10.7: Flat - Hour 2

cayl should have beat Miami, but they didn't. So Miami still is the top ranked team and one of the you know, undefeated teams in the ACC. So it really you know, maybe I don't know if this makes you feel any better given you know, what happened with Louisville as far as just another disappointing performance overall. But I don't really know if they would have I mean, they clearly would have jumped up a little bit in the rankings and the app pole just because a lot of

teams lost. But and we love seeing that number next to our name, and you know, it does make you feel good, and there's some perception there if you're ranked, and you must be pretty good. But the only rankings that really matter anymore the ones that we're gonna get in a few weeks when we get the college football playoff rankings. So Saturday was wild, and it was it was crazy to see all the upsets, especially Vandy in Alabama.

I mean, that's I don't know, if you guys saw Lane Kiffin during his postgame press conference after they demolished South Carolina, I got that one wrong. You know, he was kind of you know, he apologized to those asking questions in a press conference because he was not paying attention, he was looking at the TV in the room wherever he was, because he was witnessing what you really thought

you'd never see. I mean, I could live three hundred years and I'd have told you, you know, good chance I never see Vandy in football beat Alabama, and they did. I mean, it's you know, you've seen number one teams go down before to big underdogs. But you got to think about the brand of Vandy football. There's bottom feeders in every league, but has anybody ever been consistently just that bad in their own conference, and yes, their conference

is the best conference in college football. We know that, but like you, when you think of programs that clearly don't have a whole lot to do with the success of a conference when it comes to football, I mean, of all the conferences out there, especially in the Power four, Power five in the previous world, Vandy comes to mind before anybody because they're just like there's sometimes where you could look at the second to third, second or third to last team in the SEC, and you know, you

might say, Okay, if they go to a different power for a league, they're still not going to be good, but they'd probably be middle of the pack. You really wouldn't say that about Vandy. I mean this year you can, but like even this year they lost to Georgia State, so like Vandy is Vandy, and for them to go out there and really just be better than Alabama for that entire game and hold on and win was insane.

And the way they celebrated afterwards was awesome. I mean it was you know, I know, guys are getting paid now. Nil of course is a big factor in sports, and that's not going anywhere. It's very much professional sports now. But because it was Vandy that did it, Like it kind of gave you that wholesome feeling that we probably won't get very often anymore in college sports because you know, it's Vandy.

I mean, I'm I'm exaggerating, but like I used to love Nashville, I don't really have any interest in doing anything in Nashville. Not to say I won't go there for something at some point, but like.

one road game year, We're gonna go to Vandy. Why not because it's Nashville and we'll be on the road, but will actually be the home team because they don't have any fans. Like it's just almost like, hey, anybody playing Vandy at their place, you can basically have eighty percent of the stadium and you get a weekend in Nashville, like that's kind of what it was.

they do, they don't care about Vandy. But I just I don't know, Like I can't relate to people who don't have like a Saturday where they're just keeping up with what's going on in college football. Clearly there's many people that don't, and you know they're probably not sad like I am, because Louisville football makes me sad. And if I didn't have that emotional connection, that emotional investment in my team, I wouldn't be sad, and I was

very sad on Saturday. But all in all, I think to see the shakeup elsewhere it actually made it, you know, I guess it distracted me a little bit from it more than anything. Like it didn't change, Like, it doesn't make Louisville situation any worse or better that all these other teams lost, But it was wild to see all those upsets take place. I didn't see any of the Michigan and why I actually, actually I did see the Michigan Washington game. I didn't see any of Minnesota USC.

But Minnesota just nearly beat Michigan last week, right, they did.

need to be patient. So you know, I was gonna say, well, they could wait and see, but you don't. Why would you do that? That could put you at risk? You wait two more years after two you know, you know, two mid level years, then you just you know, you.

that he's been. You know he can win. All you know is that Sharon Moore came in as an assistant under Jim Harbaugh and now he's like, it's not like you went out and brought in somebody who's who's shown a proof of concept that he can win. This is a first time coach at a place like Michigan, and as a Louisvie basketball fan, I can tell you that usually don't work out when it comes to big time programs with big expectations, guys who've been in the sport

but never had that actual job anywhere. All Right, it's coffee and company. Feel about Thornton's here on Sports Talk seven to ninety. Appreciate you guys hanging out with us. If you want to join us, you can buy busy show in the first hour with phone calls. So we'll keep that rolling along again five o two, five to

seven to one, seventy nine hundred. A lot of talk about the Louis of the defense, and I got into this on the postgame show, and we've had a couple of people ask this already today that I guess didn't listen to the postgame show, and that's okay. It's a different audience. And if you're a louis a fan like you may not like Kentucky fans, no doubt they're going to want to consume every second of a postgame show

when Louisville loses. That's just how it works. We do the same thing, at least some of us do when it comes to Kentucky when they lose. But if you're a Louisville fan, like maybe you, if you're not calling into it to you know, to vent yourself and utilize the platform to express some frustration, share some thoughts, like maybe you don't want to listen to it because you're

thinking it'll just make me more sad. But here's here's the Ron English, the quick run English story as far as how he got to Louisville and how he's back at Louisville working for Jeff Bron, because that is a fair question. He was at Louisville in two thousand and eight for one season. It was viewed as a big time higher by Steve Kragthorpe because Crackthorpe stunk in his first year. We all know that, and one of the I guess one of the reasons to get fans excited that, Hey,

the last year was a fluke. We're going to get better. As one, Jurch and Cragthorpe blamed Jeff Bron, which is rich to think about. But also they brought in Ron English. Ron English had just come from Michigan or he'd worked for he'd work for I think of his coach car Yeah, Lloyd Carr. He was Lloyd Carr's defensive coordinator there for three seasons and they were really good. And then he got the job at Louisville as a DC. Was only here one year. Then he got a head coaching job.

He was a really really bad head coach. Ron English was. He went Oho to twelve to and ten, a surprising six and six, and then he went to in ten and one and eight before he got fired, so eleven and forty six. After that, he did not coach in college for three years maybe, And there were some allegations made. This is something that I did not remember, and I'm glad somebody reminded me of this on Saturday. He was abruptly fired in November of twenty thirteen, less than twenty

four hours before they played Western Michigan. Now, I think when you have that kind of record and you get abruptly fired, it might just be chalked up as, Yeah, it's time to pull the plug. This thing ain't working. However, he ended up being featured in a Detroit News article that, you know, I don't know if it was just I think it was like a long form investigative piece that they did about some allegations made of him, the way he was talking to his players, you know, using expletives

and whatnot. One of them I think was I mean, from the article he used apparently a homophobic slur, and the athletic director at that time confirmed that what was alleged was true and she made the move to fire him. So when he did not coach anymore after that, it might have been because nobody wanted to touch him because of those allegations. I don't know, but anyways, he got

let go in twenty thirteen. He resurfaced in twenty sixteen as the San Jose State defensive coordinator one year Mississippi State as the safety's coach for one year was the Florida Safeties coach for three years and then after that he landed at Purdue as the co DC and defensive backs coach. And I don't really know how it played out at Purdue, but at some point he ended up being the actual DC or maybe he was still co DC, but either way, at the time Jeff was being pursued

by Louisville. The second time around, Purdue actually had a pretty good defense and he was a guy that was, you know, in charge of that. So I think it made sense for Jeff to bring him along and kind of, you know, bring what's working with you at Purdue and try to make you work here. And to be fair, Ron English last year had a good defense until you know, he didn't. I mean, it's kind of wild. Last year in the first half, Jeff was so matter of fact

about in the opener against Georgia Tech. You guys remember at halftime when he was like, and that's one of the things I really appreciate about Jeff. And we'll let you hear his comments after the game on Saturday that kind of, you know, are consistent with this to where he'll just claim, like I don't know what he's not going to mention his coach by name. He's not going to say, hey, I'm gonna have I'm gonna have to give these coaches a talking to, but like you can

tell what he's saying. And they made adjustments after that. They simplified it against Georgia Tech, and they came out and the defense was really good from like then until you know, the end of the year, and then it kind of fell apart. Nothing like what we're seeing now.

I mean this right now, they're as disorganized and just as sloppy defensively as I've seen since that nightmare twenty eighteen year that was coached by who was it, Brian Van Gord, Like that's we're not that bad defensively, but we make the same kind of mistakes at times that

that defense makes, which is just head scratching. So, you know, Ron English is not a guy that you know, has had like he has not been viewed in the college football world objectively as a very successful defensive coordinator really since his days at Michigan, which was you know, pre Crackthorpe.

So from then on he just kind of is latched on and again Jeff brought in with him, and last year, you know, it worked until towards the end of the year and this year obviously, I think there was a lot of expectation with this defense because of the talent,

and they're not delivering in any way. So as far as you know, I don't know what you'd accomplished by canning him, like firing him, and I think they would have done that would have already been done at least, meaning you know now this week before you play Virginia.

But I think when it comes to simplifying things, like maybe that's just Jeff kind of being the one that does the game plan, that does the strategy, because he's clearly not happy with what they've done in the last two games and maybe even three games if you consider the Georgia Tech game where Haines King had himself a hell of a day, you know, So wouldn't shock me if maybe Jeff has a little bit more of a

direct role in simplifying things defensively. Look, if you're an offensive coach and you call plays, you know what that means. You know defense pretty well. So it's not crazy to think that a guy who is known as an offensive coach that can call plays. And despite some of our frustration with these fourth down calls and really just to

play calling at times has been vanilla for Jeff. Despite all that, I think we know the guy's capable of being an elite play caller, and again, if you can do that, I think you know a little something about defense as well. Real quick, before we get back to the phone lines, I promise we're going to get to you guys in just a second, But I do want to let you hear this clip because I mean, and this is a little longer than what we typically would play for a sound clip on the show, but I

think every second of it is worth hearing. This is Jeff, and you can't see it, obviously, this is an audio medium, but you can listen to what he says and understand

the urgency and understand the frustration. But like even his facial expressions, I think it's almost like he's speaking calmly, but he's almost about to explode because he's just so disappointed with one their strategy meeting defensively and the lack of execution and just you know, the overall mess of the defense has been at times this year.

throwing something different at you. These guys defensively are having to make adjustments on the fly, like they're not being like it's just it's it's from top to bottom. It's a mess. Let me see if I can pull up where we were.

us and me. So we've got to go to work and make sure that you know, that part doesn't happen again, because we have not gotten off to good starts and it has been costly.

he's supposed to say as a coach. I think he believes it, like he knows that as a staff they've not done a good enough job. Now maybe he thinks there's you know, a couple of coaches or one coach that's really let them down, but you know, I think he even would tell you that he could go back, and you know, you should be able to just line up and run the ball and get one yard. So when that happens and you can't, like I feel like the players need to like sack up if you will.

But then again, if you've done it that many times as a coach and these guys have proven to you that they're not capable of doing it, that you need to stop doing it. And he did confirm on Saturday that they know they can't do that now and they want. I'm sure we might see a scenario where they go for it in that situation again. But I mean if they line up for a fourth and one and we see Donald Cheney out there instead of Isaac Brown, people may their heads make explode. All right, real quick before

we get your break, Allison has been waiting patiently. Allison, welcome in here. Sports Talk seven ninety. How you doing today?

is got awful. And another thing is is I know this is going to be a hot take and and and people might think I'm crazy, but if you continue to see these results, I think you hand the book over to Mark Abby and you let him try. I mean, we saw when he coached in term DC last year or two years ago. You know how much pass rush he brought. He knows that those guys, So I just don't think that would be you know, worth, it would be worth a shot. And you know, I remember back

in August, wd RB did a story on it. Is Ron English said, blame Ron English. Well, I think we are we want some truth and we want to know what's going on. You're you're using Ashton in the wrong way. Everybody on the knows you're using Ashton wrong, you know, And I just that really just upsets me. And I think the other thing would be for me, Nick is the line of games, the first downs that aren't getting

called and we're not reviewing. That makes me wonder who's upstairs, who's looking at these things from our side that's not telling Jeff, Hey Jeff, you need to review that we got a first down? Or hey Jeff, they didn't get a first down. You know, can we review that, because there's been several times those that have been missed and we haven't even tried to challenge it. So those are just my two takes that that I see that are a little alarming, And I'll hang up and listen to thank.

to the defense. But I just don't know if that's something in his bag, if that's something he's done before. A quick break will come back, keep it rolling along. It's Coffee and Company. We are feel about Thorntons right here on Sports Talk seven ninety so Allison who called in just a moment ago. She referenced an article in WDRB. This was Rick Bosch who published this in August that ron Al Rodger read the headline Ron English says blame

Ron English for Louisville's defensive breakdown last season. The quote, I didn't coach as well as I needed to. I didn't put the players in the positions they needed to be in. And that was the facts. Another part of his quote here in this piece from Rick Bosch, without depth, that shows up at the end of the seasons, right, it kind of showed up. It kind of showed up. He said that twice in the middle of our defense last year with the linebackers and the safeties. But I

felt that coaching was a part of it. I would say this, I don't think we coached our best games against Kentucky and Southern Cal. I think we played well for a half and then I think we kind of got razzled against Kentucky. And then he mentions the kickoff return that hurt him a little bit. But last part here it says, so I think we can coach better, to be honest, and that really stood out to me because I don't think you oftentimes you know, he didn't

have to say that. I mean, he could have just given us, you know, we're working harder to fix it, but like he really wanted to very much directly say blame him, And it was more so the coaches not

putting the players in the position to succeed. And you know what that tells me, One, that's you know, that's be careful what you asked for, Ron, because we are blaming you now especially, but also you know, it tells me that there were conversations that took place last year following the season among the coaches Jeff Bromp to his staff.

Ron English clearly one of them about that. Like I think collectively everybody agrees that that was a factor and that the coaching was and it was one of the issues and maybe the biggest issue with why the defense fell off a little bit last year. So that would tell me that coming into this year there'd be a big emphasis song getting that fixed. And unfortunately for Ron English,

they've come out and it's been worse. And I know we live in a world now where it's so much extreme one side or so much extreme the other, and you rarely the acknowledge the middle ground, which is really where the majority of the facts are, and usually that's where the majority of the people feel. They're not as strongly this way or that way. They just you know,

they're in the middle. So what I'm getting at is like, I'm not telling you Louis defensively has the talent and in personnel or where they should have held that SMU offense to ten points. No, SMU's actually got some pretty good players, and I think their offense is legit, But when you're seeing the disorganization and the confusion, like that's coaching. And you heard Jeff talk about it and he said he didn't want to get into the you know, too

much detail, but yeah, it's just overly complicated. It needs to be simple. It needs to be more simple. They need to be more aggressive and they're not. And you know, if you'd ask me on Saturday, gun to my head, do I think ron English is like let go? I would have said no, just because I don't know necessarily what that accomplishes, and I don't really think you've had results that have been that egregious to where you're truly gonna,

you know, give them the boot. Now, if they did make it change, I can't say that I'd be totally shocked, but like I would imagine, without it being any kind of public thing, I would I would imagine that that Ron English will not be solely in charge of some things that he was previously solely in charge of on defense.

Just just a guess. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but if you're Bram and you clearly know and you've told us he hasn't thrown anybody under the bus directly, but we all know what he's talking about and who he's talking about, and for there not to be somebody like Brom step in to kind of, you know, take those responsibilities away from somebody who's hurting you. That's on you

at that point. So I think, I think, you know, I don't know what the results are going to be, but I would I would be shocked if there's not, you know, some mixing around as far as who's doing what on that staff. And it's needed, it's needed. So the other question or the other comment that Allison made as far as using I mean, I wouldn't be able to tell you how you could effectively utilize Ashton and make him more. I mean, whatever they're doing is not working,

and know that. But look, he's had games where he's been double teamed. He's had games where he's clearly gonna be the focal point of the opposing team when it comes to like BEFO, we're going to be successful offensively, we got to make sure we double team this guy, neutralize the threat that he brings because he's an animal. And I mean that in a very complimentary way. Asking July he is to hell of a player, hadn't shown up this year, and clearly he's got to take some

accountability for that. But I would say what they're doing to try to get him active is if they're doing anything, it's not working, all right. It is Coffee and Company. We are feel about Thornton's here on Sports Talk seven to ninety. Appreciate you hanging out with us here on a Monday afternoon. Also appreciate our friends over there at Jefferson Animal Hospital. Don't forget about their blood bank event that's coming up here a little bit later this month.

It is the Pints for Paus and People. October nineteenth, ten am to two pm at Jefferson Animal Hospital on loop. They'll educate you on how pet blood donation works. It's probably something a lot of folks didn't even realize was the thing, but it is. Your pet, your dog or cat could donate blood. They could qualify. If your dog is over fifty pounds and your cat is over ten pounds,

they may qualify. So not only should you do that to help save lives, but I mean you can go out and give blood yourself to at the event, right like you and your pet given blood, you give given blood, you given blood to. The American Red Cross is going to be there at the event. Obviously your pet's going to be giving blood at JEFFERSONNIM Hospital and you're helping save lives. So again, it's from ten to two pm ten am to two pm on October nineteenth at the

Jefferson Animal Hospital. You can get more info at Pet Bloodbank dot com or give them a call five two nine one hundred. Pets, All people welcome, All pets welcome, should be should be a great time, all right, So we'll get to this in the five o'clock hour. We don't have I got to keep this thing on track as best at CANA had a very long segment there in the first which is nobody's fault of mine. I'm just giving your heads up that clock management not great

for me here in the four o'clock hour. But we'll talk some hoops. I will lie to you and say that I feel any differently about this team after watching Louisville live, just because that's not what that event is meaning. It's not an event where you really get a chance to kind of see much of anything as far as like competitiveness. I mean, I wish there were more than just three guys in the in the three point shootout

dunk contest was you know, it was interesting. But there's an ACC preview that came out from Sports Illustrated, our man, mister Kevin Sweeney, who covers college hoops for Sports Illustrated. We'll start bringing him in as we get closer to the season, but he had his preseason ACC right up, and he's very high on Louisville, more so than maybe anybody I've seen, which has me excited. So we'll talk some hoops. Don't forget. Later this week, I'll be in

Charlotte for the ACC Basketball Media Days. They're calling at acc tip off. They call it Operation Basketball, and I don't know they call the football Media Days, Like why can't they just call it media days?

far as the other games on your schedule. All right, a couple of things to get to before we get to our next break. You heard it there if you were listening in the sports update from from my Heart. The fines that came down, Vandy fined one hundred thousand dollars for storming the field. Arkansas find two hundred and fifty thousand because they were a repeat offender. And I mean, I can't tell if this is a silly thing to

find these schools for or not. I've gone back and forth because like you never like you never want to risk it, and it is, I guess dangerous. There was a Tennessee player who shoved an Arkansas student down, and I kind of feel like that's fair game if you run out there. But then again, you could end up in a lawsuit, so like you got to do something. But you also clearly like Vandy did not. Vandy did not care at all in the moment about anybody rushing

that field, you know what I mean. And one hundred thousand dollars to them is probably very minimal, to be honest with you, So you know, I guess you have it in place to you know, to protect yourself as a conference to where you at least let these schools know, hey, if something bad happens, we have a rule, and we punish you if you don't follow said rule. It's really

just you know, covering your rear end. But it would have been such a buzzkill if Fandy didn't storm the field, you know what I mean, Like if they just walked off the field and went to the locker rooms and did the emotional postgame interview on TV like we saw. But there weren't like a good field storm and when it is absolutely justified as awesome, and I don't think you'll find a bigger opportunity where it was justified than

what we saw on Saturday, Arkansas. I don't know if they did it last year, maybe they did it the year. I don't know how, you know, I don't know if you get like an every five years at resets as far as being a repeat offender. But yeah, if I was a Vandy fan, I would have been out there losing my mind. I would have woke up Sunday thinking, yeah, that didn't really happen, did it.

happening don't take it. Doesn't It doesn't actually take any of the shock value away from Vandy Alabama, because that's just like you. I mean, if I had to guess if we'll ever see that again in my lifetime, I would I would If I had to guess one way or the other, I would say no, because one now you know you can lose to them, and like they played ten more times, I bet Bama wins and covers a big spread because they're just better Vandy got off to a good start, and that's what you can't do.

And I'm not saying that like Vandy just got lucky. They clearly aren't as good as Bama, but they were in that moment, and that's all the matter, right, that's all the matters. But they took advantage of some mistakes that Bama made early. They got up. And when you let a team like that hang around. This goes for basketball and football. If you let an underdog hang around long enough, they forget that they're who they are. Sometimes they get real tight and it just you know, the

moment's too big for him. But to be fair, Vandy didn't do. That's where I'm giving Vandy a lot of credit. But that's how upsets like that happen. Like in the en sibl A tournament, you see it, like if you let, like you let a team get to a point where they've outplayed you and they feel like they can win, they're either going to you know, I guess there's a lot of different ways that those scenarios could play out. Either they stick with it, they keep the momentum going,

they keep making plays, and that's what Vandy did. Or you know, maybe you just you know, the team that's way better than you, that you're leading, they just woke up a little earlier than you would have wanted, and they had enough time to climb back in and get you.

Or you get completely tight and you really like you just start imploding because you know what you're about to do is so improbable that they used to happen a lot when teams would go to rup and play, because there'd be a lot of teams in the cal Era that'd be out playing Kentucky and be leading for you know, eighty five percent of the game and then all of a sudden, like it just it, it gets away from them.

And sometimes that's not necessarily just like you got nervous and you screwed up, it could just be, you know, the other team finally woke up. But at no point until one of those last first downs. It might have been I think it might have been the play it was the second to last first down before they were in position, like which I guess two plays before you realized, okay, no,

they've got it. Like once it was over, you realized they had the clock on their side, they were gonna be able to kneel it and get out of there. There were two plays before that where I'm thinking to myself, there's no way that like nobody really felt like Bandy was gonna get it done, right. I mean, maybe you did,

and if so, then you were right. But that's a shocker. Like, I don't that I'm sure this is recency biased on my end, but like, I think that's one of the biggest upsets in the history of college football as far as just like watching it play out, knowing the history of these programs in the last few decades, Like that's insane.

I haven't checked the updated rankings because you know the obvious, but Indiana's got to be ranked now, right, they were ranked last week they were where do you think they are?

people to do it Indiana consistently, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I know, you know you're not satisfied, and you shouldn't be as a fan. And I'm not just talking to John he's an Indiana fan, but like Indiana fans, like clearly they're not thinking, oh good, we're Bowl eligible.

I mean, it really is. And yeah, you're right are mentioning the schedule, but I'm not hearing that a whole lot. I mean, the noise about the schedule, the noise about the schedule is not is not over you know, overdoing any other conversation about Indiana football, which is that, Wow, this guy's off to a great start. Hell yeah, Indiana

might have found themselves a damn good football coach. Like, you know, it's easily one of not the biggest storyline, and it's not one of the biggest storylines in college football. But like when you look at six weeks in for the whole sport, like Indiana being a good team is certainly one of the talking points.

You have Michigan at home, and then you have another bye week Ohio State on the road, and then you finish up with Purdue at home. I mean, you could reasonably expect Indiana to at worst finish with eight or nine wins.

just really disappointing. But hey, they got time to get it turned around. Don't go anywhere. It's coffee and company on field by Thorns on sport Stock, seven ninety