Monday, August 21, Hour 1

This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services. Hey sure your most prized possessions, kat z R two side and iHeart Radio Station The Good Afternoon. Everybody. Welcome to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, i'mong side partner Jay Gonzalez and well, well, well look with the wildcat got dragged in. It's Noah, No, I'm good to see you. No, good to see both of you, guys. It's been

a while. I swear. It feels like I'm taking a year off. At the same time, it feels like you guys were yelling at me ms sleep last. Our biggest question to you though, did your dad know what you're doing here? Don't think so. Are we that bad that that that our interns keep us a secret from their parents. It's funny because no one said last day, last Friday, Jason he said he didn't it doesn't know

he was doing this stuff. I did, Jason. Well, I mean, well, but there's a whole bigger conspiracy there because Jason is supposed to be in pre mad then studies in journalism and his dad doesn't know that. Oh so, I mean that's the thing. And if you if he told his dad what he was doing, he'd be disappointed because it's because it's not pre mad, right right? If I don't know why he doesn't just say that you guys are just pre mad. It's a prema. I think that's

what he did. He said. I think he said, they said, I worked with these two guys. They're like doctors. Doctor. Doctor gets out that if you disaster well practice insurance, you should totally take you know, health health advice, especially considering stress from betting. It's it's it's what not to do, exactly, that's what not to do. Don't let your bodies get like this. Yeah, you know, we're bad examples exactly. Good to have you back, Noah, have you here from time to time.

Let's see if you can remember which buttons could push though today. So that's some stuff going on. And let me tell you, Noah, if you haven't heard this already, the biggest trump in college life is from a freshman to your sophomore year. So we're expecting great things from you. I expect I expect the same, if not more, in return. Good, good luck with them, you know, wait for you got to know noise that we are on the down. We're getting worse by the day, not

Better's gonna get a second wind, hope. So that's it. Good second wind was like twenty five years ago, the only one that I gets from the from the vent, the little things you put in your nose and the oxygen tank. I wanted to have that. Don't don't say wind to Steve. No, no, you got all kinds of wind. Yeah, I got a lot of wind. She ate some lunch. We're happy to have you, man. Yeah, good good day to day Monday. We're back obviously soggy Monday, but it's okay. Uh, we're gonna have a couple

of things, a lot of things on it. Well. Philip Stewart, the head football coach at Mirana that you know there, there's their their field got flooded in last in last week's storm. They're really banged up on Miranna. I mean, I didn't gonna drop of rain that day at my place, but they got I mean their school got torn up there. Oh yeah, they were. They were out of school the next day. The field was underwater. A lot of repairs over the weekend they were doing some work

out there and one of the cool things. Again you don't you don't see it in a lot of places. Maybe you do, but I like to

think that Tucson has some of this. But uh, you know, Morana opens with Cell Point on Saturday. On Friday at Cell Point, a game that we've been talking about that we want to go to get a look at the You have a recruits that are on the South Point defensive line, but a bunch of the South Point football players went over to Mirana to help work on the field because they want to play them, which is I don't tell coach Stewart that we're gonna go for that reason, but a really cool thing

to see. But we'd like to check in with coach Stewart. Let let tell us what's going on with this team, what's going on with this facility, how they're managing through this and and you know how they're going to get through it, and then talk about his team because they're supposed to be really damn good, right right, right, so a good year. And then we're gonna have our guy Justin Spirits on the other out of four o'clock, right, we want we want justin to give us his uh his thoughts on

on fall camp, which officially ended Sunday. The According to Jed uh as a post scrimmage press conference Saturday, the players have today off to get themselves situated at school, the first day of school at the OVA, and then they were gonna have a team a team barbecue, I presume at Jed's house. Maybe not. I mean wherever it is, it's you know, it's a team thing. So and then they began prep in earnest tomorrow for uh or the opener with an AU right right, So let me we got we

got time here. We have some clips ready to go. Baby, we'll listen to one or two just before we get to that. What with your naked eyes? What did you see? I saw guys right, They've got guys and guys that come in and out. They can play a lot of guys. You don't see a big drop off when you see a new guy go go out on the field, whether it's a on the line or in the defensive backfield, even you don't know if a feed I thought looked really

sharp. The running backs they got, they got four guys who're gonna run the ball. This year. Uh, and they're gonna use all four and they use them in different ways. I still think, I still think Michael while is going to be the guy. But I you know, you got uh, you saw speedy look carry the ball and get out and get out in space. The receivers are who we thought they were, right, they're out there catching balls and there. But there's a bunch of those guys.

So I think, to me, it's not so much it's hard for me to tell how much better they're doing things. It just looks like there's more guys to at at at a higher level. As I was looking through the sidelines. Uh, and maybe it's my it's my being here too long. Is it's it's still small. But they're bigger than the past and they were, so you know what I'm saying, it's it's bigger but still kind of you know, yeah, they got they still got catching up to do.

Yeah, but you know the linemen are bigger, Uh, particularly the offensive lineman. They got more guys, you know, Jacob Cowen and and and uh and Temac looked the same to me, and a lot, you know a lot of people said team Mack got a lot bigger. He looks the same he is. Maybe he's stronger, maybe he's putting on some weight. Uh, and maybe he was carrying it differently last year. But he's still out there catching balls. And he looks, uh it looks confident. He

looks like he knows exactly what he's supposed to be. They're not gonna miss a beat there, They're not gonna be And then wide receivers, Uh, it was it Cowen who who had that great catch around the reverse Keen. He looks good, obviously, the kid from Colorado, Montana, alimonious Craig. He looks like a guy now. He looks like a physical uh, kind of a smart guy too, bigger, you know, a bigger receiver than than Arizona normally has. Like he's six two, but he looks well

built. He's gonna break some tackles. Did you and the backup? Were you there when you We had a chance to interview him, Very very good, very well spoken. He wants to be in the sports journalism commentating type. Away, very bright. Yeah, we told him with show him a thing or two. Good looks a billion but so so they're gonna look great. I mean, and let me say this, let's go to let's go

to my question and I'm gonna preface this. This was my column on Saturday Saturday and only asked one or two questions because, Jay, if this team is any good, If this team is any good, what's it going to depend on? Defense? The defense has got to get better, right, So everyone talks about the you know they're gonna be seven games with games, but no one talks about that side of the ball. Yeah, they they got that's got to be better. So that was kind of like my question

to Nance, just to see where they're at right now. Yeah, here's what John Johnny Nancer had to say about the progression of his defense. Is this camp it's coming along, you know, you know, it's you know, last year was a lot of it was neil because you know, before then there was man free type of defense where you just covered the guy now would claiming more of his own. So there's a lot of teaching, there's a lot of learning uh checks and things like that. And I think these

guys has been in the system now for a couple of years. It's really helping. So I like where we're at, am I please know, there's a lot of things we need to work on you know, too many penalty in the night. That's not going to help us. Uh, you know, our techniques got to be cleaned. Uh, you know so. But the one thing I like, we're playing with great efforts. So I like

where we're at as far as the defense. Yeah. So, and that's hard to that's hard to see on Saturday because they didn't really tackle right. It seemed like because they weren't tackling the front line guys, they weren't tackling the starting receivers, they weren't tackling the running back. You know. Jed mentioned in one of the clips, I think we'll even play it that it's hard to tell was that a three yard game or a thirty yard game.

It looked it looked like when those guys had the ball, it was kind of three quarters speed. So I think they were looking more of you know, our guys in the right place. They now, the second line guys. Yeah, they were tackling and stuff like that, but you know, they were just making sure that they got out of this camp healthy, healthy and with with you know, feeling like they accomplished what they needed to accomplish.

We did ask, We did ask Jed, you know what he thought overall of how things went in this camp, and he talked about that. But then again, as as Johnny Nansen said, they're very disappointed with the penalties in the scrimmage securdy night. On a positive side, we practiced the right way. We took care of our teammates. As you know, we tackled some groups, we didn't tackle other groups. We all stayed healthy,

We worked hard. We got a lot done out of that practice. Situational didn't matter if we hit a thirty yard pass, we brought the ball back, didn't matter if there was an interception. It was all scripted exactly how we've done it in other teams that I've been a part of in the past. On this night, this night is a really important night that we become

a really good situational football team. We gotta practice backed up, we gotta practice when we're inside to five, we gotta practice third and longs and some of the things that occurred two minutes twice. What we also need to do is learn from penalties. And I was about as disappointing. I just talked to the team about that that it was a great wake up call, and all of a sudden you know, there's a little bit louder music. You

know, you're in the stadium, you've got different situations. You're not paying attention to the yard markers. You don't realize, Oh, it went from second and five to third and ten. Now you're peeking, you're looking, you're moving your feet, and you're not disciplined. And we had ten penalties on offense, eight on defense, two in the kicking game. And you know, they know it now and they'll talk about that, and the leaders in there talked about it, and that is not the standard or the expectation.

The standard is what I see out there when guys are getting ext your work right now is the fact that it's going to be constant. How hard can we go, how much better can we get? What can we do to find a way to become a great football team? And turning the ball over a couple of those. We challenge guys to make some plays, but

we got to learn from that. And then obviously the penalties were the biggest concern for me to Yeah, one of the things that I remember just now and noticing stuff because I'm not We'll we'll have Justin's he's paying attention to this stuff. Was that speedy Luke once he got the ball and was in space. Wow? Yes, Wow. So obviously they're coming up with schemes to get that done. And he says he doesn't want to make it obvious,

but he's probably a nice decoy too. Yeah, They're they're gonna run him, you know, you know, up the middle and stuff like that, just so that they know that every time he comes in. They're not gonna you know, shoot him out in space. But there that's the idea with him, And they got to get him, you know, out in the open because he only he will make guys missing. He is really he's bugsy. I mean he's you know, insect like, you know, buggy where he can just get out of get out and run. Yeah, he's yeah,

he's very jukey, you know, just whatever. That is the one that words he is. All right, let's buy one more clip. This is jet Fish talking about his defense and then he gets into the running backs a little bit. Yeah. I think we continue to improve in that area. It's nice to see the competition. I thought Genesis Smith jumped in there and made one or two really nice plays. Martell Irby got a pick.

I think I had a chance to catch one on a fourth and one on a throwback went through his hands, but I think he made some plays. Dalton made some good plays. So all four safeties and then gunner Maldonado showed up again as a good tackler. So those five safeties and Nickels are all competing at a high level. I think Stoke's is really showing what it looks like to work at that level at the D line. We rotated all in.

I'll have to watch the tape to see what it looks like. It's very hard when you're going against not when you're not tackling our running backs, it's hard to tell if that's a three yard or a thirty yard game. So I think that our backs are really good. Dj is really hard to tackle, Mike Wiley's really hard to tackle, Jonah's really hard to tackle. And Speedy got out in space today and Speedy showed what he can do. We had him run some routes, we had him catch the ball, and

it was nice to watch all those guys. And then Stevie Rocker had a couple of plays are at the end as well. Yeah, well, I mean just exactly what we said, Uh, it'd be nice to see Rucker come on emerging. He's still young, he is, he's what a sophomore? Yeah, you know, I mean I was. I got out there, I was looking. First of all, it was a great night. Oh they got was the weather perfect? I'm like, and Jed we'll play

this clip later. But Jed talked about if if there's a weather like this in two weeks and there's not fifty thousand people out there, you know it's not because of the weather, right, because that was spectacular, spectacular night. Don't many of those. But uh, but you know, I think, you know, he I was disappointed that, you know, when I saw in the first play that they were tackling and going full speed and stuff

like that. But I get it, you know, yeah, they they probably feel, Look, we got we got a shot at something here. We're not gonna we're not gonna get somebody hurt because we want to hit hard in our in our last scrimmage of the of the of camp. Right, Okay, so cool, Let's go to the break and then get ahold of the coach Stewart. Ye, Philip Stewart, the head coach and Marano High

School coming right up and talk about their situation over there. Plus, they've got a huge game coming up against South Point on Friday on Friday Night,

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the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He's jacomes Oss. Now on the phone, we have Philip Stewart, the head coach at Marana Tigers Football. How what are you, coach? I'm doing all right. How's it going? We're doing fine? Thank you? You are very very busy. How are things going up there? Well? Today a little things will a little bit more relaxed. We was able to get back to the school after having the council last Friday, So today we're just looking

at the after mask. So tell so, tell us what's the situation today, and you know, I mean, what's the what's the prognosis? You know, when are you guys gonna be able to use your field and what are you gonna do until then? So as of right now, or we've been practicing on our backfield the whole summer, so we've been having a place to practice. As far as our home games have nothing been re scaled with

Jess yet. But I think just talking with the turf guys, I think we might have to miss our first home game, but he said he should get it back for the second home game. Well that's had of right now. Well that's good news. Yeah, So we saw that a bunch of Cell Point guys came over over the weekend. You guys were doing some doing some work or whatever. Wait, what what did you guys do? And

how did that come about? So, so what happened was once that storm had came through the other day, our turf was being new, like laid. It was just not getting laid, but the guys wasn't done yet, and when that storm came, it kind of picked up the turf and like rolled it all the way up. And the guy had told me instead of using the big tractors to unrolled. It would rip. We needed a lot

of manpower, We need a lot of hands. So our community did a good job of coming out and getting the word out to a lot of people in the South Point Head Coach Rogers ended up reaching out to the accident. Wasn't okay for his boys to come and help, you know, he didn't want those seniors to miss out on our home game, so his players came over to kind of give us a Linden help. Very nice. Awesome,

that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, very was awesome. It was a good sight to see, you know, everybody putting in the differences aside to come out and help for the greater goods, right right, and they're gonna be one of the tougher teams. And you guys are gonna be pretty good too. What do you think about your your your team so far and what's our head? Well, my our team, we had a good summer this year. It was a real good summer. Went up to camps as ownA to

finish our year off, to finish the summer off. So and we've seen some good things up there. I scrimmaged the other day versus Rising and Coronadale, So pretty Goodwood, pretty good teams out and seen it and we felt like we did pretty well on Wednesday night. So we were looking good going into the season and we're excited. So you've got uh, you've got Seth Point coming up on Friday. Has think this disrupted your preparation for that and uh what are you? What are you guys gonna do to get ready?

It hasn't really messed up out our preparation because, like I said, we haven't been on the field all summer. Right, we haven't been on the field the whole summer, So it hasn't really messed up bout preparation. Today we're about to have our first meeting after school to start our game plan for uh the South Point. So as of right now, you know, it

ain't really affected the boys, ain't. No, I'm gonna try to do a good job and the coaches this week to kind of keep their mind focused on the one thing at hand, and that's playing South Point on Friday night. So how big of a challenge will that be as far as a challenge as far as keeping them focused. Since it's not a home game, it

was never scheduled to be a home game. We knew it was going on the road anyway, So I don't think that part is gonna secause I think next week because our home game was supposed to be next week, but we're gonna have to be on the road because the field won't be done well. I think next week will come with the challenge of all we have to go back on the road again and stuff like that. So I think this week will be fine due to the fact that we knew we was already going on

the road. All right. So you guys are coming off at ten two season, got into the playoffs, got a couple of games in there. South's deliberate about your team. Uh, you know what, you know some of the expectations, some of the guys that you expect to be key for you. So I think, you know, the expectation for the team is to get back to where we were. You know, we felt like we let ourselves down last year with the performance we gaze at the end of the

season. But I think this year I got a big senior class with the mindset of, hey, we want to go win it off for Marana, and they didn't been there through the bad teams. They hadn't been there with the good teams. So right now they're trying to get the younger guys to get up to their level, raise they level of play. So, like I said, this summer has really been fun watching these seniors kind of take these young guys under they win and kind of say, hey, this is

the way we do things around here. We're gonna need everyone to get to where we're trying to go. So we gotta like our senior linebacker Marcus guns Oles. He has stepped up real big for us to be to lead us on defense. My quarterback Jason Wood, he's stepping into the quarterback role this year. And then we got you know, dead in the role but coming back at the running I'm at receiver. And then we have Jalen Collins,

another returning guy on the other outside receiver. So we got a lot of guys returning and like I said, a lot of guys did real good things for us, and some as far as stepping up as far as that leadership role, well, I'm excited to see them play. It's been a while. I mean, you guys have been consistently good for a while. Now,

what's going on with Mariana football. I don't know. I think it's something in the water, to be honest, I just think, man, the one thing that I do preachers family, and I think everybody is just coming together, and the more we come together, the better we do. Like this week, this past weekend showed an example of what I mean about being a family. The whole Tiger community was to come out and helps us

get that turf on role. And just seeing that, you know, just brings a smile to my face because that's what I've been preaching for us to get where we're trying to go, We're gonna have to do it together as a family. End. I think it's starting the show, and it's starting to showing the field like we're we're brothers and we're doing it all together and it's showing. So it's it's funny, but that may have been a godsend, if you will, and part of the expression because it helps you show

who's with you and who's not right yep, yep. And my thing is things like to me, I don't want to say it's supposed to happen, but it makes the story sound it makes the story even better. YEA, our journey to the state title. We had to go through this hurricane at the beginning of the season. It just makes it all sounds better. So I think, man, what happened. It happened last week. I think

we've passed that. I don't think we should get another hurricane. But I think that's gonna help us, you know, write a beautiful end and at the end of the story. So you mentioned you've got a new quarterback this year, and we all you know, from where we set the quarterback is always key when when we're looking at what's going on, tell us a little bit about your quarterback and the things that he brings to the table. Well, he has a very very strong arm. I can tell you that he

can get the ball anywhere on that field. He's very accurate. And one thing he has done this summer has really really stuffed up as a leader. You know, he's getting the receivers going every day at practice, he's uh, he's staying late after practice going over film with me, asking me questions that you usually don't get from players. He wants to be great, you know, he has a chip on his shoulder. He wants to show everybody that he can play as the quarterback position. So I'm excited for him.

I've seen him today this morning. He was like, coaching, are you ready to go? And I'm like yeah, and he was like, well, what's the game plan? I said, patience. So he's very very excited, you know, to get to see him today after school to kind of go over the game plan so he can so he can get ready and prepare his mind for Friday. But like I said, this summer, he really really has taking the next step and I'm I'm just I can't wait to

see him play. I'm very excited for him. And like I said, he has a chip on his shoulder, so he's gonna do great things for us this year. And I think the whole coaching staff and the players around him is excited for him. Also, is he being looked at the places? So as of right now, he got a few small schools looking at him. But again I don't think nobody really knows about him, so it's gonna be a shot to a lot of schools. But we have been seeing

him the last few years how he has developed. In this year he gets his chance at the quarterback position, and I just think he's going to explode this year. And Pop gonna be like, where did this guy come from? He's always been here, you know what I'm saying. And I think this is his opportunity to kind of show everybody that he can play the quarterback

position. So so you know what it's like to have You know, you've got Jordan Morrigan from from Ranta out at the out at the the U of A. South Point's got a couple of guys uh going over to the U of A on the defensive line. What kinds of challenges do they pose for you guys? Uh? You know, defensively, I mean they're gonna they're you know, they're good, and so what do you what do you?

How do you look at that? So to me, and like I told my players and my coaching staff, you know, we've been hearing everything that South Point has to have the big D line, to have the big D line, and that's all I keep hearing. And my question to my players was, as any of those D line gonna cover us in space? Because they just play D line. I haven't heard nobody mentioned the dbs, the receivers, the quarterbacks, the linebackers. The only thing they keep mentioned to

us is the D line. And I'm like, well, somebody got to cover those receivers. You know what I'm saying, somebody's gonna have to cover that running back in space. It's just a lot of things that we have a lot of weapons, and they only mentioned it to us as the D line. And like I told my players, we're not going to worry about what they have. We're gonna do what we do best, and that's play fast on every phase of the game, on every phase of the game.

So it's kind of a curse, but not a bad one where you'll find out exactly where you need to improve where you can you know what I'm saying, You'll know what you what a kind of team you are first game, after the first game, And the last two years we've been preparing for a schedule like this. We've been preparing for a team like this, you know. So each year we have gotten better, and I think this year I

would our schedule with with the strength of it. I believe we've been preparing for us schedule like this, and I think this year we'll be able to go out and show people we are over here working. We do have good athletes. You know, we are taking care of business own and off the seal. So I'm excited about it. I can't wait to everybody to get to see what we've been doing over here. So I'm really excited about it.

So so let me ask you. You mentioned you know that you're gonna do what you do and you know guys have to cover you on space and that type of thing. How would you characterize your team? Are you a team that that is gonna that that's how you're gonna, you know, make your bones during the year, you know, getting guy you know, quickness, getting guys out in space. How what what type of team do you think you have? So we we are we were on a spread offense.

If we want five why we like to get five receivers out in the past, so a way we'll attack a lot of defenses with our with our tempo. We're gonna go fast, you know what I'm saying. And we got you gotta be able to cover all those routes. You can't double one guy because not at least another guy. We have a lot of weapons this year at multiple positions, you know, we have this year. So I'm just watching these guys at practice, you know, going in and out of practice.

It's just It's been exciting because we're like, we're faster, we're stronger, and we have a lot more football knowledge this year. So I'm just excited to see them go against another team. And last Wednesday we went down there to Horizon and we scrimmaged Horizon and see the what is that Coronadale soul? We show signs of it like whoa, they are going to be pretty good. And with the Dawes, the twos and even some of our threes

rotating in there, we was able to have success. So I just can't wait for us to display that out on, you know, in a bigger stage. So again I'm excited. I think we have a real good team this year that can do some big things. A pardon my naiva tell or whatever the word is. How long you've been there for a while? How long have you been there? So I've been there. I've been here four years. This is going on my fourth year. This is gonna be my

third year as the head coach. Yeah. I came doing COVID and I end up taking over at Springs. Yeah, and I end up becoming a head coach. Louis Murrie m Mary has had stepped down and I end up taking over, and so this is going to my third year as the head coach. That's kind of how I remember that you're still kind of new with this. How has that come along? Giving your You're you're still a young dude learning some things, but have been successful. Well. To me,

it has been a learning curve. You know. I'm still with my ups and down, still learning. I'm just doing the best I can. Uh. A lot of it. My knowledge comes from what we did back home in Texas. I'm from Houston Decta, so a lot of my football knowledge comes from that. I played at a high level. So I have a lot of stuff that I'm trying to teach each and where one of these kids.

A lot of my coaching staff they have played. They have played at the college level also, so they are able to give back a lot to the kids. And I think with a combination of all of it, we are we are able to have successful seasons because you know, most of my coach has been there, they have played it, you know what I'm saying, able to give back to the kids and not able to not only are

they able to they played it, they're able to coach it. You know what I'm saying, a lot of people play football, but how can you coach it? And they are doing great jobs with the individual positions us to be positioned, I mean to be successful. And I'm just getting all the credit because I don't do nothing. That's what I tell them. My coaching staff does a great job of getting the kids ready each I mean each week.

So I'm thankful for them, and I'm just glad that you know they are they doing this with me. This morning, I actually thanks every last one of them and say, hey, it's time to go on the journey that we all talked about this summer and they was excited about it, and I'm excited to well, your time in the NFL. I'm shre has impressed them. They'll listen to you and all that. I hope things in the marina and the water stage fresh. Not the rain, but the water.

A couple of a couple of clouds over right now. I got the football players texting right now, coach, it look like it's gonna rain again. We haven't practice for sure. We're gonna have practice. See people on the watch. We're gonna do something. So, like I said, we're gonna figure out something. This rain trying not to let us be great. But I think it's gonna clear apors so we're able to get out there and prepare for this game we have on Friday. It's for people see clouds. It's

gonna rate it. We never see it here it comes on. We're terrible about that. Used to ride around this time. It's hurricane exactly, so I'm used to the rain early the exactly I've already been preparing for this already didn't have the place takes out if the rains were we gonna each year kind of happened the same every year. And it's funny because you talked about hurricane and you're saying hurricane No, no, Ricane, I've been through. Yeah, hold my beard, that was nothing, man. Yeah. I tell

the kid. I was like, oh, this is nothing. When we get hurricane used, we get a lot of water. Lots of water. Ain't no driving. But thanks coach. All right, coach, looking forward to us seeing you guys up against South Point on Friday night. That'll be It should be a fun game. Well. I appreciate y'all. Man. Anytime I get to talk about the Tigers, man, I'm all for super Thanks, best luck, No problem. Thank you, Good dude. Good d I had forgotten how long he had been there then obviously, uh my

guy have here. He's he played for something, had some time in the NFL, right, so you know the guy knows what he's doing. What he's doing. As he said, we played, you know the guys that got around me and played and then and we know how to coach it, right, Well, they don't. He's gonna be a fun game on. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've definitely blocked it out. I'm gonna go. Yeah, I'm going ten and two. I mean that there were nine to one regular season uh got you know, gotten in

the second round of the playoffs. I gotta be bad. But you know I look gonna say, uh we look across the field. Yeah, you're the one that helped us with the field. We still want to kick. We're getting kicking, try to at least very cool. All right, let's take our break, we'll come back. We'll take your cause and play a little bit more of a jet fishes a post scrimmage press conference on Saturday, and then we'll have breaking news the top of the hour for the first time

this season with Nola all right, man, we'll go back. If you're an Arizona men's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take a look back at the Ludolson era. In my new book, Lessons from Loot. It was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players, coaches, and friends to give insight to the coach and the man who led them, competed against them, and inspired them.

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This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeart Radio Whip Just Surgery. I on the Ball, So welcome back to win the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's jakins Ols. Got a guy Jason from Jason know what they look a lot like? Yes, welcome back. Everybody you want to call, please do five two four one,

six seventy four forty Good talk to Cut Stewart. Yeah, you know he's uh, you know, it didn't sound as bad as I thought it was there, you know, I mean they're they're yeah, their field is underwater, but you know they're gonna get a fixed and they yeah, they may miss a home game, but and they play Tucson High, so they'll probably wound up playing at Tussan, which means play on turf anyway, So

if that's the case, you know they'll they'll be all right. And if they're if the practice field didn't get flooded and they can still practice and do all those things, then you know they'll they'll get through it, right right, Okay, cool, just casually. He's just like their their field is under water, but it's okay, it's okay, right, yeah, yea. So is this like happening with a lot of schools or like just no, they got it. Just they got hit at that you know, Marana

High schoo way way out in the middle of nowhere. It's it's far's there's not a lot out there. No, It's like Jay was saying before the show started, he got no water. I didn't get it drowned. And you know a few across down this place and the down so and I'm not too far from there, you know, given mile a few miles and I got nothing too that day. Yeah, and you're not that far. I

mean, certainly not as far as I am. But it was just one of those weird things that they got hit what's probably called what we call the micro birds because they lifted up some trees and throw on the ground anything. It tore up one of their uh you know, the parking lot, tore ups some of the solar installation and stuff like that. So there was some damager. They didn't even have school the next day, so so it was bad. Welcomes Arizona, welcome here. But but again stewarts from from Houston.

This was this is a slap on the ridge. It was like, hey, hold my beer, did you have any hubboobs up there this year? I didn't. They're small. There was just like us, We just covered there everything. You're like, you're just like the word you say it because you know you can get away with it. Like the stuff. I never knew what did you know what it was? I had never heard of a until a few years exactly what the hell is? Like? I've seen

those. We used to call those dust storms right right, but these are dust jokes on you. I learned about that in like fourth grade did you because you can probably no, that was a few years ago year, as I like to say to my kids that that was the other day. That was probably the same time that we heard him exactly you were you about twenty sixteen or sixteen years ago. You're wondering what the heck is that storm comes

two years ago? So we learned at the same time. Basically, yes, because there was like probably the first one we've had like maybe a hundred years Arizona, and they're like, I gotta teach everyone what they are. Okay, let's get back to some clips. Uh you talked about or Jed Fish talked about his quarterbacks. Yes, yes, he's uh, well, you know he we kind of at the post. We didn't get him for a long time, but we just kind of asked, okay, you give us, yeah, give us the uh you know, update on this.

You know, talk about the defense, talk about the offense, talk and so one of the things that he was asked about, obviously was you know how Jet thought the quarterbacks did during camp. Here's what he had to say. I think the quarterback play was pretty pretty good today, pretty smooth operation. I think we hit on a lot of passes, but I think defensively, they did a really nice job of not just only defending the past, but flushing guys out of the pocket. I mean, there are some times

that we would have taken off and scrambled. I get that, and we're not doing that when we're in red jerseys. For the most part. There's times that I think that we tried to see what some receivers could do with the ball, but all four of the guys went in there. All four of those guys had confidence. We got to speed up our operation with guys that are younger. No delay games, call the plays quicker, get the motions right. But all four are improving and all four of a way to

go. Yeah, Dolor looks good when you see Fafita, what do you think? What I think is that if Jason Delora gets hurt, they're gonna be Okay, that's exact same. I think he's a little guy, but damn he can throw. He threw an out pattern the other day and I'm like that that that hits me in the chest, It goes right through me right. Well, I'm a little soft. I'm a little softer than the other guys. But it was a rifle, you know. I mean,

he's he's got a rocket a little guy. He's actually football. He's good. He's got a rocket arm and and he's not afraid to use it. And you feel like he's got a real good grasp of what they're doing. He doesn't look he doesn't look like a second string quarterback out there. He doesn't look like, you know, he hasn't had the practice. He doesn't look like he doesn't know what he's doing. And so you just think, Okay, you know, the quarterback position is in good hands. Uh you

know, and maybe maybe other people might not know that. You know, people outside of here, if de Laura goes down, they can say, well, if Delori one of the best quarterbacks in the league, now he's gone and they got their backup, they're gonna suck, you know. I there's a pretty good feeling from you know that that they've got they've got a

really good quarterback situation. Right. No, it's it's far far cry from what two years ago when they lost one, two, three, three guys man, and you're thinking, oh no, they walk on out there for a while. Yeah, you know, I mean it's like terrible. So so there, you know, so that that's and that's kind of what you think of about all the positions, right that a guy goes down. They've got other guys now, and maybe some of them are young and stuff like

that, but certainly they're guys good. You know, they were they were you know, uh, you know, highly tired recruits. They're guys who have had a chance to get work in. You know, they're not playing guys that are brand new because they've got guys their their their strength and conditioning programs. Seems to be doing, you know, a great job that you got. I mean, you got guys that look like football players out there. Yeah, so did you Uh well, we were on the side of

where the defense was. Nance was kind of like to himself down this side of it. He would be screaming it of course the defense. Did you notice, h Dwayne? Oh yeah, up and down the side, right up and down the side. I love him on the sunlight. He's just just man, just getting guys fired up, you know, not just his guys, all guys from the first play. I mean, he was on some dude right away. He's and not in a bad way, but just

you know, he got that stride. He's just like he's just like walking hard and fast and moving it you know, very you know, an intensity level that that you know, did wonders for for you know, the team when he was here before. And you can see the guys seem to respond to that, right right. And I think it's no surprise. Uh, and I'm gonna be writing a story about him later later on, but it's

no surprise that he has good groups. He always has good groups. Uh. Coaches him up and and it's easy to see that they play hard for him, right. Uh. You know, maybe they're not as talented, but they play hard for him because he's he's a very intense guy. But in a way that makes guys want to harder as opposed to going what the

hell right right? Right? Yeah, no, instead of playing hard because they don't want to be yelled at, but playing hard because they don't want to disappoint it, right right, And yeah, and they listen, so it's really cool to watch, right all right. Last clip Jed was talking about because again the all important red zone, right he talks about you know, that was just an area that even the first two years have just been an issue for them. So he talked about the importance of the red zone

and the work that they've been doing in camp. Yeah, we're getting better there. We'll know at the end of the season statistically, you know, I you know our challenges. We talk about it all the time. In the red area. We're looking to score seven and that is our goal every time we go out there. And if we can get that done, we have a chance to be really special there. Uh, you're not asking for a ton of change there. You're asking for you know, we had ten

possessions where we walked away with zero points. If in those ten possessions this year we don't walk away zero points, we'll go from being eightieth to thirtieth. If we if those ten possessions can be six touchdowns and four field goals, we'll be in the top ten and the country and the red zone. So you're not looking at like these huge gaps. Same with them a third down, make one more third down a game. We're number one in the country. So those are the things that we need to continue to focus in

on and that's what we're gonna do these next two weeks. We'll be in pads Tuesday, we'll be in pads Wednesday, we'll be in pads Sunday, and we're gonna get after pretty good this come a week. Well, no, it's the time the media is not allowed to watch, right, it's over, right, and then they get ready for the game next week and when we have more access. I think at least with the convert with the discussed conference. Well, you know the thing about what he's talking about the

red zone two is again I go back to the rich Rod years. You know, you knew that they got down there, they were gonna score. They were gonna score. They were pretty good, and more often than not they were scoring touchdowns because that offense was just just the way it ran. You know, they were hard to stop. And you feel like they've got

the pieces to be like that. Again, maybe not as much as rich Rod, but certainly you know they've got playmakers, I guess is the way to put it to once they get down that they should be able to score some points and he shouldn't be getting shut out down there anymore. Right, Well, they have people, I mean, Speedy is one of them. The running backs. The running backs, there's two units that you will not

have to worry about. Three units actually, the wide receivers, right, the running backs, because they're diverse you know, one guy gives you different things than the other guy, and then the quarterback well, and you see the three main receivers. You see you see team at six four, he's gonna go up and get the ball. Lumonious Craig I think is six two. You know he's got it. He's got the opportunity to go up and

get the ball. But he's also going to be a physical guy. And then Coween just finds a way to find a space out there to get open. He's kind of a smaller guy, but quick, shifty, he's hard to cover, and he can. You know, he finds openings out there. They got three different guys that do three different things when you're down there trying to find somebody in the end zone. They got three different ways to get open down right, and three different type of players. That's my analysis

of the n You're you're accurate. You're accurate. You saw enough already. Yeah, so we'll see. It's gonna I think they're gonna be fun to watch. Uh, I'm hoping, what's your prediction first so we have time, but for the first game. First game for not prediction, but attendance. I'm more controlled people believe in this team. I bet you. I bet you it's over forty five forty five. Wow, I bet you it's high forts he's really one. I just get a sense that's pretty good.

Yeah, I just get a sense that there's a buzz, a buzz sort of you know, forming with with people are talking about Steve. You know, I'm out there and you know, talking, you know, in public, and I see people and you know, how do you think the football team is gonna do? How do you think the football team is gonna do? You know? And I'm getting asked a whole lot more than I got asked two or three years ago, Right, I bet you, I bet you they go mid to high forties in the first game. Part of it's

gonna depend on how freaking hot it is. If it's a nice night, I can see. Plus, we're gonna get the NAU crowd, right, you know, there's a lot of a lot of Arizona kids that play up at NAU, and so we're gonna get them as well. They're gonna bring people. Plus, they won the last time they were here. They're gonna come and see if they can do that again. Sure, And I just hope they walk away with a big old nod on their head. But that's

another story, and you don't want I got another guy. I've got a victor who calls in time again and your dodger guy, uh tight ends, tight ends, very valid to McLaughlin, Tyler McLaughlin, he's gonna be man, you know, I mean, they've just they've just got guys all over the places. And then if again, if if this is a good offensive line, then holy cow, you know what they can do. But you know what, all the other teams in the league have that too, as

as you've said a million times. But you want to be one of the guys who also has that instead of one of the guys who does. Sure. Again, though again, though they're gonna be good offensive, we kind of know that that's a given. It's just that defense has to show up to make make this team better, right exactly, All right, let's take our X break top of the hour, no breaking out the breaking news today, right, yeah, I think so. We'll be right back