Uh, guess what day it is.
Guess what day it is?
Huh, anybody, it's hump day.
I know what basketball means in the state of Kentucky, and you're gonna have a team that's gonna be fun to cheer for him.
Tell you that that was a message for you Kentucky fans from Lenny Acuff, the head coach of the Lipscomb Bison who fell to the Wildcats last night. That is a professional coach telling the Big Blue nation that come March there could be a lot to cheer about. Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Gabriel with you on a Wednesday edition of our show This Game Night. That's right basketball. Last night tonight it's volleyball, the UK women
taking on Mississippi State. Kentucky in first place in the SEC looking for an eighth consecutive Southeastern Conference championship, but needs to win out so it doesn't have to share it with anybody. We'll have it for you on SEC Plus at seven o'clock. You were truly joined by Leah Edmund. But we need to talk, of course about last night's win over Lipscomb tonight on the Big Blue side, and we will do just that coming up a little bit
later on Sean Woods The Unforgettable Guard. We'll also visit with our West End bureau chief, Gary Moore, who will talk all sorts of Kentucky football, basketball, national stuff as well. We're also going to talk football with Mike Harge. Mike is a radio sportscaster down in Austin, Texas. Actually met him at SEC Football Media Days. I don't even remember how we got to talking, but we decided to swap phone numbers and we knew we would need guests the
week of the Kentucky Texas game. I was on his show this morning, So he'll be with us tonight and we'll talk about the Cats and the Longhorns coming up at the bottom of the hour. But back to UK basketball with the Wildcats are four and oh for the first time since the sixteen to seventeen season. That team won its first seven games, and that was the team that just barely missed the Final Four when Luke May of North Carolina hit a jump shot in the closing
seconds and knocked off the Wildcats. You remember the vid I will never forget the video of bam At a bio and the Aaron Fox in the Kentucky locker room sobbing after that setback. And I always think about that when people would rip on the one and done players, how they just don't care, they don't care about being here. And look, I'm sure one or two, in fact, I know of one in particular who came he here and really didn't care. He just wanted to get paid. But
I'm not going to share the name with either. But those guys did, and man, that team was good. I'm not saying this team's going to be as good because they don't have anybody as good as Bam and they don't have anybody as good as the Aaron Fox. Both of these guys are mainstays now in the NBA. But they got a great team. And what I think is great so far, U Case had a different leading scorer in all four games this year. Last night it was Jackson Robinson. He bounced off that game from Duke and
had twenty points. And yeah, against lesser competition, Kentucky shot it well fifty four point eight percent from the field, ten of twenty five from three point land, forty eight percent and eighty one percent of the free throw line and for sorry, twelve of twenty five on threes, and Kentucky's become the first UK team ever to make at least ten three pointers in each of its first four games.
Mark Pope was surprised to hear that last night. He was surprised that his championship team in ninety five ninety six didn't do that. But you know that team shot a lot of threes, but not as many as this team. And in fact, Kentucky went of eight ball clubs now to make double digit three pointers in every game so far this season. You want to know another one of them, Louisville about that. So hearing from the players and the coaches after the game. Lenny Acuff is the head coach
of Lipscomb and he was absolutely impressed. He was the guy you heard off the top of the broadcast and he was really impressed with what he saw.
I know most of the guys in said, I don't know him, and I can tell you I'm tremendously impressed, tremendously tremendously impressed. They we play a lot of a lot of these games. Unfortunately, we play a lot of them and we've we've done well in a lot of them. But that's the best offensive power for team we played in my six years at Lipscomb. I'm gonna tell you what, if Butler, Robinson and Bray play like that, they're gonna be a tough, tough, tough out.
As you might expect that A Cup was tremendously impressed with Kentucky's offense, but really and most coaches do. Uh. He points out the defense by the Wildcats when.
We play these games a lot of times, it's the defensive end they put to really get after some defense. I think they're underrated defensive, but I thought we got really good shots. Ball don't go in. It's a hard game. But boyle boy, you make one mistake or you're one at second half, second late, it's three and I mean they made they go twelve for twenty five and we filed him.
On three more.
Speaking of good shooting, Lamont Butler had a lot of fun last night, and he of course is known for his defense as well he should be. But he was six of eight from outside last night, got to the rim on a couple of beautiful moves, but was also three for three from the outside on his way to sixteen points. Only committed one foul. That could be a problem with him this year as aggressive as he is defensively. But somebody asked him about his hot shooting last night
in just seventeen minutes of play. It was a good day. It was a good day, good shooting day for me. I mean, I work on it a lot.
I think it was just just just the results of the work that I put in. And you know, the confidence on my teammates having me, you know through out there, you know, shoot that shot and I just make plays for each other.
That's Lamont Butler. I mentioned the Duke game, and you had to wonder if I may invoke, and I know Tom Leech likes to do this a thoroughbred racing term, and that's bounced. Oftentimes a horse will run a great race, maybe his best race ever, and then the next time out doesn't run well at all, nowhere near his best time or her best time, and they just say, well, that horse bounced, because as often as not, a good horse will come back the next race and run well.
So we often talk about that, especially in basketball when there are so many games. It's not so much in football, but game where there's a lot of games in basketball surely fits them. Because Kentucky plays again on Friday. But you had to wonder after that Duke game that took so much effort and so much emotion, was Mark Pope and his sat where they concerned that Kentucky might bounce? And this is beginning to sound like as we learn more and more about Mark Pope the coach, like a
typical answer. He's such a deep thinker. And he said no, because we're not going to worry. First of all, coach, and he didn't say that, but you know, coaches don't worry about things they can't control. But they also know they can't control that emotional state their players are in, so they don't worry about what might happen in a negative way. They worry about what they want and need to happen in terms of putting a game plan together that's going to win for you.
The biology of that, actually, the neuroscience of that is one hundred percent in support of that, right is, you know, we're not going to focus on what we don't want to have happened. We're going to focus on what we do want to have happened. And our guys have received that really well, so we don't spend much time on it at all.
And we won't.
That's not the way we do it. That doesn't mean we won't ever have bad results. It just means that we're going to always focus on what we're trying to do, and we're going to try and be laser focused on that. We're not going to spend a lot of time thinking about what we do not want to happen.
You know, if you think about it, that's a great lesson for everybody. I mean, if you worry about what you don't want to happen, that's wasted time, isn't it. This guy, you know this by now. He's a deep thinker and sometimes he gets a little too analytical with answers. But if you ask a question, you need to expect an answer. You ask a direct question, you know. If you get a direct answer, hey, that's the way it goes.
You know.
And the previous management like to sort of spend things and control the narrative. And that's fine as well. You got a lot of colorful stuff out of him. But John Calipari has his way. Mark Pope has his way. Calipari's got a national championship and several final fours under his belt. It's exactly what Mark Pope wants to do, and it looks like he's heading in the right direction. But it is so early in this season. When you think about how early early it is, it's really remarkable.
But when you also look at how well Kentucky's playing, that's remarkable as well. Coming up in our next hour, we'll talk to Sean Woods about that. He was so bullish on the Wildcats going into the Duke. He predicted a win, and then the next morning or the next evening rather we talked on the Big Blue Sider about why he said that, and it's exactly. It exactly came to fruition in the way he said it would experience
over the freshman talent. That's how Kentucky beat Duke. And obviously it's why Kentucky excelled last night against an inferior compared to Duke. All due respect appointed Lipscomb may make the NCAA tournament, they've done it before. But Kentucky did
what a good team should do last night. And now I really think it's interesting that the comment that Pope made about don't worry about you what you don't want to happen, a lot of coaches might worry about what do we do with Jackson State coming up, that's Friday, all right, Next Tuesday, Western Kentucky. Western has come in here and won in the past. I'm not entirely certain what Western Kentucky has right now, but don't be surprised
if they're good. They're always good, it seems like. And Georgia State comes in and some of the so called mid majors who might surprise people in the postseason. But you can't worry about what might happen in those games. Are your kids looking at the Clemson which is in the first Tuesday in December, that's the sec ACC Challenge. That's a nine to thirty game Eastern Time, which, as you know, will begin at ten o'clock down in Clemson. It's not a doubleheader. They might start at like nine
forty five, a whole tip off or something like that. Anyhow, it'll be a late game and or later game. Then the late game comes up the following Saturday in Seattle against Gonzaga. That's the ten pm start out there. So do you worry that your kids are going to be thinking about all that and not the three on your schedule at home that you should win and walk overs? Relatively speaking, you can't. You can't worry about that, like Pope said, because you're not going to improve for one thing.
You'll win, but you won't win the way you need and want to win. Interesting, all right, when we come back, we'll talk more Kentucky volleyball, Little UK women's basketball, and why did Mike Tyson lose that fight that's coming up next year? On a Big Blon Sider six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big Bloon Sider. Coming up in just a few minutes. Mike Harge of AM thirteen hundred zone down in Austin, Texas. He'll tell us what to expect from the Longhorns on Saturday when the Wildcats take
on Texas for the first times. It's nineteen fifty one. It's a game you will hear right here on six thirty WLAP. There's a lot going on down there. If you're going to Austin, I'm gonna ask Mike to give us a little information about what to do and where to go, especially Friday night when the basketball team is going to be playing and you have a chance to check it out, maybe from a sports bar in Austin.
Our number two Sean Woods, the unforgettable guard. We'll talk about last night's game with Lipscomb, and of course Westen Bureau chief Gary moan More will join us as well. This being Wednesday, and I'm going to ask Gary about to get his opinion about this next story. It's all over the interweb now. First of all, the Tyson Paul fight. We've talked about, such a joke, but so was the
technology involved Netflix, which didn't you see this coming? I guess not, But a lot of people, myself included, had issues with the buffering. You know, the image would freeze, I would rewind it a minute, and then it would go ahead and play all the way through till the next buffering situation. But it was terrible. And now a lawsuit filed in Florida by again named Ronald Blue Denton, accusing Netflix of breach of contract for the constant glitches,
not because of a terrible fight. When you buy a fight on pay per view, you get what you pay for. It's like when Tyson knocked out Michael Spink in forty seven seconds or whatever it was. Netflix has acknowledged the poor streaming quality of the event, but Netflix executive Elizabeth Stone, who did admit there were technical challenges, but said the launch team tackled it brilliantly by prioritizing stability of the
stream for the majority of viewers. Well, guess what the rest of you guys can go pound rocks right, And she kind of dismissed it as chattering the press and social media about quality issues. We don't want to dismiss the poor experience of some members, and now we have room for improvement, but still consider this event a huge success. Well, yeah, ultimately a dure one hundred and eight million viewers worldwide. It peaked at sixty five million according to US estimates.
Fifty six percent. That's in the USA, sixty five million percent of all TV viewership in the country tuned to the Tyson Paul fight between midnight and one AM. That's according to Netflix. Okay, and of course that co main event Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano seventy four million live viewers globally, most watched professional women's sports event in US history, and they saw Serrano get robbed. But now comes the story and it's it's hearsay, but it explains a lot.
Michael Irvin, the former Cowboy on a podcast, said he had heard and this explains everything that Tyson contractually could not throw uppercuts at Jake Paul, and as Irvin pointed out, that's how Mike Tyson won most of his bouts with an incredibly brutal uppercut.
The intention is the rulers trapped at all. If you look through that, they see one patient upper cut by Mike Tyson. What did Mike Tyson win on upper cut? And I heard some people talking about me, couldn't put.
That in the contract?
You couldn't. He couldn't body in their upper cut? Like, how could you put that in a fight contract? Now you got all these people out of here, and he couldn't bother him and do that patient upper cut.
All of that is Mike Tyson is not Mike Tyson anyway. And now you're taking away Mike Tyson's best gift, which was that upper cut. Man, that's a big lit to me. Man, that's like making me run like that. Play a game without running a slant route and a deep in or a deep out. You do what you do back and if they take that away, you ain't that dude no more.
And they took that away, and.
I was former Cowboy receivers Michael Irvin talking on the latest podcast I guess it was yesterday's podcast of it Is What it Is? And when he say he called it a big lie, and then the host of the podcast and what do you mean? But as Tyson pointed out, there intentions to really go at each other. And then a follow up in the story on Yahoo, there was a gentleman named dj wu Kid forgive me, I don't know who that is, but he also subscribed to the
note and said he had heard the same thing. Now, I always wonder is he hearing that from Irvin, with Irvin hearing it from him, or were there people on the end. Both imply they heard it from people on the inside, and in fact dj wo Kid said he spoke to Jake Paul, but there's been no confirmation from Jake Paul, who I cannot believe Jake Paul would publicly admit, nor would Tyson that they contractually agreed no uppercuts, because that means, I mean, who is Mike Tyson without his uppercut?
And supposedly dj wo Kid said Jake Paul wasn't allowed to really unload on Tyson because if one unloaded on the other. This guy said they would have killed him. Well, then you can't ask people in good faith to sign up and spend their money. I'm already a Netflix subscriber, so I didn't spend anything additional to see this fight, and I don't think I would have. I bought pay per view fights before, not many, and as usually, you throw in with somebody because it's fifty or eighty or
a hundred bucks. But this was a great idea by Netflix. And by the way, technical glitches, people tuning in, buffering all that stuff. You didn't see that coming. And now you got the NFL coming up on Netflix. You best get that taken care of because the NFL don't play They play football, but they don't play with their product. And if you're not ready to handle it, I got to wonder is the NFL taking a hard look right now at Netflix and saying what did we sign up for?
You wouldn't blame them for having second thoughts about climbing into bit Netflix, And this was a brilliant move. Netflix was struggling, you know, it was so many channels out there and so many free movies out there. Now you know, Netflix used to deliver DVDs to your mailbox and they changed everything's online now they better get with the program, no pun intended, and get this stuff straightened out by the time the NFL rolls around. And I have no
idea how that's done. That's way over my head. But there are a lot of people paid a lot of good money on the technology side of things to make that happen. But also we need to know if there's a bogus contract in place with a couple of fighters the next time these two guys fight, because you know they will. My cards is next from Austin on six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big bon Sider. Joining me now is a new friend. I was on his show earlier this morning, and he is returning the favor
of this evening here on the Big boon Sider. Mike Card's the host of The Hard Knox Life on AM thirteen hundred to zone down in Austin.
How you doing, Mike, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. Always good to talk to you and kind of talk about this crazy SEC.
Yeah, and that's where you and I met down in Dallas at the SEC Media Days. As a guy who've spent back in the eighties, two years in the old Southwest Conference, which is a league that should still be alive.
We won't get into that, maybe we will a little bit later, but what was it like for you as a media person to cover that event and to have to shift your focus now to schools like Kentucky and Georgia and Alabama after you've I assume, have grown up following you know, Texas a and which is in the SEC, but Texas Tech, Baylor, all those classic Southwest Conference schools.
You know, it's interesting that you say that because as a kid growing up in Texas, I originally signed with the University of Texas to play football and baseball. And the ironic thing about it was it was in the Southwest Conference. I happened to look at my letter of incent for some something to show my son, and I was like, look at that. That was the Southwest Conference. So then I saw the transition to the Big Twelve
and it was an interesting one as well. You still got some of those same foes, but you added some other players into the mix. But covering the SEC is totally what I thought it was going to be. The only difference was we weren't in Hoover, Alabama. We were in Dallas, Texas. So they did the local folks some favors by having the initial Southeastern Conference media days in Dallas, Texas. So it was exactly what I thought.
It was.
All the popping circumstance and everyone fired up for the new kid on the block in the University of Texas and Oklahoma and now we're right in the middle of it.
Yeah. I enjoyed getting back to Dallas and spinish soon. I'd come through a couple of times as I live there back in the eighties, but in this particular hotel where they had the event, did a great job. You know, everybody had enough space and everything worked properly. And then we all got to talking about football. And from where you sit, give me your perspective of this Kentucky team before I ask you about the Longhorns. What do you guys know about Mark Stoops and the Wildcats.
Well, he's a Stoops, so you know that means a lot around here because of his brother Bob and Mike who was on the staff. There all those epic battles between Texas and Oklahoma at the State Fair, and we call it a State Fair street fight every single year. But they were dominant during that time, but looking at Kentucky and kind of understanding that this is a football team that record may not indicate exactly who they are. Yes, as they always say, you are exactly what your record
says that you are. But you go back and look at some of those matchups that they've had, those tough, tough games, and you think of play here and a play there, and their season may be totally different. A lot of people can say that across college football, there's a play. There's always a play or a situation that the game will come to. Now they also say, don't
always think it's just one play. But there are some times that you could look at this team and say, you took Georgia to the mat, and here's a team of Georgia that came into Austin and put it on the Texas Long one. So there's a lot that you can look at at this team. Obviously, the record does not indicate how good or bad that they truly are, but this is a tough team that understands what it's
all about being in the SEC. They understand that week to week anything can happen, and right now they can play spoiler along with trying to get themselves eligible for a bowl game.
That's exactly right, and they're running into a Texas team that is relevant again. And I bring that up because when I was down in Dallas, it was Jackie Cheryl. I was down there eighty three, eighty four. Jackie Cheryl was the King. But Texas was still a really good team. So it was Baylor with Grant Taff. But there was a while there while there, Mike, and you know this where Texas just wasn't relevant to college football for a while. That had to be bizarre for people living in the state.
I know it was for people in the state of Texas. But now the long range are running with the big boys again, aren't they.
Yeah, And I'm glad that you brought that up because a lot of times, you know, people look to see Texas fail and they enjoy it. It's kind of like the Cowboys and the Yanks. People look at those teams, They're like, oh, here they are. They talk about their money, they talk about this, they talk about that, but they're not producing on the field. Well, now Texas is producing on the field. And I always take it back to the journey over these last few years. Well, I'll go
I'll go decade. You think about mac Brown his later years at the University of Texas, going into his final year. Then you bring in Charlie Strong, Well, the entire University of Texas organization was in disarray. You didn't have a true athletic director. You have people filling in. There was constant changes. There was always coaches being run in and out, not just the head coaches, but coordinators, and just so much change. And then you bring in coach Steve Sarkisian.
And the one thing that I will say about stark and a lot of people are now starting to truly understand that he has an athletic director, a president and board of regents that is one thousand percent behind him. He has the staff. He has the staff that does not have a lot of change. He has the same offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and special teams coordinator. They've been the same. He has done some things differently that in the past people would have been wanting certain guys out
of there. He took a five and seventeen to play last year in the College Football play I finished twelve and two, and now he's sitting at number two in the latest college football ranking. And yet people here are still upset because they are trying to figure out what's going on with Quinn.
Yeah, you got it. You got one of those interesting quarterback problems where you know, every team in America would love to have the Texas problems, wouldn't they.
Yes, And that's but you know as well as I do, and you covered this game for a long time, the most popular person on campus is always the backup court. That's right, and it's always and it's always all he would be doing this, and he would be doing that. Ah, not necessarily so. And I just I'm not too far gone from the Gerard Herd and Tyrone Swoops era at the quarterback position to not appreciate what we're seeing with one Quinn yours.
Yeah, people when I talk to them about it, and again, I lived down there what forty years ago, but I'm sure it hadn't changed. And people now know thanks to Friday night lights, they know about Texas high school football. They don't really know about the passion. I tell them. You wouldn't believe back when newspapers were relevant. You picked up the Sunday Dallas Morning News and all the reams of covering and the Saturday paper as well of high
school football coverage. So the recruiting is just nuts. And I've always been amazed that Texas didn't always have a real study quarterback.
You know, well, I think again, it goes through the development and the choosing of the quarterback. How important is it, Well, you and I know how important it is. It's always good to have a great one, but you have to be able to find a quarterback that can run the system that you look forward to running. I'm still upset at MAC because of the loss to Alabama in the National title game when Cope got hurt. Yeah, he changed
his entire offense because of that one play. Well, you had just recruited the National Player of the Year, Gatoray Player of the Year, and Garrett Gilbert, who again people didn't give him his just due because of the simple fact that everything changed from the process in which it was so to me. You start looking at this Texas
program with coach Start. He's doing a hell of a job recruiting and he's getting those top notch guys to where Yeah, Texas should have As long as he's here, we shouldn't have to worry about a quarterback position.
They don't have to worry about it now, just an embarrassment of riches. We're talking with Mike Harch. He is a sportscaster down in Austin, Texas. He covers those Texas Longhorne and we'll come back and talk more football with Mike. Maybe a little minor league baseball too. That's right, Mike played a lot of pro ball. We'll come back in just a minute on the Big one Sider here on six thirty's back. We're talking with Mike Harge of the Morning Kickoff with Mark Henry and Mike Harge, The Hard
Knocks of Life on a thirteen hundred to zone. Hey, for anybody listening, Mike who may be going to the game real quickly, can you recommend a spot Friday night where maybe Kentucky fans can go to watch the UK basketball game.
Well, there's a bunch of spots in town. Definitely try to find a place called Cover three. They cover all the basketball, baseball, football, whatever you like. All you got to do is ask or an opportunity to watch it. You can go to the Lebaca Street Bar and Grill. That'll be right in the heart of downtown. And of course, any David Busters that you want to go to. They always got those as well.
Leavacker Street was recommended to me by Josh Hopkins, who's an actor you may have seen, and he lives in Austin, but he's from Kentucky. Grew up here in Lexing and his dad was a very popular congressman. But he lives in Austin. Of course, actors can live anywhere, but yeah, he recommended. He recommend that. He's a huge Wildcats fan. Well,
let's get back to this game. And we were talking on your show this morning, you and Mark about how you kind of expect Kentucky to play that power run game against Texas, kind of control the clock, shorten the game, which is they did to near perfection against Texas, and they did it to perfection with against Ole Miss. They beat Ole Miss in Oxford. So you feel like everybody's expecting that from Kentucky.
I guess, oh absolutely. I mean you got to go
with what has been successful for you. If you try to go out there and throw the ball all over the yard, Texas leads the sec and interceptions, so you might not want to do that, but you also want to make sure that you go in there and control the clock, kick that Texas offense, which some say is much of aligned right now because they're not having the explosive play, but they're right on pace to have exposed to play the same amount in which they had last year.
But I'm gonna tell you this much, if you try to run on that Texas defense. A lot of people thought that Texas's defense was going to take a step back once they lost to and Andre Sweat and Byron Murphy in the draft. Those guys have gotten better. They went out of recruited will and they brought in some other guys that are brought in specifically to stuff the run.
So I don't think it'll be as easy. But hey, I've seen Texas lose the game to Georgia too, where Georgia didn't run the ball that well, yeah, turned it over and they ended up still winning that ball game.
Georgia has a quarterback who when needed, they can just turn them and say, hey man, you got to win this game for us, or at least put us in the right track. I don't think. I don't know if it's a luxury anymore, but obviously it's certainly great to have a guy like Carson Beck, and that's exactly Mike, what they did in lectioningon in the second half. It was clear that the coaching staff got together and said, look, we got to go through fifteen to win this game.
And you know, I don't know that Kentucky can do that with its quarterback Rock Vandergriff the struggles he's had and the old line is still struggling. But it's going to be about minimizing mistakes against Texas, isn't it.
Yep, because of the fact of what I said, Texas has a propensity to be able to turn you over and turn it over often, so you've got to be
careful with that. But the other part of it is what exactly is Kentucky's run game week to week If you're coming in with the game plan and your mindset, is definitely the challenge of taking on the Texas Longhorns, who just happened to be ranked number two in the later College Football foll Is this that opportunity Mono Emano, man the man just going there and try to have this little battle of the trenches and see if your guys are ready to handle that. Ye I think sometimes
that is the way to go. And the motivational factor of it is. You get a chance to come into Austin, Texas Senior Night, and it kind of make this a night that Texas fans can try to forget and.
Oftentimes senior and I says, you know, can become a bit of distractions. The teams get out of the Blox kind of slowly. If you minutes left with Mike Carge of AM thirteen hundred down in Austin, and before I ask you about baseball real quickly, I covered A and M Kentucky game down there and at A and M. And it was something to see. Man, that big stadium and the core and the band and all that. We what are we looking at coming into Austin with that stadium and then the Texas crowd.
One hundred and five thousand screaming Texas Longhorn fans. You're gonna get when you get a chance to get here early and they walk around. They have created an atmosphere like no other. They take They've taken a little bit of everything from every all over the country and made it a big time party in Austin, Texas. There's no tailgating. There's very few places for you to tailgate. It's all
called bevo Boulevard and it's all around the stadium. There are two hillgates, but it's all on the forty acres and it is something that I was little hesitant when Delconti and his crew came in, but since they've been here, it has been nothing but an absolute party. Y'all can actually come and hang out with us at hook Them
hang out. We will be doing our pregame show right there, a bunch of food trucks and loud music and the biggest beer tank that you could ever see is called Big Beer Fuff and it's right there where we are, and you'll have a grand old time.
That's great. When I worked down there, I was always in the studio as the executive producer of the radio network. I got to see two games in two years. One was in Vegas when SMU went out there and played and I filled in on the radio as a color guy. And then I when Houston played SMU in Tokyo and three I went and was a producer engineer for that game. So I never got to see a Southwest Conference game in Texas, so now I'll get a chance to do that. A couple of minutes left with Mike Cars all right,
you played a lot of pro baseball. My man. You were drafted by the Expos and got all the way up to Triple A. What position did you play, and tell me a little bit about your career.
I was drafted as a shortstop, second basement. As a matter of fact, I played with former Kentucky Wildcat pitcher Rodney Henderson.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's a good friend of mine, and I got a chance to see him here recently as he was traveling as he's a scout and I just happened to be calling some ballgames that he was attending, so we got a chance to talk. But yeah, I played with Montreal, Boston,
Saint Louis in the New York Yankees organization. I was on the major league roster for two seasons, had a bunch of injuries, ended up moving around throughout my career, and then, you know, as I got older, I decided if I wasn't in the big leagues and staying in the big league for by a certain age, I was gonna walk away and try to do something else with my life. As my kids got older, I decided I
wanted to be a round more. And now I'm doing sports talk radio and having a good old time talking about the things I used to be able to do.
Yeah, you and I actually did meet in round Rock at that baseball round robin, didn't we?
We sure did, And I was very impressed because I was talking to you about one of my favorite players to ever play at the forty Acres, Mitchell Daily, in that game, and Mitchell Day ended up hitting the grand playing in that ball game. It was outstanding. I was very happy for him.
Yeah, that was the second time I'd got into work at that facility. My man Doug Flint, who does Kentucky baseball with me on SEC Plus, he and I did two summers of minor league ball for CBS Sports and we did a game in round Rock. That's such a great facility. But man, the state of Texas has dotted with great facilities, isn't it, No doubt about it.
That's what they taught. They always talk about everything big and excellent, so they always try to do it big as well.
Hey, when I moved to Dallas, I learned about that. But when somebody said, yeah, that's and set that that's just over in Austin, I'm like, uh huh, and you go, I said, so I could drive. I could drive over there, what's four hours? But to them that's just a jump, you know. Uh, Dallas Fort Worth I thought was like Minneapolis Saint Paul, like it just kind of all one big area. No, it's separated by forty five minutes of I thirty, so, you know, but that's just Texas. Hey, Mike,
thank you so much. I'm going to try to find you pregame and look you up and uh and shake hands again. I appreciate talking to you, no problem.
Thank you for taking the time, and thank you for having me on your show.
Appreciate it.
We'll be back in just a minute here on six thirty w LPGA.
Sean.
The ward that jumped out of me was purity. And I know a lot of people in my line and work, and probably some fans would roll their eyes when they talk about purity in college athletics. But I think those are the people, and I think my brethren in the media are the most guilty of this. We have a tendency to think of college athletics as like that top if you will, not one percent, but maybe ten percent.
You know, the teams that get the most attention, make the most money, put the most kids in the pros. But there are hundreds and hundreds of Northern Iowa was out there. You coached at schools where kids had very little hope of getting to the NBA, but hopes of getting a college degree. And that's that's maybe not gone completely, but it's leaving, isn't it. It's slipping away.
It's very much so, you know, the mentality now is you can get an education anywhere, but we want to maximize and take advantage of how much money we can receive or attain, you know, throughout our college career. And that's been you know, the main emphasis of athletes now. I spoke to a team yesterday, high school team, and I explained to them, you know about these kids are becoming harder to coach. They're more sensitive.
They live in a microwave society where they want everything now, and guess.
What, it's working into their favor. There's no life learning lessons anymore in college athletics, very little, because now kids aren't listening. They're tuning you out as far as the life learned lessons and things that normally happen with growth as a college athlete. Now it's more so concerning the monetary issues. Of what they can gain and what they can get financially more so than winning the championship, getting
a degree when you're going to home visit. Nowadays, it's not even you know, you used to talk to the mob about the academic people. You know, my son gonna be successful. Academics don't get all the support that he needs so he can be successful get his degree. Now is you know, how much money do you have so my son and my family can you know, reap the benefits financially more so than the growth of the individual
being a man or woman. So and then you know it's not you know, you know you couldn't call home. I knew I couldn't call home.
And say which is being being the mayor, you know, coaches not playing meyor or something like that.
You know, my mom was like figure it out. You know, my dad was like figured out. You know, it's it's competition. Now, it's not about competition. It's about quitting one situation because it didn't work out for you to go to the next, you know, point of least resistance and who's gonna pay me the most?
Yeah, Hey, we got to go find another place where we can.
Play at that Yeah, so there's no loyalty, and you know, you teach kids loyalty, You teach kids how to you know, overcome adversity and persevere. Now that's thrown out the window, and you know what I intended, They have no leverage anymore. Yeah.
I attended the reunion of the nineteen eighty four Kentucky football team, and a bunch of those guys played on the team that was winless two years prior, and they ended up two years later they win nine games and they win the Hall of Fame ball, which I as you know, will galvanize a team's success like that in sports. Uh. And they all got together and then you know how reunions are Sean. You don't talk about wins and laws, so you talk about families and funny stories in the
locker room and things like that. But you know, they were together, and there was a lot of talk about their coach, Jerry Clayburn, and some like them, most liked him, some didn't. But that's the way it is with all coaches. You've told me stories about Rick Patino and how he affected your life. I've heard countless athletes talk about how a certain coach high school or college have a profound
effect on their respective life. And now you've got kids whose resume includes three or four different schools hopscotching around the country. And I think it's a big deal when you know, when they look back in their college career and they now, who did I play for? What do I learn from that guy? You know what I mean? I hate that they're going to miss out on that.
I watch a lot of college basketball now, you know, no doubt, and I tipped my head off to Mark Pope because he's probably the only his team is probably the only team that's enjoyable to watch that plays with certain type of continuity. If you watch these other teams play right now, they don't even look good. As talented as they are.
They're all still trying to figure it out. They know, they're not used to playing with one another. They're all all their roles have changed because they've transferred for either money, trying to get to the NBA.
So on and so forth. So there's no continuity, there's no gelling. And that's why I think Mark Pope is a step ahead and may go farther than anybody ever could imagine, just because he has done a great job of recruiting, bringing in even though they're all transfers now with great intentions. You know, even you can't tell by talking to these kids that it's about money, it's about
the NBA. You know, it's not even about that. You know that these kids are tight, They got a close knit they they appreciate one another, They like playing with each other. If you go watch practice and you wait and you watch after practice, how they're jelling and shooting with each other and laughing, joking, that hasn't been the case and it's not the case around the country as a whole. So basketball is going to look ugly in college basketball for a while until propers January February, because
all these kids are coming in for selfish reasons. So it's hard to get coach and get guys to jail when they're going in for either money, the NBA or both. They're not looking at, you know, their teammate. You know, they're not jugging with their teammate like you normally would for the common goal of trying to win a national championship. So college basketball is looking just like a free agency professional team.
Wow. Interesting, Well, you've got the learned eye, you got more of an educated eye than I do. So now I'm gonna have to be looking for that when the next time I flip on something other than a Kentucky game. We're talking to Sean Woods, the unforgettable Guard. We will switch to the Wildcats when we come back after the break. You're listening to the big booing sider here on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to Shawn Woods on the line on our celebrity hotline. He is the unforgettable guard whose
jersey hangs in the rafters of RUP. We talk with him every Wednesday about college basketball, college sports in general, and specifically. The Wildcats would be Lipscomb last night, and once again, Sean a team they should have beaten, but it was how they did it. They look like a team I don't know. Do you think they're ahead of schedule or are they where they thought they would be?
Right? Oh?
Really? No, kidding very much. Wow.
And he's not coaching players, He's coaching his team. He's coaching his system, whereas other coaches around the country.
Are trying to still figure out what they got where.
This kid's going to sity and he's come from another place. You know, these kids aren't yelling right now. This is probably upset because he got twenty shots where he came from and he's only get five. You know, a lot of that is going on, so it's hard to mesh and get continuity right now with that type of mindset. And Marc has done a great job of just teaching his system and getting guys to buy into the.
Purity still of basketball, whereas other places they're still if you watch them, they're still doing individual workouts in a game. You know, you see a lot of guys dribble, drive over dribbling, you know, whereas he's probably one of the few teams in the country Gazaga Connecticut plays people like that who are playing with each other.
Who he's leading the country or in the SEC for sure and assist. That tells you something right now since the turnover racial and college basketball that way down right.
Now, Wow, didn't realize that.
Because of what all these guys are big time players at their school. They're transferring. They're not the only player that transferred into this particular school that wasn't the league scorer, leading whatever on their team.
Wow.
And they're not coach, They're not coming in to play in a system. They're coming into the coach is trying to get them to jail, whereas Mark already has his team jelling and loving to play with one another. And that's why they're so far ahead. It's not that they're the most talented team. They're the most complete team right now, and they still got a long way to go, but they're so far ahead because the mentality is different in locker room more so than everybody else's.
Well, I was going to ask you, what do you think is a coach looking at another coach's team. What is Mark Pope worrying about? Right now?
Mark Polpe is worrying about If I'm a guessing man and I'm him right now, I'm looking at every team that's playing. I'm like, I can get them, and why can't you get them? Coause why you think you can get them? Because they don't play together. Everybody wants to be the hero. What happened against What happened with us against? Duke, a seventeen year old wanted to be the hero instead of playing with his teammates. Interesting he made three bone
head plays. First of all, he missed two three thims down streats with the Tigs that set in That was fatigue. Then he had another player who was rolling just like him, never looked at him. Two straight turnovers. You penetrate in you turn your back inside the paint when there's help. That's a selfish play. That means that if they if you drew too, that somebody was open. And if you look at that situation, it was three guys open and he didn't pass it.
And then the.
Last one that stilled his fate was he just dribbled, had nowhere to go and dribble the ball out of bounds. It wasn't that there was great Deethen's been played on it. He should have just given up the ball.
Yeah, he's a youngster, isn't he.
That's what I'm saying. So what I'm saying is he's gonna be the number one pick in the NBA draft. So what did he try to do show the whole NBA that he can put a team on his back, especially against Kentucky and win, and what it is? It got him a loss.
Do you think he was really thinking that or was he just inherently instinctively thinking, you know, I'm the best player, I've got the ball, I got to help my team win.
Yeah, but if you watch the other games through. I watched two games prior to them, playing against Kentucky. Yeah, and he was the most unselfish player on the st He's a stat she stuffered.
Okay, Okay, I get it all right.
You see what I'm saying. In this game here with all the lights to on, he wanted to act like he was the guy, which the guy is, make other people better on your team. If you're the best player. He drew, he should have kicked it. And as good as Duke shoots it, you know what I'm saying, He could have found a guy who was who would have got a more high percent of shot than what he did, or it over you know what I mean.
Yep. Interesting A few minutes up with Sean Woods, the unforgettable guard. We're talking, of course about the Wildcats win over lips Gum and they shot it so well Sean, and then they're you know, they're a high volume shooting team. We've talked about that, but it was interesting. There were Lenny Acuff. I don't know if you've ever coached against him during your career. He's been at Lipscomb for six years.
Uh yeah, I.
Coached against him as an assistant that I'll coast.
Yeah, so you know, you know who he is and what he does. And it was interesting. He said, well, you know, their offense really impressed him, but as you coaches always do, he said, he was most impressed about their defense, which is something Kentucky fans, you know, they're like, hey, defense, how do they shoot? You know, But that's that's what's going to carry them, isn't it.
Well, Martin knows that he has to be a really good defensive team to to get to where he's going. Offense is going to take care of himself because he's got enough shooters around. Everybody was really watching this team up until now was really concerned with the defense and the rebound and as they play bigger and more competitive, you know, competition, and I can tell that he's working on it more, you know, just by the effort and
things like that. And so when you go in the locker room, you say, guys, look, nobody in the country can stop us offensive. We got this. We just got to make sure that we get stops. Yeah yeah, and if we could stops, nobody can really stay with us for forty minutes. And I can tell that he's I haven't been to practice in a week, but I can tell he's been. He's really working on it.
Yeah, everybody wants to talk about who hit what shot? Exactly the outscore, dude, yeah, exactly in the second half. You know, Litscomb hit fifty from the field and the second half. But I thought they relaxed a little bit defensively, which is I guess is normal. But is that is that a coaching point.
No doubt about it. You know, film don't lie, so you can always have a carrot, and the film is a carrot. And as good as you play, you know what I'm saying, there's still things you need to work on. But I much rather, you know, work on things that we didn't do well with a win more so than a loss, because a loss now the attitude is different.
Now people think that they were pointing fingers, so on and so forth, and then that manifests whereas you tell you guys, as you're winning, man, look how good we can be if we just did this, you know, Look how good we can be if we just do this a little bit better. You know, look how well we can just rebound our rebound march can be a little better. Our turnover, racial force, turnover ratio could be this.
You know.
So now they're getting more and more and more, and he's got the kids that really suck in, like what he's saying, like a sponge. Yeah, and that's what's going to get this team over the hump and get them to do some miraculous things.
I played a comment earlier from them where somebody asked him if he was concerned that emotionally there might be a letdown after the Duke game, and he said, no, we will never worry about that, which I thought was really fascinating because you know, he said, you know, we don't worry about what might happen.
You know, we can't waste no time on that exactly.
And he doesn't allow it. Yeah, if you hear him talk, he doesn't give his players enough to get in their own heads and hear from other people outside the program, he doesn't do. He make gates that right at the beginning, and that's why you know they are where they are.
You know, if you hear him talk to his guys without really going into it or really hitting somebody one on one, he hits every point from a young mental standpoint of how you supposed to look at this game, and he looks at you look at it from a team aspect more so than an individual aspect. And he's good at that. And that's what makes him good right now, more so than these other coaches, because the other coaches are first of all, scared to coach. They're guys. I'm
being honestly, they're scared to get on them. You got to transfer coming to another spot. You thinking he's being well coached. He's the best guy on that team, but he still needs to be coached, and you're scared of coaching because you give me so much money. He's coming in and thinking, you know, this is all about me, and it's not. So there's a lot of coaches right now are dealing with that. It's not all about you, it's about us. But you wanted me. You came and
got me out of a transfer portal. I was the best player on my team and getting X amount of shots, being able to get away with this, that and the other. Now I come into your spot and I'm not the main guy, and I got to do things that I didn't have to do, or be called out on things that I was a called auto on at the place I was at before.
He is Sean Woods, the unforgettable guard. We talked basketball with him every Wednesday. Coach, Thank you so much. Every come back to the Big Moon Saturday. Join now on our Wednesday as we always are, I usually are, I should say, because there was no basketball tonight. Buy our west End berea Chief Gary Moore. Hey, man is settling in for a long winter's nap. Turned off the heat out here? What's going on? So like November or something?
What the hell? You got to build a fire in the man cave down there?
We got ourselves here, a six pack, you and me, two guys, and a lot of good swigs. I want to start off with a good, delicious football swig here. First of all, don't ask me why, Dick, but I have a funny feeling, really have a gut feeling about Uka, Texas on Saturday. Then again, it could be just that breakfast burrito ahead a little while ago. But hey, remember nobody gave the Cats a shot at Old mess right, they were seven ane point underdogs.
They won twenty to seventeen.
Yep, yep, you were there that in that game what Mark Stoop's called quote our kind of game, dirty, ugly hard fought, unquote, and on Saturday, the Cats will have to be dirtier no penalties, now uglier or even fugglier,
and they're gonna have to fight even harder. I say, if u K can win the turnovers, battle score in the red zone, convert third and fourth downs, they still may lose, but no, I like their chances despite being underdogs at twenty point underdogs at Texas, I think is going to come down obviously, like every football game we've ever watched to who controls both lines of scrimmage, Just like what happened in Oxford, you'll be there, yep, and against Georgia.
Right in the two games Oxford and Georgia. One of the things, one of several things they had in common, time of possession, which sometimes is a mirage but sometimes it means everything. Sure, and you know I didn't invent this, but I'll quote talking head, the best defense is less defense. Keep that offense out on the field, keep the Longhorn offense on the sideline, whoever quarterbacks playing, But like you say, minimize mistakes, which it did against the Bulldogs and the ReBs,
and also get off to a good star Gary. It's senior day. In Texas and so often. You know, you might roll your eyes because they use the word distractions a lot. But I've seen a lot of teams football and basketball get off the slow stars because they're right about mom and dad and grandma, that kind of thing. So maybe all of that comes together to be the Texas team that, let's face it won't be as high for this game as it will Fray and m exactly
that's coming up afterwards. Yep, second swig in the six pack, Dick.
Last week I said Louisville and my Hilltoppers had games against two really crummy teams last weekend. Only, as it turned out, the cards in Western were the crummier teams. Louisville, as we saw, led Stanford thirty five twenty one, six thirty to go fourth quarter, wound up losing to the two and seven cardinal thirty eight thirty five thanks to those twenty yards and stupid penalties with just one second
left that set up the winning field goal. Social media over here, Dick has been saying that's one of the worst Louisville losses ever sure in U of L football history, and a loss compounded further on a Sunday night by Cards dB Tayan Holloway, who was sadly and ironically arrested for first degree strangulation fourth degree assault. I actually make that former Cards dB. Yeah, he was one of the culprits in one of those stupid penalties UFL defense Dick has had problems all season long.
You've probably seen this.
Jeff Brohm must think this is a curse wherever he goes. He had problems at Western, Purdue and now back home with defense. If he could get a defensive coordinator, or at least a defense that was as effective as his offense, they could be a perennial top ten, even top five team. But they acted like they'd already won the game before
they I think the plane even landed in California. The same kind of poisonous mindset WKU must have had losing twelve to seven to an absolutely awful Louisiana Tech road team. They'd been won for their last twenty three games away from Louisiana until Saturday. Now played out coached Western, which was trying to generate some kind of excitement before a half filled Smith Stadium again, and this was homecoming. The apathy of my alma mater fan base is appalling, and
we've talked about this. What else is there to do on a sunny.
Saturday in Bowling Green?
Come on, Louisville is an eight point favorite against pitt on Saturday. I have no idea what the crowd's gonna be like. That's at four o'clock on ESPN two. Western, oddly enough, is a one point favorite at Liberty at one o'clock. I have no idea which cards or topper team will show up.
I think Louisville Saturday's gonna have to bring a lunch payal because that's a Pittsburgh team that's maybe not as deep and gifted as others they've had, but they're they're a physical team, and Louisville's got to be you know, on point of course. But back to that lost at Stanford. I mean, I mean I got home in time from the Kentucky game to turn it on and watch the fourth quarter that, Wow, Louis's playing well and what and you know, I truly believe they would have tried a
seventy two yard field goal. That's the only shot they had. Garry. There's not a robot on that Stanford campus built by artificial intelligence that could kick a seventy two yard field goal. But as you said, the Cards, oh here, let me give you twenty you know, let me give you fifteen here and five yards there. No, that's an epic fail. And as far as Brohm's defenses are concerned, that goes way back to recruiting. He's going to take a good look at the emphasis who they get, how they get them.
I don't know if it's so much the coordinator recruiting coordinator, defensive coordinator, but they got to rebuild it and he's got to take a good look at how he builds brilliant offensive mine. But you're right about defense.
By the way, talking about lines of scrimmage, you know Western has given up five hundred and thirty nine yards.
Rushing in just the last two games.
Ouch, I score, I know you give me both third swig along with the Cards and Cats and Toppers. Here's my top five on Saturday. Obviously the top game at the Shoe in Columbus number five, Indiana at number two Ohio States, the first time IU has played a ranked team all season, and Vegas things it's going to show Buckeyes are twelve point favorites. That's at noon on Fox. A lot of people thinking Indiana has to win this game to stay in the top twelve in the playoffs.
The're probably right about that. Also at noon on ABC, number nine Old Miss at Florida Rebels are ten point favorite, but as we've seen the last two or three weeks, the swamp has come alive again down there. Three point thirty on Fox, you got number seventeen Colorado at Kansas, fresh off their BYU upset, and the Buffs are only a two and a half point favorite. They're at Kansas at seven o'clock Saturday night, Number eighteen Army, and I got a story about them coming up at the end.
Here Army at number six Notre Dame, and like Indiana, Army is playing a ranked team for the first time all season. In Vegas, hees Irish the Irish by fourteen, and finally dick the game I'd always watch every year from a cold, damp and usually freezing home down in Murray, a game with gorgeous women in shorts and tank tops and suntans, who would go on to ignore me when I moved out there USC and UCLA. Eventually, games like
that entices me to go west. As a young man, and I will tell you the reality is way better than the TV version. Bruins and Trojans are on a ten thirty Saturday night. You'll be up for that den in Austin. It's on NBCs and the Trojans favored by four and a half.
Well, I'll tell you. I'm curious about Ohio State Indiana like everybody is. But I didn't realize that Indiana has made full use in taking full advantage of the Big Ten schedule where they've not yet had to play any of the top teams in the Big Ten. Crazy, but they have done what a good team does and knock off everybody else. Right twelve, maybe just about right what. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a one score game.
I don't see Indiana winning that game. I think Florida covers ten against Ole Miss and maybe I'm still going back to Kentucky's win over all.
Miss.
Rebels may be playing their best football right now, but Florida's got a lot of athletes and their quarterback is healthy. Army Notre Dame would be a fun one to watch. Maybe I'll record that one. But man, I remember watching USC UCLA when I was a kid OJ against Gary Beeben, who actually won the Heisman Trophy over OJ, And now that game draws a nationwide shrug.
Yeah, at least they're gonna wear and they always do this, they let both teams wear their dark colored uniforms. That's great visually, it's always nice to yeah, because it's that powder blue. No longer do we depend on black and white TVs to know who's playing.
That's beautiful.
Fourth swig in the six pack, one more football swig than the NFL kind, where eighteen of the thirty two teams are at five hundred or below. At least one of the decent ones. Pittsburgh's on TV Tomorrow Night, Thursday Night Football eight and two Steelers three and a half point favorites, the two and eight Browns on Sunday.
Eh, only two or three games.
I really care about, of course, obviously your Packers and one of them, they're point a half favorites at home to the Niners, which my Seahawks beat. Finally on Sundays, Yeah, the Western Division leading Arizona Cardinals are at Seattle. That's four twenty five our time on Sunday, Vegas is my Hawks are one a half point Underbirds or whatever. Eagles three point favorites at the Rams on Sunday night, But
how about Monday night another Harbaugh Bowl. Finally, Ravens at the Chargers, and they're saying that Balmer is a three point favorite, and boy do they need that win.
They do, although Baltimore's got some real problems on defense and Chargers might be able to exploit it. But for all the good that they've done out there San Diego, and then they've got a terrific quarterback, they don't depend on his right arm. It's kind of a rarity in the NFL when they've got a quarterback fully capably used to it and it didn't get him anywhere, but it wasn't his fault. But maybe they do that against Baltimore.
Maybe they pick on the Ravens, and maybe they take a page out of Pittsburgh's defensive playbook to figure out how to stop Lamar. He's almost unbeatable Gary against everybody else but the Steelers. Steelers, Yeah, oh man, but I'd love to see them win it. And you're right, the Arizona Cardinals are maybe the biggest surprise in terms of success in the league. But I'm rooting for Gino, you know, and that's that's spread. I think it's interesting with the
Eagles and the Rams, especially now of Saquon's rolling. I think they may roll over the Rams.
I got your Packers winning too, by the way, Yeah that too, you.
Fifth swig.
Now, can we talk some hoops here. Louisville played for the first time in ten days last night, blowing out Crosstown Bellerman one hundred and sixty eight. Speaking of blowouts, as you talked about, Kentucky had no problems with Lipscomb last night ninety seven sixty eight, unlike my Hilltoppers, who did have problems with them, had to rally and beat lips Come by five on Sunday. In fact, the Toppers have had trouble with three out of their four opponents
so far the two and two season. Tonight, they're going to face oh and four Jackson State at did Lo Arena. Hopefully they'll get more than twenty four hundred people like unlike the last couple of home games they've had there. Uh, that's a Jackson State team that will probably hopefully be oh and five when they go up against the Cats at RUP on Friday night. Yeah, then you're alma mater and my alma mater. Next Tuesday, Western Raperena.
Yeah, Dick.
Also Friday night over here Louisville and new coach Pat Kelsey faces the team that Kelsey was coaching this time last year. They Winthrop Eagles seven o'clock Friday night the YOUM Center. And then the fun really begins for U of L number sixteen Indiana, then Old Miss, then number twelve Duke, all within eight days, and then six days later at number nine Kentucky. So I ask you after
that opening home buddy killer with the balls? Is this too tough a schedule for a brand new coach with all brand new players who've never played together before.
Probably is, But hey, you know, throw them in the deep end, see if they can find their way out. Why not? And it's a team that, like Kentucky, enjoys shooting three pointers and makes three pointers. One of the best in America right now at that what better way to steal a win? Right? Yeah?
So?
And by the way, whenever I hear the name Winthorpe, I always go back to trading places and it's wind Throp. But dan Akroyd's character was Louis Winthorpe, The third and when he's remember when he's bailed out of jail and the cop that's giving him his stuff back and he goes Winthorpe. You know you know that that cop Frank Oz. Oh, that's right, the voice, the voice of Fazzy Bear, the Muppets, what the guys. I always hear Frank's voice whenever anybody
talks about the school Winthrop. I was here, Frank Oz going Winthorpe.
Your movie Mental Rolodecks never ceases to amaze me.
Terrible. It's a curse.
Sixth and final swig. As I mentioned yesterday, the number eighteen Army Black Knights unveiled their special uniforms for the annual game with Navy on December the fourteenth. I don have you seen these, but in the words of our friends at UNI watch dot com, quote, Army has once again outdone itself.
Yeah unquote.
Maybe because there's a beautiful Kentucky connection to this year's Army threads. They're honoring the soldiers of the hundred first Airborne Division, which of course based out of Fort Campbell Down, Christian County. And also it's the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge in World War two. These screaming eagles that fought in that battle were surrounded by Nazis and looked this up in your history books. It's a great story that they never surrendered one and secured the
town of Bastone, Belgium. And that's gonna be one of the namesake patches on the black uniforms with one hundred First Airborne stars and stripes and as star on there as well that they used in the air US aircraft and vehicles. Black helmets have playing cards suit markings like a club, heart, diam etc. But the paratroopers used back then when they could, so they got to identify their
units throughout the jumps in Europe. This may be the best Army Navy kit ever, especially with the Fort Campbell connection. And I've got pictures of it right now at nine to five to five Gary that I've posted on Twitter.
Love it.
I've seen him and I sure hope the kids get to keep the jerseys beautiful after the game. It's fantastic. We'll come back with some hot reads for Gary Moore in just a minute here in The Big Blue Insider six thirty. Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider. We have heard two guys in a six pack from Gary Moore are West End Bureau chief time for a couple of hot reads. Tyson, Jake Paul, A joke of a fight man and watching Tyson train, I mean, he looked like a machine and then he gets in and he
just does literally nothing. And now Michael Irvin and a podcast claims he has internal knowledge of the contract that Tyson's signed with Jake Paul that he could not throw any uppercuts. Mike Tyson without an uppercut? What it is like asking a quarterback to not throw the football? I mean, it's why, first of all, would he suck? Although it explains everything, I guess it does.
But where's Irvin getting all this inside information?
Yesterday?
You know, he's also talked about Dion will go to Dallas to coach if his son is drafted. Yeah, and then Dion's like, no, the kickstands here. So I don't know what Ervan's getting all this inside information. Maybe maybe he's right on both. I don't know, but you know I saw that on Netflix and I made a mental note to probably if I remember in about four or five hours, because this was at seven o'clock. I don't even the fight started until like eleven our time, right,
eighteen thousand undercards, so that was actually five hours. That would actually that I kept it sort of offsets the five hours of the last Academy Awards broadcast. I'll never get back. So that's sort of like they sort of offset each other by not watching the Tyson things. So that's that's crazy. I've heard nothing but bad things about it.
Anybody who saw the start time on Netflix, if you knew anything about boxing, you say to yourself, Okay, let'll start about eleven. Yeah, because that's that's just the way it works in boxing. And of course, so many fights in Vegas. Eleven o'clock is primetime in Vegas. But anyhow, the women's fight that preceded the Tyson about was. People are still talking about that, so they call it a girl fight. It was anything, but it was two great boxers going at it, and then, in true boxing fashion,
the winner got hosed. So but yeah, we all got hosed if it, including or especially if Tyson agreed to no uppercuts.
But that tells me that there will be another fight. Of course, you know who whoever lost it was going to have another rematch.
Exactly our second high read for Gary is about a college football coach who's retiring a little bit early. He's sixty one. But Mark Farley, very popular and successful coach in Northern Iowa, not having a great year this year in the one double a Missouri Valley is retiring and it's because of what Stoops and a lot of other coaches have talked about. The nil parody, not parody, but the portal, which is cost parody, but it strips teams of Northern Iowa of star players, you know, teams on
that level. He said, the purity of college athletics is almost gone. And that's an odd word to choose when you're talking about college sports, but it does remind me Gary that I think it's the top ten percent of Division one that drives the narrative. He talked about what he enjoyed was signing Iowa farm kids to a scholarship and giving them a chance to get an education and play football. Then, yeah, they do that far more often
than not. But all we know about see you and talk about are the top level kids going to go or try to go pro?
Well, it makes it he makes it sound like everybody is just showing up and then leaving after a year and never graduating, which is not the case at all.
No, but it's the case, like I said, in so many instances in the top ten percent. Yeah, and that's all anybody hears or knows or thinks about.
But at schools like I'm sure there are guys that graduating from Northern Iowa, right, there can be guys that go there and never graduate.
I think it's a bit for him for him to step down. It's clearly ad an effect on his program as well. And I'm thinking that portal's going one way. Who transfers to Northern Iowa with a right? Yeah?
Right, yeah, it's Missouri Valley right exactly. Yeah, that's the same with Murray State's in so yep. Yeah, maybe pretty still get some of their guys there.
You go down.
How much ANIL money can you offer them that much? Gary Moore is our West m Bureau chief. He joins us every Wednesday year and you can also keep an eye on him because somebody needs to on Twitter at nine to five five, Gary, Always a pleasure to be here with you and watch you on Twitter where Big Blue Insider one. But check Gary's Twitter feed x whatever for the photos of those Army uniforms. They are going. They are beautiful, beautiful. See you next week. Have fun
in Austin. Well, that would be great, starting with a good football game to call. I wanted to leave you though with this note about something I saw that came up on Twitter or X if you will whatever. This was this day in sports clips. This was yesterday. Of course we didn't have a show yesterday. But November nineteenth, nineteen eighty three. They call it the Civil War. This is Oregon State versus Oregon. And now it's usually a
pretty contentious game. Oregon of course number one in the country right now, but back then that game was known as the Toilet Bowl. The final score nothing to nothing zip zip A combined eleven fumbles, six for turnovers by the two teams, five interceptions, four missed field goals by definition, one of the worst games in the history of Division one football, and the head coach for Oregon, for better
or worse, was Rich Brooks. Now. I bring that up because when people talked about what rich Brooks here, specifically coaches talked about what rich Brooks accomplished at Kentucky, they always brought up the fact that Kentucky hung with him Kentucky stayed with him and got through the toughest part
of probation of the penalties. It went on to great success, and it was not easy because Mitch Barnart after the five season, was not quite as supportive verbally to the media as Rich Brooks might have liked, and that hurt their relationship. At the bottom line was Barnart stuck with him, and he read the players as much as the coaches, and the players loved Rich Brooks, and you know what happened.
They turned it around. But I bring this up because you got a coach at FAU fired after two years, and I don't know what was going on down there. You got coaches fired all over the place. But Rich Brooks was the head coach at Oregon from nineteen seventy seven to nineteen forty four, and he doesn't need me to carry his water. But I just thought i'd bring
this up. The court unquote toilet Bowl was in as what six or seventh season at Oregon, and after a game like that in this day and age, I would think out there, back then they didn't give a crap about college football. But now a six or seventh year coach producing a team that goes nothing. Nothing. In a game like that against the arch rival, they'd want him fired on the tarmac if it's a road game. And
that's happened before, hadn't it. But Oregon stuck with him and in nineteen ninety four they went to bowl games prior to this, but in ninety four he led Oregon to the Rose Bowl. That's the holy grail back then for the Pac ten. That would be like Kentucky going to the Sugar Bowl for the traditional SEC which you did back in the fifties. That hasn't since. There's something to be said for patience, but I don't think we'll ever see it again. I'll do it for now. That's it.
Good night from the garage and Lexington
Sat