Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 11-12-25 - ESPN 700 & 92.1 FM | Utah's #1 Sports Talk

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
He's the Sean O'Connell Show, brought to you by Big
Willies on Utah's number one sports talk and HOMA b
ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one af AM, a
proud part of Utah's ESPN Radio network.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Heavy hump Day, everybody, Welcome to the Shot.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred to ninety two one FM.
Our show today and every day, brought to you by
our friends over at Big Willies, Utah's Sports Bar at
seventeen seventeen South Maine. They've got food specials, drink specials,
cold beers on drafts, soft drinks. If you don't imbibe
you're a teetotaler like me, pool tables and TVs for

(00:49):
all of your sports consumption. Stop by at seventeen seventeen
South Main Telemosse sent you They're gonna hook you up.
We're lucky enough today to be joined right off the
top of the show right now by Alex Jensen, head
coach Utah men's basketball, undefeated at three and zero so

(01:09):
far on the season.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Coach Jensen, welcome again to the show.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
How are you.

Speaker 5 (01:14):
I'm doing good, Sean, How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm doing all right, glad to start off the top
with you and and dive in a little bit to
what has been so far a successful start to your season.
I'll probably ask you this question every time in some
form when we talk. But it's only been three games.
But what do you know through three games about your
team that you didn't know before you had played live competition?

Speaker 5 (01:42):
Great question, you know, and my answer will probably change
every time I get asked. But no, I think, you know,
with having a whole new staff and a pretty much
almost a whole well, yeah, a whole new roster, like
it takes time, continuities a great thing to have, but
I think just guys get more comfortable playing with each other.

(02:04):
I think the thing that I had a better feel
for is, you know, the roles, the roles that our
guys will have on our team and the role definition
that they have and with each other.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
How much will those roles evolved?

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Do you think from you know now conference play, Injuries
will come in to play at some point for yourself
and for other teams, and things like that. You know,
I imagine that it's it's best to get some level
of continuity. But this is a living, breathing organism, your roster,
So how much do you anticipate those roles kind of

(02:40):
evolving and changing as the season progresses.

Speaker 5 (02:44):
You know they already have. You know, you mentioned injuries.
We lost Baba kar Fey, one of our better players
before the season started for the year. So then all
of a sudden those roles changed. And then you know,
James at Konko another fifth year scene. You're a big
man that we have. You had to sit out the
first three games, so so now now he'll be back

(03:07):
in the next game. So the roles will evolve. So
I guess you just try to build a foundation of
regardless of who we have on the court. It's kind
of more of like I guess you could call it
an identity of the team. You know, things that don't
change no matter who's playing or who you're playing with.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
We have not had an opportunity to speak to you
since the overtime game, a win against Weaver State, and
you know, there's there's positives and negatives when you go
into overtime. There's positives and negatives when you get a
scare from a team that you should outmatch physically and
things like that. What was the conversation like with your
squad after a really tough one against the Wildcats and

(03:47):
didn't state opponent, you know what, first.

Speaker 5 (03:51):
And far foremost like, we didn't stop and you know,
we didn't stop playing, We didn't give up, found a
way to win. And I give you know, Eric and
coach stuffed and we were stayed a lot of credit
because you know, I warned our guys, this is going
to be a big game for them, and uh yeah,
I think, you know, as a learning process, like I said,

(04:12):
very fortunate to win. There's a lot of lessons. Like
you know, I think the biggest one is, you know,
the season short, the game is short, and every possession matters,
and you can't you know, the time's too valuable to
get better as a team. And and and just you know,
and again the message I'm trying to set to our

(04:33):
guys is it's not about you individually, it's about the team.
And you might have a game where you know, you
score a lot of points, and then the next game
at that night that might not be what we need
from you. So yeah, no disappointing at times, but a
lot of things they'll learn of and fortunate enough to
beat them to beat Weaver at home.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
And over time you came back and and you kind
of put it on Holy Cross, which of course is expected.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
They're not on the same level as you are.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
But what what was the I guess the highlight are
the best thing you saw when you evaluated the film
of that game from your squad. Eighty seven to sixty
nine was the final there as you know.

Speaker 5 (05:11):
You know, I think I think it was probably our
best game that we put together. And I think the
good thing was I think they got they got it
to nine. You know, we had, you know, just like
a young team or a new team like and we
got up like twelve or fifteen sometimes and then we
took some early bad shots, but I think we uh,
we didn't let him back into the game and kind

(05:33):
of those things I mentioned we kept. We did a
good and you know what, that was our best rebounding game.
You know, regardless of the opponent, we we from the
get go we won the rebounding battle. So no, that
was encouraging because the first two games we came in
at halftime where San Jose State and we were shaded.
Both killed us on the boards. So that was a

(05:54):
big emphasis. And you know, like say tre or I
did a good job where he had ended I think
with eight or nine rebounds, and they took it to
heart and and uh, yeah, that's what that was really good.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
I was going to ask you about rebounding, because well,
when a lot of people think of Alex Jensen the player,
they think of like the the sort of effort, the
nitty gritty, like I'm willing to do some of the
stuff that that we consider to be kind of want
to type plays. And I imagine that's something that that
you hope will permeate the culture of Utah basketball and

(06:27):
every basketball coach we talked to it's like you could
control your effort on rebounding. Yes, there's technique to it,
but a lot of times rebounds are are kind of
an effort and a want to sort of proposition.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Uh, how do you instill that? How do you practice that?

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Because you know it's a it's one of the I
guess the the harder to pin down things for the
average basketball fan.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
Oh yeah, no, rebounding. You're exactly right. Rebounding it's something
anybody can do and there's not necessarily a technique it
it's just a mindset that I'm going to rebound every time.
And I tell my guys, yeah, anybody can do that,
regardless of you know, you might not get as many
if you're smaller, can't jump very high. But you know,

(07:14):
we don't necessarily have any rebounding drills. We just try
to emphasize it in everything we do. And but you're right,
like rebounding is one of those things you know, well,
you'll have games where we won't have the size advantage,
but rebounding is just like it's just a will of
wanting to do it and making it, making it a
priority every time. So in which we again we've gotten

(07:36):
better at and did our best job on Saturday against
holy Cross, and that's going to be our upcoming game
that's going to be more difficult because the team's going
to be a little bit a bit bigger and stronger
in Sam Houston State, So again making that habit and
put an emphas on it and emphasis on it in
everything we do.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Running you Ted Basketball coach Alex Jensen is our guest
here on the Seoan O'Connell show.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
To start off the show.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
As you mentioned, it's it's Sam Houston and and this
whole thing is kind of growing and progressing and we're
learning what what you've got on your roster. What do
you anticipate the role of the three point shot to
be in your offense this year? We've we've seen some
ups and downs already through three games, and obviously the
three has become such a massive thing in the game

(08:23):
of basketball. At every level, you've got to have shooters.
So what what what role is three point shooting gonna
play in your offense?

Speaker 5 (08:34):
You know, I think you have a huge part. I
think the it's it's helping our guys discern there's a
difference between hunting a shot and falling into a shot
through what we what we run offensively, whether it's just
spacing or a play. And I want our guys to be,
you know, confident like when they shoot it. I think
that's the most important thing in shooting, is believing that

(08:55):
you could make it. But you know, but discerning the
difference between you know, uh, no pass possession with a
three off the dribble as opposed to an assisted catch
and shoot three, which is better at any level of basketball.
And you know, and I tell our guys that I

(09:16):
think we have we have a handful. We have a
lot of capable shooters and uh, you know, and I
go back to State Utrela. He was five for seven
the first game against from three against San Jose State,
and he was zero for seven against Weaver, And it
can't be. I think that goes just learning the difference
between hunting hunting those shots and falling into them. And

(09:37):
I tell our guys all the time, you might get
five one game, you might get one one game, depending
on the scout. You just got to be ready to
ready to take it. And again it's a you know,
analytics are a big top part of basketball, and uh,
you know, I think there'll be games and teams we
play we will have more threes than when we won't.
But I think the threes have to be generated by

(09:58):
other things. If that makes sense, to get too much
into the weeds with it.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
We don't mind getting into the weeds, coach.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
You know, we we don't have a lot of opportunity
to pick a brain like yours. So if you want
to get into the weeds at any time on any answer,
feel free to This one is probably not one you
get too far in the weeds with. But uh, look,
attendance matters in college basketball. Atmosphere matters in college basketball,
and it's something that you know, when you were playing
in the glory days, was never in question at the

(10:27):
Huntsman Center, and in recent years it's fallen off a
little bit, but attendance is up from last year. The
MUSS is engaged through the early part of this season,
and I think that's a testament to the optimism surrounding
your roster and your arrival individually.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
How is that?

Speaker 3 (10:46):
How's that sitting with you right now knowing that you
know people are there watching to see what you're doing.

Speaker 5 (10:53):
Well, no, no, it's great. It's great. And I think
you know, the cure for extendance and all that stuff
as you win. You know, I can remember when I
was a freshman in ninety four and McBride football and
they had a hard five doing it now, but like,
it's great to watch what Pyle and his you know,
the people that were before him and with him have done.

(11:15):
Now that's I don't know how many sets, and it's
a great atmosphere and it's awesome, and uh, you know,
we've done it. You know. The Moss has been great.
I think we had three times as many mus remembers
at our home opener and they did a year previously,
and I think winning and then also having the connection
with the community, the students, the boosters, the donors and

(11:36):
everything like that, letting them get to know us. Like
we've done a docu series that's on YouTube where you
know because it's all you know. In college sports, fans
like to cheer for a guy for a couple of years.
And as a coach, I liked that was the fun
part about college when you get a kid, he was young,
and you get him for a couple of years, you
watch him grow and your team becomes better. And I

(11:59):
think just over all with camps, community outreaches and stuff,
and I think just bridging that gap and having that
connection with everybody.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Well, I'm campaigning aggressively on the air that we get
in Alex Jensen throwback uniform Night on the Floor and
in the muss where everyone everyone wears the baggy jerseys,
the baggy T shirt, the baggy shorts and we take
it back to.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
The glory days.

Speaker 5 (12:29):
Yeah, no, I'm all for it. We'll do it. We'll
do anything to get him to get fans in there.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
All right.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
I have to ask you this question because there are
very few people that match up in the venn diagram
having NBA and specifically G League experience, and then also
now are head coaches in college basketball and are ultimately
responsible for recruiting and filling out rosters. It's becoming a
strange trend, in my opinion, strange trend that G League

(12:59):
players are becoming eligible to return to college basketball if
they're within a five year window of high school graduation
and they have not actually signed a real NBA contract.
So they're going from being pro players in the G
League to ostensibly amateur players, although we all know that
college sports are pro sports at least at the highest level. Now,

(13:19):
I wanted your opinion on this. Having coached in the
G League and now being the head coach for your
alma mater, what do you what do you think of
G League guys coming back to college.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
You know, probably probably shouldn't give my opinion, but you know, it's, uh,
it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But again,
I I try not to get you know, it's interesting,
but it it. I think there's a lot, there's a
lot of the gray area right now, and I think

(13:51):
it's evolving. But I think that's kind of just from
when I when I played and coached in college that
that seemed like that was the the opposite of what
college basketball is about. But that's changed, But no, it doesn't.
And again, every every such every specific situation is different.
But yeah, I think common sense would kind of lead

(14:12):
you to think that that doesn't make much sense. What
is the level essentially turned professional then come back?

Speaker 3 (14:21):
But yeah, I mean that's kind of where I met
out on it. But I've never been as close to
these things as you have. What is the level of
a G League only player versus a big time division one,
you know, power for conference type player, Like how obviously
it's individual based on you know, talent, skills, size, all

(14:43):
those things, but in general, what is the level of
your G league player can't quite make it to that
NBA roster compared to a college player.

Speaker 5 (14:53):
You know, it's interesting because it you know, because the
NBA itself is big. It's the difference is just everybody's
so much bigger, longer, faster, right, It's physically a different
you know, in the D League they always say you
got to have a skill to fit on a team.
Like the skill could be rebounding we talked about earlier.

(15:14):
Everybody needs a true point guard. There's not a lot
of true point guards left. You know, It's interesting because
when I was in the D League before the G League,
there wasn't as many teams now, and that not every
NBA team I think approaches the G League situation that
the best the best possible way. But I think it's

(15:36):
like I try to tell our guys, like, if you
want to play professionally anywhere, you have to have a skill.
You got to be able to fit in with with
four other guys, like in if your dreams the NBA.
Most NBA teams, they don't need a guy that's going
to shoot twenty times a game, right, They're going to
need somebody that can play along an All Star or
a MAX level player that can defend and do a

(15:59):
lot of the little things. But I think if the
lines are kind of blurred between you know, a g
LE level player and uh, you know, a high major
college player, you know, and because I think it's kind
of been watered down some if that makes sense, But
I think, uh, I think that you know, I think

(16:19):
the top players in the in the in the G
League are the legitimate borderline NBA players who and you know,
here's another thing. The games are. I mean, I've learned
a lot of the game is so much different. The
rules are different. There's guys that skill sets are their
game fits college, but that doesn't translate to the pros, right.
You see it every year in the draft. But uh,

(16:40):
you know, it's hard to say. I think I think
that's pretty equal. But it's kind of like a you know,
player by player. I mean that's what people like front
offices in the NBA get pad the money to make
the right choice on which kid can make that transition.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
All right, before I let you go on, I don't
want to belabor this point too much, but do you
do you think that most college coaches kind of see
it this the way that you see it? Or is
this one of those trends where like there was a
time when in you know, basketball and football, we were like, hey,
let's not pay these guys. This is like, look, we're
opening the can of worms here, and now everyone's just
accepted it as a reality. Is this is this something

(17:18):
we're all just gonna have to get used to.

Speaker 5 (17:21):
Yeah, you know, I think it's gonna get used to.
I think you know the thing I would say, and
I think you hear a lot of veteran coaches say like,
like there's more questions than answers now, like it'd be
nice to uh put a few more guardrails in and
uh because like you know what's legal, what's not, what's accepted,
what's not. Like one player play in the D League

(17:43):
can come back and have four years of eligibility, another
one can have one or two years, like like just
to uh kind of make it uniform across. But yeah,
I think the money here to stay. We've got to
get used to it. But I think there's a path forward,
but we just need some more more rules and regulations
around it, which might take longer than any of us

(18:05):
would probably like or hope.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Well, coach, can't tell you how much I appreciate you
giving us some time. I know you're incredibly busy. Congrats
on the hot start, and let's stay hot against Sam
Houston coming up on what's that Friday Saturday?

Speaker 5 (18:19):
Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Anytime, Alex Jensen, head coach of your running Newts, it'll
be Sam Houston seven pm. Tip that'll be on ESPN
Plus or better yet up at the Huntsman Center Live
if you want to hear more of Alex Jensen. The
Coaches Show is tonight right here on ESPN seven hundred
and ninety Twoe FM at six o'clock. Really appreciate coach

(18:43):
giving us a few minutes right in the thick of
his schedule. And look, I asked that question about G
League players coming back to the college basketball Abdullah Ahmed
get used to that name. B Yu just signed a
guy or is I should say, just got a commitment

(19:05):
from a guy who has been in the G League
Alex Jensen. I'll tell you something. We are not going
to clip that. Hey, this doesn't make a lot of
sense and replay it over and over and over again
because two, three, five years from now, Alex Jensen is
probably gonna have to be recruiting a guy like this

(19:25):
every now and again as well. It's such a strange
thing in college basketball. Anyway, Big thanks to coach for
joining us right off the top. Bethle Neer, the head
volleyball coach, is also going to join us once that happening.
James ten minutes from now, Oh man, I am gonna
have a hard time staying on clock today.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Spoiler alert. Bethle Neer in about ten minutes.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
We've got Trevor Riley set up to come in or
to join us on the phones one of the two
and then between the pipes with Adrian Denny as the
Utah Mammoth. They've gone a little bit cold, Ladies and gentlemen,
the Utah Mammoth looking to get back to their winning ways.
Hopefully they can make it happen tonight on home ice
against the Buffalo Sabers.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
We'll get to all of that on the show.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
And of course most of you were probably tuning in
hearing me or getting ready to hear me rant about
the college football playoff rankings. I will say what I
said last week. The Committee has sent a message clearly
and again that they like the Big Twelve Football Conference

(20:30):
at least enough that you should have a glimmer of hope,
you should have a spark of wish and optimism that
Utah football if they take care of business, if they
go and they beat Baylor, and then they beat Kansas State,
who just yesterday somebody they lost their leading tackler for

(20:51):
the rest of the year Kansas State, Kansas State's best
defensive player is out for the rest of the year.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
So that's gonna be tough for them to replace.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Then if you can finish out strong against Kansas, and
if you can do so in dominant fashion, maybe, just maybe,
now there has to be some things that happen in
front of you. But let's say, let's be realistic here,
the most likely scenario is that some things are going
to happen in front of you.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
The most recent.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
College football playoff rankings that were revealed last night, that
were released last night after our show was long done,
of course, has BYU down at twelve, right ahead of Utah,
and I think that's where the Kuges belonged because they
did win the head to head and they're only a
one loss team so far this year. The committee elevated
Texas Tech to six, and I think that is actually

(21:38):
important because Oregon won will miss one and still Texas
Tech was able to leap frog. Now, Notre Dame has
a really tough out this weekend with Pitt. I think
Notre Dame should win that game, which you probably if

(22:01):
you're hoping for an at large type situation for the
University of Utah to be a possibility, you probably want
to root for the Pitt Panthers. That would clear things
up a little bit. That's in Pittsburgh, by the way,
so that makes it a little bit harder. But I'm
with you. I would expect an Irish win in that one.
That's definitely. This is definitely the week if you're a

(22:23):
Utes fan or a BYU fan to be rooting for
the Panthers in that game. Also, I mean, you probably
can get to this. But Oklahoma has a tough game
this week. Oklahoma's got a crazy tough game this week.
Texas has a tough game this week. Is Texas Georgia.
This week Texas has or is that they have a
buye this week Texas Texas Georgia. Yeah, so Texas is

(22:47):
this week is Saturday, and then they've got Arkansas and
then they've got Texas A and M. The Longhorns are
either going to be at the end of this year,
they're either going to be the number six ranked team
in the country or they're gonna be completely out of
the conversation.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
They're gonna be close.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
They might be closer to twenty than they are to
ten if they lose. If they lose to Georgia and
the Texas A and M, they're gonna be the twenty
second ranked team, and you don't have to worry about Texas,
and that's what you should be rooting for.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
That's what you want.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
If you're if you are a BYU fan driving around
right now, you are now anti Sark.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
You used to love him, Now you hate him.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
You want Steve Sarkisian to be terrible the rest of
the way. And if you're a Utah fan, you still
hate Sark. If you're a Utah fan, you want you
want to. It's it's a weird place to be. But
you're like, you know who I love right now? I
love Texas A and M. I love Alabama, I love Georgia,
I love Texas Tech to win out. You're you're rooting

(23:44):
for all of these like big brands that are kind
of the antithesis of your little engine that could.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
We've carved our own way.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
We've made ourselves into a nationally respected program in modern
football through the sweat of our brow and the blood,
sweat and tears of all of these young men like Alabama,
Texas A and M, Georgia, Ohio State, these silver spoon teams.
You have to be fans of them right now. Indiana,

(24:13):
Indiana is they're so far ahead and They've got Wisconsin
and Purdue. Indiana is gonna finish undefeated. Ladies and gentlemen,
They're gonna finish the regular season undefeated at twelve and Oho,
you just jinxed it Indiana the Hoosiers, by the way,
not this week, but in two weeks Oregon plays USC

(24:38):
so talk about another weird one rooting usc SO. But like,
I think that this the schedule for the team's pretty
immediately ahead of Utah and BYU because both teams need
to be need to be thinking about a way to
get in as an at large, right, not Utah.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
The schedule for the teams ahead.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
You got, Oregon plays usc We talked about Texas's schedule,
Oklahoma Alabama this week, pit Notre Dame this week. It
sets up pretty well, Like you gotta be feeling pretty
optimistic now. Of course, you got your first and foremost
your favorite team's gotta take care of business. They gotta
They gotta finish this season unbeaten the last two or

(25:25):
three games, depending on which team. But there's some probable,
if not very likely losses on the teams ahead of
you schedule, and in the case of Oklahoma and Texas,
you probably only need one more loss from both of
those guys, because I don't think you can put her
three loss teams ahead to anticipate a three loss even

(25:46):
SEC team, even big brand team, if Utah finishes out undefeated.
And by the way, there's the prospect of Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt
has a resume builder left on. Like if Tennessee the
final game of the season for Vanderbilt on the road
ends up being a win for the Commodores, sucks. I

(26:07):
don't know that they would leap frog, but it's a possibility,
right And you certainly if you're Vanderbilt and you finished
with two losses and Oklahoma and or Texas has won
as three losses, like you can't the committee and the
rest of the SEC is not going to be like
what Vanderbilt has done this year doesn't matter because we

(26:29):
want Texas and Oklahoma and they're gonna say, no, good job, Vandy.
You've just given the SEC another team, another brand that's
Vanderbilt right now is on the precipice of being what
like a baby Oregon, a baby who's a new blood,

(26:50):
not a blue blood, but a new blood Vanderbilt. We're
watching it in real time. We're watching this thing where
there was a year. I think it was the Joey
Harrington year where Oregon inserted its into the national consciousness
and has not left since, even when they've had kind
of down years, they have not left the conversation since.
But we watched that happen in real time. We remember

(27:11):
when it happened for Oregon, and Vandy has that opportunity
right now. They have that opportunity this year. There's actually
not that many you could say Utah was one of
those teams. The Fiestaval year was probably the year that
the rest of the country was finding like huh Utah
And then to be honest, Utah probably did exit the

(27:34):
national consciousness a couple of times in the early PAC
twelve years and surged back into it and now is
a perennial Top twenty five team with rare exception and
has talked about in the know in the circles that
matter as one of those teams BYU was the Lavelle
Edwards years put BYU into the national consciousness. It doesn't

(27:57):
happen as often as you think where a program has
this upward mobility, has this moment, has this inflection point
where we actually get to say Oh wait a second,
they're becoming something right now. We saw it happen with
Boise State. But they've never had the conference affiliation, they've
never had the market size, they never had the television
sets in order to stay really in that spot. Vanderbilt

(28:21):
has that potential. Vander built the former punchline of the
SEC is right now three wins away from being permanently
in the national spotlight because the SEC money. Once you
have success, it's going to breed more success for you.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
That is bananas.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
We remember a lot of times when teams have fallen out,
but you can only come up with a few examples
of when people have kind of pulled up.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
They've they've showed up.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Wearing a funny outfit and they pulled out that chair
at the big boy table and they're like, I'm sitting here.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
Now, who are you?

Speaker 3 (29:00):
You're vander Why is your mascot the Commodoores? You're not
exactly a nautical type city. Why is Nashville, Tennessee a
Commodore mascot? And you gotta well, let me explain it
to you. I'm now here, Hey, what is a ute?
Remember when that happened? You pulled your chair out and

(29:21):
you sidled up to the table and you bellied up
and he said I'm here now. Guys, and the Trojans
and the Nitney Lions and the Ohio State buck guys
were like, Hey, the hell is a ute?

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Is that my cousin, Vinny?

Speaker 4 (29:34):
What is that? What's a ute?

Speaker 3 (29:36):
And you gotta be like, Yeah, this is this is
what we are, this is who we are, this is
what our brand is. Vanderbilt is this close, and unfortunately
that being this close could come at the expense of
Utah and or BUYU. So right now you have to
as a fan of any of the schools in Utah
that have an opportunity as an at larger potential runner

(29:58):
up or even a conference champion in the Big twelve,
you have to kind of like hate on the other
teams that are more like you, and you have to
root for these blue blood big brand all these guys
are always in there. You have to root for usc
wash that bad taste out of your mouth, yuck. We'll
get more into this as the show progresses. Sean O'Connell

(30:20):
show has brought to you today and every day by
our friends over at Big Willies at seventeen seventeen South
may take a quick one here.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Utah head volleyball coach Beth.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Lanier joins US next on ESPN seven hundred and ninety
two one FM.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
You tune to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one
a half m Sean.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
O'Connell Show continues here on ESPN seven hundred and ninety
two to one f them. We're gonna try and track
down Beth Lanier here first to temp done successful, but
we'll keep trying. The college football playoff rankings are out
again and BYU twelve Utah thirteen, I think of minor importance.

(31:14):
Cincinnati is also back in the rankings, their number twenty five,
adding a fourth Big twelve team to the top twenty
five in the college football rankings. That I say that
matters because if Cincinnati can continue to do good things,
their remaining schedule is Arizona, and Arizona is sneaky problematic.

(31:36):
By the way, Brent Brennan is a good coach who
had the growing pains of being a first year head
coach at the new spot last year. Big roster turnover
last year Arizona is already Bowl eligible, is already kind
of like projecting above where people thought they were going
to be. They were one of the teams one of

(31:58):
what it was like UCF, Arizona and Houston that we're
sharing the bottom projections of the Big Twelve conference in
the preseason. Houston and Arizona have really outperformed those. So
Arizona is a tougher than you probably give it credit
for out for Cincinnati, as we've talked about plenty, They've

(32:21):
got BYU at home, second to last week of the
season and then they go on the road to TCU.
Now why does this matter for Utah? Well, if Cincinnati
ends up beating Arizona, who is at least a winning
team this year, If they end up finding a way
to beat BYU, now we're talking about possibilities for a

(32:45):
conference championship appearance for the University of Utah. And if
they beat TCU on the road, now we're talking about
Cincinnati sitting at what like anywhere from eighteen to twenty
two in the College Football Playoff rankings, And that's a
bigger win for the University of Utah. That's another resume builder,

(33:06):
that's a hey, they demolished. It didn't just beat Cincinnati.
They took Cincinnati out behind the woodshed and smacked him around,
and then they let him go, and Cincinnati came out
with tears streaming down its face. And then Utah said, actually, wait,
you know what, I want to make sure you remember
this and grabbed them by their little Cincinnati bearcat wrists

(33:27):
and pulled them behind the woodshed again and then smacked
them a few more times. So if that ends up
being a top twenty five team when it's all said
and done, that's a much more impressive win for the
University of Utah. Now, if you're looking at it from
that lens, you're like, Okay, I want Cincinnati to be successful,
but Cincinnati has a much more important role to play

(33:50):
in Utah's future with that BYU gameken Cincinnati beat BYU,
big question. If you're a BYU fan, obviously you want
the Koogs to go smack Cincinnati and then earn their way.
That would effectively, I think that would eliminate the possibility

(34:10):
of them being leap frogged into the conference championship game,
set up a rematch with Texas Tech, which I don't
think is the best recipe for success for anyone. Right now,
Texas Tech is playing crazy good football. Your only hope
against Texas Tech is if Baron Morton, who's been playing
a little hobbled and missed some games this year, goes

(34:32):
down because they because they don't have Hammond.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Because Hammond is all the way down now.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
And they don't they don't really have a third string quarterback,
which is which is why Baron Morton, far from being healthy,
is playing, because yeah, they're like, uh, here's the thing.
We spent way too much money on all of you guys.
We have zero depth. I mean, rumor out there is
that Hammond Will Hammond, the backup quarterback at Texas Tech,

(35:01):
is making like eight hundred grand as the backup and
like you we saw first hand why you said, really
talented guy. A lot of people just like the Devon
or Bird conversation we had here, I'm sure they had
a conversation like Hammond, you know, Hammond or Morton in Lubbock.

(35:24):
He he, he looks like he's worth that kind of money.
But that really that clearly is hamstring them when their
quarterback death because they have nobody behind them. Like conversely,
Utah at least has Isaac Wilson behind behind.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
Bird and Devan.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
I mean, that's still a proven guy, though, Like it's
wild that a program like Texas Tech that spent that
kind of money is like, yeah, we're good with we
only need two quarterbacks.

Speaker 4 (35:50):
Like, man, well, probably need more than that.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
I mean, I'm sure they have. I'm sure Texas Tech.
I'm actually positive this. I'm very positive that Texas Tech
has like a Loop Atari equivalent on their roster that
we just don't know about, who's a guy who, like
turns out, was an unbelievable high school player that's probably
just a little too short or you know, has a
side arm release or something like that. And so they're like,

(36:14):
I don't know, can we let this guy be our starter?
I'm sure they got something like that. But Texas Tech
schedule also, it's UCF and West Virginia. I mean, Texas
Tech is they're gonna moon walk their way into this
conference championship game and then we will see how it
plays out. But the committee has spoken again and said

(36:36):
Big twelve Conference, you've got three teams firmly in the mix,
and one at least that we think is a top
twenty five caliber. So will be considered a quality win.
If they can make that happen, that's more exciting for
Utah and for BYU than it has any right to be.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
All Right, Sean O'Connell's.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Show here, and Beth Laneer, head volleyball coach from the
University of Utah, is kind enough to join us right
in the thick of a really, really tough scheduling stretch
for Utah volleyball.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Beth Lanier, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 6 (37:08):
How are you, Thank you, Sean. I'm doing well. Yeah,
I'm doing okay. It's you know, the end of a
getting towards the end of the season, and yep, or
in the grind for sure.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
And the grind right now includes TCU, who you already faced,
Baylor top twenty five team who you already faced, and
up next on Friday, the in state rival BYU, who
is a top twenty five team, and then after that Kansas,
who's right now the number thirteen team in the country.
So it is a this is not exactly a friendly

(37:42):
stretch of scheduling. But let's talk about what you learned
against TCU and Baylor, what can your team improve on
and try to get one against BYU.

Speaker 6 (37:54):
Yeah, you know, we we played some goodvolleyball against those
two teams, and then you know, it's kind of been
a little bit of our theme is with with just
a little bit inconsistency this season. So you know, we
started off and played two great sets against TCU, lost

(38:14):
first one twenty six twenty four, won the second one,
and then just weren't able to sustained just kind of
like I said, playing some really good volleyball. And then
Baylor again playing pretty good. They actually had a jump server,
a jump spin attacker, and she caused us a lot
of trouble, probably the best jump jump spin serve we've

(38:37):
seen all season, and so we got a little bit
of trouble with our passings. That's been been quite good
for us all year. So you know, we hit at
a very very high rate. Our efficiency, our offensive efficiency
has gone off significantly in the last few weeks, so
we're really pleased with that. You know, we've we've struggled
at times holding our opponents offense stone and so that's

(39:01):
something that you know, we're certainly going to have to
do against a good YU team.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Coach, when you talk about a jump spin server complicating
some of the passing break it down for me in
more detail, if you don't mind for an uninitiated volleyball expert.

Speaker 6 (39:17):
I knew you were going to ask that question.

Speaker 5 (39:19):
Son.

Speaker 6 (39:20):
You know, from the end line, most people in the
Winnen's collegiate game serve floats a jump floatser, so you know,
we're jumping from the end line and just trying to
make that thing. You know, the ball float kind of
like a knuckleball in baseball. But sometimes you face a

(39:41):
jump spin server and they are basically attacking the ball
from the end line. They are jumping, they're tossing it,
jumping in and it looks just like an attack that
you would see at the front line. So it's got,
you know, just a ton of spin on the ball
and it's attacked just from the in line. So this

(40:02):
this person, this player from Baylor didn't missile didn't miss,
which is it's a higher risk serf and yeah, the
pain it's coming at you a lot faster, a lot harder,
and just a different surf completing.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Does it Does the spin create movement in the air
that affects your attack angle where you're receiving the ball
or is it more the contact with you know, when
you're when you're trying to pass it, that spin creates
like a different angle after the contact.

Speaker 6 (40:31):
Yeah, I mean the flow serve. Honestly, the jump float
serve is statistically the best serve in the women's game collegiately,
just the most effective of getting pusss in trouble. But
the spinster you just don't see it as often in
the wind's game. And so the issue with it is
just coming, you know, at about fifty miles an hour.
It's just coming at a lot higher higher pace than

(40:53):
the float serve. And yeah, sometimes they curve and so
you have to figure out that though. So I think
you're right out. Your spawn son was understanding this.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
Okay, fascinating stuff because obviously I'm not a high level
volleyball player, so I don't I don't know what.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
I don't know what it looks or feels like.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
All right, So what what is B why you best
at as you've you've come off with these two really
tough matchups where your team did some good things. Uh Like,
for example, is B why you have one of these
surfers that's going to attack you a little bit differently
than you used to see?

Speaker 6 (41:27):
Yeah? No, I don't think so that I'm aware of
right now. Again, my assistants are working on our scout
intensively right now, and I've certainly been following and starting
to look at it myself. But you know, I the
thing that by you they have two two very good
left side attackers. They have a you know, phenomenal freshman

(41:50):
Juley Davis who's really you know, been a great addition
to their their team, and Claire Little. So they've got
two big, physical outside hitters. They've got a really nice
middle blocker came favorite first name is Temovar. I think
she's six five and and so yeah, they really nice

(42:14):
right side who's the senior fifth year and she doesn't
make a lot of error. So they've they've got a
nice they've got pieces. But you know, they've also you know,
struggled at times this year. They've had injuries very similar
to us, and so it's it's been a bit of
a tough year. And and interestingly that we're playing each
other two times in the next two weeks at the

(42:36):
end of the season. I'm not exactly sure why the
Big twelve did this schedule uh this way, but it
makes her, you know, an intriguing end of our season,
that's for sure to play you know, arrival right at
the end. So we'll look going forward to a Friday.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Night, the arrival twice in a couple of weeks. Like
you said, there's probably there's probably a lot of people,
like in the football world that were like, hey, I
wish we could do that. You know, you lose one,
you want to get one back. How much how much
does the rivalry aspect play in on the volleyball court,
Like I imagine there's probably some familiarity, like you know, maybe
one of your gals played with one of their gals

(43:13):
in high school or on club volleyball or whatever.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
So how much does the rivalry play in?

Speaker 6 (43:18):
Yeah, a lot. I mean we know their players very well.
They know our players for sure. Some players you know
played together, you know, their head coach of their own
said was my assistant for five years. So there's a
you know, there's there's some familiarity there for sure. You know,
volleyball is a massively momentum sport and so you know,

(43:42):
I think playing at you know, we get to play
them here first and we'll go down there. It's not
easy to play at you know, b y us. You know,
Jim and just as for them, it's not easy to
play here. The fans are into it, you know. I
I love this match. It's you know, and it's always
an exciting match. Last year we played great in it

(44:04):
and we're able to give our fans quite a you know,
awesome match to watch against b YU. But this year
is going to be it's really tougher, and I think
the I think the fans and the volleyball community are
going to show up in force. I hope so, because
it's just exciting. We too good volleyball ragons going at
it that arrival. So, I mean, what more do you

(44:25):
want in a Friday night volleyball match.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
That'll be Friday, seven pm at the Huntsman Center. It's
read out military appreciation So where you read, get out
there to the Huntsman Center, make a little bit of noise,
make it tough on b Yuh got an email with
an announcement. Uh, that's it's from this morning. Uh A big,
a big signing for you and your program. What could

(44:50):
you tell me about the signing of Sutton Harris, the
outside hitter from Kansas.

Speaker 6 (44:55):
Yeah, we're so excited about her. She's a six foot
outside hit her a very explosive athlete. Uh, she's she's
she's a kid that I actually, I really think fans
are gonna fall in love with.

Speaker 4 (45:09):
She.

Speaker 6 (45:09):
She's a three sport athlete. She comes from a very
very small town in Kansas. She she excels at you know,
different sports, and she she's just a great, great athlete.
And you know, she she has a lot of kills
in state of Kansas and you know, rinks right up
there as one of the top kill getters, you know,

(45:31):
in her career. So yeah, well she's going to come
in January so she can graduate early. And I think
we've discussed that maybe on the show. You know, that's
kind of a thing now and it's really big benefit
to for high school kids to get here in the
spring and have that training with us. So yeah, we're
excited to announce it and we'll get her here in January.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Sudden appears to be one of these people that if
you don't know her, you probably hate her because of
the resume. It's one of those folks is just good
at everything. First Team All League, All State, All Tournament,
All America, Honorable mention, and on top of that, honor
roll ninth, the twelfth grade valedictorian and first team academic

(46:13):
honors from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty five. So
just for all of you underachievers out there, one of
those people that you look at and say, how is
that possible?

Speaker 1 (46:22):
You know?

Speaker 6 (46:23):
She she certainly? I believe it's you know, the standard
for what we try to recruit to the uch A
volleyball program. You know, great athlete, great student, Sorry I'm
sent in the Hunston Center, and just a high quality person,

(46:44):
high quality family, and so yeah, she fits you know
what we look for in our recruits. And yeah, con
be more excited about it.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
Well, coach, continue to bring in the town, continue to
coach them up. Good luck against BYU and then Kansas
and the rest of the home stretch here and we'll
have you on again soon.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
I always really do appreciate you. Let me pick your
brain a little.

Speaker 6 (47:07):
Yeah, you got next. So yeah, we have we have
by U, We have Kansas next Wednesday, then we have
Arizona on Friday, and that will be our last home
match and that will be senior night, so oh fans
will also come out to that match and celebrate our
great seniors. But yeah, Friday night, seven o'clock Constance Center.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Come on out, eat fans where you're red and cheer
on Bethleneer and her squad.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Thanks again, coach, Thanks son.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Bethleneer, head volleyball coach at the University of Utah. And yes,
they did just sign this this big time outside hitter
talent from the state of Kansas.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
If you are an.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
All American caliber athletes and you're the valedictorian of your school,
you are on a different plane. Congratulations to this young
woman and her parents for making that happen. That's that's
really something I'm just I'm just off topic from that.
I'm just curious if you now know, if you're now

(48:04):
very confident to try the spinning jump serve that she's
talking about after she broke it down feet. I will
say this, James Peterson, I'm not a high level volleyball player,
but Eastmott Middle School gave out awards at the end
of the year when you were in ninth grade. Okay,
I was the volleyball MVP.

Speaker 4 (48:25):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Now, we played I think for like a four week
unit of volleyball at gym in gym class, and I
got They were probably just like ah, he's not good
at basketball. He wasn't the best football skills competent. He
wasn't the best when we did that the track and
field thing. We didn't wrestle, But even if we did,

(48:46):
I wouldn't have been number one because my best friend
was an All American wrestler. So they're probably just like
a volleyball give him the volleyball award.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
So you know, so you're.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Gonna you're gonna have this spin. I'm waiting to hear
what happens when you add these spinning jump serve to
your repertoire. But isn't that fascinating right when you're when
you hear a coach talking about like eighty percent plus
of the women serve the ball the same way, and
then you go up against one person who's just like, no,
uh huh, I am hammering this thing across the court

(49:20):
at fifty plus miles an hour.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
It would be like whoa, Okay, calm down, lady.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
It's interesting, she she compared, and I and watching watching
a little bit, not a ton of volleyball, but having
seen a little bit of volleyball.

Speaker 4 (49:38):
Recently.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
It's it's true that the the regular jump serve is
more that the floating jump serve is more like the knuckleball.
But if you it sounds like this spinning one is
like the knuckleball in its rarity right where it's like, oh,
we have to completely we have to completely adjust to
something brand new here for this one player. For everyone else,

(50:02):
it's it's more like something else, more like the one
hundred mile an hour fastball in baseball. Crazy uh check
ab out Friday nights at the Huntsman Center. It'll be
Utah Volleyball hosting your reviled BYU Cougars team. It's four
ranked squads in a row. They're smackedab in the middle

(50:25):
of that one, and then a break. And when I
say a break, it's just a match against an unranked squad.
And then it's b yu again. So good luck to
bethly Near and her squad. Hot launches next will make
it a quick one. On The Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN
seven hundred ninety TWOFM.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Listening to a Sean O'Connell show for the Murdoch Hunting
Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one half m.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Ooh, I love a good re rank, I love rankings.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
I love a better, even better re rank because he
had more information. ESPN put out the re rank of
the Power four quarterbacks after what they say are two
months of the twenty twenty five season.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Feels like it's been longer than two months.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
But two plus months, it wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
It's the number twelve?

Speaker 3 (51:18):
Yeah, isn't it three months we started? Well, no, never mind,
it's like two in Yeah, never mind, I go, we're
both wrong out. I got my got my my numbers
on the months wrong there. Yeah, all right, hot lunch
and a re rank of the quarterbacks. James Peterson's very

(51:41):
excited to report that Julian Sayan comes in number one
the Ohio State quarterbacks. I mean, obviously he started as
ranked number eleven and now he's number one.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
I mean arch.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Manning, I'm sure it was number one in the firstety
one pass yards, fifty six rushing yards, twenty four total tds.
Haines King Georgia Tech number two. Really, he was number
twenty nine in the original rank. He's got eighteen and

(52:14):
eighty eight passing yards, seven hundred and eighty seven rushing yards,
and twenty three total touchdowns. Overrated the eventual The eventual
Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza is number three. Come on, no,
Mendoz's probably winning. He's had that Heisman moment with the comeback.

(52:36):
Oh my gosh, that the the toe tap against Penn
State one of the best catches you're ever going to see.
It looked like we didn't we didn't do a good
job talking about this on Monday, because, first of all,
you probably should not have been in the situation where
you needed a two minute drive to to come back

(52:59):
and win to stay undefeated. But Fernanda Mendoza, and more importantly,
the young man who pulled off the toe tap, it
was even in slow motion, even in like freeze frame. Oh,
not gonna get the foot down, not gonna get the
foot down, Not gonna get the foot down, not gonna
get the foot down. And then gets both feet down somehow, inexplicably, impossibly, just.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
A little little twinkle toes at the end.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
There he And the thing that I that made my
jaw drop even more is if you again, you only
notice this when you watch it in super slow motion
when they're during the review. But he catches, he makes
sure he secures the catch with his hands right, and
then you can see him look down right before he

(53:50):
gets the first right before he taps the first foot down,
like and you watch that in real time. That happened
in like all that happened in like less than this,
it seemed like. But he was able to secure the catch,
look down to make sure he had room to get
one of his feet down, and then somehow he got both.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
This is incredible, just.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Unbelievable body control and situational and field awareness. Truly a
remarkable play. That's Omar Cooper Junior, by the way, And somehow,
oh Omar Cooper Junior is in a S. Bailey's former
agent anyway, former manager. Uh probably not related, but somehow.

(54:32):
That's Fernando Mendoza's heisman moment when I mean, the best
play was made by the receiver receiver. But it's why
being a quarterback is such a wonderful thing, right, because
when somebody else makes a phenomenal play, you.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Get the credit for it.

Speaker 4 (54:47):
Credit.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
Well, I mean, but Mendoza his moment, He's been ridiculous. Mendoza,
he deserves to be in New York, whether he wins
it or not. Diego Pop is number four on this list.
Jade Mayava from USC the former UNLV guy. He is
number five on the list. You get down to number
nine and that's where the first Big twelve quarterback, Brendan

(55:09):
Soorsby makes his appearance. And by the way, Brendan Soorsby
was number six before, he is number nine today because
Utah knocked him out of that number six position. He
played against this Utah defense like a man scared, unaware, disoriented.

(55:30):
Brendan Soorsby had his worst game of the last two
seasons against the University of Utah. Credit the defense for
forcing that. It was an absolutely garbage day for Brendan Soarsby.
He does have twenty nine total touchdowns on the year.
That keeps him in consideration here in the top ten.
Two thousand passing yards, four hundred and seventy rushing yards.

(55:52):
Where do you think they've got Devin Dampier? If Soorsby
is the highest ranked Big twelve quarterback at nine, where
do you think they have Devin Dampierre? I want to
say thirteen. Where the utes are in the CFP, He's
at nineteen, right behind Sawyer Robertson, who Utah will face
against Baylor Robinson Saturday. By the way, is just he's

(56:13):
putting up like four hundred yards every game. It seems
like he is very, very very productive. That's wild that
he's that he's that low on this list. Twenty eight
total touchdowns for Sawyer Robertson, twenty seven hundred and eighty
passing yards, which puts him like in just a pure
yardage standpoint, it puts him up there in the top

(56:35):
five in quarterbacks in the country. So Devin dam Pierre
comes in at number nine. He's sorry, nineteen, he's nineteen
up from thirty four. Is total QBR is eighty three.
He has fifteen hundred and eighty eight passing yards. He
has five hundred and fifty two rush yards and twenty
total touchdowns. And this is the point that you, as
a Utah fan, love to see the most. Utah ranked

(56:59):
ninety in offensive S and p plus last season, but
Devin Dampierre and Jason Beck have them from ninety six
up to nineteen this year. Damn Pier's second on the
team in rushing yards. You already know that there haven't
been a ton of huge plays in the passing game,
but he has been very efficient.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
You think that's do you think that's too low?

Speaker 3 (57:23):
About right? That's about right. Yeah, I think, especially you
give the context of he was thirty fourth in the
in the preseason one that they did preseason ranker, they
did like, Yeah, I think that he's been It seems
like he's been good enough to move up about fifteen
spots and then maybe much more than that. There's a

(57:44):
lot of people who are kind of like, they're kind
of ambivalent when it comes to Devin Dampier. There's second yeah,
because he doesn't have that big, sexy like deep ball
drop it into a bucket multiple times.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Ago, Don where's bird fickling in the re rank?

Speaker 4 (58:00):
Don't do that.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
James is becoming a bird Fickland hater just because he's
just because he's a Devin dan Pier defender. And it
like you're like, and I'm with you, like the best
the best thing for everyone when a starting quarterback is
mildly hurt or is underperforming, is well the backup and
Bird Fickland is exciting and amazing. Devin Dampier is a

(58:22):
better football player right now, and he's going to remain
that way as long as he's healthy. Having he seems
like in some ways he's got a higher upside. He
may end up being the better player over a career,
but he's not the better player right now. Well, we're
gonna live in the moment right now, and Devin dan Pierre,
I think belongs here.

Speaker 4 (58:39):
Now.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
It gets a lot more interesting when you look at
who has come in We're three quarters of the way
through the season. Who has come in now on a
list like this behind Devin dan Pierre, who you were like, hey,
just be pretty good, Devin, Jalen Daniels, the Kansas quarterback,
Baron Morton, Josh bear Bachmeyer was not really in this conversation.

(59:04):
How about this though, Carson Beck, Avery, Johnson, Cade klub Nick.
These are guys who came into the season and you
looked at it and said they are going to be
the big time players in college football. Noah Fafida, John Mattier,
et cetera, et cetera. Right now, your guy, your guy,

(59:26):
Devin dan Pier is playing better than there. Arch Manning
on this list is number thirty five. So whether you
are all the way bought in on Devin Dampier or not,
you have to acknowledge through the metrics ESPN's using here
and through the results on the field that the guy

(59:47):
is good. Is he great transcendent Alex Smith number one
overall draft pick?

Speaker 4 (59:52):
Not yet?

Speaker 3 (59:53):
All right, we're not there, but your team is in
a really strong position with him as your starting quarterback
and your offense. More importantly, your offense is the number
two offense in your league. When is the last time
we got to say that about Utah football. I'll tell
you the last time we got to say that about
Utah football. It is twenty twenty one, when you won

(01:00:16):
the Pac twelve championship. I thought you were gonna say
it was when I was on the team. And four
it's way back in my day. All right, we're way
over time because that's how I roll. Trevor Riley is
here in the studio, so we'll talk with him next.
Log in on the YouTube because the Rattlesnake is always

(01:00:36):
fun to look at. Sean O'Connell show on Utah is
number one Sports Talk ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
one FM.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
It's the best Claire.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Peas by Sean O'Connell's show. You were home of the
best inside of your hues.

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
Let's get back to OC.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
From the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred ninety
two one AM.

Speaker 7 (01:01:01):
And Jon O'Connell's show here on ESPN seven and ninety
two and at Ben we're lucky enough to welcome the most.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Interesting man on the planet, Trevor Riley, back here in
studio with us.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
He's been on the road, he's been doing his thing.
He's been hustling and bustling, that's what he does.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
But now he's back here in Salt Lake said he
plenty to talk about with this Utah football team.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Trevor Riley, how are you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
I'm great. I'm really happy to be I just got in.
I flew in at eleven thirty here on time. And
you know, I like seeing you. I told you off
air there's no way you didn't go to church as
a kid. I like your character, I like your resume.
Nice you to say, I'm happy to be here. Yeah.
And James is a holy man. I mean James Faust
over here, he's a holy man.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
Okay that he the is Peterson like it's a pseudonym.
That's that's that's not your real name. You've just that's
your stage name.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
He's James Faust. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
All right, So man, there's a lot to talk about
with this Utah football team coming off of bye week,
you know, getting a little bit healthier.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
We know, all that stuff. That's great, good to see.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
The more interesting thing right now is the way that
Utah football is being perceived by this College Football Playoff
committee and by the you know, the Big twelves perception
in their eyes as well. Sitting now two weeks in
a row at number thirteen. Now it is a twelve
team playoff, but because of the structure of this twelve
team playoff, what Utah really needs is to be inside

(01:02:30):
the top ten. Whether as a runner up in the
Big twelve conference obviously if you're at the conference champion,
you end up automatically and as potentially an at large
bid they got to climb. It's a tantalizingly close Trevor,
three spots away from that magic ten spot, and I
wanted to know your thoughts on the matter.

Speaker 4 (01:02:49):
I would say BYU and Texas Tech are definitely the
driver's seat in the conference, which has a huge implication
on our final ranking. Yes, it's going to be hard
for another Big twelve team to really make that large bid. Sure,
so it doesn't mean it's impossible. I think it may happen.
But we also got a battle areas of a state
who's training upwards and if they's end the season with
two losses, right, regardless off who gets into that play

(01:03:11):
or that they the Big twelve playoff or whatever, you know,
the championship game. You know, there's a lot of heat there,
and we beat them without their quarterback, right, everyone needs
to remind remember that they they're gonna take an asterisk
on that loss to Utah. I would say, not a
big one, but a small asteriss there. And it was
early in the season.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
Well, now their quarterbacks out, so for them to finish strong,
are doing it with the guy that you got.

Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
That's fair. That's fair. And I should have maybe known
that before I said that. Okay, I didn't even know that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
So Sam's actually this is I'm gladtry to waste everybody's
time with that tape.

Speaker 4 (01:03:43):
Okay, don't do that. No, I was just thinking about
that as we beat them. This isn't the same team
I saw last year.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
And look, Levitt came back in and Levitt's the reason
they beat Texas tack Levit is the reason that Arizona
State beat Text Attack.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
One hundred percent. Dude, he killed them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
And then he gets hurt and then Sam who look,
let's be honest, against Utah didn't look like much. Sims
immediately after Levitt goes down, goes out and sets an
Arizona State record with like ninety rushing yards or something.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
Insane.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Yep, they took the jersey.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
They literally took the jersey off him from the game,
all grass stained and paint all over and stuff like that,
and they put it on a frame and they hung
it in the Arizona State Football Complex that they show
to the recruits. It's already in there.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
That's incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
He had a great game, so he's being thought of
a little bit there.

Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
Okay, so maybe the first game, you know, filling in
that could be you know, save to take there a
little bit. But I'm just saying there's a lot of
action here sure that we don't I don't even like
talking about unless if by U or text Sex loses.
If I don't see either of them lose. Uh, you know,
every week, you know we're going to see this fix.
So everything's predicated upon those two teams, that's all, you know,
to qualify. It's gonna be tough for us with two
losses to slide in there without getting into that playoff

(01:04:57):
or championship game.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
I'm see this is where I my my crimson tinted
glasses are affecting me. Here, I see a path that's
almost as clear by not getting into the conference championship
game because of what the committee has showed us. Right,
that's fair because if the committee had Utah at sixteen,

(01:05:19):
or had Texas Tech after beating BYU at like seven
or eight, still they put Texas Tech, and they said,
we like this Big twelve conference, and we like BYU
so much, and we like your win over Utah so
much that you are leap frogging Oregon, the Oregon Ducks,
who just came off and win against Iowa, a ranked team.

(01:05:40):
We're gonna leap frog you over Oregon, and we're gonna
tell everyone in the country that you're better than old
Miss as Well, who's one of these like darlings in
the SEC. So they said, Texas Tech, that's how much
we love you right now. And Texas Tech's gonna be
in the conference championship game.

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
They're not gonna They have left the season.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
They have UCF and West Virginia.

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
So that's those are scrimmages and ole Miss has who
ole Miss is going to have some heat down there.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
Now ole Missus schedule lays out really nice for them
as well, so that's good for us.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
Then they've got they've.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Got Citadel and they played them Florida and Mississippi State
to finish, so you.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
Know those are Florida fired their coach in State. You
know that's a tough place to play. But they just
got beat by BAM I think, and yeah, okay, so
that they're they're they're going to be in a nice spot.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
So Ole Miss is going to be in a really
nice spot in the Big.

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
Ten or as far as the Big ten goes, right
the team that threat who's the Does s C still
have two losses? Are they still alive?

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
So us C is the interesting one here because USC
plays Oregon.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
Yeah, oh yeah, that's a big one.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
So USC number seventeen right now, they're a two loss team.
USC is a two loss team that has an opportunity
against Oregon, who right now is a top ten team. Also,
USC this week has Iowa, who's still in the rankings, and.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
That's another thing that no one wants to play them,
right they they might pull they can beat anybody on
any Saturday. It seems like so.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
USC is at seventeen right now, but let's say it
goes exactly how USC wants it to go.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
They beat.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Iowa, who's number twenty one.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
In the country right now according to the College Football
Playoff Committee, and then they beat Oregon.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
USC is a team that you're like, uh so you're in, dude,
what you're getting in what you want and what you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Want if you're a Utah fans, you want Iowa to
beat USC and then USC to beat Oregon.

Speaker 4 (01:07:30):
I mean, okay, so if they win those, are they
in the Big Ten Championship game? I assume they are, right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
No, because it's in Ohio State and Indiana, So.

Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
Then yeah, that's going to be tough. Dude, that that
that plays well? I mean, I mean that's a lot
of what if. So they got to be two great teams,
but there's a lot of action there, right I just but.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Now listen, like, let's play the whole thing out. We
talked about this earlier in the show, Like, so from
the teams coming from behind you that can really ruin
your day are Vanderbilt, who's still who's right behind Utah
right now and right behind BYU love the quarterback Vanderbilt
is one of the darling stories in the country right now.

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
We offered him at Jackson, Nobody wanted him at an Emi.
Nobody Three years ago, man quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
You offered Diego Pavia.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
Yes, we almost had him on campus. Wow, we had him.
Nobody wanted him. He was a Mexican kid who was
out there playing ja jucoball at playing quarterback. He's a
great story.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
He's a great story. They've got Kentucky and then a
ranked Tennessee team to finish the year. So there's the
potential if you don't look impressive. Even if you win out.
We're assuming that both BYU and Utah are going to
win out. Okay, and if you're Utah, especially, Vanderbilt's right
there behind you, win over Tennessee is more impressive than

(01:08:44):
any win. You have the opportunity to get on the
remainder of your roster. Miami still has n C State,
Miami's at number fifteen. They're right behind Vandy. Right now,
They've got n C State, They've got road game against
Virginia Tech that means nothing. And then we'll see what
happens with Pitt. Because Pitt's got Notre Dame this week.
Right now, they're twenty two. If Pitt can beat Notre Dame,

(01:09:06):
then they're probably eighteen. And if Miami can beat Pitt,
or Pitt can beat Miami, now we're talking about another
impressive resume builder.

Speaker 4 (01:09:14):
And then Virginia. All right, Virginia is gonna or they're
slated to be the automatic qualifier out of that conference
right now.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
Virginia is there, dude, Virginia Tech. So look, the ACC
is getting one team. The committee has told us conference
champion from the ACC is getting in, and nobody else is.
That's why, that's how I'm reading this, Because Miami, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Louisville,

(01:09:41):
they're all kind of in the hunt still, as is Pittsburgh.

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
But do you want to know something is when you
look at the offer sheet of players going going on
three and look at the offer sheet, and you can
see exactly what you're talking about. There's a group of
offers right that end at about that point in the
a se seed. Then you don't get the other power
for but they grew up in with Nevada. You know,
I'm talking about Georgia Southern that that group of five things.
So I could buy that. I only the ACC does

(01:10:07):
not have a threatening team. Miami is trending downwards like
they've they have not looked well good the last two
weeks in Pittsburgh. Nobody's seen him, I mean not really.

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
So Georgia Tech, it's they're a one loss team. And
that's interesting because Georgia Tech's got Boston College, They've got
a ranked pit team, and then they've got Georgia. Look,
I don't think Haynes King with all his glory, is
going to beat Georgia.

Speaker 4 (01:10:33):
Was that last year or a couple of years ago
they beat them? And was that they were close one
time a couple of years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
So Georgia Tech is a one loss team with a
win over Georgia at the end of the year, that
could be a big problem. But again, if that's the
case with Georgia Tech there they didn't have an ACC
Championship game, they probably get in as the automatic qualifier.
I mean, if you if you lose the ACC champion

(01:10:59):
if you're Georgia TI, you lose the ACC Championship game
after beating Georgia, you still have a pretty strong case
asn't that large one.

Speaker 4 (01:11:06):
Yeah, absolutely lose both you're probably not getting in obviously
with three losses.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
So those are the teams behind you I think that
can threaten you, and I put USC in that category.
The teams in front of you that I think are
gonna get out of the way at some point are
Texas at Oklahoma and Texas is ten Oklahoma's eleven. Texas
has two really really tough games on the schedule. Texas
is sitting here with Georgia on the road this week

(01:11:34):
and then Arkansas, and they finish at home against Texas
A and M.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
So Texas ain't winning.

Speaker 4 (01:11:41):
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
I think they're losing two of their final three, is
what I think.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
Now, if they win at either A and M or
excuse me, against A and M or at Georgia, now
that really convolutes things because George is not going to
drop all the way out of the top ten, and
Texas is gonna that. You know, those two teams will
be ranked like seven and eight then or six and
seven then, and that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:04):
That would be something that they beat both those guys. Man, oh,
ar Obama goes and beats those guys, that'd be wild.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
Oklahoma's got Alabama this week.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
Trevor oh my good. And the way they ranked third
or fourth.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
Fourth, Alabama's fourth and that's in Tuscaloosa. So Oklahoma finishing
out with Bama, Missouri, LSU doesn't feel like Oklahoma's going
to be sitting above BYU and Utah when it's all
said and.

Speaker 4 (01:12:27):
Downe there's a lot of these like paramount games. You know,
you know, Texas against Georgia, that's gonna be a great game.
But I would say if Texas beats them, just to
go back to that, that A and M Texas game
is gonna be unblievable. A and M is probably already
going to be slated into the SEC championship game.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
I assume they are the lone undefeated SEC team.

Speaker 4 (01:12:46):
That would interesting if they sat some players and now
it got interesting because then Texas hasn't easy. I mean,
not that they necessarily would, but I'm just saying, if
you're already slated, just like the old thing, why would
you play in week seventeen right if you already but
got to buy or something. Yeah, I mean so that
this whole thing, the whole landscape, is interesting because so
many dominoes have to fall right, and this is why
we love sports. You know, I'm a little more pessimistic

(01:13:07):
because I think there's an East Coast by still when
it comes to college football, there absolutely is.

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
When I walked in, we got that big giant TV
right as you walk in here, it was Doug Fine
Bob's ugly mug on the television on ESPN on Sports Center,
and the question scrolling along the bottom of the screen
was does the SEC deserve six teams in the playoff?

Speaker 4 (01:13:31):
They're not asking that about the Big twelve. They're not
als like lobbying. They're lobbying to television. That guy used
to do local radios maybe in Alabama. He's an SEC guy.
T He's made his entire living. He's a brother of theirs.
And to your point, it's propaganda. You know, you hear
it on the West coast, and they don't watch the games,
like eight o'clock, eight o'clock kickoff? Are they watching that game?
I used to live out there. I was falling asleep

(01:13:53):
guys watching the playing for the Jets, watching the youths play.
You fall asleep at halftime or cut quarter in.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
It's we know that's all the case.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
So there's all these convoluted scenarios that could play out.
It's fun to talk about him, but at the end
of the day, what Utah has got to do is
they've got to go out there and they've got to
win the games in front of him. Yes, Now, this
Baylor team is one of the most prolific passing offenses
that Utah is going to face all year. They've been
good against the pass the US have. Is there any

(01:14:26):
danger in Waco, Texas in your mind?

Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
Absolutely? Dave Randa is the second or top, top top
shelf coach, right, second to none. He is a defensive mastermind,
right and when he has this, I mean he's best
friends Andy Ludwig. They vacation together. Okay. Andy is a
very detail oriented human being. And this is a very
serious coach, all right, so serious that he's had to
loosen it up a little bit. And I say this again,

(01:14:51):
Baylor's a basketball school that's finding it's playing football. And
Aranda he's deadly Okay, he used to be at LSU.
He's won a lot of games, and he's very familiar
with coach Whittingham through the years, and so it's always
go to it's gonna be, you know, I look at
that way Randaz the West he cut his teeth on
the West coast, and so he's this is this is
like going home for him, I think, or home coming

(01:15:12):
to him for I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
Baylor three hundred and thirteen yards a game through the air.
They are a very potent passing offense. Now in the
run game, they're twelfth in the Big Twelve Conference at
one hundred and forty one yards a game. Utah, of course,
is the number one passing defense in the league right now.

(01:15:36):
They give up almost exactly half as many yards per
game as Baylor passes for it per game. So if
something's got to give there, you would imagine that this
is one of the key matchups in the in the contest.

Speaker 4 (01:15:49):
I think there's gonna be a lot of NFL scouts there,
or maybe there won't be, but they'll be watching the game. Right.
You get this matchup receiver and corner, it's lining up
right a passing offense. Our corners and safeties have played
tremendous sands the BYU or whatever. Game five had a
just horrific game. He's had a bounce back and played
fantastic the last couple of weeks. Okay, yes, and so

(01:16:11):
we've really responded. I think that. You know, the coordination's
been you know, he's been fantastic. As usual, I was,
you know, you hate to say as usual, see, because
it's been so awesome. Right, we should give him more flowers.
They should be getting more flowers. They're doing such a
great job. So, I know, to wrap it up, I
think Baylor is a team that can beat anybody. When
you can throw for that much power and you've got

(01:16:32):
a great coach who's defensive minded, it's and you're on
the road. I mean, that's a tough game.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
Now, I'll say this, the pass rush that Soresby makes
it really really difficult to get to him because a
he can run be he makes decisions very very quickly.
Utah's pass rush still found ways to kind of harass
him and cause him problems. Didn't get sacks and get
big numbers there. He didn't get him down the same
way you did against Colorado of the week before. Now,

(01:17:00):
one of the dangerous for Baylor in a game like
this one is if if you're gonna butter your bread
passing the ball, you got to be back there, and
you got to be there's multiple dropacks in this game.
Their offensive line has done a decent job, but they
have given up sixteen sacks so far on the year,
and Utah right now is the second best pass rush
in the Big twelve Conference. I think that is also

(01:17:22):
a matchup where you know John henry Day, I think
at half a sack last game, he's still top ten
in the countryes at nine and a half sacks on
the year.

Speaker 4 (01:17:30):
How much is he going to go for next year? Okay?
What's he worth?

Speaker 6 (01:17:34):
A lot?

Speaker 4 (01:17:35):
I'm serious, what do you think over undred a million
over so, okay, that's about what our quarterback makes. I
can pay him. Well.

Speaker 3 (01:17:43):
The idea is if you have a successful program, and
we're talking about a conference championship contending program, right, the
hope is that some of this comes out of the woodwork.

Speaker 4 (01:17:56):
You know what show see I'm with you on that.
I'm all in on that on that take because I
agree with you on that, like that's our only we
have to we have access.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
Success gets success in every in every aspect of life.

Speaker 5 (01:18:08):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
It's it's kind of like this this great oxymoron than
any of you have probably experienced. If you've been on
the job market, if you've been out of a job,
you cannot find a job to save your life whatever
field you are in, and you're like, you get fired
or your company goes under. You're just like, oh my gosh,
I need a job so bad, and it takes months
for you to find the next thing. Then you get

(01:18:30):
into a job where you're in the job for a
couple of years and suddenly comes somebody comes to you
and says, hey, I'd like to hire you over here. Instead,
you're like, no, I got a job. I don't need
this job offer. Now where were you two years ago
when I was on the breadline. It's kind of like that,
right when you get these wins, Suddenly people want to
be associated with those wins. Companies want to be like,

(01:18:52):
you know what, Look, everyone's talking about Utah football, Everyone's
talking about BYU football.

Speaker 4 (01:18:57):
See this. Okay, you're a former player, you're a fan,
your analyst, a critic. Sure, what if we source the
money like the packers? We should? Why not? We should
source money? We could, we could crowdsource it, but we
need to find alternative routes. I'm saying there's all types
of options, but really what you're talking about is as

(01:19:18):
a collective unit. Right where we talked about businesses, there's
other ways too, you know, I there's other If we
can get hot here, we can get rallies, and we
can get sweeps, we can get stuff going to get
the fans involved. I think when I see them in
that stadium full every Saturday for how many years?

Speaker 6 (01:19:31):
Now?

Speaker 4 (01:19:31):
Is it twenty years of sellouts like that? Fifty five thousand?
We got enough juice. Whe if we took ten bucks
a month from half the people, right, that's going to
pay a lot of bills, guys, well two and a
half million dollars. You know, that's a lot to two
hundred fifty thousand if you can do things, as you know,
we might have to be a little more communal here
as we get down. These bills are due now. Oh see,
and I'm dragging on here because the bills are due January. Okay,

(01:19:55):
you're absolutely right. More times we win in these guys play, well,
you just said it. There probably their value. We gotta
have a hard time keeping these.

Speaker 3 (01:20:01):
Well, there's the flip side of the coin, right. The
flip side of the coin is that success that begets
more team success. The same is true for these individuals, right.
We saw it with with Zach Williams, the kid didn't
do anything yet in a game he was he was
given a couple of flowers by a man who is

(01:20:24):
notoriously hard to impress, Kyle Whittingham and highly respected as
a talent evaluator around college football. Kyle Whittingham goes out
five times and says, hey, he's done some really nice things.

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
We like what he's doing.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
And suddenly, whoever's job it is at USC, at UCLA,
at Oregon, whoever's job that is to pay attention to
who might be available, their ears per cup and they say, wait,
Kyle Whittingham likes this cat, Well, godfather, dude, and look
that's the double edged sword. But you have to believe

(01:21:00):
that there's some level of buy in on especially John
Henry Day is a great example of this.

Speaker 4 (01:21:06):
Right you you were, You were this guy? Right, you
were this guy you wanted to he went there. You
didn't want on this to get out. Now we don't
want you were.

Speaker 3 (01:21:16):
You were exactly this guy, right, a guy, a guy
who as a player was a lot better than people
gave it credit for. Right at first glance, that's exactly
what you were. That's exactly what John Henry Dally is.
And you end up in a spot where you're playing
for and coached by guys that know exactly what it
takes to get you to be the best version of

(01:21:37):
you and allow you an opportunity to play on Sundays.

Speaker 4 (01:21:43):
Like LP. He's got his hands on me, and that
was It changed my whole life.

Speaker 3 (01:21:47):
To your point, there's a lot of guys around college football,
a lot of coaches around college football who are good
at developing. But if you're John Henry Daily to be specific,
and I don't want to put words into his mouth,
but if you're John Henry Daily and somebody he says, look,
we want you to stay You had a twelve sack year,
all right, we want you to stay here. We want
you to have a fifteen sack year next year. We

(01:22:08):
want you to be a first round draft pick. Come on,
And he goes, well, yeah, USC wants the same thing
from me. You say, all right, understood. Find me the
last time USC brought a guy like you and turned
him into a guy like that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
Found the last time?

Speaker 4 (01:22:26):
Do you want to tell you a story? My dad
and I go to a high school game against Spanish Fork.
This is in twenty fourteen. Okay, they had a great
young man there, was playing center on the basketball team.
His name is Porter Guston. I went there unofficially on
my own terms to see this kid. I know that
he was the hot thing in town season the NFL
was oors, just end of my rookie year, and so
I meet him in the parking lot. Okay, I introduced myself, say,

(01:22:49):
I come from a long line of defensive ends at
the University of Utah. And I said, I know the
s he looks good to you, right, blah blah blah,
the same thing you just said. And he looked at
me and he said, yeah, well, I definitely think about it.
We walked to my dad said he's gone, and so
he said he sees stars, dude, he sees stars. Yes.
So whether it's stars and fame, right, it's now fortune

(01:23:12):
and so now it's just money talks. When you go
to SCOC they have better facilities, they have better history,
they have better TV deals, they have better everything's more connected.
So it's not a hard sell. Usc U TI, it's
not hard. That's why they usually beat us on guys
over the years. Right now at it's even easier. Hey,
here's an extra million bucks. Drive down the road. We're

(01:23:32):
not talking about sc back to BYU South. I'm pointing
the wrong way. Go ahead out on fifteen. We'll give
you an extra half a million. Who's not going. You
don't have to move out your house, dude. A Ron
will pick you up on the way home. He lives
in Salt Lake. Okay. Garry Anderson comes three times a
week from Logan. He'll he'll grab you in the truck.
A Rod does live right here in the hard as

(01:23:53):
Salt Lakes. So, guys, but look, we have to get
serious about this as a whole Utah family. Right, we
have this common in January. Now, we got some we
got we got some bills due.

Speaker 5 (01:24:00):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
I'm sure you saw the headline this week and it
kind of flies under the raidar because football is actually
being played. The Big Ten Conference is supposed to this
week sign a deal where they give ten percent of
their everything, ten percent of their rights to private equity
for two point four billion dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:24:24):
For in perpetuity.

Speaker 2 (01:24:25):
No no, no for the number five, for the extension
of a grant of rights that adds ten years to
the grand right.

Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
Ten years.

Speaker 3 (01:24:31):
Okay, okay, USC opposed, Michigan opposed. Everyone else in the
conference said yeah, give us the money, because it's one
hundred and thirty five million dollars that comes to every school. Wow,
one hundred and thirty five million to do exactly what
you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):
To write those checks now.

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
Because the Big Ten is the first one that's going
to do this, I promise you, every other conference in
the country is going to do the same thing.

Speaker 4 (01:24:58):
They have to. We know behind an army race now
for cash.

Speaker 3 (01:25:01):
We know behind the scenes that UTI has been exploring
private equity as a potential situation. I don't know if
you could do it on an individual level. I don't
know if you could do it on like like Notre
Dame could as an independent.

Speaker 4 (01:25:14):
But the trick is this, the Church of Jesus Christ,
the Latter day Saints will never do a private equity
deal with for fair sports ever. I heard it from
the eighties mouth. Okay, he said it to me on
Monday with Spence Jackets was there at the conference we
were at. Okay, Mark Carlin was one of the speakers there, sure,
as is Dave Jackets, as was he. Forgive me I
forgot his name in anyways. Bryan Santiago, Yes, that's it.

(01:25:37):
Thank you, good looking ball guy from One Ball, No homo.
But anyways, I would like to see BYU model here,
meaning we can keep it local. You can still get private.
There's enough money, okay where we can put an investment
fund together. I did a thing for a cancer foundation
when I was a rookie. The Son Foundation looked that up.

(01:25:58):
I didn't even know about him. I got drafted to
the Jets. They found out my daughter at cancer, which
thanks to you Nation, she had about a million prayers
and she's alive, so thank you. And they had a
meeting once a year where they had an investor conference
and they donated the money to fund to beat childhood cancer.
I've already seen this. They gave me the award for

(01:26:19):
whatever man it was for my daughter. Really she was
just a baby. But the whole point of the meeting,
right was to raise the money, and they raised it
right then they had a strategies, how are we going
to invest it so we can battle this cancer? And
we can do that here at Utah. Right. The church
is already doing it. They just you know, they're doing
it their own way. I meaning BYU here at Utah,
we could do that. We have to get we don't

(01:26:40):
want to give here where Dave Checkets was correct. Private
equity and you know this O see it brings sharks
and they cut up tradition and they cut up red
tape real quick to make money. Baby, that's all they
care about. Bank capital. This is from a guy from
bank capital out of the horses mouth de I eve
check its. He says, not good for bid business private equity.

(01:27:01):
In my opinion, he's running two soccer teams. He used
to run the next NRSL soccer Yes, And so when
I hear that, I say, well, if it's an arms race,
then we have to have it oc right, Well, you
need we need to get organized here locally and as
a fan base, and we could do something at least
con mitigate us having to give up all that all
that equity.

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
Well to the point that you're making, right, If USC
who is opposed to the Big ten's private equity deal,
they finally they just get in line because they have
to get in line if they want to be part
of that party, which they do. They're like, all right,
give you one hundred and thirty five million bucks.

Speaker 4 (01:27:35):
I guess you have to.

Speaker 3 (01:27:39):
When you say you have to, like we've been saying,
now you got to get better with money. Oh you
got to, like, you gotta find different donors. We've been
saying this for five years now. When the big ten
schools get that influx of cash, it's not a philosophical
you have to, it is an actual economic you have
to because of the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
That you're talking about. It's an arms race, man, because.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
If there's no kid, there's no parents, there is no coach,
there's no anything that can overcome the weight of a
million dollar check for an eighteen to twenty two year
old man. And by the way, I don't think it
should because you're not guaranteed in an NFL career.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
You're not guaranteed tomorrow. You're not We're not guaranteed tomorrow, man.
That's correct. And so that's the reality of what this
business is now. It's now no longer college football. It's
minor league football. I just saw by you get a
commit from a G League player. This entirely football, homie.
No one can tell me otherwise. We talked about that
early way.

Speaker 3 (01:28:38):
BAU basketball is getting a G League center who's been
in the GM, man, and he's going back.

Speaker 4 (01:28:44):
So you tell me you can go play in the
practice squad for your and comeback. Yes, yes you can.
That's coming next to the court. Man. I know I'm
not only making six hundred thousand. I'm going back to
LSU for one point two. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:57):
I mean, it's why diego Papa, the Vanderbilt back that
you were just talking about. It's why he challenged in
court to say, Hey, I don't want my juco at
eligibility to count towards.

Speaker 4 (01:29:09):
My college eletudity. Benjamin's on deck, Dude, He's.

Speaker 3 (01:29:12):
Looking at me saying like, I'm five foot ten, I'm
probably not gonna get a ton of NFL opportunity here,
and I'm making a couple million bucks to live in Nashville, Tennessee,
which is one of the coolest towns on earth.

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):
Due and He's like, extend my I mean, you're right
the money.

Speaker 4 (01:29:29):
His mom's on TV every week, his whole family, he's
got a whole brand coming his mom Mexican in Nashville,
killing it all right, and he's he's a wonderful, wonderful guy.
His family's wonderful. The whole story. These stories are wonderful
because it's evolving. Now you're seeing people what this should
have been in the original thing. Was you rise people
out of poverty. Who the heck wants to smash their
skull against people at Oh see, just like who the

(01:29:51):
hell wants to fight people? This is the bottom of
the society. Usually, no offense to anybody who's been in
these we've all done it. But they you know, sometimes
rich people apple and this stuff, but not on a
macro level. Okay, it's mostly blue collar people's children doing
this stuff. And so if you can find a way
to rise entire families up, man, and you're and you're
paying for it with your life. Okay, we're gonna end

(01:30:14):
up having guys play so hard now for this money.
Oh see right, they're gonna play so hard, dude, that
the careers are gonna get shortened. And if they don't,
we're gonna see that. You know, we have to find
a way to me but the injury, like the bodies,
the game is getting as tough as it's ever been.
I would say it's just like when you've watched UFC
one sure versus uf George Saint Pierre was the guy

(01:30:35):
for me where you're like, when I saw him, he
could do all the stuff, and now they all can
do all the stuff. That's right, and that's how it's
getting now. As you're seeing quarterback play that's just like,
holy crap, dude. These guys are just coming into the
Like Mac Jones, he was just on the scrap heat man,
and I just throw him in there. He win six
or seven games. So it's becoming that. And he's not
a great athlete either, Guys. That's why I'm saying that
this is a guy who's not a great athlete and

(01:30:56):
he's tearing up the NFL. It's scaling everywhere because it's
it's there's so much money. If you've been to Europe
or you've been to South America Mexico where you see soccer,
what this has become oc is it looks like European
soccer model. Yeah, we're gonna it's gonna be that. We're
gonna get to transfer fees soon. That's what's coming.

Speaker 3 (01:31:13):
The club level of all that stuff is a more
realistic model for how college football will move.

Speaker 4 (01:31:18):
Not the NFL, definitely European soccer. That's how I see it.
You do you do agree with that?

Speaker 3 (01:31:22):
I do because you're because the money is gonna come in.
It's gonna start, it's already coming in on high school kids.
It's gonna start to come in on middle school kids
like it does in those European soccer clubs. You get
identified on the playground somewhere when you're nine years old.
They put you in a club system and you come
up through the academy and then someday you're playing for
Manchester United.

Speaker 4 (01:31:42):
It's unbelievable. Man. All I gotta do is look at Messi. Okay,
a little short and midget there is killing everybody for
the thirty years. They grabbed him when he was eleven
or something. They grabbed him early. I've been talking to
I had a meeting with the Alcorn State's ad okay
this offseason and Treel Buckley, Missipillied State. We're talking about
setting up a farm system, okay, where places like that

(01:32:04):
that need some cash. Right, you know what two hundred
thousand dollars will do down there, see unbelievable stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:32:09):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:32:09):
If you could get that a year, you could start
farming kids right now. You can start bringing kids from
the South, bringing from the East coast, and you create
networks and you know, almost like a co op on something.
It's a farm.

Speaker 5 (01:32:19):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:32:20):
You're you're you're you're developing players and reality salt Lake
I think is related to a reality in Europe. If
I'm not mistaken, is that correct? It's okay? Well I
was wrong then yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:32:29):
They just stole the name because there was a lack
of there's a lack of imagination in the early MLS days,
and they were like, let's just copycat.

Speaker 4 (01:32:37):
Are any of these teams partnered? Okay, I see the
same words. And if not, the NBA and used to
have NBA or the NFL excuse me an NFL Europe. Yeah,
and they have things going on now they're but it's
moving towards where if you're college, you don't want kids
to And the reason why I say that fluff. Here's
the reason why brass tax is when you transfer, you
don't lose credits, and that kills PEOPLEY. I saw a

(01:33:00):
kid lose two years he transferre from Jackson cry lost
two years of school and it's it's it was so
that whole thing has to get sorted out, right, We
talked about the federal level. That's the thing about this
thing is, oh see, how are they going to handle
academics now? Is it's no longer an academic requirement that
you even have to go to school soon enough.

Speaker 3 (01:33:17):
I promise you that's going to happen. All right, We're
way way over time. So let's before I cut you loose.
How does how does Baylor Utah play out? What's the
final score? Does this end up being the dominant win
that Utah needs it to be.

Speaker 4 (01:33:32):
I think we win by I I've been wrong, you
know a lot on the on the predictions. I'll just
say I think we're going to win the game, and
I think that we're going to run the ball for
above our average. So I think it's going to be
a status quo game for us, and the defense is
going to play well. I'm always worried about special teams.
There's big plays, you know, trick plays, those those the
game comes down to five or six plays a game.

(01:33:52):
We got to win two or three of those are
not losing at least, So I think we're gonna be good.
I think we should win.

Speaker 3 (01:33:58):
Trevor Reiley, it's always great picking his brain every time
we get an opportunity to do so. He is one
of the most interesting people on planet Earth, and he
joins us every week here on The Sean O'Connell Show.
Thanks for coming in, dude, I'm sorry we went over man,
just good No, no, it's I'm the one who's in
charge of keeping it on clock. I could have taken
a break and we could have come back, but we
were just rolling me.

Speaker 4 (01:34:19):
I just feel like I'm back home talking to my
family and I see you, dude, fellow Irishman Trevor Riley.
Plenty left to get to.

Speaker 3 (01:34:26):
We got between the pipes with Adrian Danny coming in
fifteen minutes Our Mammoth Insider.

Speaker 4 (01:34:31):
Don't go anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
It's The Shaan O'Connell Show on utah is number one
Sports Talk ESPN seven hundred ninety two one FM.

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
Feeling out of the loop, Let's catch up on today's
biggest headlines about daily news. Dunk on the Sean o'connall 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. Just look for the truck with the dut.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
All Right, Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred, We
just had a nice long conversation with Trevor Riley. Guys,
got some thoughts, and a lot of them right now
are centered on how does Utah maintain financial stability in
the face of success because it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:23):
Costs you gotta pay to play these days, you just do.

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):
Yeah, he Trevor's Trevor's got that more for us, more
of an off season, yes topic, He's got that rattling,
the rattler which rattling around his brain all the time,
because he's right, it is the most important thing. You're
seven weeks away, like he said, the transfer portal opens
in early January, right, so you're seven weeks away from

(01:35:50):
actually having to cut those checks. You are two weeks away,
three weeks away, four weeks away from the real sea
serious tampering period. I'm gonna call it the tampering period.
Should we call it legal tampering?

Speaker 4 (01:36:05):
Like the NFL there.

Speaker 3 (01:36:06):
Where where coaches are calling high school coaches former you know,
your uncle gets a phone call from from Mississippi State
or whatever, like hey, we really like your their agent's
brother is getting calls. I mean, it's it's just it
is going to happen, right, So anticipating the offseason struggles
while you're still in season. That's why you gotta have

(01:36:28):
guys like Trevor Riley, Guys like Robert Bleckin, right, who's
a good friend of trev Riley's.

Speaker 2 (01:36:33):
That's he's dealing with that right now. He can't do
much to help.

Speaker 3 (01:36:36):
The team win on Saturday and next Saturday and next Saturday.
His job, his duty right now, is to help that
team win as soon as the season's over, whatever that is,
if that's conference championship weekend, if that's whatever bowl game,
if that's the upcoming college football playoff, like you hope

(01:36:57):
it is. You've got to play defense by playing offense,
play offense by playing defense. All that stuff has to
happen in this Utah football program. And Trevor Riley's got
that front of mine, because what has he been doing.

Speaker 4 (01:37:10):
He's a GM.

Speaker 3 (01:37:11):
Yeah, he's GM for a semi pro slash junior college
type program. Utai islander this, which, by the way, is
a new entity. It's like in this world of college
football that's changing. It has cropped up as like a hey,
instead of going a traditional path, we have this an
alternate route.

Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
The alternate routes are becoming primary routes.

Speaker 3 (01:37:32):
Yeah, I mean, you might see a situation in the
near future where the preferred method for high school elite
high school basketball players is to go G league, then
back to college.

Speaker 4 (01:37:45):
It's just absurd. It's dumb.

Speaker 3 (01:37:47):
It's absurd, but or or or high level overseas and
then back to college like yeah, which is just it's
all bananas. But the Daily Dumb brought to you by
Valley Plumbing. I want to make sure we touch on
this because we haven't addressed it. I think that, even
though both games were losses for the University of Utah,
I think that most of the fan base and correct

(01:38:08):
me if I'm wrong, has a certain affection for the
Rose Bowl, the game itself, the setting of the Rose Bowl,
some great memories from Utah play and UCLA down there,
and obviously the Ohio State and then the Penn State matchups.
The Ohio State matchup, even though it was a loss,
I've said this on the air before, I'll say it again,
was the single best college football game I have ever

(01:38:31):
been to, I've ever attended in person. It's the craziest atmosphere,
the coolest setting, the best memory, the best moments. It
was like the ultimate college football viewing experience. The only
thing that could have made it better is obviously Utah
winning that football game, and I will die on the
hill of saying that they should have won the football game,

(01:38:53):
and they would have if just a couple of different
decisions were made. But the Rose Bowl is one of
the cathedrals of college football.

Speaker 5 (01:39:02):
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:39:04):
You talk about the iconic settings, and it really on
the West coast is like one of two or three.

Speaker 4 (01:39:10):
There's not many.

Speaker 3 (01:39:11):
No, I would say, I would say the Colisseum not
as not as good of a venue as the Rose
bul But the La Coliseum is one of those, one
of those handful and that and the yeah, and the
Coliseum is because of its Olympic history, because of what
USC has been able to do there. It's not the
same kind of scenery or setting, like, yes, it's it's

(01:39:34):
that picturesque in the same way. It doesn't have, but
it's like vene deep connection to the lore of college
football in the same way. But like I mean, on
the west of the Mississippi, what do you have? It's
I mean, I'm having a hard time thinking of more
than those two. It's like, I guess I really love

(01:39:57):
the Husky Stadium in Seattle. Yeah, that's cool, but it
doesn't have the history that those other you wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:40:02):
Say, most people wouldn't say.

Speaker 3 (01:40:04):
You go talk to someone in like Chicago, Illinois, give me,
give me the most iconic college football stadiums in the land.
They might mention the Rose Bowl. They're not gonna mention
Husky Stadium. They're maybe probably not gonna mention the LA Coliseum.
And they're gonna talk about the Big House. They're gonna
talk about Notre Dame Stadium. They're gonna talk about Jordan Hare,

(01:40:27):
They're gonna talk about the Swamp.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
They're gonna talk about the Shoe, the Death of Death Valley,
They're gonna talk about all those things. In the Rose Bowl.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
UCLA is now in the process of not exiting the
Rose Ball, of not having that be their home field.

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
They're gonna play it.

Speaker 3 (01:40:44):
So far, the Rose Bowl has filed a restraining order
against UCLA to try to prevent them from exiting their lease.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
Effectively, it's not gonna work.

Speaker 3 (01:40:58):
The judge is everyone in the case has already been like, uh,
it's kind of like it's this desperate grasp by the
Rose Bowl to try to keep UCLA there and look
UCLA as a team and as a fan base. They've
never really packed that place out. The Rose Bowls iconic
status is because of the Rose Bowl Game more than

(01:41:19):
UCLA football. But when you talk about the potential for
a stadium to have one event per year at the
stadium that is actual college football, what happens a lot
of money goes away, the potential for disrepair. I have
been to a Camping World stadium I think is what
it's called in Orlando.

Speaker 2 (01:41:42):
Is like it's where they used to play the Pro Bowl?

Speaker 4 (01:41:44):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (01:41:45):
Where is that where they have the cocktail party? Georgia, Florida. No,
that's Jacksonville. Yeah, it's not Jacksonville. The one in Orlando
is like that's like just bowl game. It was like
UCF's field for a minute and then they moved they'd
moved that, and so what it was. It's like this
really cool, big giant stadium that has a bowl game

(01:42:05):
and it had the Pro Bowl after the Pro Bowl
left from Hawaii. And I'm telling you, like disuse is undefeated.
It just is stuff doesn't get kept up, stuff doesn't
work as much. There's no money for maintenance, there's no
effort or attention to details because because why for one

(01:42:26):
for one day year, why put that kind of investment
in at the time, and otherwise the Rose Bowl will
have concerts and things like that go there. I'm sure,
but this is a tragedy of the daily dump. No
college football being played at the Rose Bowl save perhaps
one day per year.

Speaker 4 (01:42:44):
See, I.

Speaker 3 (01:42:47):
I'm not there with it, And maybe I'm just maybe
I'm just not a big enough college football fan to
be thinking this way.

Speaker 6 (01:42:53):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:42:54):
You make good points about the unintended consequences of not
having collegeotball games weekend and week out there, the disrepair
that could that could it could fall into. That's that's
convincing enough to say, yeah, U CLA probably should stay.
But I just if you and I saw a bunch

(01:43:14):
of UCLA fans on Twitter talking about this like it's
like why move to Sofi?

Speaker 4 (01:43:20):
That's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:43:22):
It's like, well, we'll show up to the UCLA games
and maybe they wouldn't feel like they need to leave.

Speaker 5 (01:43:28):
Like I.

Speaker 3 (01:43:29):
It's not a great venue for regular college football games,
and UCLA fans have proven that over and over again.
I I think that Sofi can end up being a
better home for them long term. I think the game
itself is the only thing special about the Rosebay can
I tell you something, so Fi for all of its glory,

(01:43:51):
is a deeply sterile and impersonal place. It is the
antithesis of what a college football stadium supposed to be.
There's zero character to it at all, and part of
that's because it's so new. It's brand new. I mean,
it is a gorgeous piece of architecture. They've it's, you know,
a triumph of city planning and things like that, but

(01:44:15):
it just does not have any of the stuff that
a college football stadium is supposed to have, and it
will never one time be filled by UCLA. Yeah, I mean,
but and maybe that's a maybe that's a reason why
you and and coupled with what you talked about these
like hey, you're gonna really risk the Rose Bowl falling

(01:44:36):
into disrepair by not having enough games played there besides
the Rose Bowl game, Uh, coupled with that, like maybe
that's the maybe that's a good enough reason too for
UCLA to.

Speaker 4 (01:44:52):
Keep their least there. But I just I don't know, Like.

Speaker 3 (01:44:56):
I don't get that excited about Hey, UCLA is playing
at the Rose Bowl this week, Like there's a I
think that it's valid for them to be like, hey,
why don't we look for a different home, and and
so far is as even though it is that NFL
sterile environment, brand new NFL sterio environment. I mean that

(01:45:22):
if you're not going to play at the Rose Bowl,
why not play there?

Speaker 2 (01:45:25):
UCLA?

Speaker 3 (01:45:26):
What are the big problems? UCLA is thirty nine minutes
away from the Rose Bowl?

Speaker 4 (01:45:31):
Is it farther than Englewood?

Speaker 3 (01:45:33):
UCLA is twenty nine minutes away from Sofi Stadium? So
for but that's so for a ten minute bus ride
six times a year, a ten minute difference on your
bus ride six times a year, you're.

Speaker 2 (01:45:47):
Moving away from it.

Speaker 3 (01:45:49):
Not from rice Eco Stadium, all respect to a wonderful building.
We've all not War Memorial Stadium and Laramie. Why you're
moving away from the bleeping Rose Bowl. And by the way,
anything that UCLA Athletics thinks is a good idea should
be rejected out of hand, just as a rule, because
they're not good at anything when it comes to making

(01:46:12):
athletic decisions.

Speaker 4 (01:46:13):
They're not.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
They hire the wrong people, they fire the wrong people,
they spend the wrong money, they do the wrong scandals
UCLA anything that comes from them, if they're they're the
corrupted vine that bears corrupted fruit. I really think this
is a bad idea, and I will say transparently it's
because of my affection for the lore of college football

(01:46:37):
and the tradition of college football.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
Like, I think it's worth being preserved.

Speaker 4 (01:46:41):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):
They clearly don't.

Speaker 4 (01:46:44):
I hope that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:46):
I hope that they find a way to preserve it
enough so that that game is still and that venue
is still special for that game. I was like, if
you're not using the Rose Bowl anymore, that real estate
is too valuable to just leave as a stadium that
gets used every weekend. Yeah, I mean it may the danger.
The danger of this could be what happened to the
Orange Bowl in Miami.

Speaker 5 (01:47:07):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:47:07):
They ended up they end up tearing that at for
different reasons. They wanted to update whatever. They tear that
historic stadium down, and now it's this sterile, hard rock
stadium where where University of Miami plays and where the
Orange Bowl is played.

Speaker 4 (01:47:21):
It's not really the Orange Bowl.

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):
There's a golf course literally right next to the Rose Bowl.

Speaker 5 (01:47:27):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:47:28):
You think that that country club or that golf course
doesn't want Yeah, all the land that the parking lots
in the stadium are on. Absolutely, they'll take it. Let's
be like, yeah, give me that. I mean, this is
this is a disaster in college football. It is so
you you convinced me for other reasons why this is
a bad one. You're absolutely right that nobody's like ooh,

(01:47:51):
the Rose Bowl is hosting a UCLA versus Northwestern because
UCLA and their fans don't care enough to make that special. Like,
and to be fair, Miami played at the Roads at
the Orange Bowl, it was special. We're playing at the
Orange Bowl. To be fair to everyone involved here, if
you had to drive to Lavelle Edwards Stadium to watch

(01:48:12):
your utes instead of driving to Rice Ecels, you'd be like, geez,
that's a haul.

Speaker 4 (01:48:16):
The proximity was a huge.

Speaker 3 (01:48:19):
Or even if even if you were like I gotta
go to Zions Bank Stadium in Harriman to watch my
utes instead of going to Rice Ecels, that's a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:48:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:48:29):
Also, though I got a great friend, former teammate, shout
out of me and shaheen his family drives from Saint
George to Rice Eckel Stadium to watch these games. Yeah,
Like the passion is just not there enough from the
UCLA fan base. My and for a different fan base.
My my grandpa, lifelong BYU fan, but passed away a

(01:48:52):
couple of years ago now or about a year ago now.
He he retired in Saint George, UH ten or so
years ago, ten or so years before he passed, and
he kept his BYU season tickets when BYU was playing
every home game at eight o'clock, and he drove back
home after the game. Like not quite as far as

(01:49:14):
rice ecls for you, like your friend in Saint George,
but like he's driving home in his seventies and eighties,
he's driving home in the wee hours of the night
on Sunday morning. Like that's the passion we have here.
That they do not have a UCLA for football. It
sucks and it like I don't know that I'm reading.

(01:49:34):
There's an article from I think this is a UCLA
affiliated paper that they're like, here's what you could do
with it. If UCLA is going to Soi Fi because
they are use USC could play a game there every year. Okay,
maybe that's the Maybe their rivalry game could be at
the Rose Bowl cal San Diego State, Fresno State could

(01:49:55):
play neutral site games there every year.

Speaker 4 (01:49:57):
Sure, Okay, it's just I don't know, man.

Speaker 3 (01:50:01):
You get like instead of instead of just Allegiance Stadium
being your kickoff venue or in the west west of
the Mississippi could be Rose Bull.

Speaker 4 (01:50:10):
I suppose.

Speaker 3 (01:50:12):
I don't think USC cared at the time. But I
also don't believe that USC thought that it's moved to
the Big Ten conference. Like when they pulled the pin
on that thing. I don't think they did so thinking
we are now, we are now signing the death warrant
to the PAC twelve conference. I really don't believe they
had that in their minds. UCLA exiting the Rose Bull

(01:50:33):
is exactly that for me, them being like, you know what,
we don't want to be here anymore. Their intention is
not to kill the Rose Bowl, but the side effect,
the outcome, I think probably ends up being killing the
Rose Bull venue. Thanks a lot, idiots. I'm yelling at you,
Martin Jarmond. You kind of convinced me, oh see, this

(01:50:54):
is this is a terrible thing.

Speaker 4 (01:50:57):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:50:57):
We're giving away tickets at the end of this hour
to the Friday Night Fights. Fierce Fighting Championship is at
the Salt Lake City Masonic Temple on Friday Night. First
fight is going to be about seven o'clock. So I've
got a trivia question coming for you. In we'll call
it forty minutes. We'll give away a pair of tickets
to the Fierce Fighting Championship Night at the Salt Lake

(01:51:22):
City Masonic Temple. All right, we're gonna get back with
Adrian Denny, our official Mammoth Insider Between the Pipes. Next,
can the Mammoth get off the slide that they're currently
on against the Buffalo Sabers tonight at the Delta Center.
We'll discuss that and more. It's a Sean O'Connell show

(01:51:43):
on ESPN seven hundred ninety two.

Speaker 1 (01:51:49):
That you are listening to The Sean O'Connell Show, your
source for the best youth football coverage. Here's oc from
the Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred.

Speaker 3 (01:52:05):
Between the Pipes with Adrian Denny, our Mammoth Inside are
brought to you by a Laddin Industries or b Lux Steeler.

Speaker 2 (01:52:15):
Adrian Denny, Welcome, How are you?

Speaker 4 (01:52:17):
What's up?

Speaker 5 (01:52:17):
See?

Speaker 4 (01:52:18):
How's it going man?

Speaker 5 (01:52:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:52:19):
No, good to see you. Great to be back.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
What's going on with the Mammoth? A little bit of
a slide right now?

Speaker 8 (01:52:25):
What Andre Turney told us yesterday when the team got
back from Ottawa. He says, you know what, sometimes the scoreboard,
uh isn't isn't always as accurate as you think. He
made the example of going into Saint Louis and four
shots went in in the first period to win the
game seven to four, and then two days later, you're
in Minnesota, three shots in five minutes go in, and

(01:52:47):
you know, and then you go to Buffalo last week,
you play your most dominating game of the year, without question,
it's scoreless going to the third period, and it goes
to overtime and you win it there.

Speaker 4 (01:52:57):
So just, uh, I think just.

Speaker 8 (01:53:01):
The things coming to a mean in terms of you know,
when when you're playing good things are going your way
and one one bad bounce, when when things aren't in
your favor, never never's gonna transpire the way that you'd
like it to. So nine and seven off of that
stretch at eight and nine on the road where they

(01:53:22):
went five and four, which I was here on schedule
release day, Sean, and I think if we would have
looked at that nine game stretch on schedule release day
and said we're going five and four, we take it,
cash out and just fast forward to Delvio Center tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:53:39):
Yeah, I think I think that's it's It's really interesting
the way that the goalposts move a little bit when
you start to have success, right. Yeah, a fan base
expectations expectations can change really rapidly because you're like, Oh,
this team's better than I thought they were.

Speaker 2 (01:53:54):
Yeah, and maybe they're not.

Speaker 3 (01:53:56):
Maybe they're exactly as good as we thought they were
going to be, which is kind of like a a
playoff bubble team rather than that brief blessed period where
you're like, oh, this is the best team in the NHL.
They've got more points in anyone right now. They're scoring
more points in anyone right now. So, yeah, the shifting
of expectations. One thing that I think I admire about

(01:54:16):
this franchise is knowing that they're like fully aware of
their role in this community, in this emerging hockey community,
is that they don't seem impatient with those irrational questions
and expectations.

Speaker 2 (01:54:32):
It feels like they've taken on this role as educators
with a lot of grace.

Speaker 4 (01:54:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:54:37):
Bill Armstrong has said it within the last couple of weeks,
like we have not deviated from our plan and you've
seen it. They took free agency from a you know,
a very modest, responsible standpoint. There were some guys out
there they could have gone out and taken big swings at,

(01:54:58):
but they they stuck with it. They went out and
they got three guys at three modest prices that are
going to come in and add to the team. And
Brandon tannev nah Schmidt and V Tech manage check the
backup goalie. But never never tried to rush realizing Okay,
playoffs this year doesn't mean Stanley Cup this year. When

(01:55:20):
you when you make the playoffs, there's then that next
box that you need to check, and that is, Okay,
experience it, and let's win in the playoffs. And and
there's gonna be more pain in terms of in terms
of that, and you know, in terms of this season
and you know, team making the playoffs that there's there's

(01:55:42):
gonna be more unexpected things that they learn from and
and grow from. But you know, you look at the
core of it, and I'd say we as a as
a state in Utah, we look at you know, losing
five to six and being nine of nine and seven,
like what's going on? And I don't think the hockey
World has deviated their thoughts and expectations of Utah in

(01:56:03):
terms of being one of the funnest young teams to
watch in the NHL that has made a move coming
into this year.

Speaker 3 (01:56:10):
Look to support your point, one of the headlines right
now online when you look up the Utah Mammoth is
are the Utah Mammoth really this good? Not what's wrong
with the Utah Mammoth? Why are they losing these games?
Why are they on a cold streak? The national perspective
question is are they actually this good? That's more of
a question for the hockey insider than you know, the

(01:56:34):
the recency bias of what's wrong with them right now?

Speaker 4 (01:56:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:56:38):
And there was an article in The Athletic on Friday
from from Chris Johnston that that had some great stuff
in it, and the headline is the Mammoth have arrived
as an NHL playoff contender ahead of schedule with room
to grow. And the last quote in that article was
from GM Bill Armstrong saying basically, yeah, that's that's the

(01:56:59):
fun part of it is we still have so much
more room to grow that the ceiling is.

Speaker 4 (01:57:05):
Is so high.

Speaker 8 (01:57:05):
And and Sean, I think I think one thing with
with the NHL here in Utah and us watching it
now every night of the week and Poto focusing on
a team for for eighty two games, I think the
maybe the biggest educational item for for just the average
person might be, you know, you look at other sports

(01:57:26):
and how often in other sports is they're a favorite
to win and that team goes out and wins easily.
Right you look at football, you can look at basketball
like that, and in hockey it's it's just not like that.
It's so competitive in the NHL right now this year

(01:57:46):
is you know, competitive as I've ever seen. Like there's
four teams in the playoff picture from the Western Conference
right now that weren't in it last year, and I've
never seen that before.

Speaker 4 (01:57:56):
It's it's usually your the teams you expect to be there.

Speaker 8 (01:58:00):
And you've got Anaheim leading the Pacific Division, who just
had a seven game winning streak snapped. San Jose went
win listened there for six and now they're they're above
five hundred. Chicago was thought to be, you know, one
of the teams that was gonna be in the be
in the hunt for the lottery again to win it.
And you've got you've got Utah. So so the NHL

(01:58:20):
so competitive. As we talked about this summer, there was
one team going into free agency that was rebuilding, and
that was Pittsburgh and they are in a top three
spot and in their division right now.

Speaker 4 (01:58:32):
So everybody is good.

Speaker 8 (01:58:35):
And in the NHL and hockey, seventy five to eighty
percent of the games are tight or within a goal
in the third period. So the question is could you
push through and win it or are you That was
a good effort by us, we lost by a goal,
and what we saw from the Mammothur in the seven
game winning streak was finding a way to take that
close game and and win it.

Speaker 3 (01:58:57):
In the NFL, there's there's always similarities in sports, but
there's also those drastic differences in sports, and this year
in the NFL is a good example of I think
the phenomenon we're talking about where your expectations change, because
you know, the Kansas City Chiefs are not having by
their standard, a very impressive run. But if you look

(01:59:17):
at the outlook, a look at the projection, and even
Las Vegas will say, well, the best odds to make
it to the Super Bowl from the AFC right now
belong to the Kansas City Chiefs, because there's this like
belief that that franchise, that team is going to figure
it out. And as the NHL is so insane right now,

(01:59:38):
and there's all these contenders, are they real contenders? Are
they pretenders? Are they paper tigers in the case of
someone like San Jose Sharks.

Speaker 4 (01:59:46):
Are so young? Stuff like that you have to ask.

Speaker 3 (01:59:51):
I think also, all right, there's a premium, there's a
limited amount of playoff spots. Who is kind of waiting
in the weeds right now, who we know is going
to be a factor at some point this season. I
mean the Florida Panthers, I think are the best example
of this. They're not looking particularly impressive at the moment.
They've got seventeen points on the season. They're what, they're

(02:00:12):
fifth in their own division. But I think most of
us look at the Florida Panthers and say, no, no, no,
that's something that you're gonna have to worry about later
on in the year.

Speaker 2 (02:00:22):
Is there anyone in the West like that?

Speaker 8 (02:00:24):
Well, the Edmonton Oilers, who have gone to back to
back Stanley Cup Finals, might be the worst October November
team in the history of the NHL, and this year
they're seven six and four and they're above five hundred
because they played Columbus on Monday night, two nights after
losing at home nine to one to the Colorado Avalanche.

(02:00:45):
As we dissect games that were one goal games in
the third period in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal, right, so
they're down four to two to Columbus and they're just
sleepwalking through it and all of a sudden, Conor McDavid
makes a move, scores four to three. Edmonton takes a penalty,
and you're like, all right, the way that they're playing
hockey catches up to them and they're finally not going

(02:01:07):
to be able to tie this game six on five
in the final minute with no goalie, and they scored shorthanded,
and then Leon dry Sidle scored on a breakaway and
one in overtime. So Edmonton always always scares me. We
saw it two weeks ago when Utah went in there.
They're up to nothing and all of a sudden, as
you said, waiting in the weeds, McDavid, dry Sidle or

(02:01:27):
one of their support guys makes something happen and it
wakes everybody up.

Speaker 3 (02:01:33):
Uh, zeroing in on tonight's matchup Buffalo last time out,
obviously you already mentioned this got to win and you
played really well. You've got one of their best players
from last year's now on your roster and you're playing
them on home ice. Home ice has been good to
the Utah Mammoth in the early portion of this season.

(02:01:55):
How do they get right in a home game against
the Buffalo team that they have already proved they can be.

Speaker 4 (02:02:01):
So Buffalo's on a road trip. It's game two a
beforeium road trip.

Speaker 8 (02:02:03):
This is their trip O c Saturday, Carolina Wednesday, Utah Thursday,
Colorado Saturday Detroit. Well, that's that's an itinerary, but that
you just take out of a you know, a cookie
cutter schedule and put there so so that a lot.
They haven't won on the road yet. They haven't won
since they played Utah. They've got some injuries. Their best deveesseman,

(02:02:24):
Rasmus Dallin is back home in Sweden. His his fiance
has a medical circumstance right now. That's really sad, so
so they lose him. So they've been struggling, but they
were competitive. And in hockey, when you get good goaltending,
you play hard and you have a good game plan.
That's why you see gamester tied one goal games in

(02:02:44):
the third period. And you know, you know what, we
got Jj Petterker from them, traded, traded the summer in
the NHL, got a star, but they got Josh Jone
and Michael Kesselring, two guys that Utah really didn't want
to give up and two guys that Utah loved. Built
them up into NHL players who have gone into Buffalo
who's missed the playoffs for fourteen straight years, and I

(02:03:06):
don't want to say toxicity, but there was a storm
cloud like they started the eu RO in three and
everybody's like, oh Buffalo again fifteen straight years, and you know,
we've kind of been talking about it and you can
kind of see like Michael Kesterring and Josh Don just
went in there as like it's the ray of sunshine
with you know, positivity and leading by example and being

(02:03:27):
really good players number one. So you look at Buffalo
and then they're injuries right now and not winning, but
they've got that heart of Don and kessel Ring that
we had here that we feel like has spurred their teams.
So Utah coming home, you always think, Okay, being at home,
that's going to be the answer.

Speaker 4 (02:03:45):
This is going to be easy.

Speaker 8 (02:03:46):
And sometimes you get home from a trip and you
still have some more room to to dig. So to me,
this feels like a game that again is in the
third period that Utah has to will their way to
win it against Buffalo even though they're only team in
the Eastern Conference right now, bloodle under five hundred, so

(02:04:08):
expecting a tough game. Buffalo wants to win this game
two to one.

Speaker 6 (02:04:13):
Ah.

Speaker 8 (02:04:14):
That's their plan to win this game, which is not
how they play, which is not how they defend, which
is not typically the goaltending. But they get so maybe
that's something that says, Okay, Utah can come in and
put a six spot on him.

Speaker 3 (02:04:26):
People who come on my show to talk about whatever
probably get sick of me asking the same thing about
the same people all the time. And I've decided that
the guy I need to talk to you about every
single time we have a Mammoth conversation is Dmitriy Simashev.
I feel like he is going to be like, at
some point, a top five, maybe top ten defenseman in

(02:04:49):
the NHL. He's so young, he's got decides he's got
the talent, he's got everything, and you know, he's he's
skating with some of the best in the business already
to kind of model himself after he's played sixteen games
right now, like plus minus isn't all that impressive or anything.
But is he ahead of schedule or on the track

(02:05:11):
that they thought he would be.

Speaker 8 (02:05:13):
He's he's so ahead a schedule for for I think
what we all thought, you know, from a broadcast team
from I.

Speaker 4 (02:05:23):
I believe that he was ticketed to start the year
in the AHL. I really do.

Speaker 8 (02:05:30):
And we were talking to Mikhail Sergachev last week about him,
and Mike folta radio play by play announcer says, I'm
throwing Mike under the bus here really hard because I
said the same stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:05:43):
Mike says to Sergi.

Speaker 8 (02:05:44):
He's like, you're surprised at all that you know he
made the team and he's like, no, are you, And
we're like kind of yeah. And it's kind of the
story of Simashev's path, Like when he was drafted sixth
over all the experts were like, what is Bill Armstrong.

Speaker 4 (02:06:04):
Doing right here? What is the deal?

Speaker 8 (02:06:07):
And then they draft to Neil Boot and that the
story of how he identified Simashev, which with his scouts
is you know, it's there's gonna be a movie made
about it. Like so they go in, you know, he's
from Russia, the Ukraine Russia conflict, it just started in
twenty twenty two, and they found a way to watch

(02:06:29):
him and I can't remember if it was in Belarus
or Kazakhstan where they were able to kind of navigate
their way to go see this kid for real. And
New Jersey was the only other team that scouted him
and they obviously didn't didn't have a spot where where
Bill Armstrong and the team did, and like they they

(02:06:49):
found this guy and identified him and were sure as
heck that he was going to be this type of player.
But at twenty years old. I don't want to speak
for Bill, but I I was sure that he'd be
in the AHL to start the season with the Neil
boot and he's that's about as consistent of a defenseman

(02:07:12):
as you can be. And we haven't even seen the
offensive part of his game other than that nice pass
he made the Sergachev for the one time bomb and
Toronto on Wednesday night or was it Toronto Montreal somewhere
in Canada.

Speaker 3 (02:07:27):
Well, long road trip and didn't even go. He still
listed at under two hundred pounds and six y four.
I mean, so like his frame. He's a big framed guy.
But he hasn't I mean, he's twenty years old. Like
you said, he hasn't filled out the way that you
expect someone eventually will, especially you know, a professional athlete
with nutritionists lifting all that stuff. Now, I know that

(02:07:50):
in the NHL it's not emphasized the same way as
in football. Right, we know exactly with football guys, we
know exactly how big they are, we know their body
fat percentage whatever. Right, But the plan for a guy
like this, how much weight do they want to put
on dimitriy Simmership Because obviously he's got the frame, behold it.

(02:08:11):
But you want him to be nimble, flexible, et cetera,
skate backwards as well as he skates forwards, et cetera.
So do we know what the plan is to fill
out his physical profile?

Speaker 8 (02:08:21):
I think he looks pretty close for me walking into
the locker room and just taking a look at him, Right,
I would have never said under two hundred pounds had
I not Had I not known, right, he doesn't look
I'd say realistically, he's probably not. Yeah, the listed weight
is officially under two I'd say probably looks like two fifteen.

(02:08:41):
I think he's close to where you want him. He
I don't look at him like last year Logan Cooley.
You're looking at him and you're like, yeah, he's he's
got room to grow into that. And then he shows
up this summer and for training camp in his medium
and we're like, yeah, Logan is uh, Logan is bild
end of it.

Speaker 4 (02:09:00):
I don't see that with interesting.

Speaker 3 (02:09:03):
Yeah, I wonder what maybe we'll get Bill on and
talk to him about if that is even a point
of emphasis for someone like that, because you don't want
to get overly focused on I just saw Luca Luka
Dancic on the television, like there was a lot of
this conversation about his body last offseason and then coming
into this season. It's like, yeah, that certainly matters, but

(02:09:24):
also if you get too obsessed with that, you're kind
of missing the point, like are they effective?

Speaker 4 (02:09:29):
Can they play? And he can clearly play. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:09:32):
As I look at Simyschev compared to the other d right,
he's taller, Right, so it's going to be different build
from that. But I think to me, he looks he
looks pretty close to to an NHL body when when
when you see him without pads on and just in
the gym close.

Speaker 3 (02:09:51):
Are the special teams this year markedly improved? Because that's
something that coach Bear and Bill Armstrong mentioned almost every
time they had a real conversation in the opening season.
It was, you know, we got to get better at this.
We've got to make sure we train these right and
we grow in this area. Still no short handed goals

(02:10:12):
on the season, I know that, but are they improving
on special teams?

Speaker 8 (02:10:17):
Let's start with a penalty kill because that's the easiest
thing to start with. Okay, having a lot of power
play goal in six straight games and have not got
gone shorthanded more than twice in six straight games, and
bare talked about penalty kill this morning, and all looks
pretty good on that. You got guys like Kevin Steenlin
that can win that first base off every single time,

(02:10:39):
and you're off and running and still missing Alexander Kerfoot
who's out doing the math. Probably four to six weeks
based on the timetable. We got a couple of weeks ago.
Power play of c starts one for sixteen, goes seven
for twenty and now has a six game drought, so

(02:10:59):
that that's something that you know it it snapped out
on the last home stands. So I think there's a
lot of things Delta Center can cure, and starting with
positive energy and being at home and getting back in
the routine and having the facility at Southtown to go
back to and from and and train.

Speaker 4 (02:11:21):
You look the power play.

Speaker 8 (02:11:22):
Clayton Keller number one has made an effort to really
get the puck on net to shoot it when he
has the shot. He's a pass first guy, so that's
that's one thing. But I think what we saw in
that opening home stand you get one power play goal,
you're off and running, just just clicking, and it's it's
on the power play. Two quick passes, Oh see two

(02:11:44):
quick passes. The opposition is gonna respond to the first one.
Where's the second one going? So if the fans want
to watch our power play, watch for that.

Speaker 3 (02:11:54):
This is old news now, but we were talking about
it before we came on air. The Jazz have announced
they're going to build a practice facility at Southtown adjacent
to the Mammoth Practice facility that is already the talk
of the league. First of all, Lowry Markinen will be
on skates at some point, and probably much to the

(02:12:15):
angst of Jazz fans, will be skating little pickup games
with this Mammoth squad.

Speaker 2 (02:12:20):
Who on the Mammoth do you think is the best
basketball player?

Speaker 8 (02:12:23):
That's a good one, because these guys love basketball. They
they got off of the plane at six fifteen on
Monday and at seven o'clock ish game starts against the
Tea Wolves, and the Jazz tweeted a picture that the
Mammoth retweeted of Keller, Tanev, Peterca and Hayton sitting front road. Ye,

(02:12:44):
they went straight from the airport. They can go home.
They went straight from the airport to the Jazz game.
And kel said said that he loves to play basketball. Gosh,
last year I would have said Castle Ring and done
best basketball player?

Speaker 4 (02:13:03):
Who do we have? I know it's radio and we're
limited time. I'm trying to think of this.

Speaker 8 (02:13:09):
Uh maybe maybe the body the athlete, like a big
big shock here, but maybe like a logan Koli Dylan
Gunther ye or you don't see it projected ceiling, which
we're doing a lot of rights.

Speaker 2 (02:13:24):
Who has not ever picked up a basketball in their life?

Speaker 4 (02:13:27):
On this team?

Speaker 8 (02:13:30):
Do you do you think do you think Simyshev and
Circuit bet, Simship and Cirgachev have like never dribbled a
basketball a Malka and Vanichik.

Speaker 4 (02:13:40):
Well, I don't know, Like.

Speaker 3 (02:13:44):
Simshiv, I will bet, I will bet Simashev has yet
to like shoot around to basketball in any measured capacity,
like maybe on accident, but not on purpose. That's something
we have to get that on YouTube.

Speaker 4 (02:13:59):
But that is very, very intriguing.

Speaker 8 (02:14:01):
I'm gonna go back and do some homework on this
and report back next week, will you because yeah, because
I you know what I did. Just like you know
how scouts are in pro sports, They just profile the guys, right, Yeah,
those two guys fit the profile.

Speaker 4 (02:14:15):
They got to be it.

Speaker 2 (02:14:16):
Yeah, he could be a shooter.

Speaker 8 (02:14:19):
I mean I could I could see Nick Smaltz from Madison, Wisconsin.

Speaker 4 (02:14:24):
Oh yeah, small's probably he probably was. Okay, he's got
you know, six feet.

Speaker 3 (02:14:32):
The thing with the reason I'm waxing so long about
this question is because I'm always really fascinated about crossover athletics, right,
and I I've said this many times I will reiterate it.
I think that to be an elite level hockey player
demands the most well rounded athletic skill set.

Speaker 2 (02:14:51):
Of any sport. I think it demands the most.

Speaker 3 (02:14:56):
Now, it doesn't require the same level of specialation as
like if to be a great success in the NBA,
you got to be six six plus in most cases.
Right in the NFL you have to be an absolute
mutant alien of a giant and fast person.

Speaker 2 (02:15:15):
But in the NHL you could be normal sized.

Speaker 3 (02:15:17):
You can't be normal in order to be a great
NHL player to be able to move through space forward
and backward like they do, to have the hand eye
coordination that they do, to have the VO two max
that they do, and like actual physical toughness. No other
sport requires all of those things of you, right, so
I think you could make most of these NHL players

(02:15:39):
into a decent like point guard at least.

Speaker 4 (02:15:41):
If you had to. But it's not.

Speaker 3 (02:15:46):
Every football player thinks they can play basketball. Every basketball
player thinks that they can play football. Probably, I don't
know how that is in the NHL. Like I don't
know what the NHL guys think they're also good at,
or like if I wasn't an NHL player, I would
have been this.

Speaker 2 (02:16:00):
I still don't know the answer to that question.

Speaker 8 (02:16:03):
You know, you you see it and you bring it
up because marketing getting the skates on, lacing them up
when the facility at Southtown, so you know that's happening.
Like you know how athletes are, Like they are in
a spot and they see basketballs and basketball hoops and
it's like herding cats.

Speaker 4 (02:16:21):
They're gone, right.

Speaker 6 (02:16:23):
Not me.

Speaker 3 (02:16:24):
I always like when the basketballs roll out because I
I'm a bad basketball player. Wrestling was the winter sport, right.
If you're a good wrestler, you're not a good basketball player.
That's just you got to choose one or the other.
I don't think you have to choose that way in
hockey because you've got this, like the hand eye coordination
is there and all that stuff. So we'll find out,

(02:16:45):
like hockey players might be able to hit a fastball
basketball players and football players can't.

Speaker 2 (02:16:50):
Hockey players might.

Speaker 8 (02:16:51):
Be able to do it, and they've got they've got
their summers, so it's all golf, all softball, they and
whatever else whatever else they see. I believe me that
the hurting cats thing is from experience. Guys, we're to
junior high school. We need to do an assembly. I
need you over here. Could you put the basketballs down?

(02:17:13):
I just look forward to and I know it's coming.
The Utah Mammoth sweater in Jazz purple.

Speaker 5 (02:17:21):
Mmm.

Speaker 3 (02:17:22):
And the Jazz already did the city edition jersey that
is effectively the Mammoth colors.

Speaker 4 (02:17:27):
Which is pretty cool. I love it, love it all.

Speaker 8 (02:17:30):
Love what they've done with the branding, the Mountain Basketball
and the Mountain Blue.

Speaker 4 (02:17:34):
It's pretty awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:17:36):
I always love picking your brain, sir. Thanks for joining
us in studio again.

Speaker 4 (02:17:39):
Yeah, thanks for having me in. Appreciate it. Highlight of
the Wednesday.

Speaker 3 (02:17:43):
Adrian Denny, brought to you by a Laddin Industries, your
Vlux dealer and Valley Plumbing for all your plumbing and
drain cleaning needs. Look for the truck with a duck
our basket. Robins ice cream Cake Giveaway is back. Ladies
and gentlemen. Text us your score prediction for Utah versus
Baylor the closest to the actual final score at eight
seven seven three five three zero seven hundred, with the

(02:18:05):
correct winning team, of course, wins. An ice cream cake
decorated and shaped to look exactly like a turkey. Have
you seen these things? These are absolutely wonderful. It will
be it will be the delight of every guest at
your Thanksgiving celebration. It is an ice cream cake that
looks like a roasted turkey. Eight seven seven three five

(02:18:28):
three zero seven hundred with your score prediction for Utah
versus Baylor. Closest with the correct winner and the correct
score gets a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake that looks
like a turkey but taste like an ice cream cake.
Shan O'Connell Show continues on a Wednesday. It's ESPN seven
hundred and ninety two one FM.

Speaker 1 (02:18:50):
Your tune to the Shan O'Connell Show from the Murdoch
Chevrolet Studio of PESPN seven hundred and ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:18:57):
Two coming in on the end of the Sean O'Connell

(02:19:18):
Show quick segment here. Then we'll take another break and
get to cross talk with Spence jackets.

Speaker 2 (02:19:23):
The Spencing studio today.

Speaker 3 (02:19:24):
James, he is great, so we'll have we will have
cross talk with Spence. Check look forward to that little
housekeeping here. Trevor Riley was in studio today, so you
can go to the ESPN seven hundred Sports Utah YouTube
page and you can find his segment in here with

(02:19:45):
me don't just have to look at my ugly mug
all day on the band section like men in black
with the leather leather jacket. He kept the aviators on
while he was here. He was he was looking, he
was looking awesome.

Speaker 4 (02:19:58):
I just love that guy. He's just awesome.

Speaker 3 (02:20:01):
At ESPN seven hundred sports dot com you will find
any of the conversations. Alex Jensen joined us right off
the top of the show today. It was great to
catch up with the headman for Utah Basketball, Bethleneer as well.
Uh had a good conversation with Trevor and then Adrian Denny.
All that is available on the ESPN seven hundred app.
If you have not already downloaded, you need to do so. People,

(02:20:25):
by the way, just randomly text in every time Trevor
comes in because they love hearing from him. So I
hope you know they really do. It's always like, oh,
I love it, I love what you just said. You
don't we don't really get that very much on the
text line with other guests. It's amazing, I want to.
So we just had a conversation about shifting expectations with

(02:20:46):
the Utah Mammoth, and I just want to point out
how it's so relevant to what's going on right now
and in the sporting landscape of the state of Utah.

Speaker 5 (02:20:54):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:20:55):
You you came into the year thinking that the Utah
Jazz were going to be.

Speaker 3 (02:20:59):
Miserable to watch, just awful, and that's the expectation that
was set. And it's like, maybe I'll go and get
I'll get me a three dollar ice cream or whatever,
and that'll be worth it.

Speaker 2 (02:21:10):
Now the Jazz have been more fun than you thought.

Speaker 3 (02:21:13):
They're still gonna be a terrible team, but they're gonna
be more fun to watch than we thought. So there's there's,
I guess, a glimmer of positivity in what was a
barren of wasteland of basketball. Right and then the Utah Mammoth.
We came in thinking, all right, this is going to
be a borderline playoff team. So your bar, your excitement

(02:21:35):
bar is set at a certain level. And then they
started really really strong. They surged through like the second
week of the NHL season, and now they're coming back
down to earth a little bit. And it's funny because
it feels even though they're on pace it feels a
little bit disappointing because your expectations changed, and nowhere is
it more evident that expectations are everything for sports fans.

Speaker 2 (02:21:59):
Then with Utah football this year, two.

Speaker 3 (02:22:03):
Years ago you had three peat PAC twelve title hopes
didn't work out that way. Last year you were in
a waking nightmare every week of the college football season,
wondering where it went wrong, questioning everything as Kyle Whittingham
lost the fastball, as the I asked on air.

Speaker 2 (02:22:26):
For two weeks, is the culture of Utah football still intact?

Speaker 4 (02:22:30):
It is? Right?

Speaker 3 (02:22:32):
We were like collectively almost in this ute. Mcgeddon, loute, mcgeddon,
what's happening?

Speaker 4 (02:22:39):
What's happening? Right?

Speaker 3 (02:22:41):
That was that was November of the college football season
last year. That was a year ago. That was a
year ago, And and then this year you came in
with this kind of like cautious optimism that then turned
into real optimism. I think largely because the outsiders, the
neutral parties were boosting what you thought might be the case.
We're telling you, no, this Utah team is gonna be

(02:23:03):
really good. Expect a lot from them. They're gonna have
the best offensive line in the West. Expect a lot
from Devin Dan Pierre, expect a lot from Lander Barton.
And so you're like, Okay, yes, I'm gonna get excited.
This is gonna be fun, it's gonna be cool. And
you start to see the strong expectations through the roof
Texas Tech brings you back down to this low point

(02:23:26):
and then they build up again. They build up again
because of how you responded to that loss, and then
the BYU game guts you, and then expectations now are
at this unreasonable place where we are going to be
disappointed if Utah is not in the College Football Playoff.
Expectations are everything. Two weeks ago, when you lost to BYU,

(02:23:50):
you were like, ah, that's probably it's still gonna be
a good year, but it's not gonna be a great year.
And now because the College Football Playoff Committee handed you
a list that said, we actually think you're pretty dang good,
and something crazy could happen for you this year now,
at least for me and a lot of the Utah
fans that I have talked to, and a lot of
you listening eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred.

Speaker 4 (02:24:13):
Whenever you want to share your.

Speaker 3 (02:24:14):
Thoughts expectations are all time way up here.

Speaker 2 (02:24:20):
Do something the program has.

Speaker 4 (02:24:21):
Never done before.

Speaker 2 (02:24:23):
Isn't that fascinating? It really is, because.

Speaker 4 (02:24:28):
They're not.

Speaker 3 (02:24:28):
They probably won't win a conference championship. Will if they
do do something, excuse me, get to the College boll
play get to College football playoff, which is the thing
that this program has ever done before. They probably will
do so without winning a conference championship. That is the
most likely path. Now they could get into the conference

(02:24:50):
championship game. And I actually think BYU's gotta be the
one to lose to get them there, right and Cincinnati,
of course Cincinnati got one more law. But before leading
into last weekend, it was like Texas Tech losing gets
us there. Now it's kind of shifted to BYU in Cincinnati.
That's right, Texas Tech is not gonna I think if

(02:25:12):
you got it, I asked, I've asked plenty of people
this question, if you could take another crack at Texas Tech,
I think it's a fifty to fifty shot. If you
get another crack at BYU. I think it's like ninety
ten in Utah's favor. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's certainly
it certainly feels like that's you play, you get that

(02:25:32):
game again.

Speaker 2 (02:25:33):
Utah feels like they win that game.

Speaker 3 (02:25:36):
I am not as optimistic about the Texas Tech as
you are with that if they play them again. I
think that I agree with you and many of our
guests who have said that's the team that Tech least
wants to face in the conference championship game.

Speaker 4 (02:25:49):
But I think I'm not very.

Speaker 3 (02:25:52):
Confident that Utah can beat that Tech team, unless maybe
Baron Morton goes down, they get a key injury like
that they'll changes things, But I don't know. Part of
the reason I say that that I am optimistic at
least at a fifty to fifty level is because if
you play Baron Morton, you get to Baron Morton.

Speaker 4 (02:26:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:26:10):
Will Hammond was a problem because he was so elusive.

Speaker 3 (02:26:13):
It's true they like Will Hammond was better against Utah
than Baron Morton was. He was a better matchup quarterback
wise than Morton. It's a good point if it's Baron Morton,
especially like a little bit hobbled Barren Morton. Was it
thirteen points they gave up against Morton and twenty one
in a quarter against Hammond, Right, That's what I'm saying
like if it's if you get this like a little

(02:26:34):
bit more stationary situation, and I don't know, it's probably
unreasonable to expect or ask for either of those things,
but that's what expectations do. I just thought I would
point that out with the man that we're just like,
oh man, they're in a slump now. No, they're exactly
where they need to be. With the Jazz, we're just like, hey,

(02:26:54):
this team doesn't suck as bad as No they do.
They suck just as bad as we thought. They're just
doing it in a little bit more appealing way. And
with the Utah Utes football team, the roller coaster right
now is like tick all the way to the top
of that thing.

Speaker 2 (02:27:09):
You're gonna go down this fun.

Speaker 3 (02:27:12):
Precipitous drop, maybe a double loop d loop, maybe you
get the spin that makes your eyeball sweat, and then
who knows, who knows did you just see gonna get
Gonna have a tangent here. But NBA today on ESPN's
doing Top of the they do the Top of the Top,
their they're top three whatever they decide topic of the

(02:27:34):
day thing, it's two handed poster dunks. Former ute Tom
Chambers two handed poster on Mark Jackson Needa Mark Jackson's
face from eighty nine makes it classic, classic dunk, classic picture.
Honestly like a pretty solid flying knee is the number
one takeaway for me. Yeah, anyway, we can move on
for that. But I thought, well, here comes the Shack.

(02:27:56):
This one's mean when he pushes the Nick Center down.

Speaker 4 (02:28:00):
I don't like that one.

Speaker 2 (02:28:02):
I love Shack the ball back. You have no recourse.
It's Shack.

Speaker 3 (02:28:08):
He's three hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle and
he just junk to you and then and then they
got me to the ground.

Speaker 4 (02:28:14):
My favorite part is him throwing the ball but at
Shack's back. Amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:28:18):
All right, gotta take a quick one.

Speaker 3 (02:28:21):
We'll give away Fierce Fighting Championship tickets next on the
Shatt o'conna Show, ESPN seven hundred ninety two one FMD.

Speaker 1 (02:28:32):
You were listening to the Sean o'connall Show for the
Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two.

Speaker 5 (02:28:39):
One a f M.

Speaker 3 (02:28:47):
Shat o'connall Show on ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
one FM.

Speaker 2 (02:28:50):
The Drive is coming up next, but not before we
give away a pair of tickets.

Speaker 3 (02:28:54):
The Fierce Fighting Championships at the Masonic Temple, the Salt
Lake City Masonic Temple eight seven seven three five.

Speaker 2 (02:29:01):
Three zero seven hundred Friday Night Fights.

Speaker 3 (02:29:06):
If you can answer this question, Utah Mammoth back in
action tonight against the Buffalo Sabers. Of course, you acquired
one of the Buffalo sabers best players in a trade
who he's now been an important part of what the
Utah Mammoth have done.

Speaker 2 (02:29:25):
And this is actually a.

Speaker 3 (02:29:26):
Callback to a previous show that we did like probably
two weeks ago. JJ paterca eight seven seven three five
three zero seven hundred.

Speaker 2 (02:29:36):
What does the JJ stand for?

Speaker 3 (02:29:41):
Eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred, Spence check,
it's in the drive coming up next.

Speaker 4 (02:29:48):
He's here with me in studio. If you can believe it, Hello, Sean,
How I'm good? Uh?

Speaker 9 (02:29:52):
Jesus Jones remember that horrible nineties pop artist Jesus Jones.

Speaker 4 (02:29:57):
Don't He wrote that song right here right now? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:30:01):
It what a one hit wonder.

Speaker 6 (02:30:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:30:02):
It was played in like a bunch of different NBA
venues for like a year and then faded to obscurity.

Speaker 4 (02:30:09):
I actually do not know what the JJ stands for
in JJ Pitturk A good question.

Speaker 2 (02:30:13):
I will tell you as soon as we get a
correct answer here on the text.

Speaker 9 (02:30:17):
Line excellent Ted Lasso segment. As I was driving in
listening to you and James go back and forth. It
is the hope that kills you. Do you think there's
the expectation of the Ute fan base now to make
the college football playoff?

Speaker 3 (02:30:31):
Like, do you know what a slim chance? Like there's
still a chance. It's going to be at least mild disappointment.
I think that the realism will win over in the end.

Speaker 4 (02:30:39):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (02:30:41):
I think what's going to happen. This team is good.

Speaker 4 (02:30:44):
They're very good. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:30:45):
I think they're going to finish.

Speaker 3 (02:30:46):
Out two out of these last three will probably be
pretty dominant wins, and you'll be like, dang, this team
is good and they're going to be sitting at like eleven,
you know, flirting with that top ten.

Speaker 2 (02:30:57):
Yeah, hopefully Notre Dame, Texas, Okla, Homa.

Speaker 3 (02:31:00):
All lose and then you're like, okay, now we belong
and let the committee debate at all and whatever. Right,
you're gonna look at it as a Utah fan, you're
gonna say this team is good, this culture is intact.
This is like, we missed opportunities against Texas Tech and
BYU that would have eliminated all this debate and eliminated

(02:31:20):
all these tie breakers.

Speaker 4 (02:31:22):
And you hope it.

Speaker 2 (02:31:23):
Works out like it did for you in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 3 (02:31:26):
Realistically, you can't expect that it's going to work out
for you, but if it doesn't, you're still gonna be like,
oh man, It's kind of like me. Every time I
go to California, I buy a lottery ticket, I'm just like,
it's it's seven hundred and eighty five million dollars yep.
And I start planning how I'm going to spend the money,
and then I don't actually win. Spoiler alert, I've never

(02:31:47):
won the lottery.

Speaker 4 (02:31:48):
Yeah, very few people have.

Speaker 3 (02:31:49):
And you're just like, oh, well, that's a little disappointing,
even though I didn't really have real hope for it.

Speaker 9 (02:31:56):
The biggest problem let's do a segment on the lottery. Now,
the biggest problem on the lottery. Okay, for folks who
don't know, it's actually set up for several thousand people
to miss by like one number right, and so what
does that tell you, Like, Oh, I was one number off.
I need to drive back up to Idaho tonight to
get the lottery, Like that is intentional for you to

(02:32:18):
miss by one or two numbers. Okay, they do that
on purpose, and that's how they keep you coming back.
We don't need to dissect the lottery anymore. But back
to Utah football. You know, I think Texas and Oklahoma
are losing this week. I don't think Notre Dame will.
They have pit game days there And our duci was like, yeah,
beat us one hundred and ten to ten.

Speaker 4 (02:32:37):
I don't care. We just need to win the next two.

Speaker 9 (02:32:38):
It's like, no, if you lose one hundred and ten
to ten, that's going to be a problem for you. Yeah,
but I think Notre Dame is gonna win the scenario
that the deviant in me is cheering for, which is
just a small portion shoan, which is just you, No,
come on, it's a small portion.

Speaker 6 (02:32:56):
You know.

Speaker 9 (02:32:57):
The Spence checks Spence check It's experience has several layers. Okay,
but the deviant portion of my on air persona BYU
wins out, Utah wins out, Tech smashes BYU again in
the Big twelve Championship game. Utah has three dominant wins
and then the committee has a real decision to make. Now,

(02:33:19):
what they told us yesterday about the ACC is very interesting,
Like there's a small chance the ACC actually doesn't get
a team in, because it's not just if you win
a P four championship you're in. It's the highest ranks,
right conference champion. We see South Florida in the top
twenty five. Now, is it likely the ACC gets shut out?

Speaker 4 (02:33:40):
No, it's not.

Speaker 9 (02:33:41):
Their best chance might be Miami, who might not even
play in the ACC championship game because Duke has this
weird path to get there. There is a scenario in
play the Utah does get in as an at large
to the CFP. There's a lot of things that have
to happen. I don't see I don't see another loss
on BYU schedule. I think the best chance might be

(02:34:02):
for you fans. The good news is you no longer
have to cheer for BYU like you kind of had
to last week.

Speaker 4 (02:34:07):
TCU.

Speaker 9 (02:34:08):
This week might be the best chance. Because you and
I have discussed this. BYU is built a lot like Utah.
That's intentional in a way.

Speaker 4 (02:34:15):
They've out Utah. Utah is of late.

Speaker 9 (02:34:18):
It was very easy to see that Cincinnati Utah was
a bad match up for Cincinnati. I think Cincinnati BYU
is a horrible matchup for since, terrible for the Bearcats. Yeah,
so I think BYU goes and handles their business. So
then you get Cincinnati to two. But I don't know
that I see another loss on BYU schedule. I think
they get into the Big twelve championship game.

Speaker 2 (02:34:34):
I think that's probably how it plays out.

Speaker 3 (02:34:35):
And I'm with you that a second loss to Texas
Tech creates a really complicated discussion for the committee, But well,
it's more complicated optics. I actually don't think the discussion
is that complicated. I think that if you get invited
to that room, I get invited that room, you walk in.
And this, by the way, would be true for the

(02:34:56):
two BYU fans that listen to the show. It would
be true if it Utah too. If Utah somehow made
it to Arlington and got beat up again against Texas Tech,
I would not make a case, well, you made it
to the conference championship game, so you deserve a spot. No,
you now have had two bites at that same playoff
team Apple, and both times they've told you you're not
good enough.

Speaker 4 (02:35:16):
To be here.

Speaker 3 (02:35:18):
If that happens to Utah, they don't belong in the
conference or in the College Football Playoff. And if it
happens to BYU, they get smacked again by Texas Tech.
I don't think they belong in the College Football Playoff.
I think that's an easier case for the committee than if, like,
who Cincinnati hasn't played Texas Tech in the regular season.

Speaker 4 (02:35:37):
Right, correct? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:35:38):
Like if Cincinnati somehow makes it into the conference championship
game and loses the Texas Tech in anything less than
a blowout, then you're like, Okay, so do we put
this runner up in here? A team that has lost
to Texas Tech twice I think doesn't belong in the
conference or in the college football.

Speaker 4 (02:35:53):
Player I would I would tend to agree with that.

Speaker 9 (02:35:55):
It does come down to you, Like part of me
feels that we we hear a lot becas we're local
here about Utah maybe being undervalued BYU being undervalued. Tech
at six almost feels like they're a little bit undervalued.
You know, if they can get to the top four,
that's a bye And then it comes into play like
the brand bias, whether or not they're really trying to
keep the door cracked from Notre Dame in Texas or whatever.

(02:36:17):
Part of me tends to scoff at that, and then
part of me understands this is a front facing, revenue
generating entertainment business run by television executives who would very
much like Notre Dame to be on their TV show.

Speaker 4 (02:36:29):
So can Notre Dame continue to stay clean?

Speaker 9 (02:36:31):
Like I said, I think Texas and Oklahoma are in
for losses this weekend, which would allow both Utah and
BYU potentially to jump them. And then ultimately, what does
the chaos look like moving forward? But you know, you know,
the the best possibility for Utah continues to be un
at large if you smoke your final three opponents, and

(02:36:52):
I think there's a chance they do that. And then
BYU goes back to the Big Fold Championship game and
gets their heads kicked in again by Tech, and then
what we're left with is two teams with two losses,
and the committee has told us the metrics they value
favor Utah for BYU. Of course, BYU does have the
head to head and that's when it gets really really dicey,
and that's when it gets you know, the fever pitch

(02:37:13):
here locally will.

Speaker 4 (02:37:13):
Be at an all time high.

Speaker 3 (02:37:15):
But for the committee, if we did get to that scenario,
and there's so many permutations that could happen between now
and then, BYU beating Utah will have been six weeks ago,
which is an eternity up.

Speaker 9 (02:37:28):
They tell us they're trying to figure out who you
are today exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:37:31):
Yeah, that's a good point. It's a it's a fun thing.
It's why they put out these rankings. And even though
we know that this one doesn't matter and last week
didn't matter, I broke down every possible iteration of this
that I could think of.

Speaker 9 (02:37:47):
John Jason, John Jason, John Jason, Paturka. Excellent acquisition for
the man. They come back down to earth a little
bit after that seven game winning streak, but I still
think we have a playoff hockey team in our market
and it'll be fun.

Speaker 3 (02:38:00):
Stay tuned for the Drive with Spence check its. Thank
you for listening to the Sean O'Connell Show. We'll do
it again tomorrow on UTUHS Number one Sports Talk ESPN
seven hundred and ninety two one FM.

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