This is Eye on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jagan zale Sound Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure Your Most Prized Possessions, Kati z R Two SAD and iHeartRadio Station. Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's Jagan Zalaz and today we have one and today Survival of the plane. Right plane jump. He jumped out of a plane, Steve,
Uh, for fun, for fun. Yeah, he didn't have to, he didn't get he didn't get thrown out like that guy in scarface or anything. I mean, he just jumped from a plank. He paid someone to do that. Yeah, it was great, and you got down. I was gonna strive into the studio today. Yeah, well we didn't know you were coming in today. Well we're starting. We're at about eight minutes. Tell him like, I think I killed and nobody told us mister survived. Yeah, be good today, Good for you, Good for you. Uh
super and maybe you'll do it again soon. And now we'll just skydive our way into Friday. We have a pretty good show. I don't know if you knew that. But we have pretty good shot. Three good guests. Yes, our usual guy, Jake Fisher. Early in the first hour, he's excited. We haven't had him on in a couple of weeks, and the big twelve is first thing. His name was mentioned yesterday. I'm gonna tell him why. Uh. And then in the the second second guy is
gonna be your a d asue a d No. The second guy is Brian Howe. No, no, no, that's right. Oh I put the wrong time in our in our social media. He's at three forty five, not bad, so, so we have a issue. Fix that right now. We have a issue a d uh Graham Rosini. Uh, he's not even been there two months, maybe a couple of months. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we'll break down his situation, invite him to come and visit us anytime and Tuesday tuson when he has a chance. Oh, but
sure, he'll be for a basketball game or two. And then the third hour we have Brian Howe from the Colorado newspaper that covers uh dion, So we'll have him on to see how the year has been for him, and then how he's kind of handled or how they've handled each other. Yes, uh, because there's still a lot of stuff going on now with Dion.
Yeah, yeah, you know. Yeah, look, there's always gonna be stuff going on with Dion, right, so, uh, you know it's it's got to be I don't know if you call it as it's just got to be interesting to be covering him, whether it's fun or not. You know, it might not be fun, it might be something else. It might be a lot of work, it might be challenging, it might be a lot of things, but it's probably for sure interesting. Yeah, right, and then and then you know, as a reporter, that's kind of
what you know, you're always hoping for. You know, you want your teams to win because they're more interesting. You want your h you know, you want your coaches to you know, not be dry because it makes them more interesting. So probably you know, probably good. Yeah, okay, no, cool. So this should be a nice way to the week. It's been a pretty good week. Yesterday show is very fun and uh,
and we'll wrap it up now. Did JB send you some stuff? Yes, I'm pointing it up as we speak because I completely forgot about it. Okay, so we'll do that. He did send it to me and we'll help him out. I know he's trying to get some publicity through the papers and locals for his basketball camp. If you have any questions just about the camp, just send us to send it to us, yeah, or we'll
we'll pass it up. We're gonna put this stuff up up on Facebook and Twitter right now because I completely forgot to do that, and we promised him we would and I'm just a big giant turn for not doing it. But here we go. I'm getting it up there. Okay, Okay, it sounds like you're the one that jumped off the plane. Dude. You know what, I don't know what it is. It's been about these last twenty four hours, but you know, I'm staying. You know, I'm going.
I'm going to a meeting and beyond Brad, I've got a guy with me that I'm meeting with, and I'm on the phone with somebody else. It's like, it's just the nuts. It's just been crazy. So here I am. But I'm here. I'm here, Okay, and so is and so is. Uh. It was one because we were concerned about whether or not he would be I appreciate that we at all points but yeah, we were so concerned. He was ready to do the the the breaking news, that's all he was concerned about that. Yeah, I thought he's not
coming. I got to go up breaking news and find that word of his parents. Yeah, I was. Yeah. My first worry was not where are they going to put him? My first worry was, oh, no, I got breaking news to do well. And the first even that not where he landed, not where we're gonna put him. It's not where he landed. We didn't care about that, right, and not where they're gonna put you. Well, it's too late for that, and now breaking news, so you're like third string, third stow, third string. No,
we're happy to have you. I'm taking that starting spot. Thank you very much. Well, good to have you again again. Today is Friday, big show. Obviously not a whole lot after the big twelve press conference,
right, yeah, stuff, I think things have quieted down. Uh you know, it's it's we're kind of going into this time now where everybody's kind of gathering themselves, getting ready for fall practices to start, maybe taking some vacations that kind of stuff to get ready because then now you know, once it gets busy, it gets busy, and it's days busy, you know, for till May. Right, Oh yeah, yeah, we we right. It starts in mid August, doesn't until like mid April unless the teams
go deep into the tournament right in in May. Yeah, so so it's going to be busy for a while. So I think, you know, people kind of kind of gather themselves, you know, right now as we need to. I kind of need to gather myself right now too, but you know, you know, so, yeah, so it kind of like everything now. There's gonna be some more media days next week, right, yeah, You've got I think, well, who's left the SEC, the
Big ten and the a CEC. I don't know who. I think I'm gonna say that SEC is next week, followed by the ACC and the Big Ten the week after. So, you know, I thought that I thought the Big twelve was very smart on what they did in going first. Everybody talked about them all this week. You know, there were a lot of stories that came out of there, the Mike Goudney story for better for worse
in the national media. The national media was there break your mark talking about we're still open for business, you know, the four Pac twelve schools were now in the Big ten, got a lot of got a lot of play. You know, there was the media poll. It was just a lot of stuff that came out about the Big twelve, and it was, you know, all all the college football talk was about the Big twelve because the SEC and the other schools were not doing their media day. So I thought
it was very smart of them to do that. Again, probably another thing that was just what your mark is creating over there, guys, we need to be out of front on sure, very he's very impressive. I know. I think you hit it on the head the way you described her yesterday. Uh, cocky, a little arrogant, very very fourth rightI ish uh And it came off a little whatever. But now he's your whatever and you
like it right right. We thought he was a kind of an arrogant jerk when when he was when he was battling the Pack twelve, and now that he's not battling the Pac twelve, we're one of him where you know, he's our arrogant. You want that guy, Yeah, we want that guy. It's like we haven't had that guy. It's like you have there. You hiring an attorney and I'll say, a divorce attorney you have and your
ex has that attorney. Yeah, he says, how come I didn't get her, right, or I didn't get him, and now you have him and you think there's go after that, you know. I mean, look, look, I know Larry Scott wasn't from California, but he was very California like, laid back, you know, l a kind of guy, la San Francisco kind of guy, just throwing money all over the place, arrogant from the standpoint of things like having an entourage, spending you know,
three thousand dollars a night for his hotel rooms, those kind things. Where he was he just he just tried to have an aura about him without really doing anything. And then George laugh didn't have the aura, but also very low key and passive and all that got the packed. The funny thing about
with the playoff, Cough is very low key passive. Yet I guess behind the scenes when he was getting offered this money and he was saying, no, we could do better, getting screwed by himself because he was over stating himself or overstayed in the product. Well, everybody, yeah, the whole, the whole, the whole pack twelve was doing that. And and you know, whether it was the the the President's residents or whoever, they were all doing that. Yeah. Okay, so we'll get to some of that
with the A s U A d uh later this this hour. Right in a few few minutes, get to Jake and talk about what's going on. I mentioned his name was thrown out there yesterday. I'm curious what his thoughts are anything else. Soccer starts here pretty soon, right about a month the season starts. Yeah, less than a month weeks away. Yeah, you got to get her cab. I'm sorry. And I actually looked this up and said, I'm gonna ask you. Have you looked up when you have
a football practice start. No, no, I'm assuming it's like the twenty sixth or something like that, or even before that. Okay, No, I haven't. I haven't received it anything. I don't think. Well, first off, they got practice and this is damn high. Now was that the okay you we went home at the same time. Was that the hardest rain last night that you've ever driven in? No? No, there's been worse. I think, uh ten years ago if I can remember correctly.
But but it wasn't as bad as you probably had it because I was going into it a lighter rain. You went up northwest, right northwest. Yeah, but it did hit me as hard as I think I saw back where you're I go home. It was dark. I go home by way of Fort loll Swan River Road over Topino Canyon Road down. So I'm going up
Swan and I can't see. I literally there's a car in front of me, okay, you know, And I could see his lights also in that car was gone and I was still there, but I couldn't see it anymore. You No, I didn't get and I was gonna I thought, are you supposed to pull over here or not? If I pull over, nobody's gonna see me. So I just kind of kept going. I slowed down. I was probably going fifteen miles an hour going up Swan. Yeah,
I could not see. And then I turned on the river road. I thought, wait a minute, why are you going on this road in this storm? But you know what, it's a pretty good shape as far as drainage goes. There weren't any big big I could not the river. I couldn't see the river. I was seriously That's when That's when I could. As I was coming up to the bridge to go over the river, that's when I couldn't see. So I couldn't see the river. Yeah, I
was going away from I was going away from it. So Steve, I've been here, Okay, I've been driving fifty years in this town close to it, and I've never ever in this town driven in rain like that as I did yesterday in that stretch from Fort Lowe, from Fort Lowell to River Road on Swam, I could not purposely or were you in nineteen eighty four, We'll see that that was a hard rain, but it wasn't blowing, and it wasn't so hard that you couldn't see. It just rained a long,
long, long time. In four eighty three, eighty three fled I covered a lot of that. I was working cops at that time, so I covered a lot of that and I was out in it because I was working for the newspaper. And that was different than that was different. That was a different rain. That was just like a hard winter rain, but not not where you get out of the car and you drench. I mean, it just rained for a long time, is what it'd been. And
it rained steady for a long time without stopping. That's why we fled. The thing that hit me was the last week when the and you saw this probably on the news, the down power lines on Aina. It was like a big thunder boom and it just knocked like the house and knocked off its foundation. But all the wiring on Aina was knocked down. The so like a few poles. They closed down the streets. Yeaha yahda And I hadn't. I hadn't been through that in my time here where it was just crazy.
They were just kind of like the sticks, little small sticks. So you know it's not the world is changing, yeah yeah this none, this none, Yeah, global work is effectiveness. Okay, before we go political exactly, but you know it was. It was crazy. I've never been anything like it. But where this is? That's I mean. I was happy, right, I got to turn off my sprinklers again. Dame in the and so needs water? Yeah so drenching. Yeah, okay again if
you want to call, we have no time right now. But before we get to to Jake, but five to four forty we had a good show, I thought yesterday with the with the rafts. Some conversations after with other people that I spoke to a good call or two about it. So you know that was a good off topic, off off our usual topics. Yes, yeah, uh, you know, I think people appreciate again that we
do that. You know, it's good for the community, good for uh local stuff and and and you know people kind of need to know what's going on. You know that call. You know, we've got a caller who had never called before, right right and comment. He was really good about you know, situation with that, and so you know it's good to it was good to uh to get into that. And you know, if you're out there and you you can be a ref. You have time to be
a ref. And it's just something that you want to do. You gotta do it, you gotta do it right. Okay, Hey, let's just go to a breakdow because we're down a steam here. Get a hold of Jake and then we can because we're gonna be really with a lot of guests and not a lot of calls with people. Yeah, all right, stick around, we'll be back with Jake Fisher. The window Depot has everything you
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Diez Jacobs Sauce. Now on the phone, we have Jake Fisher for were you a football player? How you doing, Jake? No, fantastic, It's Friday. How are you guys? We're doing well. Glad that you're not in the mountains or wherever you go because there's no phone service. Seriously, I bet you wish you were, though, don't you. Yeah, it's one hundred and thirteen up here right now. We'll get used to
it. Get used to it. Hey, So, I'm sure you kept abreast of what was going on in the Big Twelve and you read everything on your Twitter thing. Any surprises some of the first second team, you know, the all Big twelve teams, you know, I'm surprised, Actually, I'm not surprised. They have Dura as the number one quarterback. I knew they were going to do that. I don't know what it is with their fascination with Colorado and Dion and all those guys, but I definitely thought that
Noah deserved to get the nod to get number one. At least the publication I read they had Shader's number one, and then you know the EA Sports stuff, the fact that you have Travis Hunter as the number one rated receiver in the conference as a joke. I mean, there's so much stuff. And the fact is, you know a lot of these guys they don't you know, they might favor one conference over the other. You know, they
did their homework on one and they didn't really look into another guy. But I mean, if you're going to be doing these ratings, you got to do them fair. And that might just be you know, hometown biased. But the fact that you don't have Tmac is the number one receiver, that just blows my mind. Yeah, no, I think you know, and I've been saying from eleventh, yeah exactly. You know, they've got these two first run NFL Draft picks, but you think they're they're the two best
players. But yeah, you're picking them to finish eleventh in the league. So what are you doing? And yeah, who picked them eleven? The media? The media, Well, the media doesn't know what the hell they're talking about now, you guys. But I was talking about the media poll had had Colorado in eleventh and Arizona in fifth, and I'm like, Okay, so how good of a coach are you or do they think you are?
If you've got a first round NFL quarterback and a first round NFL wide receiver or cornerback and you're still picking him to finish, you know, they still think you're the eleventh place team in the league. I don't know. I just know they're going to finish above ASU everyone else. It doesn't really matter to me. I know Arizona's going to be higher than five. I know that Colorado and ASU are going to be towards the bottom, you know,
in order for you to have two potential first rounders. And like on Twitter, I see a bunch of stuff saying like, hey guys, it's time for you to start tanking because Shadur is coming and all this other stuff. It's like, and your pick to be eleventh in the league, and the league is like, you know, it's not top heavy, but it's not like you know, you don't have a bunch of bottom feeters, but still you shouldn't be picked eleven if you got the much talent on your roster.
Yeah, and especially if beyond's this like you know this this heralded coach and you know you're supposed to have like a top two class in terms of you know, transfers and whatnot. The fact that you get chosen eleven, that's just a joke. And you know you have all these ratings and you have the first teamers and all this stuff. It just blows my mind. Yah, what did you make of the event Gandhi or the the Gundhi stuff with Oklahoma State and they're running back? Well, I think it was stupid
what he said. I mean, keep that crap to yourself. You don't want people thinking that it's okay to drink and drive and do all that crap. I mean, you know, you have a ton of these coaches who literally work tirelessly and it's like every now and then they like to grab a beer. But don't say it's what you guys do. You know, don't the fact that you literally just basically gave the kid a pass. You know, I understand having a couple of beers, But the one thing is what
you got to remember is there's no easier way to get home. Now. You got you know, you got uber, you got Lyft, you got all this stuff. So don't send a dumb mess message like that. I mean that was just stupid for him to utter. Well, and you think about this. You know Andy Reid's kid, right, the Kansas City coach. You killed a kid or not. I didn't almost killed a kid. You aimed a kid because he was drunk going home from work. Not even just out, you know, at a bar. He was going home from
work, hammered. And so you have that happening in football. And yet you you come out of your mic gun and you say that, I mean, I just thought, man, and I'll tell you what he's really being ripped. But the point I was making, Yes says he doesn't give a crap what anybody thinks about that. Oh no, you can tell he doesn't. And he's got such good job security. I mean, he probably just says crap like that all the time and he gets away with it. He's a hell of a coach. But I mean, you got to set an
example for these guys. And you know, a lot of the times when you're recruiting some of these folks, they don't come from the best homes. They don't come from you know, families that you know they have the whole nucleus there. And you know, some of these guys, it doesn't matter where they're from. They might not have a father figure. And when you do that he was the head coach or he was a position coach. You come out and you say something stupid like that, it's not going to reflect
well on you. Yeah. Yeah, so let me ask you to tell you this. We had some guys who referee football games here in town, have been doing it for a long time, and I asked him, do you guys you know, you guys are human. Do you guys watch the plays in addition to cover the plays in terms of what they're what they have to do as a job. He says, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, how could you not watch a lot of Falcon's South Point?
Guy? Uh? And then then you mentioned Jake Fisher. I think Jake Fisher's in the sentence with yea with Roberts, I'm thinking you were a stunt. There is no way in hell I should be mentioned that kid. That kid is freaking all world. I made it to college just by working hard with that dude. He worked his tail off. He's got all the guy given talent, and I mean he's as a first rounder and then he looked that good as a rookie even though he was hurt most of the year.
But oh, man, I mean, keep my name out of your mouth. Ja. No, man, you need to ride that one for as long as you possibly can. He literally said, you know, I guess that's fraulent. I can't do that. You might be related to you. But let me say this. I said, because we know you were good, how many how many Division one teams were coming after you one and and this is another point I made, you could be You could be Jake Fisher and be overlooked by so many and have all this time. You know it's
the two star Scoobs and all that stuff. Yeah, I mean two star Scoob. That was a that was a whole different animal. I mean the fact that that dude reached the heights that he did. And I think Arizona was his only major Division on offer. No. I had all the schools coming after me at the beginning, and then a lot of schools ended up visiting. It was at the same time that Adam Hall was getting recruited, and every single time after they left my school, they said I was too
small to be, you know, a linebacker Division one. So I only ended up getting offers like legit offers in terms of like Power five schools by Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. And then I had all those you know, other you know, smaller Mountain West schools and stuff like that, kind of waiting to see if those guys were not going to allow me to commit, you know, if the offers were not committable anymore. So, you know, I had all those schools. You know, I got everyone that
is a Division one player gets random mail. That doesn't you know, it doesn't really mean anything, right, I learned that, but I mean, yeah, those three schools were the only Power of five schools. And then at the last second, Utah called my coach and said that my offer is uncommittable because they filled up their linebacker class essentially when they offered me. It was kind of like, hey, you're either committing now or we're going to
you know, drop your scholarship. So really it came down Arizona Colorado guys. Well, okay, well I'm still proud of you. Go on, Jake, I'm you know what I let you know, we thought cool, he mentioned a guest on our show with b John Robinson. That's how we took that. So we were you know we're we're happy to hear your name in there. Well, you know what your guys show is going to make it if you guys can get bees on on. We tried, tried,
We have tried to believe it or not. Hey. So you know one of the things that that you know, we talked about and that I talked about we've been talked about again today is you know when when we were kind of when PAC twelve was going through its stuff and the Big twelve was stepping on the PAC twelve's neck and the Big everybody and then and we thought what a jerk Brent Brett Yormark is. And then now that he's our commissioner, we're like, Okay, he's our jerk, and we're happy to have him
because I feel like we've got a commissioner that's fighting for the conference and trying to do things as opposed to what we've had before. How do you feel about that? I like it. I like it. The media day, he said Arizona was the top priority of the four corner schools because you know, it's a college town, which damn near every single Big twelve school is a college town. You don't have professional sports there. You got to you
know, a community that's proud of the university. Obviously, it's the best basketball league in the entire country bar none. There's literally no competition when it comes to that. And the fact that we had a hell of a football team last year, so you know, I know that he I know that football drives in most of the revenue, but you know, it says something
to have the best basketball league. And then the fact that he's being aggressive going out and trying to get even bigger brands to bring into the Big twelve family. You know, he's a businessman, he's not you know, he's basically not taking any days off. You know. Obviously the last to Pack twelve commissioners basically it was almost like they were just you know, part of a you know, part of the country club and they didn't want to go out, get dirty and work and this dude. You know, it's nice
feeling wanted, right, especially when stuff like this happens. For us to be in a position to be one of the top dogs to get you know, basically to move over into a new conference. You know, it just goes to show that we set ourselves up to you know, because there's going to be more expansion. There's going to be you know, the acc is plug gonna end up blowing up. I'm just happy that we're set for that next round of movement because we're gonna be you know, we're gonna get more
money. You know, we're still going to be attractive to players in the state of Texas, probably even further east now. And basketball is going to continue doing what it does. And you know, I think coach Brennan and those guys are set up to take a football program into kind of a you know, a new level, completely off the wall. I just thought of this. It just came to me. I get ideas like this all the time. Would you like to see Nebraska get back into the Big twelve.
I would like to see Nebraska just have a freaking winning season at this point. I know Matt Rules a hell of a coach. If they had a decent quarterback last year, they probably would have won seven or eight games. Like that's how insane it was. Like, I think they were second in
entire country in terms of turnovers and their quarterbacks were absolutely awful. You know, every now and then they'd get a deep ball because the defense would get sucked up because they didn't think we could throw it, and then our receiver was just fast enough to run under it and catch it. But you know, the fact of the matters, I'd like to see them get to a couple of bowl games because, I mean, they're set up for the future
really nice. They got a couple of really good recruiting classes going, They have a lot of good players. They've been able to attract a lot of really good transfers, and I think, not ruling those guys are going to turn it around. But I'd just like to see them have a couple of winning seasons. Obviously them being in the Big twelve. Getting to see my school and then obviously the school that my entire family roots for play against each other, that would be pretty cool, though, Yeah, no question.
I I don't know, I felt I needed to ask you that, but I just, you know, it's just it hasn't gone well for Nebraska since they went to the Big Ten. You know, we talked about, you know, getting a little too big for good. The first few years were good, and then they'd win ten games and then Nebraska fans would be like, well, this isn't Nebraska football. We're supposed to be competing for Natties and then the next two coaches they brought in kind of just ran it into
the Yeah. Yeah, so we've talked about this. I think maybe a time or two with you before. Fifth place in the Big twelve probably better
than that, don't you think. Yeah. I think we're you know, at least top three, and I think we're one of the only two or three that actually have a legit chance to win the league because because you've got the quarterback that's been there, you've got the offensive line that's been there, with the exception of obviously one of those starting five, you've got a really solid running back room. Other than Temac. The receivers, you know, they got to step up. But I think the I think this new coaching
staff is going to find a way to do it. And then look on the defensive side of the ball, as long as that defensive line you know, can rush the passer, which, by the way, Dwaynea Keina is one of those guys that knows how to use the safeties to you know, throw in the blitz packages and get to the quarterback. But you got probably the best linebacker in the entire conference. I think the best secondary in the
conference. You know, aside from maybe Kansas by if we can fill that one corner slot and we can put a composite linebacker there next to Jacob Manu, you know, I don't see a reason why we couldn't have just as good of a defense, and then I think our offense is going to be the exact same. Yeah, I mean why not. Yeah, we're talking to Arizona line former Arizona linebacker Jake Fisher. What did you think of Jacob Manu by the end of the year, right, I mean he just came
on. I mean by the end of the year he was like a great linebacker, not just a really good linebacker. Yeah, I said it. There's been three, you know, a couple of different tiers, but there's been three linebackers since my senior year in college that I've seen that can walk in as a freshman and play right away. Obviously Scooby, who I ended up playing with, and then the next year he just kind of took off of the life of his own. It was just ridiculous how crazy he went.
Then you had Colin Schooler, and then you have Jacob Manu. I think Manu and Scooby are kind of in a tier by themselves. You know, I think Schooler basically didn't have the defensive line to keep him, you know, clean. But I mean those two are unbelievable. I mean, he scrapes off of off of, you know, the line really well. He knows how to get off blocks. He can do better, which he said in his interview, But you know, he sticks you. He's very
instinctual. He just kind of is always around the ball. And you know, as an inside linebacker kind of the leader of that defense, if you don't see him around the ball, there's something wrong. Yeah, So the fact that he's always there, he hits you, and you know he kind of knows what he's doing. And the fact is, you know, towards the end of the year and some of those blitz packages, i mean, he looked awesome. So I'm excited to see him and we might have two
more years of him, So you know, that's awesome. Do you zero in on him? Do you watch him when you're watching the game, Yeah, of course, I mean you know that. I mean imagine just going through five years of doing nothing but watching you know yourself on film and watching whoever the hell you're back BI is or whoever's in front of you. I mean that's kind of you know where you gravitate towards. I mean, you talk to anybody else. I'm that played and you know, played a lot
at the college level. That's probably the first thing they look at. You know, you watch a game and it's like, all right, well what is he doing? And then if you watch a replay, then you watch other things. But yeah, ike and on the linebackers. Okay, so we were ending our time with you. Now what's going out with your with your job, with your business. Yeah, Arizona Health Insider Guys, if you want affordable health insurance, you don't want to have to pay copays,
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All right, guys, see it he will guys. Jack Fisher, Hey, we'll take the break because we've got to take some time and then get come back talk and then we're gonna get right. We're gonna get Graham Rosini, the athletic director at ACE. You had three forty five. He's gonna call in. So I had to correct that on social media. I butchered that again. So anyways, we'll have a chat with the ACU athletic directors. I'll stick around. If you're an Arizona men's basketball fan, you
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or call picture Rocks, Cooling, eating and plumbing. It's not hot flashes. We're calling picture rocks, cooling, eating and plumbing right now at five two zero four, nine, two zero seven or eight Chicksucks, pulling and plumbing. Dreamy Live, I mean, iHeartRadio WAF. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back to One in the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve, He's Jay. We have one with us. We have sixteen
minutes. We actually have might maybe four. We're expecting a call from the A D. Right from the A C A D. Graham Rosini's supposed to call in here in the next five minutes. Or so, you know, they're going through a lot of the stuff that is going through. They're going through the transition going to the Big twelve. They've got their own financial challenges going on, a lot of things. You know. Look, you know it's very similar to what what we're going through down here. So be interesting
to see new a d right. I mean there's two new athletic directors. That's the two at the at the these two Arizona schools, right right, Well, we'll see kind of what his message is and hoping to move forward as the boss. Yeah, Now he's a guy who's been in the department for a while, right, He's he's you know, hired from within. So but you know what, what are the challenges he's facing. I guess
what, you know, what we're able to talk about. We're only gonna have about ten minutes with him, so it's kind of going to kind of go fast. But we'll see what what we can we can get from from that. You know, I'm most interested in kind of the logistics of what are going through. You know, all these schools are going through to move to the Big twelve, right, they got to do everything. I gotta put new logos on everything, logos, on the fields, logos, on
the courts, logos, on the letterhead. You know, I mean just the massive amount of stuff that's got to be done to make this transition. Yeah, you know that that's a I mean, there's a lot of work that takes place, and it's just for survival, right, just to stay where you are, right, just to stay where you are. Yeah. No, it's tough. You know, it's like a middle class family who's
trying to get by but save a little money. Yeah, good luck with that, because you're just trying to survive day to day exactly, and you're buying new houses all the time, right, right, right, I mean they're having to put into you know, everybody's having to put stuff into facilities. They just redid their stadium. There's just a lot of stuff. And I don't know these jobs, Steve, you know, these ad jobs aren't
what they used to do. No, of course, you're not what you signed up, right, You're not just managing the sport now, You're you're managing you know, the facility of war. You're managing you know, situation where you've got to start paying players. You gotta set you gotta set money aside to do that, and that means you got to go raise more money.
And and you know they talk about how you know, head coaches, particularly head football coaches and basketball coaches, you know, they spend as much time you know, on the outside stuff as they do, you know, on the court. Yeah, you know, yeah, no, no, it's they get paid pretty handsomely to do this job, right, But it ain't a fun job. It's not easy. That's job it used to be. Maybe I don't even know. I don't think it was ever easy, you know, but it's just different. But there's just more to so much
more to it anymore. And I don't know, we'll see, I guess, you know, if you're a new if you're a new a d like he is, Yeah, this is what you signed up for. But you know, if you were alive and good, right and had been in the business for you know, so many years, and all of a sudden it becomes this, that's not what you signed up for, right, And we'll talk about that too, hopefully you have some time, you know, ten minutes. Yeah, So you know, it's a I don't know, man,
it's it's it's such a whole different world. And for us too, Steven more than here talking about study. What the hell do we know about the finances of athletic department? Right right? No, I remember back in the day, you know, they had this budget of what twenty five million through that basketball only, But now it's it's all these sports that you have
to survive. They just added triathlon right US ago, and now we wonder how long is that going to be, right and other sports along with it, because how are you going to come up with paying these these these moneys and maybe scholarship reductions in football because now you don't have to worry about title nine or you know what I'm saying this the the back and forth or the or the the waging weighing of events. You've got to be really smart to
be in one of these jobs. Uh and uh you know, I mean, you know grammar scene, he's got a you know, business degree, he's got an MBA. You know, I mean you you can't just go in there and wing these jobs anymore, because there's one there's a lot at stake. Let's see if the bone's ringing? U see if that's him? Hi? This is iron? The ball? Is this Graham? Yes, it is Hi? Graham. How are you doing? This is Jay Gonzales. I got my partner Steve Rivera here. Thank you for calling me in.
We appreciate it. Oh my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Just one quick question. How is it being in the Big twelve like everybody else? Yeah, we're excited. It was it felt real this week when we're up in Vegas and you kind of saw these logos around us that we're we're right around the corner. So it'll be it'll be fun. I know that the ad from here Desiree, and we haven't been spoken to her a bunch
of this since she arrived. Were you busy giving the rounds and giving the interviews, the kind of explaining your process or what you're going to be dealing with. Yeah, it was great to just be, you know, right alongside our head coach and the four football players we had there. Got a chance to interact with a lot of media and just for me to meet a lot of the national coverage. Yeah, and you know, put faces with
names and go those relationships. Was wonderful. And then yeah, I get a chance to talk a lot about the exciting things happening all of our issue. So we got to squeeze in a lot here because we know we've got to get off the air at the top here in about ten minutes. But the first thing I want to ask you was, you know you're new in
this job. I know you've been in the department for a long time at a high level, but stepping into the number one position, what was the first thing you felt you needed to do or needed to accomplish to really kind
of get the ball rolling on everything else that's coming your way now. It was really important, you know, right after the announcement, we had a chance to get a decent amount of our team together, you know, summertime and so not everybody was in the building, but we had a already scheduled departmental outing and just got to get the group together and talk about doing this
together. It's not about for the adeas, It's about how do we use our collective talents as an athletics department to go really energize our fan base, fire up our community, and go represent a issue in a fine fashion. And so, you know, we had a six or seven months going through the interim period and wanted to get everybody back together and focused on where we go next and I'm just a big believer that it's not anyone person's responsibility.
It's our entire collective effort that's going to help this thing turn around and continue to improve. How much does it help that you were inside the building to start with? I think it helps a lot. You know, I've came out to ASU when I was eighteen, and I've never left the market, So you know, it was a two time Alumita issue. Was a member
of our baseball program. Was gone for thirteen years while I was with the Diamondbacks, but I was still in the community building relationships that are maintained today. And you know, much like Tucson, Phoenix is a close knit business community and people can be Assu fans and Sun fans and Dbacks fans, and so having twenty five years of history not only an a issue, but also in the valley, in this incredible metro market, I think all that's a
huge advantage. Okay, so you're going to the Big twelve. There's all these things, you know, flying around, You've got nil to deal with, You've got you know, your your teams have transfer portal deal with and all the issues that come with that. You're going to have to start paying players very soon and setting revenue aside. And then and then at the same you got this transition to a whole new league that comes with a whole bunch
of logistical stuff. How was you're going to make him resign from his posession with all that play? You know what comes first? Right? I mean, it's really I mean, how how how does all this come together? How do you not lose your mind trying to get your arms around all of it? You know, in some ways, I think ignorance is bliss and and this is the version of college sports that I know, you know,
I was. I've been away from it for thirteen years and coming back in at the beginning of the transfer portal era and nil and just you know, being a part of this constant state of change. And then certainly over the last year, as we were navigating conference realignment going into we've joined a new hockey conference as well. So we're not only going in the Big twelve, but we're going into a brand new conference for exciting hockey program and leadership changes
and and class action settlements. I mean, we're navigating change all around us. And where it's a benefit, in my opinion, is that we've been under the hood on all of it. We haven't had to be episodic or one change after another, or one year it's the move in the Big twelve, and the next year it's the leadership transition. We're able to really look at it across the board and say, how do we make the best decision that puts us in the best position for success across all the change around us,
and just embrace it. It's evolving. I don't see as challenges. I do think that there's new new doors opening as a result of all this change, and we just want to be able to maximize the moment. I remember back in the day when we covered the news sports in the newspapers were talking to Jim Livgod. I think some of the worries the AD's had back Daniel was worrying about the kids, the five hundred and some student athletes not
getting into trouble doing some crazy things. That's just a side thing. Now you have money issues. I'm sure you're a dad. You know, sorry, son, I can buy this because we don't have it. It's almost like that's the case every day in athletics today. Yeah, i'd said the
environment of the business of college sports. Its certainly changed, but the focus is still our student athletes, and that's got to be the driving force and everything that we're doing, where despite how the environment around them is changing, we're still here to resource our head coaches, to put our young people who they're with every single day and the best position for success, not only for the sport, but also as a young person in the world, finding their
way through young adulthood, academically, pursuing their passions, their hobbies, et cetera. You know, Commissioner your Mark has said this a lot lately, that there's no better time to be a student athlete. I tend to agree. I just think that they've got new doors open to them that we didn't have when I was in this environment, and so we need to be mindful of how do we help them utilize the tools that are available to them.
And that is a you know, certainly a huge departmental focus that they issue is making sure that we don't lose sight of their students before their student athletes. And they're also young people that are navigating a very complicated world around them, and that's got to be the north star and everything that we put in front of them. Yes, how we how we get to Saturday may change,
but Saturday is still Saturday. And there's nothing more special than college athletics and the dollars that we raise and the dollars that we put into it are benefiting young people. And I just feel like there's not a better time in
the world to be putting more productive young people out into society. So with so much stuff, so much of this stuff, you know, so up in the air, particularly this whole issue of the revenue sharing piece, how hard is it to kind of figure out what directions you got to be going on some stuff? Right, You're going to have to at some point. The numbers are something like twenty million dollars you're gonna have to be sharing with
athletes and that kind of stuff. How can you look ahead and how can you plan for the future when you've got something like that looming in front of you, Well, it's ironically helpful to know what it's going to look like moving forward, and you can really start to build a plan on how we're
going to get there. And we're prepared to compete. We're prepared to be in every conversation with what we can provide for our student athletes to enrich their experience, and even as compensation enters the conversation, we're going to be prepared to meet that moment. And you know, we've got the luxury of time, but it's not a lot of time, and so there's a lot of
planful decisions that we need to make. It may make the budgeting process and how we financially forecast look a little differently, and we really need to challenge ourselves across every decision we make of how is this dollar spent benefiting a young person in their journey through sport, How does this allow us to showcase what's happening at ASU, and just redirect how we're spending dollars to be in alignment
with the goals and objectives of what we're here to do. And so, yes, it may cost more money, but you know that's where I feel like being in a major research university in a major metropolitan market is a really really important advantage as we move forward, and it's all about resource generation and we're lucky to be an incredible market as a part of an incredible state.
We have people move into Arizona and ways that most other parts of the country aren't enjoying, and that's just a chance for us to connect, build more fans, sell more tickets, energize our fan base, and reinvest all those dollars into what college sports is going to look like moving forward. So, Grem I've been here thirty some years, covered a little issue, but a lot of Arizona. Jay has been here for all his life. And the phrase we use, and we've used probably too much, is a issue is
a sleeping giant. We've said that for years and years. Do you still feel that and is it maybe overused? And you guys use a different term. Well, I mean, if that's the case, we want to be the group that wakes up a sleeping giant. I'm very bullish on the opportunity
in front of us. I think we're part of an incredible community of a issue fans and again, having that combination of enormous university that's contributing in all levels of society, that's in the backdrop of a growing, incredible metropolitan market like we have in Phoenix. That's a really important advantage for a issue and we'd be foolish if we don't lean into that. And you know, Michael Crow, our president, has made the full strength of the issue behind what
we're doing in athletics. It's a really important investment into the work that we're doing. And you know, I'm excited about everything that's coming at us and how do we just fully utilize the strength of the issue in the athletic space we're moving forward and so yeah, I think there's tremendous opportunity and there's tremendous
upside. We've got a great trend line from many of our sports having a lot of success, and many of them already and certainly getting football, mental, women's basketball, baseball on track and not looking back is a huge focus of ours right now. Well, let me follo up a little bit on that. We're talking to Graham Rosini, athletic director at Arizona State. Graham, what's got you most fired up about moving this first season in the Big
twelve for all your teams? And then what's got you sort of maybe a little worried, I'm say worried, but just you know something that you feel like, Okay, we've really got to pay attention to this. Yeah, we just really need to embrace the change and this is the direction that we're moving. We're fully embracing it as we get ready for Haugust second and entering the Big twelve. I do think it's really important that we're maintaining the rivalry
with University of Arizona. I just could never imagine a world where the two of us weren't together. There's just too much history. This rivalry is really important, as obviously your listeners know, and you know, I grew up in the southeast around Alabama Auburn. That's a well documented, famous rivalry. I really put the asu U of a rivalry right alongside it. I just think that there's an intensity and a passion across each fan base that's really unique.
It's a lot of fun, it gets emotional at times, as it should, but it's a really meaningful rivalry. And the fact that we maintain the part that is most important as we move forward is intact and that's a really good benefit. And then you know, we get the benefit of going into the Big twelve alongside U of A and Colorado and Utah and having that connection with those universities. That's been a really unique and valuable part of our
Pact twelve experience. And then understanding that there's twelve universities that are willing to welcome us with open arms, and it'll be different. Admittedly, it'll be different ways that we can't get no until we experience the first cycle of it. But I'm really excited for these campuses that will visit. We've we've been lucky. You know, Desiree has been in a lot of the meetings alongside us, and to a person, the Big twelve room has been very welcoming.
They're excited about what ASU and U of A bring into this conference. You know, certainly athletically, but academically and our society impact. All those things are positive attributes. But there's some great universities that will compete against and we'll build new traditions and new rivalries, and we'll experience new parts of the country as a result of it. And uh and again, we're just excited to get any other eye into the transition and start life in the Big twelve.
We only got about fifteen seconds. G I please tell me you were a short stop or second basement, because you were a smart man. I was a catcher, but I'm sick five, so I should have been a picture that would have been maybe the better long term decision but yeah, I was so good I ended up behind the desk. That's all you need to Thanks you, thanks for joining us. N we appreciated best, best eluct this season. Thank you, Thank you. Look forward to seeing you.
Great, great, great timing, awesome good stuff. All right, we'll be right back. We'll be here at the top of the hour with breaking news with one stick around