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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Get to know the Cougar's opponents and rivals.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Right now, I need to know the faux segment TOD
Cougar Sports with Ben Kretelber, lol Acobout Corugar Sports one
O three nine ninety eight point three ESBN the fan
I bet for the broadcasting from our Bantererwealth Studios Banterwelth
dot com. Please get on that free Q and A
no obligation to do with vest Q and A with our
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Speaker 3 (00:19):
Nobody does it better than Banterwealth.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I love getting to know the faux b YU and
you of A on the docket this weekend a big
game for both programs.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
You of A A four and one team.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
They're only lost to a ranked I alway stay team
on the road b YU five and zero. Their best win,
you can argue, is the Colorado game on the road.
They're coming off of victory versus West Virginia at home
as well. We're gonna break it all down with a
U of A Insider and it's gonna be a fantastic
statement so segment, So stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Getting to know the FAE.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
The U of A Wildcat's gonna be brought to you
by Dental Pros of Utah American Fork. If you're looking
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(01:10):
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Pros of Utah, Dentalprosofutah dot com. All right, we got
Brian Jeffries on the line, the director of Radio Broadcasting
and the voice of the the U of a Wildcat.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Brian, how are you.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Elman doing very well? Looking forward to a big weakend?
Obviously a big game as you mentioned for both teams
and for Arizona, kind of one of those turning point games.
You know, their programs being rebuilt now under Brent Brennan.
And this is gonna tell I think a lot of
people you know what direction they're headed right now? Really
where they're at in terms of the rebuild.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Is this so this is a tipping point game, right,
to take a Malcolm Gladwell term, right, the tipping point
possibly of buying from the donor base, the media, the
fan base.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Would you say, yeah, I think so. I'm I mean,
you know, Arizona's best win so far has been Kansas State.
It was here at home, and they played really well.
Like you said, they got beat at Iowa State. It's
a very good team. They've won the games probably they
should have won so far. And now we're going to
find out against a team that you know, probably a
(02:17):
lot of a lot of folks don't give Arizona a
huge chance to win. Well, now, what can they do
against an unbeaten BYU team. So yeah, you know last
year Arizona finished four and eight, so they won four
games already this season. If they were to be five
and one midway through the season, then I would say that, yeah,
that would be a huge check mark in their favor.
And certainly you've set up a great second half of
(02:39):
the season. But you know, first things first, one game
at a time, and this is going to be a
huge opportunity for Arizona kind of I use the term,
you know, plant their flag in terms of you know,
trying to stay in the conference race.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
You've seen this team, You've been covering this team for
a long time. I think you know a good team
when you see it.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Where do you stand?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Is this a better football team than last year? Is
this a better team collectively?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Far better than last year? I mean, really, there's not
much comparison. And there's a couple of reasons why. When
Brent Brennan got hired, he got hired late in the process.
They had already passed one of the portal windows, and
so they had to scrambled to try and put last
year's roster together. I think they had some guys that
were holdovers that probably, just to be honest with you,
(03:31):
weren't interested in the new system. And so they made
some changes during the offseason. A lot of players left,
brought in a lot of players out of the portal
and that's what you can do these days in college football. Now,
you can turn things around in a hurry. And Brennan
also made some key changes to his coaching staff. He
has three new coordinators this year. Said Deggi came in
(03:52):
from Marshall to run the offense. Danny Gonzalez was on
the staff last year, but now he was promoted to
defensive coordinator and that's really his background, and so those
two particular. Craig Niver is the new special teams coach,
but in particular offensively and defensively, they've made some major
changes and I would say upgrades in the coaching and
(04:12):
it certainly showed so far in terms of how the
team has played so much better team than a year ago.
Now where it will play out in the one last record,
I mean, we'll find out in the weeks to come,
but yeah, they've they're light years ahead of where they
were a EU ago at this time.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
That boats well for you, of a as they welcome
the BYU Cougars to Tucson, Arizona b Way only a
slight favorite here, this is a toss up game. I
think the line as I see it right now, I
think it opened at two and a half, currently at
one and a half with an over under forty.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Six and a half.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
ESPN Analytics giving BYUS seventy percent chance of victory, and
I think espnsp plus gives Bay your slight chance of
victory as well. Give me your thoughts on this game
and how these two teams match up.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well. I think defensively they're both very good. All you
have to do is look at the Big twelve statistics
and they both rank, you know, top five in most
categories there. And so I think that is a real
key for both sides. On paper, that tells us maybe
it's going to be a low scoring game. Not that
it always plays out that way, but I'm really interested
to see, you know, how the two offenses attack the
opposing defenses. So, you know, does it I'll use some
(05:23):
coach speak here. Does it come down to the usual
things turnovers? And Arizona has been okay in that department?
You know? How physical can the Wildcats play? We know
BYU is a very physical team. They always have been
for a long time. That's one of their calling cards.
Can Arizona match that? One thing that Danny Gonzalez has
done with his defense this year, he is he has
(05:45):
taught them to be physical, He's taught them to be
violent in a good way. So again, can they do
that against a bigger team, a team that you know
is bigger and better than anything Arizona has seen so
far this season. And we'll throw the weather in there.
I just between you and me, I don't think it's
going to be that much of a factor only because
both teams are going to have to play in it.
(06:05):
It's not going to favor either one, and so we'll
see how it plays out.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
In that department, What do you what are you forecasting
right now? What are you hearing about the weather at
this moment. We've we've heard discussions about moving the game
up to avoid the maybe the thunderstorms in the in
the rain, and and to avoid any sort of delays
or cancelations.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
What do you see happening in that front?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Well, yeah, I'm not a forecaster, and it's an inexact
science in terms of how I look at it. I mean, today,
it's what eighty degrees in sunny right now, it's a
beautiful day, and they're talking about some rain coming in tonight.
I think they've downgraded what there was, you know, going
to be this tropical storm that was going to bring
in ten inches of rain. Now they're talking one to
(06:51):
two inches, which you know is not that big a deal.
You know, the thing you worry about more than anything
is is not the rain. I think it's the thunder,
the lightning. We had a two hour lightning delay already,
earlier this season, so you'd like to avoid that If
it's just rain. Hey, you know, football's played in bad
weather all the time across the country, and so because
(07:14):
these two teams probably haven't dealt with it this year.
I don't know what you know, conditions BYU has played in,
but Arizona hasn't played in bad weather. Even that lightning delay,
there was no rain to speak of earlier this year,
and it's been a while since I think the Wildcats
have played in a bad weather situation. So, hey, you know,
whatever happens, I don't know if they're going to move
the game up. I think that's that would be a
(07:36):
very difficult call. But if that's something they want to do, well,
so be it. What the heck, what else are we
going to do tomorrow? Let's just play ball whenever we
want to.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
As far as the injury report is concerned, how healthy
is you of a heading into this game? Are there
any concerns as far as health and depth is concerned.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Well, they lost one of their better defensive linemen this week.
Trace me. He had been banged. It really hadn't been
healthy all that much this season, but he had played
Richard senior, a transfer, and they're going to miss him.
They thought going into the season he might be their
best edge rusher. Like I said, he's been nicked up
this year, but he decided just to go ahead and
(08:18):
to have surgery on Thursday, and so he is out
for the rest of the season. They have developed depth.
They had eight guys rotating on the defensive line, so
you know they've got other guys that can fill in there,
although I think it's going to be a true freshman
Mace Pesse that's probably going to get most of the
snaps there At one of those spots. Kean Burnett, who
was a tight end, has decided to red shirt. If
(08:40):
you look at the injury report, you see three tight
ends listed that are out for Arizona. Kellen Ford hasn't
played at all this season, Tyler Powell was hurt on
the first play of the first game. He's out for
the year, and now Burnett is out, And so it's
not as if they you know, it's not earth shattering.
Sam Olsen has been there, goo guy at tight end,
(09:01):
and Kim Barmore, a transfer, will be the other one.
And they've got some other guys that can play the position.
But they haven't featured their tight ends all that much
out of out of Olsen this year. So that's it
on that front. Offensively, I think they're in pretty good
shape right now. Other than you know, Burnett being out.
(09:22):
They've got a few guys, like everybody banged up a bit,
but they're punt Richard or Jeremiah Patterson did not play
last week and so it's a possibility that he'll sit
out this week as well.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Their form one and they have one of the most
stingiest secondaries in college football, having not given up a
passing touchdown.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
All season long.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
The only weakness right that we've seen is you know,
when you're in a way sitting versus a ranked opponent,
you're at Ioway State, what happened in that game and
uh and also speak to that secondary and how stingy
they've been.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Well, I'm going to give Iowa State the credit because
just a very good football program. Their program kind of
like BYU where they don't make a lot of mistakes.
They don't they don't hurt themselves. They play under control,
and you know, you play in that atmosphere back there,
you got sixty one five hundred people tremendous support. And
it's just Matt Campbell has built a great program there,
(10:19):
kind of like coach Tataki has at BYU, where winning
on their home field is very difficult for anybody. And
so they were the better team that night. Arizona made
some mistakes, but just the same. I mean I always Date
did not, so I just give them the credit. That's
the bottom line. They were the better team in that game.
Now did the Wildcats learn from that? Well, they came
(10:39):
back home. They beat Oklahoma State, but they should have
beaten Oklahoma State. The Cowboys, as you guys well know,
are going through turmoil right now on the coaching front,
so they're going to have another tough season this year.
In terms of the secondary, I think going into the season,
before there was a snap back in late August, we
knew that the secondary was the strongest part of the
defense just because of the returning guys there, Dalton Johnson,
(11:01):
they're leading tackler from a year ago, Tradon s Duke's
only played four games last year before he got hurt,
but he's come back now. He started the last couple.
He's a real key there. MARKI Scuros, Killer Brew is
a return guy. They went to the portal against Genesis
Smith a return guy. They went to the portal. They
picked up Michael Dansby, who didn't play last week, but
I think it's going to be okay this week. He's
(11:23):
helped them out a lot at corner. They've got a
transfer from Texas and Javion Cole who has played really
well Aiden Garnes, so that part of their defense we
kind of figured was going to be good and it
has been so far. And yeah, they haven't given up
a passing touchdown, and you know, that's a great thing
to hang your hat on. But if you ask any
of them, they say, well, we don't want to give
(11:45):
up any kind of touchdowns, let alone passing touchdowns. So
we'll see how it goes this week. I think the
red zone is going to be big based on these
two defenses. Well, they looked at it a couple of ways. Certainly,
the offense is very balanced between run and pass. Probably
in their run game, L J. Martin's the most physical
running back arizonall that faced this season, and in bear
(12:06):
Bachmeyer see a dual threat quarterback. And it's not the
first game this season Arizona's faced a running quarterback, probably
not a quarterback that has as many designed runs. It
was interesting when Kansas State was here. You guys know
about Avery Johnson, who's an outstanding dual threat quarterback. He
just didn't run a lot in that game. Now was
that by design or was it Arizona's defense? You could
(12:28):
make an argument probably either way. And defensively, the Arizona
coach is just, you know, marvel at the physical nature
that Dyu plays, especially on that defensive front, and the
ability to try it to run the ball against them,
that's going to be a real challenge. Arizona's done a
decent job running the ball this season. Now, last week,
if you looked at the box score, you saw they
(12:49):
only had forty five yards against Oklahoma State. You know,
the Cowboys played eight men in the box and they
said go ahead and throw the ball, and Arizona threw
the ball and no Fafiina finished with five touchdowns passes.
So you know, if you're going to give him the pass,
Arizona can do that. But I'm most interested to see
if Arizona can establish a run game against that big
front line of Byu.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, going back to the incluent weather conversation. If it
does rain, does that vote better for BYU? Because they
have an established run game. I think they're currently at
sixty forty sixty percent run forty percent pass. I don't
know where you have as at as far as their
pass to run or run to pass ratio. So give
me your thoughts on you for there is a downpour,
if it is a little bit sloppy there, does that
(13:34):
boat better for BYU?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Well, I mean, just based again on the way they
run the ball, I would say yeah, it probably gives
them an edge. You know. I asked Brett Brennan yesterday
when I was walking up to his office about you know,
the weather and so on and how he looked at it.
And of course he's coached at San Jose State and
Oregon State, et cetera. He's been around the block a
few times, and he says, hey, look, you know I've
been with a team. Now. He was a bit faceesis
(13:58):
year when he said, you know, I I've been at
a game where we threw for six hundred yards when
it was pouring down rain. Now, I think what he's
trying to tell us is that you can still throw
the ball if it's raining. It just depends how hard
it rains. Now, I again, I'm not going to become
a forecaster here, but in the monsoon season here in
southern Arizona, when it rains, it rains hard. This is
(14:19):
a tropical storm, which, again, just being an amateur weather man,
I'm not sure how hard it's going to rain. They're
just talking about more rain and it's longer periods of rain.
It's an artificial field, it drains extremely well. Both teams
are going to, you know, keep those footballs dry, and
so I'm kind of downplaying it saying that, hey, you know,
(14:41):
football is meant to be played in any kind of weather,
and both teams are going to have to deal with it.
So whatever happens, let's just go out to it up
and see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
To that point about the field once, supot a time
twenty years ago, I played on that field and it
was a natural grasshield.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
It was a great field.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Actually, I really enjoyed playing on that field down in Tucson.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
It was early in the.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Season and great, great purchase of the cleat in there,
and never had any slippage or anything like that. Why
the move from natural grass to turf field? Do you
remember that transition.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, I do. And you know the reason that was
such a great field that you played on that that
actually was transplanted from a golf course here in town,
and they very well maintained golf course, and that's why
I think it was such a great grass field. There
was Rich Rodriguez who was the coach at Arizona at
the time. He's the one that wanted to go to
artificial turf, and you know, they looked at it as
(15:39):
a cost factor like some schools do and say, hey,
you know, it's it's less costly to maintain an artificial field.
The other thing that came into play here is that
when you got into late November, the bermuda would die off.
They'd have to paint the grass and et cetera. So
he convinced the athletic department to make the change. And
that's the way it is for now, and I don't
(16:01):
know if they'll ever go back to it. But it's
a pretty good field. You know, when you look at
artificial fields, it's it's in good shape and like I said,
it drains well, so both teams will be on equal footing.
As they say.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Man, I love that Bermuda grass. It was I remember playing.
I grew up in Arizona, playing over at Horizon High
School and they had like the best field at the time,
and it was just so crisp, so so awesome. I'm
sure once I got into November, it wasn't I'd playing
in September on these fields, but man, I missed that
crisp Bermuda grass. Sinking my cleats into it.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
It was. It was a great field.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
You know, I'm with you. I'm a traditionalist. I love
the natural grass both football and baseball, but you know
that's not the world we live in right now. And
so this is this is what we got and we
go for it and we'll see what happens down the road.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Talking BYU versus U of A and I know the
faux segment and it's brought to you by Dental Pros
of Utah Dental Pros of Utah dot com. Brian, give
me a breakdown really quick of what you know Noah
Fafitte has been able to accomplish thus far this season
and how difficult I mean. Look, Kelly pepinga special teams coordinator,
(17:13):
he stated yesterday He's like, Noah is the best. It
is probably the best quarterback passer that we're we're going
to see all season long.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
What makes Noah so special.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Well, he's made a lot of changes and improvements to
his game. If you go back two years ago when
he was a starter and actually kind of you know,
got put into that spot due to an injury and
ended up, you know, having a great finish to the
twenty twenty three season, and then was a starter last season.
But then, you know, last year's efficiency went down and
for whatever reason, you know, he didn't have as much
(17:46):
depth at wide receiver. He had one guy in Tetro McMillan,
who was obviously pretty good first Tron Draft pick. Other
than that, there wasn't a whole lot of depth in
the wide receiver department. And like I said, for whatever reason,
he could look at a lot of different statistics, it
just wasn't as good efficiency This year now, a couple
of things have happened. One Seth Dagey comes in, new
(18:08):
offensive coordinators started working with him in the spring. They've
improved his footwork. I think that's one thing last year
that for one reason or another, was a little bit
of skew. They want him getting rid of the ball quicker.
I think he's more mature now. He's seen the field
much better and I think it's just part of a
natural growth of a young football player. And he's got
(18:28):
more depth a wide receiver to deal with. Now he's
got eight guys and you know, they rotate them in
and he feels confident in all of them to throw
them the football. And maybe last year there was some
guys he didn't feel as comfortable with and that's why
he was always looking for his buddy tam Max. So
overall improvement for him. The last two games in particular,
(18:49):
he has been razor sharp with his passes and it's
nothing that we didn't expect. We kind of hoped that
he would get back to that level he was in
twenty three and he has done that, surpassed that a bit.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I want to go back to.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I want to go to something that we haven't discussed yet,
and it's more related to Big.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Twelve, right uve as part of the Big twelve.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Now, they were a part of the pack Pack eight
Pac ten Pac twelve for a long time and that
transition must have been a difficult one for everybody involved.
What do you recall about that transition to discussions that
were happening there at U of A. And then why
ultimately they made the move to the Big twelve.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Well, it was a pretty crazy time, There's no doubt
about it. I mean, historically the craziest periods probably in
college sports. And I think when, of course, it all
started with the LA schools and that was you know,
the warning flaares went up at that point as to
what was going to happen with the conference. And I
will give credit to the athletic career here at the time,
(19:55):
Dave Hike. He was very proactive and they wanted to Okay,
you know, what's going to happen to the conference here?
What if, you know, more teams leave, and what do
we do? And so he made sure that Arizona had
made contacts that in the event that, you know, the
conference started to fall apart, so to speak, that they
(20:18):
would find a safe landing spot. And then when Washington
and Oregon made the jump to the Big ten, obviously
that that set everything off. And it was for me
and probably like you you know, being around I grew
up around the Pac ten and the Pac twelve and
that's all I knew, and I hated to see it end.
(20:38):
I mean, those are just great rivals and even you know,
when Colorado and Utah came into the league, it instantly
became great rivals, I think dating just back to history
in particular between Arizona and Utah, and so you just
felt very comfortable, you had a great history between the schools,
and now all of a sudden, you're playing teams and
schools that you've never seen before, You've never been to
(20:59):
their cities before, and it's been a big learning curve.
And I think one thing the fans here I think
are still waiting to see, Okay, who's the new rival.
I mean, you know that you've got a rival with
Arizona State. I think there's a rivalry with Arizona, and
obviously Utah and Colorado. I think there's a rivalry with BYU.
You have border states. They played one another off and
(21:20):
on over the years, Bowl games against one another, and
so I think that's a rivalry. But who else is
it going to be? And I don't know if we've
identified that yet. I think that's one thing that the
fans are waiting to kind of figure out here is
who's that other school and basketball? It was easy, it
was Kansas and now in football, I think we're just
(21:42):
we're going to wait and see where else it heads.
And so I think the fans, like everybody else, they're
still trying to learn these new opponents now and figure
out what the Big twelve is all about.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, it just it was a crazy time, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
And I think the question may still be unanswered, but
how and why I did the PAC twelve die? You know,
I'm sure you've been asked that question. How did how
did it not survive?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Well, yeah, I don't have the answer to that. I
think that as soon as the contact was made with
I mean you had. My understanding is USC was the
first school that had contact in terms of moving out
and heading to the Big ten. And then of course
they had to take along UCLA with them, and so
(22:29):
you know whatever happened at that point inside the headquarters
of the PAC twelve that there was not quick enough
movement to try and keep everybody else together. I don't
know what went on behind closed doors, but obviously there
wasn't enough done and maybe nothing could be done again.
Will somebody ever write that book and tell us what
(22:52):
the true story was. There's a lot of stuff out there.
I don't know if it's accurate or not. All I
know is that there wasn't enough leadership and I'm not
talking about one person, but just really across the conference
to step forward and say, okay, what can we do
here to keep this together? And it didn't happen now thankfully,
you know, for schools like Arizona, you know there was
(23:14):
a landing spot. Yeah, Washington State and Oregon State didn't
get that, and you know they're struggling because of it.
So I mean, I think you know we and I
say we the U of A is looking at this
as Okay, We're glad where we're at. We would rather
have kept the Big the Pac twelve together, but this
is a pretty good spot to be, if.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Not best basketball conference maybe in America. I know you're
going to be excited for the basketball season, maybe the
most wonderful time of the year when football and basketball
meet together in the October and November months. What do
you make of the Big twelve basketball season? What do
you like about what you're hearing preseason?
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Why?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Well, absolutely loaded. I mean it's going to be a
brutal confidence. So winning on the road is going to
be extremely difficult. I mean, from Kansas, Arizona, BYU, Texas Tech, Baylor.
I could just go on and on. I you know,
I was talking to the folks from Oklahomostate last week
and they said, how they've reloaded, They've gone to the
(24:15):
portal now they think they've got a really good team.
And just seeing what we saw last year being out
on the road for the first time, it's it's tough.
The everywhere you go, the arenas are full. It's a
great conference. And this probably to me is the deepest,
at least in the last two years. That's my experience,
certainly a lot deeper than last year. And from everybody
(24:36):
I've talked to that has been around the league longer
than I have, this is probably as deep as the
Big twelve has ever been. And some of that, again
is because of the infusion of the new schools. And
you guys know what BYU's done, and you know Arizona's
done the same thing in terms of reloading their roster.
And you know, Tommy Lloyd is as excited about this
(24:57):
team as any team he's had here, even though they
got seven freshmen on the roster. He thinks they have
a chance to be maybe his best team, So I'm
excited to see how it plays out. I just think
that you can't get too wound up in losses because
I think teams are going to beat up each other.
But in the end that's probably a good thing. I mean,
if it helps your schedule, your strength to schedule, then
(25:19):
it can help you when it comes tournament times. So
I'm excited to see what happens.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Brian.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
We appreciate you joining us, and hopefully it's a competitive
one and entertaining one. Up to this point, historically, a
lot of these games recently and even in the past,
what have there been I want to say, maybe twenty
twenty six total games in this series. Yes, BYUS on
a four game winning stage streak, but thirteen wins for BYU,
(25:44):
twelve wins for you of A, and I feel like
all these have been competitive.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Well that's you know, and that's what makes a great rivalry,
it really does. And so you know, I know last
year's game up in Provo BYU was outstanding. Arizona made
what four turn in that game. That's one thing they've
talked about this week. They can't do that against a
team like BYU. So I expect this to be a
close game. It would shock me if this game is
(26:10):
not decided until the fourth quarter. I think both teams
are good enough to get there.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Brian Jeffries, Ladies and gentlemen, the voice and director of
radio broadcasting for the U of A Wildcats. Brian, we shalute.
We appreciate you. Good luck on your call. We'll see
you down in Tucson, all right, appreciate it, Thank you,
Thank you. Brian Jeffries, Ladies and gentlemen. Great segment brought
to you by Dental Pros of Utah Dentalprosovieutah dot com.
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Speaker 3 (26:46):
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Go to Dental Pros of Utah in American Fork today,
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but don't go anywhere and more to get to this
is Cougar Sports on one of three to nine ninety
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Get to know the Cougar's opponents and rivals.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Right now, I need to know the faux segment TOD
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Speaker 3 (00:19):
Nobody does it better than Banterwealth.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I love getting to know the faux b YU and
you of A on the docket this weekend a big
game for both programs.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
You of A A four and one team.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
They're only lost to a ranked I alway stay team
on the road b YU five and zero. Their best win,
you can argue, is the Colorado game on the road.
They're coming off of victory versus West Virginia at home
as well. We're gonna break it all down with a
U of A Insider and it's gonna be a fantastic
statement so segment, So stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Getting to know the FAE.
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The U of A Wildcat's gonna be brought to you
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Mentioned myself for VIP Products, VP Service, VIP Discounts, Dental
Pros of Utah, Dentalprosofutah dot com. All right, we got
Brian Jeffries on the line, the director of Radio Broadcasting
and the voice of the the U of a Wildcat.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Brian, how are you.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Elman doing very well? Looking forward to a big weakend?
Obviously a big game as you mentioned for both teams
and for Arizona, kind of one of those turning point games.
You know, their programs being rebuilt now under Brent Brennan.
And this is gonna tell I think a lot of
people you know what direction they're headed right now? Really
where they're at in terms of the rebuild.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Is this so this is a tipping point game, right,
to take a Malcolm Gladwell term, right, the tipping point
possibly of buying from the donor base, the media, the
fan base.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Would you say, yeah, I think so. I'm I mean,
you know, Arizona's best win so far has been Kansas State.
It was here at home, and they played really well.
Like you said, they got beat at Iowa State. It's
a very good team. They've won the games probably they
should have won so far. And now we're going to
find out against a team that you know, probably a
(02:17):
lot of a lot of folks don't give Arizona a
huge chance to win. Well, now, what can they do
against an unbeaten BYU team. So yeah, you know last
year Arizona finished four and eight, so they won four
games already this season. If they were to be five
and one midway through the season, then I would say that, yeah,
that would be a huge check mark in their favor.
And certainly you've set up a great second half of
(02:39):
the season. But you know, first things first, one game
at a time, and this is going to be a
huge opportunity for Arizona kind of I use the term,
you know, plant their flag in terms of you know,
trying to stay in the conference race.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
You've seen this team, You've been covering this team for
a long time. I think you know a good team
when you see it.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Where do you stand?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Is this a better football team than last year? Is
this a better team collectively?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Far better than last year? I mean, really, there's not
much comparison. And there's a couple of reasons why. When
Brent Brennan got hired, he got hired late in the process.
They had already passed one of the portal windows, and
so they had to scrambled to try and put last
year's roster together. I think they had some guys that
were holdovers that probably, just to be honest with you,
(03:31):
weren't interested in the new system. And so they made
some changes during the offseason. A lot of players left,
brought in a lot of players out of the portal
and that's what you can do these days in college football. Now,
you can turn things around in a hurry. And Brennan
also made some key changes to his coaching staff. He
has three new coordinators this year. Said Deggi came in
(03:52):
from Marshall to run the offense. Danny Gonzalez was on
the staff last year, but now he was promoted to
defensive coordinator and that's really his background, and so those
two particular. Craig Niver is the new special teams coach,
but in particular offensively and defensively, they've made some major
changes and I would say upgrades in the coaching and
(04:12):
it certainly showed so far in terms of how the
team has played so much better team than a year ago.
Now where it will play out in the one last record,
I mean, we'll find out in the weeks to come,
but yeah, they've they're light years ahead of where they
were a EU ago at this time.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
That boats well for you, of a as they welcome
the BYU Cougars to Tucson, Arizona b Way only a
slight favorite here, this is a toss up game. I
think the line as I see it right now, I
think it opened at two and a half, currently at
one and a half with an over under forty.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Six and a half.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
ESPN Analytics giving BYUS seventy percent chance of victory, and
I think espnsp plus gives Bay your slight chance of
victory as well. Give me your thoughts on this game
and how these two teams match up.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well. I think defensively they're both very good. All you
have to do is look at the Big twelve statistics
and they both rank, you know, top five in most
categories there. And so I think that is a real
key for both sides. On paper, that tells us maybe
it's going to be a low scoring game. Not that
it always plays out that way, but I'm really interested
to see, you know, how the two offenses attack the
opposing defenses. So, you know, does it I'll use some
(05:23):
coach speak here. Does it come down to the usual
things turnovers? And Arizona has been okay in that department?
You know? How physical can the Wildcats play? We know
BYU is a very physical team. They always have been
for a long time. That's one of their calling cards.
Can Arizona match that? One thing that Danny Gonzalez has
done with his defense this year, he is he has
(05:45):
taught them to be physical, He's taught them to be
violent in a good way. So again, can they do
that against a bigger team, a team that you know
is bigger and better than anything Arizona has seen so
far this season. And we'll throw the weather in there.
I just between you and me, I don't think it's
going to be that much of a factor only because
both teams are going to have to play in it.
(06:05):
It's not going to favor either one, and so we'll
see how it plays out.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
In that department, What do you what are you forecasting
right now? What are you hearing about the weather at
this moment. We've we've heard discussions about moving the game
up to avoid the maybe the thunderstorms in the in
the rain, and and to avoid any sort of delays
or cancelations.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
What do you see happening in that front?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Well, yeah, I'm not a forecaster, and it's an inexact
science in terms of how I look at it. I mean, today,
it's what eighty degrees in sunny right now, it's a
beautiful day, and they're talking about some rain coming in tonight.
I think they've downgraded what there was, you know, going
to be this tropical storm that was going to bring
in ten inches of rain. Now they're talking one to
(06:51):
two inches, which you know is not that big a deal.
You know, the thing you worry about more than anything
is is not the rain. I think it's the thunder,
the lightning. We had a two hour lightning delay already,
earlier this season, so you'd like to avoid that If
it's just rain. Hey, you know, football's played in bad
weather all the time across the country, and so because
(07:14):
these two teams probably haven't dealt with it this year.
I don't know what you know, conditions BYU has played in,
but Arizona hasn't played in bad weather. Even that lightning delay,
there was no rain to speak of earlier this year,
and it's been a while since I think the Wildcats
have played in a bad weather situation. So, hey, you know,
whatever happens, I don't know if they're going to move
the game up. I think that's that would be a
(07:36):
very difficult call. But if that's something they want to do, well,
so be it. What the heck, what else are we
going to do tomorrow? Let's just play ball whenever we
want to.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
As far as the injury report is concerned, how healthy
is you of a heading into this game? Are there
any concerns as far as health and depth is concerned.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Well, they lost one of their better defensive linemen this week.
Trace me. He had been banged. It really hadn't been
healthy all that much this season, but he had played
Richard senior, a transfer, and they're going to miss him.
They thought going into the season he might be their
best edge rusher. Like I said, he's been nicked up
this year, but he decided just to go ahead and
(08:18):
to have surgery on Thursday, and so he is out
for the rest of the season. They have developed depth.
They had eight guys rotating on the defensive line, so
you know they've got other guys that can fill in there,
although I think it's going to be a true freshman
Mace Pesse that's probably going to get most of the
snaps there At one of those spots. Kean Burnett, who
was a tight end, has decided to red shirt. If
(08:40):
you look at the injury report, you see three tight
ends listed that are out for Arizona. Kellen Ford hasn't
played at all this season, Tyler Powell was hurt on
the first play of the first game. He's out for
the year, and now Burnett is out, And so it's
not as if they you know, it's not earth shattering.
Sam Olsen has been there, goo guy at tight end,
(09:01):
and Kim Barmore, a transfer, will be the other one.
And they've got some other guys that can play the position.
But they haven't featured their tight ends all that much
out of out of Olsen this year. So that's it
on that front. Offensively, I think they're in pretty good
shape right now. Other than you know, Burnett being out.
(09:22):
They've got a few guys, like everybody banged up a bit,
but they're punt Richard or Jeremiah Patterson did not play
last week and so it's a possibility that he'll sit
out this week as well.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Their form one and they have one of the most
stingiest secondaries in college football, having not given up a
passing touchdown.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
All season long.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
The only weakness right that we've seen is you know,
when you're in a way sitting versus a ranked opponent,
you're at Ioway State, what happened in that game and
uh and also speak to that secondary and how stingy
they've been.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Well, I'm going to give Iowa State the credit because
just a very good football program. Their program kind of
like BYU where they don't make a lot of mistakes.
They don't they don't hurt themselves. They play under control,
and you know, you play in that atmosphere back there,
you got sixty one five hundred people tremendous support. And
it's just Matt Campbell has built a great program there,
(10:19):
kind of like coach Tataki has at BYU, where winning
on their home field is very difficult for anybody. And
so they were the better team that night. Arizona made
some mistakes, but just the same. I mean I always Date
did not, so I just give them the credit. That's
the bottom line. They were the better team in that game.
Now did the Wildcats learn from that? Well, they came
(10:39):
back home. They beat Oklahoma State, but they should have
beaten Oklahoma State. The Cowboys, as you guys well know,
are going through turmoil right now on the coaching front,
so they're going to have another tough season this year.
In terms of the secondary, I think going into the season,
before there was a snap back in late August, we
knew that the secondary was the strongest part of the
defense just because of the returning guys there, Dalton Johnson,
(11:01):
they're leading tackler from a year ago, Tradon s Duke's
only played four games last year before he got hurt,
but he's come back now. He started the last couple.
He's a real key there. MARKI Scuros, Killer Brew is
a return guy. They went to the portal against Genesis
Smith a return guy. They went to the portal. They
picked up Michael Dansby, who didn't play last week, but
I think it's going to be okay this week. He's
(11:23):
helped them out a lot at corner. They've got a
transfer from Texas and Javion Cole who has played really
well Aiden Garnes, so that part of their defense we
kind of figured was going to be good and it
has been so far. And yeah, they haven't given up
a passing touchdown, and you know, that's a great thing
to hang your hat on. But if you ask any
of them, they say, well, we don't want to give
(11:45):
up any kind of touchdowns, let alone passing touchdowns. So
we'll see how it goes this week. I think the
red zone is going to be big based on these
two defenses. Well, they looked at it a couple of ways. Certainly,
the offense is very balanced between run and pass. Probably
in their run game, L J. Martin's the most physical
running back arizonall that faced this season, and in bear
(12:06):
Bachmeyer see a dual threat quarterback. And it's not the
first game this season Arizona's faced a running quarterback, probably
not a quarterback that has as many designed runs. It
was interesting when Kansas State was here. You guys know
about Avery Johnson, who's an outstanding dual threat quarterback. He
just didn't run a lot in that game. Now was
that by design or was it Arizona's defense? You could
(12:28):
make an argument probably either way. And defensively, the Arizona
coach is just, you know, marvel at the physical nature
that Dyu plays, especially on that defensive front, and the
ability to try it to run the ball against them,
that's going to be a real challenge. Arizona's done a
decent job running the ball this season. Now, last week,
if you looked at the box score, you saw they
(12:49):
only had forty five yards against Oklahoma State. You know,
the Cowboys played eight men in the box and they
said go ahead and throw the ball, and Arizona threw
the ball and no Fafiina finished with five touchdowns passes.
So you know, if you're going to give him the pass,
Arizona can do that. But I'm most interested to see
if Arizona can establish a run game against that big
front line of Byu.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, going back to the incluent weather conversation. If it
does rain, does that vote better for BYU? Because they
have an established run game. I think they're currently at
sixty forty sixty percent run forty percent pass. I don't
know where you have as at as far as their
pass to run or run to pass ratio. So give
me your thoughts on you for there is a downpour,
if it is a little bit sloppy there, does that
(13:34):
boat better for BYU?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Well, I mean, just based again on the way they
run the ball, I would say yeah, it probably gives
them an edge. You know. I asked Brett Brennan yesterday
when I was walking up to his office about you know,
the weather and so on and how he looked at it.
And of course he's coached at San Jose State and
Oregon State, et cetera. He's been around the block a
few times, and he says, hey, look, you know I've
been with a team. Now. He was a bit faceesis
(13:58):
year when he said, you know, I I've been at
a game where we threw for six hundred yards when
it was pouring down rain. Now, I think what he's
trying to tell us is that you can still throw
the ball if it's raining. It just depends how hard
it rains. Now, I again, I'm not going to become
a forecaster here, but in the monsoon season here in
southern Arizona, when it rains, it rains hard. This is
(14:19):
a tropical storm, which, again, just being an amateur weather man,
I'm not sure how hard it's going to rain. They're
just talking about more rain and it's longer periods of rain.
It's an artificial field, it drains extremely well. Both teams
are going to, you know, keep those footballs dry, and
so I'm kind of downplaying it saying that, hey, you know,
(14:41):
football is meant to be played in any kind of weather,
and both teams are going to have to deal with it.
So whatever happens, let's just go out to it up
and see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
To that point about the field once, supot a time
twenty years ago, I played on that field and it
was a natural grasshield.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
It was a great field.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Actually, I really enjoyed playing on that field down in Tucson.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
It was early in the.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Season and great, great purchase of the cleat in there,
and never had any slippage or anything like that. Why
the move from natural grass to turf field? Do you
remember that transition.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, I do. And you know the reason that was
such a great field that you played on that that
actually was transplanted from a golf course here in town,
and they very well maintained golf course, and that's why
I think it was such a great grass field. There
was Rich Rodriguez who was the coach at Arizona at
the time. He's the one that wanted to go to
artificial turf, and you know, they looked at it as
(15:39):
a cost factor like some schools do and say, hey,
you know, it's it's less costly to maintain an artificial field.
The other thing that came into play here is that
when you got into late November, the bermuda would die off.
They'd have to paint the grass and et cetera. So
he convinced the athletic department to make the change. And
that's the way it is for now, and I don't
(16:01):
know if they'll ever go back to it. But it's
a pretty good field. You know, when you look at
artificial fields, it's it's in good shape and like I said,
it drains well, so both teams will be on equal footing.
As they say.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Man, I love that Bermuda grass. It was I remember playing.
I grew up in Arizona, playing over at Horizon High
School and they had like the best field at the time,
and it was just so crisp, so so awesome. I'm
sure once I got into November, it wasn't I'd playing
in September on these fields, but man, I missed that
crisp Bermuda grass. Sinking my cleats into it.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
It was. It was a great field.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
You know, I'm with you. I'm a traditionalist. I love
the natural grass both football and baseball, but you know
that's not the world we live in right now. And
so this is this is what we got and we
go for it and we'll see what happens down the road.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Talking BYU versus U of A and I know the
faux segment and it's brought to you by Dental Pros
of Utah Dental Pros of Utah dot com. Brian, give
me a breakdown really quick of what you know Noah
Fafitte has been able to accomplish thus far this season
and how difficult I mean. Look, Kelly pepinga special teams coordinator,
(17:13):
he stated yesterday He's like, Noah is the best. It
is probably the best quarterback passer that we're we're going
to see all season long.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
What makes Noah so special.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Well, he's made a lot of changes and improvements to
his game. If you go back two years ago when
he was a starter and actually kind of you know,
got put into that spot due to an injury and
ended up, you know, having a great finish to the
twenty twenty three season, and then was a starter last season.
But then, you know, last year's efficiency went down and
for whatever reason, you know, he didn't have as much
(17:46):
depth at wide receiver. He had one guy in Tetro McMillan,
who was obviously pretty good first Tron Draft pick. Other
than that, there wasn't a whole lot of depth in
the wide receiver department. And like I said, for whatever reason,
he could look at a lot of different statistics, it
just wasn't as good efficiency This year now, a couple
of things have happened. One Seth Dagey comes in, new
(18:08):
offensive coordinators started working with him in the spring. They've
improved his footwork. I think that's one thing last year
that for one reason or another, was a little bit
of skew. They want him getting rid of the ball quicker.
I think he's more mature now. He's seen the field
much better and I think it's just part of a
natural growth of a young football player. And he's got
(18:28):
more depth a wide receiver to deal with. Now he's
got eight guys and you know, they rotate them in
and he feels confident in all of them to throw
them the football. And maybe last year there was some
guys he didn't feel as comfortable with and that's why
he was always looking for his buddy tam Max. So
overall improvement for him. The last two games in particular,
(18:49):
he has been razor sharp with his passes and it's
nothing that we didn't expect. We kind of hoped that
he would get back to that level he was in
twenty three and he has done that, surpassed that a bit.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I want to go back to.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I want to go to something that we haven't discussed yet,
and it's more related to Big.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Twelve, right uve as part of the Big twelve.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Now, they were a part of the pack Pack eight
Pac ten Pac twelve for a long time and that
transition must have been a difficult one for everybody involved.
What do you recall about that transition to discussions that
were happening there at U of A. And then why
ultimately they made the move to the Big twelve.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Well, it was a pretty crazy time, There's no doubt
about it. I mean, historically the craziest periods probably in
college sports. And I think when, of course, it all
started with the LA schools and that was you know,
the warning flaares went up at that point as to
what was going to happen with the conference. And I
will give credit to the athletic career here at the time,
(19:55):
Dave Hike. He was very proactive and they wanted to Okay,
you know, what's going to happen to the conference here?
What if, you know, more teams leave, and what do
we do? And so he made sure that Arizona had
made contacts that in the event that, you know, the
conference started to fall apart, so to speak, that they
(20:18):
would find a safe landing spot. And then when Washington
and Oregon made the jump to the Big ten, obviously
that that set everything off. And it was for me
and probably like you you know, being around I grew
up around the Pac ten and the Pac twelve and
that's all I knew, and I hated to see it end.
(20:38):
I mean, those are just great rivals and even you know,
when Colorado and Utah came into the league, it instantly
became great rivals, I think dating just back to history
in particular between Arizona and Utah, and so you just
felt very comfortable, you had a great history between the schools,
and now all of a sudden, you're playing teams and
schools that you've never seen before, You've never been to
(20:59):
their cities before, and it's been a big learning curve.
And I think one thing the fans here I think
are still waiting to see, Okay, who's the new rival.
I mean, you know that you've got a rival with
Arizona State. I think there's a rivalry with Arizona, and
obviously Utah and Colorado. I think there's a rivalry with BYU.
You have border states. They played one another off and
(21:20):
on over the years, Bowl games against one another, and
so I think that's a rivalry. But who else is
it going to be? And I don't know if we've
identified that yet. I think that's one thing that the
fans are waiting to kind of figure out here is
who's that other school and basketball? It was easy, it
was Kansas and now in football, I think we're just
(21:42):
we're going to wait and see where else it heads.
And so I think the fans, like everybody else, they're
still trying to learn these new opponents now and figure
out what the Big twelve is all about.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, it just it was a crazy time, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
And I think the question may still be unanswered, but
how and why I did the PAC twelve die? You know,
I'm sure you've been asked that question. How did how
did it not survive?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Well, yeah, I don't have the answer to that. I
think that as soon as the contact was made with
I mean you had. My understanding is USC was the
first school that had contact in terms of moving out
and heading to the Big ten. And then of course
they had to take along UCLA with them, and so
(22:29):
you know whatever happened at that point inside the headquarters
of the PAC twelve that there was not quick enough
movement to try and keep everybody else together. I don't
know what went on behind closed doors, but obviously there
wasn't enough done and maybe nothing could be done again.
Will somebody ever write that book and tell us what
(22:52):
the true story was. There's a lot of stuff out there.
I don't know if it's accurate or not. All I
know is that there wasn't enough leadership and I'm not
talking about one person, but just really across the conference
to step forward and say, okay, what can we do
here to keep this together? And it didn't happen now thankfully,
you know, for schools like Arizona, you know there was
(23:14):
a landing spot. Yeah, Washington State and Oregon State didn't
get that, and you know they're struggling because of it.
So I mean, I think you know we and I
say we the U of A is looking at this
as Okay, We're glad where we're at. We would rather
have kept the Big the Pac twelve together, but this
is a pretty good spot to be, if.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Not best basketball conference maybe in America. I know you're
going to be excited for the basketball season, maybe the
most wonderful time of the year when football and basketball
meet together in the October and November months. What do
you make of the Big twelve basketball season? What do
you like about what you're hearing preseason?
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Why?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Well, absolutely loaded. I mean it's going to be a
brutal confidence. So winning on the road is going to
be extremely difficult. I mean, from Kansas, Arizona, BYU, Texas Tech, Baylor.
I could just go on and on. I you know,
I was talking to the folks from Oklahomostate last week
and they said, how they've reloaded, They've gone to the
(24:15):
portal now they think they've got a really good team.
And just seeing what we saw last year being out
on the road for the first time, it's it's tough.
The everywhere you go, the arenas are full. It's a
great conference. And this probably to me is the deepest,
at least in the last two years. That's my experience,
certainly a lot deeper than last year. And from everybody
(24:36):
I've talked to that has been around the league longer
than I have, this is probably as deep as the
Big twelve has ever been. And some of that, again
is because of the infusion of the new schools. And
you guys know what BYU's done, and you know Arizona's
done the same thing in terms of reloading their roster.
And you know, Tommy Lloyd is as excited about this
(24:57):
team as any team he's had here, even though they
got seven freshmen on the roster. He thinks they have
a chance to be maybe his best team, So I'm
excited to see how it plays out. I just think
that you can't get too wound up in losses because
I think teams are going to beat up each other.
But in the end that's probably a good thing. I mean,
if it helps your schedule, your strength to schedule, then
(25:19):
it can help you when it comes tournament times. So
I'm excited to see what happens.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Brian.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
We appreciate you joining us, and hopefully it's a competitive
one and entertaining one. Up to this point, historically, a
lot of these games recently and even in the past,
what have there been I want to say, maybe twenty
twenty six total games in this series. Yes, BYUS on
a four game winning stage streak, but thirteen wins for BYU,
(25:44):
twelve wins for you of A, and I feel like
all these have been competitive.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Well that's you know, and that's what makes a great rivalry,
it really does. And so you know, I know last
year's game up in Provo BYU was outstanding. Arizona made
what four turn in that game. That's one thing they've
talked about this week. They can't do that against a
team like BYU. So I expect this to be a
close game. It would shock me if this game is
(26:10):
not decided until the fourth quarter. I think both teams
are good enough to get there.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Brian Jeffries, Ladies and gentlemen, the voice and director of
radio broadcasting for the U of A Wildcats. Brian, we shalute.
We appreciate you. Good luck on your call. We'll see
you down in Tucson, all right, appreciate it, Thank you,
Thank you. Brian Jeffries, Ladies and gentlemen. Great segment brought
to you by Dental Pros of Utah Dentalprosovieutah dot com.
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a root canal, I'm asking you to just get a
(26:35):
second opinion at Dental Pros of Utah in American Fork.
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Speaker 3 (26:46):
A more conservative way to approach their oral health. Check
it out.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Go to Dental Pros of Utah in American Fork today,
let them know I sent you. We'll go to break
but don't go anywhere and more to get to this
is Cougar Sports on one of three to nine ninety
two point three
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