Uh. Oh, guess what day it is?
Guess what day it is? Huh anybody?
It's hump Day. Yes, it is hump Day. Dick Abriel with you on a Wednesday, and it puts us one step closer, one giant stride closer to college football four days away, less than four days away. As you hear this, a couple of minutes after six o'clock. So it's not going to be long now before the wild kids suit up and take on those Southern Miss Golden Eagles. People
cannot wait. And I've talked a little bit over the last couple of weeks about whether there is the same the representative amount of excitement with their quotes when it comes to Kentucky football that we've seen in the past. I don't know that I have felt it as much, but you all have come through with your wallets, your check books, your your Vimeo accounts, whatever. Because season tickets are sold out. Man, I remember years when they they
were lucky to get twenty five thousand sold. Now forty thousand, eight hundred season ticket packages have been sold. That's up six hundred from last year, new record for the Mark Stoops era going back to twenty thirteen. Also going back through the current configuration of Kroger Field, which was renovated first in twenty fifteen. And by the way, in case you're wondering about the student's sixty five hundred student season passes also sold out. That's all of them. So students
sellout regular ticket buyers they buy them all. So right now, apparently there is excitement for Kentucky football, possibly beyond what I thought. I guess maybe when I hear people talk about it, they're still a little bit cautious, the old cliche cautiously optimistic. I think that holds true simply because Kentucky failed last year to win a couple of games it should have won. And now you might have a team it's even better, but you've got a much tougher schedule.
I will say this, though, for a team that has not made anybody's preseason top twenty five, Kentucky finally made not just a top twenty five, but a top five. Here's what I'm talking about. The Action Sports Network Brett McMurphy used to write for ESPN dot com, tweeting this morning that they have put together both an overrated Top twenty five and an underrated Top twenty five based on preseason and final polls, and this dates back to twenty fourteen.
All Right, I'm gonna give you a little bit of suspense here because the most overrated in the last ten years, most overrated Division one team based on preseason rankings, happens to be on Kentucky's schedule this year. Auburn. Auburn has performed poorly when it comes to preseason rankings versus final polls. Number two Southern col you better believe it, Number three, Wisconsin, number four, Texas A and m. That's got to go back to a couple of years ago and everybody picked
him and they flopped LSU number five overrated. The rest of the top ten Texas, Oregon, Oklahoma, Miami, and Florida State. Now, Georgia's fourteenth on the overrated in the last ten years. So that tells you just how overrated Georgia was prior to the last two or three years when the Bulldogs became one of the powerhouses. In case you're wondering, South Carolina sixteenth on that list, Alabama seventeenth on the overrated list. Michigan,
which won the national title last year, ranked twenty fifth. Now, what is the most underrated team according to the Action Network math based on preseason rankings versus postseason rankings. May surprise you, Northwestern, Yeah, those Wildcats ranked number one underrated, Cincinnati second, TCU is third, Missouri fourth at that huge
year last year, and Kentucky is number five. You could see that because for the longest time Kentucky wasn't in anybody's top twenty five, but would end up, you know, eighteenth or twenty second or something like that. Last couple of years not so much, but Kentucky ranked fifth among Insea Division one teams underrated based on preseason rankings and
postseason polls. After them, after the Wildcats, Central Florida, then four teams tied for seven, Arizona, Houston, Louisiana and oklahom So I really found that fascinating that somebody, first of all, took the time to do the math and the Wildcats fared well in this particular top twenty five. How will Kentucky do against Southern miss Well, we're all going to find out together, but we're going to see bush Hamden's offense. And I'll tell you a guy I expect to have
a really good year is Jimury Macklin. You know, we talked so much about Barrion Brown, we talked so much about Dante Kean a good reason. But remember Jamurry Macklin is coming off two big seasons as a receiver at North Texas, but prior to that, he was at Missouri. Didn't do much there, didn't get to play much, no stats to speak of, but he played under Bush Hamden at Missouri. That means with everybody learning this new offense,
Macklin had a bit of a leg up. He's the new guy, but he was able to help the veterans.
Everybody's on the fresh slate man, and I kind of came from this type of offense. I've, you know, played with Bush my first year of the Malus, so everything that I know he expects, like I already know what it is. So I'm just trying to help those guys out. And you know we all started fresho.
Yeah, Macklin, you got Fred Ferrier along with Key and Barry and Brown. Of course, Harley Gilmore's out for most of the season with that broken collar bone. But still there's a lot of talent in that wide receiver room and Macklin's a big part of it.
Dogs Man, we got a bunch of dogs in that room. We got a lot of different players. Man, We've got a speed guy, barry On. We got a taller guy, Danny. You got like a more versatile, shorter guy in me. We've got a bunch of other guys that can step up as well. Ab Harley Fred like just we all just push each other every day to be better. And I'm excited and.
By all accounts, Brock Vandergriffkin get them the football and he's going to be doing it with an uptempo style, thanks in large part to Bush ham Dan and his new offense. So it's going to be fun on Saturday night. It's a catch stick on So and Miss Coming up in a few minutes, we're going to talk more about the Kentucky volleyball team. Wildcats lost last night over in
Louisville towo Nebraska, three to one. Kentucky took a fifteen to ten leave fifteen to eleven in the first set and was having its way with Nebraska, but out of the media timeout, Nebraska really flexed and took the first set. So I thought, oh, here we go. Because Nebraska really big, really talented, but Kentucky fell down eight to three in the second set and came back to win it, which was really impressive to me. And then Nebraska really found
a rhythm and beat Kentucky the next two sets. In fact, for the match, Nebraska hit two fifty eight Kentucky hit just one thirty nine. Again, think of it as batting average Wildcats with fifty one kills to forty seven for Nebraska, but Kentucky thirty errors to only sixteen Nebraska and sixteen service errors for the Wildcats. So good learning experience. We'll hear from Kentucky's Craig Skinner and one of the Wildcats
coming up in our next segment. But not a bad showing for Kentucky and a great showing for the AVCA event. A couple of interesting stories over in the NFL. We've heard so much about the technology they're going to use to measure first downs and everyone's so excited to do it with the chain Gangs. Apparently, during the preseason games, mixed results mean the NFL will shelve the automated first down system for the upcoming season. They're not going to
use it. It's a multi gazillion dollar prospect, but apparently it's way too primitive right now to trust it in regular season games, they say that it took way too long to operate, slowed the game down even more, and it's something that is disappointing because so many people were looking forward to doing a way for the Chain Gang, but the technology just not there yet. Speaking of last night, in the volleyball match, they did not have line judges.
They used cameras and computers and they had two or three challenges. They took about the same amount of time, but they didn't have as many challenges, So I think that was the bright spot. If you listen to the Kelsey Brothers podcasts and they also have it on video, you may really enjoy it, and you may enjoy the fact that they are trying to cut a deal. I think they've done it with Amazon, and I saw this reported on Awful Announcings website. The headline says the deal
is worth one hundred million dollars. I dove into the story and I read the story four times, and nowhere in the story does it say one hundred million dollars. But it's in there somewhere. He's out there somewhere. Show's been on hiatus since July third. But Jason Kelsey has become popular with his commercials, and of course Travis still playing at a high level and dating a fairly high profile singer. So they are the hottest thing in podcast right now. And if indeed they have signed that check,
they got paid, all right. Coming up next, we'll talk more Kentucky volleyball. Bottom of the hour, Tom Leach. Coming up in hour number two, Sean Woods, the Unforgettable Guard will join us as well as West End Bureau chief Gary Moore. That's our Wednesday lineup and it's all ahead. You're on a Big Blue Insider six point thirty waap. Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Gabrielle with you coming up in just a few minuteses the voice of the Wildcats, Tom Leech. He'll call the action when
Kentucky opens up with Southern Miss on Saturday. But as you know, a couple of sports already in action so far on the UK campus and all over the country, really men's and women's soccer and volleyball, which opened its season, the regular season last night with that loss. As we said to Nebraska, it was a great atmosphere. It was the American Volleyball Coaches Association Classic, a double header matching two of the locals, Kentucky and Louisville against Nebraska and Wisconsin.
And if you don't know women's volleyball, and you should by now living in Lexington, if you follow UK at all, but you know, those are two of the absolute powerhouse programs in all of women's volleyball. And it was a great night, both Kentucky and Louisville losing, but there was a really great exhibition although the games counted for real, but just great examples I guess I should say of
athleticism and great plays. If you watch Kentucky win the national title and you haven't watched much volleyball before or since, similar action. I mean, these kids are just throwing themselves on the floor, making incredible plays. And it was well worth staying up late last night if you were watching U of L or if you were at that match,
because that one didn't start till about nine o'clock. And there were some grumbling I heard from some media people believe it or not, like I don't know why they're starting this game so late. Well, our friends on TV, this thing was on ESPN two. That's a big deal. Everything's on ESPN now, we say, but for women's volleyball in a regular season situation like this to play and
of course, what do you have going on otherwise baseball? Okay, no disrespect to baseball, but college football isn't playing on a Tuesday night. The NFL isn't playing on a Tuesday night. So for women's volleyball to grab Tuesday night and work this out with ESPN two, that was huge. And then to put these high profile programs on the air equally huge. And for Kentucky to be a part of it, for UL to be a part part of it that UK used to regularly trounce u of L. Now u of
l's got a powerhouse program thanks to its coach. So things are really really soaring right now for women's volleyball. And I'm telling you, I know I sound like a show, and yes I do the matches on the SEC streaming channel, but please believe me when I tell you, if you go to a volleyball match, you'll love it. If you like women's basketball, that's great. This is a different kind of sport, different pace, different tempo, different skill sets. There's
room for both. But if you go to a volleyball match Kentucky against preferably a good team, so it's you know, contentious. But even if it's Kentucky, you know, sweeping somebody in three sets, I'm telling you you'll enjoy yourself. And of course coming up on Friday night, it's the Wildcats and Northern Kentucky. But Kentucky's going to be all over ESPN this year, all over the SEC new worked this year,
because that's how good it is. One of the interesting side notes to this match last night Kentucky and Nebraska was Craig Skinner, you may know, was an assistant in Nebraska. I talked about this last night. That's where Mitch Barnard found him, hired and brought him to Kentucky. And he has excelled as Craig Skinner. Well, he worked for John Cook, the head coach at Nebraska, more than once. In fact, Cook said he hired Craig twice at Wisconsin and again
in Nebraska. Apparently he hired Craig at Wisconsin, Craig at one point walked away and then he re hired him when he wanted to come back, so it was a real And then everybody knows everybody of course in this sport, but so it was a real gathering of athletes and coaches who enjoyed the atmosphere. And after the match, one of the first things Cook talked about was just how happy he was with the win over Kentucky and happy to see the kind of atmosphere at the Young Center.
Great atmosphe Kentucky does some really nice things. Brooklyn and that cet are really good players. It took us a while to get in a good rhythm, but I really we started finally offensively. Games three and four started clicking. We got our middles going, and I mean there's some pretty good volleyball.
He's referring to Brooklyn Delay, who was a tremendous freshman last year and got off to a good start this season. With nineteen kills last night led Kentucky, although she had eight errors, so she only hit one ninety think of it as batting average. It was great when it came to the kills, but way too many errors. In fact, Kentucky had more kills than Nebraska, just had way too
many errors. Had sixteen service errors. You talked about the center, that's Emma Gron, probably the best setter in the country. She had forty two assists last night. It was a learning experience, obviously for the Wildcats, and that's how Craig Skinner saw it.
We've always scheduled tough. It wasn't in the initial plan to play Nebraska ra off the bat in the first Hear showcase, but when Jamie offered, I was like, absolutely. You know, our players love these situations, and you know we're going to be a team that's going to be continued learning through November.
So his great, great mass for us in that regard. One of the bright spots for Kentucky was the return of Brooke Boltimo, but she didn't exactly have a great match. She had what four kills and five errors, so she hit in the negatives, but she played. That's the big thing. She was supposed to be a contributor last year, coming out of Cincinnati, one of the best players in Ohio, but she injured her ankle severely in the preseason. I
had to red shirt last year. But healthy and able to contribute this season and just happy to be back.
It's kind of like gripping a band aid off. It felt like, you know, just getting out there for the first time, you know, training for so long in practice and then coming out here and applying that they learned a lot from this MAC. We have a great opportunity this next coming weekend. We've got three more matches to apply what we learned and continue to carry with that.
But yeah, I just I think I'm learning to trust my training going those moments and continuing to apply what I've been working on in practice.
Brook also congratulated the AVCA for putting on such an event and also said she loved the atmosphere. There were so many kids in that arena, a lot of little girls as you might expect, but just that's what I love seeing. I love seeing the kids come to these events. And back to John Cooked and Nebraska coach, he took notice of the fact that there were a lot of youngsters who showed up for this event.
I'm glad those kids are out there because i know it's Tuesday night and school's in so so but you know, the AVCA is in Jamie's doing a great job of trying to build events to continue to build on the momentum that I think really started with the Stadium match last year and then the Final four and it's and then in the Big Ten Conference I mean almost every arena is selling out and it's hard to get tickets. I think I've read we have seven thousand people on
the waiting list. So it's happening. And volleyball is a great sport and there's a lot of great players that are great role models for these kids as well.
And you got to think some of those kids will be back in that building at the end of the season coming up in December at the Final Four. That was one of the great things about this event. It's a preview to what we'll see in terms of the facility and the crowds. The crowds will be much bigger of course for the Final Four in December in Louisville. So what an advantage of if UK or U of l are both can make it at the Final Four at the Young Center when it comes to women's volleyball.
One other personal note, got a chance to sit with and talk and hug Kathy to Borr, my former broadcast partner on the SEC Network. Work with Kathy for several years, of course, a tremendous coach at UK administrator and has retired now after a long stint as the executive director of the Coaches Association. Had to step down a little early because of health issues. But she's doing great and
she is loving what she saw in Louisville. Wanted a bigger crowd, but hey, of course you think she's going to say that, right, But it was good to see Kathy last night. Up next, Tom Leach, the Voice of the Wildcats here on six point thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big Bluing Sider, joining us on our celebrity hotline as my buddy, my teammate, longtime voice of the Wildcats, Tom Leech. Hear him on this very radio station every morning at eight o'clock on the Leech Report. And Tom,
you're like every other talk show host in Kentucky. You're dying to talk about something new when it comes to Kentucky football. But you're the only guy who is preparing to broadcast the game on the radio for the UK Network. So let me ask you. Have you done anything different in game prep or is there anything in particular you're looking for.
Nothing different in in game prep is a little Every few years, I'll kind of figure out some way to make my spotting bord a little more efficient, or you know, something will change in the way you have, like over the years, I've had to put more wide receiver slots on there, things like that, But that's about the only tweaking. But just eager to especially to see adds a pretty good that they're going about what we'll see on defensebo Kentucky and how good they will be on that side
of the ball. Eager to see what the offense is going to look like. And I think you know it's a new coordinator, new system. You know, the running back positions of question mark because you get the number one guy to that chart injured, and then not much to go on for the guys who will be in that spot. And then you've got a new quarterback. You've got NFL caliber talent among the tight ends and wide receivers, maybe one or two in the offensive line depending on how
things go. So just eager to see how it kind of all gets put together and plays out offensively. And I'm saying that I don't know that we'll you know, depends on how good Southern this is as to how much we really learn until they play an SEC team in Week two. So they missed three nine last year, but they flipped over the whole defensive staff and these days, you can change the look at your team a lot quicker than you used to be able to.
Oh yeah, Stoop's talked about that with you on the air last night and at his news conference. And the offense, of course, the tempo is going to be different, and Stoop's very pleased by all early reports from what he has seen in the spring and in summer camp. You and you and mister Bracoro are going to find a new rhythm. You might not be throwing it down to your sidelines reporter as much because things should by by design be clicking a lot faster.
Right, Yeah, that's the plan I think is you know, I think at times they'll be at more up tempo than at others. I mean, I think ideally the way Mark Stoops likes to play is if they can get a lead, and when they've been at their best, they've been good at protecting leads in the fourth quarter and so then you know, you'll play a little slower and U I think his main thing is to getting more
back to being more physical in the run game. And you know that's the area when you look at you know, when when this program started to ascend really in the sixteen season when they got to the first ball game or stoops. It was with that building that identity of the Big Blue Wall and by John Flarman, and then as John passed and they've gone through a different guys coach of the old line, and it had some you know,
bad luck with guys that they recruited. They were promising prospects that got injured they ever got on the field. You know, Nick Hall pushing one example, guys like that. So you know, they now seemed to be several guys back. We got a couple of transfers, one from Florida, one from Tennessee that look like they'll start on the right side.
And if they can get back to recapturing that identity of just being you know, the two the program that's going to have always have an outstanding offensive line and it's going to be physical, then I think they're moving back in the right direction that they can pull that off.
You know, when you think back to when things fell into place for the Big Blue Wall those years ago, I know you and I have talked about this before, is when Drake Jackson finally got to start at center. Bunch of Stallings was the center. It didn't work out as snaps were erratic, so they slide him over to guard and all he does is become an All American.
And Drake drops into the starting job, which we all kind of thought he might have earned in the preseason, but no, but then he starts to win the job and he becomes an All Conference center and you know, Darian Card is there, Big George a south of a j H. So my point is everything falls into place. But they had really good players. It was recruit and developed, not all paid off. That was the lynch pin for the big Blue Wall. So all again, it always starts
with talent, doesn't it. And you know, we can talk about coaching all you want, but they got to have guys like Fortner who came out of nowhere and now as an NFL starter, So you know, everybody's going to get a shot. But if you got to have a talent to begin with, don't you you do?
And it doesn't always want an on line work. Do you think something is going to look good on paper, It doesn't always work as well on the field, and sometimes it does. So fort is a good example, was a guard and then moved over to center and became tremendous you know, they tried this group going into I guess it was last season with Jagger Bert playing center, thinking they could make use of his athleticism in the mold of like a you know, an athletic center, like
a DERMANI Dawson was. You want to compare everybody to Hall of Paper, but I mean that kind of you know, athletic center that could use his speed to get out on the edge maybe, And you know, it's it's turned out that that wasn't the best spot for Jagger. And now I look at him and he looks bigger and that should help him be better at the guard position. Eli Cox has really talked him up the spring. Eli is now, you know, he kind of went into the last season having to make a change, and then now
he's been locked in there. He got you know, eight year older Marcus Cox on the outside and the two big guys from Florida and Tennessee respectively on the right side. They had Dylan Ray. They can play multiple positions. They've got a lot of experience last year promising you know young guy and Zalm from the Norda Kentucky. So uh, I think they've got you know, seven eight guys that they probably will be able to trust to play. Malachi Wood is coming. He's probably My guess is maybe, you know,
another season before we see him at his best. But he's really come on strong from Madison Central, and you know, they keep that group healthy. I really expect that it'll be a very solid offensive line, if not more than solid.
Malck high Wood is the guy who catches your eye. Six foot eight and three twenty. But it's not one of these situations where his ways hanging over his belt. He looks a little bit. He reminds you of Dion Walker when you look at him and he's so big, but you can see that he's athletic, you know what I mean.
Yeah, I think he's going to maybe be a guy like a Calvin Taylor, remember sixty nine defensive lineman, and you know it was kind of an interesting prospect that started, you know, the size, and he made himself into an All SEC player yep, yep, and.
Ended up in the NFL. Talking to Tom Lee, it's the voice of the Wildcats. He'll be behind the mic when the Wildcats open up their season this Saturday night against Suttern Miss. You know, one of the names that popped up the other day. It came from one of the coaches, It came well, it came from Stoops as well.
It came from the players. Fred Ferrier. I'm really really curious to see what this young man can do because you know, he came in from UAB, he is a Kentucky and played his high school ball at Franklin County High School. But Tom, when the other players talk about a guy like this, it really piques your curiosity, doesn't it.
It does.
Bushamon and those talked about how consistent Fred has been as a competitor from the day.
Training camp started.
And you know, look the Kentucky guy that went off to UAB, now he's back here. And I think, you know, their best position group is either the tight ends or the wide receivers. You know, the wide receivers led by Key and Brown. They've got good depths there. And again that's where I'm kind of really intrigued to see how Bush him and utilizes all those guys, because you know, Key and Brown are the main two guys, but Ferrier, Brown, Stevens Macklin. We haven't mentioned that Elsa's coming in with
an profressive record of production. So yeah, Key and Brown are going to command a lot of attention. That could open up opportunity for somebody else to make a big play here and there.
I know you can't be incredibly frank with everything you've seen because when you go to scrimmages you're kind of sworn to secrecy. But do you have any feel for how they're going to use Gavin Wimsit? I know it's in some running situations, but you know, I'm just really curious as to how often we see him and how they roll him in there.
Yeah, I don't you're probably I don't know for sure. And even though it was wouldn't talk too much about it, but we can talk about the things that have been said publicly. You know, push Handon said that the might be their best ball carrier, best guy you know, with the ball in his hands. So if that's the case, you can see why they would want to make use of that. And you know, the quarterback run game certainly is going to seemingly be a lot bigger part of
the offense. It wasn't will Levis's first year. Then they changed coordinators to Stanierello. He didn't want him running, wanted to protect him, I guess, and then last year wasn't the forte of Devi A. Leary to do much of that. So now they have you know, Brock I think can certainly run. Whimst certainly can and so you have guys that and you have questions at running back. So it certainly it would seem logical that you could make use of,
you know, a guy like Gavin in some capacity. You know, there's short yardage situations, you know, if you don't have that Anny Snell to turn an hand to to, or Chris Rodrigo or you know, in goal line situations. I I think I've told true before. The most wasted opportunity. I always thought maybe the history of Entuckey's football was when they had Shane Boyd and Jared Lorenzeny and split Jared out. You run the wildcat type formation with Shane taking the direct snap and split Jared out wide, and
somebody had to go out and cover him. Well, he could catch anything, he was athletics, So Shane let Shane throw it out to him, and you either dare a small defensive back to tackling, which wasn't gonna happen, or they have to put somebody bigger out there that Jared would.
Be you know, nimble enough to get around and I just thought.
There couldn't have been a more effective kind of two point play or you know, the deep red zone play than something like that.
But absolutely throw him a bubble screen, yes, and then let a defensive back try to take him down. That would be Derek Ramsey situation, wouldn't it. Yes, Well, they need to put us in charge every once in a while, Tom, it'd be a lot more fun.
But you know, with damn if they're using him at if they use him in some Wildcat stuff, yeah, well we'll see.
That be effective.
And I know it's frustrated some fans, but when it works, well, it's a very effective play. South Carolina knows that with Jojo Kemp for that twenty fourteen age. But they've never really had a situation where they had a guy there they you know, were confident putting the ball in the air, even with Bowden. And you know if you had a a guy who's actually a quarterback that is maybe doing some of that kind of stuff, well you would think that could be interesting.
Tom Leach is a voice of the Wildcats. We'll come back and talk more football with Tom in just a minute. You're on a big bloom Sider six thirty wlap. Welcome
back for chatting with Tom Leach. He is the radio voice of the Wildcats, and of course he'll be behind the mic when Kentucky opens up against Souttern Miss on Saturday Night and Southern Miss. It just prompts a lot of for me, Tom, with of course the comeback win by the Golden Eagles here Kentucky grinds out that when I heard you talking on your show about Josh Pascal having a big game down there, the big hit on Edo down there, that basically signaled Josh's entrance to the
Kentucky defense. I'll never forget that. But it also reminds me of how the Drew Barker injury. Still, the ramifications are being felt, the ripple effect of when they couldn't develop him as their QB for three years and Juco guy started to have to roll in, and you know, the quarterback positions kind of been up in the air ever since. I don't know if it ends eventually with Cutter Bowley being a three year starter, even a two year starter, but it's just funny how that's worked out, hasn't it.
It is, and you think back to that twenty sixteen game and the idea of the phrase historical hypotheticals. If something different had happened, how my history, the course of history had shaped. In that game against Southern Mez, Drew
Barker threw four touchdown passes in the first half. Eddie Grant was a new offensive coordinator and came in with a rep of running a high powered passing attack at Cincinnati, and it looked like that was going to was going to build on that with this exciting quarterback prospect in Barker, and then Drew ends up getting hurt and they become basically kind of like the They had to go to Steven Johnson, a quarterback who turned out to be wonderful
in that role. But they became kind of like a seventies Oakland Raiders team in that they were physical running team that hits.
You with a deep bomb.
You know those old day the going the way back there to Warren Wells or Fred Mellinko. But you know that they had, you know, big bombs to Bedet and Jus Johnson.
And then as it then evolved to where so the.
Kentucky develops this rep as a physical running team and then you lose two quarterbacks in nineteen and it becomes you know, an amazing job that Eddie did building that team around Lynn Bowden. But it got to the point where Kentucky got this rep that made it hard to recruit quarterbacks and receivers. And you know how that might have been different if Drew Barker had stayed healthy and you know, things had.
Gone differently in that first name against Southern myth.
Just an interesting kind of historical hypothetical.
Yeah, and it's still being felt, but maybe it pays off. On Saturday with Rock Vandergriff, we talked a lot of offense, Tom, but I'm really curious to see how Jamon Dumas Johnson makes himself known as a Kentucky Wilkat a guy. I mean, you never hear about all Americans transferring, but when you're Georgia, you can recruit over an injured linebacker with another five star and that's what they did. This could work out well, very well.
It could be a big piece of good fortune for Kentucky. Got an experienced guy inside there and Derek Jackson that thought, I'm not playing Alexafaris something inside yep. Rayner gives him depth there too, so you know with Eon Walker and then those linebackers, you know and Keyshon Silver, these guys up front and the guys in the middle of that
linebacker line. You know, one would think it would be difficult to run on Kentucky and you can, you know, start with controlling the running game and then you've got an all SEC corner on one side of the field to get their best receiver. Baby, you can see why there's a lot of reason to be optimistic about the death.
At the time.
Before I let you go, we haven't talked much special teams and Stoops is really happy with his placekickers. I'm hearing the Wilson Barry won the punting job and he came here of course the Australian style. We thought he'd be the next if not Max Duffy's something similar, but they haven't really let him use the Rugby style of punting, which I find puzzling. But he does have a good leg, doesn't.
He He does the biggest leg. I think it's a transfer for mute Martin la Ross, but I think he was expected to win the job and sounds like he hasn't. So either you know Barry it has improved, or he's just simply been more consistent.
You know, if la Ross has got.
The biggest leg, then there'll probably be you know, you know, he'll keep the heat on Barry at that position, which ought to you know, build improved performance if you've got somebody pushing you hard for your job. I can't remember all the details, but Kach Buller was on the Sunday Morning Show earlier this summer and he gave a good explanation about his approach and why they didn't want to use the Australian style hunting. And I can't remember all
the details. One of us can get him on the air again and get him to talk about it again. But it was just I thought an excellent explanation. Even if he didn't agree with it, you understood his thinking on and so you know it's the bottom line is they have to be better at the punting game, and they with Loross and then the freshman Colway, they should
be better at kickoffs. And last year I had a chance Pour a little hurt at the end and then Rainer had to kick and he just didn't have as big a leg for kickoffs, and so that hurt them in the bowl game tremendously right, and that kickoff part of it should be much improved. They've got a great return game. They just need to really solidify the punting and you know, it sounds like it's going to be bare to start.
And if he can hold on to the.
Job, I know the other guy's got a big leg. So Ferry can hold onto the job through his performance that dought to lead to improvement, yep.
And if he can place it the way Max Stuffy did and maybe occasionally break went off and run it the way Max did. Fun when when he won the Ray Guy Award, the one highlight they showed Max was him running for a first down again Missouri in the rain, So he still laughs about that. Tom Leach is the radio voice of the Wildcats. How many years now? For football? I know you did football before you did basketball.
Yeah, I started football in ninety seven, So what would this would be? The twenty seventh year, the twenty eighth a.
Then and for Pacoro the twenty fifth year, and for me the thing.
He started pick started in two thousands. He're the dean, you're the dean of Mark Stewts is the dean of coaches. He're the dean of Sideline Report.
Nineteen eighty nine. About that all right, Well, we can't wait to get started. Tom Leach listen to him every morning on this very radio station on the Leach Report, and of course on Saturday night. Thank you, Sarah. We'll see you at the Ballyard.
Yes, I can't wait.
Unforgettable Guard Shawn Woods is up next in our number two. Then it's West End Bureau Chief Gary Moore here on the Big Blue Siders six thirty wlap. Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider and joining us as he does each and every Wednesday, is the Unforgettable Guard. Sean Woods, a Jersey hangs in the rafters of rupp, a veteran of the coaching wars, and of course a wildcat who played under Rick Patino back in the day. And you, guys, coach, you played some tough games under Patino. He believed in
scheduling tough, I know. And you had to, didn't you as a head coach, because you were at schools that needed to play those tough road games for budgetary reasons. I'm refraying, of course, to Kentucky and Nebraska playing last night in the volleyball event. But tell me a little bit about helping your teams learn even though they're taking their lumps.
Well, you know, like you said that, you know, the schools I coached that we had to because we had to bring in so much money from a budgetary standpoint. So what I did was I used it to my advantage, and most schools at my level did it, especially in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, where you want it if you
got to make the money. To you, you know, all those schools that you have to play are pretty much better than you, having more resources than you probably got, you know, from a recruiting standpoint, got higher rated players than you. But you wanted to go out there and you wanted to test to get you ready for conference. And what better way to do that is to go out and play the best in Kentucky And most of the when I played Shooes, we played Notre Dame, we
played North Carolina, we played Kansas. You know, so there's always fining. If everybody wants to play the toughest teams to get them ready for the league and also to see where they are. And you know you're talking about volleyball.
We were talking about that earlier. It's just a true test whether for protect you wildcast to gauge whether you are right now, and then also what they need to work on as they go throughout the season, because they're going to make these type of people again to have an opportunity to go to the NC Double A tournament. We won an NC Double A championship.
I remember when you guys went down to North Carolina and everybody thought you'd get blown out and if not for some funky calls, you might pull an upset down there in Chapel Hill, and the other things I remember about that was I think it might have been John Pelfrey, maybe it was. You told me that coming out of that game gave you guys so much confidence that you could go down and having a good Nor Carolina team in a tough spot, but playing them that tough gave
you all so much confidence moving forward. And yet Patino decided to cancel that series, which you know, for better or worse, it just kind of tick some people off. But what do you recall about that, and hell, it helped build your ball club.
Well, you got to remember, now, no one wanted to come into rough right, you know, that's the only thing I questioned was why we had to go to Why do we have to go to all these places and play them? We played Carolina in the Dean Dome, but then we had to play Carolina and Freedom Hall. You know, we play Indiana in Assembly Hall, but then we had to play them in either Louisville or a neutral site like the Hoosier Don't Yeah, you know, so it really
wasn't fair. And I understood coach at that particular time, like, you know, who's doing these deals, you know, who's scheduling this to where we have to play at their home site. But then they don't want to come playing rough. And I heard grumblings that, you know, Bob Knight never like could come playing rough, so on and so forth, But we came and played in the Assembly Hall. You know, I just didn't buy that. But nowadays, these Power five schools are playing in classics because of money, so on
and so forth. You know, they're playing in the uh in in places like you know Mark, I mean of Madison Madison Square Guards. Yeah, so it's kind of changed because TV is taken over, but it's still you go up against the nation's best, and you know, the Blue
blush need to go against each other. I think the Kansas and Kentucky's, Indiana's, you know, the North Carolina's, the dude you know, and whoever else is hot at that time need to clash like they have been doing, just for competitive nature, you know what I'm saying, tradition, pride, you know, not trying to schedule cupcake games, you know, to statue your win loss record. But if you were one of those schools, why not want to play against the kids? I always wanted to play against the top
schools when I was in college. The only teams that we did not play were the teams out West. We never went out West. We never played UCLA, you know, we never played those teams for whatever reason. But everybody else we played. You know who was really really good.
Well, you were never short on confidence. I know that about you. But I will tell you I know this for a fact because he told me when it came to scheduling North Carolina that was Sam Newton's doing, because you know, he took over after the insane investigation, and there were schools that just didn't want to play you guys, just because of uh, you know, the fallout from the investigation and see him went to Dean Smith and said, look, it would merely help our credibility, believe it or not,
if you would play us. And and Dean Smith said, okay, but you know the caveat obviously was I don't want to come to Rupperena. So he had the bargaining power there, and I'm certain that's probably what happened with Indiana as well. But you guys still made to work for you, didn't you.
We did, you know? And you know we went to Kansas at one year. We get beat fifty five the first year, but Kansas did come the rupt, you know, and we got him.
Oh you got him good, didn't you?
We got him good? And uh, I just think, you know, even now, you know, if I'm playing, if I'm coaching at a mid major, I still want to play two three high major schools. One recruiting too, I want to see where I'm at, and three as a coach, I want to see how well I can do if fair with the guy who's who's you know, been coaching twenty thirty years.
Yeah.
When I was at Missipi Valley, you know, I wanted to go plag it because I had to so I chose the toughest schools in America too, that was gonna pay the most money. So the people paid the most money were the bigger, the best teams, and I wanted to fare. Maybe we want to win the game, but I wanted to see from a percentage wise, you know, how many times can I come out of a time out of score? You know, how many times can I come out out and and and stop them from scoring?
How can I you know, the rebounding margin, the turnover the sister turnover ratio, rebound offensive rebounds, how many can can we get against this high power team? How many times can we turn them over?
You know?
So there were little nuggets and a little small points that I wanted to do to go when I'm going against these teams, to challenge myself and see where I was even though we weren't there from a physical standpoint or or a player standpoint.
Before I hit the break. Looking back, you took Mississippi Valley State. That was one of three teams you took the post play. You got them in the nca Tournament, which I know was a huge deal. He had an
incredible season, seventeen to one in the conference. You win your conference tournament, which is the only way you're going to get in, and you're playing the first four and you lose by a point to Western Kentucky, which just had to be heartbreaking because I believe the way it played out was next up, you guys would have played Kentucky.
Right, Yes, yeah, yes, how tough was that? I was so devastated. You know, we were winning the whole game, and but foul trouble kind of plagued us a little bit. I was only playing seven guys, oh really, and two of them filed out, well, actually three of them, and I had to play another kid that really hadn't played all year, and one of them was my point guard. So you know, you struggled down the stretch just holding on to the ball.
Yeah, wow, well what it's always would have should have, could have? But that was that was about quite a year when Kentucky he wins the national title. That and by the way, you would have played UK in Louisville, which would have been another bonus for you, not too far from home, and you had played in Louisville before. And that particular season, there were two different occasions that saw a fifteen upset A two, which, as you know,
just doesn't happen very often. So anyhow, another walk down memory lane too.
We were that we had the second longest running streak behind Kentucky. Kentucky had the longest winning streak, and us in Missippi Valley had the second longest. Winn Street seventeenth Street.
No kidding, that's oh see, I didn't even know that. Man. Well, well, you know, you live and learn, all right, We'll take a break, come back, talk a little more football with Sean Woods of the Unforgettable Fame. His jersey hangs in the rafters of are up. Back in a minute on six thirty wlap. Welcome back to the big lum Sider. We're talking with Sean Woods, the Unforgettable Guard, of course,
played at Kentucky late eighties, early nineties. Sean football was struggling back then, making the change from Jerry Clayburn to Bill Curry, not like it is now with bowl games and everything. How did football figure into your life as a college student? Did you guys come to games? Did you know many of the football players I was coach to?
Mostly all of them? You know, we mel met at cat which was a you know, study hall, and we all became friends and we hung out, party have fun with each other. You know, I'll tell you what. It was, just a great friendship between us. Even though they were solid, they weren't bad, were solid. You know, they went to bowl games. I can't remember ninety three, I think, you know Poopy Jones and those guys, you know, the Affarrals, the so the John Bowters, the Phil Logan's, the Ron Robinson.
You know, those guys were good guys. I just loved hanging with him and we had a great time. We had great memories just being college athletes and also not liking school, but we had to do school and go on to cat so we you know, a lot of us major and the same thing. You know, the Sterling Wards of the world. You know, it was a really good friend of mine, so you know, there was a close bond with us. We worked out with them sometimes,
especially in the off season. You know, we all shared at your Berry a little bit, so you know, it was it was It was a fun time. It was a tough time. But when Rock Oliver came in and those guys were seeing us work out, they tried Rock but but but they couldn't handle Rock really, so that while we were really good and they weren't so far because mentally and physically they weren't ready for Rock Oliver. We had to endure Rock Oliver. They didn't have to endure.
They could, they could walk away whenever they wanted to, and by god they did.
I remember Pat Etcherberry and obviously Rock still around. I did not know that that they dip their toe into the rock water. That's interesting. As we talked to Sean Woods.
A couple of them, not all of them.
Yeah, yeah, I understand that completely. NFL season is nearby, and you grew up in Indianapolis. Are you a coach fan or where are your loyalties Lye? In the NFL?
I am a coach fan, but I am a great organization fan. I am a fan of coaches that still continue to stress discipline and professionalism. And I'll tell you what the Pittsburgh Stielers were at the top, New England Patriots or the Epitome at one time, but right now it's the Pittsburgh still is because he's been so consistent, Yes,
and his message is the same. Unfortunately, you know, it's a player's game, and he hasn't had a great quarterback since Roethlisberger when he was younger, and why not feel so sorry for him? But man, he stays competitive no matter who's on his team, who he's got, and they're always in the playoffs. So that's great sustainability and the less you know what type of guy he is, and he has the longest tenure of any head coach in the NFL.
That's right. Yeah, before I shift you over a well, let me put it this way. Before I let you go, I got to ask you about this nonsense with Anthony Edwards and now the other veteran NBA players are chiming in. I don't know if you saw his comments saying that players from back in the nineties couldn't I don't know his exact comments, but wouldn't prosper in today's game, We haven't, Garnett and a lot of guys clap back at him, saying, guys today couldn't handle what we did back in the nineties.
I don't know if you're familiar with all this stuff, but that seems pretty absurd. And I know Edwards is maybe the best player in the game and a Gold medal player, but come on, man, you can't say that, can you?
I have a son who's in this era. Okay, he's twenty three years and I coached him and he has pretty much all these young young guys have the same mentality. Okay, because I'm just gonna be honest with you. They never went through anything. They don't know what a virtuity is. Look at college basketball right now, you can transfer. You don't have to sit and wait by your time and wait for that senior who's been there four years to leave, so you can, you know, you can have an opportunity
to play. You know, it's so much of a microwave society. These kids don't know nothing and whatever. You and I had had this conversation and we've been talking about it is these guys don't know the past. They don't know history, so they have no clue. And if you don't have any clue, you don't have any respect for what has come before you. And how can we blame them? How can we get on them when they really don't know?
You know, we didn't have all this social media. We had TV, okay, and we watched what our parents watched. So if you had a dad, or you went over your friend's house and they had a dad and they were watching sports. You were watching Doctor J. You were watching David Thompson, you were watching Moses Malone, you were watching Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Jamal Wilson, Gus Williams. These guys, these guys don't be. These kids right now haven't even heard of. So there's no respect. Okay, the game has
changed because there's this's freedom of movement. There's not a lot of contact, there's not a lot of physicality. There's no fear of going inside on a hard drive and getting knocked on your behind by a seven foot, three hundred pounder. Okay, these guys don't know who Artist Gilmore is, who will knock your blocks off. They don't know the Jack Sigmals, They don't know the Bill Lambert's, you know, the cheam Elijah was. They probably hurt them, but never
watched them. So that stuff that Anthony Evers is saying is just a proud He's just a product of today's society. He don't know. He can't even tell you, you know, like he said he didn't know how good Magic Johnson was. He don't even know who Magic is. You know, these guys don't even know who Isaiah Thomas is how tough he was as a little guy that had to, you know, play and find his niche between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
You know, oh, they don't. They don't understand that. You know, they don't even know the college that they go to. They don't even know the best players that went to that college. I guarantee you right now, you can go to Duke University, Okay, and probably eight out of the thirteen, probably nine or ten out of the thirteen scholarship players couldn't tell you about Bobby Hurley or Christian Lightner.
Maybe so yeah, I'm sure they've heard the names, but that's all they know.
That's all they know. You go to Kentucky right now and go overad and watch them right now, and you can have fifteen of the greatest Kentucky basketball players ever played the game at the University Kentucky and they wouldn't know what they would know that one of them.
Well, we have talked about that, and Edwards took it a step further, saying, you know, guys from that generation couldn't hang now, and Garnett came back, he said, I don't think anybody in this generation could have played twenty years ago, so you're exactly to your point. It was
so much more physical. But Edwards, I think, just just trying to read between the lines, were saying because of that style of ball, they couldn't hang with this generation because this generation is more about the quick moves and three pointers, you know. And he made it sound like it's better now, but it's not. I don't think.
Can you imagine doctor j playing in a freedom of movement?
Oh?
Can you imagine that now? Can you imagine Michael Jordan playing the freedom of movement?
Edwards did say, with the exception of Michael Jordan, didn't even mention Coby.
You know why, because he's the only person he knows. That's true, because Michael Jordan is still relevant with his shoes and everybody's saying he's still the goat. That's the only thing he knows about Michael Jordan. He knows nothing else about Michael Jordan. Nobody else does.
I'm going to keep an eye on this one because I love getting you riled up. You gotta that that cherubic face that you look like you're still in your thirties but you're not, but your old school man. That's why I like getting you riled up.
Well, I mean, you know it's it's we're we're trying to cater to young people, so there's no guidance, there's no setting examples anymore. You know, you got to walk on eggshells with kids now, right now to even save your job. It's not it's you know, it's not the parents anymore. It's the kids who's ruined the roost. And even parents want to become friends with their kids instead of being parents to them because of you know, these
kids can't handle adversity. You know, they always go to uh mental states, to where they're they're mentally disturbed, and soon somebody mentions that we back off. Well, we went through the same thing even worse, and yeah we have sometimes we go sit in our room and cry and beat down and things like that. Yeah, but we came out of that room fighting, clawing and scratching to make our way in this world. Now, we gotta hold these kids' hands. As soon as they get depressed. We want
to put them on medicine. We got to. We want to put them on watch to see if they're suicidal, if they have parents, Their parents are calling saying that you're not you're too tough on them, you know, verbal abuse, so on and so forth. Well, where's the world being ready to come to? If that's the case, and this is how we're raising young people anymore.
Seanas is the unforgettable guard. We have him on each and every week. Coach, thank you so much. We'll talk to you again, all right, Dack. Western Buera Chief Gary Moore is next here on six thirty wlap. Welcome back to the Big Bloma Cider. It is Wednesday, and that means, of course Western Bureau Chief Gary Moore joined us, how do you? And he has been spying on the world of sports, as he always does, and he's ready with a long list of observations.
Well at least six for our two guys in a six pack. And by the way, before we forget.
Here, I'll be.
Making one of my rare public appearances outside captivity a week.
From today in your garage. How about that thing over there? I can't wait it in color? That's right.
Well, I hope your Week zero wasn't a complete zero, because here we go Week one. Did Gabriel College football for you over there in the lex and over here for us in the Ville of First Saturday high noon U of L and FCSFO Austin p out of Clarksville, Tennessee. It'll be on the ACC network. And then seven hours and forty five minutes later you'll be down there on the sideline when UK hosts Southern miss that's on the
SEC network at seven forty five Saturday night. And if you were to ask me how I think the Cards and the Cab will do this season, I will quote a line from the uber eloquent Schultz from Hogan's Heroes.
I know nothing. Yeah, thank you for not asking.
I mean last year, did I think UK would have their second seven and six season in a row?
Nope?
And did I think that UFL would be ten and one going into the Kentucky game?
Double Nope?
But is Bill Parcells once worn? Comparing this year to last year in football is a fools game?
Hey?
Just ask Florida State, right, Well, I predict Louisville will be about seven and four, possibly eight and three when they come to Lexington November thirtieth, And I'm thinking UK. I was going down the list last night, who knows six and five? Maybe seven four as well?
I've got them potentially eight. I don't know if they can get to nine, but they can't. Kentucky just can't stumble through games it's supposed to win, which is what happened two or three times last year. Last year's team could have one, you know, you would have won eight, could have won nine or ten, that kind of thing. Louisville is a mystery to me simply because of the quarterback. Yeah,
played for an ACC title last year, has some talent. Back, has a huge transfer class, but a quarterback, that's what in the seventh year and he's been injured every year. Yeah, yeah, so what do we know. We don't know anything. But last year Kentucky out played Louisville. You're a those home turf, but you got to throw that out the window because these are well, Louisville's entirely different and UK's got some new faces. Parsales was right. Yeah, a lot of football between now and then, though.
Absolutely our second swig speaking of that. Even before the Cats and the Cards kick off their seasons tomorrow night, my hometown Murray State Racers visit number eleven Missouri. Yeah, eight pm, SEC Network And at last glans Dick Missoo's a forty six and a half point favorite.
It was forty eight.
ESPN is giving the Tigers a ninety nine percent probability of a win over Murray, so they're saying there's As for other Kentucky programs, Morehead in Central State at six Tomorrow night up at the Jane Stadium. On Saturday, you got EKU at six o'clock visiting Mississippi State on ESPN Plus, and my alma mater, Western Kentucky gets to be the sacrificial feast for the Kaitlin Debor era era beginning at the seven o'clock Saturday night against Alabama on the ESPN mothership.
It's on the main one National TV. Bama is a thirty two point favorite and only a ninety seven percent probability, so they're saying there's a well, they're saying, there's one hundred percent chance that Western's going to get a one point nine million payout.
That's for sure.
I'm going to practice switching back and forth from the UK and WKU games on Saturday by Tomorrow night, switching back and forth between Murray and Missoo and the North Dakota State Bison at the Colorado Buffaloes game on ESPN, also at eight tomorrow night. Fun fact to know, Intel, Dick, did you know Colorado's mascot is in fact a bison and not a true buffalo?
Wow? Did you know their coach is also.
A man, a very small man who can't handle unflattering words about him since, as the athletics Jim Trotter says, Dion has the skin as thin as one ply toilet paper.
Go North Dakota State, And this guy was a world class defensive back. You're supposed to have a short memory, be able to get over problems and failures quickly, and things like that. Yeah, he's refused to talk to a columnists from the Denver newspaper. And you know he had problems with the local CBS affiliate because he didn't understand the difference between network and local affiliates. So yeah, Dion is he's making things tougher than he needs to.
Well, the more you think these guys are tough guys, they're not. And we'll have another example of that later on our third twig in the six pack. Besides all those games, there's some huge matchups hitting two ranked teams against each other all week in Long Roll in that early season, Dice on noon Saturday, ABC.
Are you ready?
Number fourteen Clemson at number one Georgia. Well it's at Atlanta, so same deal. Georgia a thirteen and a half point favorite. Last Check Saturday Night seven thirty. Also in ABC number seven Notre Dame at number twenty Texas A and M A and M is a three point favorite. Last check and another Saturday noon game. I know you're going to be especially interested in number eight Penn State at West Virginia. Yep, that'll be a barn burner on Sunday Night. Sunday Night
seven thirty and ABC the lone college game. Number twenty three USC and number thirteen LSU not in La not in Baton Rouge, but in Vegas at that Allegiance Stadium dome thinging. LSU is currently a four and a half point favorite. And on Monday Night ESPN seven thirty, it's the road to either redemption or irrelevance as number ten until next week's first poll, Florida State hosting Boston College.
And of course, by the way, you've heard the joke going around about Florida State suing the ACC to get out of the conference. Hey, after the Georgia Tech game, the ACC should be suing Florida State.
Huh yeah, how about that?
Uh? Out of Clemson, Uh, Georgia, Notre Dame A, and m USC at LSU. Which ranked team do you think has the most at stake? I would say Clemson maybe at this point I.
Would say so, But you know what, the more I think about Georgia's situation, because Michigan's got a new head coach, the quarterback moved on, and all that. So how much pressure could there be on Michigan. There's always pressure, but to follow up as a national champ I doubt it. But Georgia was the team that failed put air quotes in the playoff last year, and now the question is
can Georgia get back? So, minus Michigan's presence in the in the big pressure picture, I honestly think Georgia has got the most pressure, even more than Alabama for the same reason new QB new head coach Kirby Smart's coming back. Can he do it again? You mentioned the West Virginia Penn State game. That'll be great because there are adjacent states.
For you geography majors, you know this, but it's not going to be like the Pittsburgh West Virginia game, which is a bitter rivalry, but West Virginia likes to prove itself against the likes of Penn State, so that could be that will be an incredibly intense game. There may be some smoking couches by the end of the weekend. Our fourth swig and the six pack.
With the return of college football also comes to pregame shows, and this year you've already seen. The Worldwide Leader has added arguably the greatest college football coach of all time, Nick Saban, a guy who often bitched at and about the media on a regular basis, and now he's a purveyor of so called rat poison himself. And I'm okay for the most part with ESPN adding him, it's kind
of a no brainer. And of course I got to bring back coach Corso when he's able, But you know, Dick Is, as much as I like his namesake show on the network, I can honestly do without Pat McAfee and his WWE whoops and hollers and cartoony carrying on no offense, Pat, wherever you are, it just needs that there's one too many seats at their football feast now, and that's even without their celebrity picker. I have no idea who Fox still has or have added to their
pregame Yakfest, nor do I care. I never watched them anyway, especially Urban Myers around. But you see that's the problem for me anyway. Too many at the table, too many opinions and predictions and ex players posturing the process. It's exhausting. And that goes for the NFL shows too. We don't need five or six or sometimes seven four at the max. Okay, I'll sit down now.
No, I couldn't agree more. And it was interesting to me. I wondered when this was gonna happen the NFL today on CBS axes Louisville native Phil Simms and Boomerasiacen the former Bengals QB in the off season. That was a table that was an anchor desk. It was way overcrowded, Yeah, because you got really smart people on there. But with you know, four, five, six, seven, A how them every
many who gets a chance to talk? You know, how'd you like to be the producer trying to direct traffic on that show and make your director understand this guy, then that guy, then this guy than that guy. I mean after a while. My head was spinning with those egos.
Welcome, he got to go first.
Yeah, I got more yards than he did. They better not be complaining for the rings you got. How many rings you got?
Huh?
For the money they were making, you shouldn't even if you only get to talk for fifteen seconds. But back to your point about ESPN. Yeah, I'm not a huge MacAfee fan. I've listened to his podcast. I like it from time to time. It's overwhelming. At times, it's like, Buddy, I got another podcast to get to. But again, maybe if there weren't as many people on that anchor desk, he might have might be able to contribute more. But who will never know?
Fifth swig and the six packs. So we got all that stuff in the coming days. But what about tonight? What about tonight?
In sports? We're gonna do well.
There's Game two of three between the Dodgers, who are tied with the Phillies with the best record in the Majors and the Orioles, who got the third best, and the Orioles won last night. Lexington's Walker Buehler starts for the Dodgers tonight, and how he does is going to decide if he gets any further starts since he's one to four on the season with a six point zho nine ERA, or maybe he's gonna go to the pen.
Who knows.
That's a ten to ten pm start on MLB TV. I'm telling you watch out the Padres keep playing Mike Shilt or mc Cardinals. Manager's got him looking good now. Before that game, though, you got a chance to see Caitlin Clark and the Fever their next to last regular season game, their last home game before the playoffs, and against the number two team and the WNBA the Connecticut Son that's on NBA TV at s and I'm going to say it here and now, Caitlin Clark should be
not only the Rookie of the Year. I say she should also be the WNBA MVP. And that twin win has only happened once before two thousand and eight, Cannas Parker got both Rookie of the Year at MVP. I ask you who is not only more valuable to their team, but to the league overall and to a fan base that has instantly grown, as have the TV ratings like never before. For example, ESPN says they're averaging one point two million viewers a game. They've increased viewership by one
hundred and seventy seven percent from last year. Gee, what's the difference in that she should get both?
In my opinion, Yeah, I'm not sure that at tendance figures and dollars signs should help lead to the MVP award more so than her performance on the court. But you can make an argument for both. Because when we were beginning to discuss Caitlin Clark early in the year, was you know what is happening to her? Is she not going to make the Olympic team. No, she did not wait and know that kind of thing. But since then, she has amped up her game to a level I
didn't think would be possible her rookie year. I thought she'd get there in a couple three years when she put on some muscle. But she has adapted and adjusted like great players do. And people always wanted to make that comparison between her and Marriviag when it came to scoring. No, make the comparison between her and Marriviag when it comes to passing, right, because that is just a joy to watch.
So I can't argue too strongly against MVP rookie the year. Yeah, I think she has raised her level play and no question about that.
Sixth and final swig in the six pack. Dick, is not just the first week of college football. It's the first week of college for a lot of people. College the best fourteen years of my life. And our friends at niche dot com have comed ale the top party schools in America because they have that kind of time and apparently that kind of research, which I'm extremely envious of. So here we go, Top five, number five University of
Southern California coming into five, Number four U mass at Amherst. Yeah, number three up I seventy five University of Cincinnati, Number two party school in the nation, Oklahoma where the SuDS come sweeping down the plane, and number one, the number one party school. I think they've been there before. You see Santa Barbara, which has rich kids from LA who
couldn't get into UCLA or a Ford USC. But wait, what about us back here in the Bluegrass State, Dick, your alma mater is the highest ranking college in the in the survey. UK's number thirty six with an A plus rated party scene. UK has ranked lower this year since it's been on what ten years, since a sofa was sacrificed, I believe out there.
So they got to work on that.
U of L is number seventy within just an a rated party scene in may Almah WKU number one eighty, apparently placing academics now over alcohol. Sad Because I don't know if you heard this, the urban legend had it years ago that Western was voted by Playboy magazine right as the number one you've heard this, but the number one party school in the nation somewhere around sixty nine seventy somewhere around there. And now look at us number one eighty.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Gotta work harder, gotta play harder. We'll come back with it, Gary and some hot regions. Just a minute here on the big boom side or six thirty wlap. All right, we'll have about three and a half minutes. All right, welcome back with with the Western beer Chief Gary. More time for some hot reedson. Gary, you alluded to a coach with thin skin earlier. That would be Dabo Swiney. He took some
flak on his radio show last year. Now, producers and whoever handles the show, they say only text questions for dabbo a guy who wants to stay in the kitchen where all the money is but still can't stand the heat. You ever faced something like that?
Yeah?
Yeah, they things were getting tough on I can't remember. I might have been Tubby Smith here and one of the lower level network execs said, we just need to protect him, and the guy in charge, Tom Still said, we pay him a lot of money to take calls. That's what he's going to do.
Yeah, exact well, and he dabbles and dabbles, making what four point four million? And you can't sit there and listen to people and respond back.
To that, you know what, You can screen calls anyway, But that's right. I mean, who wants to hear every week even after as coach you're doing a great job.
You know, I did not know that Clemson had an invertebrate for a coach is brand new and mean, wow, who knew?
There's just so many reasons to dislike him. But again, we talked about it last year. The guy who called him and ripped him missed the opportunity to say, coach, you're not taking transfers. You're far so far behind. So our second hot read is about a team that wants to change conferences apparently and might not be able to. Surprisingly, it's a powerful school at least right now, Yukon wants to be in a Big twelve. Fox TV says, I don't think so. Now. We keep hearing the network say,
oh no, this stuff is not up to us. But Fox says, we just cut a big deal with the Big East. We don't want to lose Yukon men or women. That's Gary. That's good business right there. It's great business.
And also you've got you know a lot of well where it's ESPN located in Connecticut, right, so that's in play. And also they share ESPN and Fox share Big twelve television rights as I understand it. So there's going to be some money involved somewhere, but it's not going to be up to athletic rate. It's up to the presidents of the schools. They run everything with the TV networks, So it depends on who the presidents are lounging around with these days.
I don't know if that'll happen or not. I hope it doesn't. The Big twelve, what do they have now? Eighteen teams, sixteen whatever it is you wonder about a boardroom with a Fox exec and a university president arm wrestling to see who goes where and what money goes where. But imagine being in the Big East right now without Yukon. That would be tough.
Yeah, and well, this is what it was, the university presidents that got USC and UCLA into the Big Ten. And we're talking with the networks about all the money we get into some of that if we come into the Big ten.
Oh yeah, well we talked about it before Big Ten came to the rescue of SC and UCLA, which were hemorrhaging money. I don't think Yukon is, but I know that Danny Hurley would probably like a broader platform. Gary mars Our, West m Bureau Chief joins us every week. You can follow him on Twitter at at nine to five five. Gary, you're also there at the Blue Insider one next week here in the garage. I'll be there that I'll do it for now thanks to my guest
Sean Woods, Tom Leech and Gary Moore. And remember Kentucky football coming up Saturday, five thirty airtime, seven forty five kickoff for the Cats and the Golden Eagles. That's it. Good night from the garage in Lexington. So am I to understand that you men completed your training on your own.
That's the fact