2024-08-01 - BBI

little bit of football tonight. We're going to talk a little more about Lafa Melia, which plays tomorrow. But tomorrow is a big day, isn't it up in Philly against the team composed primarily of Ohio State alumni trying to get to the finals of TBT, the basketball Tournament, million dollar winner take All tournament. That's going to be a great one. One of the Fox Sports channels will have it for you tomorrow night. Lots of Olympic news as well,

and some NFL for you to get to. Here. Coming up tonight, Keith Madison, the Hall of Fame coach and sometime radio partner of Darren Hedrick, is going to talk with us about the changes in college baseball, specifically some of the changes to the UK roster, but in general, they're throwing money around now, and they're throwing money all over the place, and baseball in some corners is going to catch a lot of it. Gone apparently will be

the restrictive eleven point seven scholarship rule. That's all college coaches have in terms of athletic scholarships up until this point for college baseball, and it's really been a problem. We'll talk about that, but now apparently it's going to be with some roster limits, all you can afford when it comes to scholarships, and that will create some huge chasms in the competitive nature of college baseball. So we'll

talk with Keith Madison about that. Also going to visit with Kent Taylor, who is now the sports director at WLKYTV over in Louisville, and we'll talk with him about what he sees upcoming for the Kentucky football season. Ken's been on the beat for quite some time. He was at the NBC affiliate, now he's at the CBS affiliate

over in Louisville. So I mentioned Kentucky football, and of course there will be crowds of media around all the quarterbacks, I've got to think at some point, but especially Brock Vandergriff who in the spring was the guy they brought

to the podium after practices. There were so many requests for him, of course when he first got here, then during workouts, So if you were going by interview requests and the fact that he was the guy who stood up in front of the media, you'd think he is the incumbent starter, although he's never taken a snap for the Wildcats, but he is. I don't know if he's the odds on favorite, but definitely the favorite to win

that job. Bush Hampden I had a comment from him the other night here on the show about the entire quarterback room with bo Allen much more experienced down, a guy who knows what it's like to be a while okay quarterback left and came back, and of course Cutter bowliedy incoming freshman who Hamden said is his talented as freshman as he's ever worked with. And Gavin Wimsit the transfer from Rutgers, who is probably the best runner in the quarterback room, and they may have a package of

plays for him. But Hamden started his comments the other day by talking about the transfer from Georgia.

run it, can throw it. We're certainly excited about him continuing to take the next step.

a roster that's riddled with five star athletes. Of course, only one guy is going to be your starting quarterback. The other guys just going to have to sit and like it. And Vandergriff was a good teammate, but decided I need to go someplace where I'll have a better chance at playing, and apparently Kentucky is that space. So that's what I think about when I think about the

quarterback competition. But Jeremy Jarmer has been on our show more than one saying he firmly believes it is going to be a real competition for quarterback right up until I guess game week, because he likes how bo Allen has developed. And of course Boldie's got talent, wimsit's got experience. He's been hitting the mouth as a starting quarterback. So it's going to be really interesting. I've got to think

Vandergriff will win the starting job. But one thing, Kentucky has been caught in the past suffering from a lack of depth. That's not going to be the case this year, clearly. All Right, let me shift over to Olympics because last night they on the Encore presentation, they showed Katie Ledecki winning the gold in the fifteen hundred, just phenomenal, goes out to the lead almost instantly and blows away the field, winning her eighth gold medal. And now she's talking about

swimming in twenty twenty eight. I cannot imagine. It's just well, all of the Olympic events can be grueling, but you know, to swim multiple events, and her specialty is that marathon, the fifteen hundred meter, and nobody else had a chance at beating her. Last night she's got the best twenty times ever in that event. Last night was her eighth best time. And we've talked before about how it's a slow pool because it's not very deep and there's a lot of churn and the swimmers have to swim through

their own churn going back and forth. Of course that many times in the fifteen hundred, so she wins it and NBC I saw this online. There was the headline said needed a special camera angle for Katie Ledeci at the Olympics. And kudos to NBC's producers for planning ahead because this had to have come up. When she opens up, not just if, but when she opens up that big lead, how are we going to show this compared to the

rest of the swimmers. Think about the film you've seen. Yeah, I was film back then, but you've seen since the replays hundreds of times about Secretariat beating the field at the Belmont. That is still the benchmark for victory in at the very least a classic race, if not one of the best races of all time. Secretariat wins the Belmont by thirty one lengths and they had to go so wide. I think CBS had it back then just to show where the second horse was. Well, NBC had

to do that last night was Katie Ledeci. So they went to what's called the all twenty two camera. And you've seen it before. You've seen it if you watched the NFL on any network. They now use that camera angle. It's what they call little generally. I'm sure it's a lockdown, but even if not, even if it's just somebody manning that camera for the whole game, it shows all twenty two players at all time, a really super wide shot of the field, so you can see it's almost like

a chalkboard come to life. How a play unfolds. Well, that's what NBC went to last night because they needed to get so wide to show just how Katie Ladecci was crushed the field. And you can't do that with what you call your main game camera. You've got multiple cameras obviously upstairs, but you've got you know, if you want to call a camera one camera, hey whatever, that's the lead camera that the director goes to, then there'll

be another camera virtually right next to them. That's tighter on some of the athletes, and they spread them out all over the arena, but they had an all twenty two ready last night, and that's how they covered Katie Ledeci's smashing victory in the fifteen hundred. Last night she went her eighth gold, her twelfth medal overall, and and o Oopsie, I just patted NBC on the back of little Oopsie for NBC. We were watching I was with some friends watching it last night, and they put up

twenty three medals for Michael Phelps and twelve for Katie Ladeci. Oops. Phelps has twenty eight medals, twenty three golds. So somebody got that wrong. But hey, if that's the only mistake they made last night, that's not too bad. The mistake came in my opinion here in the States from the ACC. That's right. The Atlantic Coast Conference now home to Stanford, which is awful. You know, the PAC twelve dying and

now you've got teams crisscrossing the country. Well, Stanford, which was trying to survive financially in college sports, sign's on with the ACC. Best opportunity for Stanford. And at some point the ACC tweeted or put up on social media just how proud it was of a former ACC athlete and what she's doing at the Olympics. Huh, Katie Ledecki never competed in the ACC. Yeah, I know, Stanford's in the ACC. Now, this is what stinks about all this conference movement.

now not the ACC. Where are we now in college sports? Coming up next, more weirdness from the Olympics in some great moments. But also a good buddy of Tom Brady, who is likewise famous and from Boston says he won't miss the Tom Brady broadcast and that person is a celebrated actor. We'll tell you about that on the other side of the break. Coming up, Keith Madison, the Hall of Fame coach, will chat with us as well as Kent Taylor from WLKY here on the Big Blue Sider

six thirty WLAP Welcome Back. Coming up in just a few minutes, Hall of Fame baseball coach Keith Madison. We'll talk about a number of things, including a highly drafted high school player who has instead said I Am going to play for the Kentucky Wildcats. Tyler bell enfielder from Frankfurt, Illinois, has said no, thank you to the pros, and we'll be a Wildcat and we'll be eligible to be drafted again in twenty twenty six. But that's a great get for Nick Manjee and we'll talk about him and other

things with Keith Madison. Coming up in just a few minutes. But I mentioned weird things at the Olympics and a lot of news involving coverage, but I can't get off this triathlon thing. It's just so nasty. The athletes had to swim in the polluted Scene River, which was deemed safe enough for the event. They measured the water on Wednesday and they said, okay, good to go, because there have been a lot of rain that had helped kind

of clean it up a little bit. But one of the athletes from Belgium, she came out of the water and said, I felt and saw things we shouldn't think about too much. She was talking to the TV network from her home country. She finished twenty fourth and said she had ingested a lot of water during the race and concerned about what it would do to her body. Oh, she said, well no tomorrow if I'm sick or not. It doesn't taste like Coca cola or sprite. Of course, that didn't make it on the NBC, but it did

make the rounds on social media. What has made it onto NBC, I think is in pretty good. NBC has done a nice job, but so much of this has appeared on Peacock, which is a great thing for NBC, it's shareholders, its executives. Is it good for us? No, not really, because you know it's it's like we mentioned more than once. I'm kind of beating this drum to death.

But and it was really because of Peacock. I mentioned three or four years ago, right here on the Big Boo in Sider when NBC announced that Notre Dame's home opener I think it was with Toledo College football opener would be seen only on Peacock. That didn't go over very well with Notre Dame fans, as you might expect, but I said, quite frankly, that's the beginning, not the beginning of the end, but beginning of a new era in sports. Pay per view streaming is the way they

will go. And again, John Skipper, the legendary former head of ESPN, once said, one of these days, maybe not sometime soon, but at some point the Super Bowl will be a pay per view venture. Now comes the news that ESPN, Fox, and Warner Brothers have put together a venture called Venue Sports Venu. It's a streaming venture. It will launch in the fall. It's going to be around fifty bucks a month. And they say they're going to

put thousands of events on this channel. You can get a deal on it early in the fall for forty two to ninety nine a month. That price will be guaranteed for twelve months, with the ability to cancel at any time. There's going to be a seven day free trial all that stuff. But it's here. It's not just coming, it's here, So you know what's going on With Sunday ticket prices going up. You can still watch a lot of sports on free TV, but more and more we're going to have to dig deep and decide what do

we want to pay to see. You know, there's so much out there because everything is televised now thanks to technology digital technology. There are hundreds and hundreds of high schools that are televising via the internet their games. You can get some of these apps that allow you to just set up and switch them in your own computer and things like that. But it's coming, and there's going to come out. You know what it's really going to turn is when every NFL game is pay per view.

Is when you're gonna have to buy some sort of subscription to watch a package that right now might be on CBS or Fox or whatever technology is going to have to keep up as well. But every it seems like every month there's a new increment that tells us how they're going to get into our pockets. Speaking of technology, the NFL is using what's called Hawkeye technology from Sony. They're experimenting with the way to do away with a

chain gang. There have been so many complaints about how they've measured for first downs, and it's only been with the lay within the last few years, because I mean they've complained about it, players, coaches, fans for years, but it's been more acute because now we have technology that can show us things on replay, show us the line to gain and things like that, but they're still dealing with guys holding markers and chains and stuff like that

until they perfect it. Though they're not going to use it obviously, but it's on the way. So those of you who are frustrated with the way first downs are measured or not measured, help is on the way. Relief is on the way, and it's called Hawkeye technology and it's from Sony. While we're talking about sports and business, there's a guy who's been tweeting and covering sports business for many many years by the name of Darren Revel. I can follow him on Twitter, and he has kind

of moved into a different line of work. He is a collector and Darren Revel recently purchased what is said to be the world's oldest sealed Twinkies. You know the joke about nuclear fallout the only thing that's going to survive, or cockroaches and twinkies. Well, this twinkie and I've seen a picture of its in the wrap from the nineteen seventies. He's trying to get it certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest sealed twinkie in the world.

He bought it for what he is being described as an undisclosed amount over one thousand dollars. They say it likely dates to nineteen seventy six and Revel had to have it. This guy used to cover sports business for ESPN, CNBC, the Action Network, but earlier this year he founded a sports collectibles media platform called CLLLCT and it deals with

unusual collectibles. And he tweeted out, or actually posted a commentary on his website some of the interesting items he's picked up through the years, including Shaquille O'Neill's LSU college id, Tiger Woods signed lap dance ticket, and Bruce Springsteen's health insurance card. But now he's turned his attention to a forty eight year old Twinkie and he saw it available at a collectible show in Cleveland, and he said, quote, I knew I had to have it. I hate twinkies,

always have, always will. Just the thought of even holding one from nineteen seventy six, oh no, no, thank you. But if that's your thing, now here's what I wonder. How do you make money off this? How do you

monetize it? Well, you hang on to it, and maybe, just maybe, if i'd somebody else might want to buy a Twinkie from the seventies, not I Before the break, I mentioned a Hollywood actor who's a big Tom Brady Fanily, it's Matt Damon from Boston, And of course I grew up a Patriots fan, still a huge Patriots fan, but a big fan a Tom Brady. They're both huge celebrities,

their friends. And I've wondered in the past about these incredible enormous amounts of money, speaking of sports business, that they pay guys like Brady to do TV work a deal said to be worth three hundred and seventy five million dollars from Fox Sports, and you know, they've got smart people crunching numbers. Apparently they think they can make it work and that they will not just break even but make money by paying Tom Brady all that cash

to or whatever they're paying him in to do their ballgames. Well, Matt Damon an unabast fan of what I said. I mentioned with the Patriots and Brady said he's not going to miss a game. But how many people are going to say that, Well, if Brady's calling the game, I'm gonna watch it. Yeah, there will be some, but enough to make it work? Who knows? How do you measure that? But Brady was the topic when Damon appeared on the

Rich Eisen Show. He's plugging a special or a show rather called The Instigators, which is coming up on Apple TV starting tomorrow. I'll check it out. But he was talking. He's a huge sports fan, of course, and was talking to Rich Eisen about Brady and about the fact that he mentioned Damon did Tony Romo the expertise that he brought to TV, which he did. I mean, he has

made some deep dives. I'm not a huge Romo fan, and it's more than just when it comes to what he brings predicting plays that are going to be called, but the insights that he brings, And of course Brady brings more really than anybody, given the longevity, given the ups and downs, given the number of Super Bowl wins, the fact that he has played in every stadium before, every fan base has beaten every team in the league, won multiple Super Bowls with one team went ten years

without winning one, then won another one went to another team and won a Super Bowl. So it's a deep dive with Tom Brady. And that's why Matt Damon says, among other reasons, he ain't gonna miss a game from a.

You and I and Doug and then Darren talked here in the garage right after the World Series we were out in all together. But there's been a lot of news about Kentucky baseball of late, the portal and scholarship limits and signees and guys who have gone pro and

not gone pro. And that's what I wanted to talk about first with you because I mentioned in the earlier segment Tyler Bell, who was a high school infielder from Frankfurt, Illinois didn't even know there was a Frankfort of course, says he will sign, is already signed with Kentucky, will play at UK despite the fact coach he was selected number sixty six overall in the Major League Draft. He'll

be eligible again after twenty twenty six. But you had players come to Kentucky and player for you instead of going pro. You had guys commit and then sign and kind of leave you hanging. They knew this was a possibility with Tyler Bell. But what does it mean big picture? Do you think to Nick man Jones ball club gets a great infielder, And this is kind of a high profile story.

I mean, he was money out there. Every ground ball hit his way, you just ring it up as anouse. And so you know, we've got spoiled a little bit. So this young man, Tyler Bell, I think he's going to be fit right in well.

playoffs and all year long. And we're talking about the fact that Tyler Bell, a high school infielder from Illinois, a shortstop who was rated in the top one hundred really by everybody in overall prospects, has said no thank you to Major League Baseball, was a second round pick and we'll play at Kentucky. I hate to bring this up because you mentioned guys you signed, and I know this was a difficult chapter in your career, but it illustrates the challenges of being a high school or rather

a college baseball coach. Recruited high school kids good enough to play perhaps in the pros right away. One year you signed I can't remember, but it was you signed seven eight guys overall, and most of them at the last minute signed professional contracts. Coach, and it sets your program back in terms of recruiting, the cycle of recruiting about two years. Can you share that with our listeners, because that's important. It still happens.

one year we lost we lost I think seven guys. Oh, and we thought five of those guys were going to be coming to school and we were going to have the best recruiting class we've ever had, and we lost seven. And it took it literally took me two years to sort of get over that that gap that we had in recruiting that year. It's it's not something you can fix overnight, or you couldn't.

And this was right after I think you guys made that run to within a few innings of a College World Series and you told me, I think you were heading for Portland to recruit a kid because thanks to the notoriety, the growing notoriety of Kentucky baseball, you were expanding your recruiting reach and that was a conscious decision. You had kind of been going regional and you started going more national h looking for talent, and it worked to a point. But in other ways, it's it's riskier, isn't it.

three rounds of the major league draft. And normally, if a guy got drafted in the first five rounds, he's going to go pro because the money's going to be good. He's going to be given an opportunity to fulfiller's lifelong dream and that's played major league baseball. So you know, if there's a ballot there. Do you do you go after all high profile athletes or do you do you go after some guys that you know you're going to

have at least for three years. And college coaches are constantly trying to juggle those balls, and obviously you want to go after the best athletes, but you know, major League Baseball, they come with the money, and especially back in my area, you couldn't you couldn't do that. You know, you couldn't even offer really a full scholarship because you just didn't have enough to go around. So recruiting is a very, very challenging thing for college baseball coaches. It was then and it still is now.

to sign with Kentucky. The others a Ryan hagen Out, who has dealt with injuries, may or may not get a chance to play professionally. Alex Meyer who got up to the bigs but his career was cut short by injury. Ryan Ritter is on the seven day d L right now in Double A Baseball. So yeah, you might get a bonus, but there's no guarantee. You know, there's no guarantee you get to the bigs.

get drafted in those first three rounds. Sure they're going to take a serious, very serious look at you, because, like you said, Dick, they have money invested in you. But there's no guarantee you're still battling for those other guys in the organization going through the minor leagues or if you guys ever missed the minor league. So a

lot of things can happen in minor league baseball. You have late bloomers that pass you by, you have other people just as talented as you, and it's a that's why in my opinion, of course, I'm a college coach, or was a college coach. You know, it's it's so wise for Tyler Bell to come to Kentucky because he's going to mature, gets stronger, and his chances of instead of being you know, a late first round or early second rounder, he's got a chance to be an early

first rounder because he's a very gifted young man. So I think it's a I think it's a good move on his part. Of course, there's always a chance of injury. You know what if he gets hurt badly at Kentucky and then you know, he may regret going to Kentucky instead of signing that pro contract. So there's a lot of there's a lot of ways to look at it, but having been a college coach, I see the advantage of coming you know, getting in a in a first

of all, getting your education. Second of all, you know, getting in a in a in an environment where you're going to be eating right, working out well, playing with other good players, maturing and then going out and playing pro ball.

we just have a few minutes left. Coach. But I did want to touch on the new rules and they're a little bit confusing. But right now college sports roster limits are expanding. We know that there will be only one hundred and five scholarship players available, or scholarships available to college football coaches. In other words, their rosters are limited to one hundred and five, down from one to twenty,

which means there may be precious few walk ons. And in baseball, I think they're going to have thirty four scholarships available if they want to spend that much money, Keith, But it may also unlikely will mean fewer opportunities for walk on So up from eleven point seven scholarships exceedingly up, but not as many bodies on the roster, and not as many opportunities for kids to maybe earn a scholarship as a walk on. So it's a confusing time, isn't it really?

And I hope that someday college baseball would get sixteen or seventeen full scholarships, and now they're going to have an opportunity they have thirty thirty four. It's just incredible the change. I'm definitely happy for the opportunities that these young men are going to have. I'm a little bit concerned about how it's going to affect the overall land

gape of college baseball. When you talk about the mid majors, the you know, the Eastern Kentucky's, the Western Kentucky's, uh, you know the Indiana States who you know, they've been a really good program recently. Can they afford to give that many scholarships in their athletic departments? Where the SEC schools, ACC schools they get that TV money, they have more money to, you know, to offer. It's going to be

very interesting. It seems like the further we go there's a bigger gap between the haves and the have not.

I think. You know, of course, people are going to spend it that it's going to help them because they're going to limit the roster sizes in the SEC and and and all the programs, which means that the guys that that that would have walked on at Kentucky or Tennessee are now going to be going to Murray State, Western Kentucky wherever. But you know, everybody wants a scholarship, and and uh so, I I think it's going to

hurt the mid majors. Of course, if I was coaching Kentucky, I would love to have the opportunity to offer these young men a full scholarship. That's what, in my opinion, they deserve. As hard as they work and as much as they put into the program, they they definitely deserve a scholarship. So it is a confusing time and it's different. It's changing so quickly with the transfer portal with NIL and now with the increased scholarship clim the increased scholarship

totals and the reduced roster side. It's gonna be another challenge for coaches to customize their program for these changes.

Are you feeling the pressure.

end of the interstate. I want to talk to you about U of L basketball in a minute, but Media Day tomorrow, I don't know if you're going to delegate that or coming. You've covered UK Media Day before. What from your end of the interstate is the interstate is the perception of Kentucky football these days.

and you're probably gonna get blown out. Nowadays, you know, any game, no seriously, because I mean it's not that long ago when beating Tennessee and Florida were non starters. It was not going to happen. And now you look at pretty much every game. I mean the only game you look at now and say that about is is Georgia and you kind of feel like it could be competitive. You know, there's belief there are you know, there are fans who have belief that it can happen. We're in

the Pact. That would have not been the case ever, so ba's a little different and now there. But now it's a completely new SEC. So what do we expect with Texas and Oklahoma coming into the league and getting rid of the divisions and everything. So we are at the point though, where we do expect a bowl game and it's a matter of can they take the next can they actually make the SEC championship game at some point?

Did you ever think you would see the day? And you kind of alluded to this where seven wins was like, Eh, they should have done more.

with this. But nowadays and the money is so crazy at some other place. But it's also changing so much because the money was crazy, now that money might be going in different directions to the paying the players, and it's all just such a changing landscape that you never know what's going to happen. But no, pants, no, I did not. Well, there were times, Dick, when we would come up on a Saturday, say, I can remember doing this like for an auburnyause he's playing Auburn on a

Saturday night. A right, I'm going to go shoo the first quarter. You know, I'll have money, you know it'll be thirty to nothing. I'll have funey come back. But yeah, that's not the case anymore.

fair in my opinion. And that's where we are now. I think was UK football as media and fans, don't you think.

And Tom Jurich was to that guy for Louisville who came in and granted he had a new stadium that he inherited, but he still was able to get them in their different conference moves up from conference at the Big East to the Ace. It would have thought at that point Louisvill's going to be in the ACC and then I mean they played in the a SEC Championship game last year.

people forget about this. I know you don't to play the first four games in Lexington in order to light a fire under the U of L boosters. And it worked, it did.

why the coach. I can see their argument. I don't agree with it because if you did lose that game then, and we saw it a lot of times with the team that would lose that game and go on and just have a horrible season. But nowadays they have so many other big games during the season. I don't know

that would necessarily be as much of a factor. And I don't think we'll ever get back there now because TV dictates it all on the rivalry weekend, and who knows, it may they may not even play that game in the next couple of years, you know, after when they started adding more conference games and stuff. But I like it as the first game because we did. It gave

us something to talk about something, Tom. I mean, we're not going to be doing, you know, comparisons between the offensive line of Louisville and the defensive line of Austin p and Kentucky and Southern myths, and you know, we're not gonna be talking about that for the next month. But when Louisville Kentucky played each other, we did.

I'm sure you were part of uku of L preseason football specials and we did someone you know on the satellite, Rob Bromley on one side of the screen and Fred Kalgill on the other side. We had a great time of those. But yeah, when you're doing sports talk radio, you could address the fact that Curry and Schnellenberger said, we're tired of people spending the summers talking about basketball recruiting. We want them to talk about football. And it worked now with one and done in the AAU leagues and

all that, they'd be still talking about basketball. But yeah, we're we're beating a dead horse because it is and it's worked out well kent for Kentucky of late that it is the last game of the year and it's propelled. A win is propelled Kentucky kN a better bowl game, and I think it has stoked the flames of this rivalry.

We have no access to the remainder of the week, and so you know, a lot of those stories don't ever get told, which we're fun, we're fun to do.

quarterbacks with Rock Vandergriff. From where you sit, from what you know, what you've done on Kentucky football other than QB, what do you think is maybe the lead or the lead couple of storylines for UK football this year.

easy figure out. I want that sound bite and then to back it up. It's phenomenal. And so it's just it's different than what we normally see, and he seems to be different than what we normally see, and so I'm excited to see him.

come out with us. But I don't. You know, I've been here forever, kent and it's hard to recall a D lineman with more impact literally and figuratively than Dion Walker.

wasn't at the spring game. There's a little video I really the little video I've watched is him in the playing against Kentucky last year and he looks like, you know, it looks like he can do a little bit of everything. So so we'll see.

the ACC streaming channel. And by the way, Were you at the TBT game the other night that that got really interesting, Dane? Were you back in the station?

not the case. Now he's got a deep team. They did, you know, like just like Mark propat Kentucky. They have a completely revamped roster and the only player from the roster last year is the is one walk on. That's it. Everybody else is completely new. But they had guys who had something that they haven't had for years and years. This just blows me away every time I say it. But Louisville has not won an NCAA Tournament game since

two thousand and seventeen. Think about that, It's twenty twenty four. Donovan Mitchell was playing. Rick Patino was the coach when they won that first round game over Dray Harper and Jacksonville State in Indianapolis that year, and then blew a halftime lead in lost in Michigan in the second round.

that's just crazy. But what he's done is he's putting guys who do have NCAA tournament experience and have won some games in the tournament, and our older guys Chuckie Hepburn from Wisconsin started every game I think at Wisconsin, Terrence Edwards was the player of the year in the Sun Belt, and Javon Hadley I think probably was the most impressive player in their first game of transfer from Colorado. They won a couple games to the tournament as well,

so they have some depth, some experience. They'll they'll at least be somewhat competitive, which is not something that we've seen it. They've won twelve games in two years. Yeah, others it's been tough to watch.

So it's it's an improvement. It'll be definitely an improvement. And and you know, unlike it's a little I mean, both both schools, you know, obviously didn't get there. I guess they're both probably really, you'd say, their third choices according to you know, all the speculations, and with one of them, the Scott Drew being one of the guys who turned them both down. Now, Mark Pope is is a little more well compensated. Pat Kelsey comes in here.

He's just making a little over two billion dollars a year, which is not you know, I mean, obviously you know we could live on that. But in the world of college basketball, when you think that Rick Betino was making what seven eight million, you know, seven years ago at the same job. But he you know, he's still got a million dollar rais from Charleston. He's had plenty of success at every stop he's been at. And I just

feel like they're going to there. I don't know how big they'll win, but they're going to be competitive and it's going to be fun to watch, which has not been the case. Just the crowd. I look at the crowd for the I tweeted this out there, and the crowd to that TBT game that Freedom All was what thirteen and six I think, right, Okay. The only crowd they had bigger than that last year for a game

in the KFC I'm center was the Cadecktive. Every other game they they're announced attendance, which isn't even you know, the actual attendance, but it was way lower than that, even which is crazy because for both programs, you know, again with the perspective thing, but we go back to win every game was a sell out or at least they're going to have over twenty one twenty two thousand people for every game, and it's it's just been a different animal over the last couple of years.

I'd love to get him on the show some night, but he seems to be bouncy and energetic, just like the guy over here in Lexingon.

at all. And you look at the video. He's in the middle of the drills, out there guarding people running around like crazy, and you can see the same thing we see the same stuff with the videos that UK has posted of Mark Pope, Mike's out the practice where you know, these guys are out there, they're active the one but I think I only went to one practice under Kenny Payne and it wasn't the same as the practices I had seen under Rich you know, and even

Chris Mack pretty impressive practices at u of L. So uh, yeah, getting back to that for both And the thing is it's better for everybody when they're both Oh yeah, you know. And he said that to make it a rivalry, you know, both sides have to win.

my professional endeavors. So is my daughter Kate. They both at one point were pulling cable for camera operators at UK football and basketball games. Kate was smart, she got away from the cable pulling and immediately put herself in charge of the crew lighting and carrying things, and pretty

soon you were just telling people what to do. Maybe very proud, but Jack has traveled with me back when I was working for the SEC Football and basketball radio networks and has driven us the UK Football Network to some of the away games in fact, but most memorably, he was with me working for the SEC network down in Atlanta on tornado night. So yeah, he knew to get under the table when things began to fall from

the ceiling, but I'll never forget. Once the danger had passed, he and I walked from the arena because we thought the last shuttle had just left. There may have been others, but we didn't get upstairs in time to get this one, so we decided to walk back to the hotel I was less than a mile and walk through the wreckage that the tornado had left through Atlanta. So anyway, a happy birthday to Jack and all the best to anybody having a birthday today, including my stepson in law. So yeah,

good day for birthdays anyway. Kentucky football coming up fast, as we mentioned, Media day tomorrow and if you want more on UK football. Right now, we'll go to Behind Kentucky Football via Apple podcast produced by the UK Sports Network. I had some fun being on that podcast, hosted by Jeremy Jarman, my broadcast partner. He's alongside Christy Thomas and works of course with Tom Leech Yepcoro, all of us on the UK network. And Jeremy was down in Dallas and I talked to him a little bit down there

if you were listening when we were down there. But recently we got together and talked on the podcast. Here's an excerpt from the moments when we were talking about the fact that Kentucky football, while it's been consistently better and better under Mark Stoops, has had its ups and downs, and now Kentucky fans are expecting more really than they ever have in recent memory from UK football and Mark Stoops.

stock never just goes vertical. I mean, you know there's terms I see people using bar coding up down, up, down, uptown, and then you let these things kind of settle and then boom, And I think that we're at a point now where over the last few years gave where we've kind of had the highs and we've had we've kind of dropped back down, been a little flat high flat. Now I think this is going to be a year

where you have eight home games. Can you get this line going back, you know, get it going back vertical and try to get back to, you know, a year like eighteen twenty one where you're knocking on the door for a possibility to play, you know, playing in one of the late Bowl games.

be more consistent? A friend of mine, a media person, said that he believes they maybe need to let go of the big Blue Wall logo or slowly or whatever. You know, Yeah, you know, and I could I can understand what he's saying, but I really believe, and you can speak better to this, that I could see them embracing the values that that original Big Blue Wall embraced.

And you know, and and yes, we realized John Schlarman has gone rest his soul, but what he stood for I think still needs to be here, don't you.

through the first three quarters, run past, mix, whatever. When you get into the fourth quarter and you have a lead or you're trying to take a lead, you need some kind of moniker, some kind of rallying cry that is at the base, that's part of your identity. So when you say so, i'd be careful, like you said, trying to shed the big blue, trying to shed that and trying to create a you know, a new slogan because you want guys to be able to tap into that.

that was the problem. And now this staff from day one has worked their tails off and a lot of assistants slash recruiters have come and gone, but thanks to Vince maryland Mark Stoop still being here, they've done the same thing. They have tried to recruit to need and build that depth, and I think they've done that fairly successfully. And that's why Kentucky now is winning more games than it has in the past, and it's winning games in

that fourth quarter that you just talked about. And when it comes to me in physical I'll never forget working on a TV piece for when I produced the Football Coaches Show, we would go into the video room, Jeff Pikoro and I did, and they had just come off the first win at Florida and Big George Georgiasapho a Jay takes Jeff and me into the video room and uses what you guys called the clicker. You know, the remote doesn't really click, but that's what everybody calls it.

And the as your pointer, right, And we were looking Jeremy in nothing but end zone video and there were some key plays, but he wanted to do that to show me the skill and execution by the offensive line in the swamp obviously against Florida, and he just said things like, yeah, we pushed those guys around and you could see it right there in front of you, the old line opening, you know how the end zone that video that the holes look a lot bigger, dominating, and

I'll never forget that, and I would love to see this team get back to that and see what this team can do if the old line can regain that consistent physicality.

Florida game obviously being one of them. But a lot of good blocks over the course of the season, but then you just kind of have some of those those misses, some of the inconsistencies where you're just not able to

just to keep that momentum going. So now with coach Woolford back at the helm, with that offensive line group, I'm really curious to see where they start this camp and ultimately how this running back room evolves and to see if someone is going to emerge out of that running back group to really establish this all help us up to the old line entity.

of your body. But that's also just always being the physically dominant person as well, not being knocked down, not being pushed into a power. There's a lot of whammies out there on the football field, a lot of grenades you can step on. But Marcus Colex, I'm excited to see the step he's gonna take because he's so intelligent. And now when we spoke with him, he's talking about, uh, you know, pilates. He's talking about doing these extra things to help with his hip, help with his flexibility and

his explosion. If he's able to pick up where he left off last year, but showed that he's a more versatile athlete and really growing to that left tackle position. It's going to be a fun year watching him grow and develop and ultimately propel this offensive line forward.

Final segment of our programs that we will shift to Kentucky basketball, more specifically LAFA Media, which plays tomorrow night the UK Infused basically an all star team part of the basketball tournament. They've made the semi finals. They're playing in Philly. My question will Blue get in how many Kentucky fans will show up, Will either make the trip or from surrounding areas come to watch that game. I think we'll probably all be pleasantly surprised or is surprise

when Kentucky fans show up everywhere? Now, this is not you know the UK Wildcats, but for all intent purposes, according to the crowds both in Lexington and over in Louisville, it really is. It has that feel, of course, and after the Wildcats beat the vill worked their way to the Semis with an eye on that million dollar prize. Prior to the U of L game, though Nate Cestina,

who keep in mind, only played one season here. It was the COVID year and so you know what that meant for crowds and knowing say tournament and all that. But he's still got the full dose the taste of the Big Blue Nation, and he's back living here now. While he's not playing overseas, he plays in Spain professionally. That's why he looks like he's in just great shape and is shooting so well because Biggs in Europe shoot the ball a lot and shoot it well. Otherwise the Americans,

they're not on the team. And Cistina went wild in the third quarter against the Villain, hit five to three pointers, basically State Kentucky to a big lead and left of media hung on. But prior to that game, since Tina talked about BBN.

for how many years and they're packing gyms out. There was eleven thousand tickets or something sold out, So first summer basketball in Kentucky to have, you know, eleven twelve thousand people.

from Parentland, primarily Ohio State. That's around nine pm. So that's the TBT schedule for tomorrow. In the finals are the next day so keep an eye on that. Shifting over to women's basketball, we got a chance to interview almost every player. I ran out of time. I missed a couple, but the brand new roster from Kenny Brooks's team, including five international players from Australia, Portugal, the Czech Republic.

Tanna Becker is from Canada and committed really when Kyra Elsey was here, but wants to play for Kenny Brooks at Kentucky.

his youngest daughter. Red shirted last year at Virginia Tech, didn't get a chance to play there, but now she's a wildcat.