Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 5-28-25

OC talks college football expansion and offseason with Bruce Feldman, Stanley Cup Playoffs with John Forslund, Tre Johnson draft preview with Josh Newman, How many 7 footers are there in the world + more

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
He's the Sean O'Connell Show, brought to you by Less
Schwab Tires. Now here's o Utah's number one sports talk
ESPN seven hundred, yeah, ninety two one.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
A f am I'd be hump day, everybody. Welcome to
the Sean O'Connell Show. Glad to be with you.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
If your kids are still in school, It's only going
to last a couple more days.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Summer is upon us, the weather indicating as such.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
It's a good feeling, beautiful days ahead, beautiful days currently
with us, and we're hoping to inform an and entertain you.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Today.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
We are ninety four days away from Utah football's season
opener against UCLA on the road at the Rose Bowl.
Not the same as going two a Rose Bowl, but
a great venue none the less, an easy place to
get tickets, a.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Relatively friendly little road trip.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Or you know, there's what four airports within striking distance
of the Rose Bowl that you can fly down from
our beautiful Salt Lake Internationals. So uh plan ahead, ninety
four days away from Utah football starting off their season
Eastern Conference Finals, Western Conference Finals in the NBA, in

(01:25):
the NHL, we're getting a little bit lopsided. I put
a poll question up reflecting that, you know, you got
a bunch of teams trailing three to one, and I
guess the other way to say that is, you got
a bunch of teams leading their series three to one.
But from the Trailers perspective, who do you trust? Who
do you believe actually has a shot to overcome the deficit?

(01:48):
Or who is most likely to do so? Carolina in
the NHL, Dallas in the NHL, Minneso in the NBA,
or the mighty New York Knicks in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Who saw more knicks? My knicks? You you porter?

Speaker 4 (02:12):
And Spence's Knicks and Tony's Knicks an honorary member of
ESPN seven hundred, of course, Tony Jones.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
You know what's actually really funny about that, James So,
I was born in Minnesota, all right. I have no
affection for the Minnesota Timberwolves, aside from the fact that
I think their uniforms are kind of cool.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
You were so when you moved here from Minnesota? They
were they had only been a franchised for a few years, right,
the Tea Wolves.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I was.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
I moved here in ninety two, Okay, so that was
their third or fourth maybe going into their fourth season.
They're pretty new in the NBA, so that makes sense
they I'll tell you what NBA past, eight year old
you in their third or fourth year in the league,
you didn't really attach yourself to that team.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
That makes sense.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Seven eight nine year old Sean O'Connell had. I'm telling you,
next to zero awareness of the NBA before I moved
to Utah. It just wasn't a thing. You watched hockey,
You watched Minnesota Twins baseball because the Twins were really
good back then. The Vikings were kind of an afterthought
because of I guess family connections. We were into Big

(03:19):
Ten football and Notre Dame football.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Watched a lot of Iowa Hawkeyes. You know, my parents
are from Iowa.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
So no love for the Minneapolis Lakers and their dynasty
in the fifties.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Oh see, I did not feel any connection to that.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
That was Yeah, that's the thing, Like that makes total
sense nowadays growing up in Minnesota. Like hockey is still
number one, Yes, Vikings, Well, I mean maybe Vikings are
even number one because NFL is such a big influence.
But football and hockey are the two things twins, And
then it's Twins and Tea Wolves, and I don't know

(03:55):
enough to know which one right now, it's probably the
Teo Wolves because the Tea Wolves are been really good
the last two years.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
They're relatively better in the field.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
Between when the Lakers moved to Los Angeles in the
sixties and eighty nine, when the Tea Wolves were awarded.
When Minnesota was awarded the te Wolves, why would you
have any reason to be an NBA fan in Minnesota.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
I remember we came.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
My parents took a trip out here, just the two
of them to look at houses. Then they brought us
all out when they were looking at houses again, which
this is pre ubiquitous Internet, so searching for a house
was very very.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Different back then.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah, can imagine when we were moving and looking in
the classified to the newspapers.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
I'm sure's a big part of it.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
I remember my parents, you know, to kind of integrate
us into Utah life.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
On that trip before we had actually moved here, we
went to.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Like whatever whatever was called back then, like a pro
image store, and we got some Utah Jazz gear. And
I was just like, weird that they're called the Jazz,
and weird that basketball is the number one thing here.
There was no hockey at all in nineteen ninety two.
There was nothing you couldn't You couldn't go into a
store and buy a hockey branded hat, sweat or whatever.

(05:08):
Just hockey didn't exist here, basically, at least from a
little kid perspective. So I have no affection for the
Timberlves even though I lived there. My parents live in Oklahoma.
I've got no sincere affection for this version of the
Oklahoma City Thunder.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
I root for the I rooted for the Knicks the
only place.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
I don't even like New York, but I just I
just decided the Knicks were my team when I moved
here and basketball was the thing, I was just like, well,
I like Georgetown. I don't even know why I like Georgetown.
I like Georgetown so I like Patrick Hewing, so I
like the Knicks like you. Just sometimes it's that simple, man, You.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Did you plant your flag in weird spots.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
When you're a nine year old, and then as the
years have gone by, you've you've you've become a jazz fan. Well, right,
you develop a certain affection for whatever makes you memories
in sports, and obviously, you know, in my more formative years,
my teenage years, the Utah Jazz were kind of a
big deal. And then as I got a little bit older,

(06:10):
I was able to work in environments where I saw
a lot of jazz players, got to know some jazz players,
consider at least a couple of former jazz players friends,
and so yeah, you know, you make you're more of
a jazz fan.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Although sorry, in sports media, you're not supposed to be
a fan of anything. According to the old school guys,
I that boat missed me. I can't pretend I'm a fan.
I'm a fan of team. You're a fan anyway. Anyway,
So that was just a random little aside.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
We were talking about which team you're talking about the
pole question, which which team down three to one? Best
chance to win? And look in hockey, and there's been
a lot of parody in hockey and in the NBA
this year. The regular season, you had some really interesting matchups.
The early playoff rounds, you had at least a couple
that kind of went down to the wire. These conference

(07:00):
finals are unfortunately getting to a point that I would
say is lackluster in terms of viewer interest, because you know,
three to one, if we end up with four gentlemen
sweeps here, it takes a little sting, It takes a
little steam off of the enjoyment to.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
The playoffs the hockey game.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
So the one thing that's been a saving grace is
other than I mean, the Western Conference finals, other than
Game four, have been all blowouts, but the Eastern Conference
Finals have been pretty much all close games, and three
of them really classic games. Right last night, not quite

(07:42):
a classic kind of game, but still a really close
game at the end there the t Wolves, as I mentioned,
game four made it really tight against Okay, see gives
you gives you a thought that even though it's a
road game, maybe with the blowout winning three combined with
a really good effort in game four that they just

(08:03):
came up short on, maybe they can steal road win
in games in game five and force the game six.
So you at least have that. The hockey games have
been basically all blowouts on both sides, like it's been,
and there's been been a little rough that way.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
There's been some empty netters as teams are getting desperate
late and making the scores more lopsided. But but you're right, anyway,
who do you trust most to at least force the
game seven, if you're not going to come back three
to one to win the series. We know that's a
rarity still in professional sports, but it's not unprecedented. If

(08:40):
anyone can do it, who do you think can do it?
Knicks are trailing three to one, Wolves are trailing three
to one, Carolina Hurricanes are trailing three games to one,
and the same is true of the Dallas Stars. And
right now the answers coming in, I think most people
believe in Dallas because they don't trust Edmonton's defense, they
don't trust Edmonton's goalkeeper, goaltender, and uh, you know when

(09:04):
Dallas gets hot. It's when Dallas gets hot. If Miko
Rantn and decides to, I don't know, drink his spike
gatorade again, then who knows what could happen in that series.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (09:15):
Absolutely, that that's the one that I feel is the
is absolutely the one that the that could be. We
could see a comeback game seven to four, Store or
the or the Stars down three to one winning that
series because like you said, they've got the goal scorer
to do it. If he just wakes up. He hasn't.

(09:36):
He hasn't had a great game since the last series.
It seems like Attinger has been arguably the best goaltender
in the playoffs until this series. Probably the most important
point there if he if he recaptures some of the
form he had in the first two series, then everything
changes because a red hot and he's not right now,
but a red hot goaltender a goaltender that gets hot

(09:57):
and just becomes a brick wall. Even against dry title
and even against Conor McDavid. There's just sometimes those guys
stand on their heads, and I guess in hockey that's
less of a euphemism, and they sometimes do almost stand
on their heads because the acrobatics you got to do
yea in the crease. But in any case, the one
I trust least to come back is is probably Carolina.

(10:21):
I think Florida's just like I think Florida just fell
asleep at the wheel in the last game.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
They're just bullies. I think that one will have to
in academic formality, and we'll obviously have that for you
here on Utah's ESPN Radio network.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
We'll have to see if John Forsland has any He'll
be on at noon with you from Sports USA. We'll
see if he holds out any hope for for his
former team, the Carolina Hurricanes. He was a long time
played by play voice for them, so we'll see if
he holds out any hope. But I'm with you, like
even though they got an improbable road win shut out

(10:56):
even the other night against the defending champ who've been
who've just looked so dominant since like game five of
the second since game five of the second round. Mate,
It just it just feels like the Panthers have this
one in the bag, even though they have they have

(11:17):
to go on the road tonight to do it. Oh see,
But it seems like home ice advantage is not near
as is not near as critical as home court advantage,
home field advantage though. That's what I'm starting to learn
as I'm watching more playoff hockey.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
I think that's I think that's a commentary on hockey
players in general. I think that hockey guys are just
more compared to most professional athletes. And obviously, most professional
athletes have a level of focus and mental toughness that
is hard to relate to. But I think hockey players

(11:55):
are on a different level even compared to their peers
and professional athletics. I think that they're just you know,
the the environment itself is less important than what you're
getting from your teammates on the bench, what you're getting
from your opponents. Maybe it's because of how the arenas
are constructed. I don't know, because it just it just

(12:16):
seems like what's going on on the ice and basketball
I think is kind of the most. The energy of
a crowd in basketball and the fact that you know
there's no physical barrier at all between the crowd and
the players.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
It is it proximity to the to the playing surface.
Maybe I don't know.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
If I don't know, because like home field advantage matters
right in football, and a lot of times the fans
are like, that's well removed.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
I just think that it's a different world, right.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
The like you can't you could run out onto a
basketball floor. You could jump the railing and run out
onto a baseball diamond, or out onto a football pitch
or a soccer pitch or whatever you can.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
You don't really even do that in hockey.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
You're not gonna climb over the glass, and if you did,
you're just slip sliding around it.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Just I don't know that's a.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
Good point because even if you get to the ice,
you're not on skates, and you probably don't have the
shoes that grip the ice well.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
And I'm sure, I'm sure that's not even close to.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Front of mind for players, But I just think that
it's a representation of how significant the barrier between fan
and athlete is in that sport in particular, and also
hockey guys.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
I just the more I we.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Get to interact with them, the more we get to
watch them, the more we talk to them or just
listen to their interviews, They're just different, man, They're just
built different.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
And I like it. It's awesome.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
So who do you think is most likely to come
back from a three to one deficit? We'll ask all
of our guests on the show that today, maybe and maybe.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
If you want to, if you want to interact more
with the poll on on Twitter at real OC Sports.
It's also retweeted on stage account at ESPN seven hundred
or Texas eight seven seven three three zero seven hundred.
Maybe rank the ones you think you could do, one
you believe the most in, the underdog that the team
that's trailing, and which series you believe the least, like

(14:13):
like OC just did with the Stars, believing in bringing
them the most to being able to come back, Hurricanes,
believing in them the least to come back.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Bruce Feldman is going to join us at about fifteen minutes.
A lot going on in college football right now. I've
got a pull on that as well as the powers
that be, the decision makers in college sports are again
and we talked about this a lot yesterday, are kind
of batting back and forth the idea of more playoff
college football, playoff reform, and the SEC and the ACC

(14:43):
excuse me, the SEC and the Big Ten seeming to
have the most influenced there. And you know Greg Sank,
the SEC commissioner, kind of like batting it around with
his coaches. That is a that is a collection of individuals,
by the way, who knows exactly the position they are in.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
And they love it.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
I mean, Kirby Smart at this point is not even
pretending to pay lip service to other conferences. Yesterday, Kirby
Smart was like, you're telling me, look what happened in
the in the.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
SEC basketball conference this year.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
You got like, well, whatever it was, fourteen teams in
the tournament and that was all based on metrics at
RPI and everything like that. Are you and he went
further and he said, I think that Ole Miss in
South Carolina and Alabama and all these teams are among
the best in college football. He's not even campaigning just
for his own team anymore. And more importantly, he's not

(15:42):
even doing Notre Dame or I shouldn't have used Notre
Dame as the example, because they made it all the
way to the national championship. But he's not even doing
Clemson or Arizona State or BYU or like, not even
the courtesy of being like, hey, the Big twelve got
some good teams.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
The ACC's got some good teams.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
He's just like, like, I approve of whatever format gets
the most SEC teams in because we're the best conference.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
We have the best players, and we have the best teams.
It's like, oh my gosh, that's a that's a pretty
significant ship.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
They were careful about how they spoke in terms of
our our house is the best house. It was always like,
hey man, we we got a really good thing going here.
But I like what everyone's doing. You know, they're they're
trying out West and they're trying in the Midwest, and uh,
we're we respect everybody. Now that now everyone's just like huh,

(16:35):
I mean Lane Kiffin last year.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
Oh, he was spouting off every chance, every chance anyone
asked him about it. He got to pump up the SEC.
Not even Ole miss the SEC. He did it and
people listen.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, you're talking about when look, Kirby Smart gets to
say what he wants because he's he's sitting atop one
of the most dominant programs like The Dynasty maybe of
the current moment in college football.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
So he's going to say what he wants to say.
Ryan Day can say what he wants to say. You're
not getting it as much from the Big Ten, at least.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yet to not be, but which is kind of interesting
that we don't hear much of that from the Big Ten.
But it's probably coming.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
I'll tell you the Big Ten, you know, they're really
there are cultural differences between the Midwest and the South. Yeah,
and communication differences between the Midwest and the South.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Brash, I guess is the way to say it.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
It's just that's just a different style, you know what
I mean? Like I I it was my early years
were in the Midwest. My entire extended family as Midwesterners,
I've been in the Midwest.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Line it really like our country. We shouldn't ignore this.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Our country has very distinct geographical cultural differences. Right, the
South is different than the Northeast. Certainly the Midwest is
different than the Northeast. Certainly the West is kind of
of like a hodgepodge.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
I think, like a lot of transplants from all those areas.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
We're newer, we're newer out here, but in any case
we might get it from the Big Ten. And maybe
this is just a product of behind closed doors, or
maybe it wasn't even behind closed doors. At some point,
Greg Sankey was just like, guys, it's all right for
us to stop pretending that we're not the big kid
on the block. It's all right for us to say

(18:26):
what you've always wanted to say, because we don't have
to appease anybody else. We don't actually need the Big twelve,
we don't actually need the ACC, we don't need any
of these other conferences. Maybe we kind of need the
Big Ten, so don't rag on them at all. But
as long as you're just pumping up your own chest
and talking about what we've got, you could say whatever

(18:47):
you want. And they've always done that to an extent,
But now it is, and maybe it's a reflection of
the political climate or whatever, but now it is just
like the SEC is like, we want a playoff format
that is basically just us, and it could be a
pushbacker and over compensation because of what happened with this
year's National championship game did not have SEC representation. Right,

(19:11):
Ohio State is a threat, Oregon is more of a
threat than they've ever been. Notre Dame is a threat again,
So maybe they're they're just trying to like.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Penn State also a semi final team. I mean, that's
not they're not front of mine. They're thinking about Ohio
State and Notre Dame more. But that's got to be
in some people's minds.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
I'm spitballing whatever ideas you could be looking at here
behind the SEC's willingness and not even willingness, eagerness to
campaign in favor of a format that kind of just
like throws the integrity or the fairness of college football
out the window. I mean, they were like, they were like,

(19:51):
hey man, we should.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Get for teams automatically into the playoff just because they're
in the SEC.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Well, what if you have a down years of conference?

Speaker 3 (20:00):
They want they don't even believe that's a possibility, right,
And how we spend a lot of time most of
yesterday speaking about how rapidly these things change. So they
kind of balled up and trashed the idea of like, well,
let's do four automatic bids for the Big Ten and
four automatic bids for the SEC. Now what all these
coaches are seeming to like, according to reports, let's do

(20:23):
an expanded college football playoffs sixteen teams, five highest ranked
conference champions, and then eleven at large bids. And this
is appealing to the SEC because Greg Sank went into
a meeting and said, our conference champion gets in. That's one,
and all those other eleven at large bids will have

(20:43):
a shot at those. If you do four automatic bids,
consciously or subconsciously, people are gonna be like, okay, fine,
you get four in.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
Yeah, you limit you let you you unintentionally put a
limit on the number of teams that your conference can
get in when you when you do that, even though
four is a ridiculous amount of teams.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
They'll be six. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
If you have conference champ automatically in and then eleven
at large bids for a total of a sixteen team
field five are already figured out.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
You got eleven.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
How many of those are going to be SEC teams
based on what we have seen competitively, what we have
seen from committees, what we have seen from AP polls
and things like that. I mean Greg Sanke, he's he's
a smart commissioner. Whether you like what he's done or
whether you dislike him, he goes in there and he
meets with his coaches and he says, guys, this is
the model. We should jump behind sixteen teams and we'll

(21:40):
have six or seven of them be SEC squads. And
that means television revenue shares, and that means more money,
and that means one hundred million dollars distributed to your
athletic department at the end of the year. And that
means that you can pay those dang kids forty million
dollars in a salary cap, fifty million dollars in a
SA salary cap, and you yourself get ten million bucks

(22:02):
a year. And we're all still in the in the black.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
And even though you just you just mentioned all the
reasons why they don't necessarily care about winning the pr
of this, they they are out for themselves and they
feel like they can say that. Now they do. It
is a pr win because it makes them look like, oh, yes,
we're open to we're open to complete fairness. How many

(22:29):
how many Big twelve teams the committee to meet meet
or deems worthy of one of the eleven at large
or of the eleven at large bids? We're okay with that.
Acc same thing, of course, Big ten, we're okay with that.
While secretly they're like, if we don't get five of
these every year, it's a really bad year for us.

(22:52):
If you have a sixteen team playoff, you're gonna have
at least five SEC teams in and again, and we
could get all eleven.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
We might be able to at all eleven if we're
that good. How rapidly is this movie?

Speaker 3 (23:03):
Well, yesterday I started there was a there's a model
that is I guess still on the table where if
you do automatic bids, the solution to make sure that
those automatic bids were fair and fairly distributed was actually
something that the article I read was pushing back and
saying this is stupid.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
I actually liked it. The model.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
The proposal was that if you're gonna promise the Big
ten four teams and you're gonna promise the SEC four teams,
they're gonna have to actually figure out who gets which bid,
and if you're gonna see these things, you're gonna have
to actually figure it out by playing. And the proposal was,

(23:48):
even if you get three bids automatically as a conference
one versus two in the regular season standings, plays in
the conference championship game the same weekend, three and four
play against each other, five and six play against each other,
or you could do three and six, four and five, whatever,
and then you have to win your way into the

(24:10):
automatic bid. Now that means more games for everyone, not
just the conference champs. There's already been pushback that maybe
conference championship weekend is being devalued. This model was like, okay,
if you're gonna give multiple bids automatically, then they got
to win their way in.

Speaker 4 (24:26):
It's like an NBA playing tournament, but college football stock.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Here's the thing.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Conference championship weekend is fun because you know you've got
the distilled product. Most teams are done waiting for their
bowl invite, and then the two best teams in the
most important conferences and in I guess lesser conferences.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
Yeah, almost all of the I think actually all of
the group of five conferences that have conference championship games
play that weekend too, so you get less.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
I don't know how many, off the top of my head,
how many of the group of five conferences don't play
conference championship.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
I think I think maybe one, but I don't. I
couldn't tell you that.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
It's kind of cool because it's a distilled product of
college football, where it's the best teams from each conference
squaring off for what, at least what used to be
a very prestigious award, something that you put on your
goal sheet, at the top of your goal sheet for
every team every year because coaches acknowledge, yeah, we all
want to win a national championship, but put your attainable

(25:29):
goal first. We want to win the conference championship game,
or for some teams it's we want to beat our rival,
we want to win the conference championship, then we want
to win a playoff game, then we want to win
a national championship.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
The hierarchy of needs right.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
That that kind of is the top, the most realistic one,
And if you ended up having more football with high
stakes in that weekend, I wouldn't hate it. I still
would pay the conference championship games their due attention. I
would still hope that the television partners would do the

(26:05):
same thing the primetime games. The big time games would
happen on the Friday and Saturday evening in the primetime spots.
But give me a big neon kickoff of the two
versus five, or excuse me, the three verses four or whatever,
three versus six that's also trying to play their way

(26:26):
into a playoff. Again, I'm I'm okay with the straight seeding.
I'm okay with conference champions getting the automatic bids. And
if you go to sixteen teams and it's eleven at large,
that's probably the most fair prospect. If you decide, well,
the Big ten and the SEC they really run things here,

(26:48):
and they want automatic bids. At least for the sake
of the fairness illusion. At least make those teams win
their way in if I'm gonna be forced to watch
Iowa Hawkeye football in the college football playoff, at least
make them win their way. In the article I was reading,

(27:09):
the example was that that game would have happened, it
would have been Illinois versus Iowa, and the winner would
have got into the college football playoff because everyone in
the top six in the Big Ten and everyone in
the top six in the Big excuse me, in the SEC,
they're eligible for a spot.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
You just have.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
To see them win their way in Look, Illinois, Iowa,
we know that the winner of that game is not
going to go on to win a national championship, but
we may not win a playoff game.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
We felt the same way about Boise State. We felt
the same.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
A lot of people felt the same way about Arizona State.
They accounted incredibly well for themselves and almost got Texas right.
But if we're talking about expanding a playoff, that was
probably the best idea that I saw, and it's already
been scrapped effectively because the SEC coaches and Greg Sanke

(28:02):
are now uniting behind this let's do five conference champs
and eleven outlaw.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah they're calling it five plus eleven.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yes, that meet five plus eleven, and they have to
call it that because in the SEC, even the coaches
they don't know how you get to sixteen.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
They have a hard time with numbers. Arithmetic is not
a strong suit.

Speaker 4 (28:25):
Iowa football catching strays and UH football SEC football coaches
IQs catching strays at the end of the segment.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Here love it.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
You know what, your Iowa family, by the way, your family,
they might still live in Iowa. They're livid with you,
by the way. So I'm forced to watch Hawkeyes football
the most recent products.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
I guess credit to Iowa for making their offense more
palatable last year.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
But there were how many years.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Where Iowa was like, we're gonna give you six points
a game, run out the clock starting with the second quarter.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
Yeah it was, Oh thank you it was. But also
produce great tight ends in the NFL. Yeah, okay, wonderful.
Shout out George Kittle. So today and every day is
brought to you by Lesh Schwab. Our friends at les
Schwab Tires have multiple locations up and down the Wassatch front.
They take care of all of our ESPN seven hundred listeners.

(29:18):
Mention us when you go in, tell them OC sent you.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
They'll hook you up with the tires, the wheels, the
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Schwab Tires. Ninety four days until Utah football College football

(29:42):
season is going to be a major topic of discussion
all summer. Bruce Feldman, one of our good friends from
the Athletic, is joining us next to talk about how
soon these changes are going to be implemented. What about
the house settlement? Are we actually going to get something
meaningful before the season rolls around? Bruce Feldman from the Athletic.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Next on ESPN seven hundred ninety two one FM, it's
hipt the Square.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
You tune to the sh Don o'connells Show for the
Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
to one af M.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
Toungoo College Football from America's college football insider Bruce Feldman,
a reporter at The Athletic and.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Fox best selling author, Friend of the program, Bruce, welcome,
How are you, sir?

Speaker 5 (30:37):
I'm good, so I'm good to be out with you.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, I appreciate you giving us some time today.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
I don't know if you're aware of my deep, deep
affection for sports lists, especially this time of year, and
you guys at the Athletic have generated some really good
ones that have given us great content. The top twenty
five players of the two thousands one that was I
think really interesting. Top twenty five teams of the two
thousands as well. Coaches Utah got a little bit of

(31:03):
love there with Kyle Whittingham and Urban Meyer both being
on the Athletics list. What kind of pushback, what kind
of feedback have you gotten from a fan base that nationwide?
I know people are very very passionate about their players
and their teams. What's it been like getting the feedback
from who was left off, who was ranked too high,
too low, et cetera?

Speaker 6 (31:24):
Hard?

Speaker 5 (31:24):
You know, the toughest one for me, I mean, it's
impossible to keep a list to top twenty five players
and just you're going to have I could have done
seventy five. But the one where I was like that
one was tough was actually not having Johnny Manzel on there.
You know, you you know, completely flamed out in the NFL.
But that didn't have anything to do with with you know,

(31:47):
his his greatness at A and M, where they had
a top five season which they had had in fifty years.
So I think on that part it was tough. You
get like, you know, I heard back from a lot
of Arkansas found how do you not have Darren McFadden
on here? He was a great player, But you know,
Adrian Peterson another one, so was Derek Henry. There was

(32:10):
a lot of great running backs. It's just and statistically
you can have a guy who had McFadden fits in
this just like Adrian Peterson did where he had like
one great year. But I think it's much different than
you know, Cam Newton had one great year, but he
put a whole program that wasn't that good on his
back and they won a national title.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah, that's that's a pretty impressive collegiate football accomplishment. I mean,
I I engage with these these articles, these lists probably
like a lot of the fan base does. When I
saw the top twenty five teams, I'm like, oh, for
sure one of Utah's undefeated teams is going to end
up on here. And then of course you read through
and you're like, well, I don't know who you take
off in order to put even those great, great Utah teams.

(32:54):
I don't know who you'd take out of here, because
you know a lot of those teams won national.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Championships on the list.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
It's just like, all right, that resume is even a
little bit more impressive. They'd be a BCS busters.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
Or whatever exactly. And that's that's the hard thing. Like,
there was a handful of teams that I could have
made a case had some you know, deserving spot on there.
But then you're like who, you know, at the expense
of who, And that's that's the thing. I mean, these
other teams beat a lot of top fifteen teams, not one,
they probably beat four of them or so. And I

(33:27):
just think it's like, you know, we remember these as
fondly as they are. But again, you know, you've had
we've had twenty five years, we've had, you know, twenty
five champions There's other teams that didn't win that you
know might have come in second. Maybe they were you know,
eleven and one or twelve and one, and that one
loss came earlier in the season, and you know, like

(33:50):
when they had players injured or whatever. You know, it's
just it's a it's a fun exercise, but it's almost
impossible to get to not kick people off when you
do it.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
All right, So let's talk about some of the more
maybe pressing real issues in college football and in college
sports right now. Expanded college football playoff, we had the
one year sample size of that twelve team top four,
top highest rank conference champions get in. We saw that
benefited Arizona State, Boise State. Everyone says, all right, we

(34:22):
don't like that, let's do the straight seating thing. But
what's the bottle you think we're actually going to settle lot?
I'm seeing this five plus eleven thing. I'm seeing the
automatic bids potentially for the big ten in the SEC.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Where do you think this thing shakes out?

Speaker 5 (34:37):
I think it probably lands at some point on what
a big ten and the SEC want, which is that
four four two two one format where you're going to
have four automatic qualifiers for the biggest you know, top
of the food chain to you know, two conferences, and
then you only get two for the ACC and the
Big twelve. I just think that that's where the ones

(35:02):
who have the most power and the most influenced and
honestly drive the most money, and to be honest, you know,
they're the ones who combine for sixteen of the last
twenty national title teams, you know, and the big you know,
this mostly been the SEC but the Big Tens had
the last two. I think they're the ones who are

(35:23):
going to get what they want.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
If you're in the Big twelve, you're an athletic director,
you're a coach. I guess even if you're a player,
you're in the Big twelve, you're in the ACC. Maybe
have a better question your Notre Dame who made it
all the way to the precipice of a national championship
last year. Are you are you still chasing national championships
or do you have to kind of like readjust your
goals because of the history that you just talked about,

(35:48):
because of the the tipping of the scales so heavily
in favor of the power players.

Speaker 5 (35:54):
I think if you're in the Notre Dame, you certainly
you've just played for the national title. I think you're
recruiting at a level and you have the resources where
I think you're in that discussion. I think if you're
in the Big twelve, I think you're the one with
the longest odds. Because once Texas and Oklahoma moved out,
none of those other programs have had sustained high level success.

(36:17):
They've had some good teams from time to time, but
they haven't recruited anywhere near what the teams that win
national titles have. So I think that's the part where
you know, but we're seeing it right now at Texas
Tech where they have a billionaire booster who's a former
Texas Tech offensive lineman who has thrown a lot of
money to his football program. They've gone all in on

(36:38):
the portal Will Spee. I mean, you know, they haven't
been great. They've had like basically one really really good
season under Mike Leach that was actually a long time ago.
They haven't been that good under Joey mcwire, who's the
head coach. Have now, is this the chance where they
make a big run and you can change things.

Speaker 6 (36:57):
I'll believe that when I see it.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Bruce Veeld and my guest here on the Sean O'Connell
show talk at All Things College Football. We were told
that this House versus NCAA settlement was pretty much going to.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Be resolved by now.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
I think next week was the initial target date, and
it seems like these deadlines keep getting pushed back and
pushed back. Are we going to have a meaningful change
in transfer portal nil rules based on this settlement? And
the rules that are established around the settlement anytime.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Soon, I hope.

Speaker 5 (37:29):
So I thought it would have been by now. But
like almost everything, it seemed like with college sports, there's
so much confusion and uncertainty. We're just kind of waiting
and waiting, you know. I feel like this is one
of those where I don't want to fall. I believe
it when I see it because I think it will happen.
I just just don't know exactly when because we've waited

(37:51):
for a while and we thought it was going to
be this, you know, the court case in Northern California
that was going to have that happened in early April,
and that was what the it's a while ago. Now,
that's you know, almost two months ago, so I don't know.
It was just kind of we'll see. I mean, there's
just a lot of stuff. There's a lot of balls
up in the air right now, and we're just kind

(38:13):
of waiting for you know, different meetings and different things,
but it's just not a reality until somebody actually Rubbert Stampson.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Before I let you go, because I know you're short
on time today you bullish or bearish on the utes
right now, they've made some significant offseason changes with the
offensive coordinator. They brought in a quarterback, which is a
huge problem these last couple of years. What do you
think of Utah's chances in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 5 (38:39):
I like the quarterback. I mean, he was really dynamic
at New Mexico. I like them dampire. I I'm interested
to see how the offense works. I mean, as long
as they have Morgan Stalley running the defense, I feel
like they're going to be really good on that side
of the ball. It's just, you know, for it felt
like for a long time, you know, we had camerad

(39:00):
At his health issues. They were banged up in some
key spots. I think they'll be improved. I don't know
if they're going to be like what some of the
teams we're talking about, you know a little bit ago,
where they were really really good and they were a
top ten team if you ask me now, I still
think the best team in the state of Utah is

(39:20):
going to be the one that Kilanie Satake's coach, and
just because I feel like they have a lot coming
back and we'll see what happens I've seen. I know
they have some off field question marks now that have
arisen with Retsloff, but I feel like EYU is the
team that I think has a better chance of making
the playoffs right now.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
How do you headycat the Big twelve in general? I
know you mentioned Texas Tech at their portal editions earlier.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
You're bullish on BYU.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
There's a lot of reason to be Is this going
to be a league that choose itself up though? Because
you know, Kansas State, Arizona State, they've all got something
coming back.

Speaker 5 (39:57):
Yeah, I think Look, I think Baylor's pretty good. I
think Kansas State's going to be good. I like the quarterback.
I know they don't have they don't have camskatagu but
I think Arizona State is gonna is still going to
be really good. Well, you know, the wild card in
this again is how good is Texas Tech with all
the portal guys they've added. I mean, you know, they

(40:18):
got to be better than seven and six for the
money they're paying there. So I'm interested to see you
is this a breakthrough year for Joey maguire? Like I said,
I believe I want to see it.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
Well, appreciate you giving us some time today, Bruce. Always
great to read what you put out and again, thank.

Speaker 5 (40:34):
You, my pleasure, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
Bruce Feldman of The Athletic, friend of the program, one
of the great minds and writers covering college football in
this great nation of ours, and he Bruce. One of
the articles in The Athletic was Bruce going over some
of the win totals in college football, that he is
most confident, that you know, he's setting his overs and unders,

(40:59):
and that he's more confident and he really is high
on Clemson.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
He thinks Clemson could be an eleven win team.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Their win total set at nine and a half, which
of course is higher than anyone in the Big twelves.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
We went over these.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
BYU's was seven and a half and that was like
his number two pick for what he was most confident
in a team, going over that was written before the
Retslov situation reared ats ugly head. So now you have
to change the calculus again. It's it's far less important
than the human element here, But from the college football perspective,

(41:35):
it's kind of like what Utah was dealing with these
last couple of years, where everyone was just like, look,
if you have Cam rising, you're the favorite to win
the Big twelve conference. That ended up being a huge if.
And in hindsight, we're all just like, why did we think?
Why did we think that Cam was going to play
in twenty twenty three? What were we what kool Aid
were we drinking? What were we collectively smoking?

Speaker 4 (41:58):
It was that Hope flavor? That uh new New Hope
flavor of kool Aid? Yeah, that was that was rough.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
New Hope flavor kool Aid A little Star Wars Hey,
Hey there you go.

Speaker 4 (42:12):
Yeah, I I accidentally stumbled into that one. I was
not saying New Hope Star Wars style, but it works
that way. It was interesting to hear Bruce he he
referenced that the question mark as he put it around
off the field, off the field stuff with with Jake Rhetzloff.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
But it's interesting to hear him.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
Say he still feels he still has more confidence in
b Yu. And for a second, I'm like, oh, like,
he's definitely he's definitely aware of Jake Rhetzloft. That's main
national news on his publication, among other places. But yeah,
he's still he still feels more confident in BYU than Utah,

(42:53):
even with that big variable.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
Well, look, we're gonna do this at some point deeper
into the summer when we have a little bit more
information on how everything like fully shakes out. Because remember
there's still three thousand players in the transfer portal that
can be added to your roster. They can't put their
names in now, but there's a bunch of guys who
are looking for new homes and we're gonna see how

(43:16):
it all shakes out of both of these places. But
quarterback obviously is the most important position. Utah is in
a great quarterback situation. By you thought they were going
to be in one. Now that is a massive, massive
question mark. But even while you have a massive question
mark at quarterback, your d line's at a pretty good
spot at BYU, your linebacking corps is in at least

(43:39):
an equally good spot as Utah's is. I mean Glasker
and Kelly and or Sarah that they got some good
guys playing linebacker down there, even though they lost the
Taggart kid to cal they've got really good linebackers, and
you could.

Speaker 4 (43:55):
Argue those guys, definitely, you could argue those guys outperformed
what Utah Utah's linebackers they are coming back last.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Absolutely they did. They were healthier, which is a big
reason for that. But like you take, you take John
new Hall, Lander Barton, Levannie de Mooney as like the
top three, Sarah, Jack Kelly, Isaiah Glasker as the top
three for BYU.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
That's pretty even.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
It's and you could again, you could make the argument
that you like by us more.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Well, from a production standpoint, you have to like there
as more, at least for a recent production standpoint. Now,
the upside of like Lander, Barton is the best potential
player of all those guys, but he didn't outperform Isaiah
Glasker last year.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
I think this year he will.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
I think he got into a groove the last four
games or show.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
And that's not to say that we think. I think
I think we're both They're both gonna be awesome.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
I think they're both NFL players. Lander's just gonna be
a little bit more awesome this year. I think they're
both NFL players.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
I think that you know, if so, if those two
cancel each other out and it becomes a battle between
Hall and A Sarah and uh and I guess de
Mooney and Jack Kelly ugh right, So BYU that we
bring up all of this to say that there's a
lot of reason for optimism at BYU.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
When you take the.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
Quarterback situation, you kind of pluck it out and you
put it in a vacuum. You're just like, hey, man,
they got they got a better wide receiving core on
paper than Utah does. They have good tight ends, including
a guy who left Utah, and I'm higher on than
pretty much everyone in the state apparently certainly at least
one texture, one texture in particular.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Shout out to that texture.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Yeah, not really, but like you know, they've got a LJ.
Martin and Moa as a one to two punch at
the running back position.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
Man, Like there's a lot of things that you can
say about BYU. Utah has got a better offensive line
and this is all based on paper. Utah's offensive line
crushes BYUS on paper, and beyond that, on the offensive
side of the ball, you're just like, well, now, I
think the quarterback situation that Utah's better.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
If Reetzlaf is deemed ineligible to play for BYU were
honor code violations or something else because of the because
the fallout of this lawsuit, then you have to you
have to like Utah's quarterback room better and the aptas
quarterback situation.

Speaker 6 (46:35):
More.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
The other angle on this is like from just a
production standpoint, there'd be a lot of people who are
just like, well, hold on Devin dan Pierre, like we
still got to see if he cleans up the interceptions
in that these would be all BYU people telling you this,
But we saw what it does to a team when
you have good players at lots of positions and your

(46:57):
quarterback is not there. Every other good player you have
suddenly becomes worse when you don't have the right quarterback.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
That's just the reality of it.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
And by the way, that's even on the defense because
those guys. Human nature dictates that when those guys know
that a three and out is coming, it changes the
way they play.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
They get more fatigued.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Realistically, Also, there's the mental toll of it also, like
college football more than NFL football. But we as fans,
certainly players as well, we are all beholden to the
energy swings of the game. And when your quarterback situation
stinks or as even just mediocre, then everybody is affected

(47:49):
by that. And by the way, at BYU because of
how complicated and ugly this whole thing is, there's gonna
be guys James there's gonna be guys on that BYU
roster that are walking around with a chip on their
shoulder this year because they think that Retslaft should be playing.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
That's just the reality.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
There are guys who are gonna be like, he's my friend,
I believe what he said here, and I think that
he should not be dealing with this, and now we
don't get him. And whether that makes them better players
or worse players to be determined, but like it's gonna
have an effect, it has an effect.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
We don't get to.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
The Retslaf thing is not you're just taking his production out,
because let's be honest, his production was like what top
seven in the league wasn't spectacular was quarterback by any
stretching it, but it wasn't much better than it was
good enough. But he was also kind of a lightning rod,
like an energy guy, you know what I mean. He
wasn't cam rising level of significant, but he was significant

(48:53):
in that respect. And so you're not just taking his
production out. His production is replaceable if we're being honest,
like McKay Hillstead could probably do a lot of the
things that Jake Retslof did, maybe not exactly that production,
but I'm talking about the mental game, and the mental
game is so massively important and that is going to
be the big challenge for Kilani and Jay Hill. Yes,

(49:17):
j Hill, even though he's coaching the defense, he's got
to go to his guys like Morgan Scally did how
many times and just be like, hey, man, we might
have to win this game because and like, we can't.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
Be affected by what the other part of our team
is doing. We gotta still be awesome, which is not
which is easier said than done.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
Right, by the way, unfortunately, Utah is a lot more
practiced at it, yeah than BYU is like BYU. What
happened when BYU was like, oh wow, we we're a
balanced team. Now they won eleven games. Yeah, Utah has
had how many like nine sometimes ten win seasons without

(49:59):
being a balanced team. The defense is a little bit
more practiced in pulling the in carrying the load.

Speaker 4 (50:06):
The last thing I'll say about the quarterback thing before
we catch break is for BYU is the big difference
on the between the on the field with on the field,
between the Cam Rising situation with his injuries and Jake
Retzlof who were not counting on being on the field
for BYU because of this lawsuit and honor code is

(50:30):
that you're probably going to have a full off season.
The Cougars are probably gonna have a full off season
knowing being able to prepare someone.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Else to be quarterback. That's true.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
Utah did not because they were they were holding out
the New Hope. They were drinking the New Hope kool
aid that with the idea that hey, Cam's going to
start the season as our quarterback. He did last year,
he did in the year before, and so that that
is a little bit more of an advantage to prepare
McKay Hillstead.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Bear Bachmeyer, who it might be. Who's the other guy?

Speaker 4 (51:02):
Borgett, Yeah, don't don't be don't be sleeping on Borgette?

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Raisin Borgett? Is that his name? I don't know, all right,
I gotta take a quick one here.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
Big thanks to Bruce Feldman for joining us some rule
changes on the PGA tour. I didn't even know if
this was a big controversy, but it was and they
fixed it, or did they.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven, and.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
You were listening to The Sean O'Connell Show, brought to
you by Leshwab Tires now back to OC on ESPN
seven hundred and ninety two to one app N.

Speaker 7 (51:39):
I would be honest, you guys, you're like, my dad
is just fine, Like he lives just fine. He's at
the house watching the game in a beautiful home, or
he's finds his way in some sports bar with a
bunch of Pacer fans. My dad is doing just by.
You know. Obviously my dad being here a special, but
I mean growing up, like my dad was repha al weekend,

(52:00):
So you think it's a come to many of my
game for growing up. So when he would come to
my game, I want to play well. So with him
being a building, of course I wanted to play well.
Triple Ah's in theavilion. That might have been a little
I like I said, it was more special, but hb
and the building was pretty fied to former players coming out.
You know g Hill who played to me for a
little bit, Danny Granger, he sounds like his first time

(52:20):
back in Indy. That's special. That's special for me. Jo
in the building obviously, Reggie on commentary, when you're winning,
you can get people out the house to come watch
you and support you.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Postgame comments from Tyrese Halliburton Game four win for the Pacers.
They go up three to one over the Knicks in
the Eastern Conference Finals. That sound courtesy of the NBA
Game five tomorrow night at the MCCA Madison Square Garden. Tonight,
Oklahoma City has a chance to clinch their first NBA
Playoffs berth since twenty twelve. Game five of the Western

(52:54):
Conference Finals is in Oklahoma City.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
You can hear it on one O three nine ninety
eight three. The fan.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
Look, maybe we'll get to the PGA Championship change here
in a minute. The Tyre's Halliburton Dad soap opera soda
back in the building last night OC he was back
in the building, they put him in a suite.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
They didn't let him be court side, which is a
smart move by the NBA and the Indiana Pacers.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Look at Tyre's Halliburton, by the way, just that's a masterful.
On the mic, he answered the question about his dad,
he kind of you know, and I said, guys.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
Let me for full disclosure. I did cut that. It
was like a two minute clip. I cut that up
to so it wasn't quite he didn't quite say all
those things in sequential order. He was a little more
long winded before he got to the next thing. But
just just so everyone knows, but those were the main points.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
You nor I are gonna get mad at someone for
being long winded, a problem that we both can be
accused of.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
But look, you know he hit all those points.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
He made sure he shot, he shouted out all the
pacers that were in the building. He made sure that
we downplay the whole thing, like my dad is here,
it's the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
He doesn't want his dad to be the story.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
The only problem I have with that is that he
was geeked up about Triple h the wrestler.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
He loves wrestling.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
Apparently there's way too much love for that, probably why Mac.
One of the reasons why McAfee loves to have him
on as a guest is they share their love. They
share the love of wrestling, and also Indiana guys Indiana
stars there. But yeah, like big yeah, I I just loved.
One of the reasons why I wanted to play that
oc is the very beginning when he when he just laughed,

(54:34):
He basically just laughed in the face of everyone saying
free John Haliburton, Free, mister Haliburton.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
He's just like my dad's okay, Hey, my dad doesn't
have real problems right now. He's just watching the game
somewhere else. He's just not court side or in a
suite like he was last night. He did say in
one of the parts that I cut out, he does say,
my dad's not in jail.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
He wasn't in jail.

Speaker 4 (54:59):
You actually sitting pretty at a really nice house, as
he said in the in the cliff part, that I
kept in a really nice house watching games or wandering
in a sports star and he's like the star of
the bar, a sports bar, and he's like the star
of the sports bar watching his son play. So I
did like how he uh, he basically downplayed everyone trying
to make him such this martyr that he really wasn't.

Speaker 6 (55:24):
All right.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
We got to take a quick one here. Our number
two starts. What a treat.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
John Forthlund, who's calling the Eastern Conference Final. He's the
play by play voice for Sports USA on the NHL
play by Play. He'll join us next talking Stanley Cup
playoffs on ESPN seven.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
You were listening to the Sean O'Connell Show from the
Murdoch Hunting Studio of ESPN seven. Hundred and ninety two
to one af AM.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Carolina starts to bring up the center right by Joe
so Kadafi.

Speaker 4 (56:15):
Beach In sets up Stake over near flank over the
line for the shot.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
He stuards lo against Stake old man with a stinging
rest shot. He continues on a run. This young guy's
on a roll nine fifteen left ago in the second period.
One nothing Carolina.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
That sound from Sports USA John Forestland on the call.
That was a season saving goal for Carolina, staying alive
against a Florida Panthers team that looks poised to uh,
I mean maybe repeat. We'll see how it goes, but
I think that this one is all but done. Might
might all be over. But the crying, as they like

(56:53):
to say, for Carolina. We have the Game five of
the Eastern Conference Final for Stanley Cup Playoffs tonight in Florida.
Buck drops at six o'clock right here on ESPN seven
hundred and ninety twe FM via Sports USA. We're trying
to get John Forsln, whose voice you just heard on

(57:15):
that call. He's calling the Eastern Conference Finals. He was
a longtime voice at the Carolina Hurricanes back to when
they were Hartford Whalers, and he's the current voice of
the Seattle Krakens. So we'll talk all things NHL playoffs
with him, and maybe even a little Utah Hockey club
as long as we're talking about the Mammoth.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
They signed the.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Couple of KHL prospects today. It was the announcement that
Daniel but I think you're actually supposed to say it Boot.
Daniel Boot is coming up from the KHL and he's
on a three year deal with the Utah Mammoth. So
a couple of guys. Again, I'm not going to pretend
like I'm watching a ton of KHL hockey, but when

(57:59):
you get used to the pipeline that develops NHL talent,
you're gonna.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Hear a lot about.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Two minors leagues or two juniors leagues in Canada, you're
gonna hear a lot about the KHL. And he excelled
at that level. So another rising prospect for the Utah
Mammoth that projects out to be what they hope will
be an elite forward who can help them both with
some physicality but also with the goal scoring.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
And it turns out goal scoring is important.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
If especially you've been watching this Western Conference Final in
the NHL, in the Stanley Cup playoffs, watching Edmonton and
Dallas go back and forth, and it's been mostly the offense,
the dynamic duo and the Dallas goalkeeper. The Dallas goaltender

(58:57):
Jay Ottinger cooling off after some really good series. Also
Miko Ranton and no longer playing outside of his mind.
I mean, it's only so sustainable. We talk a lot
about how hockey players are just a little bit different, built,
a little bit different. I'm forty one years old, all right.

(59:24):
I retired from athletic competition three months after my thirty
fifth birthday. Now I feel happy that I got out
when I got out, because the recovery was taking a
little bit longer.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Then than it did when I was twenty five.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
It would be significantly different at forty or forty one
than it was at thirty five. So, you know, thirty five,
you're still kind of like exiting your prime. Unless you're
a freak of nature, you're well outside of your prime.
The Edmonton Oilers Corey Perry. If you've not paid attention

(01:00:03):
to Corey Perry for the Edmonton Oilers, he set a record.
He had a second period power play goal sixth goal
of the postseason, and he's now tied with Team Mussolani
and a couple other players for most goals in a
single postseason by a player who started the playoff run

(01:00:23):
at age thirty nine or older. He's forty years old,
and he's skating full shifts, playing full games for an
Edmonton Oilers team that's got two of the best young
players on planet Earth. At forty, he's hanging in the
Stanley Cup playoffs. At forty, he went through an eighty
two game regular season and is now in the third

(01:00:46):
playoff series of his postseason, and he's producing at forty
years old. This is not the same thing as when
you see a baseball pitcher hanging around till he's thirty eight,
thirty nine, forty years old.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
That's already bad enough.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
That's crazy on your joints, that's nasty on your tendons,
your shoulder, your elbow. A lot of those guys end
up with knee and achilles and ankle problems as well.
But it's baseball, all right. You have these scheduled rest
that are a week long. Effectively, this is not Ray

(01:01:26):
Allen playing until his late thirties and just kind of
posting up out on the three point line waiting for
someone to give him an open shot. This is more like,
this is more equivalent to the Lebron James kind of
a thing, where like he he's still playing an elevated

(01:01:47):
style of basketball. He is still playing a physical style
of basketball, and he's doing it at an advanced age,
except he's doing it with scheduled rest as well with
load management that the NBA is now trying to change
rules and minimize.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Corey Perry at forty years old.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
Is like, you know what, one last ride with these
young bucks in Edmonton, we got to give Canada a cup.
It's been thirty years and he's doing it and he's
not only doing it, but he's doing it well at
age forty. Hockey players are different, man, really crazy, James?

(01:02:37):
Is there an athlete maybe you could use a code.
A sports figure whose downfall has been the hardest for
you to watch has stood out more than anyone else
in terms of you know, you don't relish watching the
downfall of anyone, although some people do. Some people like
the soap opera. It's part of civilisation. Shouldn't are uncivilized

(01:03:01):
urges to celebrate the rise of a hero and then
relish in his fall. Has there been any particular athlete
where you're just like, oh, man, watching the downfall of
you has been hard for me to process.

Speaker 5 (01:03:15):
Is this.

Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
Is this besides people who are on my favorite teams?
Or is that including those guys because those are given
like you never like to see like for me, one
of the worst ones for me was was seeing and
he's much maligned since then for off the field comments
that he's made. But to see Kurt Schilling get old

(01:03:40):
was hard for me as a Red Sox man because
that guy was so important to arguably the most important
championship in the sports history, with the Bloody Sock and
the whole thing in four. It was hard for me
to see him age as a young Red Sox. I
should have been more clear, like the aging thing is
hard to watch. I'm talking about the fall from grace

(01:04:02):
Oh okay, yeah, yeah, I'm talking about And the reason
I bring this up, hey, he it applies for him
too in that way, from firstly career that was hard
for me to watch him and and to learn that
because I certainly certainly didn't agree with a lot of
what a lot of what he said that got him
kicked off, got him fired from ESPN, just like just

(01:04:23):
like everyone, a lot of other people that were offended
by that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
I certainly was in that group.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
It was tough to see a guy who was that
important to one of my favorite teams as a kid
and still is still is an important team to me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
For me, the Red Sox fall from Grace like that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
Absolutely, we got some good responses on the on the
tweet here eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred,
if you want to jump in on the conversation, Yes,
sometimes it comes with aging, but I'm also talking about
like like Seawan Kemp. I don't know if you saw this,
Sean Camp was arrested and charged with assault going back

(01:05:03):
or do it to a twenty twenty three incident. He
pled down, depleted down, he shot it a couple of guys.
He shot at a couple of guys and didn't thankfully
didn't hit them, damaged the car, hit the car. But
at the end of the day, you know, Sean Camp

(01:05:25):
is one of those guys who was an amazing player
to watch during his NBA years and then you started
to learn about kind of like I mean, he had
like ten kids or something. Yeah, he like eight baby mamas,
and that's not something that Nick Cannon is the pop
culture reference now it wasn't, at least as of a
few years ago. Sean camp was the sports Nick Cannon

(01:05:49):
before Nick Cannon started having all collecting baby mamas.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Yeah, so he went, you know that kind of I
guess some people don't mind that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
For me, that was like, oh, man, so this he
might not be like a super admirable, high character guy,
at least in my own opinion. And then when you
get to see people getting involved in I don't know,
violent gun crimes, you're just like, oh, that's a fall
from grace for me, from being an NBA All Star.

Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
Oh jam Morant absolutely to having that. So like and
now he's now he's he's trying to get back into
good graces by doing grenade celebrations. Yeah, I don't know
that that's working. Josh Hamilton. Josh Hamilton came in as

(01:06:36):
one of the the bummers for people from from Clint
on Twitter. He came back from addiction and then the
relapse was hard for people to watch. Antonio Brown has
been brutal. According to the HDU, first thing that pops
to mind and and and Ronald on Twitter. I think
this is one that's going to be echoed by a
lot of people. Lance Armstrong, the fall from grace for

(01:07:00):
a guy who was elevated as an American hero for
athletic accomplishments, for raising all that money for cancer research,
and he made that much much worse than it needed
to be by just continuing to double and triple and
quadruple and quintuple down on the lies.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
So yeah, the fall, the fall from grace. That's hardest
to watch. Eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred.
You can tweet it at me at real oc Sports.
Back to the Stanley Cup playoffs with a discussion. John
Fordland is calling these Eastern Conference finals. He's also the
voice of the Seattle Kraken. He's a long time play
by play man in the NHL, going all the way

(01:07:41):
back to I think ninety five.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
John Foresland joins us, John, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 6 (01:07:45):
How are you Dom good Sean?

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
How you doing doing all right? Did I get that right?
Play by play?

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
You are the Hartford Whalers eventual Carolina Hurricanes from ninety
five on?

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Is that correct?

Speaker 6 (01:07:58):
Yeah, that's right. I start in Hartford ninety five, and
it was with the Hurricanes from ninety seven to twenty twenty,
and then went on to Seattle and do my TNT work,
Amazon Prime Monday Night Hockey in Canada and Sports USA
and all that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
Yes, sir, do you have a closet full of awesome
Hartford Whalers throwbacks?

Speaker 8 (01:08:20):
I do.

Speaker 6 (01:08:20):
I have a lot of stuff. Yeah. It's funny how
those colors in that scheme have become very popular now.
They weren't as popular maybe in the present, but they
are now.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
That's what we do, right, Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
and we look back at it's like, oh man, that
was a cool logo, those were cool colors.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
That was a cool brand.

Speaker 6 (01:08:41):
Well, it's great. I mean the original colors, you know,
the kelly green and the kind of the navy blue,
and then we incorporated some silver and a darker blue
and it was kind of ahead of its time really
when you think about it. And the logo itself, with
the whale tail and the h and all those things,
and the brass Bonanza theme song, which is hated by
some people loved by many. You know, there's a lot

(01:09:04):
of stuff there. And the team played in a mall
shopping mall, which was kicked around a lot by New
York Ranger and Boston Bruin fans back in the day.
But it was a great concept that would work today.
So yeah, I think they were just a little bit
ahead of the game. Maybe that was the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Yeah, it could have been.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
As long as we're talking about branding, what do you
think of the Utah Mammoth and the logo release? The
Colors our fresh NHL market here in Salt Lake city's
pretty enthusiastic about it. As someone who's you know, died
in the wool, been around the league for so long,
what do you think of the rollout and the release
of the new team identity in Salt Lake.

Speaker 6 (01:09:40):
Well, they've done everything right. It's an amazing turnaround from
what they tried to accomplish in Arizona for years and
just couldn't get off the dining But it was a
breadth of fresh air for everybody in the NHL to
come to Salt Lake see it firsthand. The Colors are fantastic.
Their presence in the community is going to be se
second to none. Their team is young and exciting, and

(01:10:03):
the atmosphere and Delta Center was incredible. I got to
work two games there nationally for T and T came
in with the Seattle Kraken and each and every time,
just just love the atmosphere, the way the fans, you know,
and I know they're going to make some changes, you know,
until they settle on maybe a new building there, but
certainly to make some of the site lines better for

(01:10:25):
the fans. But by and large, it was just absolutely
great and perfect perfect for hockey, and it's going to
be a great market for many years to come.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
We're looking forward to being part of that and hopefully
we'll have you on the show for many years to come.
But let's talk about these Stanley Cup playoffs in Eastern
Conference finals, especially Carolina stayed the execution with a win
against Florida, and we were back in action with this
one coming up. Florida looks really, really good, really physical.

(01:10:56):
They look like the team that was in you know,
Stanley Cup four a year ago. In a lot of ways,
are they the team to beat right now in these
final four remaining?

Speaker 6 (01:11:05):
For you, it looks that way. It looks like, you know,
they got to get through this hurdle. They have to
play better than they did in game four against Carolina tonight.
I expect that they will. They're going to be healthier
than they were in Game four. They're going to get
Sam reyn Hart Nico Miko on the back end. They're
going to get a j Greer, physical player back on
their fourth line. But most importantly, Ryan Hart is a

(01:11:28):
is one of the better players in the league and
provides a lot of help for them, especially their power play,
which has gone goalless in the last two games. They
appear like they have every ingredient from the goal out
needed to win again, but they have to get there first,
so they you know, we're not at that point. But
if should they advance, should they rematch with Edmonton as

(01:11:51):
it appears, that would be very interesting. But the Oilers
too have a hold of the series. I wouldn't call
it a stranglehold. They have a hold of the series.
And now with the news coming out today that Zach
Hyman is going to be done for the season with surgery,
that hurts Edmonton, you know, moving forward, should they advanced,
but they got to get through Dallas, and Dallas isn't

(01:12:11):
just going to roll over in Game five. I expect
the series is going to go at least six games
and maybe seven, So I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
Kind of hoping for that, you know, with no real
real horse in the race remaining in the Western or
the Eastern Conference, Like, we just want good hockey and
we want these series to go deep. If Carolina is
going to make this a series, if they can, you know,
build a little momentum here, what's it going to take
for Carolina to try to overcome three to one, Well, like.

Speaker 6 (01:12:38):
They do all the time, they need to score the
game's first goal. If they get the game's first goal,
especially coming off what they did in Game four with
a three nothing win, you know they're going to come home.
They won thirty one games in the regular season and
they're building that tight la for the most in the league.
They're five and two in the playoffs at home. You know,

(01:12:59):
I'm very familiar obviously with their players and their coach,
and I know that if they get a lead, and
the only time they have led in this series is
when Logan Stankhogan scored in the second period of Game
four to give them a one nothing lead. Then they
added two empty net goals. But when they have a lead,
they dictate how they can play and how they're strong,
and they skate, and they check with their feet and

(01:13:22):
their positionally sound all over the ice. They swarm on
the attack. They lead the league in possession time, they
lead the league and shot differential, they shoot from all
over the place. Those are the things you can do
if you are ahead of the game. If you're chasing
the game, it's different if I'm Florida. I think Florida
and the fourth game let them off the hook. They

(01:13:44):
backed off their physical game for whatever reason. Maybe mentally
they felt that the first three games were and it's
probably subconscious. It wasn't intentional, obviously, but they probably felt
those three games to start the series where total domination,
which they were. The Panthers were dominating the Hurricanes in
every facet of the game. Most importantly tonight, it's the

(01:14:06):
pushback that Carolina will attempt to get to and the
push that Florida provides at the beginning of the game.
They have to exclude their will on Carolina. If they
can do that, and it's going to come from strongford checking,
physical play, getting the puck behind the Carolina defense, punishing
them along the boards, making it hard for them to

(01:14:27):
come two hundred feet up the ice. If Florida can
do that. That's where they have the edge in the series.
If they start fooling around with a positional game and
allowing Carolina to skate and play the way they want
to play. You know, Carolina defense with the puck. That's
how they get it done. One of the best teams
in the league at doing that, and they're they're all

(01:14:48):
interchangeable parts, very hard to play against when they're on
their game and allowed to be on their game. That'll
be the focus for me tonight for Florida.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
We talk a lot of football on this program, and
I've probably talked too much about how I think that
quarterback in football is the most important position in all
the team sports. But right up there, and maybe sometimes
maybe in Stanley Cup playoffs even more important is a goaltender.
Whoever's working the crease. If that guy gets hot, it
just becomes impossible to score. Now, as we've watched these

(01:15:21):
Stanley Cup playoffs progress, it looked like Ottinger was really
hitting a groove. Maybe that playoff Bob was going to
come back when you look at this series, and maybe
even in the West, which goaltender do you trust.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
Most right now?

Speaker 6 (01:15:35):
But Brovski I really do. I like Colin Stewart. Skinner's
battled through personal adversity for Edmonton. He had to take
a step out of the playoffs for six games and
allow Calvin Pickard to get in there and win six
in a row. And then Pickard got hurt and that's
how Skinner got the netback. But since he's been back,

(01:15:55):
he looks like a different goalie. So right now Edmonton
has strong goaltending. What was a fair question when the
playoffs started. Jake Ottinger is an elite goalie. Right now,
he's just the victim of a team that can't score.
He can't do it all on his own. Sometimes that
works in hockey, you know, the position of goaltender is

(01:16:16):
far different than I think any other position in sports,
even the quarterback, because the quarterback has to throw the
ball to somebody and somebody's got to catch the ball.
In hockey, the goalie can dominate the game on his
own accord. The goalie can really turn the fortunes of
his team around and be unpenetrable. And if that happens,

(01:16:36):
you know, it's a different story. Babroski is a money goalie.
He's a two time BESNA winner. He's great after he loses,
and really the fourth game was not on him, and
he's been spectacular throughout the playoffs. And the thing about
Florida again is they're the champions, right and like in

(01:16:57):
any sport, you have to knock out the champ, you
have to eliminate them totally to the throne them. And
so they had that going for them too, and Bob
as it. Bob, Bob knows that in a situation like
tonight early in the game, you know he's going to
get tested. If he's on, then his team's going to
feed off of that. And it's worked. It's worked to

(01:17:19):
the highest level, so we'll see where it goes.

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
John Foresln is my guest here on the Sean O'Connell show,
calling Eastern Conference Finals action in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
He's also the play by play voice for the Seattle Kraken,
so you'll see and hear him every once in a
while down here in Salt Lake City. I know you've been,
you know, embroiled in these these Stanley Cup playoff duties.
But concurrently, at least until a few days ago, you

(01:17:43):
had IIHF hockey being played in Team USA wins its
first gold medal in thirties since nineteen thirty three. And
obviously we were over indexed on the attention because we
had four mammoth players including the captain, that counted well
for themselves, but for the novice hockey fan, Educate me

(01:18:05):
on how big of a deal this is for USA
hockey and what kind of optimism we should carry forward
for the upcoming Olympics and maybe another Four Nations contest
next year, things like that.

Speaker 6 (01:18:18):
Yeah, that's great question. You know, the international World Championships
are the biggest thing for the entirety of Europe, so
they play their professional seasons and then when they get
to the World Championships, that's their Stanley Cup. Now for
US in North America, not so much because the NHL's
you know, is the best league in the world, and

(01:18:39):
you know, the Stanley Cup playoffs there's nothing like that.
And the players that are involved representing the two countries
are predominantly players that have been either eliminated from the
postseason completely or recently eliminated in the first round. And
some players like a William Nilander, you know, went over
there for Team Sweden after Toronto wasinated in the second

(01:19:00):
round and ended up playing a game or two. It's
that big of a deal. And for the United States
to continue to take steps like they have over time,
it's it's amazing. And you know, your franchise there has
some of the best young talent and US born talent.
The four players that went with Clayton Keller, you know,
leading the way. You know, that's why you know fans

(01:19:24):
in Salt Lake are going to be able to you know,
see these players continue to grow and provide a lot
of great moments, you know for the Mammoth. But when
you look at the United States, the upcoming Olympics, the
success of the Four Nations, hockey fans and sports fans
are starved for international competition. For me, it's the best
way that we can continue to grow our sport. It's

(01:19:47):
it's the opportunity where the casual fan will tune into that.
I'm not sold that casual fans will tune in to
the Stanley Cup final. They may out of curiosity if
it seems like there's some drama, it's going long and
so on. But by the time we get to the
end of June, I think it's fair to say that
either real hockey fans or the fans in the two markets.

(01:20:09):
Those are the people that predominantly make up the viewership
and the listenership. When we get to international play and
you have Canada versus the US, and hopefully the world
figures something out here before long and Russia can come
back into this. Because Russia has so many great players,
it's unfortunate they're not part of the international flavor right now.

(01:20:30):
This is where you know, there's high drama and everybody
wants to watch and everybody can be a hockey fan.
So when we went a long time without it, it
was a void. I'm glad the Four Nations kind of
wet the appetite of everybody. Now we're gonna have the
Olympics in Italy and February. That's going to be great,
And I think moving forward we're always going to have
international competition because the players want it. You know, everybody

(01:20:53):
kind of speculated before Four Nations, is this going to
be just an all star situation on steroids? Going to
just be kind of that thing. No, the players bought
in completely because they want to play best on best
and represent their countries. So good on the United States
and the program which is developed to the point where
now it's totally legitimate and was proven at the World Championships,

(01:21:16):
and you're right, first gold medal since nineteen thirty three.
That's spectacular. For those guys to get together and play
and be a family for about a month, A great,
a great situation. And for younger players like you know,
Logan Cooley, Kessel ring Don Keller, you know, for these
guys to be part of that, that's going to help

(01:21:37):
their NHL careers before long, because that's just another part
of growth for them under some pressure and some and
some high level competition on foreign territories. So it's all good.

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
Before I let you go. As long as we're talking
about growth and development. You know, we're a brand new
hockey market, as you're well aware. And I moved here
when I was nine years old, eight years old, nine
years old, back in the early nineties. I came from Minnesota,
Minnesota hockey as religion. I came to a basketball state,
and then our basketball state became kind of a football state.

(01:22:13):
And now the ownership group is trying to make this
into a hockey state and developing infrastructure not just for
the Mammoth, not just on the NHL level, but all
the way down grassroots, and I imagine there was some
of that going on in Raleigh and in Carolina when
the Whalers ended up there, and you know, were you

(01:22:33):
part of that growth. Did you get a chance to
kind of see that happen in Carolina or was it,
you know, a different enough sports market that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
Maybe it never fully caught on on the youth level.

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):
Just tell me what that experience was like, if you
don't mind transitioning from Hartford to Carolina.

Speaker 6 (01:22:52):
Yeah, you know, I've been very lucky, Sean. They have
in my career two opportunities, and that's one of the
reasons I went to Seattle is the opportunity to bring
this sport, which I feel is the greatest sport in
the world, to a virgin market. And so when we
came here in nineteen ninety seven, way different generation obviously

(01:23:13):
in terms of you know, where we're at social media wise,
which didn't really exist, the Internet and all these different things,
the ways you can promote a team. You know, we
had to come to Tobacco Road, and we had to
bring hockey from the Northeast into the South, and there
were transplants here who were familiar with it, but there
were many people who had no idea and never had
any exposure to the game, never even cared to watch

(01:23:36):
a minute of it on television or whatever. And we
came to a college sports town rich in basketball history
with the three schools with Duke, North Carolina and North
Carolina State, And what we found as time marched on
was once we exposed them to being in the arena,

(01:23:57):
once we exposed them to the Stanley Cup playoffs, it
was a place where all the fans, whether you're a
tar Heel, a Blue Devil, or a wolf Back supporter,
could unite and be Hurricane fans. That was the first step.
The second layer of that was grassroots and being a
big part of the community. And I'm very proud of

(01:24:19):
some of the work that i was allowed to do
in the Raleigh community, the work I'm allowed to do
in Seattle with that franchise. And you get to the
grassroots of hockey, which is exposure of the game to
young boys and girls, allowing them to have the freedom
to play a sport which you know is not easy
to play in terms of the equipment, it's expensive, the

(01:24:41):
ice time and all these different things you have to
make it affordable to expose them to it, and then
they become great fans. The family becomes a fan, and
that's how you end up growing the game, and the
game will take care of itself. I think fans in
Salt Lake already understand that if they've been to the
Delta Center and they've been able to see, you know,
the Mammoth play. You just have to be in the building.

(01:25:04):
Hockey will captivate you once and then it'll hook you
and that's it. Our problem over the years is exposure
going to new markets, getting better television deals, being up
against three major sports, which you know, we're never really
going to cut into, but you try. But there is
a place for the National Hockey League and there's a
there's a fan base that continues to grow, and once

(01:25:28):
you get a sniff of it, it's contagious and that's
what's going to happen there. You watch they like I say,
I'm watching as an outsider what the ownership group is
doing there and that organization and what plans they have
for rinks and developing, you know, the youth hockey in
that area. You take a look at where the players
are coming from California, Arizona, Texas, Florida. There's a great program.

(01:25:53):
My son was the first eight ten year old you
know scort level you ten triple A for the junior Hurricanes,
you know, back in twenty twenty oh nine, twenty ten
in that area, and you know, we started the program
and now it's taken off and it has players matriculate
the Division one in pro hockey and so on. So

(01:26:14):
this is happening all over the country for boys and girls.
And you know that's just part of it. So you're
just on the ground floor of something really exciting. It's
going to be great to watch.

Speaker 3 (01:26:26):
It will be appreciate your insight on that topic and
on everything else. We had a chance to discuss. Have
a great call the rest of the way, and hopefully
we chat again soon.

Speaker 6 (01:26:35):
Yeah, anytime, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:26:37):
John Foresland Sports USA NHL play by play man calling
Eastern Conference finals and again he was the voice of
the Carolina Hurricanes before that, the Hartford Whalers, now with
the Seattle Kraken. So as you mentioned twice, he's been
part of the new wave of hockey, first in Raleigh,
North Carolina, and then of course in seat out of

(01:27:00):
Washington and the Kraken, as much as it pains me
to say, I like the name, I like the branding,
I like the logo. I it's they've done some cool stuff.
What I like their roll out better than the Vegas
Golden Knights. I felt like they're there in arena thing

(01:27:20):
at in Vegas. They do a great job of but
I felt like they missed an opportunity. Golden Knights is
just okay for me. I like their Heela Monster mascot.
That's kind of cool. They were so spoiled rolling out
a team that immediately was Stanley Cup contender, ridiculous. The
NHL certainly wised up and made it a little bit

(01:27:44):
more difficult for expansion teams to be successful right away
after that. Seattle certainly still had some success I do.
I'll say this about the Golden Knights, the gold, their
gold uniform, their gold sweaters, like.

Speaker 2 (01:27:57):
The actual shimmery gold. Yeah like that. It's really nice.
All right, Okay, you could say nice things about your enemies.
That's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:28:08):
You know, we finally have a proposed solution to the
problem that maybe the number one thing on James Peterson's
mind right now, Pat Swapping, You don't know what Pat
swapping is. I'll tell you next on The Shaan O'Connell
Show ESPN seven hundred ninety TWOEFM.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
This is the Sean O'Connell Show, brought to you by
leshwab Tires. You're home for University of Utah football talking
the mid days. Here's oc on your home of the Utes,
ESPN seven hundred and ninety two to one a half am.

Speaker 3 (01:28:48):
Sean O'Connell Shaw on utails number one Sports Talk ESPN
seven hundred Live Night Events presents the twenty twenty five
Granary Live Concert Series powered by Nightingale College and Murdoch Hundai,
Utah's number one Hundai dealer, outdoor concerts in the heart
of downtown Salt Lake City's Granary District. You can find
more information at ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. James, Uh,

(01:29:13):
your nightmare is over patch swapping. We finally have a solution.
Do you know what patch swapping is?

Speaker 6 (01:29:21):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:29:21):
Yeah, that terrible problem.

Speaker 8 (01:29:22):
Though.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
You're gonna have to tell me what patch swap. I
didn't know about swapping is. I've been out of the
trading card business for a long long time. I see
trading card related. Okay, it is trading card related.

Speaker 3 (01:29:33):
So you're familiar with the brand upper deck, Yes, of course,
So a lot of upper decks like best cards, most
valuable cards, and you've seen these drops. People will will
rip some packs and they'll be like some patch they'll
put like a jersey or a you know, like a yeah,
like a uniform piece in the card. You've seen these things. Yeah, yeah,

(01:29:57):
like they they'll have the foil to have the signatures.
They have all this great apparently, and I did not
know this was a problem. Apparently there's like a black
market where folks will find a desirable player a patch card.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
But not all patches are created equal. I did not
know this. Oh, so there is unique as the trading
cards value wise. Okay, So like you know, if you
have let's say you have a.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
Utah Mammoth patch, right and it's just a sweater patch
from the road, uniforms just gonna be white, it's still
a patch, is still authenticated, and it's still actually part.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
Of a game moren uniform. That's what they do these
things for.

Speaker 3 (01:30:46):
But I guess in the collector community that's not quite
as desirable as having like a chunk of the logo
or maybe like in sports, where they wear Nike jerseys
where they'll have the swoosh on there or something like
that at a little chunk of the number whatever. Because
these are these are actual sweaters, jerseys, uniforms that are

(01:31:07):
chopped up and put into the cards. I guess there
are people out there who will perform surgery on these
trading cards and they'll take out like the undesirable just
plain white, just playing black, just like solid color patch,
and they'll put something else in there that of course

(01:31:29):
they've just purchased at like a store, but it's got
like the Nike logo on it, or it's a yeah,
they put fake They put counterfeit patches in the real
patch cards.

Speaker 4 (01:31:40):
Because they because the real patches, if I'm following you right,
are the are the actual game warned by a player, Yes,
these that will they're buying them from the teams store
and putting the same patch, the same size patch. But
they're like, oh I have like this one is now
it's it doesn't this is not just black. Thank you

(01:32:01):
for giving me something something to be up in arms
about it. Now you have to worry about no idea.
You can Eric Grievance on Friday about it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:09):
So like you know Victor Webbnyama has a patch, but
if it's just black mesh from his spurs jersey, it's
not as appealing. So what they'll do is they'll go
find like a little a little more appealing patch and
they'll put that in there.

Speaker 4 (01:32:22):
I have no idea the miniature spur, yeah, logo on
the shorts or something.

Speaker 3 (01:32:26):
Yeah, I have no idea how intricate this process has
to be in order to make it look authentic, not
damage the card, et cetera. But Upper Deck, the trading
card company who does a lot of this or who
produces a lot of these cards, they're now in the pack.
If you get a patch card, it's going to be

(01:32:47):
sealed in a hard case. It's got to be given
a serial number. It's going to be like they've they've
completely gone above board, above and beyond.

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
They've taken it. Try faking this.

Speaker 3 (01:32:59):
Yeah, they're basically trying to make this counterfeit proof for
their collectors because the aftermar that's how big of a
problem this we became crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:33:07):
It's like it's like when they had to put the
intricate water marks on on one hundred dollars bills, which
makes staining and stuff. They're having to do something like
that for these patches. That's wild.

Speaker 3 (01:33:21):
It's if it becomes a big enough problem, which you know,
counterfeiting hundred dollars bills kind of makes sense, James, that
might be a problem. It's like if you're somebody out
there who's just like, wait, you're telling me, I could
just get special ink and special paper, and I can
make my own hundred dollar bills and I can just
print up for the low, low price of like one

(01:33:42):
cent apiece, I can just print up a bunch of benjies.
That it makes sense to me that that became a
big enough problem that the United States Treasury had to
counter that with measures of their own.

Speaker 5 (01:33:55):
It.

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
I was blown away when I found out that this
is a big enough problem in trading card worlds that
the company who actually manufactures the card was like, we
need to take some measures, some special measures, which means,
of course, investing money in stopping the counterfeiting process. That's
how ubiquitous this counterfeiting was.

Speaker 4 (01:34:17):
Patch swapping man, I had no idea, but I'm up
in arms about it now. Oh see, I am joining
the crusade, yes, against all these you know, filth of
the earth. Scum of the earth. Counter patch counterfeitters, how
dare you? What a weird business to get yourself into.

(01:34:37):
But also like happened to just be in a drug dealer,
all right. Also we talked, you talked about we touched
on just briefly, how difficult it is to counterfeit money. Now,
how easy until the until Now does that sound like
it probably was to like that. We got that Britain

(01:34:58):
covey jersey behind you on the I'm just gonna snip
off that pack twelve logo, put it in some trading
cards and here you go, I make that seems like
such an easy thing to counterfeit.

Speaker 3 (01:35:10):
I'm I'm not surprised it's become. But they're like in
the card though it's not. It's not just like a
patch thrown in the pack in the car. It's like
part of the car.

Speaker 2 (01:35:20):
Okay, well that's not never mind, there's a missed that part.

Speaker 3 (01:35:24):
Yeah, there's like a window where you like have to
I mean, and look, this is one of the I
I went through a phase in my life and I
probably still would be in that phase if I had
more free time. But children take that away, and it's fine.
But like there's a lot of documentary style shows on
life in prison, you know, like Locked Up, Gangland, all

(01:35:48):
these shows that are just like trying to give you
like knowledge about what it's like on the inside. And
one of the things that I found so fascinating and
also so incredibly frustrating is how many really high level
schemes and plots and like codified language and all these
things that these incarcerated individuals come up with to smuggle

(01:36:12):
things into the prison, to hide things from the guards.
Like it's you gotta be smart to pull some of
the stuff off. And I was always like, how did
you end up in prison for twenty five years? If
you were that smart, why didn't you just apply your
genius to something productive? Because I could never have figured
out how to do what these people are doing, and
they figured it out in prison. It's like, if you

(01:36:35):
just take that level of intelligence and problem solving and
you apply it to something that actually matters to society,
then boom, you're a successful individual. If you are so
skilled at like counterfeiting training cards that pat swapping has
become a source of income for you, just like apply
that level of creativity, intelligence, ingenuity into a real business man,

(01:37:00):
you'll be fine. It drives me nuts when I see
people taking their intelligence and applying it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:05):
To stuff like this. Anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:37:09):
Yeah, but no one would have led me into college whatever. Okay,
so I guess I'll have to do this, like go
work for upper Deck, go work for the trading card company.

Speaker 2 (01:37:20):
Maybe they just hired him. Maybe that's how.

Speaker 3 (01:37:22):
Jack Abognail, you know who that is? Ye catch me
if you can love that movie. It's a great movie.
You ever listened to that? The real Jack Abognail, like
do speeches or anything?

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
I have not. I'm gonna have to look that up.
You gotta look it up.

Speaker 3 (01:37:34):
He's a genius and he he created a bunch of
high level financial crimes. And then it was just like
and the FBI hired him, right or the or somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
I'll show you how to do it. Yeah, and then
you could pay me like he figured out backwards. Just
do it in the first place.

Speaker 3 (01:37:51):
Anyway, patch swapping is no longer something that you have
to lose sleepover.

Speaker 4 (01:37:56):
At least with Upper Deck car This seems like if
Jack Abbognail was born in the in the twenty tens,
he would be a patch swapper, not a check obviously,
not a check forger, he would.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
Be a patch.

Speaker 4 (01:38:08):
It seems like you seems like there'd be some there's
some correlation between the two skill sets.

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
Like I don't think you could fake what he faked
back in the day, you know what I mean, Like.

Speaker 3 (01:38:17):
I'm a Pilot's be like what, No, it's easier to
fly a plane now that it used to be because
he just puts buttons on the computer. But like everyone's
on social media, Yeah, they could just be like Jack Abog,
Jack Abogn, you're not a pilot, dude, you're a personal trainer.
I see it on your Instagram account.

Speaker 5 (01:38:35):
He is.

Speaker 4 (01:38:36):
If he puts pilot in the bio. Oh see, I
guess puts a little with They probably got the pilot
wings emoji on. I haven't looked for that, but puts
that in the bio Golden there's my credential.

Speaker 2 (01:38:51):
All right. Uh, gotta take a quick one here.

Speaker 3 (01:38:54):
We got another great answer on our the fall from
Grace for an athlete that bothered you most on our
text line. And it's not just our Texters, not just
sixteen twenty four of the fields this way, it's also
Terry Bradshaw. We'll get to that on the other side
Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven ninety two FM.

Speaker 1 (01:39:17):
He's by Sean O'Connell's show. You were home of the
best Inside of your Utes. Let's get back to OOC
from the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred and
ninety two to one f AM.

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):
Eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred What
professional athletes fall from?

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
Grace? Was hardest for you to watch?

Speaker 3 (01:39:47):
Sean Kemp was at one time one of the more
entertaining guys to watch in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
He's had.

Speaker 3 (01:39:55):
Some run ins with the loss since then. Antonio Brown
was brought up as an example of this. Lance Armstrong
brought up as an example.

Speaker 4 (01:40:07):
I can't believe I didn't think of Lance Armstrong when
you asked me before that. That's still rough because of
all that he tried to embody, the cause that he
tried to embody that he said, I beat cancer, and
look what I can do since I beat cancer, and
then it all ended up being a lie.

Speaker 2 (01:40:27):
Like that's still rough.

Speaker 3 (01:40:28):
He's gonna go down when it's all said and done, right,
when forty years from now people are talking about Lance Armstrong,
He's gonna have a very, very complicated legacy because of
his greatness, but also the fact that he lied for
so long, was exposed as a drug cheat, and then
like that, I'm totally fine with dragging somebody for lying

(01:40:53):
about being a drug cheap.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
I would lead that charge.

Speaker 3 (01:40:58):
Probably he did, and unfortunately, based on lies, he did
raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research.

Speaker 2 (01:41:08):
Yeah, the money's real. While look money is not a lie.
He enriched himself fabulously along the way. But he did
raise a lot of money for cancer research, which is
even if you're a liar, is a good thing to do.
It feels.

Speaker 4 (01:41:24):
It feels tainted, though, even though they've absolutely like the money.
Feels the money itself from an outside perspective feels tainted,
even though they've absolutely used it for great things and
to further cancer research, and people are living a lot
longer with who have had cancer. They're they're surviving a

(01:41:47):
lot more in part because of that, it still feels tainted.

Speaker 3 (01:41:50):
If somebody comes up with a cure for cancer, and
I know that's the wrong way to say, you probably
have to come up with cures for cancers. They're all
so drastically different, they're all different diseases. I wouldn't care
if that money came from like a drug cartel. I mean,

(01:42:11):
I would prefer that it came from governments. I would
prefer that it came from like I don't know, generous,
generous donors, philanthropists or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
But in a case like that one, I'm kind of like,
the the ends justify the means.

Speaker 3 (01:42:26):
If Lance Armstrong, like, by all accounts, he's kind of
a jerk too, right it we knew that before, we
knew that, before we knew it was all yeah, we
knew that even when we were questioning whether he was
blood doping.

Speaker 6 (01:42:38):
But like.

Speaker 3 (01:42:40):
If and I don't know if his money, if we
could actually trace any of the funds that have been
towards like even the development of a drug that prolonged
life whatever, But if if that money raised actually did
help improve the lives of cancer patients, then I'm kind
of like, I don't care about you lying for the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
I care about the integrity of sport. I still do. Also,
everyone else in your sport was doping.

Speaker 4 (01:43:07):
It's like this, It's very there's a lot of parallels
with baseball, with Barry Bonds and that steroid era and
blood doping in cycling. Absolutely, But that fall from Grace
was so so drastic because he lied for so so
so so long, and he was so he was so
adamant that going back to the baseball analogy, I know,

(01:43:27):
cross sport analogy, blah. But Raphael Palmerow in baseball wagged
his finger at the congressional hearing. I have never done
steroids ever. He was doing steroids for a long time
when you, like Lance Armstrong did that, but yes, Pun
intended on steroids.

Speaker 3 (01:43:46):
Yes, when you when you double down or triple down
or quadruple down, or you just keep going layers and
layers and layers deep when you're sitting down with Oprah
and being like, of course, I never like it makes
people think you're a sociopathy when it comes out. And
I had this happen the other night at home, James,
I'm already you know, traveling, that's a.

Speaker 4 (01:44:05):
Daily thing though, right what people thinking you're an associatepath
at home?

Speaker 2 (01:44:09):
I made this mistake. I made the Lance Armstrong mistake.

Speaker 3 (01:44:12):
Okay, I brought home some stroop offfles when I was
on a layover at the Amsterdam airport on one of
my trips. Okay, I got the strip waffles. I like them,
the wife likes them, likes them, the kids like them.
We were down to the last one. They're three for
like ten bucks or whatever. Right, we're down to the
last package. We're down to the bott. Okay. By we

(01:44:34):
had put the kids to bed, my wife was I
don't know, in the shower or something. I see that
there's a couple of stroop waffles left.

Speaker 2 (01:44:42):
I ate them. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:44:44):
My wife comes out and she goes to find a
stroop Waffle treat before bed, and she's like, did you
just eat my last?

Speaker 2 (01:44:53):
My last?

Speaker 3 (01:44:53):
Because of course when I bring things home like these
are for you, even if they're kind of for me,
these are for you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
And she's like, did you eat my last strip offeh
Cardinal Sin? And I was like, ah, yeah, I did. Sorry.
She's like, wait, how many were there? And I was like,
I just ate one. I don't know why I'd lie
about something so stupid, but I'm like there was one left.

Speaker 4 (01:45:18):
I you could tell she was not happy about it.
So you wanted to lessen the uh. I was a
little I was feeling less in the ire. Yeah, feel
a little sheepish, a little embarrassed about eating multiple strew faults,
like finishing off the box by eating more than one.
It's like, you're you're double bad, and then I tripled down.
Maybe maybe you're like subconsciously like, let's kind of like

(01:45:39):
a slob would do that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:41):
I'm not a slop, some glutting the slab. I just
I just had one.

Speaker 3 (01:45:45):
That's one true. And then you know, we start, we
sit down and we start watching like a show or something.
She's like, wait, seriously, there was only one left. I'm like, yeah,
there's only one. You're just dropping okay. And she's like,
she's like, I swear there was more than one.

Speaker 2 (01:46:00):
Oh no, I'm like there's one left. She goes, really
you promise. I'm like there was, I there's one. You
didn't say the words I promise, and there and then
she goes and then she goes, there's more than one.
And finally, after lying about it for like five minutes,
I'm like, all right, fine, I'm embarrassed one. She was

(01:46:24):
just like, what is wrong with you? Why would you
lie about something like that? What else do you lie about?
You psycho? And I'm just like I just felt bad.
So I did the Lance Armstrong thing with treats. At
the house.

Speaker 3 (01:46:34):
Imagine doing this with your life's legacy, like with your
core identity as a human being. You're just like, No,
I totally don't take steroids. I would never do any
of that. I felt stupid about it for ten minutes.
Five minutes with Strip Waffles psychopath. Oh see seriously to

(01:46:55):
pay off the teas. Terry Bradshaw's mad at Aaron Rodgers.
Oh sorry, right, yeah, what we talked about it on
the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:47:04):
Yes, the.

Speaker 3 (01:47:06):
Aaron Rodgers came in as an answer the Fall from Grace. Yeah,
that his hardest for people to watch.

Speaker 2 (01:47:11):
Leuie. He has certainly falled. Fell from Grace sixteen twenty
four says less than ten years ago, Aaron Rodgers was
my favorite play, was one of my favorite players in
all sports to watch. Now everyone just wants him to
go away.

Speaker 3 (01:47:21):
Terry Bradshaw went on a radio show and was like,
Pittsburgh being interested in Aaron Rodgers is a joke. You're
gonna sign him for one year. He had a great
line which only old guys can get away with. He
said he needs to go to California and chew on
bark and whisper to the gods out there, which is
a great visual of Aaron Rodgers, like actually sitting in

(01:47:42):
a dark tent, chewing on bark and whispering to like
some sh like I could see Aaron Rodgers doing so.
A former Steelers great, a Hall of famer, is like,
I don't want to sign him.

Speaker 4 (01:47:56):
He said, it's not the Steeler way to sign a
quarterback for one year. A one year rental is not
the Steeler way.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
But it is going to be.

Speaker 3 (01:48:03):
It seems like because all the insiders, he and Rapaport
and Chefter and all these guys are saying this is
gonna happen.

Speaker 4 (01:48:09):
Rogers himself on a podcast apparently hinted at it was
it yesterday, which is again.

Speaker 2 (01:48:15):
Then what's the hold up? You're just do it?

Speaker 3 (01:48:18):
Then your new team is in OTA's already, and you're
gonna be the guy that's just like, hey, everyone talking
about me still uh uh huh. And he probably is
gonna eat the last two stroop.

Speaker 4 (01:48:29):
Waffles and say there was only one like a psychopath
you know who you know who'll be great, who also
probably shares this feeling of I hate the fall fall
from grace of Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2 (01:48:43):
Known Jets fan Josh Newman, you mean.

Speaker 3 (01:48:46):
Our next guest, Josh Newman, is gonna join us because
the Utah Jazz the draft NBA Draft is coming up.
We've been talking two people from the markets where the
top five, six, seven ish draft prospects are coming from. Well,
one of those guys happens to be a Texas Longhorn.
And guess who was covering the Longhorn basketball team and

(01:49:06):
the Longhorn football team and all the Longhorn athletics. Our
old friend Josh Newman. So we'll get some Trey Johnson
inside from him. Next on the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN
seven hundred ninety two one FM, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:49:17):
Tires on Utah's number one sports talk ESPN seven hundred
ninety two.

Speaker 2 (01:49:24):
He wants to shoot it, got it, trade ship up,
Kay Texas going back to the wheel of the pearl
to down pearl and Trey Johnson loving it. Got it
to go last gas for Texas.

Speaker 3 (01:49:41):
Twenty seconds of play down five, Johnson stepped back three.

Speaker 2 (01:49:47):
Of course he did. There's some Trey Johnson highlights.

Speaker 3 (01:49:52):
He had a career high thirty nine points in that
game against Arkansas late February.

Speaker 2 (01:49:57):
That sound courtesy of ESPN.

Speaker 3 (01:49:59):
Trey Johns j'son currently ranked sixth on ESPN's NBA Draft
big Board. Of course, your Utah Jazz are picking fifth,
assuming that they keep the pick. We've been going around
talking to people who were closer observers to the top
prospects in this NBA draft during their college days. Josh Newman,
an old friend of the program, happens to be more

(01:50:21):
of a Texas insider than you're gonna find in Salt
Lake City, and he's going to give us some Tray
Johnson insights.

Speaker 2 (01:50:27):
Josh Newman, welcome back to the show. How are you sir?

Speaker 9 (01:50:30):
Oh see, I really appreciate you having me.

Speaker 2 (01:50:32):
How are you doing all right?

Speaker 3 (01:50:34):
So, Trey Johnson, is he worth number five if that's
where you're picking, uh in this draft?

Speaker 9 (01:50:42):
I mean probably once you get past the first two
maybe three picks. I mean you're trying to decide what
to do. You know, it's interesting he comes from this
pretty you know, high level high school pedigree and the
you know, the early comparison to Trey Johnson was Kevin Durant,
whether that's fair or not, right, He's this big, lanky, skinny,

(01:51:03):
sort of you know, prolific jump shooter, doesn't really get
to the hole super duper well.

Speaker 2 (01:51:09):
But he but he can really.

Speaker 9 (01:51:11):
He can really shoot it. And you know, you know,
we're going through this season and you're watching him, and
he was very very good on a team that was older. Right,
you know, with the transfer portal, you're looking to get
old and stay old. But when you have the opportunity,
if your text is to recruit this kid, they successfully,
you know, recruited this kid and you're watching and you're watching,

(01:51:32):
the thing that sticks out is the maturity. And he's unafraid.
He's mature. He you know, he knows where he wants
to he knows where he wants to get on the floor.
But you know, the more you watch, doesn't play great defense,
kind of selective in in in when he wants to defend,

(01:51:55):
and maybe he settles too much with his jump shot.

Speaker 6 (01:51:57):
Right.

Speaker 9 (01:51:57):
He would like to see him grow up a little
bit and getting to the rim. But the ceiling is
very very high.

Speaker 3 (01:52:04):
So that ceiling thing is something we always talk about
with pro sports prospects and getting a player to that ceiling.

Speaker 2 (01:52:10):
You got to find the right fit.

Speaker 3 (01:52:12):
You got to make sure that you have the right
communication style for that particular individual. Hearing you say that
the maturity is something that really stands out. That's I
think that's something the Jazz fans are going to like.
The unwilling or the lackluster defensive willingness is something Do
you feel like it could be coached?

Speaker 2 (01:52:32):
Is that just like a, hey, we didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:52:34):
Really bring you here to be like a shutdown defender.
And obviously these young guys are not at this point
what they're going to be eventually if you guide them
in the right direction. But do you get the sense
that because of you know, that maturity maybe that you
already referenced, and because of the fact that he is
going to grow and he's going to understand that, you know,

(01:52:56):
he's he's on a team if it's the Jazz or
somewhere else that might expect him to play more both
sides of the ball. Is that something that you could
coach into a trade Johnson because he has the physical traits?

Speaker 9 (01:53:08):
I think so. I think so, you know, you know,
the more games you watch, right, the writers talk to
each other and we're you know, we're talking about what
we're looking at. It's like he was the best player
on the floor, right, So you're not you know, they
weren't taking this kid off the floor like they needed
him on the floor to win basketball games. Right, he
led the SEC in scoring at like nineteen point seven
or like nineteen point eight a game. You weren't taking

(01:53:30):
him off the floor. So he knew no matter what
he did defensively, like, they were not taking him off
the floor. To your point, right, we're talking about, you know,
going to the NBA professional You know, again, the maturity
was like very evident from even the first time that
we spoke to him back in September during the preseason.
You would think that, you know, he'll he'll he'll get
with adults and pro coaching and they're gonna hold him acountable.

(01:53:53):
You yet, yet, like the defensive part of this is
very coachable, and I would expect him to to to
really turn into a.

Speaker 6 (01:54:00):
Two way guy.

Speaker 9 (01:54:01):
He did not have to do that this year at Texas,
but he will have to do that if he wants
to get on the floor and stay on the floor
at the next level.

Speaker 3 (01:54:09):
I think, as you're well aware, we get real obsessed
with traits when we're talking about you know, like football
prospects and combine and whatnot. And I think this is
the first year I actually paid closer attention to the
NBA scouting combine. He turned in a thirty seven and
a half inch vertical leap and I was like, oh, wow,
that's amazing. And then I was like, wait, that's amazing

(01:54:31):
for NFL guys. I don't even know how amazing that
is for NBA guys. But when you evaluate his athleticism, quickness, traits, vertical,
all that kind of stuff, is he a guy that
you see projecting out positively at this next level.

Speaker 9 (01:54:46):
He never struck me as like, I don't think he's
like a plus athlete. He's certainly not like a freakish athlete.
Then look, neither was Durant, right, Kevin Durant is not
this freakish, you know, end to end athlete. He's not
great Latterally, his you know, quickness wasn't always there, and
that's it's it's kind of the same thing with this kid.
Now you can overcome that with you know, with good

(01:55:07):
footwork and basketball IQ and savvy, and he was able
to do those things at the SEC level this year.
I don't know that he's like automatically or overnight going
to turn into you know, this plus athlete. Who's going
to overwhelm you and you know I you know it.
It remains to be seen if he can turn into
this like downhill guy who like really gets to the
rim and draws contact. You didn't see him like getting downhill,

(01:55:30):
drawing contact, trying to overwhelm people with his athleticism. Certainly
not with you know, certainly not with his physicality. But again,
the stuff that he lacked he made up for with
what he does well. And the stuff he does well
is very, very effective.

Speaker 3 (01:55:47):
We're talking a little former Texas Longhorn Tray Johnson with
Josh Newman here on the Sean O'Connell Show, some of
the latest mocks showing Johnson projected as the number five
pick of this draft coming up in about a month,
and of course that would land him in Salt Lake
City with the Utah Jazz. If that's how it plays out,
should the Jazz as an organization be vetting whether or

(01:56:09):
not a guy would like living in Salt Lake City.
It's something that you have to talk about in the
NBA in particular. You're a guy who came to Salt
Lake City, seemed to like it here. But I'm not
gonna put words in your mouth, and you know, it's
not everyone's cup of tea. It doesn't seem to be
every NBA player's cup of tea, as we found out

(01:56:29):
with guys like you know, Donovan Mitchell, who seemed to
like it at first and then kind of soured on it,
and even Gordon Hayward, who obviously looks a lot more
like the general population here.

Speaker 2 (01:56:41):
He got out when he could.

Speaker 3 (01:56:43):
Should the Utah Jazz be be interviewing these guys, talking
to these guys, vetting out these guys and saying, do
you want to be in Salt Lake City?

Speaker 9 (01:56:51):
I mean sure, I mean if you're Danny Ainge and
you know the hierarchy there, of course you're gonna vet
everything and every one and everybody in this kid's life
and the kid himself.

Speaker 2 (01:57:00):
And you know, the beauty of a.

Speaker 9 (01:57:02):
Rookie contract is you know, you draft the guy. But
you know this isn't free agency, right, there's really no choice,
Like if he gets drafted by the Utah Jazz or
wherever he gets drafted by, like that's where he's going
to end up. But to your point, this kid is
and again I'll go back to the maturity. He's not
a complainer like he just you know, he put the
work in and he's in the gym. You didn't hear

(01:57:24):
much about him, Well, you didn't hear anything about him,
you know, causing trouble. Like he goes to practice, he
goes to the gym, he goes to eat, he goes home,
Brinton repeat, and you know he he's a worker. That's
all you heard about this kid for nine months on campus.
You know, wasn't going out like late at night, wasn't
doing any of that stuff. He was very focused on business.
And again strikes me as you know, the sort of

(01:57:47):
kid who has the maturity whether he wants to be
insulting city or not, he's going to put on a
face that he's going to do the best that he can.

Speaker 2 (01:57:55):
And that's just what it is.

Speaker 9 (01:57:56):
You know, if the Jazz, if the Jazz were to
land with this kid at number five, you could do
a lot worse in terms of like mental makeup and
maturity and just knowing that it's a business and doing
what you have to do. From that end of things,
the basketball stuff is one thing, but the off the
court stuff is quite another thing. In a lot of cases,
Jazz fans are not going to have to worry about

(01:58:18):
this kid in terms of his mental makeup and coming
to work every day to work, all.

Speaker 3 (01:58:23):
Right, Danny Ainge, justin' Zanik, Ryan Smith. They call you
and they say, hey, it's been a while, Josh Newman,
we haven't talked, and this this tanking thing didn't really
work out for us.

Speaker 2 (01:58:36):
We got picked number five.

Speaker 3 (01:58:37):
Next year's draft is really really good too, though we
do have some draft capital. Maybe if we could get
up to three. We're not going to get Cooper Flag,
We're not going to get Dylan Harper. Maybe we can
get As Bailey if we trade up to three. I mean,
they have options here. Would you what would you do
if you're the man in charge with this draft, with
this number five pick, and then move forward and I

(01:59:01):
guess projecting all the way out the next year because
you're not going to be great as a team again.

Speaker 9 (01:59:06):
Yeah, I mean I would. I would keep building capital
and getting all the capital that I could. Now to
your point, if you thought you were close, if you
thought you could be a playoff team or make a
playoff run in the Western Conference, maybe you take some
of that capital and you try to bring back assets
in place of that capital. They're just not close enough.

(01:59:26):
So you know, whatever you want to do at number five,
I would not be trying to make crazy moves to
get up to number three or number two or whatever.

Speaker 6 (01:59:33):
I would.

Speaker 9 (01:59:33):
I would take your pick at number five. That's another
young piece. Whether it's Trey Johnson or or bj Edgecomb
or somebody else, that's another young piece. You keep building pieces.
You hold on to the capital that you have accrued
under Danny Inge And yeah, right, the twenty sixth draft
is going to be, at least on paper, it's supposed
to be stronger. You know, I would I would stay

(01:59:53):
of the course right now. If I'm the Jazz and
Danny Aingel, Are.

Speaker 2 (01:59:57):
You a believing that Cooper Flag is going to hit
the ground run in the NBA?

Speaker 9 (02:00:02):
You know, I didn't think that he would be so
prolific the way he was a duke. I did not
think he would have the type of season that he did.
So I can't sit here and say he's not He's
not going to hit the ground running.

Speaker 6 (02:00:16):
I'll say this.

Speaker 9 (02:00:17):
I think personally, I think Dylan Harper is sort of
a generational point guard talent. If I'm starting a team,
I would want Dylan Harper in my backcourt instead of
Cooper Flag. That's just me personally interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:00:30):
All right. I don't know if this is a good
thing or not to ask right now, but how are
you feeling about your nicks?

Speaker 9 (02:00:39):
You know, I thought I thought I would get through
this without, you know, without having to bring this up.
Oh see, No, it's been It was a fun you know,
ten days with the Celtics series. You know, they got
over the hump and people were very, very excited and
it hasn't been this way in twenty five years. And
the way they lost Game one against the Pacers was
you know, that was bad. They stole Game three and

(02:01:02):
everybody got kind of excited again, and then reality sort
of set it last night. Uh so they're down three
to one. You know, we'll see what the garden crowd
has to bring tomorrow night. But it's not it's not
looking good, right. But it was fun for a minute,
so you know, we'll see how it all plays out.

Speaker 2 (02:01:17):
It's been a while since we last spoke. Have you
found a good bagel spot in Austin yet?

Speaker 7 (02:01:22):
No?

Speaker 6 (02:01:23):
No, but we've got no.

Speaker 9 (02:01:25):
No, but we've got uh, we've got the one or
two spots that are like pretty reliable. It's weird, man,
you can you know, I've lived in Utah, I've lived
in Texas now and I'm I'm sort of convinced now
you can find pizza anywhere. For some reason. You can
find pizza anywhere. You might have to look for it,
but you can find it.

Speaker 6 (02:01:43):
But you just cannot find.

Speaker 9 (02:01:44):
Bagels anywhere that like live up to the standard that
I've set in.

Speaker 6 (02:01:50):
My own mind.

Speaker 2 (02:01:51):
This is a great thing.

Speaker 9 (02:01:52):
Maybe I need to like change it, you know, change
my standard. But that's you know, that's sort of where
we are at bagels right now.

Speaker 2 (02:01:57):
But you're in like the barbecue capital of the world.
So does that compensate or are you still just like, no,
I'd rather have great bagel the great barbecue.

Speaker 9 (02:02:06):
You know, it's funny. I'd rather have great bagels personally.
And yes, we're you know, we're in the barbecue capital
of the world here. We've had some tremendous barbecue.

Speaker 6 (02:02:13):
But like it gets old after a while.

Speaker 9 (02:02:15):
You can't have barbecue every third day or every week.
You kind of have to make that like a once
in a while thing, or else you're gonna have a
weight problem. I mean personally, personally, I would rather have
some bagels over some barbecue.

Speaker 2 (02:02:28):
Well, I think that maybe you could marry the two.

Speaker 3 (02:02:31):
You could become go viral for making delicious barbecue brisket
bagel sandwiches or something.

Speaker 9 (02:02:38):
You know, that's something to think about. You know, I
am between jobs right now, so I may I may
have to workshop that that might be a good time waster.

Speaker 3 (02:02:46):
Well, good luck with that. I mean, it's we know
that's not ever a good place or a fun place
to be. You got a lot of fans here on
this station, you get a lot of fans here in
Salt Lake City, So we'll be paying attention wherever you land,
and we're sure that'll be on your feet somewhere. I
hope you and the family are well, Josh, and always
appreciate your time and you're insight.

Speaker 9 (02:03:03):
Thanks for having me us. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (02:03:06):
Really big fan of Josh Newman. He's great. He was
great when he was here on the Utah Beat.

Speaker 3 (02:03:12):
It is a cold world in sports media sometimes, but
he's a talented, intelligent guy. I have no doubt that
Josh is gonna end up in a really good spot
and we'll be rooting him on and hopefully finding excuses
to bring him on like this one, Trey Johnson is
he's appearing for the Utah Jazz and a lot of
mocks now, and we know how mock drafts are. You

(02:03:34):
put out a mock draft and then you're just like, well,
I can't two weeks from now put out the same
exact mock draft. So I gotta shuffle some things. You're
not shuffling one, you're not shuffling two. And so three
on down is where people are making their adjustments. And
so you've seen Conka Nipple projected to the jazz. You've
seen Trey Johnson connected to the jazz. The kid from

(02:03:56):
Oklahoma's name's escaping me right now. Jeremiah Fears, Yes, Fears,
who we talked about. We talked about Jeremiah Fears a
couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 4 (02:04:05):
He's uh, remember we had we had our guy from
the Norman transcript on talking about Jeremiah Fears and he
was saying, yeah, he I expected more late lottery to
be taken, and some mocks have him as high as five.
That was as of a couple of weeks ago. All
of a sudden, Jeremiah Fears now he's looking like a
solid five, number five, he's sick. He's like, no lower

(02:04:26):
than seven. Yeah, It's it's crazy how these things just
like you you made the comparison with the NFL draft,
combine the NBA draft, combine with Josh just now it's
the same kind of thing with how guys can fly
up the draft boards well after.

Speaker 2 (02:04:41):
The last game was played. Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:04:43):
I by the way, I pull up some numbers from
the NBA NBA scouting combine. Okay, who do you think
were how heavy do you think the heaviest guy was
at the NBA scouting combine.

Speaker 2 (02:04:57):
To seventy five?

Speaker 4 (02:05:01):
You're very close, James, I'm weirdly good at getting close
on these.

Speaker 2 (02:05:06):
If we went by.

Speaker 3 (02:05:08):
Prices right rules, you would consistently lose because of your
because you always go over seventy four to sixty two
to sixty two.

Speaker 2 (02:05:18):
Good thing that we're not playing prices right dang?

Speaker 6 (02:05:20):
Or are we? Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:05:22):
You just never know who.

Speaker 4 (02:05:24):
Who's walking around with my showcase showdown, I keep losing. Well,
the prize is just James Peterson bonus points, so it
doesn't really you could just hand those to yourself anytime.
But yeah, it Shae, I mean, obviously their apples and oranges.
NBA scouting combine, NFL scouting combine, it's totally different the measurements,

(02:05:46):
but you're just like, I mean, you see a thirty
seven and a half inch vertical, You're like, whoa, and
then you realize everyone at the NBA scouting combine does that.

Speaker 2 (02:05:56):
Everyone.

Speaker 4 (02:05:56):
Yeah, it's it's when it's the combines that start with
a four and higher. That seemed to be the top
of the top.

Speaker 3 (02:06:04):
If you're jumping forty plus at the NFL scouting combine,
you're a defensive backer, a wide receiver period.

Speaker 2 (02:06:11):
Nobody else can do that. It's just those freaks.

Speaker 4 (02:06:13):
And imagine if the defensive lineman that can jump that
high though batting every ball down, even then it's like
timing right. Even then, it's like one guy per year
going over forty on his vertical and that you know,
there's a handful of this got NBA scouting combine and
then everyone's at like thirty six plus inches.

Speaker 2 (02:06:31):
That's three feet people. I'm I'm more.

Speaker 4 (02:06:36):
I'm more like Gordy Chiza. Can't even I feel good
when I can jump over a phone book, So can't
relate sixteen twenty four.

Speaker 3 (02:06:46):
Can someone please explain what The big deal with Dylan
Harper is he's a point guard that can't shoot.

Speaker 2 (02:06:50):
Congrats you have a taller John Wall. Here's the thing,
all right.

Speaker 3 (02:06:59):
NBA coaches, NFL coaches, college coaches at the highest level,
Major League Baseball coaches, probably maybe NHL coaches, they have
one thing in common. They believe they can do better
than the guy before them. Every one of them thinks that.

(02:07:20):
It's part of you have to believe it, but it's
also something that.

Speaker 2 (02:07:25):
Pains you.

Speaker 3 (02:07:26):
It's also a reason why sometimes you draft the wrong
guy because there are so many coaches. It's sometimes why
the wrong guy transfers into your program, et cetera, et cetera.
Everyone thinks the problems he has now he will not
have with me. I will coach this out of him.
I can fix this. I promise you. There are a

(02:07:47):
ton of coaches that are looking There's probably thirty two coaches.
There's probably thirty coaches that are looking at Dylan Harper,
and they're saying, he will shoot better with us. I
will put him in the gym with our shooting coach.
I will make him better at this. I'll improve his stroke,
I'll improve his release, I'll improve the way he sets

(02:08:08):
his feet, I'll improve his recognition of what's a good
shot and a bad shot. They all think they're the
best at it. Even if I don't share quite so
strongly your criticisms of Dylan Harper, You can answer that question,
what's the big deal with him with? Any time somebody
has traits, coaches are like, let's take him. I will

(02:08:32):
make him good at this. I can make anybody good
at this. Sometimes it's true, can't teach tall. You can't
teach tall.

Speaker 4 (02:08:42):
That one drove me nuts grown up playing basketball because
there were the amount of the amount of really tall
kids who were too tall for their age. They had
no coordination, so they were bad at basketball. That got opportunities. Meanwhile,
people who were a little bit shorter than them, had

(02:09:04):
some coordination, had some basketball skill, always got overlooked unless
they were truly the best of the group. So yeah,
that one always drove me nuts. You can't teach tall.
That guy's in sixth Grady six feet tall.

Speaker 2 (02:09:16):
We got to take them. I remember the very first
like college level football camp. I went to.

Speaker 3 (02:09:23):
Thinking like I'm gonna play so well, I'm gonna get
a bunch of offers. This is gonna be amazing because
I was a pretty big high school kid. I haven't
like bloomed since then, but I was like, you know,
over six feet tall at over two hundred pounds when
I was sixteen years old.

Speaker 2 (02:09:40):
That's pretty big. So I thought, I'm going to get scholarships. Right.
We went.

Speaker 3 (02:09:46):
A bunch of guys on my team, really good players,
a bunch of guys on these other teams really good players.
At this camp, it was at Southern Utah University, James.
The only person that the coaches were paying any attention
to it all was this random dude. I think he
was from Tuila High School. I can't remember what high
school he was from. He was just he wasn't even playing.

(02:10:06):
He was injured or something. But he was six or
five and so all, and he was had like you know,
he was built like you're supposed to be built, as
like a tight end or a d end. And he
was just walking around in street clothes and all the
coaches were just slobbering over that kid.

Speaker 2 (02:10:21):
He wasn't even playing, and I was just like, what,
this kid sucks. Maybe he was good, I don't know.
He didn't play because he was hurt. I'm over there, like, oh,
look at me, I can play. It's wild how trades
matter so much. And by the way, did we go
over the random the random conversation that I had with
my wife when we were trying to figure out how

(02:10:41):
many seven foot tall individuals there are? I don't think so, Okay,
this was wild. I don't even I think it was.

Speaker 3 (02:10:48):
We were just watching playoff basketball and we were having
this conversation just like, wow, if you are built like that,
the wingspans on these guys. Go to the NBA Scouting
Combine results and the wingspans on these guys, like if
you're six five you have a six' ten.

Speaker 2 (02:11:03):
Wingspan it's. Nuts some of them even more than. THAT
i think the largest there were two wingspans measured at
seven feet six inches at this scouting, combine, right and
like Wen begnama's got like eight feet or. Something. Insane so,
anyway we were we were looking this, up and, YEAH
i Know google isn't always one hundred percent, accurate But.

Speaker 3 (02:11:27):
I'm gonna tell you when we come, back based on
this conversation we just had about traits and THE Nba
Scouting combine and. Stuff the number of estimated seven footers
is in the world and in The United. STATES i
promise you you're gonna guess. Wrong text in right now
eight seven seven three five three zero seven, hundred tweet

(02:11:47):
at me at rec. Sports don't, cheat Don't.

Speaker 2 (02:11:49):
Google just throw out a number how many seven footers
you think there are in THE usa and in the.
WORLD i promise you're gonna get it, wrong and then
we'll talk about it. Next On The Sean Connach SHOW
espn seven hundred NINETY.

Speaker 1 (02:12:01):
Twoefl if you were listening to About sean O'Connell, show
your source for the best hutes football cover, reach here's
oc from The Murdoch Hyundai studio OF espn seven hundred
at ninety two to one a F.

Speaker 3 (02:12:20):
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Boat you're gonna be out on the golf, course you're
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(02:12:44):
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Speaker 2 (02:13:01):
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Speaker 2 (02:14:37):
Before the, Break, james did you tell the? Truth did
you google during the? BREAK i did? Not, okay off
the top of your. Head hands, Up i'm still not. Googling,
okay off the top of your. Head how many seven
footers do you think there are in THE? Usa, well
let's start with THE. Nba how many seven foot players
are there in TODAY'S? Nba two one hundred seven players

(02:15:02):
in THE nba Right, yeah there are thirty nine seven
footers in THE nba right, now total.

Speaker 4 (02:15:08):
Overestimation see that's a rare miss for. Me i'm usually
a lot closer on, This, okay thirty. Nine so in
The United, States i'm gonna stick with two.

Speaker 2 (02:15:17):
Hundred.

Speaker 3 (02:15:18):
OKAY i asked for people to text in. Randomly eighty
four to thirty one says three hundred and seventy two
in THE. Usa, OKAY i say three hundred Seventy, no,
sorry six six eight one six says fifty in THE,
usa two hundred in the.

Speaker 2 (02:15:30):
World.

Speaker 3 (02:15:30):
Okay like this is one of those things we're just
not good at estimating or not because it's such a Weird,
like how many seven footers.

Speaker 9 (02:15:38):
Do you know?

Speaker 4 (02:15:39):
Personally, YEAH i don't THINK i know any seven, WELL i, mean,
YEAH i. DON'T i don't know any seven footers like
you know who they are by watching them. Play FOR i,
have LIKE i don't know anybody on the jazz. PERSONALLY
i was about to, say, Like i've had conversations with jazz,
players but BUT i don't know any of them, personally
SO i would SAY i don't know any seven.

Speaker 2 (02:16:00):
FOOTERS i know one seven footer.

Speaker 3 (02:16:03):
Personally he's a FORMER ufc fighters Named Stephan, struve And
i'm not entirely convinced he's actually a full seven feet.

Speaker 2 (02:16:10):
Tall he might be more like six ten and a
half six.

Speaker 3 (02:16:13):
Eleven they list him at seven FOOT a lot of
times athletes will embellish when they're close.

Speaker 4 (02:16:17):
To something that's going when you google, it he's gonna
count as a seventh, footer and look he's.

Speaker 3 (02:16:23):
Counting he's absolutely the. Man he's the coolest guy in the.
World i've had fun working with, Him we've become. Friends he's, great,
Right but you're also maybe calling him a. Liar he's
also maybe a, liar you, Know like that's. One and
by the, way if you want to find seven, footers
go to The. Netherlands they're the tallest country in the.
World still wild to me that that's the. Case you

(02:16:44):
brought that up, Before, Yeah, dutch they're. Giants in any,
CASE i know, ONE i. DON'T i at least have
a passing acquaintance with a lot of. People i'm talking
like thousands of people over the course of my. Life
he's the only seven footer That i've actually, Known so
it kind of defies reason to figure out how. Many,

(02:17:07):
okay IF i know, one because of course you're anecdotal
knowledge to, like if you're AN nba basketball, player you
know a lot more seven.

Speaker 2 (02:17:13):
Footers than most people. Do, YEAH i know thirty. Nine,
yeah you might know thirty. Nine there are estimated to be.

Speaker 3 (02:17:22):
There's thirty NINE nba players for the twenty twenty four
to twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (02:17:26):
Seasons seven feet Are taller estimates suggests that there are
twenty eight hundred to three thousand people in the. World,
wow or seven feet are TALLER us of eight billion
people on the.

Speaker 3 (02:17:40):
Planet the best estimate they can come up with by
compiling data from centers For Disease, control census, bureaus et,
cetera is that they're somewhere around three thousand seven footers
on the planet out of eight billion.

Speaker 2 (02:17:54):
People that's.

Speaker 3 (02:17:56):
Nuts in The United, states it's estimated there between eighty
five and one hundred and fifty who are seven, footers.

Speaker 7 (02:18:06):
And that.

Speaker 3 (02:18:08):
About seventy of those men ARE nba basketball age twenty to.

Speaker 2 (02:18:13):
Forty isn't that? Insane that is. Insane when we turn
on our televisions to watch THESE nba, playoffs you're seeing
like a non insignificant percentage of all the seven footers
on Planet.

Speaker 4 (02:18:27):
Earth, yeah engaging in a sport for your, entertainment SEE.
A i have a memory of WHEN i was ten
to fifteen years, old somewhere in there junior high ish,
age And i'm Watching Dirk novitzky on watching The MAVs
game is probably a playoff, game AND i THINK i

(02:18:50):
might've been at my grandma's, house got THE tv, on
watching a probably A MAVs playoff, game and my aunt
is watching with, me and she's not into The she
she's not into THE, nba but she's she's watching because
everyone else is. Watching and she, goes how tall is that?
Guy AND i just, say nonchalantly seven feet BECAUSE i

(02:19:10):
grew up watching basketball and being seven feet tall as
a BIG nba basketball player is not that big a.
Deal even to me in junior high, AGE i realized
it's seven. Feet it's not, crazy and she's Like german,
giant AND i remember, going what the? What but now
that you, Now but after after that uh interaction with my,

(02:19:34):
aunt in the years, Since i've been, like you know,
what she's not, Wrong like LIKE i looked at her
strange Because i'm, like, well there's lots of seven footers
in THE, nba not that big a, deal but like
that's actually the proper. Reaction and now that you give
me these, NUMBERS i feel even more, so, like, yeah
we should be going what the heck that guy is really,

(02:19:56):
tall instead of, going, well he's No Sean. Bradley he's
six inches short and Shom, bradley so he must not
be that. Tall like these guys are seriously. Giants they're
they're extreme outliers in a human.

Speaker 3 (02:20:08):
Population and by the, way when You, google you will
find so many different facts and figures on.

Speaker 2 (02:20:13):
This you got to try and figure out which one's.

Speaker 3 (02:20:15):
Bestest this twenty eight to twenty one hundred to three
thousand number estimate for the global population is, databased and
it's a very loose, study, right because it's like.

Speaker 2 (02:20:27):
Give or take a few. Hundred they're, Like, okay if
there's a couple hundred in The United, states they got
a lot of big people. There and there's a couple
hundred in The netherlands because they got a lot of
really big people. THERE i mean there's there's entire countries
where there's no seven.

Speaker 3 (02:20:40):
Footers, yeah Like i'm gonna go out on a limb,
Here like if we go To, Thailand, james we can
spend our entire lives looking for seven.

Speaker 2 (02:20:48):
Footers we're not gonna find.

Speaker 4 (02:20:49):
One do you, think do you think that that might
be Why one of the reasons Why Yao ming became
such a star is because he's a Seven he was
a seven foot he. Alive he is a seven foot
five man From china who doesn't isn't known for having
very tall.

Speaker 2 (02:21:07):
People that absolutely was part of. It, also like you
know how his parents, met, right the other volleyball player
and a basketball. Player they're both basketball.

Speaker 3 (02:21:15):
Players they were part of like The olympic Slash International
Sports machine In. China, yeah and they were just like
you guys can date you guys there you go, that,
uh look what you. Made they call that natural selection
that but, yeah it's so, yeah because his parents are

(02:21:37):
like his mom might be six, four his dad six,'
eight so like they they did that on purpose to
try to get a really. Tall guy so here's the really.
TALL kid i don't even know how he got off on,
this tangent but it just reminds you how unique it
is when you are watching professional athletics In The united States,
of america you are watching such extreme and just, professional athletics.

(02:22:01):
Collegiate athletics you're watching like the the less than one
percent of the most incredible physical performers On planet earth
and they're doing it on a television for. Your entertainment,
It's wild like it's just, the way it's just the
world we live in now that these particular people in,

(02:22:24):
foreign times who know, foreign times in like. ANCIENT times
i guess if you're a, seven footer you just have
to be the king of wherever.

Speaker 7 (02:22:32):
YOU are i.

Speaker 2 (02:22:34):
Don't know.

Speaker 9 (02:22:36):
Think.

Speaker 4 (02:22:36):
About This rudy Gobert and Victor, woman Yama. Both, french
yeah both over seven. Foot, two yeah think, about, it
like now that you've given me, those numbers that's gotta,
be like there can't be that Many other french guys
who are who are that tall and they?

Speaker 2 (02:22:55):
Got two or IN the nba, right now how many
SAIDs footers are There.

Speaker 4 (02:23:01):
In france that's difficult to give an. Exact Number even
google doesn't want. To answer at, least two That's what, google,
says like glad, you asked here's two as, an example?
All right in, any case just a fascinating thing that

(02:23:23):
came up because we WERE talking nba. Scouting combine we'll
close out the show a little. Cross TALK next espn SEVEN.
Nine fm.

Speaker 1 (02:23:35):
Tune To the Sean O'Connell show From The Murdoch chevrolet
STUDIO of espn seven hundred at ninety, two ONE. A.
F m.

Speaker 3 (02:23:48):
Don, O'Connell show, wrapping up and we'll turn it Over To.
Spence check it's in. The Drive cross talk is brought
to You By. Burt brothers summer adventures are now. Upon
Us burt brothers just kicking off the season with huge
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with a. Great deal, All Right, spence check it's in.
The drive, Coming, Up spence we're going to test your
intuitive knowledge of. Giant people, You, ready okay let's. Do
it we got off on a little bit of a
tangent because we were Talking About. Trey johnson we were

(02:24:31):
talking ABOUT the nba prospects and the upcoming draft and,
the traits the, physical traits and how, It's, anyway sure
give me your guess on how many seven footers are IN.

Speaker 2 (02:24:42):
Today's nba my gut tells me A lot.

Speaker 8 (02:24:49):
I'm trying. To, think okay so. Let's see i'll say
fifty thirty nine was the number thirty, nine okay so
not a, bad guess, All right.

Speaker 2 (02:25:00):
Price, is, right rules you're out of the, showcase showdown
but still a.

Speaker 8 (02:25:04):
Good guess you're still in the in, the ballpark get
to hang Out With. Bob, barker yes and the women
still spinning the thing all THE thing i.

Speaker 2 (02:25:11):
Went to, in college did? YOU really i Love. Love
prices i'm old school. For, sure yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:25:17):
We went we went To A bob barker taping and the,
prices right and let me tell you That the barker's
beauties were among the most Stunning humans i've ever seen in.

Speaker 8 (02:25:26):
My, life yeah that tracks based off OF what i
witnessed as a youth.

Speaker 2 (02:25:30):
On television never had a chance to see them.

Speaker 8 (02:25:32):
In person, Wild anyway rest, In, power bob, he's, Past, right,
yeah yes He's the price, is. Wrong Bitch It's drew
carrey Now. Happy gilmore i'm allowed to. Say that james
don't look. At, ME okay i.

Speaker 2 (02:25:47):
Watched McAfee, all right, fair enough we can get away,
with that.

Speaker 3 (02:25:50):
All right so thirty NINE on. Nba rosters how many
seven footers you think there? Are estimated, of course In
The united States. Of america oh, my gosh, OH jeez
i don't even know where to go with.

Speaker 8 (02:26:03):
This one i'm, assuming, Thousands thousands i'll say.

Speaker 2 (02:26:11):
Fifteen hundred the estimate is about one hundred And fifty
what how many seven footers you think there are On? Planet? Earth,
wait wait.

Speaker 8 (02:26:19):
Hold on the estimate is there's one hundred and fifty
seven Footers in america and thirty nine of them PLAYING,
the nba and.

Speaker 3 (02:26:25):
About seventy of THEM. Are nba ah our military age twenty.

Speaker 2 (02:26:28):
To forty oh. My Gosh on, earth again my international
height knowledge needs to.

Speaker 8 (02:26:37):
Be polished there are eight billion People, on earth by,
the way eight billion People, on earth one hundred and
fifty seven Footers, In america i'll say.

Speaker 2 (02:26:45):
Four, hundred worldwide.

Speaker 3 (02:26:46):
There are estimated between twenty one hundred and three thousand
total seven footers on. The, planet okay, right now and
if you read further into this very very loose study,
and estimate there's also an assertion that the majority of
seven footers that have ever existed On planet earth are alive,
right now because there's we don't really, have evidence a

(02:27:09):
lot of evidence in like skeletal records of anyone being
seven feet tall before like. Nineteen, hundred, yeah evolution folks
get taller and all the all.

Speaker 2 (02:27:19):
The Things, although darwinism.

Speaker 3 (02:27:22):
If you pay attention To The joe, rogan crowd there's
a lot of like belief that Maybe in turkey there
was a whole race. Of giants that's a fun rabbit
hole to go down if you're ever. Just, bored yep, moving, on.
Okay rapidly in, any case we were just talking about
how insane it is like the and look IN, the
nfl you're talking about sort of a size and speed

(02:27:46):
combination that makes them complete freaks of nature. Or whatever
it's a little bit easier to see the, seven footer
but like it's just we were talking about how wild
it is what outliers professional. Athletes are even these, you
know nineteen year old kids are going TO the nba.
Scouting combine they may or may not, make it and
it's just like there's eleven of them on.

Speaker 2 (02:28:09):
The planet. Yeah, wild, Yeah no and YOU and i
have talked about.

Speaker 8 (02:28:13):
This before if you ever tried to play, a sports
namely football, or, basketball right if you ever tried to
play that and continue to play it at really. High
levels if you're a normal PERSON like, i am you
run into a wall when you start playing against people
that are simply just built a lot differently. THAN you

(02:28:33):
i FEEL like i could, always shoot pass and dribble.
With anybody BUT when i went to basketball camp, with
pros and It Was tim thomas at six' Ten and
jerry stackhouse at Six six And sham God, Wells now
god sham god at six, one six two and, they're, all,
bigger faster.

Speaker 2 (02:28:50):
STRONGER and, longer i mean.

Speaker 8 (02:28:52):
That's the Thing sham god wells was three INCHES taller,
than i am but he was his wingspan, was much better, his,
were bigger padded like they're.

Speaker 2 (02:29:01):
Just built differently are, they more?

Speaker 8 (02:29:03):
Skilled for sure but for anybody out there that's ever
tried to, play a sport and you played in college
so you play with a, bunch of pros my guess
Would Be the nate orchards are different right Than, The
walk ons the special team Guys are the, krueger's. Built
differently right and For Me watching britton johnson, at six, ten,
Six eleven like i'm a Better. Shooter than britt i'm

(02:29:26):
probably a better Ball, handle than britt probably a Better,
passer Than britt but i'm literally an entire Foot Shorter.

Speaker 2 (02:29:32):
Than britton johnson so.

Speaker 8 (02:29:33):
Whenever you run into the guys that are, ultimately a
pros that's when you realize how different. They ACTUALLY are
and i used to Joke Around with dennis lindsay about
this because for a NUMBER of years I lived IN
sugarhouse and i would get into the twenty four hour
fitness runs and that was a lot of, ex college
guys some that would go to the pros and come
back they're just looking to. Stay IN shape and i
always got a kick OUT of conversations, i, would, overhear,

(02:29:56):
like OH dude if i just had a SHOT at,
an nba, team, and like ultimately when those guys decide,
to lock in you can't even get, a, Shot, off
right like you can't even get, a shot off let
alone get buckets or.

Speaker 2 (02:30:10):
Make, a team.

Speaker 8 (02:30:11):
Yeah you KNOW and so i would Always joke, around, Dennis,
lundsay like hey if you went down to twenty four
our fitness with some of these guys who claim that
all they need is attend day and you threw them
in one, of your practices how. Would it look they
couldn't even hang. For, five minutes like the pros. Are
just different and it's not just the skill, set your
point it's their size and their length and the.

Speaker 2 (02:30:29):
Way they're built, you could.

Speaker 3 (02:30:31):
Go you could go find YouTube Videos of brian scalabrini
just demolishing, people street courts just like they.

Speaker 2 (02:30:39):
Can't. Even, dribble yeah yeah it's.

Speaker 8 (02:30:41):
A different level do you remember the first pro you
played against, where you're, like all right that dude is
built just simply BUILT differently.

Speaker 2 (02:30:47):
Than i am not he's, better or worse he.

Speaker 8 (02:30:49):
Just built differently it feels different when that guy Hits
me or i'm trying to.

Speaker 2 (02:30:53):
BLOCK that guy i.

Speaker 3 (02:30:54):
Remember watching from the sideline when it was my freshman.
Year Of, college jared allen like, hall of Famer Was,
at idaho state if you remember, this at all and
he at like, whatever six seven was, playing defensive end,
rushed the passer saw that he wasn't going, to get there,
tip the ball dove and, caught the interception and then

(02:31:18):
it was like just the most. FREAKISHLY athletic play i
was like that you shouldn't be able to do that
at THAT size and i, think for, me like personally
the wildest moment was like.

Speaker 2 (02:31:29):
IN high SCHOOL i was i STILL feel like i
was a pretty good player.

Speaker 3 (02:31:32):
In high SCHOOL and then i think it was my
first or my second college practice when we had to
run conditioning drills and we're just running lighting up, to
Run gassers, and i'm, like a DUDE who would i,
WOULD run hard i. Would try hard and there were
dudes that weighed one hundred pounds, more than me that
were running faster than me and not trying AS hard.

(02:31:54):
As I was and i, was just like what that's
was eighty pounds heavier than me and could. Outrun, Me
EASILY yeah and, i was like, that's not fair that
that's not, a, real, Thing right right like that must.
Be SOMETHING wrong MAYBE i maybe i HAVE shin splints i.
Didn't know about like you just have to come to
grips with.

Speaker 4 (02:32:14):
That for.

Speaker 3 (02:32:15):
Sure, for sure yeah. IT was terrible I Played against
brian keele. In, high school yeah, and, he dominated sure
just destroyed. All of them, and you, just you know
you you rationalize differently when you're like. Seventeen, years old, yeah, it's, like,
oh well yeah he's probably, steroids, Or, something right oh
he's just.

Speaker 2 (02:32:31):
It's just different.

Speaker 8 (02:32:32):
It's just better It's that the shane gillis foreign white
stand up portion that hit me so hard THE first
time i, saw was like it's the, foreig, and whites
dude because all of us White guys in america we
saw a black kid dunk in eighth grade, and, we're,
LIKE oh OKAY i guess i gotta set picks for the.
Next four years box Out hard as helle like the
gall to believe you can play.

Speaker 2 (02:32:51):
In That league and i'll TELL you what i DON'T.
Know who.

Speaker 8 (02:32:53):
Tj McConnell thinks he is no business doing what he does.
In pro basketball. It's pretty remarkable he's just six. Foot
white dude it's actually GOOD.

Speaker 2 (02:33:00):
In the nba my.

Speaker 3 (02:33:01):
Favorite are the guys that you can't tell by looking
at him how. Different They Are, the Eric Weddles. The,
briton coveys yes you look, at those guys you can't
tell that they. Are evolutionary outliers. They are, aliens oh, no,
they are yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:33:15):
Not, at all no You Look, At britain, covey, you're
like oh does he work at a local bank and?

Speaker 2 (02:33:19):
Volunteer the church what a?

Speaker 8 (02:33:21):
Sweet young man and yet he's like this BADASS football
plts a lot of respect for dudes that have THAT
mentality because, i, don't know man AS soon as i
ran up against PROS and realized i, Was built, different,
I'M like Oh i guess i've got to figure out something.
Else to do i'm not going to be the starting
point guard for, the next apparently so now just blabbing
a microphone four, hours every year.

Speaker 3 (02:33:37):
And, YOU know what mma is now, Getting those GUYS
and when i, got into it. They, weren't there yeah
and now like now the mees that are trying TO,
get into mma they they're five hundred fighters who you
never make it past the regional scene because the freaks
are now.

Speaker 2 (02:33:51):
Infiltrating every sport.

Speaker 8 (02:33:53):
It Seemed like john jones was like the first right
elite athlete who probably Could have, Played, american absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:34:00):
Yeah and so now the sport's kind of been. Inundated,
with that, yeah there's guys foreign born guys that have
kind of been on that train for a. Few more,
Years But, YEAH john, jones i mean his two brothers PLAYED.

Speaker 8 (02:34:10):
IN the nfl i need to take some notes for
my Pregame Hit. In, cape town yeah he'll be.

Speaker 2 (02:34:14):
On the broadcast spence is gonna come BE on the
Pfl Broadcast in Cape.

Speaker 8 (02:34:18):
Town, in july yeah just take note of that and
We'll get some backleba shakes and we'll they might Have.

Speaker 2 (02:34:23):
Those theres sean they Have Them. In salt lake you
don't need to be increased. TO get one i. Think
you do actually there's one, two blocks Away.

Speaker 3 (02:34:30):
But they're, greeks fair, Enough all right i've stolen seven minutes,
of the drive which was.

Speaker 2 (02:34:35):
My, goal today everybody thanks. For tuning in we'll Do
It again tomorrow's sean O'Connell STILL out on ESPN seven
two nfl