This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jag and Zalaz on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services.
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Good afternoon, everybody, Welcome to your Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's Jagan Zalas. We're better known as a bitter boys. Ryan, You're not bitter Solier.
I did not approve that time. I did not.
I gave you that many months ago when you were talking about being bitter. I got the name yesterday. Whatever the name. He said, you're just a bunch of grumpy with Bill. I think no, but I'll say what he was saying to me, A bunch of bitter old You want to be positively enforced if twelve ninety would love to have you today, but we're gonna tell you whatever we think. Welcome to Tuesday, right where today it is closer to the football then then we were. You know what this is.
This is like when Christmas is coming around, the days get slower, right, right, The days are getting slower because I feel like it should be Thursday and it's not it's Tuesday, and it's like it's like I want to open my presence. I want football to start. Don't even think it. I don't even think it. I don't even know if I got a credential. I sent him onning yesterday.
You're back, so we'll see what happens. I'll be watching the game with you. Hope you have an extra ticket.
No, my boy, I think it's crowded up in our areas.
I'll go. I'll go with the games with Bill. Yeh Bill, Bill, our boy Bill, Uh yeah Bill, listener listener, Bill, yeah yeah. Okay, So welcome to Tuesday.
Uh.
We only got one guest. Everybody else is too busy. So we're gonna get a fantastic coach, high school coach and just coach uh Ted Ted Lugit. He'll be wango tagging his way on the show. Pat Dugit his cousin. We should have. I wish we had a can go tango that we could play Pat Nugent.
You know what I feel like, I feel a bad show coming out. I feel a good coming on. Well, okay, by bad show, I mean it'll be low quality, but it'll be funny. It'll be entertaining that people watch.
Actually, actually, let me tell you, Jay, they don't talk about the quality of the show. They think, hey, these two guys.
Are pretty funny. You guys are just nuts.
That was the start of that. Pat Nugent I tried to get Mo Tangara on. He didn't respond. I think he's doing some stuff in Phoenix. He lives in Phoenix. Now real busy. He'll be here next week for the Lute Olsen camp. So let's maybe we'll get him this week. A lot of things going on here and maybe some volleyball coach, right or some.
Trying we're trying to well, we're trying to get Arizona's new women's golf coach on sometime this week. Will also be going with the treat of stubs. The volleyball coach. They don't start for a couple of weeks, and we've got some some time. There's a media event for her on Thursday, but it's at five point fifteen, so won't be able to get to that. But or is that the soccer at by fifteen? Soccer's at five fifteen out
of the Beckham Morrows. Anyway, but you know, we're trying to get these coaches on, you know, in pre season, just to you know, just get some of their thoughts on stuff happening. But you know, we wanted to get the new golf coach on a while back when she got here, but she had a lot of stuff to get herself. So we put in another request to try and get to this week. We might we might have her at the end of the week.
And just after the fact that after the the announced that new facility at TCC, right the Country Country Club. So she she's fallen into a nice place. She's from Mexico originally, Yes, So you know, we had a great opportunity to come into a situation like that in the Big twelve with the new facility, a new fantastic facility. It's very cool. I see it.
I see it every Tuesday when I go to the breakfast meeting. Is that that that I that I go to? Uh, it's it's just a nice looking facility. I mean I get there six fifteen in the morning and there's always you know, looks like it looks like U of eight you know players you know on the putty green or at the driving range and stuff.
You lost me at six fifteen wait what I do.
You know, it's funny because every Tuesday night I go, I gotta get up to five Monday night and Monday night, and I'm always up before the alarm. Right, I woke up at ten after five, wide awake, ready to go, you know, got up, jump in the shower, get my stuff gone, you know. But it's it's like I dreaded the night before, but I'm always up. It just doesn't it doesn't even matter anymore. I'll give you a gold old guy, get up in the morning.
Reach into my drawer there and get a gold star out right. You can keep up for yourself too. Give it to you. Yeah, craick crack, gold cracker. Okay, cool. So we'll have Pat Nugent, Ted's cousin. Yeah, a three fifteen talk about some high school stuff, justin. He's back for another year. He had a fantastic year last year, got beat by his uh, his counterpart, his former former under understudy. I think it was just I want to try to reach out to him too, because he's not
coaching anym or at least not this year. And see how life is. How you know, when you when you don't have something anymore, you've been doing it for all time. How peaceful that is.
He'll miss it for a season, right right, I mean he'll he'll he'll go a season, okay, and then he'll he'll be back.
Right right. But he has younger kids, so young guy so and he's younger kids, so I think he wants to spend some time with them, teaching them, you know, football stuff.
High school football. Man, that's gonna be kicking into.
Gear, that's pretty sure. Twelve days, I think.
Yeah, I'm looking up you know, football schedules right now. But yeah, no, it's a it's a things are gonna things gonna kick in the gear.
Right. Do you have basketball basketball stuff on your own? You do? Okay, I'll leave it alone because it's been announced. It's just official now, but we'll I'll leave it alone. Oh the u c L a thing, Yeah, go ahead that We'll let him talk about it. Yeah, that guy right, Ted Nug's brother, h thank god. Yeah.
Well August twenty, No, well, it looks like I'm looking at it looks to schedules they start the same weekend as uh.
Well, I saw that the Morales brothers posted. They think it's twelve twelve days. There might be the some southern Arizona ones. Maybe not too someone. Yeah, maybe we got to get the the charity game too. That actually that ken he pushed together. I think that's Oh yeah, the coaches coaches nadya.
Okay, yeah, So for all the schedules, I'm saying they're starting is twenty twenty ninety ninth and thirty.
It's fourteen sixteen days.
Yeah, but it's the same, basically the same weekend. As you know, Arizona gets this season starting.
I normally they've started.
A week or two yeah earlier, right, I still missing something.
I still think I'm going to send somebody a note here. Well I thought I saw twelve days from today. But again I could be wrong, but I won't be mad about it.
But now I you know, yeah, you think you think that some of these these people will get started now.
So other sports maybe started early, but football, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, we'll see. By the way, you have everything that put up on spot on Spotify or whatever.
But yeah, I got the Friday podcast up last night, so we're all caught up again if you want to go check out.
That's why I interview with Beckam.
Morrow's last week in the second hour and any of them, yeah, but any yeah, if you ever want, if you ever want to go, our podcasts are are on iHeart iHeartRadio dot com. Uh, you can also catch them on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
And the reason it's pretty we called sweat someone call last week as soon how to get it And it's just easy because even I can know how to do it through Google. Just iHeart Radio, eye on the ball and it boom pops up.
Yeah, and then you just yeah, yeah, just google us on on yeah, yeah, look for look.
Forward to uh moving, We're gonna move here in about th eighteen days something like that to their new off allegedly allegedly. Yeah, that's that's a good good word. We got to do a little maybe a new graphic for ourselves in the move. You know, you go into higher rent district.
Well, designers leaving, could you make me look younger? O our graphic designers leaving? You better get her before she goes, you know, she and she was she was cheap too, man.
Yeah, well I have one, you have one in your family, have one in mind. So we'll figure out what we do now that we move to the higher rent district. Up in the north.
That's fun to The studio is beautiful. The studio is beautiful. The equipment is great. Uh, hopefully we have more than one phone. Yeah, you know, we've got more than one phone line. H. So you'll be able to call and we'll do like we'll do like we do for like you see on TV. Right, Well, we'll put you on. You know, they'll give get your name and then they'll they'll introduce you to to us and we'll we'll know who you are before you get on the show.
And say still no cussing all that stuff.
Yeah, we'll be better that the dump button is even bigger than the one.
We have have Nico. You guys like you have, we'd like to hear from you guys to just give me absolutely absolutely Yeah. What else? What's going on? You do you, mister Ryan? Just work, school, works, life, life. Look at what you have to look for With the events, you're gonna turn into one of both of us. Actually there storry to say eventual you're gonna say eventually.
I'm just saying I've been keeping up with the with the Braves, but they're they're playing bad.
Somebody somebody got got hurt, right the other day. Yeah, picture, they lost the picture, I think so. I think so we talked about the other day yesterday when we talked about the Dodgers kind of trying to come back. That's enough for the Dodger talgrah me.
Okay, looking at uh okay, looking at Michael Mountain schedule. They do start on the twenty third. Yeah, see, that's that's a week earlier than so they're they're really just ten days away from their first game.
Yeah. So I'm sure if they start, I'm sure others start too. Yeah, and not a lot of them.
Just we need, you know, what we need to get with Javier and Andy to talk about. Okay, who's gonna be good this year? Who needs to come on our show?
In fact, have you a note now and see when they're available. Yeah.
So yeah, Mike, come on. When eleven and two last year, and I think they both of their losses were I believe we're the CDO.
We saw that one game?
Yeah, did you We went to that game up and yeah that was a game. Okay, so they yeah, both he lost the CDO in the regular season, that's seventeen fifteen game.
Then they lost a game to them in the play are running back from CEO who signed. He's a preferred walk on. They love him, they love him. He's just like a tank. Yeah. You know, he's a top notch wrestler, state champion time, and those dudes are tough as nails wrestling. Yeah, so I think he. I don't know if he'll get some time early because he is a preferred walk on, but the dude is good and he's tough. Yeah, so I knew the running back coach. I talked to Harvey
about him. What's today, tomorrow, Tuesday? I want to show them to talk about that. He's done very very well. Okay, So it wouldn't be surprising to me that if he goes in you know, blocks or what in.
The scheme, whatever, he's gonna do whatever they asked him to do, he's gonna do and he's gonna do it well.
I mean, the guys like that or you know, do that sure sure? Tell me was full of a team full.
Of guys who considered themselves underdogs, you know, Scooby, right, Chuck Cecil, you know those kinds of guys that you know, say they they've got something to prove and they got to improved.
You couldn't They couldn't tell them they couldn't do it, and they improved it.
Right now, those are those are great guys that have around. You need some of those guys, no matter how we lead the rest of your team is, you need some of those guys. I mean, think about the fact that that you know, Levi Wallace right walked on at Alabama and you know, and and and ended up making an impact over there. Those kinds of guys who come in with I hate to use the cliche of a chip on their shoulder, but they just have an attitude of I know I'm good, I know I'm good enough to do this.
I'm gonna prove it to watch me. Yeah. Yeah, it happens a lot more than we know because the guys who have that compared to the guys who just I hate to say this, that the kolid reeves where they go in and they entitled right, and they're they're fantastically good and talented, but they don't work at it. They lean on it.
I mean, another guy they think of is Donnie salin right, another guy just gritty, just a gritty guy, earned a scholarship, made an impact on those football teams and the lady.
You remember a guy and what I saw the script is way back and you were covering the team. I think manny o' loggi. Yeah, that dude was just a missile. I mean, dude, Yeah, people like you like you. You're not gonna get up. Yeah, And I don't know why that name sicks out, but it's just, you know, I remember the name. Those normal dudes who just beat the crap body.
They just guys that go in there and they again, they're just saying I'm good enough for this. So those are always great guys to have around, presuming they have a little bit of talent. Right right, they might have a lot more that's the right word, guts or whatever you want to call it, but you also got to have some Scooby right right was a talented, you know, football player. He could play football, he knew how to
play football. But on top of that, he was out there saying, you know, you guys are gonna have to you know, stop me. I mean Jake Fisher, right, I was just gonna say that. Jake's another guy right undersized, but he just felt, you know, I've got something to prove, and he went out there and improved it.
Luke k.
That's the running back from oh, yes, the guy, we knew that, I just you know less, you know, I was never going to pull that.
Look forward to seeing those guys. There's gonna be a lot of those guys. Just guys. Oh that guy.
Arizona the school that tends to have guys like that, right, because you know, they're not a bunch of five star guys that are filling up their roster. They got guys, and they and a lot of coaches purposely leave some spots open for guys like that.
Yeah, and not to generalize like be accused of yesterday. That's just I wason, right. I mean, you get your four's.
And your yeah, occasionally got four maybe a five, But you a bunch of three star guys and you coached the hell out of them. But they're also guys who, you know, come in and say, Okay, I felt like I was a four or five star guy, but I've got three. So I'm gonna show you that I should have been.
Well, look a look at the two dudes. Glenn Parker, who didn't play football till later in his life, went to a JC. Just a big dude who worked his ass off that became a pro, a long time pro. Right, John Pino was.
Not just a skinny dude who's tall, and moved.
Him around, moved him from the defense of the offense. Then he became a star.
Right, not just to Arizona, but in the NFL.
Maybe you wouldn't they you and I will be okay, I gotta lose some weight, all right? How did you better keep that way? And stay on the line. Stay on the line. You're safer on the line. I can't.
I'm a big enough to plug a hole. All right, let's take our break. Where to come back? We got Pat Nugent. Mike, a Mountain High school football coach, had a great season eleven and two last year, uh cdo got in the way of a state championship. But we'll see what his thoughts are for the upcoming season. Maybe pick his brain a little bit on all right, who's to be a good pat? Beside yourself?
All right? Stick around for patnajin.
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Breaking down all the exes at all. It's Steve Rivera and Jacin Salmaz. This is I on the Bar on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to Iying the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty I'm Steve Rivera, he's jagin zawiz now and if we have Pat Nugent and microm Mountain High School football coach, how are you doing Pat there?
Guys, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Yes, yes, I wanted to go into this just kind of gently. But not Jenny. It's probably not jelly, jeer. You had a fantastic year, right, you only lost to CEO the state champions twice. So what do you tell your kids moving forward? And when you had a fantastic year but you didn't win at all?
Well, I mean, you know, it's eedy for us because everything was new for us. I mean that was really our you know, only our second full season and we had never even kids the never even heard of a playoff game before, and for us to make through the state semifinal, you know, and it's a growing process, just like in every level of sports. You've got to learn how to to get there. And I think the first part was learning how to get to the playoffs and
learning how to win a playoff game. And everything was new for us, so that taste, you know. And Cdo had lost in the state semifinals a year before, so they had kind of known what it was like and that expectation was, you know, ready to go. So that's a great thing for us. Everything we talk about is, hey, you've been there, done there. Now you've got to take it to another staff. And that's kind of what we've built on all year.
Do you I mean, do you guys ever not talk about it right when you're when you're trying to get the thing going, you know what I'm trying to, Do you move on? Or do you just say no, We're going to hang on to this because it's gonna it's going to keep us fired up.
And now we give us something we've hung on. And you know, one of the great things I've had fortunate to be with Richard Sanchez the last couple of years. Richard won a state title and he's a continuous guy about putting in the kid's head about winning state titles. And that's our goal and that's really our only goal that we have is we've been close, but we've got to get further. So everything we do is think about
think about what we didn't get done. Now you have to do this even more and every one of our kids and the expectations are high, without question, makes it a little bit more pressure going, but the kids know what it's about. We've had a tremendous offseason and we're excited for the year.
And how many of those kids do you have back?
We're pretty loaded. We got seven starters on defense back and six starters on offense back, so we've got a heck of a team. Twenty nine seniors that are back from last year's team, so we're in a good situation.
Wow, is that a big I mean, is that an unusually big number?
Ah? Yeah, you know, and remember this is a new school, so that was last year was our first senior class, so that this group is really the first real big freshman class we had, so we're kind of narrowing down our sophomore class a little smaller. But this was that first real Micah Mountain group that came in and helped our program a little bit.
Yeah, it must be nice for you to have that luxury. When you first got there, which was not too long ago, did you think it would take time? What was your building process or your time frame?
Well? I thought we were all crazy. We left a tremendous Sienega program and we were on top of everything over there, and we came over to build Micah Mountain, and I never I thought I was crazy. There was many days sitting in the parking lot thinking I was nuts. What the heck was I doing? And you know, all of a sudden, you know that that first full season, we beat CDO in the last game of the year and won the region, so we didn't make the playoffs.
That ended six and four with the region championship, so we kind of knew it was going to go quickly. But obviously get into a state semifinals last year and only our first our second season was pretty special. So yeah, we're kind of, you know, excited, but you know, most of my guys were from the Sienega era and they know what about We added Richard to our staff and we've all been there before. We know it's expectation are so the kids brought into everything we've said the last couple of years.
So you've mentioned him twice. Now, what does coach Lopez bring to you? Yes, just what I said, you said, Lopez Lopez. I'm sorry, I'm thinking Richard, you know, thank you, thank you, Jim, thank you, Jim, my partner, Jim. I have a coach Lopez. His name is nothing. So so what did he bring? What do you bring to a long time? Everyone knows him. He's great at what he does. What does he do to compliment you?
Well, Richard's a diehard his work ethic, he's on. He's sixty eight years old and he's here twice a day and he's he's committed as fully go. And I think that's what I thought of many years, thirty four years I've been doing this Richard. Richard keeps me on task and make sure I'm doing everything right for the kids. And he's put that heart nose attitude into our kids and really just that work ethic. Richard volunteers based pretty
much all of his time. He's here in the mornings, here in the afternoon, and he loves being around the kids and just that hard, hard at it, hard work. Yet because it just been great for us.
You must be and this is an observation, you must be comfortable in your own skin because a lot of coaches wouldn't bring a guy like him on, you know, because they're kind of maybe I don't know, not inconsistent, but afraid of the guy coming in and may be superseding you. But you know what, I'm saying you're there, you know that he's going to help you.
Yeah, you know a lot of people say that to me, and trust me, Richard and my butt heads quite a few times. And he's old school. I'm trying to keep going, but you know, he's made me better and he's made our program. And when you want, you wanted to get to a high level, you got to bite the bullet a little bit and understand that there's more that people can bring to you to help you out. And I've been really fortunate to have some tremendous coaches in my career and that's what we've done.
So we're talking to Pat newgrien head, the head coach at Mike Mountain playoff team last year eleven and two. Pat, I mean, you look at that record, you go, you know, holy hell, but and then you got all these guys coming back. So tell us something about your team. You know what the guys you got coming back? What do you think you guys are going to look like? And you know what are people going to have to watch out for when they when they play you.
Well, our defensive line is completely back. They had seventy thirty one tackles last year and the seven of them are all back. And Jimmy Jimmy Leon has just been an outstanding football player. He had seventeen sacks alone last year by himself, and he's six four three, two hundred and thirty pounds, getting recruited, just got offered by New Mexico State, and you know, he's a special young man.
But like I said, we've got the entire defensive lineback and we've got some skilled kids back and a linebacker that was a sophomore last year, second on our team. So he's a beast too. But the other thing too, is we're very fortunate nominate schools and say this in a building program. But our quarterback's going on his fourth year as a starting quarterback. He brought him in as a freshman, and Dan and Thornton's just had a tremendous career here and you know, we're hoping for him to
take us to another level. We got both two of our top three running backs are back, and four five offensive linemen are all back, so we're excited about where we're going.
So what did you see in the freshman kid did to start your your at the quarterback spot?
Yeah?
Really, it wasn't too bad because we were all sophomores, you know, so he'd fit into the mix with all the other sophomores. That was our very first year. We only played six varsity games that year, so he looked just like the other sophomores if we had on the field. So it wasn't wasn't a big adjustment. But he came in as a sophomore, played this with a bunch of seniors, and obviously we looked pretty good that year. So he's
done a good job. He's had a big career and either he learned the system pretty well and we're hoping big things from him.
We were just talking about me if I could. Uh, we're talking about the kid from CEO, Kidd and Luke, right. You faced him a couple of times. You probably know him in the family or whatever.
Yeah, we still have nightmares about him. So that was something cold sweat.
What do you think that if he does get some time at Arizona, which's just a tough kid, what do you think that theyll seeing him or do see them?
You know, the one thing everybody understands that it's hard for any refreshman to come in play at a high level like us. You know. I mean here talk about d you want athletes are twenty one, twenty two years old. Kat's a great high school player, but he's only eighteen, nineteen years old, and it's going to take time for him to get used to the speed. The speed of the game is so different at the next level, and same thing for those guys, guys going to pros and
that's where he really learned. So I don't expect much from Kaden this year, but he's going to grind it out and he's going to get on that field at some point. You know. I was very fortunate to work with Jared Tevis played for me, and Jared was a walk on at USE. Nobody knew who he was for three years. But what a great ending career he had at u A his last two years, you know. So he'll be kidding. Louke will be the same type.
Of kid we've talked about, guys like that that. I don't know, maybe the cliches call him blue collar guys or whatever, but guys will come through, particularly at Arizona like that. But those things, guys like that start being that way in high school. You know, what, what do you see in a guy like that? You mentioned uh uh, you know you mentioned Gavin, you know, you know the Jake Fishers and that we've seen come through and you know, just.
Have a lot.
You know. I always says the word grinders, that they just they they're never stopped there, their full go all the time. They love the game, they love the commitment, they want to be around it, and they just they grind as hard as they can everything they do, you know. And and that's those great, special young men that want to do that on a regular basis and their time will come. You know, it's hard to get that opportunity. Someone's got to believe in them. And luckily those guys
did and they were able to prove themselves. So it's getting in the door. That's the hard port for these kids. You know, that's always you know, it was great great kids come out of to some but they don't get an opportunity and once they get there, they really shine.
We so we were a jan I covered the team back in the late eighties. Uh, sorry to say that long ago. You were there. Uh were you there with Brenda?
Uh?
No, he came after me. I was on eighty nine. Eight nine was in my last season. Okay, eighty five through eighty nine.
Okay, okay, so he's right after you. What what do you hear about what he's gonna do there? We talked to Rich told me he's kind of like his dad did to me in terms of coaching.
He's been great. I've been with him a couple of times, you know, just you know, I want to get I get chills think about coach told me, and really what I saw. You know, he's a he's a great guy. He's a player's coach, you know, and uh, you know, I see the energy that that it brought all the time for the field, and you know, I hope coach Brennan does a great job. You know, I want him to stay and we hope he can have the success and keep him around for a little bit. But obviously
expectations a little higher than coach fish Adman. He got here, so he's gonna have in trouble, but that's what it is. And we've met him a few times. He's just been awesome with our program and just excited to see him.
Well, let's go to that because you mentioned that, you know, there weren't a lot of expectations now there are for coach Brendan again, getting back to you. You guys, you know you've got some expectations as well. How do you how do you keep these guys grounded in that and make sure that you know they're they're you know, on point all the time.
It's hard, you know, as a coach. You know, one of the things I've learned in my career. I've been in some very good programs, but it gets harder and harder when you have that success, because failure is not something you want to have, you know, and you push your kids for the limit, and sometimes you're worried they're going to fold because the pressure just gets too hard. And you know, you watch some of these Olympic athletes,
how they handle some of this pressure is amazing. And that's we're trying to teach young kids how to handle the pressure. So, yeah, it's concerning. Our coaching staff has worked up. You know, we've got to push and make ourselves better to get the kids better, to get to that higher level.
Keep them off social media.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Yeah, stop bringing the press clippings that does exist anymore. Yeah, exactly, No, you have to These days are and most days as a coach, you have to kind of be part psychologist, part mentor part of disciplinarian part and everything to keep these guys on a straight and.
Narrow Yeah, it's it's a full time job. And I called my wife the other day and I said, out, I can't believe I've been doing this this long because it doesn't get any easier, and the kids get harder, and you know, everything that goes along with these kids. Now it's different than it was thirty years ago. So it's a tough gig. It's a good thing. We're really paid well, they're keeping these well.
There you go. Yeah, because I know you. I've known you for a long time, like I said, late eighties or whatever, and you've done very well. It's no shock, right Did you ever have a chance to leave and move up and you just didn't remember?
I was at Pima. I was at Pima for five years, so that was my move up. I was had a great run at CDO with offt state championship, went to the state semifinals, and got the opportunity to turn PEMA over. So that was my college gig. And you know, I think when when I left the door, I went to college, you know, at PEMA College. I said, Okay, now I'll
have success here and go to the next level. But I didn't realize how hard the junior college level was, and I felt that was much much better suited for the high school level.
Oh interesting, interesting, Yeah, so what do you know? You mentioned though that it's it's changing, right, and it changes all the time. But you know by that, I mean coaching has changed. It's changed dramatically over the last just a few years as things have you know, gone haywire up at the college level, and a lot of that I think has probably trickled down to your level.
Is that am I? Am? I? Am? I right with that? And what do you feel? What do you feel about it?
So it's a tough situation because part of the problem is where we're seeing the college level and the financial aspect of it. All these parents want their kids to
succeed and go get that money. And then the problem that I've seen that it's really been very difficult is every one of these kids have their private trainers, they have their private workout For kids used to rely on the high school coach really and you know, we've got we got recruiters out there that help these kids and these guys pay all this money they get into recruiters and their private trainers and their speed coaches. So back in the good old days, you know, you were the
guy and help kids. So it's hard to compete with all the competition out there.
Yeah, okay, Well get how many practices? Is this your first? Second?
Third?
Which you know? How many numbers, honey, practices?
Ever?
Have how many have practices have you had so far?
We just finished our seventh practice yesterday, so bright.
And it comes in two weeks, ten days, twelve days.
You you plan the twenty third, the thirtieth okay.
Two A three A program starting the twenty third and the four A, five A six afe starting.
Oh got it? Okay?
Yeah, we got a big scrimmage next week against South Point and look forward to play the best team in Tucson, and you know, see where we compare and then take it from there.
Wait a minute, I thought you were the best team in Tucson.
Well, I don't get I don't get quite the same kids they get.
That's his motivation to his exactly, he hasn't listening right, all right, Pat, thanks a bunch you, Pat.
I appreciate you guys. Looking forward to all the Caps this year. Thank you.
Underrated doesn't coach and good sports. That's a good sport. And you're right.
I mean we forgot you know, he was a Peaman. He was successful, and.
I was anymore. But yeah, because even at you yeah, yeah, because you know, uh, he's pretty good. You know, yeah, exactly.
Well, you don't win as much as he does because it just you just happen to get good players. You happen to you know, there's there's something behind them, you know, guys like him, Guys like you know, dust In Peace that kept winning, Guys like that, you know, Dennis, you know those guys.
Richard Richard right.
You know, if he hadn't been on the phone, I would have giving you so much crap over over you know, over what just mixing up Mexican names. Man, Come on, No, I had one of my coaches Richard Lopez. No, no, I still think about Richard Olphs. That was Richard Census. Okay, all right, that's fine.
He would have made me run laps. It should have made you run.
Laugh, you know, you should just go run them anyway.
Can I walk them? You can walk? I got some good stuff next on the other side, all right, Let's take a break. 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.
Twenty five chapters for his twenty five years as Arizona's beloved coach. Lessons from Lut is an insight to how he built the program into a national powerhouse. What one Email me at Steve dot RIVERA ninety five at gmail dot com.
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This is I on the BOOKBA and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteenth fifthday.
Hey, welcome out tying about here Fox Sports forteen fifteen. I'm Steve Rivera. He's Jay Lopez. You just don't call him late for dinner and you're Ryan. Just leave it at Ryan. Hey. So that was a good, good, good interview with Pat. He's always good, one of the Good.
Guess eight he is, and he's fun. There's a bunch of guys like that. Uh, you know, coach on here pretty much every coach you've had on yeah, right, has been you know, really good. They've been appreciative of having a chance to, you know, to get on the radio talk about their programs. And there's some good coaches, some good teams here. Uh, and there's some good football that gets played here on Friday night.
So you read you probably don't read the Republic all too consistently.
And you know what I do is I you know, I follow the writers, and so if I see the writer has written something I'm interested in, I'll I'll read it. But I haven't looked at anything in the Republic first.
For a while. So there's a there's a guy here and I don't know him, but you know, when our stuff used to go up there in the Republic, we're gonna His name is Jeremy cup Kluff and he kind of compiles stuff. And his big thing, I guess today or for tomorrow is Arizona football. And how how Arizona is one of the most overrated football programs this year? Oh, okay and now? And it's not his thinking. It's the compilation of a lot of magazines, reporters blah blah blah
saying this. And I'll say Athlon Sports. This is the headline, Arizona Wildcats's fifth most overrated team in college football entering twenty twenty four. And there's a big, long explanation. Okay, and then Fox Sports Arizona most overrated team by title odds for twenty twenty four season. So it's not just a few. The Oklahoma Arizona third most overrated team in
Big twelve entering twenty twenty four. And I'll give you one more those Fox Sports Wildcats most overrated team by win total for twenty four So there's there's a few of them.
So he's going to finding other people who are saying, yeah.
He's compiling some of the thoughts that from other people. Okay, it's not just one, it's a few. And if you guess what stats are, what they are, because you could turn the numbers on however you want to, right, the numbers are the numbers. So I'm not saying he's going negative because he's just doing just compilot. He's just gonna put it fine. So what about the other guys thinking
that this is true the overrated thing? What do you mean the other guys, well, the Athlons and the Oklahoma's and the well I mean, look, would you think that? Would you think that? Do I think they're overrated? Yeah? Your story?
I actually think a few times they've kind of been underrated.
You know.
I feel like I feel like everybody where i've you know, what I've heard is Oklahoma State, Kansas, Kansas State, Uh, you know, Utah are the teams that everybody's talking about in the Big Twelve. And it's like, I don't know how many things I've I've read. I think there's probably more that i've more that I've read that don't mention Arizona than do.
Yeah, I think. And we talked about the go Ahead.
Well, no, I was gonna say, and maybe it's because I read those because I want to see, why did you not mention Arizona?
Right?
Why why is Arizona being overlooked? Because I feel like they have been to a degree. Now, I'll you know, I say it again, I mean you act, I mean, you flat out asked me do I think Arizona's gonna win the Big Twelve? And I said, no, I do not, But I think they can, but I don't expect them to, Right, I was gonna say, but somebody's gotta win it.
I was gonna say I like him where they're at right now, whatever win total or whatever, but for the for the reasons that you talk. You talk about them going into a year after a strong year where they're still kind of under the radar.
Steven three seasons ago they won one game. Yeah, there's twenty game losing streak.
I like it because if they were like picked to win it, guess what's gonna happen. Guess what would have happened if they didn't lose their mind they pooped the pants, and then this way you don't know because they're not expected to win it.
I look in in the Big twelve, I don't think anybody's overrated or underrated because everybody that's they're talking about the Big five, there's like eight teams that get mentioned is having a chance.
And outside of Arizona's one of those. Utah. Outside of Utah, I think because they're kind of the favorite, right, right, and then the.
Rest fall into they're sort of a unanimous fav right. I mean, there's only I've only seen one or two uh columnists whatever predictions that haven't been in Utah. I saw somebody picked Kansas State and somebody picked Oklahoma.
State.
So if they failed, they're the ones that kind of poo. But if Arison have surprised, I like exactly where they're at. They're around the turn and a horse race, their third or fourth waiting for the front line to falter right. And here's the thing.
They've got an opportunity with those first two, with those games with Kansas State and Utah to go, you know, set the record and just go, okay, let's let's play those two games and see what happens. And if they lose both of them, people say, okay, Arizona.
You know, they are who they are. They are who they are.
But but if you do something special, now you say, okay, now you got to talk about them, and that's fine. That's when people start talking about it.
Before any think anybody says I'm gonna go negative or are not okay, So let's go four and oh, let's go they say they go four and oh, right, now you have to worry. Now you have to worry because historically this is when you work. Arizona can't handle exactly, They've never been able to handle it. Right, And not that we're being mean, right, it's the truth.
It's it's history.
You know.
But then but people say, well, this team has nothing to do with the twenty fourteen team or the ninety eight team or the ninety three team, and usually those teams right not to deal with each one of them. Had yeah, right, because you know, again you're at Arizona. Expectations don't come along very often, and so how do you deal with them?
It's the how you It's a how do you deal with them? Season? Right? If if they go four and oh, which is quite it could happen, could happen, then you say, okay, okay, like last year, likely they'll give you last year. You you you did what you did early and I'm saying you because you're you're the fan. Uh. And then do you lose to You lose to USC and you had them, and then you lose to Washington you can own and then you start winning, and then what's your first thought? When's it gonna.
Well, that's I kept waiting for it to blow up last year and then and then finally they beat the hell out of you, and I said, well, that's not it's not gonna blow up.
And then you're but you're not any different than than the guys who listened to us because they've gone through it.
Yeah, I think I am. I think I and I don't know.
Maybe I'm more like you've seen more games than most, You've dealt with more heartaches than most, because you've been in all your life. I'm giving you that. And people who listen to us maybe have been here for twenty years, thirty years or whatever. And you're kind of investing emotionally you are, Yeah, And you know I'm not. I'm not because I covered the team. But you know, you know, like Bill called yesterday, negative, No, we're just telling you what you've experienced, what I've seen.
Yeah, No, I yeah, No, You're right, Steve. And and again you know we talked about, you know, being emotionally tied. Yeah, I am emotionally tied to Arizona football because I I've grown up with it and I you know again, I started buying season tickets to Arizona football when I was a junior in high school.
And uh and so.
I mean I even had I kept my season tickets while I was a reporter, while I was covering the team. I kept my season tickets because you know, my then who was going to be my wife if she STI wanted to go.
To the games.
She would take a friend with. So I've been a season ticket older since since my junior year inhigh school, WHI would have been nineteen seventy.
How costs back then?
I remember back then there were it was like two bucks a game or something like that. But you know, but again to the point of this entire conversation, I I don't think Arizona is overrated because I think I've seen a lot of stuff where they're not rated very high, that there's four or five teams in front of him the league, and I'm kind of like, Okay, I don't agree with those I think Arizona's probably one of the top three teams in the league.
But again, you know, in the end, you have to.
Go out and do it, and you got to prove it and if somebody and if you don't, then people said I told you so, And I said, okay, yeah, you did tell me so.
The one thing that you can guard against although uh Brennan hasn't been here, or he hasn't been read coach here, there's a lot of different factors that kind of help you forget about the past. You know that wasn't two thousand. I'll forget about No, no, no, no, to help you think about it. But it's there. No, No, you shouldn't because it's there. And I'm a trend guy. If you're beating a trend, what do you think that it's not gonna work? Right, because that's what the trend tells you.
No, you're right, You're right, I mean, and I mean for Arizona a ten win season, they haven't. They haven't had a trend of ten win season, but the trend after ten win season has been did not have the next year ever?
Right?
Well, they've only had three. That's and that's my point. Well on my point, well, you would you would bet you would bet against right, you would bet.
That's and that's kind of where I'm at. You know right now, I'm like, I don't know, I'll be very disappointed if they don't have a really good season, right eight, Well I'm gonna say nine or ten wins, okay, but I won't be surprised if they don't. Let's take this, Hi, you're on the air and eye on the ball.
Hey, Jay, Hey, Steve, this is Don. How you guys doing good?
Don?
Hey. The way I look at this upcoming season is that Arizona has a lot of things going for them that will mean that they'll have a successful season this year. And I don't mean winning the Big Twelve, that would be icing on the cake. But you have the core, the core group of a lot of guys, not just the top five or six guys that stayed together to stay here. They could everybody could have left, and they
all stayed together. And hopefully they're holding each other accountable now and in practice to keep things going the.
Way they were.
Last year.
They had they had. When you think back on last season, it seemed like they kind of steamrolled through it. You know, we were waiting for the Utah game for them to blow up. We were waiting for that game, but it just seemed like they were just rolling. But they had a lot of close games. They had a lot of close like Oregon State, the score looks a lot closer than what the game really was. That game was in hand and Arizona kept them at arm's length, but the
score was kind of close. And then you look at Stanford in Colorado and those were you know, one possession games, right.
Did you guys both think realistically, now, this is much after the fact that they're going to beat Oklahoma. Realistically, Yes, I did.
I realistic. I realistically thought that they could, and I thought if they catch a break early, I thought that they would. And the reason for that was the way they played all season long after the Mississippi State game, those guys played like, Hey, we belong here and we can win this game.
For me, go ahead, go ahead.
Well, I was going to say they should have beat USC and Washington did to them what they did to Oregon State was kept them at that at that touchdown deficit, and that's that's why we didn't. We didn't catch it catch up.
In that one.
But I thought we had to know how the ghanas and that to to win that game.
For me, the Oklahoma game was about the fact it was had nothing to do with I didn't think Arizona was better than Oklahoma. For me, it was about the fact that Arizona wanted to be there and Oklahoma did not. And I and I and I I my my take on a lot of bowl games is about that.
And it's true right now, and the quarterback wasn't.
There right and yeah, well, but even when the matchup was made, even before the whole deal with the quarterback, I just thought, this is a game that Arizona wants to be in.
It's the game that Oklahoma is not.
So I thought Arizona should win the game, and then they and they ran out on them at the beginning.
Then also in Oklahoma.
Realized we're gonna lose to a team that we shouldn't lose to. They started playing better and then Arizona came back and won the game. So it was more about that than about did I think Arizona was a better team than Oklahoma went into that game, because I don't think I did.
Okay, thank you not to use the M word, but I thought Arizona was trending going into the Oklahoma's game.
But see but see don being an Arizona fan, anytime they get momentum like that, you can't. You're just waiting for it to stop.
You just are. That's why the.
Well, I'm using it because I come on, I want Steve to cringe.
I don't even know what that word means.
You know what it means. You know what it means, Steve. It means trending. You know you know what I mean.
That's a better word, but it means a run or trending I'm gonna use that word. Thank you, all right, Don, thanks so much. So to go back to the things I told you about Daisy Central thing, uh so Rhese Davis says, I guess who will play in the his guests in the PAC twelve final in the Big from the Big got Arizona And you might want to put that up there. Yeah, okay, you're worth three three now. He's got Arizona in the Big FO champions Utah, there will be a PAC twelve reunion Arizona. Wow. Yeah, I
was reading it a little bit more for that. That'd be kind of cool. And people in the Big twelve will be big. What the hell? Who invited them?
Why know?
Wh why did we exactly? That would be fun. I think it's a mixed Steve. I mean, I I see, I see what this guy, uh what's the name ulf Jeremy Cluff was doing. But it's just a compilation, right, he compiled stuff. But you can go out and find out. He can go out and say, find a bunch of people where they're not rated very well at all.
I mean they got picked finished fifth by the media.
Yeah, to me, that says more than anything, right that in the end people think Arizona's still still got a ways to go, and maybe they do, well, maybe they don't.
We also remember we asked to select the uh the Michael Levs and a couple of other people who didn't vote right, who didn't vote, and had they realistically voted, would have probably had Arizona higher a little high. So so they didn't get that vote.
We'll see, and I think a lot of that vote is a lot of the vote in the in the opinions. Are are our big twelve people, Yeah, who really aren't familiar with Arizona except the fact that Arizona has just been in the middle of the rotae exactly.
It's a little biased that we think, but not in a bad way.
It is it's just they don't know because they don't know, and I think that's what it's more about. All Right, let's go ahead and take our last break of the hour.
We're going to come back.
Uh, Ryan is gonna he's gonna have have some breaking news. I know what to say, Ryan, I just know this is this is j Lopez and Steve Rivers. Uh, well, we'll be right back after the break.