Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dicka Abrielle with you Friday, the eve of game day, and it's kind of a Saggi Friday. Maybe a Sagi Saturday as well might not be a bad thing for the Wildcats. We all remember what happened last time Kentucky played Georgia in the rain that was down there in Athens. That was the Lynn Boden season, as has come to be called, when he
was pressed into service as a QB. And it seemed maybe not that South Carolina game where he took over late and showed what he was about to do, but seemed like every game after that was rain. And it certainly helped the Wildcats because any team that was inclined to throw the ball had to think twice about it because remember, it wasn't just rain, it was a lot of rain, and for whatever reason, it didn't slow the Kentucky running attack, not just Lynn Bowden but anybody else
who ran the football. So now the Belk ball, gorgeous day, bright sunshine, crisp weather, and what happened, Well, Bowden got his yards on the ground, but then he wins the game with a touchdown pass. But I don't think that happens on Saturday. I think that Georgia is going to come in ready to go, no matter what the weather. I think Kentucky will be more ready than it was last week. But it might not matter. George is just
really really good, as you know. So coming up tonight we'll hear from Mark Stoops that comes up after our first break justin Rowland, Have Cats Illustrated? Will join us. We'll get his take not just on Kentucky football, but on recruiting as well. For basketball. Things have gone well for Mark Pope and company. Hallie DeVore from WTVQ to new home for SEC football will join us as well.
She is often at practice conducting interviews with not just Stoops but players, and she also was an athlete at Northwestern ran track and cross country and in the Pac twelve I'm sorry, in the Pac ten which is now the Pac twe well as well as the Back ten. Some of those Pac twelve teams umed up in the Big ten. She did not have to travel the way these kids now will have to travel in the Pac ten, So I will ask her about that. We'll look back on the week and Heroes, fools and Flakes a little
bit later on. But I want to start with football, not college football today, but the pro game, because two at Toungue Boloa last night took another wicked shot and has been sidelined with a concussion. By coincidence, I was in Cincinnati the night that he went down against the Bengals, and another odd coincidence, some weeks later, we all know what happened Damar Hamlin, who nearly lost his life on the Bengals playing field. But you know that story. He's
come all the way back to play football. And not only that, he was the guy who tackled tu when Tungue of Olio went down with a concussion. It looked like a routine tackle, but when you look at the slow and it was not Hamlin delivering a helmet to helmet blow. It was Tongue of Aloa hitting Hamlin as they went down, kind of banged his helmet off Hamlin's chest. So he goes down with another concussion, and now the
discussion is should he keep playing football? Because remember now that concussion at Cincinnati last year that had him down on the field for quite a while and sideline for a while was not his first, but they kind of overlooked the first one that year. He had gone down in a game earlier, and when he got up, was wobbly, didn't know where he was, started to walk to the wrong huddle, and yet he was cleared by doctors on
the sideline and they sent him back in. I am not an expert, but I've talked to several medical people through the years and read things and heard things. This much I know about concussions. If you have won one, the next one comes just a little easier, and the one after that, and God help you the one after that. And it's been described to me as a bruise to your brain, and in some corners they say you never
fully recover. And now, of course all the research about CTE players taking their own lives, and just recently, the widow of Guy Morris, Jackie Morris, posted about the fact that Guimo donated his brain to research. And of course Guimo late had Alzheimer's late in his life and they examined his brain and he had quite a bit of evidence of CTE. So this is just a terrible development in pro football through the years. I think some of it is the fact that they're better at diagnosing it.
Back in the day they would laugh it off and a guy got his belt wrung. Also, the helmets are so much better now, so guys can turn them the missiles and not think twice about it. But something's got to give, and far too often it's the brain. And on ESPN this morning, Bart Scott, who was an NFL linebacker, played for eleven years but hunging up a little bit early because of symptoms he experienced after yet another concussion.
He said, finally the worries just took over and he had to step down for the good of his health. But he said, it's just not easy.
Everybody think I retired because my toe right, I had reconstructuring surgery on my toe and I left, But really it was because, like I started seeing spots and lights, I had light sensitivity. I never really shared this with anybody, but I feel inclined to do this in this intimate, you know, setting that we have, and I didn't know what to do, and I was like, you know what, it's time to fold it up. And you know, it's about the people that's around tool, right, because it's hard
for him not to make an emotional decision. That's why you put people around you, your team that you trust with your life and to make lifelong decisions, and you give them the information and then you come together and you make a collective decision because it can't be a decision. And sometimes you know, I regret that I walked away, and sometimes you know because.
You have to live with that.
Like you know, leaving a game that you've dedicated your entire life to is like a death. I tell people all the top mornings have two dogs, right, and you don't know what to do. You wake up the next day and you're thirty years old, you're twenty years old, and you don't know what you want to do with the rest of your life. And everything that you have done has been defined by being a football player. And
it's not who you are, it's what you do. But all the laws and everything that we've learned and all the best qualities of us will learn on the football field, how to work with others, how to be accountable, and now you're not a part of that. And it's the loneliest feeling in the world. That's why we see guys and we don't know why guys commit suicide, but it's that lonely feeling of being not around anybody and feel like you have no worth.
Can you imagine after you make a decision like that and you leave football. Now, I'm retired from the daily life of WKYT. But when I retired, I was able to move into or keep doing other things like this radio show and the SEC network and the UK network. But I never had to just stop Cold Turkey, so I couldn't imagine what it's like, as Bart Scott said, to wake up the next day and feel like you have no worth. I don't think I would have even if I had none of these other projects going, simply
because I was in television for thirty five years. I had had my pill and I don't care who you are. As a pro athlete, your career is very likely never as long as you hope it would be, because you're living a dream. Not saying I wasn't in TV, but everything has its ups and downs. But when you're a pro football player, you are one of the best in the world and you're making great money. You're living the life something you dreamed of your entire life, and boom,
you give it up. And not only do you give it up, and I'm sure Bart Scott felt like it was taken away from him, and if Tua has to hang it up, which you know what, he probably should. It's easy for me to say he's set for life financially, but still he's got to feel like the game is going to be taken away from him, but for the sake of himself his family. I don't know what his family situation's like, but I guarantee he's not alone in
life right now. It's just too dangerous. And you know what, if you know anything about him, and I've read about him, I've never met the man, but he is incredibly well liked. In fact, after last night's game the Bills beat the Dolphins, this is what Josh Allen said on Amazon Primes broadcast.
Yeah.
I mean, I think if you know too outside of football, like you do, like I do, you can't help but feel for him. He is in a great football player, but he's an even greater human being. He's one of the best humans on the planet. You know, I got a lot of love for him, and I'm just praying for him and his family and hoping everything's okay. But yeah, it's tough, man. This is this game of football that we play. It's got it ties and it's got its lows, and that's definitely one of the lows.
So that's Bill's quarterback. Josh Allen on Amazon Prime Sticking with a TV. We talked a little bit this week about Tom Brady's debut, and again it was you know, and everybody said the same thing about it. Paul fine Baum destroyed him by praising when he was praising Nick Saban, And of course fine Bomb'm a huge fan of Saban in Alabama, so you expect him to be a complimentary of Saban, and he did so at the expense of Brady.
He talked about Saban, called him analytical and precise on ESPN's College Game Day show, and he talked about Tom Brady and said he had to watch him stumble, fumble and waste the audience's time, but Hackney cliches and tempered comments when good, well founded experience and opinion would suffice has been fascinating. He said, I don't think Nick Saban could be off to a better start, and that's true, but it's not fair. And I don't know fine Bomb
at all. I mean, I respect his work, I don't always agree with him, and I don't agree with him here. I mean he's right, Sabin was better than Brady. But it's apples and pineapples. What was Sabin doing and he was really good? What was he doing? I'm watching him and I realized, he's breaking down film. He's coaching us, he's coaching the guys on the set, he's coaching the audience. Why because that's what he's good at. That's what he's done his entire career. He was, as they say, breaking
down film. It's video, I know, but he was breaking down film. And he's a good talker. He's been interviewed a thousand times, a million times, as says Brady. But what was Brady doing. Brady was generating original thought and reacting and responding live on the air. If Brady had been standing up in front of a whiteboard or had been preparing, you know, since Friday to talk about certain plays on VITI, you don't think Saban rehearsed. Of course he did. He prepared, so did Brady, but he prepared
by doing practice games. But what he was doing was live on the air and responding in real time, which ain't easy, folks, trust me on that. I've done it. I've done color a little bit. I'm not good at it. Obviously I was not a college or pro athlete, of course, But also if you're a playbook play guy, when you get started, it's easier than color because you're reacting and describing to what you see instantly, you know so and so takes the snap drops back, that kind of stuff.
But now if you're the person breaking it down and you have fifteen seconds and maybe a producer in your ear or you're referring to replay, yeah, you might fall back on a a what do you call it, a hackneyed cliche, which no one should ever do. But that's a security blanket, and too many people fall back on that way too many times. Brady's gonna get better. Will he be great? I don't know. John Madden wasn't great when he started. He's considered one of the all time best.
Nobody is great when they started. Romo was very good. I wouldn't call him great. Romo was popular because he predicted play. If he hadn't been predicting plays, would he have been considered great? I don't think so, simply because the reviews of Romo after he started centered on and they should have him predicting plays. Why because, first of all, he was good at it. Secondly, nobody else was doing that. He was unique, So really unfair, I think a fine
baumb because Brady and Saban were doing two entirely different jobs. Now, Saban maybe he could sit down in a booth and blow again, blow Brady out of the water. I don't think so, because again it's just a different mission. But give Brady time. I'll be curious to hear what he's like at the end of the year by playoff time compared to where he is now. Up next, Mark Stoops trying to get his team ready for those Georgia Bulldogs. A little bit later, justin Roland here on six thirty WLAP.
Welcome back coming up in just a few minutes, justin Rowland of Cats Illustrated. We'll talk Kentucky football and basketball recruiting, and of course it's Kentucky Georgia coming up tomorrow night, a game you will hear right here on six thirty WLAP.
It'll open with our celebrity broadcaster, let's call him that, Rich Brooks will open the broadcast, as we have had a couple of other former Wildcats open things up this week, Bill Ransdell in week number one, Jojo Kemp opened up last week's broadcast and Rich Brooks, who we heard from last night on the show. Two of his teams beat those Georgia Bulldogs, including twenty oh six when the Wildcats
needed one more win to become Bowl eligible. They got it against Georgia went on to beat Vandy as well and then Clemson in the Music City bull So Rich will open the broadcast tomorrow night, Yours truly along with
Tom Leach and Jeff Bicoro calling the action. Christy Thomas, Jeremy Jarman, and Logan Stenberg with our pregame coverage as Mark stoop sends his team out after another really good Georgia ball club and Stoops was talking in practice after practice just yesterday about the fact that they went back
to work this week. They just tried to clean things up and go through the things they actually went through against South Carolina, just trying to do a better job and really hone in on some things that the Wildcats let get away last week. They got to nail it down this week.
Practice is practice. We have to be able to carry that over to the field. Therefore, you have to watch what you do, what you install, make sure you know that we can handle what we're bringing to the game plan, and the players have that focus, you know, throughout the week to understand what we're trying to get accomplished and why, and you know, hopefully we'll make some growth in that area.
You might recall an opening night a two quarters plus Kentucky scored thirty one, held USM scoreless, but it wasn't perfect by any means. Well, the problems that Kentucky might have had obviously reared their ugly heads against South Carolina, and according to Stoops, a lot of it was pre snap stuff, which is mental and you've got to have that nailed down before you take on a team like Georgia.
We can't make growth if we're just worrying about, you know what the pre snap you know, I mean we have a we do a lot pre snap. We can't be you know, too consumed with that to not be able to execute. And I thought that was, you know,
that was an issue last week. And we'll improve as year goes on and as they get more comfortable, because you know, you go through a spring, you go through camp and there's a lot of the face, a lot of things that are used to and then you throw in rakefules and you've got to be able to put that on top of it. You got to have the capacity to be able to handle all that, and we'll get better.
And again, they may be a lot better this week, but it may not show on the scoreboard. We heard from Brock Vandergrift, the former Georgia Bulldog yesterday and of course on the defensive side, Jamon Johnson, a former Georgia Bulldog, a former Georgia All American playing linebacker now for the Wildcats, and naturally the media gravitated to him as well as Brock. Talking about going up against his former teammates, he said
he still communicates with him. He said a lot of times he goes back to Georgia, back to Athens when he asks free time to be with his guys. But his guys now are the Wildcats, and he said he doesn't really feel like he has to go out and prove anything to his former teammates. He just wants to go out and play, play hard and win. And Stoops chimed in as.
Well, I already deal didn't prove myself ready, but I don't think of it like that. It's just another game to get better. Another game. Try to win the ball game another game while they didn't play, man, just playball, do your job and play as hard as you can. Pay it to one hundred percent and at the game, be the game.
Man.
It ain't nothing you can do. Last week was last week, onto a new week. Pay the game.
He's just a ballplayer, you know. I've said that his demeanor since he'd been here. He's a guy that just puts his head down and plays football. You know, he just you know, I love his attitude and the way he plays, and you never have to worry about him bringing it to the field and playing.
Ball, basic football. But you gotta think there'll be a little bit extra when both Vandergriff and Pops they didn't really like to be called Pops anymore, but Johnson come out and to see those Georgia Bulldogs and the Silver Bridges warming up and then coming out of the tunnel before kickoff. So you'll see it tomorrow. You're here tomorrow off seven thirty five thirty broadcast time here on the UK Sports Network. Belated Happy Birthday to Mark Pope, the
UK basketball coach. His birthday was actually a couple of days ago. A happy birthday today to my brother Charlie. Yesterday was my sister Peggy's birthday, so big week for birthdays. I got one coming up soon, but we thought we would go back and revisit a moment from when Stoops was hired because one of the Twitter accounts I think it was catch classic put up video of Mark Pope hitting the free throws that basically locked down the win over Syracuse. This is the CBS Sports audio as Jim
Nance called it. First you hear Billy Packer, then you hear Jim Nance from nineteen ninety six as Mark Pope hit the two biggest free throws of his life to help the Wildcats nail down and win over Syracuse in the championship game.
Now those people in Kentucky and really starts to feel it, the great support they have for their basketball team and have had.
For so many years.
Pope first though seventeen fouls in Syracuse as a critical one on one. The problem is who will Syracuse have as it's got to guy at the other end, Hope, who was a Rhodes Scholar candidate and the former Pac ten Freshman of the Year the University.
Of Washington.
SPATA don with a salute and Kentucky up seven with a minute four women.
And I asked Mark Pope about that. You might recall from the news conference that it happened right after he was introduced a big pip route in the media. We the media got a chance to talk to him, and I asked him about that moment during the interviews that we produce on the ninety six Championship, and Pope told the story about what was going through his mind when he hit those shots. And you told me, I knew if I didn't hit those free throws, I could never
come back to Kentucky again. Here you are, But how much is being a part of that championship team going to help you recruiting and building a program.
So we have time, can I tell this story? So, so, guys, we're playing Syracuse to the National Championship, right and there's give or take a minute left.
And really, the.
Only meaningful play that I made in my entire I was a bad player.
The only meaningful player made my.
Entire career Syracuse pushing the ball down the floor and I kind of trip and fall into a pass and deflected and they give me a foul. And so that's how good I was so so it happened right down there in the meadowlands. But that's why on the court, and I started walking from there to the free throw line. I don't know, it's fifty seconds. Someone looking up, there's fifty seconds left. I think we were maybe up three, maybe up five. And there was only one thought.
This is, honestly the truth.
I wasn't thinking about form or team or celebration or score.
I literally was walking and.
I promised, this is your shoe. The only thought that came into my mind was if I don't make this, they are going to kill me. And who won't want that. That's why we're here, guys, That's what we do, So that's that's important.
And of course he was referring to the guys as former teammates and former wild Cats in general. They were standing over up to the side. Remember they all would have killed him if you had missed those freed nine. Not really, but that's what kind of pressure you put on himself and his teammates later told us that Stoops, after practice every day would shoot free throws, telling himself, this is it, the game's on the line, this is for the big trophy. Things like that, and when he
finally got his chance, he came through. So belated happy birthday to Mark Pope, who turned fifty two on Wednesday. So young, Still just a kid, all right? When we come back, Justin Roland new Cat illustrated here on six thirty, welcome back to the Big Moonsider joining us now in a celebrity hotline. Justin Rowland of Cat Illustrated Between work and kids and all. We having a chance to chat with Justin for a while. How are you, sir?
I'm great, Dick always a player here to come on, man, talk about.
Today we do, indeed, both football and basketball, because recruiting has been a source of joy for the Big Moon Nation. But let us first talk about the tough one Kentucky Georgia tomorrow. Georgia is really good, Kentucky is struggling. I mean, what has to happen tomorrow for Mark Stoops to at least call Saturday something of a success because it's gonna be tough.
Yeah. I mean, I think what fans should do is to separate last week from this week. You know, you hope that performance you saw last week against South Carolina was a one off, but you might not know because Georgia can do terrible things to just about anybody, and they have so many ways to attack you. So I would say, if Kentucky can make Georgia sweat, if they can make it somewhat respectable going into the second half, if they could maybe put a touchdown drive together. I mean,
these are things that not everybody does. And Clinston had three points, and Clinston could turn off to be a really good team. So you got to look for success on different levels against a team like this.
Well, what has to happen if you're Kentucky to make that happen.
But they got a block better upfront. That's that's a big part of it. Here's a hard thing I think when when you're bush Handen and you're looking at how
do I attack this Georgia defense. Even if you had a great offensive line, it's still going to be an extremely difficult team to move the ball again, And when you look at how those tackles and those guards didn't hold up in pass protection last week, you've got to figure they're going to be holding back a lot of tight ends, a lot of back to block and to protect van Neigrifts. Because that went off the rails and
so it's going to be hard to get open. I think, fuck, he's going to have to run the ball, Run the ball, run the ball. A couple of these old fashioned Scoots Kirby games where it was just kind of a slug fest, it seemed to fit fourteen to three, twenty one to nothing. That's kind of probably what you're hoping as opposed to Carson Beck, you know, throwing for three hundred and fifty yards in five touchdowns, what he can do against anybodys. So maybe it'll be a game that's played closer to
the des by by both teams. I think a lot of Georgia few people are expecting Kirby to play this and closer to the fest, so that in of itself would make it a little more respectful.
Leason, why do you think they expect Kirby just to kind of hide things from people?
Well, the weather, the weather's been up in the air. You're going on the road in your first SEC road game, and you just look at how Georgia has played in Lexington in the past. It's not a game where they go in and they try to sling the ball around the yard. Kirby has always had a lot of respect for Kentucky's physicality under Mark Stoops, and I think he just knows he doesn't have to show a lot. That's not knock on Kentucky, but Kentucky Understoops has tried to
basically beat Georgia light. And you don't beat Georgia by being Georgia light. And that's kind of the opposite situation that George has had against Alabama. Georgia has tried to do Alabama better than Alabama's done Alabama if they haven't often had success doing that. But you know it both seems to commit to running the ball. It could be a more interesting game.
Can I assume you sat with Dismay watching last week? I mean, that was a total shock to I got to think justin it was a surprise to South Carolina people because I know some folks who on the South Carolina side, fans and media included, who expected Kentucky to win, maybe not in a blowout, but win handily. And it was exact opposite.
Sownth Carolina has some real dudes on that front. So I mean, here's a hard thing. They might get to the end the season only have five or six wins. We don't know, but we know they have a lot of athletes on their front seven. And knowing what we know about Kentucky's offensive line, now the questions that we now have, you can see how that matchup would dip it in that direction, but they can really get after it.
And you see how Beamer has recruited and how you recruit the qortal not just Dylan Stewart the freshman, but also Kyle Kinnard and those defensive tackles that came back. It was a bad matchup for Kentucky and there's probably some things they could have done differently as well. They could have got to the run that the one quarter they ran nineteen times and passed once. The second quarter
they won sixty three. So be interesting to see if the offensive line continues to regguling pass protection and SUPs has to think about maybe going back to the old Lady Grant proach.
Well, you are right and that South Caroline has got dues, But buddy, in the SEC, everybody's got dues. Right, What did we learn about the old line Saturday that maybe we didn't know going in?
I mean, the problem is like you could see South Carolina identify weaknesses in real time and attack those weaknesses, and Kentucky did not have the number of answers to counter that. So when Infty Crease is in the game, it tackle Dylan Ray in the game, they overloaded that side. Prese struggled in pass protection, and then they had three guys blocking to protect Vandergris right side, and Dylan Stewart, the freshman, still chases him down out of the pocket
court to the solway. So they've got to roll the pocket. They have to identify the one or two real trouble spots and just compensate for that. The problem is against Georgia, when you start leaving extra guys back to block, it was almost impossible to find open field to throw to.
You know, we keep looking back on the Big Blue Wall, and that was in three out of five spots NFL ready, and the other two guys at least were in NFL camps. I'm wondering, Justin, is an unfair of us to expect Kentucky to play back to that level because that was almost unpreceded. Unprecedented when it comes to a Kentucky offensive line, you know what I mean.
Yeah, the state hasn't produced the number of offensive linemen that you wanted it to capitalize on that success, because then Ohio State gets Ryan Day and they start recruiting Ohio more, taking more Ohio linemen. This is the same time Jim Harbaugh is that Michigan taken more Ohio linemen and Tennessee is on the come up, and so recruiting there gets harder. It's just a convergence of circumstances. And also so many offensive line coaches in a short period
of time, so much offensive coordinator turnover. It's the nil Portal era, so continuity development has just been lacking. My opinion is the line should have been better than it was last week. For sure, no question that can't happen. But I wonder if they went into this season resting on their laurels a little bit. I'm not singling guys out, but thinking that they were good in certain when they were really just kind of mad. I mean, Jagger has
had bright moments, but he has struggled. I think Jalen Farmer, they expected to come in and be a great sec starting guard, but he had never been that before. And Gerald Mincy had starting experience, but he wasn't going to be a starter at Tennessee. Or Florida, where he had previously been. So you see, it's really hard to rebuild an offensive line if you get bad on the offensive one, it's really hard to do. And so they're trying trying to dig out of that hole.
Well, you go back to where I think it all started, when they moved Bunchie over to guard. They put Drake into starting job at center. He's local, Bunchie was a nice player. I don't know that anybody expected him to be an All American And Drake became an SEC center as good as anybody in the league. So, yeah, they've just got to dig those guys up. And it's easier said than done, isn't it. You know about recruiting as well as anybody.
Let's say a lot of this you just don't know how it's going to play out until you see it. Like who knew Luke Luke Cortner is going to be a second round pick? Yeah, yes, moving over and Eric Wolford moved in there. That was Eric Wolford who took kind of the guy who was lesser Nolim than Drake Jackson and Landon Young and turned him into a second round pick after one season at center, so Wolford has
the track record of building an offensive line. But I guess the promising thing is there are some younger guys they seem excited about. They seem to think that if Amfony Creast can stop leaning in pass protection, then he can be a really nice big body for him. And Malachi Woods looks a lot more ready than he was when he got to Kentucky and have a Selm and somebody who could provide depth on the interior. But it's just like you're moving at a glacial page when you're
developing offensive lineman. You're talking about guys that need to need to develop for like one, two, even three years sometimes before they're ready.
Justin Rowland, as my guess, we'll come back and talk about Kentucky recruiting on the basketball side. On the other side of the break here we're talking with Justin Rowland of Cats Illustrated and the basketball Wildcats. That season's coming out as fast, but recruiting season has been good to
the Wildcats. How a huge It's kind of an obvious question, but getting Jasper Johnson getting the local not just that, Justin but turning him around apparently was heading for either Alabama or North Carolina, depending on who you're talking to. But that makes it even bigger, doesn't it.
It does, And you know, somebody could look at this and say, well, he's a kid from the state, and so of course he should go to Kentucky right on the heels of Keller. But if you think about it another way, kind of what Pope is selling at Kentucky is what like Nate Oaks is kind of already doing
at Alabama. Yeah, so there is kind of a leap of faith on Jasper's part to say, yeah, I think I believe in what Mark Pope is saying, and I'm entrusted in my future to him when I've got one or two years to springboard where i want to be. And so I obviously locked him down. That was big time. I don't know if he's a guy you want to like hand the keys to and be the guy right away, but I don't think that's the era we're in at Kentucky right now. So you can keep him in the
program for a couple of years. He could be a great offensive peace one.
I don't think we've talked about Malachai Moreno, since you and I chatted last and again, another great get local and a big who's going to take a little more time. But he's he's probably more skilled than people think, isn't he.
I think so? I think he's skilled. You can make the case he's one of the best centers in the class and he's got length and his skill set. When you when you think about how he could develop, seems like he could be a great fit for what Pope wants to do with the passing and whatnot. So Pope came in talking about a new approach, a new era, and it seems like with his class, that's exactly what he's doing. Maybe not the top five, top ten players,
but those guys aren't going to final fours. It's the high four star low five stars that stick around and stick around and developed and maybe don't hit right away, but you get the payoff later on. That's that's kind of what Pope is loading up on right now.
Timing is everything in sports. We all know that Pope comes in pledges to build the program a certain way, and right out of the shoot justin he's able to snag two locals. I don't know how long they'll be here, but there's a chance that they can help him with a foundation at his program. I mean, he worked his tail off to get both of them because it looked like Malachi was going to go to Indiana for a while and then that changed and we all we just
talked about Jasper Johnson. But they can just throw some wins together on the court. So far, so good.
He's pressing the right buttons so far. Like I think the most encouraging thing is when you would hear Mark Pope particulate his vision for the program to plan and how he would want it to come together. I think it's pretty much come together like that, just in terms of I mean, he was able to put together a full roster in one off season, and we don't know if they're going to be good enough to make a run, but on the surface, ostensibly it looks like a really interesting, tough,
extremely experienced team. So you got you're going to be extremely experienced. You're going to be getting back to that defensive greatness. You would imagine they should be able to bank that. They're getting local kids. They're talking about Saris really the inverse of the Caliperi era. So far, so far, so it'll be interesting to see year one. We'll have more to talk about. But I think this team is interesting. You know, we've seen college basketball teams make deep runs
that you never would have pegged before that. And if you can play great defense, and if you can knock down outside shots, you're going to be a dangerous team. In March a.
Couple more minutes with Justin Rowland of the Rivals Network, I have not seen one nano second of practice. I have no idea what's going on over there. I have talked to somebody who said that the question is, how's this team going to score? Other than Jackson Robinson, where will the point production come from? Do you think that's going to be a source of concern.
Yes, that's my concern. When I just looked at the roster myself, the first thing that jumps out is how great of an offensive back court is Frista and Lamathaller. I'm not saying it's a bad offense at that court, but is that the kind of offensive punch, scoring punch in the back court that is going to power a team to the Final four? Well, Butler has done it. Butler has already done it, so we know that it's possible. But that's the only question. I mean, defense isn't a question.
Shooting is not a question. Passing is not a question. For me, It's how much punch are they going to get from that back court?
Yeah, because Butler is not known as an offensive guy, right, I mean it was more about defense.
Yeah, you can score on the double figures, but he's not going to be somebody you rely on to get twenty five.
You know, it's funny. I'm sure you've been the same way talking to people about their expectations for this basketball season. Of course, you cover Kentucky basketball, so you know that that's a word that flies out the window, or at least blows up as a season draws near. At first, I talk with people about if we could just get to the tournament or just win a tournament game, and you know how that's going to morph into we got
to make a run at the final four. But that's Kentucky basketball, right that is.
I do think it's it's set up to be a little more reasonable in Pope's early tenure because they have gone a few years without having real tournament success. Because I think people understood he had to build an entire team in one offseason. But also, you know, in the past when Kentucky wouldn't be like the top dog in the SEC. There'd be a lot of side eye in that direction. I feel like people know Alabama is the team to be on paper in the SEC.
Yeah.
People, they're just kind of going in. There's no there's no delusion that Kentucky is who everybody expects to dominate. They're not. This is a different setup in the SEC now. So fans are still going to get mad with losses, but I think they understand that this is not your grandfather's SEC basketball now.
And I keep reminding people as well who have question marks about Pope and his postseason record, which is legit. But what is also legit is what he did at other programs at Utah Valley State. Brought them, you know, beyond where they had been and a'd brig him young same thing. I mean, he built good programs there without the resources. Clearly he has a Kentucky.
Right, true, very true. I mean, what was Roy Williams's resume before he got the head coaching job at Kansas. Yeah, And I mean and Mark Pope has more head coaching experience than him going to Kentucky. And the flip side of not having the tournament success, although I don't think you really could have expected too much at the stops that he was at previously. The flip side is he hasn't proven that he has any kind of bad track record in Mark. I mean, you know that's true, he hasn't.
But you really think about it, how many coaches out there have the kind of tournament resume that Kentucky fans aren't going to poke hold if they hired Bill self. You could talk about the two titles, or you could talk about the twenty twenty five years and how many early Extasy had and he's splitting the cares there, but the tournament is just such a crap shoot. It's really just about getting the right coach in the right players.
You never want to see your two c lose to a fifteen, But even Mike Krzyzewski had a two seed lose to a fifteen. For the longest time, it didn't happen. Then it only happened four times, and believe it or not, I was at two of those games, and then there was that lull, and then it seems like every other year. So yeah, you're right about that. Justin Roland, of course, we're a long time coverage of Kentucky. You can find him on Twitter or x whatever you'd like to call
it at Roland Rivals. Thank you, sir, and stay dry, stay safe, and we'll talk to you down the road.
Much appreciated it. Thank you.
Up next to Hallie DeVore and our number two. She is a reporter anchor for WTVQ channel thirty six, which is as odd as it sounds, the new home ABC for SEC football. So we'll talk to Halle. We'll also look back at some of the other odd balls to from the week in a preview of the Wildcat Whip if you haven't heard it already with Tom Leech McCarrel. That's next on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big Blue Sider joining us now. You see your work
on WTVQ reporter anchor Hallie DeVore. Hallie, you were anchoring last week, and I know that when you arrived at work on Saturday, I'm thinking you weren't prepared to type out scripts a out of South Carolina blowout. I mean, and you've you've interviewed players, You've been to the Stoops press conferences. I know you were about a surprise as the rest of us weren't you.
Yeah, that's one of those games where you're putting in the rundown times for highlights and you're putting about a minute, thirty minute, forty long highlights and then you've got to readjust everything down to forty five seconds because there's just not many Kentucky highlights the show, and you know, you don't want to show field goals. That's just not not very exciting. So definitely a really disappointing week for Kentucky and unfortunately it just does not get easier this week with Georgia.
No, and again you've you've talked to some people this week that that's the toughest part of all of this, I think is you know, in Stoop's talk yesterday about they knew what they had to work on, he felt like they had a good week of practice. Hollie, they might play twice as well as they played last week and it might not show up on the scoreboard. Right.
No, Georgia is just I mean, they're the number one team in the country and for better for worse, UK gets to play them really early on. Something that you know Stoops and Bush have been talking about this whole week is executing and This is kind of the last week that I think they get to use that word. They've been saying the first two weeks. You know, we
just need to work on executing better, executing better. This is when you have to actually start following through with that or find another reason that things need to get better. But Georgia really strong defense, really strong offense last week. Kentucky really struggled in the past game. And maybe Georgia's pass defense or George's run defense is a little better
than their pass defense. Excuse me. So I think that this week, as hard as it's going to be, Kentucky and Stoops has been saying that they have to make explosive plays or else, this is going to be somehow worse than last week, and fans are going to start leaving you halftime.
I was going to bring that up. Not only do they have to make explosive plays, they got to stop them as well. And that was something Brad White talked about. The first thing he talked about on media day was getting off the field on third down and not giving up explosive plays, especially on third down. And boy, Georgia is quite capable, isn't it.
Georgia is quite capable. I mean, they have Carson Beck, who's arguably the best quarterback. One thing that Kentucky's defense does have, which is not much, but this is Georgia's first SEC matchup, so Kentucky might have a little bit of the upperhand there, having just played South Carolina, who's arguably a better team than Tennessee Tech, and so UK defense is also probably the best that Georgia will have
seen so far. Kentucky doesn't have a bad defense. They're number eight in the country according to NCAA and Georgia's number five. So Kentucky's defense has to get stopped. But that, like I was just saying, the offense has to help them out because last week the defense, the defense didn't play bad. They just had a couple blown coverages that unfortunately resulted in big plays or but the defense overall plays you know pretty well. It's the offense just has to match that.
Yeah, and they've got so many great athletes Georgia does. Kentucky has its share as well. But you know, having as you know, I've covered this program for a long time, and what Mark Stoops and Vince Maryland staff have done is bring in more talented players than they've had in the past. In other words, depth. But even if they have a four star, the next man up might be a three or a two, whereas Georgia just runs four and five after four and five. That's why Pop Johnson's here,
That's why Brock vandergriff is here. But it's tough to it's tough to challenge that, isn't it exactly?
And I think that against really strong players like that, that can't be the focus. You just have to look at as an overall offense, as an overall defense. Someone that stood out to me last week for Georgia was Nate Frazier. Uh. He had one hundred and ten hundred
and eleven yards seventeen carries. So that's something that you know, Kentucky's run defenses is really rush defense is really going to have to look out for because he had a really strong performance last week and he's just a true freshman.
Oh Man, how did you think Kentucky fared against South Carolina's true freshman quarterback?
Wow?
He That is the hard question because he is just talented. You watch him, he understands, you know, how to scramble. He looked really strong and he like you said it was he took advantage of blown coverage. So this week Kentucky's deep that has to be the focus is you know, you don't want to walk out of that game being like, man, we've played really trying defense, but just a couple of blown coverages. You have to tighten up, you know, in your secondary or else it could. You kind of proved
it last week. Even someone that freshman quarterback can see and take advantage of that. In the SEC. It's not something that you know, this is the SEC. Your quarterbacks are going to be able to do that.
We're talking to Halle Devor of WTVQ, which of course now as SEC football thanks to ABC. You know, it was unfortunate as well as you know that College Game Day this is ESPN part of the ABC family. But College Game Day would have been here if the Wildcats had beaten South Carolina. That would have been a great hit for Kentucky football. Now the SEC show here one week and then College Game Day the next. Boy, that
what it might have done for Kentucky recruiting. It's going to take a while to recover from that, isn't it.
Yeah, And the fact that they're heading down to South Carolina too, which is just kind of a slap in the face another it does hurt recruiting, But at the same time, I do believe that there are bigger issues than you know, billion College Game Day or cc Nations stuff like that. That's just an added bonus and a
time to show off. But I don't think that. Something that did stand out to me though, was I read somewhere that Kentucky was being filmed as part of maybe an sec Netflix show or something like that, and I read that there were crews in town last week. And that's a killer because Netflix and those kind of documentaries are really really popular right now, especially with you know,
documentaries like Quarterback Receiver. The football fans are really into and this might kind of be the first college football one of those documentaries on Netflix, and that's a killer because that's so permanent. I mean, College Game Day changes every week, at sc Nation changes every week. A documentary on Netflix is something that sticks around for a while
and that people talk about, people watch. So I actually think that that probably was a little more of a killer if crews were in town for that last week and that was the unfortunate game they captured.
Yeah, I think you're right about that, and you're right it is forever. Although with the SEC is in charge of the production, they're not going to show one of their teams in a particularly harsh light. But if the production company has the green light, you know, they may not hold back. I mean, it was, as Rich Brooks said, the former coach, complete all systems shut down. And you know, boy Mark Stoops, you saw the video of him postgame, and of course he was up with us in the
interview room on his radio show. You talk about bewildered, confused, dejected. You kind of run out of adjectives for him, don't you.
Yeah, he he used the word embarrassed, which really tough. And if you're honest, you look at that just on all cylinders and you can see where the staff is coming from. And he took a lot of accountability, which he always does that it was kind of a group effort. Obviously, he took a lot of responsibility for you know, the fourth and one call and that decision. So he does jainly believe that it is an all around staff offense
and defense collective efforts that needs to get better. But yeah, and that was just a really tough game and I think as harsh as the word embarrassing is that that is probably accurate. I think a lot of the fans walked out of that game. You know, even though your first opponent, Southern Myth, not one of the strongest teams, you looked at that performance and it gave you a lot more hope and you would think even with another loss for the third year in a road to South Carolina,
it wouldn't have been that bad. It would have been just a more competitive game where fans would have walked out being like, dang, you know, a one possession game, like we're so close, we have a lot to look forward to, And instead fans are walking out being like, what on earth? This team looked terrible? And that's not what you want your team saying. They when they say the biggest improvement is from week one to week two, that's not what you want your fans saying.
Yeah. Hallie Devor, my guest reporter Rancor from WTVQ Home Now of SEC Football. We'll come back with more just a minute here on the Big Blue and Sider six thirty WLAP. Welcome back. We're talking with Hallie DeVore of WTVQ, a reporter anchor covers the Wildcats, and I want to ask you though about your college career in that you came from Northwestern and I think you graduated what twenty two to twenty three something like that.
Yes, I graduated in twenty twenty three.
I don't think you were there when Northwestern played Kentucky in the Music City Bowl. Did that predate you in college?
No, I did not know too much about that game. It did predate my time at Northwestern, but I do know about the matchup and the two teams based off.
It's interesting to me because I always held up Northwestern when Kentucky was struggling so much in football, and people would look at this team or that, and I would say, no, I think the team to look at as a team, the closest one to me was Northwestern and maybe Vandy. But I said, you know what, Northwestern. I guess I talked about Northwestern because at times they were having success, and I said, you know, with their academic standards, if
they can have success with football, why can't Kentucky. You know, it comes back to recruiting getting athletes there. I don't remember how football was when you were at Northwestern. Was did you have much success when when you were a student athlete there.
Oh, that was just so heartbreaking for me because I'm a huge football fan, so it was a bummer. Art The year before I started at Northwestern, so I believe twenty nineteen, Northwestern was in the Big Ten Championship versus Ohio State, and I had so much hope. I was like,
this is so exciting. We lost to Ohio State. We did two years in a row my time or two years in my time there, but I was like, wow, like, we're in the Big Ten Championship, Like what an accomplishment and obviously different with you know, Big and West and that, how that's being alleged who's playing who? And then sophomore year was COVID or no. Sorry, my freshman year, I don't know what happened, but if they were terrible, terrible year.
And then my sophomore year they were really good again and they were in the Big Ten Championship versus Ohio Speed again and we lost again, but it was COVID, so nobody could go to the games. And then my junior and senior year were extremely rough. And then obviously last year, everything with Pa Fitzgerald and amazing allegations, and now there's a new head coach and this year there's a new stadium on the Lake Front with kind of
random seating because they're redoing Ryan Field. So they they're a weird program because they've had a lot of success, but it hasn't been consistent success. And that's kind of where that Northwestern Kentucky differ a little bit because you could say that, you know, Kentucky, well, they haven't had you know, SEC champion after actually Chet, neither of Northwestern. But you can look at Kentucky, you know, wow, they've
been to eight fool games in a row. That's consistency and that's something that that Northwestern is lacking and hopefully throw on the up and up as far as making things a little more year to year.
Yeah, I mean that Music City Bowl was a really entertaining game. Northwestern wins at twenty four to twenty three. Kentucky throwing into the end zone for a two point conversion with no time left on the clock basically and you know, and missed it by you know, if the ball was on the left side of the receiver instead of the right side, that kind of thing. Northwestern made a defensive play but Stephen Johnson was just had become just this mythical figure for Kentucky at quarterback and somehow
got the Wildcats to that ball game. But Northwestern net year finished ten to three and just looked like, oh yeah, it was going to remain a credible, credible program. But as you said, here comes COVID, then the hazing allegations and all that, so it had to be just really, I can't imagine what it's like to see your your team, like you said, a year or two later, get to the conference championship game, which Kentucky is still waiting to do.
And now don't you think it's I keep saying, Hallie, it's going to be more challenging to get to Atlanta than it will be to get to the College Football Playoff, don't you think?
Yes, yes, oh yeah, the SEC is just the best conference in college football almost not even arguably. If you look at who's just who Kentucky has to play this year, it's it's daunting. So and you kind of look at it for better or for worse, because it's gonna force
a lot of improvement on Kentucky's behalf. But you know, you also want to be a contender for your fans, for your fan base to want to come out and watch games, and if you're just getting be over and over in the SEC, that's not, you know, a very docing thing to come and watch. So they have a lot of challenges.
You know.
And it starts this week with number one Georgia. And I think that honestly, you know, that's the goal is to get to SEC champions just win se championships, make it to the college football playoffs. But I've noticed a trend where it's almost if the game is competitive, like you know, Northwestern Kentucky for example. Obviously I know that was a heartbreaking loss by one point for Kentucky, but you look back at that game and at least you're not saying, oh my goodness, we got killed, like that
was an entertaining game. Fans were there until the fourth quarter on their toes. They put up a fight. It was a matter of points. And I think if you can, even in the SEC, get to a point where that's the case, it's it's a matter of you know, it's a one possession game or something like that, that just leads a lot more hope and a lot more confidence versus you know, getting killed every single week.
Oh yeah, well I mentioned you were a student athlete. You ran track, right and cross country? Yeah, what was your what was your event in track?
For track? I ran the fifteen hundred, which is like just one hundred yards short.
Of a mile.
Yeah, so distance. I bring it up because you were an athlete in the Big Ten and as we all know now, the Big Ten has expanded to ridiculous proportions. Really the SEC probably has as well, but more ridiculous geographically. Can you imagine and that you didn't have to deal with this, but can you imagine what it would have been like. And you guys were just basically traveling from Chicago in the middle of the country, but now you're going to have teams going coast to coast to compete.
You would have had to run against an at Southern col UCLA, Washington up in Seattle, that kind of thing. And it's almost as though allley that the powers would be couldn't care less about athletes and anything with football, you know what I mean.
Yeah, this is don't even get me started on this topic. Actually, because I'm from Oregon, so you know, my family grew up Big Duck fans as well, so this is like so weird to see Oregon not be in the Pact twelve Like that just is so like tattooed into my brain, and especially joining the conference that I competed in collegiately, like I would I'd actually would love to have raced against Oregon. I'd running wise. They have a really strong program, and I'm I'm a big fan of their athletic programs.
But do I think that's the best idea? Literally not at all. I don't understand the logic behind that whatsoever. Obviously for sports like football, you know, it's a business. I do understand that, But I was in the athletic community. I have a lot of friends that were on the women's soccer team, on the women's field hockey team, on the women's basketball teams that travel a lot more than
just once a week to play these games. Who's you know, just with the travel schedule in previous years in the Big Ten, you know, going to Iowa, it was a hassle. To go to Penn State or go to Maryland or Rutgers or somewhere. You had to get on a flight for like two hours. That was a hassle in the middle of the week as far as exams, and you know you're leaving on Wednesday, coming back Thursday, leaving Saturday,
coming back month like that already is a hassle. So I can truly not imagine for teams like that, how getting out to like Oregon is a flight And I made that plight once every Christmas, you know, and it is.
It's not an easy place to go. It's about a five and a half hour flight, and to have to do that and come back and then maybe two days later fly out to Maryland on the other side of the country is just ridiculous for any other sport other than football or maybe even running, for example, you don't for cross country. You compete like five times in a season.
It's not much. Yeah, so that's not a big deal, but it is difficult because I don't think they took into account how that would affect a lot of other sports. And while it's going to be great to watch on the TV, you know, mental health and stuff like that is so huge right now, especially in student athletes, and we're seeing a lot of movement behind that, and I just hope that this doesn't cause bigger issues because that's just us A lot of travel.
Yeah, And you know what's interesting as well. I'm not one of the media people who kind of rolls his eyes about student athletes. I know a lot of people who do. But I also know that too many people in our line of work think of the kids who are only of the kids that are going to go pro and that's like less than two percent when you break it all down, so most of you all you got to go to class, especially a place like Northwestern, and the people who are making these decisions, they're fond
of and stubborn about using the term student athlete. And that's fine, but make it stand up, you know what I mean. Nobody used that term when they were talking about, Yes, Rutgers will play against Southern Cal in whatever sport. However many times a year. You know, they never use the term student athlete, do they?
No, they don't, And that is hard because that is truly what they are. I mean, if you anyone thinks back to their time at college, you know most people and how much energy and time they put into studying it, and not at all to say that a student athlete's life is more difficult. I genuinely do believe that everyone has a bunch of stuff going on that you balance,
whether it's extracurriculars, studying athletics, club athletics. But for student athletes, there is a huge emphasis on time management and depending on your load, like they're at some point, some things have to give, and sometimes with the pressure of being a student athlete, unfortunately what gives usually first is school because you're, you know, under all this pressure, you know from the SEC or something to go and win this football game and this you know, week matters so much
ball lah that you know maybe you're not going to go pro, but you're like, all right, we got to win this game, and your focus this isn't as much on school that week. But again for football, probably not as big of a difference because you're traveling once a week. Some weeks you're home. Well, really, I think is going to be a big issue is something like baseball, because a lot of baseball players don't go pro and have that same kind of mindset or softball, and they travel
so much for days in a row. And so this will be kind of the first year that I would be actually really curious to have some sort of like study this year to just see how their academics compare to last year. Not saying it can't be done, but I've been there. Like studying on the road and on a bus and in a hotel is just so different. You're so distracted if you're at the same time you are out there with all of your friends and your teammates.
It doesn't feel like a studious environment. You're any test, you're taking our procters by your coach. It's just a different environment. So for something like baseball or softball for days on end, I would be really interested to see how that affects academics long term, and then maybe how that might reaffect conference alignment later on.
Yep, Hallie Devora is a reporter anchored WDTVQ and she'll be covering all kinds of stuff this weekend, including the cats in the Georgia Bulldox. Thanks so much, see you next time.
Thank you so much.
Well, come back and take a look at a busy week a little bit later on Heroes, Fools and Flakes on The Big Blue Sider six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider. Happy birthday. As I mentioned to my brother today, my sister yesterday, mine Sunday, I share a birthday with Dan Marino former Dolphins QB and my sister shared a birthday with Sydney Sweeney yesterday. My brother shares a birthday today with, among other people, John Shelby.
That's right, t Bone Shelby of Lexington, who played for three different teams in the Big Leagues. He played for the Orioles, the Tigers, and the Dodgers, and not a superstar player, but he played in more than a thousand games, had more than three thousand at bats seventy home runs. But most importantly he won two World Series, one of the Orioles, one with the Dodgers. So t Bone Shelby, whose sons all played at Kentucky. Happy birthday to t Bone,
the Shelby family. Great family, and of course we always called them the first family of baseball here in Lexington. So happiest to Happy birthdays to John Shelby. Also on this date, it's a big date. Nineteen seventy three, ABC announced it obtained TV rights for the nineteen seventy six Olympics, putting Rune Arledge in charge of the coverage and television change forever. That's where up Close and Personal was born.
And I don't care who's had the game since then, ABC, NBC, CBS, I forgive me, I don't know if Fox has ever had it. ESPN's got a lot of stuff. But they set the standard because it used to be, of course, just showing the competition. ABC turned the camera around away from the playing surface and began to concentrate more as much on the athletes and their personalities themselves, and again set the new standard. And they still live by that standard.
Any network that has the games now. They started at ABC back in seventy three when they got the rights for the seventy six Olympics and immediately began working on those games. Here's a huge one also in nineteen seventy three, US Congress passes and sends a bill to Nixon and he signs it. Big football fan lifting NFL Football's television blackout of sold out games. Can you imagine back in
the day. And people still deal with blackouts now and then, but back then, even if your game, local game was sold out, it was blacked out in your area. Not a popular rule, but they had the right president in office all right. Earlier this week, in fact, it was yesterday, Tom Lee, chip cor and I got together south of Wrigley over on Southland Drive. If you like ballpark style hot dogs, chili dogs, Italian sausage, they got a great
chicken palm sandwich. Try south of Wrigley. Go look for Kentucky ol Kentucky Chocolates, and then just slide on down in the parking lot and they're South Wriggley right there.
Uh.
We tape the Wildcat whip at South the Wrigley and Tom and Jeff and I got to get her to talk first of all about food, but then about the football Wildcats.
I got to remember getting at Wriggley Field one time an Italian sausage peppers and on your and you can get that here.
Yeah.
Look, the key the key to any great sandwich wherever, you don't care where you is the bread. Yeah, if you got good bread, that's half the battle.
They got it here at South there Wriggley. It's not gonna be easy for the Wildcats Saturday. But we all know that it's a bit of an understatement. Yes, thank you very much. Well, I have covered football for a while, but and I've said it a week on my show. I'm sure we have to. And Jeff, you or you've been there players are resilient, and on top of that, they don't have any choice. They got to look at They can't dwell on what happened last week.
And you can get embarrassed when you're playing a team like this if you go you know, if you're kind of licking your wounds, so to speak. I always point this out when it's when it's a situation like this, it's the craziest set of scores. I don't know if the three of us have talked about this before. You go back to and Kentucky had guys like Joe Fettersfield, Frankle Master of the team, Houston Hog, I think maybe
Wilver Hackett. I think it was nineteen sixty nine. They opened the season on regional TV against Indiana, being on TV big deal, hadn't been on the TV for years. Lose fifty eight to thirty to Indiana in the first game. Next week, Archie Manning and Ole Miss come to town, an Ole Miss team that would go on to win the Sugar Bowl, and Kentucky beat some ten to nine.
That makes no sense fifty eight to Indiana, nine to Archie Manning and Old Miss. So if those two sets of scores could once have happened in the history of the world. Then you hang your hat on.
Hope with a Phil Grier interception.
Oh really off a batting you know what.
I remember delivering newspapers listening to that Indiana game, and it was so exciting, but I kept thinking, when is it going to stay? When are they gonna stop Indiana from scoring? Because Kentucky was scaring all right, and then here come the Hoosiers. I'm like, God, come on.
And Indiana was good in those days. Yeah, they were about two years removed from one of the Rose Bowl.
But then I read about I was I didn't come to a Kentucky football game till I was in college, but then read about what happened next week. It's crazy. But let's start with what happened last week. Obviously, Uh, Jeff, you always mentioned you talk about it in the post game set the edge South Carolina owned, the edge, didn't.
Yeah, and you know, Tom and I were just talking a little bit about it. And there were plays where Kentucky used a tight end and a back to chip. What what a chip is is so the tight end is gonna go out, but before he does, he slams into that defensive end. And then the back steps up like you know, and like he's gonna buck slams into
him and then he takes off. So the tackle is engaged with him and the other guy's come up on whack him a couple of times, and it's supposed to slow him down, and you know, but there were times when that, especially the fresh.
Ball, went right through three guys.
Yeah, you can hear the entire Wildcat Whip on my Facebook page. I believe Tom has shared it on his. Also you can go to x or Twitter and hear it via the UK Sports Network. But it's just basically an extended version of the conversation that Tom and Jeff and I have pregame that's only a couple of minutes long. So we thought we would get together each week before the game, before the broadcast and share with you an extended version of our thoughts. We call it, of course,
the Wildcat Whip. I mentioned earlier that Paul Finebaum did not have a lot of use for Tom Brady's debut. He compared it to Nick Saban's and again, they were doing totally different jobs. And Saban, who has spoken to hundreds and thousands of football players breaking down video it's exactly what he did for ESPN, and as you might expect, he did a great job. What impressed me the most, though, was he seemed very comfortable doing it, very at ease for a guy who at times has sparred with him media.
But he's a team player, clearly. I mean that's why quick coaching, because players have become anything but team players. Some guys in this day of nil When players came to him at the end of his last season with their hands out looking for even more money, he said, I'm out and became a broadcaster. And he's a good one, and Brady probably will become a good one. He's got a good sense of humor. That's a good start, and
obviously knows the game. But somebody else who weighed in on it, Jim Nance, one of the deans of sportscasting and of course has done games for CBS forever, did not see Brady's game because he was working at the same time. But he is. He knows Brady well. He's been in countless pregame meetings with him, regular season, playoffs, super Bowl. He knows how smart the guy is. And Brady said he believed, or rather Nance said he believes Brady will be fine. Just give him time.
I would have liked to have heard it, but I'm gonna forward to hearing him down the road. I'll hear him this week, in fact, because I've got the late game, he's going to be up early. I've talked to Tom a lot leading into this season, and he has called on many broadcasters to get their insights into what it's like in the booth, how to prepare, how fast the game moves. So I know he's going to be really
good at this. I don't have any doubt, and I'm certainly not going to make any judgments without having seen him. And even if I did see him, which I didn't, I wouldn't draw any conclusions after one game. Tom Brady will will be very good at this.
I think so. But he will remain a lightning rod. He will remain a target. He will be the subject of critics every week, and unfortunately, I think it won't be a situation where we check out and then come
back and check on him later. I think that there are going to be people posting every week why because he's Tom Brady and because they paid him in an insane amount of money, but just if you're not interested in this or he look away, I'm not going to harp on it, but I'll come back later in the year and try to figure out if the guy has gotten any better. But as I said the other day, none of us in this line of work we'll put
the first time we're on the air. I'm sure Saban's critical of himself, but he had a great debut, as did Tony Romo. But ninety nine percent of us, we'll tell you that the first time we tried whatever it is we're doing as broadcasters, we stunk. But that's how you get better. I mean, when I was doing scripted sportscast, I knew I wasn't any good at it, and so a guy in the business recognized something in me and said, bring me some scripts, and he tore them to shreds
and went over them with me. Made me feel like I was about eight inches high. But he told me specifically what to do and how to get better, and I know I did. I don't know how good I got, but I know I got better. Same thing with play by play. Van Vance was a great mentor to me over in Louisville and growing up listening to and then working with Kayle Lefford, you can't help but get better.
I don't know if Brady, with all the ball he has played, has ever spent much time paying attention to people that he admires doing the gay job he's trying to do now, I hope in preparing for this, I know he's talked to a lot of guys, but the best thing he could do is go back and listen to different analysts and figure out why he likes them. What did they do, how do they say it? Don't steal from them, but use them as an example, and if he's as smart as I think he is, I
believe he will indeed do that. Up next, Heroes Fools and Flakes on the Big Blue Insiders six thirty WLAP Welcome back, final segment of our program, and a reminder Kentucky Football Kickoff seven thirty five thirty pregame Christy and Jeremy and Logan and Jeff and Tom and I will have the call for youa Kentucky taking on those Georgia Bulldogs. A couple other notes for it before we get the
Heroes Fools in Flakes. Aja Wilson breaking the WNBA single season scoring record and there are more records in front of her. But it is quite the conundrum if you're voting for MVP Caitlin Clark and Asia Wilson. They both keep breaking records and setting new marks and new standards. You could make the argument that Wilson's been a little more consistent, but Caitlin Clark Man, the thing she has done since that snub by the Olympic team has torn that league up. And if you're talking about the MVP
in the league, who's more important to her team? Well, who's more important than Asia Wilson to her team? Again, I could see them sharing the award. I really could the MVP. I don't know if they'll do that. I don't know if they're allowed to do that, but I could see it happening. Couple of other NBA are NFL notes. Rather, the Bengals are looking at a rough start because they play at Kansas City on Sunday and they may be
looking at another zero to two start. And I say another because the Bengals in the first two weeks of the season under Zach Taylor are one in ten. Joe Burrow himself is one in three, and Burrow, of course had the wrist surgery in the off season, ligament damage, and people who watch such things say that they thought he was flexing his wrist in a kind of a weird way. Maybe he's still hurting. Burrow has said, no, that's because of the surgery and I'm just trying to
keep it mobile and that's what you do. So keep an eye on them Bengals out in Kansas City. I know you will. My Packers probably without Jordan Love for the next few weeks. But then made Lafloor, the coach says the door is open for him playing. You talk about a mixed message. No, it's gonna be Malik Willis and it's not gonna to be good with all due respect in my opinion. All right, our hero tonight, as we go to heroes, fools and flakes, I'm going old school.
I'm going back to twenty oh six. Trevard Linley got the interception. Now wasn't the only play. It wasn't the only big play. I heard Rich Brooks talk about that last night on the show. They made so many big plays in that game. Roger Williams with an interception at the end of the first half, tipped by Trevard Lindley Tony Dixon with a huge effort that ended up with the game winning touchdown. He carried the ball in almost every play, including a touchdown they put the Lolcats ahead.
Were good, but Trevard Lindley had the signature play at the end, the interception that locked up the win off a freshman quarterback named Matthew Stafford. Victory number six sent Kentucky to a bowl game and brought the goalpost down.
Stafford retreats plenty of time out the protections breaking down, he slides right, he throws.
And that was fun, And so was going to the bowl game and covering Kentucky's upset of Clemson. It all kind of ran together in twenty oh six. Our Full Tonight. I'm not sure the guy's name Our Full Tonight. There's a couple of them. One of them is a suspect that hit and run crash arrest of Thursday night. He drove his truck onto the playing field at Fulsom Field at the University of Colorado running away from police. Carl Haglund from Massachusetts found his way somehow in his truck
onto the playing field. So maybe the fool also is a guy who's supposed to lock the gate there. I don't know. But also really the bigger fool is Derek Bender, a minor league catcher with the Minnesota Twins, released Thursday after according to sources, he told opposing hitters the types of pitches that were coming to the plate during bats in the game last week, which eliminated his team from playoff contention. This is reported by ESPN six round draft
pick out of Coastal Carolina. He supposedly wanted the season over and so he was telling opposing batters the specific pitches being thrown by the starter, Ross Dunn. They found out about it after the facts, so they cut the guy, and why not. He's done, he won't play professional baseball again. And our flake, well, this is just playing weird ray Gun, the viral Australian Olympic breakdancer. She was ranked number one in the world by the sport and I used that loosely,
the sports governing body. They said that she earned the top spot after she came in first at the twenty twenty three Oceania Continental Championships. I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I got to tell you after saying what she did at the I think that they probably haven't ranked anybody since those Oceania Continental championships because man, what she did in the Olympics was pretty flaky.
That's going to do it. Thanks to my guest justin Rowland, Hallie DeVore that said good night from the garage and Alexi Dion.
I wasn't thinking about form or team, or celebration or score.
I literally was walking.
And I promise this is your true The only thought that came in my mind was if I don't make this, they are going.
To kill me.
Sand