Nobody panic we're going to have a better football team.
Welcome to the Big Low Insider. Dick Gabriel with you as we basically finish up this hour following UK women's basketball. And I will tell you right upfront this is pre recorded as our majority of our shows, so not going to talk about tonight's basketball game. And as we speak, Kentucky's playing volleyball, So if you want to keep an eye on that, literally turn over to ESPN Plus and that's where you'll see yours. Truly at least you'll hear me working that one as well, So we're all over
the place. But yeah, we weren't quite sure when you and UK women's basketball would end, so we got to fill to the top of the hour and here we are. So look, why don't we talk some football first, because it is the day after signing day and there are still some names being tossed around out there locally and nationally. But we will tell you that, of course, Mark Stoops was in a good mood. I always go back to
what Rich Brooks said on a signing day. One signing day in particular, he was making his opening comment at the podium and he stopped himself, and he had this rye grin on his face. This is what I liked, one of the many things I liked about Rich Brooks. He had this dry sense of humor. But he stopped and he said he heard himself saying, you know, we're really happy with the group we got. You know, we're
delighted with our recruise. Then he stopped himself and he said, have you ever heard a coach stand up and say, you know, we didn't have a very good year. We didn't get the guys we wanted. Here the guys we've got. And that just made me laugh out loud. And to this day I think about that every time I hear a coach on signing day. I don't care who it is talking about how delighted they are they got exactly what they wanted, or you know, if they didn't get somebody, well,
let's worry about the guys we did get. Well, yeah, but you know what, the guys you didn't get, they may come back and kick your butt somedays. So it's all the same. But that's all right, that's all part of it. And signing day again a new beginning. And if ever there were a program and needed one this year. It was Kentucky. That's why you heard the comments at the top of the show for Mark Stuufs saying, nobody panic, We're going to be better, because that's what signing day
is all about. It's all about hope. And you know, if you don't have hope, you don't got nothing. So we still have to see how the portal's gonna play out, swinging door in both directions, and you need a recall. Now, you haven't heard many, at least up until I'm recording this comments from Marx Stoops about Dane Key leaving, because when he spoke to the media on signing Day, he didn't yet know that Dane was leaving. That announcement came later in the day. And what's he going to say.
You know, he wishes him well, he's a great player. Wish we still had him, I'm sure he'd say. But if Dane Key is going to make a big jump next season as a player and make himself more palatable for the NFL, got to go someplace within the statablished line and established QB and an established offense that will
feature him. Not that this one didn't feature in Kentucky tried to feature him, but really after that Old Miss game, and if you recall that Old Miss game, those defenders held him, interfered with him as much as they could get away with, and that some they didn't get away with. And there were some big penalties in that game against defenders who tried to hinder or stop Dayane Key. And I remember a touchdown pass he caught. He made a motion,
pointed or whatever to a d back. I see, I caught it anyway, So every defense from that point forward, Yeah, they worried about Barry and Browny and they guarded him over the top with bracket coverage and all that, but they made it a point to body up on Dayne Key and make sure somebody hit him all the time. And that's going to happen even in an established offense.
But you got a better shot if you're Dane Key if you go someplace where they're not rebuilding, and that's what Kentucky's going to be doing, absolutely going to be doing, but they will do it without a wide receivers coach. At least, the guy they've had to kill shore to buy all accounts did a nice job and he was highly coveted by Stoops to the point where he wrote a big buyout into his contract, and he kind of
grinned Riley yesterday. There was the last question he took at the news conference when he talked about the fact that he tried to do the best he could when it came to locking in shorts with a contract for at least a couple of years.
I was pretty pretty stern with my contract and with my discussions a year ago, and that didn't didn't didn't hold up. So I got to keep on keep on working that. You know. I was pretty demanding that I needed at least a two year commitment out of that and put a pretty large buyout on it. But some schools weren't afraid. Does write a check, you know what I mean? Wish him luck. I do appreciate what he's done. I think he's a very talented young coach and I
wish him the best. Does you know kind of hurt for our continuity that I am looking for. The great thing is I have some young guys in that room and gas and some guys that are pretty impressive that can easily handle it for now, and.
I think that's the key for now. It sounds like he's going to go find somebody, maybe not promote from within, which is understandable. I think he needs an established experience. Wide receivers coach gas generally go away and then come back with more experience. Montavan Quizenberry I thought was just a great get on this and he's the smallest guy in this class five nine one seventy three. But everybody I know who has seen this kid play raves about him.
I always listened to Steve mossmail colleague from w KYT, who goes out and shoots a lot of high school football games. He loves shooting high school football, and he was raving about this kid early. He was raving about Boyle County early. But this is a kid who could be you never know, could be in the in the mold of He won't be Wandale Robinson, but a similar player slot receiver who can really make things happen and become a best buddy of a quarterback, whether it's Cutter,
Bully or one of the future guys. They signed two. It's always interesting to me when they signed two quarterbacks because it means likely someone will either change positions or transfer. But you got to recruit competition to the position. Stone Saunders QB six one two ten from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I've
been to Harrisburg more than once. And also Brennan Ward from Columbus, Ohio six three to two oh five, and the Stoops talked about both, starting with Saunders, who apparently has thrown for a lot of yards up in Harrisburg.
He's thrown for so many yards he should break the record. I don't know if he plays Friday or Saturday. Friday. Yeah, so it'll probably break the all time yards in Pennsylvania. I think he already has the touchdowns. And so he's just got so much good film out there and just just a ballplayer, you know, and so he's just a guy. You know, it just doesn't take long to put on the film. And just like the way he plays ball and obviously throwing for that many yards and that many touchdowns,
you know, he could distribute to football. And then Brennan is a guy that we came in. He came into camp and we watched in person, you know, and you know, no disrespect that I mean this in a bad well, but the probably didn't play on as good as a team, you know, and but was impressive with a skill set in person.
Fans always get revved up when quarterbacks signed. They want to see him yesterday. They don't want to wait for a couple of years or two and a half years or whatever. A kids still got to finish his senior season, but it takes a while with quarterbacks. Very few of them come in as true freshman and get things done. So lots to talk about with this class, including the defensive side of the football. And the Wildcats got a kid out of Frankfurt. This might be the most intriguing
local pickup. Jvon Campbell played at Western Hill six five two seventy that's right, high school senior six ' five two seventy and edge rusher. They can plug right in and I don't know, he'll probably see some action as a freshman. Vince Merriw talked about how much he loved getting this kid who can play, obviously, like most of him, more than one sport.
He had legit committable offers to everybody in the country. What everybody was offering him. I mean I had to even pinch myself, like, man, I must be pretty good. He turned down this one. What I really like about that kid, And I know Stu and a brand like about him. He's very powerful. My nephew John, this is a small little story. So my nephew John, who lived
with me. This about six y nine. They played a team in Frankfurt and I was like, y'all lost, and they said, yeah, John kind of got you know, he kind of got beat up by this forward they had, and so I didn't go to the game. I didn't realize that that was Campbell until he told me when I started critics said, you know I played against sure your nephew, And I said, oh, you the dude that beat the crap out of him. I said, what you
do to me? Said, I gave him twenty twenty rebounds and twenty five points, and so I was like, well, you're pretty good. So I think this kid, he's exactly what you look for.
What sounds to me is though he fits into their plans immediately. What are their plans? Well, that depends on whose stays and goes. You know about Dame Key, you know about Silver leaving some other guys who, really, with all due respect, weren't playing that much. Not that they're not good players, they just didn't want to wait. And Stoops talked about that about the fact that you know, back in the day, kids would wait a red shirt freshman maybe into their sophomore junior year year to play,
but not anymore. They don't really have to now, do they, you know.
And sometimes those are the conversations you're having with guys that maybe want to leave. It's like, hey, you know, back in the old days, we really you know, developed, and you're on track and you're going to be a really good player. But sometimes they just want to go play right now, you know, And that's okay. You know, guys that you know that are in our developmental phase, but they want to go be the guy somewhere. That's that is their decision, and that's just the changing landscape.
And we're totally okay with that. You know, Continuity is very important, but in today's world, you know, you've got to do the best you can year to year. And let's be honest, but we didn't have a very good year. So I'm pretty pretty excited about change, you know what I mean. We need we need some positive change.
That's why this could be the most important and I think it will be. Given the fact that the portal's only been around really for a little while. This will be the biggest portal class if you will, under Mark Stoops and his tenure here at Kentucky. But keep in mind there's a lot of money floating around out there.
It could draw some people away. If you look at the national picture, kids flip flopping left and right, and of course on signing day, the rich kid Richard Literally there's a story out there about Phil Knight and how much he helped Oregon earn the status of big winner in the early signing period. He helped Oregon flip a four star quarterback away from cal helped Oregon hold off of Florida, hold off Florida when it came after a five star receiver,
and money talks, there's no question about that. I thought. One of the more interesting stories about a kid flipping came with the brother of Nico. I am a Laeva Tennessee quarterback. His brother is a big time QB and his name is Madden. He flipped from Ucla to Arkansas without ever visiting Arkansas. And if you think it's just because he likes to play in the SEC and play for Bobby Petrino in his offense, come on, there's money
out there in Arkansas as well. They had a personal relationship Eric b Enemy is now the OC at UCLA, which I had forgotten about, and they really liked him. But he may be leaving UCLA. But the bottom line, I gotta think they got a better offer financially, and they're from California to flip from UCLA to Arkansas. So lots of that going on, no surprise. And I'm sure in the time between us recording this and you hearing it, some folks have flipped already. So we'll talk more about
that tomorrow right here on the Big Blue Sider. Up next, we'll talk Kentucky basketball. Kat's already on their way to Seattle, may already be there. More to come here on six point thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Gabriel with you're wrapping up this abbreviated edition following UK women's basketball, and as I mentioned earlier, we pre record, so I have no idea if the Wildcats want or not. Right now, I'm busy doing volleyball. You can check it
out on ESPN Plus. As the Wildcats are playing Cleveland State the opening round to the nca Tournament, hoping to take on the winner of Minnesota and Western Kentucky in the lexingon sub regional Saturday night, Kentucky at Gonzaga technically in Seattle, not on the Gonzaga home court, but it should be an extremely pro Zag's crowd. It'll be another tough one for Mark Pope's Wildcats. They did not handle Clemson very well. Let the Tigers push them around a bit.
You heard him on the Coaches Show last night. You might not have heard this comment from him though, on the postgame show with Tom Leach. It was in the wee hours following that loss to Clemson down there in Little John Arena, as Pope talked about the fact that, yeah, he was proud of the way his team fought back after falling behind, but one of the biggest problems was at least defensive and offense as well. They kind of abandoned their their core principles.
Proud of our guys fight, proud of their competitive nature and their together So I'm proud of all those things. We just we just had to learn to play better through that. What things do they need to learn from this experience? Yeah, we started out, you know, on the defensive end, we had some real breakdowns because we were kind of over.
Playing our hand.
And be specific with that, there were sometimes where, you know, we we completely bailed on some first things, first and downs. There's sometimes where we were pushed so far out that we gave up easy rifle cuts and it was just us almost being overly aggressive, not kind of trusting our defensive principles to stay.
In the game.
And then and then I felt like offensively we spent a lot of time, especially in the second half, but also a bunch of moves of the first half we were everybody was so eager to try and fix things for their team on their own, and we rarely were in spaces where we actually looked like us trusting how we play and leaning into how we played. Fort guys leading to each other to great job leaning into how we play.
It was almost as though they were averted, you know. I mean, they're playing a little bit of a different style or maybe a lot different compared to where they used to be, but they just accorded to Pope, didn't really stick to what they should have been doing, what they know to be doing. And I think we saw that in early when Kentucky had a lead and was playing well. You saw the cuts and you saw the efficient offense sometimes that Pope used the term again last night,
the beautiful offense they run. I don't think that's a self serving comment either. He didn't invent this offense, but he embraced it, and Kentucky did too as a team for the first few games, including the win over Duke. You know, in the second half, Wildcats got back to what was good to them and that's why they were able to upend the Blue Devils. But Clemson just kind of beat on them and I think frustrated Kentucky and kind of took the Wildcats out of what they want
to do. So now they got to learn to be more physical. But I think the other thing too is Butler's got to stay in the ballgame. La Mott. Butler is such a key and you knew this going in, but now if you don't know it distinctly, you know it now. They got to have him on the floor as much as possible. And of course he had the foul trouble and he had the ankle injury. It took him out for a little while. And they're just not the same, are they. He ended up playing short of
nineteen minutes. He still was six and nine. He had sixteen points, he had five assists, he only had two turnovers, a block and a steal. So yeah, they need him on the floor for at least two thirds of the game at least, So we'll see if that plays out Saturday night. Some of the other highlights from the acc SEC Challenge. The athletic was calling it a huge upset. I don't think it really was because it was at Duke,
but Duke beat Auburn eighty four to seventy eight. Auburn played well, fell behind, came back, took a late lead, couldn't hang on to it. Cooper flag went for twenty two and eleven. But interestingly they called it the signature win for the Blue Devil so far, And yeah, it probably was because the Blue Devils lost to Kentucky. To me, the bigger upset and this was not part of acc SEC.
By the way, Alabama destroyed North Carolina, Creighton crushed Kansas seventy six, the sixty three first loss for Kansas and Creyton's got a good ball club. But who saw that coming? Not I no way about that. Central Florida has made inquiries back to college football about Lincoln Riley they put out a fielder put out of calls. Did something to somebody, either an agent or the school about Lincoln Riley at
Southern col makes about ten million a year. Gus Malzon left he was making about four million to go be the OC at Florida State. And so now UCF, which is flirted, it's respectable, but florted with more relevance in college football. They want to go get him, and he's under fire. He's catching flak at USC. Do you make that move? As the athletic describes that, he's in a rut at USC where his teams have regressed since he
got there. He's expressed no interest in this kind of move, and I got to think, especially if he had to take a significant pay cut. Keep in mind, you CF that's in Orlando. That's one of the biggest schools in America. There are more than fifty thousand students. That city is growing so fast thanks to Disney, of course, but you've got to think it's athletics are going to take a step forward fairly significantly whenever it can, because they got
money to throw around. Yeah, they're right there in the middle of Miami and Florida and FSU and a bunch of other schools in that state. Would Lincoln Riley come back across the country, all the way from the west coast to the east. I would say no, at least not right now. Unless they can back up the brinks truck that's been known to happen. That's going to do it. Thanks for joining us. That's it. Good night from the garage in lectionon every sea.
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