Breaking down all the exes at all. It's Steve Rivera and Jagin Salas. This is I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteenth fifty.
Hey, welcome back to Ye in the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, you're Jagan's als. We tend to be with us. Now, Henry has some breaking news.
This is I on the Ball breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Georgia Tech defeated number ten Florida State twenty four to twenty one on Saturday in Ireland.
Anything.
No, I didn't.
I was, I mean I was. I was golfing in LA. But uh, you know I first came out of the box for twenty twenty four. We got a shot.
Yeah, there were thirteen point from favorite I think, yeah, eleven to thirteen.
I do know that. All week long, you know, talk shows and whatever, everybody was saying, take the points and take me under one because you know they're having to Ireland. You know you're out of sorts first game. Uh, and they said don't don't was both right, yeah, don't give up on you know, don't think that Georgia Tech. You know, he doesn't have a shot at.
This right It's funny because I saw something this morning, I think it was, and I wanted to talk to you about this. So Georgia Tech trolled the announcers because I was at the game day Herb Kirk kurb stream. Well, all three of them, though them picked who picked against them?
Right right?
I guess one guy didn't picked against and so they got after all of them and said, yeah, look what you guys, and then they had clips about each each to each, to each of them. Okay, would you have done the same thing had you lost? I mean, come on, it was the third they won. You don't act like you've been here before. Then I get it.
And I guess Kirk Curvessey'd got booed by the Florida State Fancy were there relentlessly throughout the whole show. Every time he talked, they bowed the hell out of him. And I'm like, Okay, I get it. You guys are upset because you somehow you feel he was too blame for the fact that your undefeated team didn't get into the playoff last year. All he said was that he
didn't think you should have been in there. After the fact, it wasn't because of him, but he was just saying, and they were right, you know, I mean, I don't think anybody do they deserve to be there? Yes, because they were undefeated. Was it the best matchup? No, it wasn't because you know, the the top two quarterbacks were hurt and they they got blasted by Georgia in their bowl game. So in the end, Herb Street was correct, but apparently he bowed the hell up. Now what now,
what do you think? Right? You got beat So now you're you're s O L and so I don't know. Fans are fans.
I guess if we make predictions, it's what our predictions are and what our thoughts are. If you if you if you prove us wrong, more power to.
You, exactly enjoy enjoy exactly exactly. But that's that's a that's a huge thing. Now the game again, we're already in, you know, we're already in a mode where you're talking about the college football playoff. Florida State's not out of the playoff race or anything like that right where they might have been considered that, you know, before the playoff, because they still got to go in. If they go in their league, they're in. So it doesn't matter whether
or not. They lost to Georgia Tech in the first game. Whereas you have this loss that you didn't expect and now you might lose another one down the road, and now you're out. If it's a four team planoff.
It's funny though. They don't talk about they don't talk about having good seasons. Now it's all about the playoffs. Yeah, now it's all about.
Right, just get into the playoffs. And we'll say that about Arizona. Right. Okay, you lose the game, but just win the league. You're still in the Kandasity and get yourself into the championship game and win the league, all right.
The Big Twelve presidents and athletic directors met about Yukon potentially joining the Big Twelve today.
No vote was taken yet.
Yeah, you sent that out Friday while we talked about it. No, no, because I didn't have a show on Friday. Right, But you send me the league, right, and it already kept just before you send it, it was already kind of coming out. That would be fantastic. Yeah, that would be for basketball. Holy Christ, imagine both women and men. Yeah, fantastic.
Yeah, you want to talk about a league, the best league getting.
Better exactly exactly. It'd be a lot of fun. Gino coming here for a game. Uh you have you know, another hurly coming back to Tucson to cover to do a game. Oh, this this league. If you don't have tickets, you better get your take exactly.
Lake Mary, Florida won the Little League World Series in baseball and Pitt County, North Carolina won it in softball.
It was a great game.
I saw the play, the butt play. I didn't get to see the game, but I saw that bunt play where you know, they decided the game.
It's a great game because they Florida should not have been the last second, last minute, or last ending hit that got him even and then they went into extrandings. I didn't know they. I didn't know this. I didn't really put the kid on second base. U at the at the training mode.
Oh I thought it was in the sixth inning that that happened. Seventh Okay, yeah, all right.
Cowboys wide receiver Ceed Lamb has agreed to a four year, one hundred and thirty six million dollars contract extension, the second biggest non QB contract in NFL history.
Man, And I'm thinking, you know what the good lamb and I'm thinking the dude didn't have to play the preseason. That's it, the preseason's over. He signs and now he's good to go.
That's crazy.
Yeah, one hundred million.
I'm sorry, guys, Okay, all right, I don't know what I don't know right.
Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen has made history as the first player to appear on both sides of the baseball box score in one game.
What yeah, he got traded in the middle of the game.
There was a game from June that got oh, and then he got traded to the other team, so he started the game as the Blue ja.
There was in the NBA. There's one that's cool. There's one in Arizona. Has that guy? Mm hmm, I mean Arizona has If you read any of my books day now, if I can remember some of my books, it was with I think Corneil Norman. He played for one team, like the seventy six ers and ninety five years listening.
He played with the seventy six ers one game and then was traded to the other team and then finished off the game that way, and they played against Plaid against the same team in the in the in the same box score it was it was it was yeah, in the mid seventies, all right, it had to be Norman.
I think it was. That's kind of cool, all right.
The mom of twenty twenty six QB recruit is suing North Carolina over nil restrictions.
What does that mean? It just popped up on my feet.
Did you listen to our show? You didn't? Did you listen to show on Thursday? Unbelievable to me. I learned a lot that day with Troy and Moreno, how how how teams or programs are inuring these kids to go and then they tell them, sorry, we don't have we don't have the money we promised you, and that's that's part of.
Getting them to sign. And then the time they don't have the money, they.
Don't have the money. It's like and I'm seeing that can't be happening. That's not true. And he says, yeah, it's true. And then they threw the kids name at from from Florida to win to a su and I remember that, and that's happening more often. And I'm thinking he's yeah, it's happening more often, and I'm thinking it says, Steve, what do you think that the transfer portal is the way it is. Wow, I was, I was like, holy crap, this can't be happening. It's happening, happening, and it makes sense.
That that's that's dumb.
It's dumb. It's dumb. And how how is this sport? Sports? Youve uh, you have ade, but Nancy Doba, sport's gonna survive. I'm I'm I've been watching or doing this for thirty seven years. You've been watching and doing this for longer. It's a it's a mess.
It is God, you know, God, you know. And the thing is that, look I get there, you know the money that's involved in all that kind of But in the there's there's still kids. Yeah, you know, just treat them fairly, that's all. Just just don't take advantage of them. And I don't know why, I don't know.
I well, that could be to both sides.
Yeah, to both sides, right, because because like we've seen what parents do too. Right. There two kids that left left cell point right, well, the dad something happened with the with the family, so they they you know, they blew off their their commitment and went somewhere else. It goes all ways but you know this whole thing, Well, let's get him here and then we'll screw him on the on the n I L and he's got nowhere to go. I mean, that's just done. All right, that's
all I got. All right. Well, I don't know if you going back to talk about this New Mexico game, because it was look it, you know, when when you're looking at Arizon's got to play these guys, they looked pretty good. But then you realize, you know, I was looking at the at the at the box score when New Mexico was winning the game and got to the
big lead because they got two defensive touchdowns. Yeah, so you know, Brennan and his press conference talked about what's most important to him is that, you know the usual stuff, right turnovers, red zone, a third down. You know, don't turn the ball over to New Mexican. You should kick their asses because if not for two fumble returns for touchdowns, they're not probably not even in the game and having
a chance to win. Instead, you know, then they give up twenty one points in the fourth quarter to an FCS team, a very good FCS team, possibly the best FCS team, and you lose the game. At home.
Yeah, it was crazy.
So I don't know what that means for you know, Arizona coming up. You know the idea that they've played a game Arizona hasn't you know there's trade offs, right, Yes, you have film on them, but they've played a game they you know, tight in the fourth quarter, and they've kind of got one under their belt.
Film schmil They should be much better than New Mexico. I remember who you have as your defensive coordinator or you or your guy on the defensive end. Uh, former New Mexico coach, head coach. So I'm sure he has he doesn't need film on them.
Yeah. Probably he's thinking to myself.
This is the same pain in the ass team that I coached that couldn't hold the lead and have and have me here because they couldn't win possible.
Yeah, maybe you're right.
I know this team and they're not caused me to lose my job. It's wrobably been the system here.
That's too funny.
We'll see, we'll see. I mean, what's spread thirty Well, it will be about thirty three though, it's.
Yeah, yeah, let me let me check that out because I don't know, you know, what do you what do you make of what uh, what happened? You know, what do you make of what happened in terms of, well, you give it? You give them a lot of at it for having been in that game. That's what do you Or do you step on their next because they blew the game?
That's it. I think you do both, because I'm trying to get the guy who wrote for the works for the Son of in New Mexican. He wrote a pretty good column about the fans are like Arizona fans. Uh, they loved it and then they hate it, and now they're looking at basketball season.
It's thirty and a half. Still that hasn't changed the over hundreds fifty seven.
No, I think if you're a New Mexico guy, you're thinking, we weren't expected to do this. There were ten point dogs, I think it was eleven point dogs and they did really well and then they just pooped the bed.
Yeah, because you're thinking if even if you're in New Mexico, you still think we should beat an FCS.
Yeah, no, no, not a good one. It's like when Ayzona plaid North Dakota State here or whatever it was.
But we knew that what that that North of Coost State was really damn good.
Well so is Montana State.
But I'm going to tell you that I still expected Arizona to win that game.
Oh and it was a clear it was a tough kay.
You, Yes, it definitely was. But I'm lost that game. I know that. But what I'm saying is that if they were lost, I would have been really pissed because I would have thought, I don't care how bad you think you are, if you can't those guys aren't here for a reason.
Right, let me throw this three letter word, three letter acronym at you.
Well, I know, but that and and what that told us was how bad Arizona really was. You know, at that time, they were awful, and and they and any you should have been on, you know, should not have been able to do what they did. They did it, but they shouldn't have.
I don't even remember what they did. They just won.
That's what just won the game. Arizona was so bad that that any of you won that game. And so I just think, and look, we all get in New Mexico's Mount West team, so they're not they're not a PAC twelve team playing an FCS team. But I still think that you're you know, your your your your Division one team. You probably feel like there's an expectation you should win that game. The same way as I out
when Arizona played San Diego. Stake those two games, right if any say killed them and that's how bad we find out how bad they were. Then the next year they get in your quarterback and all the things. But Nate and I went to that game thinking they could lose.
But expecting them to win. Then we'll still San Diego stay. And then you were pleasantly surprised what you've seen in the one hundred degree wee.
Heat INSI Diego, Yeah, exact.
Okay, let's let's go. Let's go. We can have more time. Well, what are we doing? Micho left, Yeah, we got Michae left, okay, so yeah, let's let's go. And then because we're running.
Nasty, okay, well all right, all the stuff, okay, stick around.
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Streaming live on the iHeartRadio app. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to Eying the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's Jaginsauce. Now we have Michael from the Arizona Daily Star. Michael, how you doing pretty good?
How are you guys?
Fine? Thank you? Are you already for the first game of the season?
Sure, thank you.
You know, it's obviously it's a very busy time fall, but it's a fun time. Yeah, And I like having something concrete to talk and write about as opposed to, you know, just months and months and months of speculation and that sort of thing. So yeah, let's let's kick it off. Let's play some ball.
Well, you guys, you guys had a special section in the in There's a daily start yesterday, so lots to read and it's going to take me all week to get through all of it. But we want to talk first a little bit about a column you did regarding this whole situation with how you know, media, fans, everybody been cut off from practices and things, and how low
key it's been. I guess, for lack of a better word, you made a lot of good points, you know, the main one being that this has been sort of a missed opportunity for for the U of A. And going into a season that's generated a lot of excitement since last year. Now it's kind of like we're going in kind of nobody's really heard much of anything. First, give us first your thoughts on why you did that column.
Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, the focus at that column was about the fans. I try to keep us guys out of it, right. I feel like the access that we've gotten has been very good for the most part, and people don't really like is your complaints from the media about what's going on with our access,
our food, our travel, et cetera. So this was really about the fans and The reason that I wrote is I just kept kind of waiting for there to be something like an open scrimmage, uh, some sort of a pep rally like event, even if it wasn't a real practice, just trying everybody, you know, inviting people into the stadium, signing autographs, fan fast, you know, something typically that has been done. You know, the Saturday that the students arrived.
The calendar was a little bit different this year, and that that's only a week out from the start of the season as opposed to two weeks. But it's just kind of this you know, traditional kickoff type of event or activity, and they declined to do one this year for uh, for whatever reason, they didn't feel like it was necessary, and that just I found that to be disappointing when you look at the entire scope of everything that Brent Brennan has done and who he is. I mean,
it's a pretty minor quibble. I think he's made almost all the right moves since he's been here. But I think that was in this opportunity on behalf of him and the football program and the athletic department.
You make a few good you have a few good lines in here. One of them at the end is that it wouldn't serve the program if a lot of information were to get out about formations and personnel. Okay, really, Arizona's Arizona, and they're going to be as good as they're going to be. I mean, how afraid could you be?
I mean, look all the practices camp technically, as I had mentioned, and when the piece were open to the public, the school did not advertise this fact at all, which is a very strange way to go about things. But anyone could have gone and seen whatever they want to see during those couple of weeks, and they could have posted that information on message boards or social media or whatever, and there was really no way that anybody could have
stopped them. I remember my USC days, you know. Pete Carroll had wide open practices over there in LA and he thought it was a great way, you know, to sort of acclimate the players to having a lot of eyeballs on them. And he also felt like, you people don't know what you're looking at anyway, so there was really no harm in it. Like, there are certain things as a media person that you're not supposed to disclose, you know. I try to avoid getting into specifics about injuries,
if they run a trick play. We caught a few trick plays. You're not obviously not supposed to talk about that. That's just sort of the implicit agreement between a football
program and the media cover it. But I really think, as I mentioned in there, that they could have done something that wouldn't have even been a real practice and could have served the purpose that you know that I was, you know, kind of seeking, which was to just have a you know, an event, celebration, you know, just some sort of event to engage with the fan base and get everybody fired up.
So another quick question, I think you addressed it in a different way. So is this a Brett Brennan issue or is it an above him issue?
That is a really good question. I you know, I put Brent Brindan's name pretty high up in there because he is the head coach, and you know, he's the one who's in charge of the football program. So is it really like up to him to do this sort of thing. No, but if he wanted to do it, people would have gotten it done right if he had been if he had been nudged, I think he probably would have signed off on it. You know, we kind of became used to jetfish the salesman the last few years,
like constantly doing this sort of thing. He was pleading for people to come to the games. He was active on social media. He was he was getting like big name football alums to come to the spring game, anything he could to generate excitement. At that point out in the piece, things were different back then. A team is coming off a terrible losing streak. They were, you know, one of the worst programs in the country. Jed knew
he had to do this. Brent doesn't necessarily have to do this, but you guys have been around long enough to know that if the football team doesn't get off to a great start, and it's entirely possible based on the schedule, that they could be two and two heading into their first home Big Twelve game, with their third and fourth games being at Kansas State, and that in Utah, people might you know, people's minds pretty quickly dissed over
to basketball right around here, you know. So to me, you should do everything you possibly can to engage with the fans and get them to attend or football games and experience what a college football Saturday is.
Like, Yeah, we're talking to Michael lev Calmness for theirs a Daily Star. All right, Michael, So you know, it's been a long time since they had a game and talked about a lot of things, said a lot of things about about this team. Your your general thoughts going in now that the week is here. You saw in New Mexico last week? What's this week? What do you think in this week about a the game coming up would be you know, Arizona and where do they said?
What do you think they're going to look like as the season gets started?
Yeah, I don't think they're going to have too many problems with New Mexico. I know they nearly won a game, uh this last week where they were double digit underdogs. I don't think that that point spread was really where it should have been considering where the game was. And
that's a fact their fatas FGS opponent. That being said, uh, New Mexico did get out gained pretty sizably in that game, and they gave up two you know, they were they were on the the Uh, they were the beneficiaries of two defensive touchdowns that you know made the game look maybe a little bit different than it actually was. As the line of scrimmage, so I don't see too many
huge issues there. As far as Arizona overall, I think the skill position players are really good, best collection they've had maybe in a long time, spearheaded by you know, No Fafita and Teto McMillan. I think very deep running back corps. I think he and Burnett tight end is going to have a breakout season. He was absolutely fantastic, like during training camp, like a different guy than he had been. I am a little bit worried about the
offensive line, specifically in the area of depth. They really cannot afford to lose many guys or any guys up front, and then they've been doing everything they possibly can to coach up the backups. But from what I've seen, and because of a couple of injuries that they've had, that's an area of concern. Defensively, I think they're going to be better than people think, even though they lost a lot of big bodies up front.
Yeah, I think I would tend to agree with you. So, so the offensive line must have been hit, and this is you know, captain obvious with Raymond Palito not coming back, and how they find that fix or did they?
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look, the Raymond Polito really hadn't done anything in college, right in the one game that he when he came back and then played a lot and he really struggled. But very talented player, and it was kind of a domino fact, you know, losing him, let's say, and let's say, you know, let's
that he didn't even start. He would have been a great, you know, third tackle option, you know, or he could have been a starter, a card and someone who could have swung out to tackle if they had an injury there. So that was a big blow to the program and they tried really hard through the transfer portal to address that situation. Michael Ruden was a posing a player that they brought in from Oregon. He got hurt during training camp.
I am not sure what his status is. It is not a he's ending type of thing, but it did sideline him for a little bit, and you know, maybe Kurt killed his progress in that way. I mean, one of the guys they're listing on their too deep a tackle as Matthew Lotto, who is a true freshman, who is someone that I think they would prefer to red shirt if they could. But you know, it's really hard to find out these the tackles, and they tried to grab a couple of guys in the portal. A Jonah
Rodriguez is another one from San Diego State. And it's sometimes a long development process for those for those big guys up front, and you really don't want to have to force them in there. If they have a couple of injuries, they're probably gonna have to.
He was asked, h I loved his ans. I love Brent Brannan's answer too, when he was asked how much of the playbook are we going to see this week? And he just said he basically said enough to win. I thought that was I thought that was a great answer.
But you know, when you when you I don't know, do you you sent him to be kind of a I don't I don't know if cage is the right word, but just somebody who's only going to say as much as he really wants you to know, or you know, not not not much more like when he was asked about t Max is going to play and that was it. That was the answer.
I think that he is that way when it comes to strategy. Xs Ando, who's personnel as it pertains to the upcoming game or opponent. If you ask him about, you know, know what his feet as a leadership, he might go on for several minutes, you know, like I think he loves to talk about and pump up his guys. But he's a football coach, and football coaches, by their nature are protective of information. And I totally understand it.
As far as like what we're going to see on Saturday, I think the ideal scenario is that you're able to build up a big enough lead where in the halfway through the third quarter through the end of the game you can go real basic on offense, run the ball, and not show every single play that you have in the playbook.
I don't know. I remember Stoops that I talk about this place all the time when Stoops was kind of the secretive, not secret if he was concerned about people going to sixth Street across the street and maybe filming the practice games over there, you know, in the corner there, And I asked him, really, it's that big, I would say if I were Brendan, Now, I got Noah, I got Team Mac, come get me. Try to say those are.
Nice, those are nice cards to have, aren't they Yeah.
But all this secretive stuff, and you've been covering football for a long time, Michael, has it been like that for a while because you were at USC, which of course, and then you said, Carol, just hey, come on in, try to stop us.
Yeah, he didn't care.
He might have.
He might have been that way because he knew he had better players than everybody else.
Exactly.
Yeah, you know, which obviously is an unusual situation. There's only a handful of programs where you know, you could just kind of line up against the other guys and you're going to win, no matter how much information they might have. But yeah, of course it's always been this way with football. Coaches are paranoid, they're control freaks. They don't like to they don't like their secret to get out.
I am glad to see that one league is going to have had injury reports already and another one's talking about it, and Texas Tech is putting out an injury report every single week. I would love for that to be something that all of college football does, or all of the Big twelve does, because as much as coaches don't like to talk about these things or put that down on paper, if it's the same for everybody. It's not nearly as big of an in.
Issiuative, right totally.
Again, we're talking to Michael lev Commers with Airs on Daily Star. Michael, what are you most curious to see this Saturday? Not just overall with the team. There's all kinds of questions, but what do you want? What do you need to see Saturday to say, Okay, this is where you kind of expected them to be.
Domination at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, plain and simple. Can you run the ball down New Mexico's throat as Montana's they did at least with a minimum two hundred and maybe more? And are you getting after the quarterback with your completely revamped defensive line. They've got a great secondary, They've got a really good linebacking corps. Like I said, they've got great skill position players.
And it's going to come down in those games against Kansas State, against Utah, whoever else is coming down the pike in the Big twelve, It's going to come down to those up front. So that's what I want to see. I want to see them dominate on both sides.
So kind of getting back to your column, you've been here, you were here at the end of a rich rot. I think it was through someone and and the kind of the talk before he actually put the car into the ditch and then jed, you know, doing what he did. And now this, I don't think the hype now meets it meets the what's the reality is? Because what is the reality? Are you hearing stuff out in the streets saying we can't wait for the football season? I really haven't.
I don't know about that. I think people are pretty excited. They don't it's not like they have a marquee opener.
You know.
That might be a little bit of a factor, Like it's it's more exciting if you're facing BYU and Glendale than you know, facing New Mexico here. That could be part of it. Could be just it's still summer, you know, when people just really aren't in that mindset as of yet. But all it takes it is upsetting Kansas State or upsetting Utah, you know, and then everybody will be on board. And this is a This is a really fun team. This is a team that's really easy to root for,
and they have got a lot of star powers. So I would I would fully expect the fandom to to be on board, despite the fact that the program did not go out of its way to connect with them in this this month leading up to the team.
So maybe last question we have won't have a minute so in your column and you had twenty four hours with it outside maybe longer than that. Did you get people or maybe you don't get people email and you were texting you Michael, shut up, quit your winning or a great column?
I got both kind of which is kind of ideal, right, right right. I mean sometimes with these things, the best case scenario is that you're just you're you're engaging people, You're being provocative in some shape or form. That's not why I did it. I wrote it because it's something that I believed was, you know, worth talking about and bringing to light. But I got I would say I got it from both sides, and that's totally fine. Everyone
is entitled to their opinions. I just hope that you know, people actually read it as opposed to like just looking at the headline, which I don't think, you know, tells the story and doesn't. Just the headline doesn't include all of the.
New You're like the big You're like the Veggas line. You want both sides playing it.
Thanks Mike, Well, I read it, Michael, so appreciate that. Good stuff. Thanks, good stuff too.
Yeah, thank you Mike. Thanks Mike. I'll see you soon too. Okay, let's take a break, come back and we'll have our final moments for calls. 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 Loudolsen 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 High on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez. So Fox Sports fourteen fifty subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeart Radio while just Surgery on the ball.
Yeah, Hey, welcome back to Wyn the Ball. Here all Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Roberta, He's Jay Gonzalez, You're Henry. We got fifteen minutes give us a call five two zero for one six seventy four forty would love to hear from me. H. Jay's gonna maybe post the podcast on from Thursday.
Yeah, I forgot that. I was busy, Steve. I was in San Diego, took well, took my daughter to San Diego to get her moved in, you know, left her behind because she started her job at San Diego Stay two. So all the tears were some. There were definitely some tiers yesterday.
She's like outside of your oldest who's done some stuff. That's like the only Gonzalez has ever left the nest.
No, Alana was gone for a good part of the time because she went to she went to she started, she went to Southern California, then she went to do but right here and now she's back. Yeah, like for what, Well, Elina wants to leave again when she's done with a PhD. So she's only around for a little while longer.
Man, the Gonzales there now, Adam is the only homebody and he he'll never leave.
He's staying here back, but he's back at the UFA as well. He's working a job there now, so good for him. But now I was in I was in California when went and dropped her off in San Diego, then went went up to l a kind of got the Dodger game on Saturday night. Watched the Dodgers lose, but did see show. Hey hit a homer, which was cool. Saw my bite boy Tioscarnandez is on my fantasy team. He hit a homer, which was cool. But the Dodgers lost nine to eight because their bullpen crap the best.
Yeah, and that's always gonna be that's been the problem all yeah, yeah, okay, so yeah, we got our guy home for tomorrow.
Right, have a pretty good Showah, I think so. Bran Jeffery is gonna come on tomorrow. Uh uh, talk about this coming season. We've always always fun to get him on. He does you know, Brand's a pro, he gets does a great job with us and we love having him. And we'll just get his thoughts on the season going in. Uh you know, you know again, he's been here since
the late eighties. So in terms of overall excitement leading into the leading into this season, how many seasons has there been this kind of right?
Right, you can play name on your head, right, four of them right, right? And then we're gonna have Steve Quist on the other side of the hour. We just got word that. Okay, great, and he's gonna be the radio guy. Well he's gonna he says, he's not sure how often that will happen.
Yeah, oh okay, Steve's former Tucson sports guy. I think was that kay well D Yeah, kay well D living in San Diego. Now he's gonna be he does. He's gonna be doing some work for ESPN plus on some of the the those non revenue sports that you always watched on packed off networks. But he's gonna be here. So he's gonna be the sideline reporter UH for for twelve ninety on Saturday Night. See, he's a good guy. He's been well. He and I would commiserate a little bit.
He was the play by play guy and has been for the UH, the San Diego's Indoor Football League team. So we talked about some some stuff back then when I was doing some sugars called stuff. Really fun guy, really good guy. So be interesting to say.
Yeah he has that voice, Yeah, that's he's definitely not how you're doing.
Definitely got a TV voice.
So I was out my other job today and some guy went to fix the copy or I was just sitting at my desk and I talked to tj Is that said, I know the voice. Oh you listen to us, So yeah, you guys seem to have a lot of fun. Said, yeah, we talk a lot of bs. So that's kind of we do.
We do.
We do, gonna make it fun, gonna make it lightly.
Well, yeah, well yeah it is. Oh, I should bring this up. We uh and uh, last week said that we're going to have a big announcement today. We thought everything was set on this thing that we're gonna talk about, so we don't have that. We still got some details to finalize yet. We hope to be able to announce what we were planning to announce today sometime in the next couple of days. But uh, pregnant, you just look pregnant. You're not really pregnant. Me too, I kind of look it.
But it's a fun thing, a good thing that should be happening. We just didn't get to get to the final h stages of it to be able to announce it today. So we'll hopefully have that in the next couple of days. But it's game week, Steve.
Is it is and like I said, asked Michael, maybe because I'm not out there as often as I used to be.
I don't.
I don't feel a hype. But then again, this is Tucson. It's like you said, it's still summer, still hot. Do you feel the hype, You're you're a guy who loves the hype.
Not as much as I hoped I would. Right there, there's not there's not a tangible buzz this week. Maybe part of it is because you're right, it's New Mexico. But Arizona never plays anybody great right in the first in the first you know, in the first game of the season, who did they Who did they open with last year? I'm trying to remember last year. I think it was did they open with an A?
Did they have they played them since the loss?
No, they don't. I don't think they played any you last year because the n A would have had to play the AC last year.
Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't remember. But Henry's our crack staff.
Yeah he's on it. He's on it. But but like I said, you know, everyzone doesn't play.
You'll be right, it doesn't doesn't. It wasn't okay that tells you how exciting that was.
And then and then they had Mississippi State. Okay, then they went to Mississippi State, came back and HI played UTEP and then went into the into the league season. There was more buzz last year, I feel like and again Jed created that he would he purposely created that. I remember the San Diego State game, going to San Diego State, there was a lot of buzz to that.
It's funny because I was I was reading Michael. We talked about the stature because we all thought and still do, Jed's a salesman, right, he's your he's your your. You're the guy on Green Acres who was selling stuff all whatever. That guy, Yeah, that guy, he's telling you stop. He wanted to get you to the stadium, YadA, YadA. And people say to criticize either you were like.
He thought he was too much like that.
So now not who doesn't have that? So you know, we're damned if we do deny again.
And maybe it's you know again, it's it's getting used to who Brent Brennan is the coach. He's he is low key, he gets in these press corts. Now he's he's funny, he you know, he cracks jokes, he's engaging, but he's like not making this a bigger deal than he thinks it is. He understands, he understands that he's the coach at Arizona. He understands he's a coach of a bit of a of a of a power forward team. He understands that it's a big deal here in Tucson. But he's also a guy that's not going to be
jumping up and down for it all to happen. He wants to coach football. He wants them to be really good. And he's handling the way he wants to handle it and and the way his personality is. I'm okay with that. I'm just saying that there's some people around the program who maybe they could be doing more right to pump this thing up. Well again, you know, we get this call from Kathy. It says there's no there's no bed down Friday, and there's no bed down Friday for this first game? Why not?
Right? First two?
Right? That's not a Brent Brandan decision, right.
Yeah. And it's funny because who called the early year? Was it JR?
Or TJ Money, T Money, T Money.
Talked about talked about that and the and we had the press conference last week. They talked about the food and people. A lot of the fans from outside of Tucson don't come in for these games. Right, It's like Arizona fans don't travel the football game.
Yeah. But if they're doing those things, Steve, they're doing that to draw crowd, So why aren't they doing more to draw crowd?
Right?
Right?
That's the thing. So h maybe it's it's a Monday, and like you said, everybody's coming off the summer. It's been hot as hell. I you know, I've been busy. You know, I was out of town all weekend and so you know, I wasn't in front of the TV watching games on Saturday, the games that they were on. But maybe by Wednesday or Thursday. Yeah, I'm fired up.
So let me ask you because I know, and I'll have an announcement maybe tomorrow or or Wednesday about I have something going on for Saturday's game. But for you, can you tell a big game by the tailgating or is it always the same?
No, you can tell. You can tell because because you you know the time you get there, you know, more people get there earlier, right, like we want like we want to try and be in a certain spot, so we try and time it for how we think the crowd is going to be there.
So typically.
To get in your spot, we want to we want to be in our spot. We generally have to be there to read to three and a half hours before kickoff. Okay, Now, if we know it's like this week, will probably be there four hours before kickoff because it's the first game. People want to tail you, even though it's hot, even though it's in New Mexican, and even though it's New Mexico, it's the first game. The NAU game next week, the following week, maybe we you know, lay off half an
hour or so. We'll gauge it by the interest we see this week. You know, this week we want to get there and be able to show pick our show. And you didn't make your spot last year. That one time we didn't expect it to be as big asho was it? I can't remember, I can't remember, but we missed it by one spot. We were the first ones on the other side of the on the other side of the mall, but every other game we were And then there was one time we got there and we
were away early. We were in the second to last row, third to the last row, which we didn't We don't generally want to be appropriately. They they they line you up by when you get so they start in the let's see on the if I'm looking at Michale, they start on the west side at the sidewalk right on the mall, and they worked their way down the mall and then they come back to the beginning and go and fill in the roads that way, so you get
the spot that you get when you get there. What we try to do is time it we get in line at a time that we think we can be in the last row.
How many how many tailgators are there?
Not people, but how many spaces there are in there? I don't know. I don't know, cause you get a ten foot spot. Okay, one spot is ten feet by thirty feet okay, ten feet wide, thirty feet long. Now, back in the day, we when we had our huge tailgate, we had three spots. So we had a three we paid for three spots. We had a thirty by thirty thirty by thirty spot, and well, it's your car, it's your vehicle plus ten feet that's what you get. You get the line, you get to park your car, then
you get ten feet. Then the next car parks and they get ten feet. So like the buses and those those ones are in the middle, that's a different space. That's a different sized space because it's for bigger vehicles. And so in our in our area, you can only take in a car or a truck or a van or you know, not an oversize. If you want to bring your motor home, you buy a spot in the in the center of the mall, and that car that has a different price tag, and I don't even know
what that is. So that's what we get. So like when we when we had three spaces, but park a car, we'd get our thirty feet, then we'll part the other two cars. And that was and so would have it. We would have a thirty by thirty foot space to have our tailgate. Yeah, but that that costs us three, you know, three tailgate passes to get that. Yeah, that's what we have to do. Now we're back, we're just one.
We get our ten foot spot and we put up three of those ten foot tents and we cover our space, and my car's parked there and that's what we do.
Interesting fee lucky wish one. We're all good if you wish well, little sodas, stuff like that. Pizza sometimes, yeah, pizza, sandwiches. Okay, maybe we'll see by by your guy. Well, I won't be there, but Nico shows up a time or two.
I step by, but we don't step Hey. Look, and we're excited. We're looking forward to it, you know, we we we kind of plan how we're going to do this and all that stuff.
I think I asked I think we may already have the subject, but I don't know if I asked it. So the question I asked to Live about is this a Brendan problem or is it some else's problem? But then he put it perfectly, says, if Brendan wanted to change it, he.
Could change he could change it, and he's just not. I don't think he's paying all that much attention to it because he's worried more about winning a game.
I said that, and you know, I let the other people deal with that, right stuff, right, But I think if it's it flops, Jay, if it flops in the first two weeks, they're gonna have to pay attention.
Yeah. See, and again that's Jed paid attention to that. He was out there week. I mean, what was the first thing he would always say at his press conference? What the attendance is going to be?
Right?
Because he ends up with people. And guess what he did with that. He got himself, He got this program turned around, and he got himself a great job because he he did so much with this program to get it to where he got it to everybody was paying attention and boom, he got himself a better you know, a better job. And that's great for him now. And now we're sitting here thinking, well, the next guy should
come in and do the same thing. But Brent Brennan saying, I'm here to coach the football team and I'm gonna let the you know, the people who take care of that stuff take care of that stuff. And that's kind of what he's done. And there's a lot of transition going on. I think Mike Mike lev alluded to that in his column, you know, with the new A D and marketing and turnover YadA, YadA, YadA. So maybe they just don't have the people to you know, get this, you know, kick this can down the road.
Well, it would be it'd be uh smart at least I think. So, uh, let's see if you agree. You have a new store. It's a new under new management. Under new management, it's the same a store, but you have new things, new goods.
Put some signs up.
Wouldn't you want, Hey, come and come and visit us. Yeah, come and say it's it's a new and improved store.
Right.
We want some people to come through. We haven't seen that. Yeah, and maybe there's been there, but we haven't seen it. Yeah, I don't know, you know, So here you go. Yeah, we see mister Haney, is that guy in green, mister haneyt some oil? Snake oil for you. That's what I don't even know why they can't. That's gonna watch for you. Okay, So tomorrow the big show will be a Brian Jeffries.
Right, Brian Jeffers and Swist will you join us? So they'll be part of the you know, the whole radio team. We had Lamont love it last week, so by you know, with those two guys in, well, we'll have the whole twelve ninety team and some of their thoughts and expectations going into this year. It should be fun. Later in the week we are going to get Justin Spears will join us on Friday. Well, basically have the two beat riders. Yeah, we're lining up the writer who covers New Mexico for
the Upperquerque Journal. We're hoping, yeah, or the Santa fan, the Santa Fe paper already already the Santa papers poo pooing the season. They you go in, you have this lead and sometimes already looking forward to basketball.
That's all. There are a lot like Arizona fans think about basketball all the time.
That didn't take long, No, it didn't take long. Well again, you know, I look the first time I turned on the game, I saw the score and they were up big, and I'm like, I didn't realize why they were up big. They really weren't moving the ball and h and you know at those two defensive touchdowns and that's why they were waiting so big. And then Montana State said get there, all out of my way. Yeah, just winn to be.
We were just playing with you guys. Okay, No, cool, see you guys tomorrow. Henry, Thanks as usual, enjoy your work at your school this week, all right,