've been here, as you know, forever.
I've seen coaches come and go, but not like this.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Pretty Yeah, this was a really really quick turnaround, and
I think that is probably for the best. I think
this is a situation where Kentucky kind of needed to
move quickly on this. I mean, I don't sign all right, right,
I think that more is being made of that than necessary,
most of the big ones. I mean quarterback Matt out
of a total LASKI yeah, regardless, yeah said he's not

(02:20):
signing till spring. Anyway, it doesn't impact his decision in
its lightest But regardless, I think that's good to go
ahead and get him in there, especially if he is
going to be coaching out Oregon's remaining games, which will
include college full playoff games, notably the portal I believe
is set to open on January third, if he were to,

(02:42):
if Oregon were to make a run, he could be
coaching into the national title game, which is on the nineteenth,
I want to say of January, so a bit concerning
in that regard, But nonetheless, I think the quicker you
can get him in here, the quicker you can start
talking to players, talking to you know, building a staff,
which is going to be pretty important, especially he gonna
be coaching out with Oregon, you know, hiring a staff
that can be here and start building some of that.

(03:06):
It was very, very quick, and how this all took
place and how it all occurred and hasn't made my
job an easier, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
As recruiting goes, but you love it. But as recruiting goes.
This is reminding me now of a conversation I had
with Nick binge On and Austin Kuzeno, his recruiting coordinator
talking UK Baseball, of course, about just how relentless recruiting is.
As you know, Cat's pause has been known for decades
thanks to the big o' Oscar Combs sports covers of

(03:34):
UK recruiting and now everybody covers it, but the catspaws
at the standard. Let's face, I'm not pandering. It's just
a case. That's just the history. But it's relentless. And
Nick was telling me that while they were in Omaha,
I mean early in the week, they're making phone calls
to recruits. You know, hey, guess where I am, you know,

(03:57):
or they know, hey, we're in Omah thinking about you. Yeah,
you know, we'd love to get back here if you
could help us.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Even last year, I mean Cam Williams signed the day
be tipped off with Tennessee and the sixteen in basketball,
I mean that's, especially in the modern era, even crazier
now that it does it does matter, and I think
it's even crazier now when you look at the transfer
portal Nil it's kind of like you're doing all these
one year contracts with everyone on your team. So you know,
there's been coaches who have made comments before. It's like,

(04:24):
you know, the season ends and not only are you
trying to recruit new players, you're trying to re recruit
your own team all over again. And it's fast moving,
it's and we're we're not going to pretend we're oblivious
to things. The transferportal might open January third, it might
as well be open now. Players are being talked to,
players are making decisions, they're talking legal it's it's the
nature of the game right now. So decisions are being

(04:46):
made right now, Conversations are being had right now. And
I think the quicker you can go ahead and start
to lock down what Kentucky's going to look like. The
quicker you can get on top of some of those things.
I'm working on a story right now about some of
the top ten players Kentucky should focus on bringing back
last year's team. And there were some people out there
who said, you know, they had a losing record, why
would you want to bring anyone back? And that's just

(05:07):
incredibly short sighted. A lot of very talented players in
this team that could be very beneficial to bring back
to Kentucky next year. So I'm working on that right now,
still trying to make them throw two words at him,
Cutter Bowley exactly. That's a big one. And you got
even on the other like all sides of the ball.
I mean, you got young guys who could grow to things.
We saw Cedric Works, you know, doing some fantastic stuff
out there. You've seen Willie Rodriguez, he's he's a young guy.

(05:29):
With Josh Gattis being done, that'd be a big tight
end to bring back. You got guys like Tavion Gadson,
even a guy like Humphrey Grace. He still has eligibility
remaining despite you know, because he had a red shirt
season at South Dakota. So there's a lot of players
in this team that would be really, really big impact
players if Stein and his staff were able to bring
them back in Kentucky, and they're going to bring in
more impact players.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
And those names you just brought up are especially the
defensive guys, are the ones that Tom Leech and Jeff
Pikorro were saying over and over down there when the
veterans were injured and they had to play more and
more young guys, and they would say, oh, yeah, that guy,
you know, the sophomore class especially is really talented. So

(06:10):
if you're Will Stein and I think he can do
this by rule, yeah, I'm still up in Oregon. We're
getting ready to play for you know, maybe a national title,
but looking down the road. We could really use you
at Kentucky, you know, so you can juggle both. Now,
if you're Lane Kiffin, that's a different story. And you

(06:31):
know we were talking. I don't want to get into
him because you know, that's not we're on about. This shows.
That's so much that that's been said, and you and
I were talking off air, but I will say this
that nil portal player moving tampering, tampering when you're not
tampering or whatever. Lane Kiffin was one of the first

(06:52):
guys to say, and I'm sure you remember this what
four years ago, this is legalized cheating now. You know
again the first thing first saying out of my map
was tampering, because yeah, coach so and so might not
call you, but you and I might have played high
school football together. And I get on the horn and say, Cole,
we need a guy like you. Yeah, that's legal, that's

(07:13):
not illegal, you know.

Speaker 4 (07:14):
I mean even this past offseason in basketball, you heard,
you know, guys talking like Jasper and Malachi and they're
in these USA events there. Yeah, we were talking to players.
Oh yeah, we were trying to get him to come
like that. That happens all the time, and like you said,
it doesn't have to be coach reach out to It
can be Hey, one of their players dm me on Instagram,
just say hey, you know, what are you looking at doing?
That's tampering, is it?

Speaker 2 (07:34):
You know my mom might talk to your mom. Yeah exactly,
I was really happy.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Over here with Stein. His mom owns a cake shopping Louvile.
Maybe I just turn up by, buy a cake and
have a conversation.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
You know I played here.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
We're about to talk to his ex roommate, Jeff Picorrel.

Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
I mean, there's all kinds of things that go into it.
It's the nature of the game. These things are happening,
and we just kind of have to work around them
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
His dad, in fact, recovered a fumble and a key
point in a win over LSU, and as it always happens,
But Cooro, who's last two years at Kentucky were the
Bowl years under Jerry Clayburn thanks to a lot of
guys Kersey left behind. But Jeff's always telling me about
these big plays and these big wins. The last season

(08:16):
I covered before I moved to Dallas, Texas, they went
on ten and one, and so Jeff would say, yeah,
I remember when we beat so and something like, Jeff,
I wouldn't hear man, I didn't see the game, you know.
So we'll get more of that from Jeff and we
will switch to basketball, by the way, a little bit
later on because Kentucky North Carolina is coming up. But yeah,
if it's Will Stein and he comes in with that

(08:39):
great reputation, well deserved as a play caller, designing this
offense or that, but boy, his his hire as a
DC is vital. And I bring that up because you know,
Stoops went through a number of offensive coordinators for different reasons.
Neil Brown got a good job. He realized Shannon Dawson
was the wrong guy. Colin came and came and win.

(09:00):
S Gangarella was a mistake. But hiring a DC man
that's gonna be huge.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
Yeah, that's been the biggest question for me as soon
as the hire was made, is is not you know,
can he be successful? But even before I started talking
about players, my first question was, well, who's going to
be the DC? Because that he's an offensive minded coach,
he's an offensive guru, young guy, former quarterback, former quarterbacks coach.
He can do all of that. But he needs a
great defensive coordinator. You need to have both sides of

(09:26):
the ball, and like like you just mentioned with Stoops,
he was a defensive guy, former defensive coordinator at Florida State,
and couldn't really seem to get it figured out with
the OC for a variety of reasons. There was a
couple of times you might have thought he did, and
then it turns out, well, no, You know, but when
you're really good at one side of the ball, who
you bring in for the other side of the ball
is extremely pivotal, because, you know, I think there's a

(09:48):
I'm gonna butcher this quote. There's an old quote I saw.
The best leaders are the ones who recognize their own
shortcomings and hire people to make that, you know. Not
So with Kentucky, you're coming into situation where, regardless of
Stoops was retained or not, every single defensive coach you
have is on an expiring contract. Not a single one
has a deal that goes into twenty twenty six. So

(10:10):
you're either you're pretty much building an entirely new staff.
Even if you are bringing some of those guys back,
you're still having to give them new contracts. So the
entire defensive side of the football for Kentucky is blank
right now, apart from players.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Bo and I were talking about that off air, and
we were talking more about Mitch Barnard ads in general,
but that the same whole youth for coaches, And honestly,
I'm flashing on a scene of the West Wing where
they reached out and hired a young woman who was
a Republican but she was told she said, the president

(10:43):
likes to have smart people on his staff who disagree
with him, you know, and people who are confident. You know,
they're not afraid to do that. You know, they want
to hear that because they can consider everything.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
And yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot of
interesting things to be made of, even before we get
into player decisions, even before we get into who's going
to be on the team next year, in terms of
who's going to be coaching the team next year, and
not just the head coach, because that is really just
the first piece of the puzzle. It's a very big piece,
but it is just a piece of the puzzle. You
have to decide who's going to be your OC, who's

(11:19):
going to be your DC, and then every single position
coach beyond that all of that. You know, I'm not
going to say that who's on the team isn't important,
because it certainly is. Players are the ones who play
the games. But you can really defeat yourself before you
even get started if you have a poor coaching staff.
So who the coaches are is arguably just as important
right now as who they're bringing in talent.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Was well, and it's great you bring that up because
earlier today on what was the Mark Stoop Show but
became The Kentucky Football Show, first Jeff and I talked
to Tom Leach and then Logan Stenberg and Ricky Lumpkin
moved in and they spoke about exactly that about position coaches,
and people probably don't understand it. I didn't until I

(12:00):
really started covering college football in depth how vital the
relationship is between the position coach and the player. And
sometimes the position coach is not the guy who recruited him,
So you'll see players gravitating toward the guy who recruited him.
He might be on the other side of the ball,
but that's the initial relationship. But then they build that

(12:22):
relationship with a position coach, and it's like Logan said,
this is a guy who helps you learn to become
a young man, and at that stage of your life,
if it's someone you respect and you like, then you're right,
that's vital. That's incredibly important. And it also reminds me.
I want to say. The guy's name was Lawrence Wright.
I got to look this up. He was a defensive

(12:43):
back at Florida, signed and played for the Bengals. Good player.
And I was talking to Steve Moss from Channel twenty seven.
He and I were over there many years ago Bengals camp,
and we interviewed him about something and then we said
off the air, we said, what's it like planning for Spurrier?
He goes, I don't know, never talked to him. Were like,
what do with there?

Speaker 4 (13:01):
Four years he never spoke to me.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
The guy's at all conference d bat but he said
after my signing day he never spoke to me. We're like,
why I was on defense? Yeah, but still come on, man,
he said, no, that's the way it was. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
I mean, it's it is a little bit surprising to me,
you know, initial reaction, but that's not crazy unheard of.
I've heard of several stories like that, where you know,
players will get asked with the head coach and like, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Mean he's seems like a nice guy.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
He seems nice enough. He's on the sidelines. I see him,
But that's not who I talk to you on a
day to day basis.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Now, in day to day's one thing. But I've seen
Stoops in uh, you know, interspersed among all the players
in the locker room. I will say this that I
heard a little bit of grumbling the last couple of
years that Stoops had kind of other things get away
but for the moment, and I'm sure you did too,
but for the most part, and you see how the
players are pouring onto social.

Speaker 4 (13:55):
But yeah, I've heard a story on that today. Just
players react. I mean we heard even this year from
players that wanted him to stay. I mean, yeah, players
like playing for Mark stupis right, he's a players coach,
and I think that regardless, you know, I also think
a lot of people have said this, This isn't reinventing
the wheel or anything. But regardless of whether or not
it was time, and I thought it was. I thought that,

(14:17):
you know, it was time for something different. Mark Stoops's
contributions to Kentucky can never be forgotten. I mean, the
winningest all time program coach, the former longest tenured coach
in the SEC. He gave Kentucky fans memories at last lifetimes,
and he impacted so many young men's lives here and
made you know, when you look at Kentucky players that

(14:37):
are all time greats, there's a lot of them, but
in recent memory, a lot of those players came through
Mark Stoops and they even now will go on there
and talk about how much they appreciated what he did
for them in Lexington. And I think it is special
the relationship he built with so many of his players
and that so many of his players had with him.
And regardless of you know, I think most people would say,

(15:00):
regardless of the decision needing to be made, nobody wanted
things to end this way, and it is. It has
to be said that Mark Steus was a very special
coach in Kentucky history and he'll always be in the
history books, and hose contributions to the university and to
the players who played for it will never be forgotten.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Jeff Piicorrol is going to join us next deal with
us here on the state wide BBI. Well, it is
the big bluinsider Dick Gabriel Colepark, joined now by Matt Stein,

(15:36):
the father of Will Stein's former roommate. That would be
Jeff Percaorrol of the UK Radio network. Jeff, it's not
official yet, but I mean it's unofficially official. What do
you think this does your your personal relationship aside, but
let's talk about just the nuts and bolts of Kentucky football.
What does this do for the program?

Speaker 5 (15:59):
Well, you know, so it's kind of like when Kentucky
hired Mark Pope, they got somebody that's kind of been there,
done that.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Now.

Speaker 5 (16:06):
Pope played here, but Will being a fan of the university,
you know, basically since he was a little kid, knows
what he's getting into here. And then obviously he's played
in the Governor's Cup, you know, when he was at Louisville.
So you're getting somebody that knows the entire situation, the
ins and outs, what it's like to be a fan,
what it's like to be from Louisville and be a

(16:27):
Kentucky fan. So you know, and he's he's got kind
of a full gambit there, and I think, you know,
when you look at how easy Mark Pope deals with
the media and knowing what the expectations were coming in.
I think the same is going to be true with Will.
I just think it's a sensational hire. I would have

(16:47):
liked Will or Brian. I think both of those two guys.
Their offenses have been outstanding, and I really think that's
what you need now in college football. There's not many
games in Auburn game with standy that you're going to win,
you know, seventeen ten, ten to three anymore. In college football,
you've got to score points to win games. And you know,

(17:09):
and and and Will brings a wealth of experience. He's
a great a great recruiter. He knows the state of
Texas really well. I think it'll be a nice marriage
with him and La Damian, you know, if he keeps
him on as a wide receivers coach. He's also big
in that area. So I think there's a lot of

(17:30):
positives that are going to come out of this.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yeah, and you mentioned Brian as in hardline, and that
would have been a fun hire, you know. And people,
I think people, for whatever reason, believe that he was
going to scamper to Kentucky just because his brother was here. Yeah,
you know, And that would have been a bonus for him,
and he's kept his eye on the UK program for
obvious reasons. But just the backstory of will Stein is phenomenal,

(17:53):
isn't it.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
Yeah, And just one thing on Brian, it would be
really tough for him to lead Ohio State. I mean,
it's you're the defending national champion, undefeated, your calling plays.
Ryan Day gave up those duties a year go to
Brian Heartline. Heartline now calls the plays. This is an offense,
it's outstanding, and you're making two million dollars a year

(18:18):
as an OC. You know, how could you leave the
odds on favor to win it again this year before
the season ended. I just think it's it's a timing thing.
And then there's you know, in your life, you've probably
turned down certain jobs that you look back, you go, man,
what happened had I taken that job? I know because

(18:39):
you and I have talked about this, But I just
think it's it's it's great timing and you're bringing a
young mine into the game. And I think that's another
thing that's you know, you we talked about Dan Mullen.
I think you and I about here's the guy that
was really kind of sick of recruiting when he was
at Florida, And you know, how is he going to

(18:59):
do now? Now he's at at UNLV and he's got
a nice team, But how would he be back in
the SEC having not only to recruit but also to
scour through and try to get kids, you know, talk
them into coming to your school. Yeah, you know that's
something that these younger guys are kind of used to
now because they've been doing it so much.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
Absolutely, and we were talking a bit on here before,
you know, about how the portal opens on January third,
but we all know conversations are happening before that. We
all know things are happening before that. Obviously, if it is,
Stein still has to build his staff here. Very important
emphasis on the defensive coordinator there. But if you put
your Jeff, if you put yourself in his shoes, what

(19:37):
is priority number one in terms of what needs to
be taken care of here at Kentucky?

Speaker 5 (19:42):
The lines of scrimmage, both lines of scrimmage. I mean,
it's that's the main thing that got Mark Stoops to
the job here thirteen years ago. He came in and
Dick will tell you this. He sat down across from
Mitch Barnheart and said, we're going to bring you know,
we're going to bring aggressiveness, size, and power to the
offic It's the defensive lines because you don't win any
sec by playing you know, finness style. You just can't.

(20:06):
And Mitch loved that and hired him and that's what
he did. We call it this is from when Guy
Morris and Schlarman, well here, big boy football. And you'll
hear me say that on the air a lot when
they go to their bigs and try to try to
run it down somebody's throat. The key to this is
if you look at will Stein's offense, they run the

(20:27):
ball as much as they throw, and they just complete
a lot more So we're seventy percent of the passes
completed the last three years. Well he was there, but
they average teck the average five hundred something yards two
years ago running the you know, with their offense, so
they do a lot. And I say this all the
time that you know, a great running game helps the

(20:49):
passing game and vice versa. And if you could throw
the football, it opens things up. How Mommy almost every
year had a thousand yard rusher in his entire coaching career.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, and on his good tea as bad teams. You know,
they got away from that. He fell in love with
the past. But yeah, you gotta hey, yeah, you're right, Stoops.
His favorite word when he got here, Jeff, to your point,
was physical. And you know, I don't think you can
think of a guy like will Stein as being a
finesse guy. Cole, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, absolutely. I think when you think of will Stein,
you think of his motto feed the studs. You know that,
get the ball to your best players every single chance
you get. And that's that's what he's built his career on.
It's it seems to work. He's gotten. You know, the
top fifteen scoring offense is pretty much everybody's gone. I mean,
obviously he's just the offensive coordinator. He's one piece. But
with Oregon, you know, all you got to say is

(21:39):
we've played forty football games. We only lost four of them.
That speaks for itself.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Not too bad, not too bad. Tell me Jeff a
little bit. Obviously he can call cutter Bowlly and say
here's the offense we're running. But just in general, retaining
your player. You were talking to Ricky and and Stenberg.
You're tonight off air just about you know, this is
before we knew the news about Stein, but about retaining

(22:05):
players in this day and age.

Speaker 5 (22:08):
Yeah, And I think that anybody in their right mind,
if you're on the offense, is like, oh, I can't
wait to play in this offense when when I first
got the job, and you know, in what was it,
Dick two thousand, two thousand and one, you know we're
talking I would love to play in this offense. You know,

(22:29):
you do? You know you don't have to go down
and block every play. You're going running pass routes.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
What is this?

Speaker 5 (22:39):
But you know, Cutter Bowley has got to be you know,
all three of the coaches that you know, we heard
mostly I think Cutter would have been happy to play
with because all three of them are very offensive minded.
But the numbers just jump off the page. And again
you're talking about two teams in Ohio State and Oregon
that have the best and ones get the best talent
on the West coast, the other's get the best town

(23:00):
on the East coast. Right, and like you said, forty
games they've lost for it's the same thing. You take
Michigan out of the equational state and lost the last
couple of years. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, well it's the kind of thing where it's also
going to put a jolt of excitement into the fan
base because when you and you and I were driving
back from Louisville, we were like, man, you know, who's
going to be in the seats opening day next year? Right?

Speaker 5 (23:23):
Yeah, right now? And I think look, I think that
that went into Mitch Barnhardt's decision, and whoever else was
on this committee had to because if if you know,
if you bring somebody in that nobody knows or even
if he kept Mark, and I think Mark kind of
understood this too. How many people are going to be

(23:44):
there for opening day next year? That's right? And you
know you want these guys to be excited. It's kind
of like what you say, Dicky, wish that Louisville game
would be number one, you.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Know, that's right, curse game of the season. All right,
We're going to come back and talk more football with
Jeffercorrel and Cole Park and we will actually talk back
with both of these guys. On the other side of
the break, you're listening to the state wide Big Blue
Insider One border to border. It is the Big Blue Insider,

(24:13):
Dick Gabriel, Cole Park, Jeff Pikorro the UK Sports Network.
We're talking about the apparent hiring of Will Stein, the
offensive coordinator at Oregon and has piled up big numbers
where his teams have piled up big numbers. But he
will coach his team through the playoffs. But Jeff, before
you came on, Cole and I were talking about the fact,

(24:33):
and I think you were with me perhaps, Well, yeah,
you and I were in Omaha together when the Wildcats
were there, of course, and Nick bn generlator said, even then,
when you've got a world series on the line. During
their spare time, he and Austin Kuzen were making phone
calls for recruits, so it can be done. And will

(24:56):
Stein could call a recruit and say, it's coach Stein.
We're getting ready for the national semifinal game. But I'd
love to talk to you about Kentucky, right, I mean
that matters.

Speaker 5 (25:06):
Right, well, I always this was a great story that
Ohio State used to tell people, or what they used
to do is before the Michigan game and before the
Penn State game. Urban Meyer had this giant office and
he had all these kids come in right, and he

(25:26):
would bring them, one at a time up to his
office in that last hour before the Ohio State no Way,
and would say, don't you want to be a part
of this as it overlooks the stadium of one hundred
and five thousand people and another one hundred thousand outside,
and you're just like, oh my god. And Nick Saban

(25:46):
the same way. Remember Nick would bring him in. And
the way he got the one quarterback that was going
to come to Kentucky, he said, how many all Americans
does Kentucky have in their offensive line? Well, we got three,
you know, and I get four and more and the
you know, the pros and two more coming up and
Mark decided to go to play at Alan Damas.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
So yeah, I mean you also look at that too,
and that kind of a coach talking to you in
that way obviously makes an impact, but I think it
also goes into the importance of hiring your staff as
quickly as possible too, because while you're dealing with stuff
in Eugene, you got coaches who can be on the
ground in these places. You can still you know, make
your phone calls, bring people out, even go fly and
see people. But having coaches out there who are doing

(26:30):
some of that for you. You know, Dick and I
were talking here. You know a lot of times it's
it's the coaches, the position coaches who make the biggest
relationship with a lot of these players are the ones
who you are going to communicate with the most. So
having those guys out there too is going to be very,
very important. And with that, building a staff as quickly
as possible. Over at the Cat's pause, we just put

(26:50):
out a story about potential coaches that could be hired
for each of those positions. There's a couple that could
even be retained from this past staff. That'll be interesting
to see.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
But are you basing that on current contract?

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (27:03):
In this case no, okay, but with one of them, yes,
But regardless for you, Jeff, which apart from defensive coordinator,
I feel like that one's the glaring obvious one. Which
positional coach do you think you see being the top
priority for a will Stein?

Speaker 5 (27:24):
Well, I think top priority. There's there's a couple of things.
They're one familiarity with roster that you already have. I'll
call it, for lack of a better word, likability, Like,
do the kids like this guy. You know when I played,
it was you know, a guy like uh coach Kirksey

(27:45):
for instance, and you don't know who that is. We
loved him. He was a great Bailey coach Bailey, everybody
loved him. Catablos, everybody loved him. A Glazier from knows
him from from everybody loved him. You have those guys
on and Jerry Clayburn did for some of those guys.
So I would think that maybe and I don't know
what Wolf's going to get out on the on the

(28:07):
on the market, but your offensive line coach and Mark Stewart,
I think is a guy he died in the wool
Kentucky played here, was a great player here. I think,
you know, if i'm ranking the coaches and what they've
been able to do since they've got here, he's got
a rank in the top two of of I mean,
look at what he's had to work with and what

(28:28):
he's done and and how are they gone. The defensive
line has been fantastic the last couple of years. I
think that he's a guy that might stick around. I
think La Damium, the wide receivers coach. Look at what
he's done to those guys and the youngsters love him,
love him. I think that he's a guy that you
might want to do. But you know, again, he has

(28:49):
his own guys and it's going to be interesting to
see because it's not like he's going to be able
to coach guys from Oregon to come to Kentucky. That's
that's the tough part for him.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
I think, Jeff, here's something I haven't heard heard it
come up yet, and it's obviously way early in all this,
but as coaches go the way they run their teams,
could you foresee the head coach at the University Kentucky
calling plays or does he need to delegate that and

(29:20):
keep an eye on the bigger picture. Obviously he'd be
intimately involved with putting the game plan together. You know Roy,
as you know, Roy Kidd had an offense that he
loved and it was they didn't call it this back then,
but it was a run pass option. And now when
when Mike Whitaker signed, he tweaked it, so they threw
the crap out of the ball and Mike rewrote the

(29:41):
record books. But Roy told me he would have run
the same thing here, but he had in the times
I covered EKU three or four different OC's, they all
ran the same offense. It was Roy Kidd's offense. So
how do you think that might work here?

Speaker 5 (29:56):
I think that it is how much power he delegate
to his assistance. Let the assistants do their job. If
he does that, then he's able to call the plays
as well. Ryan Day did that at Ohio State until
two years ago, and the job at Ohio State just

(30:16):
got too big, and people said, you know, it's taking
away from your overall ability. But again, if you have
somebody that you trust, you know, if you had a
I'm just gonna throw a name of John SUMMRL that's
the defense or Brad White for that matter, that's the
defensive coordinator. I let him go because I'm an offensive guy.
He's a quarterback. He didn't play safety. Mark kind of

(30:37):
oversaw the defense, right, I mean he was Brad and
him called the defense together, right. I could see that
happening on the offensive side with Will coming in with
coach Fyne. I think that I don't have a problem
with the coach at Dan Mullen calls plays. There's a
lot of coaches that call plays, you know. I Hey,

(31:00):
Jerry Clayvern called place for us so I saw what
it got us.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
And I've learned this as well, and you already know this,
but generally O c's have a good deal of say
over the O line coach because they work together so
intricately cole's and linemen in high school? Is that the
case as well? Has it been your experience on defense?

(31:27):
Does does the de coordinator work that close as closely
with a D line coach?

Speaker 5 (31:35):
You know? I I don't know because I I've never
played that side of the ball, you know, in high school,
so I don't really I don't really know. I think
that on the defense, Yeah, your most important coaches obviously
to me are you know, usually like the linebackers coach
is usually one of your big guys, but here it

(31:59):
kind of starts up front with the defensive with the
defensive line. Because Brad was the linebackers coach, so it
still worse than him, so he, you know, he controls
that area, so he's kind of taken two jobs. You know.
I don't know how much Biffano input he had, you know,
because he kind of came up. But Chris had a

(32:20):
lot back there to do with the safeties and corners,
and I think the defensive line coach and the defensive
coordinator have to be on the same page. Put it
that way.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Are you excited about this hire or are you just
kind of taking in and stride? Wait?

Speaker 5 (32:38):
No, when this when this first? No, I think when
this first came out. When when it first kind of
three four weeks ago, when people were well really earlier
in the season, and then it kind of died down
when they won three in a row. But after the
Vandy game, I was like, uh, I wanted Will I

(32:59):
thought he would be for this. I talked to TJ
Smith about this the last Friday night we you know,
we had a a an adult beverage and yeah, no,
TJ was a cheerleader atourney. I mean I talked to
him about it and he was like, I agree. I'd
love to see him, you know, get back, to get back.

(33:20):
I think this, to me is the Grand Slam higher
because I think the heart line. I think heartline would
only be here for a couple of years, because I
think he needs head because he wants to look he's
going to be the Ohio state head coach. He's the
next in line, he's the air parent. But he hasn't
been a head coach before, So this would have been
a perfect spot for him to go for three or

(33:41):
four years, especially if Ryan wins it again this year.
Now he's up there, like almost in the same breath
as a saving type where he's won it multiple times,
he's he's only lost a handful of games and five years,
you know, so I would think that three or four
years under your belt, I'm right to take over.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
And Cole's got one more question for you.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Yeah, I was gonna you kind of touched on it
a little bit there, but I was gonna get at
you know, with heartline there there would be a good hire,
no doubt, but I would I was gonna ask you,
how important do you think it is that even if
you know this isn't his alma mater. Per se Stein
grew up a Kentucky fan. You look at Kentucky fans
out there saying, like, you know, pointing to all these
other programs and why they're able to do it, But

(34:24):
Kentucky hasn't. And a team that's been pointed to a
lot's been Vanderbilt, and I think a lot of people
forget that A major part of their success is with
Clark Lee being a Vanderbilt alum. There's not as much
risk of him leaving for somewhere else you've seen even Yeah,
even with how many jobs are open this cycle, you
didn't see his name come up a ton. And that's
not because he can't coach, because people didn't think he
was gonna leave Vanderbilt. That's so when you look at

(34:45):
making this higher, how you kind of touched on a
little bit theit But how just how important is it
for Kentucky that they got in a guy who loves
Kentucky has grown up with this program very far less
likely to just leave in a few years.

Speaker 5 (34:57):
That's an easy question to answer. Hugely important. This has
to be a destination, not a stopovers and that's what
it would have been for Heartline.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah, no, good answer. Yeah, all right, Jeff Row. We'll
leave it at that, and uh, we'll see you, I
guess at a news conference soon. I would assume, thank
you so much. All right, we'll come back and uh
we're gonna talk volleyball, gonna say good night to Cole,
go home and go type some more. We didn't get
the basketball, but you know, read the Cat's Boss. Follow
Cole online, Tell everybody your your ex or your Twitter.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yes, that's at Cole Park, Underscore WSC Park is p
A r k E.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
There you go. A bonus letter, Yeah, a little bit
to buy a value. All right, good deal. I'll see
at the ball game. See you there when we come back.
We'll talk about those volleyball cats in just a minute
here on the state wide BBI coming up this week

(35:52):
NCAA tournament action for the volleyball Wildcats. They host and
if they win, they host, and they can keep right
on hosting it if they keep right on winning and
they are the SEC tournament champions and joining us now
is basically the publicity director for UK Volleyball from UK
Sports Information, Chris Sholes. Chris, I'm gonna tell on both
of us because we admitted to each other when Kentucky

(36:15):
was down to nothing and it was getting late in
set number three against Texas. I had prepared a tweet.
You had started thinking about what you were going to write,
and they turned it around. How in the world from
where you sat, and yes, the world saw you sitting there,
you got a lot of FaceTime. How did this happen?

Speaker 6 (36:37):
Well, let me correct you. First off, I wasn't preparing
for what I was going to write. I had already
written it. It was pretty much in stone. I just
needed to put some numbers in in. You know, I
think it starts if you had the chance to watch
the thirteen minute recap that our Sports City Department put together.
We put out on social media.

Speaker 5 (36:55):
Horrific Eva Hudson.

Speaker 6 (36:57):
You know the reason I say that, it's because we
are able to give you some access that TV isn't
allowed behind the benches and things like that. Eva Hudson
just refuses to lose, and she refuses to let the
people around her enter a losing mentality, no matter what
the score is. You know, I think if you look
around all the country and there are very few players
that are as competitive as he's a Hudson, there are

(37:20):
very few players that are willing to grab people by
the arms and move them through the line of battle
with them like Eva Hudson. You could tell that Brooklyn
Delay wasn't having her best night and it didn't matter
because everybody else had their back. You know, you really
felt like things were changing. In the middle of the foreset, Kentucky,

(37:40):
I think we got up to a six point lead.
If I'm not mistaken, this five or six points, and
I think midway through the four said that's when the
tide really began to turn, and that this set, you know,
you lose the first two points, that everyone's like, Okay,
we did all this work. Is they're going to be
worth it. And you know, the boat just kind of
steadied itself in choppy waters and closed the mat playing
some of the best volleyball we'll play all year.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yeah, and you know it's interesting. I'm sitting there watching
it and I, you know, let's come on, I mean,
coming back on Texas. And then it starts to change.
And I kept reminding myself because you know, I've done
volleyball since they pumped up the first ball here. I
have seen momentum swings so quickly and so dramatically through

(38:27):
every kind of season, every kind of match. And then
I reminded, I said, this thing can turn around and
start going downhill for Texas in an eyelash. And then
in the fifth set, when you guys were starting to
pull away and then Texas started to come back, Oh no,
it's gonna turn around again. I don't know what it
is about volleyball, but more than any other sport, I've

(38:50):
seen drastic momentum changes like this throughout my broadcasting career.
What's your take on that.

Speaker 6 (38:59):
It's a moment undriven sports for sure, and it's one
of the few sports you know, like in football, if
you score, you have to give the ball to the
other team. In basketball, when you score a basket, the
other team gets the ball. In tennis and volleyball, it's
one of the few sports where if you win, you serve,
and yes, the other team gets the ball, but they
don't get to rotate until they win the next point.

(39:21):
So if they're in a bad position, you can pound
them on one particular rotation for four or five, six,
seven points and they've got to figure it out. The
onus is on them. So as long as you get
to serve in the onus is on them.

Speaker 5 (39:33):
To figure it out.

Speaker 6 (39:34):
And most of the time they do sign out percentages
somewhere typically between sixty to seventy percent for most teams
and most matches on most days, but the onus is
still on that other team to find a way to score.
And if you can't score, and you run off through
your four points in a row and you serve the
same target, and the same thing happens it's so momentum driven.
And then you get in these arenas and you know,

(39:56):
the sec that's such a good job of picking a
location with an arena that was proper size for what
we needed. It gets loud and then the crowd gets
into it and you face the pressure and there's music
between every point and you start getting a little shaky
on the passing. So everything is just kind of driven
by momentum, and I think that's when you have to
have someone like Craig Skinner, who is so steady on
the bench and you know he will get excited and

(40:19):
he'll get frustrated. Those are the two emotions that he
feels as the head coach during a match. But for
a volleyball coach, he is so stock and so consistent
for every single point that I think that that actually
helps his team.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
I sat next to you at the selection show and
you were kind of doing, to anybody who was nearby,
kind of an analysis of each bracket draw things like that,
and you all but predicted who was going to become
an electionon you know, and I don't mean on the
commercial break right before. I mean you you kind of
knew how things were going to shake out and it

(40:55):
looks to me and I think I heard you talk
about this like you we got a predator. Every draws tough,
let's face it. Yeah, but teams that you would just
as soon see in the final four there in the
other brackets, aren't they?

Speaker 5 (41:10):
Yeah there.

Speaker 6 (41:10):
I mean, look, when you're in this long enough, you
kind of learn what the dangerous teams are and what
their qualifications are, and maybe what they look like. Obviously,
we had a really good feeling going into the night
with our resume and body of work that we were
going to be a top four seed. So then you
kind of look, Okay, if we're a top four seed,
that means we're playing someone that's probably in the five
to eight range. Two are the five to eight teams

(41:32):
that you'd rather play and not play. You probably would
not have wanted to play Louisville, having already played them
in the regular season in a five set match. You
probably would not have wanted to play SMU because of
there they had the two extremely dynamic athletic kitters. We
already played them in the regular season in Lexington. Stanford
is on a hot streak right now. They just beat Louisville.
They won the ACC So of those two seeds, Arizona

(41:55):
State's the one that has the most question ourks out there.
They don't have a top ten win the Big twelve
with not the strong league this year, so you check
that box and then you go to the three seeds
and you kind of look, Okay, Creighton is in the
Big East, which is a good league, but it's definitely
not a great league, so they're not getting a lot
of chances to play the best team. So a three
seed is a relatively attractive option. So yeah, to your point,

(42:15):
no path to the final four is going to be easy.
We know that we're going to get tested along the
way at some point. But if you could have gone
down the line and picked the seeding, we avoided a
lot of landmines like a Wisconsin who now have the
healthy setter and probably is closer to a two seed
than the three seed, and they fell into Texas's squadrant.
So all those things are lined up really well. But

(42:36):
they're going to have to win six matches for to
get to the Final four and it starts Thursday night.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
How about that? And you've gotten some good crowds this year.
I know Craig's not gonna have to jump off a
diving board to get a crowd. But I think we'll
see good crowds. And by the way, Georgia Tech has
like a fifty six match streak of selling out their arena.
Now the arena holds fifteen hundred plus about two hundred
standing room, you know, so it's all relative, but I

(43:05):
really believe we're gonna see some great crowds. And I
remember as well, and I don't know if you're rolling
volleyball back then or not, but Western Kentucky came in
here a few years ago and through a real scare
into Kentucky in the NCA tournament. All these teams coming in, Yeah,
you mentioned the ones that you're better off not seeing.
Everybody's coming in on a high, aren't they. Everybody's coming

(43:29):
in confident, aren't they.

Speaker 6 (43:31):
Well, absolutely, And it's the one point of the season
where everybody is the same. Nobody has any wins yet
everybody's oh no, you just have a number next to
your name, which is irrelevant. But you know, Craig talks
about this all the time. Playing in the SEC is
when everybody plays Kentucky the last several years, and now
Texas has this as well. And they had this in
the Big twelve. But they have nothing to lose. I mean,

(43:52):
if you lose to Kentucky, it doesn't hurt you in
any way, shape or form, home away, neutral site, whatever. Yeah,
you know, Georgia Tech literally the last team into the field.
I don't think that they're feeling sorry for themselves coming
to Lexington. I think they're psyched to be here. UCLA.
You know, we can talk every one about, oh it's
another road trip across the country. They're going to get
on a plane now, they're in the Big ten. That's

(44:14):
normal for them, what they do, Yeah, this is what
they do. So then you got a Wafford team that
came in here in twenty twenty three at rapp Arena
and really enjoyed their experience. They'll come back. They are
not going to number one feed in their conference, but
they won their tournament. So you're playing a team that's
probably playing the best volleyball they all our year. There's

(44:34):
no easy match, but nobody's gonna place any pressure on
themselves to play in these matches this week. And the
only team that has pressure is Kentucky because they got
that one.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
And by the way, Georgia Tech's half its roster from
girls from all over the world, so they know it's
less to play against international competition. They're not going to
be they're not gonna be intimidating. Chris, thank you so much,
looking forward to it. Thank you for all your help
throughout the year, and we will see you on Game night.

Speaker 6 (45:00):
Can't wait. Thanks for having me on Dick.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
That's Chris Scholes and we will wrap this up by
saying thanks to Cole, thanks to Jeff, thanks to Bo,
thanks to you for listening. That's it. Good night from Lexington.