Welcome to the Big blon Sider Dicabrielle with you on a Tuesday edition of our program. Coming up tonight, we'll talk to John Clay, who is retiring from The Herald Leader after nearly five decades. He's in his fifth decade as a writer for that newspaper, first as a sports
writer than sports columnist. So we'll talk to John as well as the voice of the Wildcats, Tom Leach and Keith Farmer from LAX eighteen and BBN tonight, and of course we'll talk to all three of them about a number of things, but chief among those topics Vince Merrow's announcement, or really the story breaking on Twitter late yesterday afternoon.
Pete Thamil of The Athletic at it that Vince is finalizing a deal with the University of Louisville and he was going to go on a Louisville radio station today to talk about it, but had to cancel because U OFL has to make it official and at that point he'll have a news conference, and I guarantee hope I can go, but there are going to be media people from both cities who cover that, or if they don't, they'll get the video and audio shipped over from their
sister stations in Louisville. Dear Vince Marrow talk about why he's leaving his childhood buddy, Mark Stoops, who built this program at Kentucky and Marrow his fingerprints are all over it, and now leaving for the arch rival, both in ballgames on the field once a year, but in recruiting every day. And I hasten to say that, yeah, to Kentucky fans and Louisville fans. Game day is probably the most important,
of course, but recruiting is even more vital. You got to win the recruiting battles if you want to win those games, not just against your arts rival, but every
Saturday during the season obviously. And when Brian Brohm, I'm sorry, when Jeff Brom, Brian works for his brother, got the job at Louisville, you could tell Mark Stoops, through a big smile, was kind of thinking, oh, because I remember his predecessor, Brom's predecessor was struggling, and UK had its way with Louisville back then, well not now, and you
kind of saw that coming. Brom was successful at Purdue, not easy and has of course you all know about the bron pedigree in the city of Louisville, and he got it done last year and they beat Louisville, or they beat Kentucky last year. You know, the year before they won ten games but lost to Kentucky. Wildcats played a great game that day, not so much this past season. So we'll talk to John Keith and Tom about Vince Merrill and some of the other things coming up. Basketball
course will take an Oway. Brandon Garrison talked to us today and we'll have a chance to share some of those comments with Oway today. Garrison will probably hear from tomorrow. And we're told we're going to be able to chat with some of the players, especially the new players, all year long or all summer long, I should say. So that's great in this time of year when generally things are kind of slow unless your team's in the College World Series. Now, Kentucky was one went away from a
super Regional. It was disappointing, of course, the Wildcats blew those games against West Virginia even so, I didn't see Kentucky getting out of the Lashoe Regional. Would have been nice to see, though. That would have been great experience for a guy like Tyler Bell, freshman who has been named a Freshman All American, as you might expect, and he is the future, the immediate future right now. Baseball
writers voted him. But as Aaron Gershan pointed out from the cast, Boss, we were talking baseball last week, what's to stop other teams from raiding the Kentucky roster. That's the way business is being done right now. And you know, if they have money to spend, they will come after.
I gotta think first and foremost Tyler Bell, and they'll come after Ben Cleaver, who has been voted as second team All Regional Player left handed pitcher by the American Baseball Coaches Association six and three on the year, ninety two strikeouts in eighty three innings opposing hitters, a one eighty five average against Ben Cleaver. So maybe he pitches in Omaha next year. Maybe Tyler Bell helps his team get there. It's going to be a fascinating World Series.
And I didn't realize this until Murray State finished up knocking off Duke and the word got out. Although this wouldn't have mattered, but for the first time since nineteen fifty seven, none of the eight teams in the Men's College World Series were there last year. None Arkansas eliminated Tennessee, the defending champion, Kentucky eliminated by West Virginia. I mean, there were four SEC teams last year, there were four
ACC teams. None of them got back to Omaha this year, which is actually pretty cool when you think about it. You know, new faces, new blood, kind of like that. I'm kind of gonna root for I want to root for Murray State, of course, but I'm gonna root after that for Arkansas because they van are a pretty good dude, and they blew on. They dropped a pop up that would have given him the World Series championship a few
years ago. I do root for Murray State, obviously a Kentucky team, only the fourth fourth seed ever to make Omaha after winning the Missouri Valley Conference championship, then winning the Oxford Regional not easy against Ole miss and then winning at Durham. By the way, Duke's coach is now the new head coach at Virginia, so congrats to him. There's a guy, a sports podcaster named Garrett Armbrust who deals with college sports based in Knoxville. He tweeted this.
He said, Murray State, their own players tarped the field at home games. Enrollment ninety nine hundred and forty one. My nephew went to schooler by the way, four seed in the four seed in the regional and this was only the fourth NCAA tournament appearance for Murray State and now our first trip to Omaha. Very cool. Another Kentucky football note and this was I first saw this reported by Aaron Gershaan of the Cat's Balls. Wilson Barry is
coming back for his senior year. He was not with the team in the spring, but he has been re added to the roster. That's been confirmed by UK to the Cats Balls. He of course is Australian. He has been here since twenty twenty one after a career with Australian rules football. Only pointed four four times as the freshman and then started the final four games of twenty twenty two after remember Colin Goodfellow got hurt in that
Missouri game and Barry took over. Then he was a full time starter in twenty three, started all thirteen games, averaged thirty nine points seven yards per kick, ninth in the league, burying thirteen punts inside the twenty and had nine fifty plus yarders. Started the first five games last year after beating Aiden Larros in fall camp, but then he fell behind Larros on the depth chart. Remained the holder,
but was not there in the spring. But we'll be back, according to Aaron, in the fall to compete with other punters this year in the NFL. The Bengals and this is not a surprise, after confirmed that Trey Hendrickson is not attending mandatory minutes. He and the team are in an impasse about his contract going into the final Gear wants to raise from the sixteen million he is scheduled to make this season. He will lose some money for
skipping mini camp. The Bengals will find him a total of one hundred and five thousand dollars, but he's hoping that it helps the team give him the kind of long term deal he's looking for. Thirty years old, one of the best in the business, Pro Bowl all four years, as seventeen and a half sacks each of the last two seasons. They've told out all this money for receivers and they're trying to protect Joe Burrow better. How do you let this guy get away? I don't know anything
about their salary structures and all. I just know, if you've got the best sack man in the league right now, you do what you can to hang on to him. But again, if he would rather play elsewhere, let me tell you a little bit about Green Bay, Wisconsin, I'll be happy to tell you. Coming up next, we will revisit one of the greatest performances in sports history, and for its particular sport, I think the greatest ever on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big bullon Cider.
Coming up in just a few minutes, John Clay at the Harold Leader. We'll talk about his impending retirement. Also Vince Merrill moving on, we'll get John's thoughts about that, and we'll talk about that with Tom Leachs, the voice of the Wildcats and our number two, and Keith Farmer from BBN. Tonight quite the headline making story. I will say that yesterday came and went, and I was so busy doing other things that I missed the fact that
it was the anniversary of Secretariats winning the Belmont. And it's not, you know, a ten, fifteen, twenty fifty year, but it was. It's always special to me. It's one of the greatest performances in all of sport. From my money, it's the single greatest performance in thoroughbred racing history because for one thing, Secretariat wins the Triple Crown a mile and a half distance and breaks the American dirt track record by more than two seconds. I mean, a fifth
of a second is impressive. Anything beyond that is unbelievable, and I don't know that that record's ever going to be broken. And if you're a fan at all, even a casual fan, you know Secretary had won the Triple Crown, breaking the track record each time, set the record for
the Derby one f nine and two fifths. Only a couple other horses have come even close to that, and then set the record at Preakedness at Pimlico, although they screwed up the clock and it was unofficial for many, many years, and they finally did what so many of us were screaming to do, and that's go back, use the video and digitally figure out what the time of the race was. And they did, and now the race
time is official. Secretariat owns the Freakness record and of course the Bellmont record when he wins by twenty five lengths, and again, even if you're a casual fan, you know what that video looks like. You know what the photo looks like. It's one of the greatest photos ever because it's Ron Turcott nearing the finish line, looking back under one of his arms. That's the way riders would would peek back and see where the other guys were. And I wonder if if he can see the other horses
because they were so far behind. And I've talked about this on the show proudly. I will do it again at some point. But when Kentucky in twenty fourteen, the fourteen to fifteen season, the team that nearly went undefeated in college basketball, do you want remember the UCLA game when I think Kentucky was up like forty one to seven or nine or something at the half, just completely obliterated UCLA up in Chicago. And during the first half it was such a route that we were running out
of things to tweet. And I was sitting next to Brian Milin from wdkyt and he and I can get silly at times, and we were having a big time just talking about how bad this game was for UCLA and how good Kentucky looks so at halftime, I pulled up a photo, a copy of that photo, and I tweeted, now UCLA knows what the rest of the field felt like in the nineteen seventy three Belmont and said something
about secretariat. And I found out later on that ESPN used that tweet in its game story coverage of the Kentucky win over UCLA and the six o'clock edition of Sports Center. I never got to see it. If those shows were archived, they couldn't find it, but more than one person told me I was very proud about that. But again, if you're a racing fan, you can quote that particular call was by Chick Anderson. CBS owned the rights to the Belmont TV and radio. He was their guy.
And I've talked before about sports catchers and what we want to do on the air. I can't say that sports catchers never root for the teams they cover. Yes, many of them are big time homers. They say we, they say they. I do not. I came up under Kable Lefford, he did not. But you just try to give an honest account. But what you want going in is you want something cool, you want something engaging, you want a good game. And win or lose. You want a good game, something that either is so incredible or
goes down to the final seconds or both. Well for Chick Anderson, you know, this was not a neck and neck finish. And there have been many of those, and a lot of racing announcers have done a great job of those calls. But this was an absolutely route. This was the biggest route when you talk about important the
race was in the history of thirdbred racing. And nobody saw it coming because Sham had run well against Secretariat and the Derby and the Preakness, and on this day, Sham was hanging with Secretariat through the first half mile. Really through the first three quarters there's only a five horse field, but at three quarters of a mile, that's when Secretariat hit the gas and started to pull away. And I don't know how where most race horses are. I've got to think because the best horses I think
are intelligent. Most race horses are not. They're highly strung, they're so purely bred. A lot of them are just idiots. But Secretariat was really intelligent, and a lot of these great horses I believe are, and I believe Sham was. Sham was a good race horse. But I firmly believe that when Sham saw Secretariats start to make his move, He's thought, to hell with this and just quit running. I don't believe. Maybe down the stretch the rider put
him away. But from so I've read somewhere Secretary Hat broke Sham's heart. That may be true. But Sham and these horses know each other. They really do the smart ones do. And I firmly believe that Sham's like, Nope, I'm not doing it today. I'm done. It's hot, I'm up here in New York in June. I'm simplifying. But he shut it down. That's why he was at the back of the pack when Secretariat hit the finish line.
But this is what it sounded like. Go to see CBS Radio Sports and CBSTV Chick Anderson's famous call of the stretch run for Secretariots Belmont back in nineteen seventy three. He's going into the turn, Secretariat holding onto a large lead. Sham a second and then it's a long way back to my gullon.
And twice a month they're on the turn that Secretariat is blazing alone the first.
Three quarters of a mile at one O nine and four pens. Secretariat is lightening now, he is booming like a tremendous machine. Secretariat by cloth, Secretariat by fourteen lengths.
On the turn.
Sham is dropping back. It looks like they'll catch him today as my ballot and twice the Prince are both coming.
Up to him now.
But Secretariat is all alone.
He's out there almost the sixteenth of a mile away from the rest.
Of the houses. Secretariat is in a precision that's in compositive account.
He's into the steps. Secretariat leads his feel by eighteen lengths and now twice a Princes.
Take him second.
The black gallop has moved.
Down the third.
They're in the steps.
Secretariat has opened the twenty keen length leaves.
He is trying to be the triple crown winner.
Here turn Secretariat from the wire and ibelievable, an amazing performance. He hits the face twenty five lengths from black.
It's going to be quite.
Third amazing. I wish i'd been there. I've been to the Belmont three or four times. I was not at that when I was a high school or just graduated high school, frankly, and I would love to be sitting on one of those tickets, because so many people have win tickets from that Belmont that they never cashed. I mean, clearly they're priceless. If you cash it, you win ten cents. The winter the winning ticket was two dollars and ten cents.
I mean, that's how big a favorite Secretariat was. But I just get so excited whenever I see that, whenever I hear that. And it happened in nineteen seventy three, yesterday June ninth, seventy three. And this year's Belmont was a great race. It really was. I don't know that any race will ever match secretariats, and I'm happy to say I got to go see Secretariat after he retired more than a year later. Tried to reach out and pet him. He was in a stall, like an idiot
that I am. I mean, a horse right off the racetrack, very fractious, and he almost bit me. I kind of wish I'd let him. I'm sure it would have hurt, might have lost a finger, but what a hell of a story I would have had. All right Up next, John Clay at the Hair Leader on six thirty wlap, Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider. Joining now celebrity hoighline, he's a celebrity for a little while longer. John Clay the Hair Leader, a long time sports writer columnist, announcing
his retirement. John, Congratulations. I remember when Rob Bromley stepped out. I remember when I left KYT, people would tell you you'll know when it's time. Was that the case with you?
Yeah?
I mean I went into this, uh at this season, this past football and basketball season, thinking this might be it. And then by the end of the end of the year, at you know, the end of the season, I'd made up my mind that, yeah, that I that it was time for me to time for me to go. You know, forty four years at the paper, for twenty five years of sports columnists. Enjoyed every minute of it, ups and downs and whatever. But you know, feel very lucky to
have the job that I had. But you know, I feel like it's time let somebody else have a crack at it.
Was there one element in particular, one one factor that pushed you in that direction, No.
Not necessarily. I have three grandchildren now, so that probably played a role in it as well. And you know, I'm knock good, I'm in pretty good health, and I'm sixty six years old, and I feel like you know better to you know better to you know, to do what my wife and I want to do, better to get out now and you know, and I feel very lucky to have survived all the changes that have happened over the years, and in the media business and in
the newspaper business in particular. So I just felt like it was a good time for me to call it col It's I may keep writing, I may not. I don't know. I'm gonna kind of see what happens once how I feel once football were uh rolls around, But it won't be a job if I do it is, if I keep writing, it will be more of a hobby instead of a job.
You know.
And it's interesting because you have a job that has required you, excuse me, to travel so much. People when they retire, I want to travel now. I got to think just the thought John, of packing and going to an airport makes you a little queasy. But when you can do it on your own terms.
Right right, right, Yeah, it's different. You know, maybe go go to places that they didn't get to travel to. My wife and I, you know, during the during and you know, for the most part, I enjoyed the travel. But obviously the older you get, the more you know taxing it is. I don't recover like I used to.
I used to.
You know, you go on a trip, uh, you know, a road trip, cover a game. A lot of times when my kids were a little I tried to take the first flight out the next day, how much asleep I get to, you know, come back and see my kids and help my wife. But uh, you know, you feel okay the next day, but it might take now a couple of days before I feel not, you know, I get over that travel lag or whatever. So but no, I mean, like I said, I enjoyed. I enjoyed all
of it. I feel very lucky to have gotten a job at the hair Leader right out of school and to be there all that time, and to write about the things that what I said in John Hale's story. To be able to write about, you know, the teams that I follow growing up, and do it in my hometown or close to my home area, you know, it has really been a blessing.
Like a ballplayer who played for just one team, you know, y Mantle, and you know, not very many. We talked in the past about how you transition from beat writer. Well, generally you were an all around writer, you've got the UK Beat. Now you're a columnist and that job is different. And sadly, so many people who still read the papers didn't really understand what a columnist job was. He's so by as you know, he's supposed to be objective, but no,
not a columnist. But how do you approach that job, John? And what was? What did you believe your mission to be as a columnist?
Well, I think my mission and commist is to let the readers, you know, know, what how I thought about things, Not always an opinion, but maybe a point of view about something. I mean, that's what a colmist, uh is allowed to do. Like you said, a beat writers supposed to be more objective and more here are the facts where the commists may present his opinion on the facts.
And the one thing I wanted, you know, I wanted to do is that this is how I feel and you I may you may agree with me, you may disagree with me, but at least I hope that i'm you know, understand my point of view, that I'm being fair. I was wrong about a lot of things, a lot of things, Uh, I was I say this all the time. I was wrong about Rich Brooks. I thought he was a terrible hire. When Mitch Barnard hired, I thought he'd been out of football too long. I thought he'd been
out of college football too long. He wasn't from the South, he had no recruiting ties in the South, and he proved me wrong.
I thought he was.
He turned out to be a great hire and building the foundation of the football program.
You know that that's one.
There's you know, Mitch and I did not get along at all when he first came here. I was very critical of some of the early moves in Mitch. May we got to know each other and I got to like and respect Mitch, especially the job he's done here. So you know, uh, you know, those types of things. But hopefully people thought that I was fair and even if they disagreed with me, you know, they could see the point of view of where I was coming from.
So that's that to me, that's kind of the main job of the columnists when I read a lot of comps home, and I know what they think about something, and that's kind of what it's kind of what I tried to do here.
Billy Reid used to talk about columnists, and of course he wrote a general entertainment column and then he wrote sports columns off and on, and he said one of the things he said was he believed that a columnist isn't good to necessarily be great every day or every day that he or she is required to write, whether it's three, four or five days a week or more. But they need to be there. They need to show up with their best effort, which is the biggest challenge
of a sports columnist. Did you agree with that?
Oh? Yeah.
I always thought the one thing the Billy's best attribute, one of his one of his strengths, maybe his strength, was he had his finger on the pulse of what the fans were talking about. You may not agree with Billy. You may go you may have been infuriated by what Billy wrote about. I know what Billy and Joby went round and round towards the end. Yeah, you know, you may not agree with Billy, but Billy knew what the fans were talking about, and he could respond to that.
And I always thought that was a strength of Billy. I always thought for year from louisvill I always thought I was very fortunate from I had an uncle who lived in Paris, who took a great uncle who took a He took the Courier Journal. He was a big horse racing.
He took the.
Courage Ural on Sundays and we used to go I used to go up to his house on Sundays and read the Courier. Read, Yeah, read Dave Kendred, Yes, Dick Finland, Yes, Mike Barry, Rube, Mike Barry, Earl Ruby, you know, Earl Cox, Billy Reid, all those people, and that those people had a, you know, tremendous influence on me, especially people like Dave Kendred, you know, and Billy you know, of what they wrote about and how they went about it. And of course those were the glory days of the Courier and just
the newspaper as a whole. And those guys had had a big effect on me growing up.
I wanted to be Dave Kindred when I was growing up reading them. That's why I became a sports ride. Of course, there's only one. Billy Reid became a very good friend and mentor to me, and when I was an intern with the Louisville Times, he introduced me to the executive sports editor who hired me to be the Central Kentucky sports correspondent for the CJ, So I owed Billy a lot. Billy did a lot of TV and
radio with me. And when Billy would do commentaries John at Channel twenty seven for a while, he would ride over the election and with Mike Barry in the car so they could just talk. That's what sports writers do a lot. And so Mike would be up in the sports office. You'd been upstairs in our office a few times and just tell me stories. And instead of going down and watching Billy tape stuff, I'd sit up there and listen to Mike Barry. You talk about the best of all worlds, you know what I mean.
Well, yeah, I'll bet, Oh yeah, I'll bet and uh you know uh and you know Billy Currier and they went to Sports Illustrated, came back to the career, and then he came to the heir a leader, uh with with us for a few years there. You know those guys. You know, it doesn't get any better than Day Kindred as a writer and a commas and as a person. You know, those you know, those were the as.
I said, those were the.
Glory days of the career.
Journal which brings you.
Good, not not the slight. The people that come behinds that Pat forty ye, a lot of a lot of great Scott Pallor, a lot of great people have worked at the career in the sports department. Rick with a lot of great a lot of great people as the hero Leaders.
You know, I had Rick on the show last night. You're right. That's how I first met him, was when he was at the CJ. And that brings this full circle though, because you mentioned Kindred. Of course he retires and then he becomes even more famous from going to a girls' high school games up in his hometown in Illinois and posting stories on Facebook about him. So as he said, writers, right, and so yeah, you haven't you haven't scribbled your last We're talking to John the HEROLD Leader,
longtime sports writer sports calmnist who's announced his retirement. When's the last day.
Technically June thirtieth.
End of the fiscal All right, we'll come back and talk sports with John in just a minute here on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back. We're talking with John Clay, longtime sports writer and columnist for The HEROLD Leader, who's announced his retirement effective officially at the end of the fiscal year June thirtieth, and it was all over Twitter yesterday, the official announcement and then Vince Merrow to use an
antiquated term, knocked you off the front page. Brother. Uh, you said you guys had heard some rumblings about that, But were you as surprised as most of us?
Not?
If I hadn't heard some rumblings. Uh, Our UK football beat writer John Hale had been hearing this the last couple of weeks but couldn't get anybody to talk about it on the record, and we weren't sure that Vince was actually going to go through with it to go to Louisville, So so, uh, it had not heard that. Yeah, I would have been very surprised by when you know about the initial report yesterday, that looks like it's going to happen, so you know Vince's Uh, this has happened
before with Vince. You know, we played futsye with Michigan State, I think in Michigan and Michigan other schools and Louisville. Yeah, and uh, but then to finally finally for it to finally happening for him to leave, and I know it looks from a perception standpoint, it looks like a big blow to Mark's story in Kentucky. Obviously, Vince's the Mark Story. Mark stoops in Kentucky. Mark Story also wrote a column
about that. You can find that on Kentucky dot com. Uh, but you know, you know, we'll I think you can have pros and cons on both sides. But the timing doesn't look very good from the standpoint. You're coming off a four and eight season. It's right before the start of the or not, you know, a few months before the start of the twenty twenty five seasons. So the timing from a perception standpoint, sure does not look good.
No, and the perception would be that there are real problems inside that building well beyond is needing to bounce back from a four and eight season.
Right right, right, absolutely, and you got so many new players coming in. You could also make the argument on the other side, the Mits did a great job, but there were diminishing returns in the last few years. As you mentioned, there were four and eight last year. They were what seven and sixty two years before that. You know, it doesn't seem like they're getting quite as many or quite the quality players that they got out of Ohio when Vince first got here, and maybe maybe it was
time for change. I think a lot depends on who Mark hires to take Vince's place. You know that maybe they didn't need to shake up from an evaluation standpoint, and now that there's more at least that's much, if not more about the transfer portal than it is from high school, and than it is about high school we're
bringing maybe need somebody else with a different approach. The problem is, as you mentioned, they're coming out before and eighth season, there's a lot of pressure on Mark to produce this year where this might be something where if you take a new approach and I are a new person, it might take them a couple of years to really get it going. Is he going to have time to do that?
And although this is happening as the SEC is just growing stronger and stronger like a big blog, and you wrote about the conference and the spring meetings when they concluded, you wrote a piece about whether or not the growth of the SEC the power it's developing great for the league. Obviously, I've talked about this a lot. Greg sank works for the league. Greg sanki answers to the presidents of the chancellors. His job is to make the SEC incredible, which he's doing.
But is that good for college sports? And you wrote about that recently. Is this a trail, John, that you think is inevitable?
Well, I mean, it's it's gonna be interesting to see how it plays out. I don't think it's good for the game overall. That power is con I mean, we've heard, you know before that it's going to end up being like fifty schools or thirty schools or forty schools controlling everybody else, and we look like we're headed in that direction.
And you're right. I mean I've been critical of great thank You's others had well, but you're right, Greg, thank you service at the serves at the pleasure of the presidents at the school the sixteen now sixteen schools in the SEC. So he is doing his job. I would question whether you know this is good for college football overall as a sport, and that you know, the main conflict right now is over the College Football Playoff, which
is going to expand from twelve the sixteen teams. How many automatic bits should they get the SEC and the big tenor boat pushing to have four automatic bits, which that would be half the field right there, the SEC and the Big Ten. We'll see how that plays out, but I don't overall, I just don't think it's good for good for college football. I think part of the charmucks college football is that you know, you have a Boise State or you have schools like that who who
feel like that they can be a contender. It can build a program and be a contender where it looks like now if you're not in the SEC or not not in the Big Ten, those two conferences want to keep the other conferences out, or at least they want to have more power for themselves.
SMU and Indiana we're going to play out there. We're improperly seeded. I think they've moved to fix that. But they were compelling stories. And look at the College World Series this year. Last year was half the ACC, half the field was acc fully half was the SEC. I was thrilled to be there and covered it. We all had a great time, but it's it's more compelling this year with the Coastal Carolina returning. They've been there multiple times,
but still and now Murray State. I mean, it doesn't get me better than that, right.
Oh absolutely.
And you know I think you know when you say and people are stuff worry about nil and the transfer portal, that it's going to be a consolidation of power with the big schools because all the players will want to go where the money is, which is in the bigger schools. And then you look at baseball, baseball, and you said the Murray State getting their coastal Carolina's build a power, build a really good program. Opposite Louisville down the road is build a good program. They hit a little bit
of a lull there, but now they're back. Kentucky was in it for the first time last year. So and I do think baseball has a little bit of an advantage over the other schools. And the fact, as you know, Dick, you you covered a lot close, uh, you know, more closely than I do. You know, the transfer portal has been around for a long time and baseball it's just like you've got you've got almost a new roster every year.
With baseball teams, I think they know how to handle it and they know how to take advantage of it, where the other sports are maybe learning, uh learning how to do that. But you know, it's hard to go against the money, but it's also to me, it's very coouraging to see what happened, what's happened with the.
Culture World Series.
If you are a fan of college athletics and you believe that it shouldn't be just consolidated into a power, shouldn't be consolidating just the piece schools.
Not that long ago, if you transferred in baseball, you didn't have to sit when everybody else did. So, you know, then they changed that rule. Then things slowed down. Bud, You're right. A few minutes up with John Clay, the Herald Leader retiring after forty four years with the newspaper, I was talking to Jan Weisberg, the new EKU baseball coach,
who was part of the greatest baseball story. There was a couple of years ago when Birmingham Southern made a run at the D three World Series, when the school itself had shut it down. I mean, the entire school had closed. But now Jan, who had coached as an assistant and played, as you know at Kentucky, is a head coach on the D one level. John, at the most challenging time in the history of college sports. You know, and he welcomed the challenge. Of course good coaches do.
But I'm curious, man, you know, you're I can't say you're getting out of it a good time. But it's going to be interesting five years from now for everybody to look back and see where we are compared to what we're doing today.
Right Yeah, And we and you know, as you know you and people in the media business, whether it's you know you and TV or radio and myself and you know, print websites. We don't want we don't really want to write about anil. We don't really want to write about the money aspect of it. We want to write about the games. We are writing about the people playing the games. We run a bread you know, the whole thing about
competition and winning and losing. I want to write about Mark Pope and what he's done, you know, what he's done at Kentucky and his approach to basketball and that sort of thing, which I think is fascinating. I want to write about Mark Stoops going into such a pivotal season this year. I don't want to write about nil collectives, but unfortunately that's part of the game. That's part of it right now, and it's a big part of it. So, yeah, you know, talking about the KAU and the baseball hire.
And I'm not just saying this because I've done Kyle Motes a long time and he is a friend of mine, but I think that was a great hire by Eastern. I think hiring and the baseball coach looks like a really good hire. I'm really interested and excited to see what Kyle does at EKAU because I know he's a smart guy with a lot of experience, and he's a good guy to hire to tackle what's going on right now. So I think EKU is in good hands with Kyle Mots.
I agree with you, and I thought it was a great hire of jan I mean, any coach at any level who's won more than six hundred games. Yeah, and I'm with you on that. And you know you mentioned in Illinois I flashed just now. When I was a kid, and you probably did too. I took the Sporting News right and I just love reading about all the baseball teams, and even if you didn't read the feature story on
each team, there were notes on every team. And that's how I kept up with the American League, the National League. More and more those notes those those thumbnails included dollar signs. You know, as the salaries began to grow, and I began to skip them, and if a story had a dollar soun in it, I would skip it, like I don't want to read about this guy's con track. I'm going to read about baseball. And that's where we are now, unfortunately,
isn't it. And you know, interestingly, I thought the Texas Tech coach made a great point when he said, yeah, you know, they they basically bought a pitcher for a million dollars. But he said, nobody talks about that when you've got a basketball player making three and four million. That's not repeated over and over. So the times are changing, aren't they?
Absolutely? And I think if you look at Kansas State basketball last year, I think they spent more money in the portal than anybody else than they didn't even make the NCAA.
Is that right?
So it's not Yeah, So it's not a guarantee that you're going to get there. Of course that's another thing about then. I on the transfer portal, and none of it's transparent. We don't know how much exactly anybody is getting. Whether that will change with the new House settlement. And the revenue sharing. I don't know, but you know, it's not a guarantee that just because you spend all those money you're going to get that you're going to get the most wins.
I've only got about a minute left. But do you think in the wake of the House settlement, uh, basically appointing a commissioner or the CSC and all that it's got to be a good at least to try it, right.
Yeah, I mean it helps whether it solves the problem of having guidelines and keeping everybody in line. I'm a I'm a retiring journalist, but I'm still a journalist, and we're taught to be skeptical, so I'm skeptical. Put it that way.
Yeah. Yeah, There's always going to be somebody out there trying to break rules and cut corners. That's why the rulebook's so thick. And I mentioned last night, Buddy my years only a couple of years I spent down on the Southwest conference. That taught me that time the SEC wasn't that far behind.
Right, right right. What Tail was saying, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. So I think there's always going to be cheating involved.
Yeah, I said, that's charming when you're talking about NASCAR. But otherwise than that, John Clay, the hero leader, thank you so much. Has been a pleasure. We'll talk again, I'm sure.
But congratulations, Thank you, Dick, Thank you, Dick.
I appreciate it.
And up next that we number two with Keith Farmer and Tom Lee here on six thirty w L anything any.
Such tack tacking do they anything?
Welcome back to the Big One insider joining us down our celebrity Eyeline is my good friend and colleague. As we used to say in the business, mister Tom Le used the voice of the Wildcats. And before we talk about anything, Tom, we got to talk about the news that kind of I'm sure rock the Big Blue Nation late yesterday afternoon, Vince Marrow, you know, one of the chief architects in terms of recruiting of UK football in
their March troops now going to the arch enemy. I got to think you were about as surprised as anybody or were you?
Yeah, surprise, not stunned, just because you know the Vince and U of L talk had popped up once or twice before. So that always when you you know, when that happens makes you thinks, well, there's you know, something there on one.
Side or the other.
And the fact that it happened in Jews kind of an odd timing, although you know that as is, we always don't think about these things. There's a business element to this. Some you know, contracts end at the end of Jews contracts, it's the fiscal year, so maybe that's you know, why this is happening at this time to make the hire for the next you know contract wave that would start on July first, so could well be related to that. But that's just you know, the business
part of it. The fact that he's actually leading their story obviously, and yeah, it's yeah, definitely a surprise. You know, it's on one hand surprising that it's going to the rival. On the other hand, I think, Vince, it's gonna put down some roots here in Kentucky, Lexington specifically up until this point married a girl from here in Lexington, so you know, they.
May well, you know, have if he was ready to move on for whatever reason.
The fact that he could do it and still stay in the state may have you know, played a part in it too.
And the fact though that he is, as you said, going to the arts rival, and not just on the football field, but but you know, seven days a week, three sixty five for a recruit field. Yeah, I got to wonder about the relationship now with with Mark Stoops, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, And you know, I don't know if we'll ever you know, find out about that to the extent that people would be curious, But yeah, I mean they go back, they have a lot of history, Yeah, you know, to their days. I mean there's teenagers in Youngstown. So and Vince has talked often about, you just the respect he had for Mark's mom and dad and you know, time he spent you know at their house and all of that.
So and you know, they made a great combination when they came on the scene through I'm assuming Vince was maybe the first call Mark made when Mark got the job here and Vince didn't have this role. I think he was at Nebraska at the time. So you know, Martin gave him the chance to show what he could do on the biggest stage in the SEC taking charge of the recruiting, and Vince, you know, did a fantastic
job when given that opportunity. And so the two of them together, particularly in the state of Ohio is what kind of built the Kentucky program because you and I have know covering Kentucky football for years. You know, coach, so many coaches would come in here and talk about wanting to get into Ohio and you could convince those
kids to come down and play in the SEC. It's an easy trip for their families, etc. And it all made sense, except nobody was ever able to execute the plan until Mark Stoops and Vince Marrow did.
You got to go back to fran Kersey to find some guys, you know, Jim Kovas from the Cleveland area, other guys, and he got up into Pennsylvania. But yeah, really, oh, Adam and I remember having this conversation more than once with Jeff Pacoro and he went to Joker Phillips, his former teammate, and said, Joker, there are guys up where I am in the Cincinnati area that want to be
in the SEC. And Joker just thought it was a waste of energy, both as a head coach and as an assistant under Rich Brooks, because you know, Ohio State's so prevalent, Cincinnati somewhat, but big ten schools getting in there. But now, Tom, I really think with the SEC footprint becoming so large in so many ways. I mean, beyond the borders of the SEC states. You're a fool if you don't go to every state in the Union.
You know, true, And you know it's now everything's you know, everybody's got access to everything now. Yeah, not like it was you know back in the day in terms of being able to you know, see so few games on TV.
All of that.
And you know, Mark Stuce, Vince Merriw were uniquely positioned to have success in Ohio because of their roots in Ohio. Yeah, you know, it's not always easy to go into a state where you don't have any background and just suddenly start, you know, doing well and recruiting. Nobody's ever going to be Ohio State in Ohio. But the thing has always been is like there's not a natural second choice in Ohio. And so if you once you know, Ohio State gets the twenty five they want, you know, you could go
for the next wave of players. Hear these too, is the game has changed in terms of you know, building teams and it's not so much about recruiting and developing as it is. The transfer portal now, yeah, that's a bigger part probably.
Well, that leads you to the next question, you know, whether Kentucky what happens now because so much of recruiting revolves around the transfer portal now, you know, and talking to high school kid in to coming to your school is one thing, and Vince Merrow has a gift for it. But boy, I tell you, you know, evaluation and contacts and things like that, that involving the portal has changed the game in so many ways, hasn't it?
It has?
And you know, now we've got this this house settlement that has come down that's going to change things even more. And then with Kentucky, look at Kentucky football has so many, uh transfers for this year that remake the roster and coach Toops has talked about, you know, getting it back to the kind of culture that they had succeeded and
drived with earlier. And if he's right about that and over in this team you know, exceeds expectations, then that will, no doubt, uh, you know, impact kind of you know, some decisions moving forward in terms of you know, how they put the roster together, and if not, then it could affect the other direction.
You know, I know you've read about the House settlement. I have to everybody has a spin on it, but it's going to be really fascinating to see what the reaction is and and how this affects schools everywhere. You know, I always talk about this.
You have to.
I worry for the e k Us and the Murray States of the world. And you know, Murray State now celebrating a trip to the World Series. You got to wonder in ten years are they going to have a baseball program? Can they afford that? You know, So this is is such a tumultuous time in college sports. Maybe we shouldn't have been surprised that Vince Merrill took this job because now he's the GM, and every school, either by title or just by assignment, has a GM right now, you know what I'm saying true?
And you know we see them guys like uh uh at Saint Bonaventure, WOJ the ESPN reporter is their guy. Yeah, the uh it was in Oklahoma hired the guy that ran the senior ball for years.
Oh yeah maybe there.
Yeah.
So I mean it's you know, all kinds of different types of people are getting put into that role.
You know.
Now, you know, guy's come up through coaching ranks. Now we don't know fully what all his role is going to be. That'll be explained when it all gets finalized. But yeah, everybody's just kind of figuring it out on the fly now. And yeah, it's settlement gets approved, but there's always in everything, there's how it's going to work in theory and how it actually works in real life
and what will that look like? And you're still trying to get you know, Congress to help about and if that doesn't happen, does that you know impact you know, what they can what they can say.
Is one thing, and what actually, you know, what they can do is another. Sometimes. So there's just so much we don't know it.
It's you know, read a lot about your reaction and thoughts on things like that settlement, but nobody knows because it's very new, and you know, we get if you get legal challenges involved, then who knows, you know, what that's gonna would look like, and it's Congress gets involved, what does that look like.
It's just just so much that none of us know that.
It's all this stuff is a great you know, talk show topic because we can talk about it and nobody knows for sure. There's no right answer.
Yeah, exactly. We're talking to Tom Leach. Tom is a voice of the Wildcats. Of course, in hear him every morning on this very radio station on the Leech Report at eight o'clock Eastern time. We'll come back and talk more UK sports with Tom on the other side of the break here on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back. We're talking with a voice, Tom Leach. You hear him on the Leach Report every morning. And Tom, we just got back earlier today. I did at least from talking with
Otaga Oway and Brandon Garrison. They had a media available those guys and of course we haven't seen them since the end of the season, and of course since Oway got back from NBA camps. What do you expect to see from him this year in the wake of him gathering all that information from NBA scouts.
A really focused guy.
Uh.
First thing, you noticed the new hairdoo look.
He's changed his look, and you know, maybe that's, you know, some kind of statement he's making about, you know, changing something. Who knows or maybe just wanted to change. But you know, he's a guy that I don't think has to It's not like he went through this process and heard you know, some massive question marks that they had, and everything I've read is that as he went through the process, it was you know, getting closer to pushing him in the
NBA direction because of what he was hearing. So that, you know, tells you that he's you know, kind of close to what they're looking for. So he's a guy that it's not like he needs to come back and you know make massive changes or suddenly you know, I want to come back and be a point guard. Yeah, I want to, you know, Uh, he just needs to get ten or fifteen percent better maybe in two or three different things.
Uh, three point shooting is probably you know, one of them.
To be able to be a little more you know, comfortable in taking the shot, confident and taking the shot, and just you know, I had Matt Norlander from CBS Sports on I can't exact numbers, he said, but he said, so that can you you know, get your attempts up to you know, seven or eight a game and get your percentage up to thirty eight to forty percent. Yeah, but then that's that seems like it's a realistic thing.
He shot, you know, in the mid thirties basically has been a career mid thirties shooter, so it's not again, not like a huge leap he has to make.
Hope has talked about that. He thinks.
He said this more than once in interviews we did with him, whether it's the coach, a show or a pregame or something that Otega he thinks has elite level skills as a playmaker. Doesn't mean he's going to become the point guard all of a sudden, but you know, just in terms of decision making. So he's you know, a guy that can get to the the rim to
create his own shot. But maybe he adds a little element of being have a you know, showing some of those point guard skills while not playing the position in terms of he gets into the lane and doesn't try to you know, score every time, takes the opportunity to set up you know, kick it out to an open teammate, and maybe you know, his assist straight goes up a little bit. If you look at kenpom dot com where
they track all that stuff. Uh, he was pretty deep negative assists to turn assist percentages versus turnover percentage into two years at Oklahoma. In his one season at Kentucky was basically one to one. So let's could he maybe you know, get that assist percentage higher and have a you know, significant plus assist to turnover ratio in terms of those percentages.
You know, that's that's where the you know.
Playmakings, last decision making comes in. One of the stories I read about him going through the process was somebody wrote this at one point. One of the little of the feedback he got was like, could get in a little better shape. And it certainly doesn't look like any of us, he's out of shape. But for that next level, you know, they're thinking, Okay, what you're in great shape. Now, what if you took that to another little higher level?
And what would that look like?
And could you sustain your peak production for a longer period. So all of those things, None of that's massive improvement, but those kinds of things I would think, you know, Will should be powerful motivators for him, because the better he gets at making that ten to fifteen percent improvement on two or three things, the wealthier he is likely to be a year from now.
And you know what's interesting is that when we talked to him today and asked him about what he had heard from the scouts of GMS or whatever. He brought up three point shooting and he said, you know, they told him, we think you're pretty good, but we want to see more in which year falls right in line with what you know, Pop have been saying about volume shooting. And he was not a volume shooter, but you know Pope wants those thirty to thirty five.
Right exactly for the team.
And and you know there was a time like early last year Otegas started out, Uh, he was, you know, shooting a healthy percentage there early and then I thought there was a stretch where he you would see the ball swinging to him and you know, the first reactions take that and.
Yeah, and so to get to the point where you know.
He's you know, he's confident enough in it himself, uh, to you know, to look for it and to take it when the when the shot presents itself, rather than you know, think about it for a second. And part of you know, this as far as improvement, something Mark Pope has talked about just in general, not just with Otaga, but just with all the players that go through his.
System.
Into the second year, the decisions, it's easier to make the decisions faster and a lot of what he is, how he's designed his system has to do with being able to, you know, make decisions fast and as the ball you know, moves around the perimeter or in and out. And with that year under his belt, Otega should be able to make those decisions faster and all those things. Can you lead him to be just a little bit better.
It's not anything particularly, you know, massive improvement in numbers, it's just you know, making a few tweaks that kind of take him from the book.
A few years ago good to great.
Interesting, and another guy with a chance to go from good to great talk to us today. Brandon Garrison, and you know, a returning veteran, talked about the effect that he had or that working with the Mariy Williams had on him when he said, you know, number one was Amari telling him don't take any days off, you know, work hard every day. And he said that was the biggest lesson he took. So I'm going to be really
curious to see not just his skill set improving. I don't know that we need to see Garrison chucking up more threes, but uh, you know, does he stand in a foul trouble? Does he play more minutes, what kind of minutes? Who does Pope pair him with in terms of the other bigs. You know, he's going to be I really think, uh, kind of curious this year, you know what.
I mean, He's got a lot of upside. And I talked to MIKEL.
McClain, assistant coaches after he got his new contract, and he mentioned, you know, camera of the exact number once there's maybe you know, maybe he's taken you know, five to seven threes a game or something, so they they are looking for him to take more of them, and I think that for him, for him, I think back to that Oklahoma game where Kentucky won the one out in Norman where he it was one of the first games where they played a little longer stretch with Brandon
and Amari together and it worked in that game. Anyway, there were times when you know, from it fears the Oklahoma guards during my fears being a top ten draft pick, and he was having a big game that night, but there were times that Beg would switch off on him and could guard him and showed the ability to guard
him for short stretches anyway. You know, as a as a five on a one, you know you can if he can, you know, build on that that that would be a valuable skill for him for you know, his overall game at the next level, you know, and with Brandon it was a lot of flashes, and I think, uh, you know, what the best version of him could look like. And I think the challenge is to make those kind
of periods last longer. One thing Michael talked about was they and I think BG had some little physical things, nothing major, that kept him from maybe being in peak shape at the start of last year.
So I think one of the big emphasis points of emphasis for him is to.
Get yourself into you know, elite level condition and then be able to, you know, because they track all this stuff with their analytics, be able to sustain your high level of play for longer and the better you know he can do because he does. There's a lot of different things he could do for them, you know.
And but.
You know, the old thing is, you know, from the NFL, you can't make the club and the tub. You know, it's hard to make an impact on the court when
you're not on the court. So you know, be able to be in that elite level shape to stay out there for longer, stretches and the way you do that is stay in the productivity, and this is a lot of different things he can do for them, And I'm kind of excited about what his next year can look like because I think, because you know, I'm Aari played so well that we didn't see as much of Brandon last season that I think people may be sleeping a
little bit on what he could do. And then all the excitement of Quaintin's and Elevitch and the new big guys that are coming in that people may be sleeping on beg a little bit for what his second year in the system could look like.
I'm also curious about his passing ability. Amari Williams was so good at it, and now that Garrison's got that year under his belt and is making that year one to year two move that Mark Pope's is almost always his players and coaches get better. It's going to be fascinating And whatever happens, Tom Leach will call the action and you can hear him chat about this and other topics every morning on The Leach Report Monday through Friday on this very radio station, following him on Twitter at
Tom Leachka. Why I thank you, brother, we'll talk football next time because the season's coming up, all right, have a good one, you do, and up next. Keith Farmer from l EX eighteen and BBN Tonight here on a Big Blue and Sider six thirty wlap. Welcome back to the Big Blueing Sider, joining us now a long time friend of the shower buddy, Keith Farmer from BBN Tonight, l EX eighteen earlier today covering a story putting a feature together at the Chris Loft and Darius Miller camp
over in Maysville. They've been doing this for two or three years now, right, came in shoot more than that.
Man, I feel like they've probably got some guys that have played up, even some ladies have played up in the high school by now.
I don't know.
I'm interested in, you know, and just finding out so much more about him and seeing about this camp because they've done it for a long time and obviously well known names that are from the Mason County area. So it's really cool to see them still doing this.
Well.
I'm older than dirt, as you know, but I remember being over there for both players, one then the other when they committed, and I remember Darius committing to Kentucky. And I remember one of the questions somebody put to him, because he was a really good you might recall it, it's really good football player receiver, and somebody asked him, you know, are you going to try to play football now? He said, I'm tired of going over the middle. I think the right joy yeah, oh yeah, a national title,
state championship, and a pro title over in Germany. And then Chris Lofton was a great high school player, but he just didn't have many D one programs interested in him. And we had heard you he was looking at Georgetown College, and then Tennessee had a kid back out of a Scollie and Buzz Peterson had liked Chris a little bit, said okay, how about it? And now that's one of the greatest success stories in the history of the SEC, isn't it. Yeah?
And I think just people thought he couldn't let his size get his three pointers off, and he taught everybody, no big deal, right, that it was easy to do.
Man. I think does he.
Still hold the record for three pointers at Tennessee?
I'm not sure.
If not, he's got to still be top three. I would think, you know, not but yeah, amazing, And you know the great thing that.
Happened for him. I know a lot of people later should have gone to Kentucky, but because he went to Tennessee, he got to play. And he wouldn't. He didn't was not going to get the minutes at Kentucky. That he got to Tennessee right away because Tennessee was struggling. But the other thing he did came in this is a good lesson for the campers. And I'm sure they'll hear about this if they haven't already. He I'm told he lived in the weight room and when he wasn't doing that,
he was getting up five hundred shots today. And look look how it served him. Look what he turned into.
So he is one of the great stories, isn't he because of his work ethic and because he wanted to prove people wrong and so hated that it was Tennessee. But at the same time loved the kid, and you know what he became and all of that, and it doesn't matter where it was. I mean, you know, he he taught people, especially campers. Now, hey, you put in the work ethic, you got a chance to make yourself special no matter where you go.
Yeah, especially as a shooter. I mean, if you're not seven feet tall, that's one thing. But yeah, uh, you know, if you're he's not the biggest kind of world. But his mechanics were great. H he didn't have Darius Miller size, but he sure has the dead eye. Anyhow. Yeah, in the middle of all this, we get the news about Vince Marrow. A lot of chatter about that over the last twenty four hours he had flirted with jobs before,
he had flirted with Louisville before. Uh that said, were you not totally stunned when he took the job, because man, when you see it on the internet and you know what goes now for in black and white, it's pretty sobering, isn't it.
Yeah, it is.
I think you know, it felt like we had passed all that you said, Like you said, there have been head coaching jobs, There have been tithed in jobs, you know, different conferences, different school and it just felt like one of those that we were past that, and that he a just gonna ride ride it out with stoops. And so I was a little bit shocked this time because I didn't I just didn't feel like it was ever gonna happen.
Uh so hard to hear it.
And hopefully it doesn't have as big an impact as we think it could on the Kentucky program, because you know, he he really brought a lot of great players in and we'll see where Kentucky goes from here.
But of course, recruiting has changed so much over the last few years. I just got done talking to Tom each about this. It's maybe more so now the transfer portal versus going into a kid's home and asking mom and dad to you know, let us have your son for four years when in fact it maybe you sure won two or three years. Do you think that had I mean, there's no way of knowing. We're speculating, but basically, schools are having to change ways they do business now, right, Yeah.
And I think at the same time, one of the things that he was good at for Kentucky he was, hey, Okay, you're going to this school for now, but don't forget us, because you know, we're here if you want to come back, you know. And I feel like he was always having those relationships that you could always count on a kid. Maybe you know, hey, three years down the road, I
want to go back to Kentucky. Because they're they're still maybe not in contact trying to recruit me, but hey, they've always been so nice and there was never a burned bridge, you know, with that, and so I think that might be something that I don't think they'll totally miss that because I feel like Kentucky has a program has been good about that. But certainly Merrill was good about building those relationships.
Well you think Wandale was the best example.
Yeah, Yeah, I think so, I totally do, because you know, hey, you go off to Nebraska, but we're not gonna, you know, bad mouth here. We're just gonna, you know, wait on you. And if you want to come back here, we're waiting on you. And sure enough it happened. He came back, and you know the rest of history.
Yeah, and even more. And I'm sure through the years coaches have said, well, if you ever change your mind or something happens. But now with the portal, that's, uh, that's going to be more prevalent than ever. We're talking with Keith Farmer of LAA eighteen and BB in tonight. We're moving into that period of year came in and of course, earlier today, your colleague Maggie Davis was over there talking with us at the otega Oway Brandon Garrison gathering.
And as you know, in the summertime, that is manna from heaven, you know, to get something like that in June, July, August or whatever. But tell me about the challenges of putting that show together bb in tonight. And this isn't the first summer you've done it, and you know, again just having to fill the time and make it entertaining.
I feel like, you know, really that first year we were like, oh boy, what are we going to do in the summer, you know, and it just seemed like we always had something pop up. I don't know what it would be now, I will say there's occasional times when you get into like July, right before the SEC football meetings, you know, come up and the coaches and the players go there, there's just a little bit of issue.
They are trying to find something going on. But as you know now, I mean, you know, the basketball team reported June fifth, I think it was, and you've got you know, football players, you know, reporting pretty soon if not to come in and just work on their own or you know a lot of them don't leave. So we always seem to find, you know, things to talk about and stories to tell. It just gets a little more creative, you know, with it and makes it a
little more difficult. But we certainly have a couple of those days where it is kind of tough, you know, finding some things going on.
But yeah, but there's also I think more cooperation or whatever between the schools and the media because with social media now, I think universities, not just UK but everywhere realize the value of getting their message out, you know, every week, every day, every of the entire year, you know, because if we don't do it, somebody else is going to do it. So let's let's go with stuff out
on social media. And that can lead to people like you and me calling up and saying, hey, let me talk to this person of this.
Coach right yeah, and like even you know, we haven't done it yet, but there's a chance we might go talk to Tony Neely. Now the Sports Information Directord just went into the coast side of Hall Fame, I believe it was, and you know we did it when Susan Lax went in. So again you get a little more creative and you find those stories that maybe we would be telling during the regular school year, and obviously we have a fondness for those two and so maybe we
would be telling those two story. But still, I think it's so cool to be able to just branch out and show a little bit more about what all goes into the University of Kentucky athletics department instead of just the you know, football, basketball, And that's what's been fun about it.
Well, and that's what's great about being tonight. As you guys, I mean, you were all over the track meet. You know, you've got the airtime, therefore you need to fill it, but that gives you the freedom to go out and to cover the other sports, women's sports, you know, softball, everything. So again it's a shameless plug for your show, but.
I do appreciate it so well.
And I will say this real quick. It's like one of those things where before you know, I'm getting three minutes and we'd go to a Nottago Away Brandon Garrison press conference and you might hear just a few sound bites problem about something seconds in. But now we can tell so much more. You know, we have that half hour, we could we could spend a whole first block talking about those two guys and different topics that they want to bring up. So that's what makes it fun is to hear more.
Yeah, is Keith Farmer. We'll come back and talk to you k football and other stuff on the other side of the break here on six thirty w LAP Welcome back to the Big Blue Sider. We're talking with Keith Farmer. Came in of course with l e X eighteen and BBN tonight and thanks to our man Corey Price, eighty one days until the start of UK football. It's going to be on top of us before we know it. And with that we just talked earlier about Vince Merrill leaving.
But it is so vital for this program, this team to get off to a good start this coming season with a real challenge Toledo. We have no idea yet much about their roster, with the portal and all that, but we know they were good last year. They'd beat Mississippi State, they'd beat Pittsburgh. They have done damage before. MAC teams have come down here and played well and then right after that is Old miss So on this pivotal Mark Stoops year, Keith, this could not be a greater challenge, am I right?
One? I mean, you know we'd like to believe that some of these portal guys they've brought in are the ones that are gonna help get it turned around. Kind of we saw in the last couple of years where they had some portal guys that maybe didn't pan out the way we thought. But I think they've addressed the situation with certain position groups that well, we'll get that done. But we're not going to know until we get into training camp, until we get into that first game and
see how they're gelling together. Especially I'm thinking, you know, along the big blue wall, one of the places that we want to see, you know, fixed, and I believe from what I've seen that they have those guys that can get it done. But again, in this day and age of the portal, you just don't know how guys coming in for one year, or you know, guys that come in expecting maybe two years and only give you one year, You just don't know how they're going to
gel right so quickly. So hopefully they're working on that right now with themselves. In the summer, a little bit of coaching I think is allowed now, is that right in the summer. I don't know if I'm seeing that correct or not a little I know exactly. I don't know if that's just in like a room situation where they can go over things or what. But in any case, I just want to see some of those situations develop.
You know, it looks like they've got the pieces, but as you said, it's going to have to come a lot quicker.
This year with on this coming week two.
I think we all stipulated O line play is going to be the key, and there are obstacles for the defensive line as well. I'm really curious Caman about the receiver room because minus being key, minus Bearing Brown, those guys who are going to rup for huge plays at any moment of different types. I want to see now where where they come from. And I'm I'm not convinced that it's not going to happen. I really think that that might be a pleasant surprise for this team. Maybe
I'm whistling past the graveyard. I don't know, what do you think?
I think having Jimore Acklin come back, I think that was huge. I think just to have that voice in there, especially in year two of bush Hampton's offense, I believe that's, you know, so key and so big for them to have a guy that knows what's going on that can teach it on the field. And I believe that there's a chance, you know, I like the quarterback room, whichever
one they go with. I really like the different options that they brought in at wide receiver that can you know, smaller, bigger, faster, you know, different different guys have those different characters. Yeah, and can make this a fun offense to watch if it again all comes together and they're all ready to take on bush Hampden's offense and learn it quickly.
Yeah. And you know, you look back at last year when Hamden got here and inherited you know, this player, that player, the O line, that struggle guys ad the learners terminology, just as Mark Kope talked about year one to year two. I'm really curious to see this Bush Hampden offense in year two. But some of the guys who have the background with it now, A lot of guys won't, but including O linemen. But they're mature and I have a feeling they'll be able to pick up on things fairly quickly.
You know.
Yeah, I think so too.
And and you know a lot of times you hear guys say this is a similar offense to something I did. It's just the terminology, and so you know, I think they can pick up on that pretty quickly.
I will say this.
I talked to one guy who has now departed through the portal, and I said, what do you think about bush Hampton's offense? And he's like, oh, I loved it, he said, I really liked it, and I thought it could be successful. So I think that there was not any of that. Like if anybody's trying to say it wasn't a good offense or guys didn't catch on or this or that, I think that's wrong. Yeah, And I think,
you know, again, now he's had a chance. He came in so late that I think now he's got a chance to really, you know, put his finger on the offense and make it what he wants. And they went to the portal and he's got the players probably that he wanted to get and that he thinks fits that offense. And so that's why I have, you know, some beliefs that in year two it can be something special.
Before I let you go, we're talking with Keith Farmer, or the sports director at l e X eighteen and the co anchor co host of BBN Tonight, I must ask you, as a fan of the Black and Gold, the Pittsburgh Steelers, I knew this was going I know you did, and I talked to Jeff Drummond yesterday. You got a new quarterback. Brother. He took my team to a championship but failed lost four other conference title game. We should have been in more than one super Bowl
with him. So I will always believe he underachieved as a Packer, but I appreciate what he did do. Uh, what does this mean? Do you think for your beloved Steelers? Playoffs? Deep run?
What?
I think that they can smith playoffs and maybe make it in I don't think they're gonna be division winner, but I was okay, Like at first, I wasn't excited about him even being an option. When they got Mason Rudolph back, that gave me hope. That okay, Now I'm okay with it, really, you know, because yeah, because Mason's been in Pittsburgh, he knows about it. I'm not sure he ran the same offense before, but he had that year playing down with the Titans where he had more
experience on the field. So I thought, okay, if it comes down to it, and Aaron doesn't pan out, then Mason Rudolph's there and can pick up the flack, or they can, you know, even just take the option of going with the rookie and just kind of bring Will Howard along. So I am better with it now with the two that they had there. I feel like Rogers has still a strong arm, and I think he's probably going to read the field better than other guys that have even been in there, and so that gives me
some excitement. And I know he's not going to take a hit, so there's probably gonna be some thrown thrown, you know, to no man here or there. But I still think he's got the arm, and I still think he can read the field, so I think it can gives them a chance at sniffing playoffs.
You got rid of a high profile receiver, but you go ahead and get DK Metcalf, who at his best I just though was phenomenon and I remember him beating Kentucky on a catch in the corner of the end zone in the last play of a game. But yeah, we still have a target or two. But uh, yeah, who is this guy? I mean, which which Aaron Rodgers are we going to see, yeah, and is he going to be what kind of presence will he be in the locker room? That sort of thing. You got to wonder about that.
Yeah, that's the big key, Yes, I think so, because that that can be the worry. You know, if he's not all in on being a good teammate, then that can make it more difficult. I'm actually more worried about running back right now. So you know, which, you know, Warren got some playing time, but he wasn't an everyday back, and then you got a rookie after that, so well, we'll see how it all pans out. But I'm I'm a little more excited about it.
Then need to go re sign Benny Snow, Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, I mean, and Benny did okay, but then the next thing, you know, the draft, Now they drafted over him a nag was a Najie Harris, Yeah it was, Yeah, and then he's gone. So but running backs generally last about three years in the NFL. So yeah, I don't know that I'm going to root for your boy.
I really like Mike Tomlins, I mean I do think. Yeah, I've said before that if he left the Steelers eighty five percent of the teams in the NFL would look it away to hire him. So this is going to be an interesting mix, isn't it.
It is it is Yeah, and you know Tom has been a little bit on the hot seat, so we'll see how. You know, he's he's kind of sticking his neck out there as well, taking this chance. So but I agree with you. I think people would definitely take him in a heartbeat as the head coach.
He may be the toughest head coach in the NFL, so it's hard not to root for him. He is Keith Farmer of la X eighteen, BBN Tonight. Watch for him each and every evening and on the both shows on the News and on BBN tonight. Came in we will see you down the road.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Thanks so much to Keith, to Tom Leach, to John Clay. That's it. Good night from the garage in Lexington.
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