Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 11-11-25

OC talks Utah Jazz & the NBA with Gordie Chiesa, BYU and Big 12 FB in a new Red & Blue segment with Jarom Jordan, Should FG kicking still be an essential part of football (?), LSU trying to "unfire" then "refire" Brian Kelly + more

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
He's the Sean O'Connell Show, brought to you by Big
Willis on Utah's number one sports talk and homa b
ESPN seven hundred and ninety two, am a proud part
of Utah's ESPN Radio Network.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Kind of Tuesday, everybody, welcome to the Shawn O'Connell Show.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Special thank you and a nod to all of our
veterans out there.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Happy Veterans Day.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
We are grateful, we are appreciative, we are indebted to
you for having served this great country of ours. So
I hope everyone who is a veteran themselves or related
to a veteran, I hope everyone can can have a
good Veterans Day. Good to see the sports world kind

(00:58):
of embracing the importance of this holiday. I'm looking at
my Pat McAfee show on ESPN in front of us,
and it's it's great to see the sports world embrace that.
Our show today and every day is brought to you
my friends over at Big Willie's seventeen seventeen South Maine
Craft food, Craft Cocktails, cold beers on draft. Obviously you've

(01:21):
got the soft drinks and everything else you need. Telemose
sent you and they're always going to hook you up.
They'll take care of the veterans today too as well.
Gordy Chia's is gonna join us in about half an hour.
Jerem Jordan coming off of BYU's lone loss so far
in this twenty twenty five BYU football season, as we
do some red and Blue with him, and then Jeff Schwartz.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
I've been told he will be.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Coming off of an orthodonics appointment for the kids, So
Jeff Schwartz will be with us at one o'clock. A
lot of different things happening in the world of college sports,
in the world of professional sports right now. The college
football playoff rankings are going to be coming out later tonight.

(02:11):
Of course, it's a five eastern excuse me, seven eastern
five mountain time that we get those. Where's Utah going
to be? I don't really see much movement for the Utes,
but what we saw last week I think gives us
a good sense of what's going to happen the rest

(02:32):
of the way if everybody holds serve. ESPN has done
a great breakdown on this prediction. I mean, look, we
could spend all day really kind of talking about the
ins and the outs. We just have to wait and
see again the indication that you got from the Big

(02:54):
Twelve reputation in the committee rankings, the first one out
still in the mix.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
Utah.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
ESPN still has Cincinnati in the mix, and mathematically that's
absolutely true because of what happened against Utah and because
of the tough schedule that Cincinnati's still got ahead of him.
I just don't see how the Bearcats really factor into this.
I mean, I know they could be in the Big
Twelve championship game.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
If if that happens, it's bad for the.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Big Twelve Conference, and I don't think it's great for
Cincinnati because if they're on the opposite side of Texas
Tech and that Big Twelve championship game, I just don't
see how it would work out.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Well.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Now, some people might be saying the same thing about Utah,
So we will wait, we will see how it plays out.
You're running uts men's basketball team in action last night,
big win in non conference play. They get started the
right way. They're at three to zero to begin the
Alex Jensen era going to join us on the show tomorrow,

(04:03):
very much looking forward to that. I can't wait to
see what conference play actually looks like for them, because
the expectation, of course, is that it's going to be
kind of a rough stretch, some growing pains, and that's

(04:28):
where I feel about it, That's where I come out
on it.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
I just don't.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
I just don't know how you evaluate in college basketball
right now, growth that doesn't show itself in the form
of big wins. If we get into this Big twelve
conference play and those growing pains manifest themselves the way
that a lot of us think. So right now, I'm
gonna index on the positive side of things, and we're

(04:57):
going to talk about the good stuff that we're seeing
from Alex Jensen's crew. Clearly, the other night, when you
get went into overtime with Weber State, a squad that
is respectable but that you should absolutely overmatch, especially in
the kind of like physical matchups, there there was some

(05:20):
discouraging info or some discouraging things to see when you
get out rebounded by.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
A big Sky squad.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
All right, you don't want to be out rebounded by
a big Sky squad. When Alex Jensen, especially a guy
who's really kind of predicated his reputation on defense, on hustle,
on the stuff that is not based on your athleticism,

(05:53):
the front of house talent type stuff. You can't have
a performance even in a win where you're like people.
It leaves people scratching their heads like, Hey, is this
is this gonna be a team that doesn't crash the boards?
Is this gonna be a team that struggles in this
aspect of the game. Is this gonna be a team

(06:15):
that finds difficulty in the controllables because you're gonna go
up against teams that are more talented than you. You're
gonna go up against teams that are longer than you.
You're gonna go up against teams that are faster than you,
that have been together longer than you've been together. The
controllables for Utah men's basketball are those hustle plays, are
those effort things. And we'll talk with Gory Chase about

(06:36):
it here in a few minutes. We've always talked about
it with different basketball personalities.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
Is rebounding, It is defense.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
It is in a lot of ways the extra pass
that are the controllables you can you can kind of
you can kind of count on right even for a
team that maybe is missing things on the other fronts.
If you don't have the best shooters in the league

(07:08):
or the best shooters in the conference, you hope for
an opportunity to make up for that with defensive effort
and with rebounding effort. Don't give extra possessions when another
team takes a bad shot or misses a shot. Don't
give them extra possessions. By allowing offensive rebounds against Weber State,

(07:32):
Utah men's basketball left a lot to be desired. And
the reason I'm bringing it up, I don't mean to
harp on something negative here, but the reason I'm bringing
it up is because we saw in the very short
span in the space game of time between two non
conference games, you saw Utah clearly putting some type of
emphasis into the boards in this game, and they obviously

(07:55):
ended up on the right side of the ledger of
their forty rebounds this game for your Utah men's basketball team,
So progress, while it might not be as rapid or
as universally smooth as we like it for it to be,
I think is something that we can count on with
this Utah men's basketball team. And I'm not just talking

(08:16):
about from season to season. I'm talking about practice to practice,
game to game, week to week. When the warts start
to show themselves. Alex Jensen's the kind of coach who's
going to figure those things out faster than most, So
there's some positivity there. Utah Mammoth are back in action

(08:39):
tomorrow night. There's just a lot of things going on
in the world of sports that we can dive into.
Monday night football last night, and maybe I've triggered, maybe
I'm feeling some type of sensitivity because we saw a
game similar to this one playout in a negative fashion

(09:00):
for your utes earlier in the year. If you're the
Green Bay Packers and you're relying on a game tying
field goal from sixty four yards off of a maybe
like eighty five percent healthy kicker, you're probably gonna scratch
your head just a little bit. You're already bothered that
the game was so dang boring that you went into

(09:21):
halftime zero zero. You're more bothered and you're questioning things
more if you had opportunities earlier in the game when
it was clear. Now text me eight seven seven three
five three zero seven hundred.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
If you've seen this movie before.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
It becomes apparent after the first quarter of this game
that points are going to be at a premium and
that anytime you're in any kind of scoring position, you
really have to think about getting whatever you can on
the board. This is the NF hell we're talking about,
So we're not we're not discussing twenty seven yard field goals.

(10:07):
I think it was fifty seven and fifty nine that
Green Bay had an opportunity to kick from. Those are
far from gimmes, okay, but the coach says, nope, we're
going for it here, or excuse me, we're gonna punt here,
And then because you get into the desperation situation, and

(10:29):
because you don't have other options, you try to kick
for it from sixty four. So you told your kicker,
I don't believe that you could make this one from
fifty seven. I don't think you could make this one
from fifty nine, But sixty four, we're gonna give you
a shot. You've heard me say this probably fifteen different

(10:50):
times on fifteen different shows. The distrust, the dysfunction, the
what the heck are we doing here with kicking permeates
high school football, college football, and even shows itself on
a national stage on Monday Night Football in the NFL,

(11:11):
and it is one of the most mind boggling, aggravating
and insane things that you can find in the world
of sports.

Speaker 4 (11:21):
How have we not reached a place.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Where we know what kickers are capable of on a
consistent basis, on a regular basis. And this is where
the comparison obviously falls apart, because when you're talking college football,
when you're talking about Utah kicking or not kicking against BYU,
fifty seven, fifty nine, and sixty four are not even

(11:47):
part of the conversation. Those are punting situations or go
for it situations that kicking. You're not kicking those in
college football.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
You're just not. Even with the biggest leg or the
best recruit in the kicking position, you're not doing that.
I don't like the Packers. I don't care if the
Packers win this game. But when you have to.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Trot someone out for a sixty four yard field goal
and you told him earlier in the game, you told
him earlier that same day, I don't think we're not
gonna score here. We know we're not gonna score here,
We're not gonna get touchdown here, but I don't even
want to try to put points on the board. We're
gonna play a field position game here instead, because I
don't think you could make it for fifty seven or

(12:32):
fifty nine. By the way, you better win us this
game or tie us this game and give us a
chance to win with the sixty four yarder.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
No wonder you send it not only left, but he
didn't miss left. He missed west.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
Okay, that's like when you're talking about the large scale
miss when you're looking at a map and West is
on the left.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
That's how far he missed it. He kicked that thing
into the Pacific Ocean. Just absolutely bananas. How bad things
get when coaches, even high level, even NFL coaches, don't
know what they've got in their kickers. Obviously, we complain,

(13:24):
we lament, We get nervous about when you're like, I
don't know what about the Is our defensive backfield going
to be good this year? We played that game in
the offseason with Utah Football. You remember this.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
I don't know about these wide receivers. These wide receivers
are going to be good enough? Do we have any
weapons in the pass catching game? I could go back
if I scroll back far enough on our text line.
I asked that question two weeks before the season began
What are you most confident in?

Speaker 4 (13:58):
What are you least confident in?

Speaker 3 (14:02):
From now on, every time we talk about football, I'm
gonna have to put an asterisk next to that question
because I already know what you're least confident in, because
coaches are least confident in it, and it is the
kicking game. Even if you feel like you've got one
of the best kickers in the league, you got one
of the best kickers in the game, you got one
of the best kickers in college football.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
There's just no trust in kickers. We've removed the kickoff
from the game.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Effectively, find a way to get kicking for points out
of the game and improve football.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Get the foot out of football.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
I'm starting with campaign eight seven seven three five three
zero seven hundred. Text me your T shirt designs take
the foot out of Football, and we'll sell those on
our ESPN seven hundred sports dot com website. Well fundraise
will create a campaign. There's not a person out there,
including the coaches who have to rely on them or

(15:00):
not rely on them, that wants the kickers to be
big time in college football or in professional football. I
say this even as Pat McAfee has tried to bring
kicking back into the consciousness of the world. And he's
on my television right in front of me.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
Right now? Am I up at the night there? James?
Are you did.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
You did your mind go in that direction? We were
looking at a ten to seven final score on a
Monday night football game, just an absolute snooze fest of
a game that, oh, now a kicker is going to
be relied upon to try to send this thing into overtime.
The same team that is telling the kicker, we don't

(15:46):
think you can get us points in shorter field goal situations.
You now got to go kick a sixty four yarder. Yeah,
thankfully I avoided, successfully avoided watching that game except for
the final seconds because I got it. I got I
got to go to the now you see me.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Now.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
You don't advance screening last night, man, which was fun.
You were the one who won those tickets on the station.
I didn't win the tickets. Now, don't put that out there.

Speaker 5 (16:14):
Now.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
We don't do that our promotions department every a couple
of days.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
So so the way this works.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Is the the outlets that promote the advanced screenings, they
the screenings lions Gate in this case, the production company
allows for a few staff seats is what they call it.
So I got to use I got to use one
of the staff seats. So yeah, but I I saw
the end where I'm like, fifty nine yard field goal

(16:44):
in there, and Joe Buck is talking about how cold
it is and how that's not really conducive for kicking
long field goals, but that's what they need. That's really
their only option at this point. And doesn't he doesn't
He miss it short and when they ice him and
they're like, okay, I guess we're doing Hail Mary. And

(17:06):
then they throw them back out there because they they
they try the pass to get it a little closer,
and its sales out of bounds and you, like you said, just.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
Into the Pacific Ocean. I love you. He kicked it west,
not left. He's wide west.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
It's too it's too large of a margin to say
left wide left.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
Is like, oh, he.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Almost joinked it off the post there. That was wide
west west. Yeah, that was yeah. So I did not
see the I did not I don't have the context
you have the rest of the game where they showed
that they were obviously they obviously had no trust Matt
Lefore obviously had no trust in his kicker. But as

(17:51):
you with you saying that it like kickers, it's the
part of the game that I think all of us
would say we don't like, right, but it still is
a big part of contributing to winning if you use
it right. Here's it right? Yes, yes, right? And obviously

(18:14):
I'm just being sour grapes right now. I don't actually
want to take kicking out of football. The thing about
it is, I don't know that there's an.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
Aspect in other sports.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
And maybe this is why we love football in such
a singular manner in the United States of America. But
I'm trying to fight what is the equivalent of that
in other sports? Like, what is the equivalent of well,
let's go listen, let's trot this guy out for a
game winning scenario or a game losing scenario or a
game tying scenario. Who's only going to be on the

(18:49):
field of play for Yeah, the special sixty seconds. It's
truly special pitialist the specialists and not just special situations.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
But that's the only job they have, that's the only
job to have.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
I was gonna say free throws might be that thing
has to shoot him, but you don't have a designated
free throw shooter.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
That's right, although.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
Who, by the way, only comes off the bench like
for thirty seconds again too free throws. Shout out to
my brother Mike Peterson. He uh he and I that's
been a pet idea of ours as they should have
a you should have a designated technical free throw shooter.
That's like anytime there's a flagrant foul or technical foul,
he's like, he's like, that's how I could That's how

(19:32):
I could have gotten in the NBA. I can I
can practice free throws well enough to be a designated
free throw shoposed many times that the the NBA should
have enforcers. There's yeah, so maybe if you can find
the ven diagram of someone who is not only a
good fighter but also really good at shooting free throws,
that guy can have a roster spot.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
So he's only brought.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
To to get the technical, get the technical free throws
on the other team's technical.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
Of course, his real purpose is probably getting ejected from games.
And then you're but but there's nothing else.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
We have this, then we have this all we if
we do create that position, which of course is not
gonna happen, we also create this position where that we
we created a position where they get all the death
threats on all the team.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
They get all the anger just like kickers do.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
So you had one job and look for fans, it's
becomes a problem. And like I said, I'm just being
sour grapes because it was a boring football game that
came down to the most anti climactic, disgusting field goal
attempt we've seen in the NFL, yes in a long time.
But I'm also looking at it and I'm saying man
like Matt Lafleur. I I probably sound like I'm criticizing

(20:45):
Matt Lafleur here, but I don't know that I'm that's
what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
I think that.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
Every coach, if you actually put the truth serum in
their veins, would be like if you could somehow make
it so I don't have to worry about kickers, I
would love that, because again, I know every sport is
its own thing. I just don't know if there's even
a rough equivalent in any other major sport. Like your

(21:11):
your closer in baseball, Yeah, the baseballs have have specialty.
There's some real specialists in baseball, lefty specialists, which are
not really a thing like they used to be, because
you're because you have to face to hockey. They in hockey,
they used to have goons, right, you don't really have
that anymore. But there used to be guys who, like

(21:32):
they weren't good hockey players.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
They were just there to enforce the unwritten rules.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
You still have guys like like the Mammoth have Jack
McMain where he's not the most skilled player on the
on the ice, but he's still is he still has skill.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
It's not like the old goons, right, Like he's still an.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
NHL hockey player now he is the designated tough guy, right.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
And every team's got actually probably two or.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Three where it's like if someone lays a dirty hit
on Kels, if someone goes out there and cross checks gun.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
Through Cooley or hits or hits Veg.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
You're probably gonna have to sort that out, right, And
it's like and and he and those guys like Spicy
Tuna engaged in a little bit, right, Big Bayan will
do it. I mean, Logan Krause doesn't mind. He's but
like you've got a couple of those guys, and some
teams have you know, even more guys who are even
more in that role. But again, it's not like it

(22:30):
used to be where I mean, I I've said this before.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
We talked with Bart Tourny about this.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
I fought a guy in the UFC who that was
his pre UFC life. He was a French Canadian hockey
goon in the professional ranks up there.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
That's what he.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Did, not because he was a great hockey player. He
was just a guy who was good at fighting. Like okay, cool,
tough guy who wanted to fight. Yeah, all right, but
you would those guys. But they but nowadays they actually
skate pretty well. To make skate, score pass, they have
to be able to do the other stuff. So like

(23:09):
there's not, like you said, in NBA basketball, there's not
a designated free throw shooter.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
There's there are guys. You have guys who are only
good at defense else.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, that's but that's not a specialty position like a kicker.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
I guess the.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Closest thing is the modern and I'm talking about the modern.
I'm not talking about the nineteen nineties. I'm talking about
like the true big man, like the low post defender
in the NBA.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
Yeah, who just.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
All he does on offense is catches lobs and gets
offensive rebounds. The seven foot four Eastern European guy who
can't really run but he's just a big body. I
guess that's almost but again it's not. It's not the
same thing. That guy's supposed to be able to play
the whole game, and kickers are this weird anomaly.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
And maybe maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong angle.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Maybe that's why we love football the way we do,
because it's like a chess board, right, Like the king
in chess can't do an you can't do bleep for you.
The king in chess sucks, has no offensive ability, is
the ultimate ultimate ultimate specialists, but is so critically important,
in fact, is the most important thing in the game

(24:22):
of chess.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
Right, Kickers can't do.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Anything for you except the most important thing in football.
And they can score you points, and they're only used
four times a game, and they're not And in the
case of this, and the reason I'm on this rant,
and the reason I ranted the biggest rant I've ever
done in my career.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
Was the Monday after the BYU game.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
And the reason I'm ranting about situations like this is
because kickers.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
Are so critically crucially.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
Important that they have this outsized, overweight influence on coaching
decisions in a way that I am a little comfortable with,
if I'm honest, and I'm looking at it from the
negative lens. But maybe eight seven seven three five three
zero seven hundred, maybe some of you out there are
looking at it and saying, no, this is why football

(25:10):
is so special and so unique, because, especially in that
particular play, you have three guys involved in that play
who basically don't do anything else. Long snapper, holder, kicker.
You have this very delicate, detailed interplay of skills that
nobody else on the team has. Who's the rest of

(25:30):
the I've never actually considered this, asked to anyone who
asked anyone who knows more about football than I do,
who's the rest of the O line on the on
the kicking team, O lineman, They're they're They're guys who
play the rest of the game. It's usually your backup
offensive lineman, sometimes starters, but yeah, it's usually backup offensive lineman,

(25:52):
and your alignment is totally different. They don't have the
same gaps in spacing obviously for clear reasons, and and
usually the guys out at the very edges are tight
end defensive end types, you know, like where if you
want to run a fake you could kind of like they're.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
More athletic that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
When they're they're more athletic to shuffle their feet and
get to the faster guys are coming into block E.
But like they don't even like the way that these
protection schemes. You don't even really have to in a
lot of cases. It's just it's very much like a
Rugby skuy push push, like just lock yourself down kind
of a thing. Because it's supposed to be a bang

(26:31):
bang play, right, it's supposed to be snap hooled kick
with no delay at all between those things. I mean,
I don't know what the average time from snap to
kick is on extra points on field goals, but it's
definitely less than two seconds. Yeah, it's probably approaching.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
One paint time.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
It's longer as if the holder had to adjust the
hold at all and the snap was the snap was tricky,
I gotta or you whatever, and like again, I've wasted
twenty seven minutes of our time here. But it is
such a randomly unique and universally accepted and agreed upon

(27:13):
outlier of a play that even really great coaches, coaches
at the highest level talking to you, Matt Lafleur, really
great coaches talking about guys like Kyle Whittingham twenty years in,
forty years in fifteen years into their careers, multiple years
into their coaching head coaching careers, they're still like a

(27:35):
little bit skittish about Uh, can I trust it here?
Can I trust it here? Can I trust it here?
Do I know if this is the right play here?
Because you're not just deciding all right, does he have
the leg? You're also deciding is he the type of
guy I can trust in this situation because I'm bringing

(27:56):
him in close to cold do they get their warm
up kicks? It's just a nuts crazy thing. Let's take
a break. I have a feeling I'm gonna get some
marrying aggrievances on that segment on Friday. People are gonna
be like, why were you ranting on a Tuesday about kicking?

Speaker 4 (28:16):
And I'm glad we glad we talked that through. Oh see,
let me before I take a break, let me ask
you this is that because it is darn near singular?

Speaker 3 (28:28):
Is that one of the reasons we love football or
is that a thing we just kind of like we
swallow it because it's part of football for me, and
it depends I think it depends on I don't think
I feel the same way about it every time, which
is interesting I because I think that it's also it's

(28:51):
a very dramatic part that's unique to football in the
way I've heard it compared to the soccer penalty kicks right,
or to really high pressure free throws late in the game,
where it's like ever, you're by yourself, no one else
is around you, no one else is are allowed to
be around you, and you have to line up and

(29:14):
do this very unique thing that's unlike any other thing,
and the rest of the gameplay right, and that's that's
really fun drama. I do like that about the kicking
game in football, But also there's a part of me
that sometimes is like, can we just figure out a
different way to end this? It's an actual football play.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
Like in soccer. I can hotly get that out of
my mind.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
In soccer and hockey, people get so bothered by the
shootout debate.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Yeah, shootout in hockey is another.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
Great example, because they're like, this is not real soccer,
This is not real hockey. I want my game decided
on real soccer and real hockey. In baseball, when they
put the runner on second in extra innings, baseball peers
were just like, that's not real baseball.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
What are we doing here? But in football, for the
entire existence of.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
The game, basically we've ben like, let's make it so
that a very non football play decides what happens in football.
And it's all the rugby try. Right, that's probably where
it comes from. It's exactly where it comes from. It's
the point after it's it's worth two points in rugby.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
Yeah, so it's it's.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
Not on prep like it's adopted from rugby way back when,
and maybe that's part of it. It's is it like
this is a detraction from this sport that a lot
of people that a lot more people used to love
around here, Well, here's the filing. Maybe so you know
it's acceptable in our version of it. You know, you
know who kicks it after a rugby try. It's not

(30:47):
a designated player, right, it's it is a designated player.
It's your best kicker. Oh no, it's the person who scores.
But it's an actual rugby player. It's not some like
they do other things. It's not something like Sprawnie weirdo
who runs in with a fake rugby outfit right shout
out to Andy Phillips. So I'm sure is listening right now,
and it's just yelling at why are you calling it squatted?

Speaker 4 (31:09):
Do we get? I get it?

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Like we that's the thing when you're huge list of
the program. Well, your kickers are good, you love them.
But it's like, I don't know last night, I don't
know why a random Monday night football game got me
feeling all up in my feelings about this.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
But it's like, dude, the mental.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Gymnastics that go into from a coaching standpoint into kicking
is so insane. Like you say, regardless of experience, guys
who you think should just have that it should be
automatic in their head.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
It it just isn't all right.

Speaker 5 (31:45):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
I'm putting a poll question out there about this. Answer
it there, and we'll stop talking about it, I promise.
Gordchiers that joins us. Next on the Sean O'Connell Show,
ESPN seven hundred NINETYEFM.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
He's out.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Let's get the latest on the Utah Jazz with former
jazz assistant coach Gordy Chiasa. He's forgotten more about the
NBA than any of us will ever know.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
Let's not get crazy.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Come for the hoops talk. Stay for his list of
the day our list today, here's oc with basketball Saban
Gordy Chiasa on the Sean O'Connell Show.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
We welcome in our resident NBA guru, Gordy Chiasa, brought
to you by our friends over at Aladdin Industries.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
Gordy, welcome to the show once again. How are you,
Sarah show?

Speaker 6 (32:35):
And I'm doing fine. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Look, I know I missed you on Thursday. You were
able to join the show. But you and I have
not yet had a conversation about the loss of Walker
Kessler for the season.

Speaker 4 (32:49):
He's gonna have that shoulder surgery. Huge bummer for me.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Again, you probably have already talked about this plenty of times,
but I just wanted to get your thoughts to start
this conversation because he'd seen some significant growth from him,
and I think we would have continued to see that,
and now he's got to, I guess, figure out how
to continue to grow as a basketball player, whilso recovering
from an injury.

Speaker 6 (33:12):
Yeah, very much. So the first thing about it is
that he's played very well the whole season. He only
played five contests, So it sets back to Jess as
far as them, as far as individual development meaning him,
but also as far as the unit development. And so
it does affect them, to say the least now contractually
that they didn't give the extension because it gives them

(33:36):
later on in July more flexibility to see how the
landscape is in the NBA, and I'm sure they still
want to sign them, so it's almost like delayed now.
His point of view is that it just shows you
about if you have an injury, that it does set
you back as far as possibly financially and the mental toll.
Are they going to resign me? Again, he was drafted

(33:58):
by the Jazz, So usually speaking Sewan, when someone drafts
you and you and you're a young guy and you're
relatively progressing in the same trajectory of a success, they're
going to resign you. But immediately right now, it hurts
the Jazz and puts so much stress down the other
big guys to perform.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
So how does it work in an organization like you've
got your big board on a draft day? Do you
have that all year long when you're talking about, you know,
entertaining trade offers and things like that with your own players,
where you're like, this is the person who's most important
to us and to our future. This guy's second, this
guy's third. Is that something that the franchise maintains kind

(34:39):
of all year long.

Speaker 6 (34:40):
Absolutely, that's an understatement. Yes, that's the that's the drab
director pro personnel that they have to be on top
of all the guys in the league. Who might be available,
who wasn't a month ago, who's their agent, what the
agents saying to the to the teams, whether it's not
being truthful or almost truthful or definitely truthful based on

(35:04):
with the agent relationship with him. And so the answer
is at yes, very much as I always talk about
it all the time is don't tell me when the
guy's going to be good, tell me before he's good,
why he's going to be good. As the singing Also
when a guy rating the league when I was director
of Pro personnel showing for the Memphis Grizzlies, is that
Ice sprates to spends so much time on the losing

(35:27):
teams of studying the films and instinctively what guys play
to win on losing teams. Those are the guys that
you can get for a discount, and when they come
to your team, their career jumps started, and economically speaking,
most times those guys outperform their contract. So in the NFL,
I'm sure because so many injuries, the guys in the

(35:49):
pro personnel side they do this every second of the
day of trying to get guys on their team as
far either taxi squad guys or guys making the roster.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
So if you have that kind of, like I don't know,
hierarchy within your own organization, where's Walker Kessler on that
list for the Utah Jazz right now? Because I know
he's on other people's whiteboards saying like, hey, he's injured
right now, but we really like this kid. We know
that the Lakers liked him a lot last year.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Whatever.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Internally, if Lowry Market and his player number one, and
I guess I don't know Keyante's two, Ace Bailey's three, whatever,
I don't know how it really works out. Where is
Walker Kessler in terms of the priority the list of
importance for the Utah Jazz as an individual player right now?

Speaker 6 (36:39):
Four? Sure you're well said so Lari Markin is one,
Chiant Detroit is two, Ace Beally is three, and Walker
Kessler four and it all have value. And so one
big guy, one stretch forward meaning Glarry Marketing, one alter
talented young fella that's nineteen years old and as Bailey,

(37:01):
and one emerging winning player in Cante George in his
third year. I'll call him a guard. He's not really
a point guard. He's not really only totally a two guard.
He's a guard and that's a compliment. So that's the
pecking order right now. Now the question is with that group,
can you add other players to that so they have
a winning environment eventually, and then what's it going to cost?

(37:23):
And that's a factor. The reason why the castler is
so important because it's hard to duplicate what he does.
Is a young, big guy that runs the floor, is
a shop blocker. Yes, he's an offensive liability, but he
has slightly improved that premise shot and he made some
threes this year early in the twenty five to twenty
six campaign, so his arc is good. And so he's

(37:47):
fourth right now on the Jazz as far as as
far as cannot trade unless it's an unbelievable knockout situation.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
What is the thing that the Jazz needs to improve
most right now, the most urgent need to improve from
a gameplay standpoint, I'm looking at thirty from the three,
you know whatever it could be there rebounding. What if
you're coaching this Jazz team, what is priority number one
to improve?

Speaker 6 (38:20):
Drop the ball to the basket under control. In other words,
where yes, three point shooting is absolutely important, yes, but
so is scoring. So I say, don't shoot yourself out
of winning your game by only taking threes. Yes, you're
going to take threes, and I'm an advocate of it,

(38:40):
but if it's not working that night, drive the ball
to the basket with measure and with content, and then
lift a rot make plays in the middle game because
remember sewing unite this all time during playoff basketball. Most teams,
unfortunately in regular season, don't play playoff bass. Even though

(39:01):
they win, they get to the playoffs and they get
punched in the face in the first and second round,
even though they have talented guys. So I say, all
the time, let's play playoff basketball in the regular season.
So when you do make the playoffs, it's perfectly normal.
Your game plan, so showing like in the NFL as always,
they might have his high scoring offense in the NFL,

(39:22):
you come to the playoffs, what it's a dragout, unbelievable
lot of scrimmage game.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
Cordy Jaz is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell
Show for a few more minutes, brought to you by
Aladdin Industries. All right, I thought that this would be
a headline several months ago, and it's finally happened. The
Dallas Mavericks have parted ways with Nico after the Luca trade,
and he was probably the most derided guy in the
game for a while. Things are not going well in

(39:52):
Dallas at the moment, even though they did get Cooper Flagg,
which of course birthed a lot of conspiracy theories, at
least for me. Now Nico Harrison is out. What did
Mavericks do from here?

Speaker 6 (40:07):
They don't panic now, so they made it changes up top.
Michael Finley, former Dallas Mavericks player, and Matt McCarty is
going to run the team instantly, and then they'll select day.
If not those guys, they'll select the general manager, probably
in the off season. Now. Part of the reason why
they're not winning. They have a tremendous coach and Jason Kidd.

(40:28):
That's the first premise that a low scoring team in
the NBA and Kyrie Irving, who would help that hasn't
played a game this year. He's coming back roughly January fifteenth.
Got hurt last year on March thirteenth with the torn
left the ACL. Anthony Davis was part of the Luca
Dantis trades and for the listeners right now, as far
as the remind people, that's when on February third last year,

(40:53):
Nico Harrison traded Luca danteje once in a lifetime player
to the Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christi and a
future first round pick in twenty twenty nine. It absolutely backfired.
It was Christmas in February for the Lakers and for
the Dallas Mavericks. It didn't work out. Davis is hurt
right now, only played five games this year so far,

(41:16):
and so they're injured. They are this array. There's absolutely
a fan as far as mutiny right now, as far
as the fans, absolutely, which affects the business model. You
never want to do it only what the fans say. However,
it's the reality, the financial health of a team is
based on the fans, what are going to games and
what having a buzz about the team. That's not forget

(41:39):
Sean back in twenty twenty four the Mavericks loss to
the Celtics in the NBA for Finals, and so getting
back you and I taught at it all the time
is that things change so fast in professional sports. One
minute you're up top and the next minute you're on
the bottom. And that's why it's so important when you
have a good team, like the bridge, that you build

(42:01):
on it versus why trying to tear it up?

Speaker 3 (42:05):
So Gordy, this is a little inside baseball in the
media world. But the Nico Harrison stuff, it's being reported
on before it's official, right, shams and those guys the
NBA insiders were tweeting out, Hey, the Mavericks are expected
to meet with him and fire him today before the
meeting happened. If your Nico, do you know this is coming?

(42:28):
Like he knew before the reporters did, I would hope.

Speaker 6 (42:32):
Yes, Oh you know, you can tell, yeah, you can
tell in the building that two days before that they're
not talking to you, meaning what ownership level or or
people that are executive vice presidents. They're they look at
you trying to avoid you with eye contact. And that's
that's one being a coward as far as not talking

(42:53):
to the people I mean meaning the Nico Harrison, but
also generally speaking, you sense it when you're in the
building all day long for any any profession, that you
know when things are not working out and you can
defend yourself behind closed doors. Were usually speaking. It's at
the at the highest level of meaning ownership. And that's

(43:14):
that's what happened. Nico Harrison. The trade didn't work out.
I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (43:19):
They said that the reason why they traded Luca Dantach
and his prime they felt that they didn't want to
give him the the Supermax extension, that it would Handcup
handcuff the rest of their their team as far as
future out and that they thought there was a conditioning
was a problem. And it's overall attitude as far as

(43:40):
taking team basketball seriously. He goes to the Lakers Hollywood Showtime.
Lebron's hurt right now, Austin Reeves is bowling out and
Luca is a huge part of the of the Lakers
right now success where the Lakers right now are eight
and three without Lebron.

Speaker 4 (44:02):
Gordy.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Michael Ray Richardson has passed away. He was at seventy
years old and had a complicated legacy. I think is
fair to say in the NBA banned from the NBA
after violating the drug policy, but he was also he
was also a comeback Player of the Year. He was
a first team All Defensive player.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
What did you know about Michael Ray.

Speaker 6 (44:27):
That he was troubled. Yeah, during the nineteen eighties, David Stern,
who did he put the NBA into the excellence of
professional sports. There was a drug problem in the NBA.
It was real, just like in America. You know, you've
seen the movies like Wall Street, et cetera. You know
where wealthy people used cocaine as the quote the drug

(44:50):
of choice, and the NBA was part of that culture
where not everybody, but unfortunately many people were using cocaine
and other drugs during a nineteen eighty decade they called
the eighties are shown the decade of excess. And so
Michael Richison was one of the people that David Stern

(45:13):
banned for basketball. He had to go to Italy and
play in Italy for two years before he's reinstated, when
he was somewhat straight on his head and clean mentally.
Is that he was a terrific, unbelievable two way player
where he was like a lightning quick with his hands.
He would steal the ball and go in traffic and
make plays almost like just try to visualize thirty five

(45:37):
forty years ago, Russell Westbrook. That's where he played like
you know, frenzy pace up and down the floor. His
teammates really liked him, no way, So despite all these
off the court troubles, his floormates respected him for what
he did. Unfortunately, he died this morning a cancer and
now he's hopefully he's a piece of he's a piece

(45:59):
of mind.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Cody. What's the list today?

Speaker 6 (46:04):
All right? List today? Also passed away showing on Saturday
was the late great Lenny Wilkins. So in honor of
Lenny Wilkins, I have a short list of the greatest
NBA head coaches. And this is just my opinion, So
this is not based on any other data. Just everybody
involved in this equation, either I know personally or even

(46:27):
though I was a young guy growing up that I
saw the guys coach the greatest NBA coaches one hit
the criteria, winning, two, longevity, three consistency, four leadership, and
five change agent. Ant to these attributes also connectivity, superior teaching,
and upbeat discipline. And that's the catchwork here, upbeat discipline.

(46:51):
Baker's doesn't number thirteen. Jack Ramsey one Championship Trailblazers nineteen
seventy seven. Number twelve just mentioned Lenny Wilkins one Championship
nineteen seventy nine, the Seattle SuperSonics also shown. He's the
only person history of basketball to revote it to the

(47:11):
Hall of Fame in three categories. He was a great player,
nine time All Star Hall of Famer. He was a
unbelievable coach as far as the SuperSonics and the Cleveland
Cavaliers and their Knickerbockers and their Raptors. And he also
was the put in the Hall of Fame in nineteen
ninety six as the coach of the second Dream Team

(47:34):
of gold medal in Atlanta in nineteen ninety six. Olympics
Number eleven. Greatest coach of all time Casey Jones and
the Celtics two championships eighty four and eighty six. Season
number ten Larry Brown one championship with the Epistans two
thousand and four. Number nine. Jerry Sloan, my beloved colleague

(47:55):
and friend. Unfortunately no championships, but Jerry won one thousand,
two hundred and twenty one career wins. Number eight. Red
Holzman of the Nikobokers two championships nineteen seventy and seventy three.
Number seven, actively coaches the Mammy Heat. Eric Bolstrom two
championships in twenty twelve and twenty thirteen. Number six, the

(48:19):
original Dream Team coach in nineteen ninety two in Barcelona.
Chuck Deli two championships Pistons nineteen eighty nine and ninety
The fifth greatest coach of all time, He coaches the
Golden State Warriors. Steve Kerk head coach, also the Paris Olympics,
a gold medal, four NBA championships with the Warriors, Number

(48:44):
four all time. Pat Rally five championships, four Lakers, one heat.
Number three. We all know his name for the San
Antonio Spurs five championships, also gold medal coach and twenty
twenty one the Olympics. Great Papovich the second greatest coach
of all time from the Celtics read all back nine

(49:06):
championships and the greatest NBA coach of all time. He
coached the Bulls and the Lakers. Phil Jackson six with
the Bulls championships, five with the Lakers. He goes eleven. Thus,
that's my list of the day as the greatest NBA coaches.
Sean quickly in your opinion, who are the two greatest
NFL head coaches of all time?

Speaker 3 (49:27):
I think you have to put Belichick in there despite
what has happened with the.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
College experiment that he's been going.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
I think Bill Walsh deserves some credit as well for
the dynasty that he put together with the San Francisco
forty nine Ers. My favorite team. Okay, Vince Lombardi has
talked about a lot. I would say for me personally,
it's probably Bill Belichick. And you got to give love
to Andy Reid because of what he did in Philadelphia
and now what he's doing with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Speaker 6 (50:00):
I love him. Are you leaving one guy out? Also?
I know you love him too? How about Don Schuler?

Speaker 4 (50:07):
Sula is also up there. Man, You forget about this.

Speaker 6 (50:11):
It shows you see, I'm putting in the spot in
a good way. To make you think. But also there's
so many tremendous coaches, and that it's you just can't say,
including NBA coaches, this guy's better and so and so
so much circumstances. But think about that criteria, Sean, as
far as the NFL or the NBA, you have to
be a change agent and you have to be able

(50:33):
to connect with the players, but also have upbeat discipline
and execute and be a well and be a well
class teacher.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
When you look at you know, you're trying to separate
who's because there's, like you said, there's so many great ones, Gordy,
Is it a requirement for you that they have to
have had success with different groups of players, Because that's
the argument against Belichick right now, is that so much
of his great success was tied with Tom Brady and
then Tom Brady to prove the point that he could

(51:01):
win without Belichick, you went to Tampa and one without Belichick.
We never saw Bill win without Tom. So like Phil Jackson,
he won with the Lakers, he won with the Bulls.
You want, you could put him in Utah, you would
have won with the Jazz.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Is that a requirement for you that a guy's got
to have demonstrated that he can he could coach multiple
even generations of players or multiple different teams to greatness.

Speaker 6 (51:25):
Yes, very much. And that's getting back and messy about
being a change agent, as a coach, as a person,
any sort of business, you have to adapt to the times.
If you don't adapt to the times, you're a dinosaur
in your business. And so Phil Jackson, Pat Rally, Jerry Sloan,
they all adapted to their to the time, but without

(51:49):
giving away what their core principles. And in the NFL
showing you know is that it's even more dramatic because
there's so many different personalities in the locker of home
in an NFL and NFL situation, and the head coach
is the leader of the group and he has to
be able to one delegate authority, but also the players

(52:10):
know that he has their back as far as in
situations where there might be a little bit go astray.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
Gordie, you're the man. Always appreciate your time.

Speaker 6 (52:20):
Thanks showing peace out at.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
Gorda Chias a resident NBA Guru. He's brought to you
by Aladdin Industries. Another reminder ESPN seven hundred ninety TWOEFM
and very specifically this Shawan O'Connell Show giving you a
chance to win a pair of tickets to the Fierce
Fighting Championship coming up Friday night at the Salt Lake
City Masonic Temple. Make sure you're listening from eleven to

(52:43):
two every day this week. Be ready to answer our
Tribua question. At the end of the show around around
one forty five, we have tickets for you. You can also
enter to win VIP tickets and find more details about
the event at ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. All right,
we'll double up here. We'll come back for some Red
and Blue with Jerem Jordan. It's the Sean O'Connell Show,

(53:03):
and you tell is number one Sports Talk ESPN seven
hundred ninety two one ff See, my.

Speaker 4 (53:11):
Father taught me many things.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
You know what they see.

Speaker 6 (53:14):
They taught me keep your friends close, put your enemies close.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Time to check in on that tune down south.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
They have done absolutely nothing wrong but the Blue.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
I think she's the Red and Blue on The Shan
O'Connell Show and Utah's number one Sports Talk e ESPN
seven hundred and ninety two one half.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
N Red and Blue Time here on the Shan O'Connell show.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
Every Tuesday, we check in with Jerem Jordan. Conversation brought
to you by friends at Murdoch four down in Santa
Quin New Dealership. Great selection, check them out, especially the
trucks right now.

Speaker 4 (53:57):
Jerem Jordan, Welcome to the show. How are you?

Speaker 5 (54:00):
What's going on?

Speaker 4 (54:02):
I have to say this.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
My my old producer at Serious XM. He he texted
me the other day He's just like, hey, we need
we need a b YU insider.

Speaker 4 (54:12):
Who's who's the person we should talk to?

Speaker 3 (54:15):
And so without asking your permission, without asking your permission,
I gave him your contact info because I was like,
I was like, he knows this.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
This is the guy. If you want to talk BYU,
this is the guy.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
And he doesn't do this ever, but he he After
you had the conversation on their show, who do you?

Speaker 4 (54:35):
Who'd you go on with the meatheads?

Speaker 5 (54:37):
Darien ej Manuel?

Speaker 3 (54:39):
Yeah, okay, he reached out after we'd just like that
guy is the best.

Speaker 4 (54:45):
I was like, yeah, he is. He's really good.

Speaker 5 (54:47):
So that's very kind, that's very kind.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
So yeah, rave reviews from the Serious XM worlds.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
Nice have him affirm me on LinkedIn for whatever it is,
I will.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
I will, how is the how's the BYU fan base feeling,
how's the vibe in provo?

Speaker 4 (55:08):
Obviously, no one likes dealing with the loss.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
This is one that was not the prettiest performance of
BYU's football season, but not wholly unanticipated. Texas Tech is
a group that can make you look bad. So how's
it being processed right now?

Speaker 4 (55:23):
In Provo?

Speaker 5 (55:24):
I feel like both you Tom BOI, you were like, gosh,
those guys are good. Yeah, it sucks losses by twenty
four and twenty two, respectfully, like we both sort of
understand the alpha in the league now and kind of
felt that way like preseason. Here's the thing, though, you
can't just gel that quickly normally, right. Texas Tech's don
a great job of bringing in right pieces that fit together.

(55:47):
They are awesome. I think BOI falling to eleven and
eight people was fair and reflective of how good Texas
Tech is. I think it was more about the Red
Raiders being awesome and less about BOYU being perceived as
being quote unquote a fraud or something. I think people
that have watched Tech and watch bo and Utah understand, Hey,
Texas Tech's just better they are and they are going

(56:09):
to be in the Big Tell title game because they
have UCF and West Virginia is BYU now though going
to allow that loss to become two. And if they
don't and they win the next three, BYU's in and
Utah and ASU are hoping they can be in. So
it's it's the race of the finish and Bowa's got
two or three at home. They got at Cincinnati, which
is going to be a tough game. BOI can employ

(56:30):
whatever Utah did to crush the Bearcats. Hey, that's great too.
So it's a big three weeks. But honestly, there's a
real sense of in my opinion, my words about the situation,
not anybody else's in embarrassedm maent of humiliation right associated
with that performance. I'm sure Utah felt similarly after that.
But you have to move on. And then hey, TCU

(56:52):
comes in and they just lost the game. They shouldn't
have lost Kensywa State. I thought TCU would come in
here and have it shot at the Big twelve title
game still if they beating Niowa State. But no, they lost,
So two teams kind of down on their luck. A
little bit, but BYU should feel really good about itself still,
even though I know that wasn't a performance they wanted.
They went the next three. They're in the Big twelve

(57:12):
title game. If you compete with Texas Tech, if you
don't win, you should probably be in the college football playoffs.
So everything that BYUS wanted the last couple of weeks,
and frankly from preseason's silly that we're even talking about
Big Teal title game in college football playoff potential. It's
all there.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
Still, it is all there.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
I wonder, you know, A big question coming out of
the bye week is how healthy was BYU going to
be able to get before such a crucial matchup. And
it's hard to get full transparency on things like injuries,
although easier in.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
Provo than in Salt Lake City. Maybe was l J.

Speaker 5 (57:48):
Barton?

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Was l J Barton all the way healthy or I
mean reasonably healthy for this game? He didn't look quite himself,
but again, Texas Tech can do that to you.

Speaker 5 (57:59):
Yeah, I understand he was healthy and and I've heard
from from coaches that boy feels pretty healthy right now.
I mean Cionimo is still out. You still have some injuries,
right but Jack Kelly and Idad Glaska were feeling good
coming out of the bye week. They got raided to
money back one of the safeties kind of in that
three man rotation with Folatel South twelve and Tanner Wall. Uh,
you know, offensively, guys are feeling good. Tanner Wall actually

(58:22):
said last Monday to me, he said, I woke up
and felt like this morning like Superman coming out of
the pod. And I was like, that's quite the feeling.
I will never relate to that whatsoever. But the boy's
feeling pretty healthy, which is which is great. I mean,
boy might be the healthiest team in the Big twelve
right now. They've they've they're in a great spot in
that regard with with three games to go, which is awesome.

(58:43):
Typically have more injuries right now. But you always doing
pretty well.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
So you already mentioned this the you can't let another two,
you can't let Texas Tech beat you twice. It is
a cliche, but it is something that you kind of
have to pay attention. I think this coaching staff at
BYU probably has good ideas about the right way to
run practices to get that bad taste out of the

(59:08):
mouth and get you focused and dialed in. For what
is an important game. The rest of them, as you mentioned,
are important games.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
I'm with you.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
I thought TCU was probably gonna have a little bit
more success this year than they have had, but I
still view them as a dangerous team. Haven't beaten anyone
good yet, but I still view them as a dangerous team.
What do you think is the key to a matchup
with TCU for this BYU team that might still be
looking a wound or two.

Speaker 5 (59:35):
Yeah, obviously the past game of TCU is their greatest strength.
With Josh Hoover, who throws for two ninety eight a game,
I mean, that's incredible. Eric McCallister is a guy you
have to watch. Eight hundred and thirty four yards eight touchdowns.
He had a massive game a couple weeks ago where
we went for almost two fifty. They could still run
the ball pretty effectively though, with Trent Battle and Kavorian Barnes.

(59:57):
So I think don't want to get into a shootout
with tc I think that they can put up some
points at times, they're going to check it all over
the field. I think the Bo's secondary for the most part,
it's been really good this year. Does BOI get a
pass rush do they drop. I still I thought Blays
defense played pretty well against Texas Tech. All things considered,

(01:00:18):
plays offense is the one that has to kind of
do their thing, run the ball, set up to play action.
Special teams should be always struggled against Texas Tech. I
mean there were a lot of elements that BYU had
BOI had not turned it over like that. They had
not played like that on special teams. They had not
played like that on offense. I honestly just credit that
to the opponent on the other side of the field.
I thought they were great. The good news is you

(01:00:39):
always playing TCO and not Texas Tech this week. TCU's
still a quality club. As you mentioned. I think bolways
going to be able to do some of the things
they've been doing all year, which is take care of
the football, run the ball. I think they take it away.
I think they get a couple of picks. And being
at home is a big deal. I think theF this
was on the road, there would be a massive red
flag here, but at home, I think that flag is yellow.

(01:01:01):
You have to be cautious, you have to be aware,
you have to bring it and there's an opportunity here
if BYU is going to do what its number one
goal was, which is get to the Big twelve title
game and learn from last year. They have to win
this game, then they have to beat Cincinnati, then they
have to be UCF. If they didn't learn from last year,
then you stumble and then maybe you lose a typebreaker
and it's back to last year. There's some scar tissue

(01:01:24):
from last year of how disappointing that was. But BYU
has an opportunity to rid itself of that and get
to the Big Twelve Talery game and have her an
opportunity at a conference championship. They have to flush that
out because they still they're in control of their own
destiny still even after that loss, so get after it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Jerem Jordan is our guest here Red and Blue, talking
a little BYU perspective on all the happenings in the
Big Twelve Conference. Bear Bachmeyer has been a revelation this year.
He's been absolutely fantastic. It's been really fun to watch.
This game was kind of the first time he looked
like a freshman. And again, I throw the qualifier out

(01:02:06):
on almost everything in this conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
TCU does that to people.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
They make like they expose whatever flaws there are in
your offense, especially, and I think that Bear just came
back down to earth maybe a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
Here.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
It gets very fascinating for me, Jaren, because we see
this kind of like freshman success sometimes where guys don't
know why they should be intimidated, They don't know why
the game should be harder for them. They're just like
ignorance is bliss in some ways. And I'm not trying
to call Bear Bachmeyer ignorant. It's just like the blessing

(01:02:42):
of youth is that, Yeah, you come into a situation
like he's come into, and you don't know that things
should be difficult for you. He hasn't played like things
are difficult for him. Is there any fear? Is there
any worry that Texas Tech maybe plants the first set
of doubt in the quarterback specifically and we get a
little regression from this point forward.

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
I mean, it's a fair question, for sure. I don't
think so. I just think David Bailey and Romelo Height
and Jacob Rodriguez are three of the top ten players
in college football and defense by PFF, saying that by
their individual grade, those are outstanding guys. And then I
think what happened was you get down two or three
scores and then it's into the twenties and you're trying

(01:03:26):
to make a play, you're pressing, you're forcing. Baird did
that a couple of times, turned it over, and Jacob
Rodriguez honestly is like a He's like a defender that
deserves to be in the Heisman conversation. So that guy
makes place. See he doesn't have that guy sitting on
the other side or guys. And so I think By
is going to be able to do some things to
make him a little more comfortable, which is run the ball,

(01:03:47):
move the ball down the field, get a lead, you know,
in the game, as opposed to Okay, we're down, you know,
twenty nine zero and garbage time and whatever. I just
think the makeup of the game will be different. And
I've heard from several people, and I agree that if
the means to the game change a little bit early.
If youoid doesn't muff a pun or shank a pun

(01:04:08):
or miss a field, goally doesn't mean Bioway's gonna win, no,
But does it mean that sort of the flow of
the game is different from a momentum and confidence standpoint. Yes,
so I think I think gets TCU that will change
and then you'll see the bear Bahchmeyer you've been sing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
We haven't had a conversation since the first College Football
Playoff ranking came out, and I was pleasantly surprised with
the way the committee seemed to have given us some
notice like, hey, we like the Big twelve this week.
We acknowledge that this league has some really good teams.
Obviously it's going to be shuffled a little bit tonight
when we get the new ranking. But you know, they

(01:04:45):
had Utah sitting right outside that top twelve, although with
the automatic qualifiers that really is more like a.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
Fifteen or sixteen ranking. But I digress.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
So, you know, BYU and Texas Tech sending the message like, hey,
you're I think at least a two team league if
things kind of hold serve, and you know, is that
what you expected from the committee? I thought that, you know,
maybe it's my history in the PAC twelve and my
insecurities associated with always having to look up at the

(01:05:19):
Big ten and the SEC and things like that. But
were you surprised at all by the fact that the
committee seemed to give a nod towards the big twelve
in their first rankings, I.

Speaker 5 (01:05:29):
Was a little surprised, I'm with you where I was like, wait,
what they is up to seven? Texas Tech is eight,
Utah is thirteen. This is great. I'm really intrigued by
what they're going to do tonight and are they going
to keep BYU inside the top twelve. I'm hoping Boaz eleven.
That's kind of my best case situation here. I wouldn't
be surprised of their twelve. I would hate it if
they were thirteen plus. And I think that Utah should

(01:05:52):
be concerned about where Bou is two, because that committee
is going to sit there and make sure that Bou
is above Utah with the one loss and the head
to head. It all affects both of us, right, Texas
Tech should be I hope they climb above Oregon. Frankly,
I think they should. And then there's a fun conversation
with kind of the Ohio state and Indiana, Texas an

(01:06:13):
Now they're your top three for sure, Bama, Georgia, Ole,
miss those three kind of feel firmly entrenched in the
top six. Does Texas Tech just move up, you know,
the one spot to seven where BOI was would that
be fair or should they be higher? I think it's
all super interesting. And we were talking today on Boy
Sports Station about Okay, let's say Boy gets to the

(01:06:33):
Big twelve title game but doesn't win it, like will
a two lost team after a Big twelve title loss
being a large team, and I argued for BOI need
some style points the next three weeks to look more
than a team that, although winning is awesome, it's nice
to get a little bit of stout points. Ask Indiana
on a bunch of their games. They just survived against
Penn State Catch of the Year, by the way to

(01:06:54):
win that, and then you have to compete way better
in the Big twelve title game to have a shot.
I just don't want this league not to have two.
It deserves too. If the playoff was sixteen, it deserves three.
So we'll see. I'm hoping they expand to sixteen next
year and then we're talking about three this time of
year instead of two. Really intrigued, and as you mentioned,

(01:07:17):
it's really going to be the top ten sean because
the G five champ's going to get in. If that's
a James Madison from outside the top twelve, they take
a spot. Now it's down to eleven. If the ACC
champ is not inside the top twelve, that's another spot.
So then basically you need to be inside the top
ten on selection Sunday to feel like you're in for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
Yes, and that's where you know, with the logjam of
SEC teams with I think three big ten teams Ohio State,
Indiana and Oregon right the spots. Although we love the
vote of confidence from the committee, like the numbers are
what they are, I want to flesh out and again,

(01:07:56):
it's all moot if you don't continue to win, But
I want to flesh out the conversation of if BYU
as I think a lot of us probably anticipate getting
the poles. The most Utah fans, they're kind of like, ah,
BYU losing that game means we're not going to be
in the conference championship game. It would have got a
lot more interesting if BYU had beaten Texas Tech to

(01:08:18):
get Utah back in for maybe a Holy War championship rematch.
That's off the table now, so I think a lot
of people are like, all right, so the more likely
rematch is BYU Texas Tech in the Conference championship game.
And if Texas Tech continues to have the success that
we expect and they're in Arlington like we think they
will be, let's just play it out where they then

(01:08:40):
beat BYU a second time. So now you've lost twice
to the same team that also is in the College
Football Playoff. Firmly at that point, they're probably a top
six team, maybe would justify being the top five team
in the country at that point. And like you said,
now you're a two loss BYU team, But those two
loss as have come to the same Texas Tech squad

(01:09:03):
that with that level of success should be in a
national title.

Speaker 4 (01:09:06):
Conversation by that point.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
Will the committee then potentially be like, ah, yeah, but
we can't like you already you already had two bites
at this apple and you prove that you're not really
quite in that same league, so we can't bring you in.
Or should they be a two loss individual or two
loss group that gets a place.

Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
At the table.

Speaker 5 (01:09:28):
First off, the committee mentioned this last year, if I'm
not mistakes, and I hope this continues, is that they
don't want to punish teams that lose in a Big
twelve title.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
Game or a power conference champions you can, so with.

Speaker 5 (01:09:41):
That in mind, would be like, well, they only had
one loss in the regular season and it was too
an amazing team. They beat everybody else. They have x
y z wins, look at their strength of record, look
at their d D, all the metrics. BA should be
if BIS a one loss regular season team, to me,
they should be in the playoffs. I know there will
be an argument and against that based on well they

(01:10:02):
Colorado and Arizona and they had to come back, and
so on Iowa State and you know, and so on
and so forth, like what are the good wins? It'll
be Utah. It'll be Utah. The best win will be Utah.
And that's the thing that bou wants to say every year,
regardless of Utah is but Utah is good, UIU is good,
Texas Tech is great. And so it'll be an interesting
conversation to see can buy you out at large? The

(01:10:26):
Georgia Tech, the uh, you know, Notre Dame with two
losses is in. But it's like Texas, Oklahoma Vandy. You know,
there's some The nice thing is there's still three weeks
left in the regular season and conference championship leak. There's
some carnage to be had here. BYU hopes that it
doesn't happen to them, but there's there's some stuff that

(01:10:46):
could happen where Boa could slide into that top ten
if they only have one loss going into selection Sunday,
and then could they sm you their way in SMU
last year lost to Clemson. They had one regular season loss.
You know, they played a competitive game if you you
kept it within you know, one score or ten points
with Texas tackets like they should be in. So that

(01:11:07):
score in that game, should that be The situation may
loom very large in what happens.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
Is there any world? Is there any level of carnage
is probably the better way to ask this. Where the
Big twelve gets three teams in in a twelve team playoff.

Speaker 5 (01:11:24):
I don't see it. I mean you cut Utah could
run the table and be sitting there with two losses
and the metrics look good on Utah continue to kind
of pound people, right, That's the difference. Boa hasn't had
those style points. That's why I kind of want them
a little bit here against TCU and Cincinnati. But honestly,
I'm like the way BYU plays, the way they run
their offense and do things. I don't know that style

(01:11:45):
points are going to be there unless the defense is
scoring or special teams is scoring. BOI wants to take
their time, assess pre snap, window dressing, all of that
that takes time. BoA's not in a hurry. They're not
gonna Also, clients take has sportsman ship at a level
I do not. I want to pound fools. He wants
to be kind if they're up by enough, you know
what I mean. But it does have an impact. I

(01:12:07):
don't for twelve teams, it's hard to see three. We
had Rees Davison last week. He said three is not
out of the question. It would be awesome. I would
love it if the Big twelve got three. That level
of respect would be incredible. You would need you would
need some three loss SEC teams and Big ten teams
like last year like South Carolina and Ole Miss didn't
get in with three losses and that was a good

(01:12:29):
sign to me. So yeah, I don't see three, but
really hoping for two. If the Big twelve doesn't get two,
I don't think that's a good thing like that one
elite team is great, but this league deserves two. There's
too many good teams in the league.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
Last year, I think with Arizona State getting a first
round by and Boise State getting a first round by,
I think that was a very rapid reminder that, hey,
this new format might need to be reevaluated.

Speaker 4 (01:12:57):
I think this year the group of five.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
Champion that ends up getting in because it doesn't appear
that there is a Boise State this year, right, that
doesn't appear that of the group of five, even the
best in the group of five, anyone is going to
really be able to compete. I don't think we're dealing
with fringe top twenty five teams at this moment. I
think people are going to look at it and say,
do we really in a twelve two former? We really

(01:13:21):
want to give the group of five champion and automate.
I think that's that conversation is going to happen after
this year. I just don't think it's gonna matter because
obviously they still get the spot in this year's playoff,
but because you know, you thought, oh, it's gonna be
South Florida or it's gonna be North Texas. Last week,
we're like Memphis, and Memphis went out and promptly got beats.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
So we're I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:44):
It's I think that this format, maybe to the point
you made earlier about in reevaluation to sixteen, is going
to continue to be evaluated however it plays out the
rest of this way. I think there are going to
be several people, and Utah fans will be the loudest
among them if they end up just on the outside
looking in saying well, why is North Texas here instead

(01:14:04):
of Utah? That doesn't make sense and that's just part
of the format.

Speaker 5 (01:14:09):
Yeah, it is. I think that. Yeah, I think that
G five should get in. I mean I say that
because I just think it's. Yeah, it's fair. I can
see the argument for not, but I'm not in favor
of kind of the powerful pulling away quite yet. And
if they do one day, then they can just have
that that playoff without them, Right But right now, it's like,

(01:14:31):
just go to sixteen. We don't need to expand beyond sixteen,
and then you know, you get the top You get
the top fourteen in there for sure, and that's good
enough because last year those games weren't actually even that good.
It's the idea of a playoff that we want, right
that are those matchups good? Enough. Is it like the
NCAA Tournament March Madnis. No, Because it's football. The better

(01:14:53):
team wins almost every time in basketball, that's one basketball game.
That's why the NBA, NHL they go, they go, no, no, no,
we need to play we need to play a series here.
That's not football. That's just a one off. But the
more physical, talented team almost always wins in that situation.
So yeah, it's fun. I love that b YU and
U Tyler in the mix this year. And it's been

(01:15:16):
a great year so far. And we've got a fourth
of the season left, luckily, and it'll play itself out
and I think at the end it'll probably make sense.

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):
I would be a remiss if I didn't at least
sprinkle in a question about b YU men's hoops. The
schedule gets even more interesting as we approach what will
eventually be conference basketball, but big showcase opportunity for aj
debonsa for this team as a whole. What do you

(01:15:46):
make of the BYU hoops team right now and what's
in front of them?

Speaker 5 (01:15:50):
There's a lot of fun. Saturday night in the Merriy Center,
they were playing Holy Cross, but it felt like they
were playing I mean a really really good team. It
didn't matter so much juice and excitement around the team.
BOI had ten dunks that fell like seventeen. They really
worked on getting to the rim. I talked to Kevin
Young because I sidelined the game after the Villanova game,

(01:16:11):
about they went seventeen of thirty five within shots within
four and a half feet, and so I said, is
that a problem or is that a one off against
Hillanobi said, no, it's an issue, and we actually differentiate
between the shots in the restricted area and the paint
and non rim paint shots. Said, we don't want to
shoot any of those. It's either at the rim in
the restricted area or kick out for a three. Very

(01:16:33):
NBA like right, So BYU seven of its first nine
shots against Holy Cross right at the rim, they made
six of them, they made it three, they jumped out
ten nothing, and they were on their way to a
forty five point win. But BYU also was really interesting
talking to Kevin Young about He told me we basically
have three rotations, and he said, I learned this with
the Suns when we had Devin Booker and Chris Paul.

(01:16:54):
He said, we're going to stagger them to where one
of them's always on the court, and that is with
aj de Bonza and Rob Right. The third one of
those two is always going to be on the court.
And that's good news because those are tremendous players. Richie
Saunders let By with twenty, they got that big three.
They're accounting for sixty percent of the scoring right now.
I don't think you always going to be as deep
as they were last year, but that that starting fight

(01:17:16):
is really talented. So Delaware tonight and then third ranked
Yukon on Saturday in Boston on Fox with Bill Ratherrie Onions.
It's gonna be awesome, huge opportunity.

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
There will be watching closely, and most of us won't
admit it because this is the home of the youths.

Speaker 5 (01:17:35):
We both watch each other's games. I don't watch Utah
men's basketball, I'll admit it, but I watch Utah football.

Speaker 4 (01:17:41):
You should.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
That's an undefeated squad you're talking about. Put some respect
on Alex Jensen's name.

Speaker 5 (01:17:46):
Weaver State almost gotcha?

Speaker 4 (01:17:49):
Oh does almost count? Jerem Is that how it works?

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
Is that I had my fifth grade teacher, mister Bogan Shoots,
used to say almost only counts hand grenades and horseshoes
every single time someone said almost shout out to mister Drew.

Speaker 5 (01:18:05):
But in this social media world it does matter.

Speaker 4 (01:18:11):
All right, great talking to you, Thanks for your time.

Speaker 5 (01:18:14):
Shout out to Alex Jensen and that super baggy T
shirt that he used to wear in the nineties. He
was the most relatable college basketball player I can ever remember.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
I tried to get him to mandate that for the uniforms.

Speaker 3 (01:18:26):
Ye, just like an Alex Jensen Knight where everyone has
to wear a baggy T shirt under their baggy jersey
with baggy shorts.

Speaker 4 (01:18:33):
He's like, I don't think they'd go for it.

Speaker 5 (01:18:36):
Hey, that ninety eighteen was incredible, man. I think I
can name the whole starting lineup too. And I was
on the boy side. That was an amazing team.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
All Right, have a good rest of your day, have
a good weekend, and we'll be chatting seven days from now.

Speaker 5 (01:18:51):
John, You're the best.

Speaker 3 (01:18:53):
That's Jereff Jordan UAU Sports Nation. He's our resident insider
on the team down south. As we do Red and
Blue brought to you by Murdoch Ford Santa Quin, I
will I will campaign again for that uniform mandate with
Alex Jensen because he's joining us on the show tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (01:19:13):
Is that at noon, James? Is that when that's happening?

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):
That was right on top of the show, right at
the eleven o'clock we're starting off with Alex Jensen.

Speaker 4 (01:19:21):
Yeah, so love it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:22):
So get on YouTube, bat, ESPN seven hundred Sports Utah,
hop in your car, go to the stream on the
app or ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Right at eleven,
tell your boss at work, Hey, I've got a meeting.
I need to be a Yeah, hey you want you're
gonna want to hear this. Look, if you say I
have an important call I need to listen in on,

(01:19:45):
you're not lying, Okay, just don't say we'll get him
over the phone. Don't say that it's work related. Tell
your boss I've got an important call I need to
listen in on. And your boss has like, oh wow, okay,
that's proactive, all right, an important call, an important call,
all right, And then immediately vacate wherever you're having that

(01:20:07):
conversation with the boss. Hey, just you know, as you're
walking out the door today, quick heads up, boss, Yes,
what is it? Eleven am tomorrow? I got a really
important call. I gotta listen in on okay, great, and
then just gone see you later.

Speaker 4 (01:20:20):
Have a good day.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
You're out okay, and there will be no questions, goodbye.
They might be sitting there, just important call. This is
a two person office. The only it's just me and that.
But you're not lying because it is an important call
and you will be listening in. So that's how you
clear your schedule for the Alex Jensen interview tomorrow on

(01:20:43):
the Sean O'Connell show, See we're helping you out. Daily
Dump is next, and the saga that we described yesterday
at LSU with Brian Kelly and his firing and.

Speaker 4 (01:20:53):
His buyout, it is far from over baby.

Speaker 3 (01:20:56):
We'll talk about it next in the Daily Dump ESPN
seven hundred and ninety of them.

Speaker 4 (01:21:04):
Feeling out of.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
The loop, Let's catch up on today's biggest headlines. Say
about Daily News Dump on the Sean O'Connell show, where
we flush out the biggest stories of the day on
Utah's number one Sports Talk ESPN seven hundred and ninety
two to one alf AM brought to you by Bally Plumbing.

Speaker 4 (01:21:20):
Just look for the truck with the duck.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
Valley Plumbing could take care of any of your plumbing needs.
If it's got a pipe, they can fix it water.
Do not let the damage a crew, the drips, the leaks,
call Valley Plumbing before the problem becomes a disaster.

Speaker 4 (01:21:40):
Truck with the duck will take care of you, all right,
daily dump.

Speaker 3 (01:21:44):
We touched on this earlier. The MAVs have fired Nico Harrison.
I really we have to get further into this. Brian
Kelly saga, Okay, yesterday we were talking about the buyout
that Brian Kelly refused, right, twenty five million dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:21:57):
Brian Kelly says, no, you owe me fifty four. You
offered me the contract.

Speaker 3 (01:22:05):
The contract was your idea, and they said, okay, how
about thirty million and we'll let you get another job
without being penalized.

Speaker 4 (01:22:14):
He's like, no, no, thank you. Now.

Speaker 3 (01:22:17):
LSU the counter move right, this chess match that's happening,
Louisiana State University is trying to say, well, we actually
didn't officially fire him when you guys thought we officially
fired him. So what they're trying to do now is
they're trying to do a take back. Sies, just kidding,
we didn't fire you to first bull make it true.

(01:22:40):
We are we're now going to fire you for cause,
And of course firing someone for cause is it would
mean that Brian Kelly, aside from just losing these games,
he did something far more egregious. And James actually did
a great job of Yeah, I was your AI for
this es PAN Article four cause dismissal as constituted in

(01:23:04):
Brian Kelly's contract, material and substantial NCAA rule violations. If
I'm Kelly and now is Lawyers, this is the one
I'm sweating because because.

Speaker 4 (01:23:14):
There there could be anything sometimes.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
Yeah, there are so many damn rules in the nc
double A, and this era of college football is so
insane that you could almost guarantee that in every program,
whether deliberately or more often accidentally, rule violations happen. Yes,
they happen, right, So that that's one. But it has
to be SUBSTANTIALBA rules violations. It doesn't say material or substantial.

(01:23:42):
It says material and substantial and material in this case
OC is just like evidence, like they have evidence for it.

Speaker 4 (01:23:49):
Yeah, is that basically what they mean here as far
as I know.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
Yeah, Okay, also being goodcted of a felony or any
crime involving gambling, drugs, or alcohol. We don't know if Kelly, Uh,
he's very red faced, but I think that's just because
he's an Irish.

Speaker 5 (01:24:04):
And he have it.

Speaker 4 (01:24:05):
Could he have a flaskhy in his jacket like.

Speaker 3 (01:24:08):
I don't, I don't know if he's got any kind
of a problem. You're saying that if you were the
head coach of LSU, you would probably look red face too.
I mean those situations, especially because Kelly's They just showed
a b roll of Brian Kelly as they're talking about
this on Sports Center, and he's like yelling all the
time too, So that's another reason why he's red faced,

(01:24:30):
like angry, yelling all the time. Engaging in this is
these are the four cause parameters, right, engaging in serious
misconduct which displays a continual serious disrespect for the mission
of LSU, or that constitutes moral turpitude such as depravity
or wickedness. That's what so I had to look up
with turpitude meant that's that's turpitude, depravity or wickedness.

Speaker 4 (01:24:53):
So what this does in a I know it's a
family show.

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):
I don't mean to be indelicate here, but this this
is put in these contracts so you can fire someone
for cause, if they're engaging in extramarital affairs or things like.

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
That, that like what the Mad Hatter less Miles was
accused of with students. Yes, that kind of stuff, that
kind of stuff, that's what this covers. Like whoa or
was it interns with less Miles?

Speaker 3 (01:25:24):
Anyway, this is actually also again if you're if you're
Brian Kelly's lawyers, you're like, Okay, is there any concern
that any of this is going to come into play
at Notre Dame. You could have made a pretty strong
case that Brian Kelly was doing things that were detrimental
to the mission of Notre Dame the way that he
treated GA's and things like that on his staff. We

(01:25:46):
don't know if that was the case at LSU, and
he hasn't had any reports on that.

Speaker 4 (01:25:50):
So this is what LSU's did.

Speaker 3 (01:25:52):
If you've been morating, have you have you interpretued in
us interpretuity? So those are the four cause constitutions in
Brian Kelly's contract. But the hilarious thing here is that
LSU is trying to say we didn't actually fire him

(01:26:15):
when there's a public statement from the athletic director that
went out to the entire world who had any kind
of interest. That said, I decided immediately after this game
to make a change with the head coach. Well, and
his statement, by the way I'll read it, the quote
from the ESPN article anyway is the is the most

(01:26:36):
relevant part of it. We had high hopes that Kelly
would lead us to multiple SEC and national championships during
his time in Baton Rouge. Ultimately, the success at that level,
that at the level that LSU demand simply did not materialize,
which tells you we fired you not for cause. We
fired you because your performance was not adequate. That's not

(01:27:01):
for cause. Here's as as as it's defined in Kelly's contract.

Speaker 4 (01:27:05):
Here's what you need to do.

Speaker 3 (01:27:06):
If you're an athletic director right now in the four
cause section, just put a certain winning percentage. Yeah, I
don't know if that that can't be that can't be allowed.
Becauhy not Well, I'm just saying that that has to
be something that for some reason is not allowed, because
that would be in every contract, right. Well, I think
that legally it has to be allowed. It's not allowed

(01:27:29):
because coaches won't sign it. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Speaker 4 (01:27:32):
They just like the industry industry standard is just like
wholl whoa, whoa, whoa. We're not agreeing to that. I
have to have like a seven to fifty win percentage
in SEC night games.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
Like whoa.

Speaker 3 (01:27:43):
It's like your scholarship agreement. You have to maintain a
certain grade point average. You have to maintain a like
a seven fifty. Yeah, because heaven forbid, these multimillion dollar
coaches actually have to live up to the expectation legally
in order for them to justify their ninety five million
dollar contracts.

Speaker 4 (01:28:03):
It's the easiest, most simple fix in the world. Yeah,
and getting paid after they're dismissed.

Speaker 3 (01:28:09):
Yeah, Like every other job on the planet, you could
easily say, hey, if you're Sean O'Connell show, if your
ratings dip below this, or if your performance in sales
or whatever dips below this, it means you're not meeting
your end of the bargain and we're gonna fire you.

(01:28:29):
And that's a four cause thing, all right. And like
in a lot of industries, you just have to be like, eh, okay,
I guess that sucks. But in college football and in
coaching in general, and by the way, this is true
in pro sports now, where they're just like every pro
sport except the NFL. I'm giving you a one billion
dollar contract to be the best baseball player in the world.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
Okay, cool. So do I have to hit four hundred
from here on out? Nope?

Speaker 3 (01:28:56):
Okay, If I strike out at every what happens? Oh,
we star to pay you only. So I'm averaging like
thirty five home runs a year so far. If I
only average like ten, what if I I'm pitching for
you too, I'm sure, Tony. What if I just walk
every batter I see for the rest of my career? No, yeah,

(01:29:19):
we still have to pay you. Oh okay, It's the
wildest thing in the world.

Speaker 4 (01:29:25):
But that's how it is.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
So Brian Kelly, the imagine how hilarious it is when
his lawyers get a phone call from LSU's lawyers. Hey,
Brian's not actually fired yet. We're finding reason to fire
him for cause. So he's he's no, he's not allowed
to work for us, but he's not fired. Oh so
you want coach to show up and you know, get

(01:29:49):
get back on the recruiting trail, start breaking down film
that kind of stuff. No, no, no, no, Can he
have his keys to the office back? No, But he's
not fired. Absolutely not. We I don't want you anywhere
near the facility. But he's not fired. Yes, he's not fired.
That's correct.

Speaker 4 (01:30:05):
Well, we would say not officially terminated is how we
would prefer to say it. This is a movie playing
out in real time and I absolutely love it. Here's
the other part that I want to dihlate. So they're saying.

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
The main argument that they're claiming as to how he
can possibly not be officially terminated, not be officially fired
yet then eighty Scott Woodward did not have the authority
to fire Brian Kelly in late October.

Speaker 4 (01:30:40):
Thus he has not.

Speaker 3 (01:30:41):
Been officially terminated. Now here's the context around it. Woodward
was fired four days after Kelly was dismissed. Okay, now,
this I think is actually the only spot where Ules
you might have a leg to stand on here if
they want to make this argument based on the fact
that got Woodward did not have the authority to fire

(01:31:02):
Brian Kelly even though he was still he still held
the athletic director title at the time until four days later.

Speaker 4 (01:31:10):
But almost but before those four days, I think it
was the next day.

Speaker 3 (01:31:14):
The governor very publicly said Scott Woodward is an idiot,
and we're not letting him hire the next coach, which
would suggest that if you don't have the authority to
hire the new coach, you might not also have the
authority to fire the old coach.

Speaker 4 (01:31:32):
So the governor might have saved LSU here on accident.

Speaker 3 (01:31:34):
So the governor, the governor is Michael Scott and Scott
Woodward is Dwight Shrew. I want to fire someone, please
let me know. You do not have authority to fire anyone.
So so, I mean the governor, without knowing what he
was doing, might have come out like well, since twelve
hours after Scott Woodward fired Brian Kelly and saved l

(01:32:00):
tried to fire him, saved Lsu fifty four million dollars
potentially just by being a jerk, just by being like,
what words of moron, and we don't trust him. So
I'm gonna put a panel together. Now, everyone at the
university's like, wait, let's run with that. Let's run with that.
That could save us fifty million bucks. The governor was correct,

(01:32:21):
he was speaking on behalf of the university president. We
had we had already fired Scott Woodward in our minds.
He had no authority in our minds, and that means
that Brian Kelly is still employed. What a what a
what a really dumb situation. Very it's so fantastic. So
here's the other part. That's if you set aside your

(01:32:45):
your theory of that being their argument that the governor
saving them. So according to the suit, Now, of course
this is one sided. This is one side of the story.
But here's what the here's what Brian Kelly and his
representatives are claiming in this lawsuit. In the termination meeting,

(01:33:07):
the current interim AD of the school, which I forget
his name, but the guy who's in charge now and
other school officials were also present at that termination meeting
that Scott Woodward allegedly unofficially fired Brian Kelly. So them saying, hey,

(01:33:31):
the guy who fired you, he doesn't have authority. But
they're also at the same time saying the guy that
we were going that we were saying, we give the
authority to take over for him, and other like probably
people in the president's office who were president at the
meeting who co signed this, they didn't have the authority either.

Speaker 4 (01:33:53):
Okay, So Verge his name is Verge Osbury.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
Osbury, Yeah, who is the he was probably an associate
eighty or something and now has been elevated in ORMEDI. Yeah,
he's interm Athletic director. He's now being told. All right,
you were there in the meeting. You didn't have any
authority either. The guy that you're replacing was there. Chancellor

(01:34:21):
so and so was there, Colonel Sanders was there, whatever,
whoever shows up at those things. The governor's executive assistant
was there, and none of you had any authority to
fire Brian Kelly. You were just there telling him you
hated his job performance and that you wanted him to

(01:34:41):
go away. That's what that's all you were there for.
You were not there with any authority to fire him.
Last thing I'll say about this, if somehow LSU's lawyers
pulled this off to where they save fifty four million,
they don't have to they don't have to pay Brian
Kelly is full buyout, or even if they hadn't, like
somehow settle and he's got to like go back to

(01:35:03):
the twenty five million.

Speaker 4 (01:35:04):
Or whatever, settle for like forty or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
Yeah, whoever that lawyer is, make them president of the
United States, because what they are up against right now
with the only hope is this governor loophole and that
is it. It is just and also just the most
idiotic judge Like it is the most insane comedy of
errors around major major in This is LSU. If this

(01:35:30):
was happening at like Southern Utah University, everyone in the
country would just look at it and be like, look
at this, Look at this crazy backwoods like podunk place.

Speaker 4 (01:35:42):
This isn't LSU. Shout out to SUU.

Speaker 3 (01:35:44):
This is one of the this is one of the
top fifteen football programs in the country. This is an
athletic department who has like a world class facility for
their mascot.

Speaker 4 (01:35:57):
Yeah, they built a world class zoo.

Speaker 3 (01:36:00):
Exhibits for the damn ascot for one animal, for a
singular tiger. The money that flows through that program is embarrassing.
And they're like, Umm, it's a firing that didn't actually
happen because the guy who did the firing, we already
didn't like him, and there were several people involved in

(01:36:20):
the fiery meetings, but maybe we don't like them either,
so we don't want.

Speaker 4 (01:36:25):
To pay his BUYO.

Speaker 3 (01:36:28):
You've been officially unterminated, but please no, you're not allowed
anywhere near the camp near campus. If if this goes
through and LSU somehow wins every breakup that you regret
as an adult, you every way to get back in there,
every divorce that shouldn't have happened, every firing that you're

(01:36:50):
just like, oh man, that was actually a pretty You
can George Castanzas.

Speaker 4 (01:36:55):
To show up like this is the ultimate takebacks.

Speaker 3 (01:37:00):
You want to go back to San Francisco and just hey, hey,
I'm back on the air.

Speaker 4 (01:37:04):
Guys, so we fire you, well unofficially maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:37:09):
Wait what do you mean, like, I've got the ZESPN
article that explains unofficial terminations.

Speaker 4 (01:37:14):
A second, Wait a second.

Speaker 3 (01:37:16):
The person who's decided I wasn't working here anymore, they're
no longer here, so you can't stop me from working.

Speaker 4 (01:37:23):
Fine, we're not gonna pay you. Oh I love this.
It's so good.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
Better better movie the Chauncey Billups Mafia poker game situation.

Speaker 4 (01:37:36):
Or this one? You know what? Put them together?

Speaker 3 (01:37:42):
Make make one of the guests at the Chauncey Billups
rigged poker game, Brian Kelly and Scott Woodbury playing Woodward
Yeah Osby.

Speaker 4 (01:37:55):
You know what based on a true story. Let's call
based on true event? Right? It doesn't. Let's call him,
let's call him, uh crying belly.

Speaker 3 (01:38:07):
And by the way, by the way, if you're Chauncey
Billups and his legal team right now, you're looking at
this and he's like, wait, is there any way we
can do take back seas well, Chauncey was betting on
these games, but the authority to that, but he was
not actually, in that particular moment, the head coach of
the team, so he can't be banned.

Speaker 4 (01:38:28):
I love this so much. Lawyers will try anything.

Speaker 3 (01:38:34):
Apparently, big time universities will try anything to avoid a
buyout that they offered two their employee. Correct, they and probably,
I mean there's obviously negotiation. It wasn't purely just hey,
we'll give you this, like Brian Kelly and his and

(01:38:55):
his agent negotiated that. They said, we're only agreeing to this.
But still like they were the ones that said, here's
the contract, we agree to it. Outside of the NFL,
I don't know that there's any other place that so
brazenly just says that contract that we proposed and signed,
we never had any intention of paying that full contract.

Speaker 4 (01:39:13):
Yeah, well, look at the NFL. That's industry practice. Yeah,
with non guaranteed contract.

Speaker 3 (01:39:16):
It's like, yeah, you have a two hundred million dollar contract.
How much is a guaranteed money? It's eighteen dollars. Oh
really over five years? Eighteen fully we split the eighteen
dollars over five years. It's fully guaranteed though, right, like
the NFL contracts are, they're fake numbers outside of the

(01:39:37):
full guarantees and the signing bonuses. Apparently that's how LSU
contracts are too, So a cautionary tale for whoever the
next coach is, which, by the way, is another factor
in this whole scenario we haven't even discussed. They've got
to go out and hire a top candidate for this job,
and that top candidate probably has one of the same
four agents that represent Brian Kelly and all the the

(01:40:00):
other big players.

Speaker 4 (01:40:01):
They're not in the country and.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
There that that agent is gonna be like, remember how
you tried not to pay my last guy his buyout?
This buyout is going to be two hundred million dollars LSU,
You dumb? Can I just say before we end this segment,
So glad Nico Harrison finally got fired. Speaking of firings, like,

(01:40:23):
good for the MAVs. It's never too late to do
the right thing. All right, m you know what, well,
let's take a break, let's come back, and let's talk
a little bit more about that. Jeff Schwartz just texted me, Uh,
we might have to get to him a little bit late.
He's got some uh some orthodontics to handle right now.
So we're gonna call some audibles. Does the Sean O'Connell

(01:40:45):
show on ESPN seven M.

Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
You're listening to a Sean O'Connell show for the Murdoch
Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two to
one half an.

Speaker 3 (01:41:02):
John O'Connell show here on ESPN seven hundred and ninety
two one FM. Jeff Schwartz set to join us at
one o'clock. He is handling some stuff with his kids
right now. We might have to push him a little
bit later. We'll get him when we can get him.
Not gonna hold a guy who joins us every single
week to the coles for a football segment.

Speaker 4 (01:41:22):
We'll we'll get to it when we can get to it.
All right, Fine, you can never go on this show
again if not one o'clock. No, we're not doing that.
If you can't catch the show live.

Speaker 3 (01:41:32):
Make sure you listen to us on demand ESPN seven hundred,
Sports dot Com, the ESPN seven hundred app. You can
tell your smart speaker to play ESPN seven hundred. Set
your alarm for eleven o'clock tomorrow because Alex Jensen, the
Utah Running Utes basketball coach, is going to join us.
Right off the top, we'll get into some things with him.
Remember to tell your boss, hey, I have an important

(01:41:54):
call I need to listen in on.

Speaker 4 (01:41:55):
It's not a lie. You're telling the truth to your boss,
and it's a loophole, all right, So a better loophole
than LSU's lawyers have, we promise, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:42:10):
Nico Harrison, we like probably every other radio show in
the country, absolutely dragged Nico Harrison after he traded away.

Speaker 4 (01:42:23):
One of the best seven players in the NBA in
the prime of his life.

Speaker 3 (01:42:30):
Young guy not without flaws when it comes to professionalism
and you know, personal health and things like.

Speaker 4 (01:42:37):
That, although he seems to have addressed that season.

Speaker 3 (01:42:41):
Maybe and now the spikee body for Nico, all right,
it's not for Nico, for Luca is in full effect,
and maybe that never happens, right, So maybe all of
us owe a dead of gratitude and a thank you
to Nico Harrison for pulling off the shock trade really
of my NBA lifetime.

Speaker 4 (01:43:00):
I'm trying to think of another one that was more surprising. Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (01:43:06):
So here's the most shocking up until then, the most
shocking transaction in NBA history for me, but had not
nothing to nothing close to the same reasoning is when
Lebron and Bosh joined Dwayne Wade in Miami and signed

(01:43:28):
They somehow got all three of those guys in the
same uniform, all from the same draft class, all top
five picks. Right, that was the most shocking transaction in
NBA history for me, at least in my lifetime. This
tops it because it's completely different reason like, and it

(01:43:49):
just inexplicable, Like you just traded you say top seven,
I say top four or five player in the NBA
who's twenty five years old and will still has a
chance to win a couple of m VP MVPs if
not more. Look, Luca is Luca is so good and

(01:44:09):
the trade is so inexplicable that it births conspiracy theory
that your franchise was then compensated with a kind of
out of nowhere Number one pick to get Cooper Flag.
That's how good Luca is, and you traded him away.

(01:44:30):
And and by the way, ownership probably is is just
as culpable. But you can't fire the owner. Yeah right,
the owner is the boss. They're not going to fire
themselves the owner. I still do not believe that Nica
was acting alone, so to speak, in that regard Dumont,
the now controlling owner of the Dallas Mavericks Postmark Cuban era.

Speaker 4 (01:44:55):
He he he, it was.

Speaker 3 (01:44:57):
It had to have been more than Nico presented this
to me. He made a good argument. I said, Okay,
go ahead and do it. It had to have been, like,
we're working together on this. You're gonna be the face
of this. And by the way, if not, then Nico
Harrison has the most oversized set of stones of anyone
in front office. Like can you imagine being like, yeah,

(01:45:18):
I'm gonna trade away our best player, A franchise player,
a generational talent who has all of the marketability with
his I mean internationally marketable player. Is a guy, you know,
top jersey seller. He is the dude, He's the straw
that stirs the drink for this entire franchise. I'm trading
him away and hey, you told this is my job.

(01:45:42):
You didn't like it, owner, sorry, you shouldn't have given
me this job. Then I don't believe that that was
the conversation. So Nico Harrison is out, and I think
this was a career ruiner for him.

Speaker 5 (01:45:55):
Yeah, he he.

Speaker 3 (01:45:58):
I can't see him being a front office executive. He's
going to be running a G league golfice somewhere that
you don't he was. He was a prominent Nike executive
before this. I don't think he's able to get that
job back. Like, I don't think he's gonna be able
to be in the you know, at Adidas or somewhere else,
even though he was you are now with verbs doomably

(01:46:22):
really good at that job. People are going to say
in the future, Oh, Unico Harrison that one, Yeah, you
traded away, unikoed that one.

Speaker 4 (01:46:33):
He really screwed that one. Like that, You really nicoed there.

Speaker 3 (01:46:36):
And by the way, this you could have fired him
the day after the fact that it took nine months
or whatever doesn't make a ton of sense to me either.
About as long after the MAVs, after Luca led the
MAVs to the NBA Finals, and then was traded. How
wild is that? Eight to That was about eight months
last February? Is that eight months removed from that? And

(01:46:58):
this is about nine months removed from that same guy
getting traded the guy who traded him getting fired. Also
Patrick Tumont, the team president I think is the name
that he's given himself, the governor, the owner of the
team he's in. He issued this big statement where he

(01:47:21):
absolutely ignored the idea, did not mention anything about the trade.
He just talked about the start of this season. And
that is, I guess, a professional way to handle it.
But it's also so remarkably tone deaf when you're because
the statement is to the fans. Okay, So if you're

(01:47:42):
an owner and you're issuing a one page statement, a
one page justification or an apology or whatever you want
to call it, to the fans, the right thing to do,
and I will die on this hill, okay, the right
thing to do in every situation like this is to
address what people actually think and care about. You say, hey,

(01:48:07):
Nico Harrison is we're moving on from Nico Harrison. The
trade did not work out the way that we thought
it would. Sending Luca away was a mistake, and then
the fan base goes, well, at least the owner is
like taking this thing head on. They definitely make jokes
about that, Oh really that was a mistake, but they yeah,

(01:48:29):
there's a lot more respect that we screwed this thing up.

Speaker 4 (01:48:33):
I am ultimately responsible.

Speaker 3 (01:48:35):
We need we really nicoed this and Nico Harrison is
gone and now we're moving forward.

Speaker 4 (01:48:41):
Did you see? So he did go.

Speaker 3 (01:48:44):
He went right up to acknowledging the Luca trade without
actually acknowledging it. He said, these several these several months
have been difficult. So he basically said, yeah, the I'm
I know what you're talking about. I'm not putting it
in this statement. It's the way that that's how he
acknowledged it. I mean, and look, you go back to

(01:49:08):
when the firing happened. There was a lot of conversation,
a lot of innuendo around the fact that Nico was
the fall guy for an ownership group that did not
want to pay the Supermax deal for Luca, for a
guy who they felt like wasn't serious enough about staying
in shape.

Speaker 4 (01:49:25):
I just here's what I don't believe, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:49:28):
I don't believe that you can have you can let
something get to the point where you're gonna send away
a player of that caliber without actually going to his agent,
his closest friend, his mom, whoever is the person that
has influence on Luca's actual like daily life, the actions,

(01:49:49):
the diet, the workout schedule. Right, maybe it's a coach
on your staff, whatever, and you put you inception that person. Okay,
you bring Leonardo to CAP and Joseph Gordon Levitt and
you say, plant this idea in that person's head so
then they could pass it on to Luca that if
you want a super Max deal, if you want to

(01:50:10):
stay in Dallas, you really do need to lose some weight.
You need to stop the drinking. You need to do this,
You need to do that, whatever it is, whatever the
concern for your GM or your owner is. And they said,
hold on, can we get the root. Can we dim
the lights in the room because we're gonna need him
to be asleep for this. You bring the Inception crew
in and you do everything in your power to make

(01:50:35):
the change without having to make the change.

Speaker 4 (01:50:37):
Yeah. And when I say that second make the change,
I mean sending him to bleep in Los Angeles. Just ridiculous.
I just don't we handle now, We teams, franchises, front
offices handle these athletes in so in so many cases
so wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:51:00):
Like I've never met Luca, I've never talked to Luca.
Luca might be the most arrogant, ridiculous, stupid person in
the world. Luca cried when they sent him away. He
cried publicly.

Speaker 4 (01:51:12):
As a twenty five year old who, by the way,
is going to Los Angeles and is gonna be making
just as much money in La there's no reason unless
he actually cares about that franchise, for him to.

Speaker 3 (01:51:25):
Feel sad and the city like he freaking bought a
house in Dallas. There's imagine his life is sorted and
set no matter where he lives and goes. If your
boss walked up to you and it's just like, you're
gonna make a ton of money, You're gonna live in
a fancy house, You're gonna be closer to the beach.
The downside for you is you don't get to see

(01:51:48):
the mountains every day. Maybe you would cry, most likely
you wouldn't. You'd just be like, uh, all right, well
that's a life change.

Speaker 4 (01:51:55):
Could be a cool little change of scenery. Luca was invested.

Speaker 3 (01:51:59):
I don't believe you would not be able to convince
me that there was not a bridge to be built
to get what you wanted out of him, and for
him to get that Supermax contract in a way that
felt justifiable for both parties, because that's the type of
player he is.

Speaker 4 (01:52:15):
And the money.

Speaker 3 (01:52:15):
By the way, if you're Patrick Dumont or any other
NBA owner, the money makes sense anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:52:22):
If you own a.

Speaker 3 (01:52:22):
Professional sports franchise right now with the television contracts, it's
you are.

Speaker 4 (01:52:27):
You own a cash printing press, so you're a billionaire.
The extra forty million dollars you have to pay on
that Supermax contract is actually insignificant to you.

Speaker 3 (01:52:39):
I will not ever believe that this had to be done.
And if Nico Harrison ends up being the fall guy
for an ownership group who absolutely refused to pay the Supermax,
that's just as much on them as it is on Nico.
But this man, former Nike executive, longtime front office member
for the Dallas Mavericks, is now I think unhireable in basketball.

(01:53:03):
Yeah yeah, And you know it turns out Sarah Todd
was right. It was malpractice. Shout out to Sarah toon.

Speaker 4 (01:53:13):
There's no other.

Speaker 3 (01:53:16):
I mean, drafting Sam Bowie instead of Michael Jordan. Yeah,
I mean a lot of there's a more modern one.
A lot of people in hindsight will say Greg Odin
over Kevin Durante that. But but again those are those
are a lot more forgivable in my mind because those

(01:53:38):
are projections. Well, the drafts, the lottery, Like the talk
about the NBA Draft lottery, it's like it's like, yeah, we.

Speaker 4 (01:53:47):
We feel good about this guy's potential, but in the end,
it's potential. It not work out.

Speaker 3 (01:53:53):
Every franchise has a player they wish they had drafted
instead of the guy that they took in every year, right, Yeah,
and some you know, there are plenty of teams that
are just like, ah, why'd we pick this guy instead
of that guy? Why'd we Depending on how far down
the draft board they feel. I mean like there's probably
a lot of people out there like, I can't believe

(01:54:14):
we let Donovan Mitchell go where he went to the
Utah jazz Man. We would have done a lot better
for ourselves if we had draft for that guy. That's
a common mistake to make, you know, it's not a
common mistake to make trading away a generational talent, a
guy who a guy who has proven he's arguably one
of the few, among the few, best players in the world. Yeah,

(01:54:36):
that's not a draft that's not a draft pick. That's
someone who has proven it. You know, it would be
so much fun right now to be the next guy,
the next GM in Dallas has the greatest job in
the world, because you cannot be as bad as Nico
Harrison no matter what you do. Not only do you

(01:54:57):
have Cooper Flag, Yeah, you have the Unibrow, who I
think is still a decent value trade piece if if
he's not in street clothes. Yeah, like you probably could
get something out of him as a trade piece. Yeah, okay, yeah,
good player when he's available, and I think you can
use him as a nice little asset. And you come
in and no matter what you do for the next decade,

(01:55:19):
you are not going to be thought of as poorly
as your predecessor. It is the opposite of being the
guy to follow the guy. It is the opposite of
taking over Alabama after Nick Saban. Is the opposite of
the pressure that Morgan Scally's gonna feel when he steps
into Kyle Whittingham's shoes. It's the opposite of Ty Corbin
after Jerry Sloan. It's the opposite of these things. It

(01:55:39):
is like the guy before you crippled us. Anything you
do that's remotely positive or even neutral is gonna seem,
by comparison, an incredible job. Just just be decent and
you'll be awesome. You're telling me that the bar set
is I just have to not trade away our best player.

Speaker 4 (01:55:59):
Don't trade flag like that. You know how easy that
job is. Right now, I'm James James.

Speaker 5 (01:56:07):
I like what we do.

Speaker 4 (01:56:08):
I like what we do here.

Speaker 3 (01:56:09):
I'm sending an application into the Dallas Mavericks today.

Speaker 4 (01:56:13):
I can I can be the guy that holds on
to Cooper flag for you.

Speaker 3 (01:56:16):
I can do that, Like if my whole thing is
I just don't trade Cooper flag, and I'm better than
the last guy.

Speaker 4 (01:56:22):
I'm an improvement on the last guy. I can do that.
So you don't really know much about roster construction. No, no,
but I got this. I got this old coach, Gordy Chiesa.
He'll do all that.

Speaker 3 (01:56:34):
But here's the thing. Do you want to keep that
flag guy? Yes, we want to keep him. Boom guaranteed.
I got you covered. That is the lowest pressure job
in America right now, being the next guy for the
Dallas Mavericks.

Speaker 4 (01:56:48):
All right, yeah, I don't know if.

Speaker 3 (01:56:51):
We're gonna ge Jeff today, but we'll find we'll find
something that's all right. Toront O'Connell showing you tells number
one Sports Talk Hour three begins a fifteen minute.

Speaker 4 (01:57:00):
It's late next on ESPN seven hundred and ninety tefl
fiebi Miss American, Pardo ma Chevy to the levee, but
the levee was dry.

Speaker 1 (01:57:12):
This is the Sean O'Connell show. You were home of
the best inside of your utes. Let's get back to
oc from the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred
and ninety two to one a f M.

Speaker 4 (01:57:25):
Yeah, did you all right? It's finally happened.

Speaker 3 (01:57:31):
People you have Brian Windhorse has gotten to a point
where he just absolutely doesn't care what he looks like
on TV on ESPN right now, full breakdown of the
craziness in the NBA last night. We'll get to it
here in a second. And they're doing that thing where

(01:57:52):
they stand in front of the video board. Malika Andrews
stylish looks great cheneo guomakay stylish looks.

Speaker 4 (01:57:59):
Great when.

Speaker 3 (01:58:01):
Suit jacket tye. He's got like Brooks running shoes on.
Just come on, guys, you have to care about your shoes.
Not even not even some J's come on that. Like
some people have really abused the whole sneakers with suit thing,
and they don't wear the right sneakers with a suit.

(01:58:22):
That's not that's like you forgot your actual TV shoes
and you're wearing what you walk on the treadmill at
the hotel with All right, windh horse, that's what happened.

Speaker 4 (01:58:31):
Maybe that's what happened. Don't put them on TV?

Speaker 3 (01:58:33):
Then all right, if you were watching NBA basketball last night,
which hold on.

Speaker 4 (01:58:38):
Real quick, what's your go to because you're in a suit,
what's your go to shoes?

Speaker 3 (01:58:46):
I have a very strong opinion that if you're wearing
sneakers with suits, the profile of the sneaker, the bottom
profile of the sneaker, which is more important than the top.
People wouldn't realize it has to be a straight line,
which is why J's are good. All Jordan's right. They
don't have that like a contour to the bottom. Their
flat bottom shoes think of like a Converse Chuck Taylor.

(01:59:08):
It's like a straight line across the floor. Right, So
Nike Air Force ones, same thing. Jordan four's perfectly flat
on the bottom. Okay, I am, I've got some Jordan ones. Right,
they're they're just a flat It's a flat bottom shoe.

Speaker 4 (01:59:27):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:59:28):
It's a great look. That's why you can get away
with those Nike dunks.

Speaker 4 (01:59:32):
Same thing.

Speaker 3 (01:59:33):
The Dunk lows have become very very popular. I'll wear
Dunk clothes, I'll wear air Force ones. Gonna say, that's
like the go to, that's the most often what I wear.
You can wear the flights, same thing. The most of
the Jordan's have that kind of profile. But like there's
one guy, I forget his name, escapes me my favorite shoe.

Speaker 4 (01:59:55):
Ever.

Speaker 3 (01:59:55):
I'm actually wearing them today. I'll pull them up here
on the the YouTube. The Nike air Max ninety is
the best shoe ever. Okay, but you cannot wear this
with a suit because, as you can see, James, this
is an athletic profile shoe, right, It's not a straight
flat line across the floor. It's incredible content for the
YouTube chant Yes, it is for the YouTube chant ESPN

(02:00:16):
seven hundred sports. Utah, these are actually a dirty pair.
I wear these to hike with my dogs. So my apologies.
But you're your your your formal Nike Nike air Max
or but I won't wear nineties with a suit because
it doesn't look right.

Speaker 4 (02:00:30):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:00:31):
The guy who wears him on ESPN every day, he
wears like a jogger style pant, which improves it a
little bit. But then he's got like this business on top,
party on the bottom sort of situation where you so
you always sneakers with suit guy at the when you're
on TV. Yeah, okay, yeah, because it seems like you
have put a lot of thought into this.

Speaker 4 (02:00:49):
Yes, absolutely, I do. What do you wear?

Speaker 3 (02:00:52):
Otherwise it's some loafers or Oxford's nut brogues. Okay, to
go back to the uh, what's that franchise of movies
that's now escaping me?

Speaker 4 (02:01:04):
The Kingsman?

Speaker 3 (02:01:05):
Oh okay, yeah, anyway, key the NBA night last night, Well,
James was watching now you see me? Now you don't,
as you know, the biggest NBA fan we have here
in the building, you James, you missed, I know, the
best finishing of games in like what twenty years?

Speaker 4 (02:01:26):
Almost never since two thousand and seven.

Speaker 3 (02:01:29):
We have not had a single night of NBA basketball
with as many game winning field goals as game winning
shots or lead changes in the final minute of play
since two thousand and seven. It was the biggest wild
night in NBA basketball in almost twenty years, and we
had did everyone see Donovan Mitchell looked like he hit

(02:01:50):
that that like turn around, fade away, crazy three pointer
and then wither point four seconds left on the clock.
The inbound lob buzzer beater. That is a great play.
That is a beauty of a play, especially because it's

(02:02:11):
it's legal to offensive goaltend on that play. You can
throw it in the hoop and the and your guy
can actually touch it, like like tip in. If you
play tip in and your on your driveway, you can
actually reach in and touch it, just to make sure
to make sure.

Speaker 4 (02:02:27):
Or if it's like you can't throw the inbound pass
directly into.

Speaker 3 (02:02:30):
The or if it's like right on the or if
it's like rattling around the rim, your guy can touch it.
Even in any other case that's offensive goaltending when you
throw it from out of bounds it there's no rules
about that. So that's especially why that plays great. Uh
jazz in action tonight against the Pacers. You tell Mammoth

(02:02:51):
back in action tomorrow night. But the wildest finish in
NBA basketball, regular season, basketball, playoff basketball cross the.

Speaker 4 (02:03:00):
League, not just in a single game in years.

Speaker 3 (02:03:05):
By the way, Wemby part of that hits a hits
a game winner with under thirty seconds left. He also
has a thirty five five five five stat line five
three including five threes, So five assists, five rebounds, five blocks,
five threes.

Speaker 4 (02:03:23):
And twelve rebounds by the way, to go with it, Yeah,
at least at least five in all those categories.

Speaker 3 (02:03:28):
Like one of the I don't know if it's said
it's the only guy in NBA history, but one of
the few guys in NBA history to do that.

Speaker 4 (02:03:34):
And one of those is a game winning three in
the final seconds. Yeah, what a night. And I missed
it for a decent movie.

Speaker 3 (02:03:44):
Well, at least you were at an enjoyable screening where
you could feel like I've already seen that.

Speaker 4 (02:03:50):
You know you can lord that over people. Oh guy,
you guys aren't able to see it till Friday, most
of us, most of us were watching wasting our night
watching a seven terrible Eagles Packers game. Yeah, don't act
like you saw these NBA finishes.

Speaker 3 (02:04:06):
No, I didn't, because I was watching Matt Lafleur decide
to go for a game winning field goal from sixty
four yards out.

Speaker 4 (02:04:16):
Like a the guy missed. The guy hit was closer
to the Pacific Ocean than of the uprights on that kick.
I put.

Speaker 3 (02:04:24):
I put a couple of questions out by the way,
because one of these was sparked by the the gadget
play that USC put in against Northwestern that, in hindsight,
was illegal. This was something we didn't get to in
the Daily Dump. So the Big Ten has come out
and issued a statement that the fake punt pass thrown

(02:04:46):
by Sam Heward after the jersey swap is actually illegal.
It's totally illegal to have somebody players with.

Speaker 4 (02:04:56):
The same number. Yeah, you can to switch jerseys. You
can have you can switch jerseys. You can switch jersey
numbers as long as you put in the program the
day of the game. So they did that part right.
They did that part right.

Speaker 3 (02:05:07):
What's illegal about what they did is you can't have
two people playing the same position wearing the same number.

Speaker 5 (02:05:13):
So I have a.

Speaker 3 (02:05:14):
Grievance about this that will that will will air on
Friday when you when you're gone.

Speaker 4 (02:05:20):
But yeah, they.

Speaker 5 (02:05:23):
It is.

Speaker 3 (02:05:24):
It's such a convoluted like, Okay, you can have two
players with the same number, they can on the program
be listed as different positions, so and and they don't
play the same side of the ball offense, defense. We
see that all the time. Who was number Jalen Johnson
was number one, and so is Tyler Huntley for example.

(02:05:46):
Others if I'm not mistaken, if.

Speaker 4 (02:05:49):
Yeah, others you have Devin Dan Pierre's number four and
Don Sanders.

Speaker 3 (02:05:53):
Yeah, Don Sanders number four. So we see that all
the time in college football. But then because even though
in the pros list his quarterback, he in that play
he lined up as punch as a punter. That's the
other The other guy number eighty is the punter. Is
the guy listed as punter. That's what made who also
had played punter in that game. So that's the illegal part.

(02:06:15):
But the Northwestern coach, by the way, was like he's
like he was he was only thinking about the Hey,
as long as we were informed, we were notified about
it in the game program, we're good. So he was like, yeah,
they did everything right. We should have caught that. So
he he even missed that little the smaller part that

(02:06:35):
the big ten is saying, yeah, that should have been
a penalty. So the correction came out and it doesn't
change the outcome of the game, and it's fine, but
it sparked because it brought that play back into my mind.
It sparked for me a question that people are not
really engaging with much on online at real OC sports.
When you have trickeration in the lineup right in the playbook,

(02:07:00):
is it better to use that in like the big,
big games, in the hard to win games, or is
it better to use it when you're going up against
Northwestern in your USC That's we do this thing all
the time, right when you're talking about preseason games, non
conference games, like I'll save a bunch of the playbook,
save it, save it, save it, don't show the whole offense.

(02:07:22):
And and then we talk to offensive coaches and they're
just like, guys, we just run our playbook for the
most part. Yeah, we probably leave some in the tank,
but we don't. We're not like deliberately trying to hide
the stuff. We do this trick plays you do you
try to hide the stuff that you're capable of doing.
You don't want your trick plays to be on film
for people to to pay attention to. So you're you're

(02:07:44):
gonna run a play like this if you're usc twice
a year at most three times a year, maybe why
did you use it against Northwestern? Right when you're when
you're UTAH against uh against No, they ran the fake punt.

(02:08:07):
It'll come to me, It'll come to me, fake punt pass.
Dal Bentley caught it. Yeah, that was in this Cincinnati game. Okay,
like you're you're.

Speaker 4 (02:08:18):
Running that against Cincinnati.

Speaker 3 (02:08:19):
Cincinnati is a ranked team, that's a tough game, right,
that makes sense using it against Northwestern Cold Anyway, it
was a recent was it against Colorado?

Speaker 4 (02:08:29):
It was in the last couple of games? I think, No,
you're right, it was against Colorado?

Speaker 3 (02:08:33):
Okay, yeah, because that was my initial thinking, So why
run that play against Colorado? You're gonna smack Colorado no
matter what, like and and so my question was a
negative yardage at that point, Yeah, because the joke that
we made it halfway through the first it was like,
right that that passed the punter as more passed punter
had more passing yards and Caden Salter did right.

Speaker 4 (02:08:55):
It was against Colorado.

Speaker 3 (02:08:56):
Like your trickeration plays, you're almost too scared to run
them against elite competition because if if that thing ends
up being a busted play against Texas Tech, now you're
double screwed, right, because Texas Tech's gonna make you pay
for it. So it's weird because you you scheme up
all these crazy things, but then you're almost too scared

(02:09:17):
to use them against the elite competition, but you want
to roll them out and see if they work. Usc
waste of that bullet against Northwestern anyway, go vote on
the Twitter pool. If you don't, I think I'm I
think I'm on the side of save it for the
big opponents that you you need that to help you

(02:09:40):
beat the best teams.

Speaker 4 (02:09:42):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (02:09:43):
It feels like a waste and kind of piling on,
unnecessarily piling on when you're when you're when you use
it against teams that you're clearly better then, right, even
though I understand that, hey, this is the I understand
thinking this is the time of do it because it's
low because it's way low risk, because we can beat
this team anyway. But it's like, what, but so you

(02:10:06):
only put this play in the playbook. You only made
them practice this so that you could pile on a
team that you could beat anyway without being tricky. That
that's the part where I'm like, I'm not sure, I'm
I'm down for that part of it.

Speaker 4 (02:10:26):
Where are you? Are you saving for the big game? Absolutely? Yeah,
But I think this.

Speaker 3 (02:10:31):
Is again it being a head coach, because it is
a head coach who decides whether you're running these trick plays, right, Yeah,
it's always it's the it's where it gets so complicated. Obviously,
it's like matchup to hey, we can we can run
this play against this team because they line up like
this kind of stuff. Yeah, you gotta you gotta have
it right, It's got to be something that if they

(02:10:52):
give you a certain look, you can exploit it. Against Colorado,
you saw that on both sides, right Yeah, there was
a great special teams game if you're looking for those advantages,
those trick play advantages, And that's one of the reasons
why maybe it's harder to do against good teams because
they don't like ignore the guy that's out there as

(02:11:16):
the gunner, and that's when you should run.

Speaker 4 (02:11:19):
Oh there's there's nobody out there covering him. That actually
happened against Cincinnati, there was no I think Nate Johnson
was out there and there was nobody on him. I
was like, oh, they gonna run another fake here. They
could if they want to.

Speaker 3 (02:11:32):
They didn't, right, but those trick plays in your mind,
right when you're playing Madden at home or you're playing
NCAA Football at home, you saved the trick plays for
the big games. So far this season, we've seen a
lot of trick plays happening in games where it's just like, oh, well,
you could have beat that team without the trick play,

(02:11:52):
So you, as a coach, tell me how you would
use it. At Rielo c Sports on the Twitter, pol,
I think of Boise State Festa Bowl seven is Oklahoma.
The couple of trick plays that won the game for them,
the hook and ladder that tied the game, and then
the statue of liberty that won the game. Yeah, like
that field that felt like the appropriate time to pull

(02:12:15):
those out. And the reason a team like Boise State
does that against a team like Oklahoma, and where those
two programs were at at that juncture of their history.

Speaker 4 (02:12:24):
Say, talent wise is overmatch.

Speaker 3 (02:12:26):
You're just not going to be able to line up,
peel your ears back and just be like, Okay, we'll
get five yards on every carry and we'll just outrun
you on the edges. So yeah, you do, you get
misdirection going. And I don't know, maybe I'm prisoner to
the moment and what we're seeing in like these last
couple of weeks, But I want the trick plays to
be busted out in the biggest games. The consequences of

(02:12:48):
a bust on a trick play in a big game
are obviously a lot more drastic, So that might be
why people don't use them as often.

Speaker 4 (02:12:54):
Will you think of the.

Speaker 3 (02:12:55):
Wide receiver pass against BYU last year, for example, but
Damian Damian and offered like that's a trick play that
in a big situation went horribly wrong.

Speaker 4 (02:13:06):
Yeah, and that weird.

Speaker 3 (02:13:09):
That weird duck formation where you had the two tackles
and semi te long is split out against BYU this year. Yeah,
it worked, It worked great on the first play and
then it didn't work out well otherwise good, So I
guess BYU, I guess Utah did in the last couple
of BYU games under two different offensive coordinators, two different
play callers there have saved some special stuff for big games. Yeah,

(02:13:36):
I'm with you, Like, I don't know, it feels unnecessary
to be doing that in a game that you could
win otherwise. It also, uh, one of the age old
things that we're now getting used to in sports when
the conference or the league comes out and says, we
should have called this penalty, we should have thrown a
flag here. It doesn't make you feel better if you're
on the losing end of that. But now you know

(02:13:59):
Sam Heward no wearing punter jerseys moving forward. Former Utah
great Sam Hewart. Uh, the I do love seeing I
did love seeing Utah Utah transfer while he was in
the game, Like, oh yeah, he did play.

Speaker 4 (02:14:14):
He was he was on Utah's roster last year.

Speaker 3 (02:14:18):
But it was like shout out to Lincoln Riley for
thinking of something that clever though, Like, yeah, we're gonna
put our third or fourth string quarterback in is the
We're gonna have him wear the punter's number so we
can run this play. That's clever, clever thinking by Lincoln Riley.
All Right, how desirable is the Giant's head coaching job?

(02:14:40):
Knowing that you could be coaching Jackson Dart. Somebody did
the research. You probably won't be surprised by the results.

Speaker 4 (02:14:49):
We'll share it with you next on the Shat O'Connell
Show ESPN seven hundred ninety two one FM.

Speaker 1 (02:15:03):
If you were listening to a Sean O'Connell show your
source for the best youth football couple of each here's
oc from the Murdoch Hyundai studio of ESPN seven hundred
that ninety two to one a half am.

Speaker 5 (02:15:17):
All right.

Speaker 4 (02:15:17):
We talked about this on the show a little bit yesterday.

Speaker 3 (02:15:23):
How desirable is that New York Giants job that Brian
Dable just got fired from If you know that there's
now a young corps of offensive talent, especially that you
can probably develop. There's two ways to look at it.
Maybe you like Jackson Dart as the starting quarterback of
the future. He had some really good numbers in his
starts before the injury took him out. And you know

(02:15:46):
Cam Scataboo same thing. They still have Molik neighbors. There's
a lot of reasons to like that, right.

Speaker 5 (02:15:52):
So.

Speaker 3 (02:15:53):
Connor Hughes is an NFL reported, an NFL reporter who
covers the Jets and the Giants, and he went and
he did some research. He called around and asked about,
you know, how appealing that job is for people he
perceived to be top candidates, on the condition of anonymity.
He didn't want to share anyone's names because obviously, if

(02:16:13):
you're a coordinator for another team, you shouldn't be talking
about open head.

Speaker 4 (02:16:17):
Coaching jobs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the
results and look, it's not a.

Speaker 3 (02:16:25):
Fully structured research poll, but if we're basing it on
you know, conversation, there's only thirty two of these jobs.
The people he talked to said, yes, I want to
be there because of what they've got, because of Jackson Dart,
because of Malik Neighbors, because of Cam Scataboo, because of

(02:16:47):
that young core.

Speaker 4 (02:16:49):
This is going to be potentially one of the hottest jobs.

Speaker 3 (02:16:52):
As we were kind of talking about, you know, it
can't go bad if you're not that coach's flavor. If
you're Jackson Darter, you're Cam Scataboo, you're whoever, and whoever
gets hired is the coach there is Like I don't know,
I think I have different visions for this, but it's
a lot easier in today's NFL to find a coach
than it is to find a starting quarterback. And so
the Giants, I think, feel they have found their starting

(02:17:15):
quarterback Jackson Dart. The scary thing for me, obviously is
his his head Jackson Dart with the concussion. I want
to see him take significant time off so that doesn't
become a problem. Your season is effectively lost for the Giants.

(02:17:35):
Don't waste any of Jackson Dart's career on a bad season.
Don't risk any of Jackson Dart's career with him getting
hit more often than he needs to be. I'm sure
the Giants are listening to the show, but good for
them that they've put together a roster that a lot
of the hot coaching candidates are gonna look at and say, hey,

(02:17:56):
let's go. They got a many triplets situation in the
works there with the quarterback, the running back, and the receiver.
Obviously lots of time needed to help develop, particularly Jackson
Dart in that group. But yeah, I'm not surprised that

(02:18:17):
there's particularly offensive minded head coaches that are like, yeah,
I'd like a chance to work with that group.

Speaker 4 (02:18:28):
So probably no surprise there. But just a report from.

Speaker 3 (02:18:33):
SNYTV in New York as one of their jets and
Giants reporters did the straw pole, and people are high
on Giants potential and the appeal of that job.

Speaker 4 (02:18:48):
All right, we'll take another quick one here.

Speaker 3 (02:18:50):
We've got some Fierce Fighting Championship tickets to give away
in our topical trivia segment that's coming in just a
couple of minutes. Friday night, First fight at seven clock
at the Masonic Temple on South Temple in Salt Lake City.
I've been to fights here. It is a phenomenal venue.
It is a really interesting building.

Speaker 5 (02:19:09):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:19:10):
They do a great job. They bring in some some food,
so you've got some options. And then you're just like
in the the grand hall of this old, very architecturally
interesting building, and on the walls you've got all the
dudes in their Masonic gear. It's just I I haven't
gone down that rabbit hole as much as you probably
might think, because I go down every rabbit hole I

(02:19:31):
can find. But there's some crazy look of stuff in there,
you know, So check it out, even if you're even
if you're like, I'm not that big of a fight fan,
but I want to.

Speaker 4 (02:19:42):
I want to.

Speaker 3 (02:19:42):
I'll try it out, like just to like you've said
earlier this week, Oh see this is this is a
chance to be in a building that most of the
time you're not gonna have access to. It was one
of my one of my good buddies called me literally
this morning and he's just like, are you going to
those fights on Friday. I'm like, oh no, I got
PFL stuff I have to do them for He said, Dude,
I wanted to go because it's at the Masonic Temple.

(02:20:03):
He doesn't want to go because it's the fights. He
wants to go because it's at the Masonic temp wants
to look around. I was like, all right, well buy
some tickets then, so or text us and answer the trivia,
answer the tribute question, go to ESPN seven hundred sports
dot com, and or to win the VIP tickets.

Speaker 4 (02:20:17):
A couple of ways to win.

Speaker 3 (02:20:20):
We're trying to hook you up people, all right, Sean
O'Connell's show coming to a close here in just a
little bit.

Speaker 4 (02:20:26):
Is Spence in the building today? You never know if
Spence is on remote. He is doing his show from
studio today, so we should have him.

Speaker 3 (02:20:34):
Hopefully we'll get to talk to Spence we'll see what
he thinks about Brian Kelly not being officially fired by LSU,
and he might have some interesting thoughts on Michael Ray Richardson.
He was a former nick pre pre the his father's
era of running the team, but just being a he
probably has had some some heard some stories or maybe

(02:20:58):
even had some interactions with Michael Ray, who passed away today.

Speaker 4 (02:21:02):
I would be remiss.

Speaker 3 (02:21:03):
Also, we spent an inordinate amount of time last season
talking about a Colorado Buffalo athlete, Travis Hunter, because I'm
so fascinated with him as a player foremost, but also
he's really interesting as a person. He's a guy that
we had a chance to interview a couple of times,
and I was incredibly impressed with He's out for the

(02:21:28):
remainder of the season knee surgery.

Speaker 4 (02:21:32):
So LCL.

Speaker 3 (02:21:35):
It doesn't say tear, but an LCL injury. So the
other we typically hear of the ACL and sometimes the MCL.
It's the other ligament that he hurt in his right
knee as season ending surgery.

Speaker 1 (02:21:49):
On that.

Speaker 3 (02:21:52):
Twenty eight catches for two hundred and ninety eight yards
and a touchdown. So far this year, he has fifteen
tackles and three pass breakups. On defense, he was playing
sixty seven percent of the team's offensive snaps and thirty
six percent of the team's defensive snaps up until the injury.
So a true two way player and now he's a

(02:22:13):
no way player at least this year. Sorry, Jags, They've
got the Chargers coming up on Sunday. Trivia question next,
your chance to win two tickets to the Fierce Fighting
Championship at the Masonic Temple on Friday. It's a Sean
O'Connell show on ESPN seven hundred ninety two ONEFL.

Speaker 4 (02:22:41):
You're tuned to.

Speaker 1 (02:22:42):
The Shan o'connon Show for the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of
ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one a half m.

Speaker 3 (02:23:02):
Sean O'Connell's show on ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
to one FM eight seven seven three five three zero
seven hundred. We told you we will give away some
tickets to the Fierce Fighting Championship event happening Friday night

(02:23:23):
at the Masonic Temple in Salt Lake City. First fight
is that seven show should go till about eleven ish.
I would imagine if you can answer this question correctly,
eight seven seven three five to three zero seven hundred,
wild wildest night in the NBA last night that we've
had in a long time, at least in the regular season.

(02:23:47):
The stat was that we have not had quite so
many lead changes buzzer beater shots in the last sixty
seconds since what year we talked about this earlier? Was
what that was the this night in NBA basketball since
which year we just talked about it earlier in our
third hour eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred.

Speaker 4 (02:24:11):
For two tickets to the Fierce Fighting Championships.

Speaker 3 (02:24:15):
Seven o'clock first fight at the Masonic Temple, which is
a fun building to go watch fights in.

Speaker 4 (02:24:21):
Just take my word for it or don't and roll
out there yourself.

Speaker 3 (02:24:26):
Another little tidbit of news that we didn't touch on
yet today that is exciting or potentially exciting.

Speaker 4 (02:24:32):
John Henry Daily is among the finalists.

Speaker 3 (02:24:37):
Announced for one of the prestigious individual awards in college football,
the Bednerick Award. It was announced by the Maxwell Football Club,
who of course also distributes the Maxwell Award, that he
is a Bednerick Award semi finalist. He's also on the

(02:24:57):
Lot Impact Trophy List. John Henry Daly is one of
seventeen semi finalists for the thirty first annual Bednerick Award.
He's got forty tackles, fourteen for a loss, nine and
a half sacks on the season, and now an award

(02:25:23):
semi finalist. The Drive with Spence Checkets is coming up next.
He's here in studio with me, Hi Spence.

Speaker 4 (02:25:32):
I can hear nothing? Can you hear me?

Speaker 5 (02:25:33):
I can? Oh?

Speaker 7 (02:25:38):
Hey, yes, yes, loud and clear. Hello, Sean, how are you?
I'm great, Good to see you, buddy. Good job today.
I've been driving around quite a bit, got a lot
of the show. Well done, per us. I mean, it's
not a surprise.

Speaker 4 (02:25:50):
It's what you do. It's a super Bowl every day
on the channel every day. It's radio.

Speaker 3 (02:25:55):
Something gold, bronze, platinum, No gold, every day radio. You'reium
each day.

Speaker 4 (02:26:01):
What's your delta status?

Speaker 7 (02:26:02):
Come on, you've got to be I mean, with how
much you fly, you've got to be top shown you
do it. It's platinum, No, it's diamond, it's diamond. What
does that actually get you?

Speaker 4 (02:26:14):
It gets you.

Speaker 3 (02:26:17):
Upgrades, like a decent chance of being upgraded if you're
not already in a first class seat.

Speaker 4 (02:26:23):
It gets you.

Speaker 3 (02:26:26):
I think it's six times the miles on every flight,
which is it's like, it's like, I think it's a
six x booster.

Speaker 7 (02:26:32):
Second, you already have all the miles. You don't need
a six x booster. If you have all the miles, it.

Speaker 4 (02:26:36):
Might be over. It might be like four x or something.
But it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (02:26:39):
Are you.

Speaker 7 (02:26:40):
Are you one of the patrons that when you're on
a flight they come thank you for your service.

Speaker 4 (02:26:45):
No, that's that's the the next one up. It's like
Delta three sixty.

Speaker 7 (02:26:49):
Okay, that happened. It's not to me because I think
I'm lowly gold. I'm basically homeless at this point. But
I was sitting next to somebody on the way back
from Orange County and you could tell that he was
bummed that he wasn't in first class. That was my
first sign. And then right after we take off and
we're you know, we're flattened out. Everyone could take the

(02:27:09):
seatbelt off, the head stewardess or whatever they call them
these days, Sorry if it's wrong, flight attendant, flight attendant,
thank you. I know the generation behind us is a
bunch of walking hr ladies at all time.

Speaker 4 (02:27:21):
So yeah, to beel careful. So here come the angry text.

Speaker 7 (02:27:24):
Now, Yeah, indeed, so they came and they just said, hello,
mister Jones or whatever. We just wanted to thank you
for being whatever you are. And he was so mad.
He wasn't in first class. He just barely even acknowledged her.
You could tell he's one of those guys.

Speaker 4 (02:27:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:27:38):
So Delta has this Delta three sixty members, right, yeah, yeah,
And there's no like stated public way of earning that status.
You know, if you want to be gold, platinum, diamond, whatever,
they tell you how to do it. Yes, you have
to spend this much money, you have to fly this
many times, you have to do some combination of those

(02:28:00):
those things.

Speaker 4 (02:28:01):
Delta three sixty is this enigmatic. They just invite you,
they offer you.

Speaker 3 (02:28:06):
If you've flown a lot, if you're like the travel
booker for a major corporation, they're probably gonna make you
Delta three sixty. No one knows the exact criteria, and
that's what makes it exciting.

Speaker 7 (02:28:17):
So do you feel like you're inching closer and nowhere
near it? I know that nowhere near it even with
all the international travel.

Speaker 4 (02:28:23):
Yeah, it's just it's like for it's for like the
big time travel people.

Speaker 7 (02:28:28):
So, but I would imagine as platinum, you're like front
of the line to get the sky Diamond excuse me,
Diamond is above platinum. Yes, so Diamond you're like front
of the line every sky club. Because at this point,
the last three or four times I've been to the
this were so relatable.

Speaker 4 (02:28:44):
The people are loving us.

Speaker 7 (02:28:46):
The past three or four times I've been to the
airport in saw Lake, there's been a line that's too
long to get in the sky club for lowly gold
members and the pretentious diamond and platinum, they just walk
right to the front. You're harsh in my mellow, now, Sean.

Speaker 4 (02:28:59):
I don't do that. I will have you know.

Speaker 3 (02:29:01):
I don't want to be in a crowded sky club.
So I've become so haughty now as a traveler that like,
if there's a line out the door for the lounge,
I don't want to be there, So I don't want
to go and wait in line.

Speaker 4 (02:29:16):
Correct, what do you do? What do you do instead?
And I sit down?

Speaker 7 (02:29:19):
You just sit down by the gate the gate you
hang out. Okay, all right, well, congratulations on your status.
It's very very very excited.

Speaker 4 (02:29:26):
That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about today,
anything else on your mind while I'm here?

Speaker 3 (02:29:29):
I no, I mean, n Nico finally fired in Dallas,
and we were talking about it for twenty minutes on
the show today.

Speaker 4 (02:29:37):
It's such a.

Speaker 3 (02:29:39):
Nine months removed from the disastrous trade, and now the
fall guy is the official fall guy, and we're going
to have, you know, the post mortems and the evaluation
of how and why and all this stuff happened. And
I just you look at it again, and obviously it
hasn't worked out for the Mavericks. We never thought it
was going to work out for the Mavericks better than

(02:30:00):
was going to work for the Lakers, right, And now
I'm looking at him, Nico Harrison.

Speaker 4 (02:30:06):
Destroyed his career to make this trade. Yeah, he blew
it up. Yeah he did.

Speaker 7 (02:30:10):
No one's going to hire him, Yeah, and for a
position of this importance. Yeah, and you know he honestly
wasn't qualified for that position, all right. Uh. In my opinion,
I mean, I think owners should always look at basketball
people to run basketball ops.

Speaker 4 (02:30:23):
He was more of a marketing guy with a background.

Speaker 7 (02:30:25):
He was hired for his relationships basically, and one of
his relationships was with Anthony Davis right, and so you know,
there are several things that were so out of bounds
with that transaction. Uh, Lucas in his mid twenties, and
he is a franchise change. He's one of four or
five guys that changes the landscape in the league as

(02:30:46):
soon as he moves and you reset the Los Angeles
Lakers time timeframe, which also sucks. You know when it
comes like Lebron's more or less done, like when he's healthy,
he's still someone that can make a difference, but he's
not the guy that's going to change things the way
he used to be.

Speaker 4 (02:31:01):
But Luca is that guy.

Speaker 7 (02:31:03):
And Luca is so similar to Lebron, like in his
mid twenties, the way Lebron played is a lot like Lucas.
So it's a perfect situation for the Lakers, and Nico
simply relied on his relationship with Anthony Davis, and he
talked about defense, like if you watch NBA basketball more
nights than not, there are very few teams that actually
guard every night, you've got a guard come postseason time.

(02:31:24):
But Luca carried them to the Finals on his back,
like you don't and for all the things like, oh,
he may have been out of shape. I don't care
if he was freebasing crack, Like, you don't make that transaction.
It's the dumb It was the dumbest thing, and the
clock was ticking Sean that day. I'm actually surprised he
took as long as it did.

Speaker 3 (02:31:42):
Well, yeah, it was it, and you know, we'll find
out the nitty gritty details of it, but whether you
know ownership really was just like, yeah, I don't want
to pay super max to a kid who's out of
shape or whatever. That's also malpractice, but you can't fire
the owner. I'm fascinated by the emotional stories in sports
because they're so rare now in professional sports. Luca crying

(02:32:05):
when he left Dallas matters to me because that guy's
life is set. Yeah, he's going to LA he's going
to play with Lebron right, and they extended Maxi money.
He's gonna be a cornerstone of a Lakers franchise, one
of the iconic franchises in all of American sports. That's
cause to celebrate, that's caused to rejoice, and instead he

(02:32:27):
was sad, Yeah that you traded him away.

Speaker 4 (02:32:29):
Yeah I look at that.

Speaker 3 (02:32:30):
I'm just like, well, that's if there's a guy who
loved being there that much and you got rid of him.

Speaker 4 (02:32:35):
Yeah, you're the biggest moron I've ever seen it.

Speaker 7 (02:32:38):
It is potentially the demonstrat in NBA history, and with
what they had around him, and they didn't know they
were gonna luck into number one overall. Pick I mean
to have Cooper flag next to Luka Doncics, you are
legitimately a contender in the West for a decade if
you just keep those two together and surrounded with good pieces.

Speaker 4 (02:32:55):
It's I mean, it was so boneheaded on so many levels.
You reset the Laker and it's such a risk.

Speaker 7 (02:33:01):
And look, I can remember a lot of people saying, like,
no team trades a superstar in their mid twenties.

Speaker 4 (02:33:06):
I'm like the Jazz did every night I watched.

Speaker 7 (02:33:10):
When I watch Donovan Mitchell every night, I'm like watching
an ex girlfriend, the one that got away. Like it
bums me out. He's so good and he continues to
get so much better. He's not Luca, But yeah, the
clock was ticking after that transaction was made. I'll say
it for the third time, I hate that you reset
the Lakers timeframe. Rob Polinka got Executive of the Year
all he did was answer his cell phone.

Speaker 4 (02:33:33):
All he did was decide to pick up the phone
and I guarantee sorry, what you want to trade?

Speaker 5 (02:33:38):
Who?

Speaker 7 (02:33:39):
Yeah, he probably put his phone on mute. He's like, dude,
get in here right now. Nico Harrison just offered me
Luka doncic. I don't care what you're asking for in return.
You do that transaction and then they give Polinka like
executly the year like he did anything.

Speaker 3 (02:33:52):
You're just giggling with joy after the trade. Yep, Like
this guy Trader was an idiot. You probably feel kind
of bad. Yeah, Like when you were older kid and
you would ask the little kid at lunch, like, hey,
can I have a bite of your pizza?

Speaker 4 (02:34:03):
And then you eat the whole slice? You bully, you
did that.

Speaker 1 (02:34:09):
You know what.

Speaker 4 (02:34:10):
I've confessed this on the on the show before. I
was such an arrogant little you know what.

Speaker 3 (02:34:16):
When I was in seventh grade, okay, seventh grade, Eastmont
Middle School, shout out to the Patriot, shot out. We
had the pizza line. I never wanted to wait in
the pizza line, and there was like he was literally
the coolest kid in the school.

Speaker 4 (02:34:29):
Ninth grader Okay, Morgan Sharp.

Speaker 7 (02:34:32):
Shout out to you sharp, I would say, hey, can
I have a bite of your pizza?

Speaker 3 (02:34:36):
Seventh grade me would fold his slice of pizza in
half and bite like half of it.

Speaker 4 (02:34:41):
To the ninth grade or the ninth grader, you were
obviously much bigger than he was. No, I wasn't. He
could have killed me. What a coward. Shout out to
Morgan for being the nicest human being on earth.

Speaker 1 (02:34:51):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (02:34:51):
I still when I remember that, I still cringe at
what a little jerk I was.

Speaker 7 (02:34:55):
Yeah, we all do that though this Mont's I mean,
I was a very humble, well behaved teenager with no
hubris or arrogance at all, just like.

Speaker 3 (02:35:04):
I'm still obnoxiously arrogant in my forties. Uh huh, And
I have calmed down at least ninety percent.

Speaker 7 (02:35:11):
Well, I'm just glad I've maintained my humble approach to life,
and you know, my job day to day. So you know,
I guess what's the What do the kids say, not
like us? You know, we're not We're not alike. It's
all right, Chun's fair?

Speaker 4 (02:35:24):
Anything else? Are we good? We got the delta status
out of the way, did a little Nico.

Speaker 3 (02:35:29):
I I'm gonna go, like Brian Kelly, I'm going to
go re examine every time I've been fired, Yeah, and
see if I was actually fired.

Speaker 7 (02:35:37):
Can I just say the email he that was released,
that he sent the language in was like due to
your decision of letting me go, Like it was very
clear that he was trying to make it very clear
that this.

Speaker 4 (02:35:47):
Was on them.

Speaker 7 (02:35:48):
I feel like this is going to end on his
side by the way, I feel like he's gonna get
paid if LSU somehow wins this. Yeah, best lawyers in history.

Speaker 1 (02:35:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:35:56):
One more thing about the out of shape thing.

Speaker 7 (02:35:58):
Have you ever watched the Nuggets play Nicole Jokic looks
like his his diet is donuts and diet coke and
he can barely get up and down the floor and
he's the best player on the planet.

Speaker 4 (02:36:06):
Yeah, it's the Luca thing. Just pisses me off. Anyway, Sean,
good to see you, buddy. Well, hopefully we've effectively stirred
up Spence check. It should be a fun drive.

Speaker 3 (02:36:15):
Stay tuned ESPN seven hundred ninety two on FM, proud
part of Utah's ESPN Radio network.