This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services Insure your most prized possessions.
Been good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and today is Troy Hutchison from gooecycats dot com. We got our guy Ryan in the controls. Don't screw this up, Bryan, or I'm gonna fire you today. Okay, this is Ryan's last day, so why he could do whatever he wants. Don't screw it up though, because I'm not. I'm still sketchy on that damn thing. Go aheam welcome everybody to Tuesday.
Call us if you'd like. That's the one thing I needed to learn how to do, Ryan and through those damn phones. Other then that, Okay, you can do that. Thank you very much. Thank you five two o four one six seventy four forty. We'd love to hear from you. We've been getting a lot of calls from a lot of different people. Thank you guys for calling in. Thanks everybody for listening. I love the show. I hope you guys do to a nice show today. Big stuff going on.
Basketball is gonna finally officially start in a week less than a week. Actually, they played last night, and Arizona football continues to trudge along in the final stages of the season. You went to the press press compas today, right, football some kind of kind of hard not hard hitting, but they kind of try to go there with some of the players. They don't did you go yesterday?
No, I didn't go, yes.
Yeah, yesterday. Everyone still kind of kid gloves with Brennan. I gues I I think, I don't know. And what's he gonna say? He's he's he's not a very lively guy. He's just a kind of a dude who gives you answers that are not very quotable. Uh, kind of like his offense, true creator, not memorable, creative.
Uh.
But today you know you had t Mac and who's so two possible NFL guys, right, and obviously guys are probably gonna leave here. They have the seventy is a senior.
No, no, he's a junior.
He's a junior.
He can, he can, but he's projected to go in the first and Tim Mac has gone to Yeah, I mean the top top five pick.
Without without ever saying anything. Right, I don't think he has to say anything. You just you just know he's like Mike bid be his sophomer year. You know, you're just waiting for him to say it officially and you don't hear it until.
It's the season's ob Yeah, you know, oh, I'm going to the draft pool.
Yeah, breaking news, right, yeah, yeah right, we already know.
Okay, yeah no, but but you know, Jonah ahead, Jonah is one of them that you know, he maybe a first round draft pick, maybe a second round draft pick. So that's one of the ones that fans are wondering. Is he going to be back for a second season, well, for his finals.
The final season? Yeah? What four? I mean what four?
Probably not.
It could be it could be another season like this, could be worse, could could be. Really you you were in maybe a week or two ago, two weeks ago, whoever it was. Uh So I'm giving you, are giving you the magic eate ball. You're gonna shake it. The reasons why this team is not very good is offensive coaching staff. Wow, Okay, I'm going to go there.
You know I don't I'm not one to one hundred percent blame the coaching staff. But results are results. Last year, I was gonna had an explosive offense. Yes, you're missing Jordan Morgan up front, you're missing Jacob Cowing on the on the receiving core, but you still had like eighty five percent of your offense back and most of your
offensive lineback. And you've turned a All Conference, All Pack twelve Freshmen of the Year quarterback and no Fafida into a guy that looks rattled, looks dazed and confused at times out there on the football field, and an offense that getting seven points before half looks like pulling teeth a time.
Yes, to know your question. So is it a is it a thing of creativity, movement, or just it's just not good.
I think a major part of this is the playbook. There's not a lot of creativity in the playbook. I don't think it plays to the player's strengths, especially when it comes to No fa Fida. His best attributes are the short game and getting the ball out quick and making quick decisions. If you look at the offense, how many yards? How many routes do you see? Fifteen plus yards?
Right?
And he's searching, searching, searching. That's not his game.
Well, let me ask you this. So you're you're a common dude, right, You're just a dude. I'm sorry to say. You know, Gizell's not going to come and knock on your door to have a baby. So you're just a normal dude. Well, I'm talking about the the Gizell, not Giel. So you're just a normal dude. If you see that, and a few other people see that. In fact, we're gonna have one guy on today, former ULI player, sees that. How come they don't see that?
I think they see it, But it's still a case of Hey, I've been around college football for a long time, so smartly, I think I know what I'm doing, and sometimes I'm stubborn.
Well, well, so age comes Severn.
Seven games in is a pretty good simple size to say. Well, if you think you know what you're doing, you're not doing.
Yeah, it is, it is, But I mean you turn you turn it over to the new offensive play caller in Matt Atkins who's taken over the play calling role, and you have the situation still the same offensively, So what do you have to go back on?
It's it's the playbook, so style, it's a scheme.
He was there today and you listened. I didn't listen to him today, too busy. What did he say?
You know, a lot of it had to talk about the fourth quarter success and how easy going and how free flowing the offense was, and players not really overthinking and just going out there and playing football, playing reactionary football. And how do you get that from the start of the game to the finish of the game instead of just the fourth quarter. How do you get that quick reaction and free flowing throughout the whole entire course of the game. And for me, what did they do? They
played hurry up. They were playing from behind, their playing hurry up offense and snap decisions.
Okay, you're you're a reporter from the West Virginia side. I'm the West Virginia coach. Ask me a question about how did that happen?
Go ahead, why do you think Arizona's offense was able to have so much success in the fourth quarter?
Well, well, you with the goeasy cats. Last I checked, there were our second and third string guys in there.
That's fair.
Okay, So there's two teams on there. There's two teams on that field. There's reasons for everything. Okay, so we've known that they couldn't move the ball until this last fourth quarter. What if that was the reason and not so much their their flow of the office.
But I mean, and again we don't know Res Virginia's wat roster, you know, but you know what I'm saying. I know what you're saying. There is up when you're up thirty one to whatever the score is.
Dallas played San Francisco two days ago. Same thing happened, Same thing happened. They'd already had the game one. Oh they moved the ball. Well, oh you moved the ball. Well yeah, because we didn't give a crap.
But I mean, sometimes you just have to look at the way the style was in terms of the up tempo, the fast pace of it. You're not sitting back wondering what.
No, no, no, they played differently than they have played party. So did West Virginia. One. They should have never been in that situation, no, right, but they and they've been in that situation four or five times this year.
Yeah, and you know, yes, thirty one points is thirty one points in the defense didn't look great, But how many guys on defense are you missing? How many guys aren't out there on the football field, and so to be able to hold an offense like that and contain an offense like that, I thought it was an impressive job. And you just couldn't get any relief from your offensive side of the ball.
So they have four more games left, three to get to a bull of us. This guy's asked this question of many people who've been in that seat. They're bowl eligible? Are they bowl watchable? Are they the bull invitible?
Well, first of all, I don't think they're going to do a bowl game, Okay, so I'll say that. So they're not going to a bowl game. I think you're going to be seeing the team fighting for five and seven at the end of the year against ASU and that's your bowl game. Tucson Territorial Cup is here bowlgame one? Maybe they no, they need to they need to win that one. And thinking about that at the beginning of the year, as Arizona State, Arizona State's probably going to
a bowl this year. Yeah, Arizona's probably on the outside looking in at the beginning of the year.
Total opposites, yeah, very much so, very much so. Such as the world of football college football this year and how it's turned upside down with a lot of things, especially in the state. You know, who would have thought if you would have given me odds on okay, a issue is going to be better than U of A in terms of record or whatever circumstances, I would have said, what are you three to one? No, I think I'll save my money.
Yeah, No, I want to bet that. I want to bet that because you looked at ASU's offensive staff, wasn't that impressive? Their defense was banned up. It on paper looked like they're going to be the worst team in the Big twelve. Yeah, at least one of the bottom theaters.
Yeah.
And instead instead Utah and Arizona have been at the bottom.
Yeah.
Who would have ever thought that?
And Utah has their quarterback.
Everybody's said, hey, once this guy's coming back gam Rising, everything's going to be all good. Right, not so much?
Let me throw this. What if I know they were good last year and no poo poo on Jeffish because he did a great job and his assistant. What if last year was just the different year, I mean, just one of those things that comes out of the world every now and again, and that was that year, and they would have gone back to this year.
I don't think last year was just one of those years. I think last year was something foundationally special. But the issue is you don't have the same staff, you don't have the same coaches back then. I think this year goes to show how important coaching is in college.
Oh oh, with all question, I say that all the time, Troy. If there's things that I've learned in this job for thirty some years, coaching matters. Talent does to a degree because you could if you have a good coach, you can make the you can get the guys to play for you. And emotions, How emotions play a part in every game, because sometimes kids don't want to play, sometimes they do.
And you know what, just looking at how the season has played out last year, arizonasanom and on the offense line, defense line, you look at the depth that they had and the development that they had a lot of those guys are starters now and now where's the depth.
Well, so we're gonna have We're gonna talk a lot of football this hour. We're gonna have Barry Julian who played at U of A from eighty eight to ninety three. I think it is when I first covered the team in eighty eight and then moved on. I was gonna say now I lost my transition. Oh, I've said this that one of the problems I sense, and I'm not close to my I don't know the pres Conference anymore because I don't care. I don't follow a team as
closely as I should because I don't care. But I talk about it here because I see that there's a disconnect between the players and the coaches. I think to a degree there is. And anytime when you're going through a three and five season, when you're projected to be a Big twelve title contender, a college football playoff contender, there's going to be a disconnect.
There has to be.
There has to be because the expectations were so high and that's why you came back and they're not being that.
So, going further with you, do you think that they've given up now?
Because I don't, because Noah t Mac and the guys that have come back, you can tell how hard they're trying out there and how much they're putting into it. It's just not working. As frustrating for them. I think you've clearly seen that. For Tetuo, he talked about his attitude change this season in terms of yeah, about his body language, he said that it was poor and that he had family and friends telling him his body language was poor and he's adjusted since that.
So I must have missed that because I only watched like the first eight minutes.
Was it in the middle of the press cop in the middle of Yeah, but talking about that's that question, I think it was Michael lev Okay, sorry, and.
That's a good that's a good question when in a good answer, I guess.
Yeah, you know, getting advice from family and friends and people that have been around him saying you need to change this. Yes, and then for him to do that, you don't see a lot of first round draft picks, guys that are going to top five picks do that. They're going to be like, you know what, I don't need to do anything. I'm gonna be out a ye in a year.
Sure, sure, no. And guess what, those people that are going to pay you lots of money pay attention.
To stuff like that. And he went on and changed it.
Yeah, yeah, and he said, ily got his first TD the first time since the first week, right, so we'll see. Okay, so today we're going to have a Barry Julian, a former U of A football player. I met him over the weekend after game. He sat behind me and I'm thinking, who's this dude? You know he's this dude is he's making some great observations at the city behind me and I'm thinking, excuse me, And then he says, Oh, yeah, I played in eighty eight to ninety. I'm taking I
covered that team home. I don't remember you, probably because I'm old and remember him, but he covered him when I covered him in a e eighty nine ninety and he was part of that team. So we'll talk to him about what he says, because he's made some great observations and I think he'll be candid with what he says. He's he's not tied to anybody, you know, he's he can make some observations. And then in the second hour, we're going to have Mike Vader uh the International Baseball
Federation or whatever. He is going to have big games this weekend and I think he's in charge of it. So he's head of the Mexican Baseball League or best Baseball that come in with in October. So we'll talk more about baseball and other things going on the World Series. You have a dog in the fight? No, no, do you care? Uh?
I just wanted to see the Dodgers lose and that's not gonna happen.
Yeah, you know so probably Ryan did too.
I'm a bitter Diamondback fan. I'll be honest.
I'm okay, so you got so did you care? I mean, I was just hoping for a good series. Game one was good, but then was good. Last night was just oh god, no, yeah, well, I think that Game one that was kind of it, right, you kind of lose your your bust, your bubble, losing like that, you had.
The lead, You're you're.
Out of way, You're you're out of way, and you're going home one at least with one one win. Yeah, all of a sudden boom, it's over. Okay, let's just take the break now, right and then come back with Barry your chance to win one thousand dollars.
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This is Ie on the Ball with Steve Braver on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio WIP just search I on the Ball.
Good afternoon, everybody, Welcome to Eye on the Ball here with Steve Garra and you, Troy Hutcheson Ryan with the controls Now. We have Damon Almeda from Channel thirteen k O L D. Damon, how are you?
I'm great?
Did you?
Did you forget that I was gonna be on today?
Dave?
I plead the fifth, plead the fifth. Hey, dude, I'm sixteen years old. What the hell do I remember? I'm look here, you got your day right?
The good news is I take out the personally. So we're great.
Yes, thank you, Thank you, mister Cooney. Great to have you because you got doing. We're doing fine. How's he doing? Hey, he's making money in Scottsdale, you know, living the.
Life, right, Coody's living the life. Cooney had the foresight, the the the Uh. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in my former partner in crime. He's doing splendid up there.
Yes, yes, I see his Facebook posts all the time and very envious. So now I wanted your expert interpretations or observations on what's going on basketball and football because you're you know, you you've been around a long time, You've seen a lot of games. Uh, what do you make of this football team? Outside of the obvious? What?
What? What?
Okay, let's let's define what is the obvious that they're not any good.
I'm probably gonna ask you the reasons why or or whatever. I have Troy here, so he's you know, close to the thing as well. But you know, you've seen teams come and go.
Yeah, I mean, what can you say other than that this this season is shockingly disappointing, right, And I think we're at the point now where I mean, I think, in the words of Shot Millie, you could make the arguments that, yeah, a lot of it has to do with the coaching staff, but you gotta, you gotta kind of like split it up a little bit. The coaching staff is the biggest I mean, it's obviously it's it's
the obvious choice where to lay the blame. But now you also have to look into the scheme and the way they're running things, which ultimately fault in the coaching staff. But also you have to look at at the players too. It's like, where are they at now in their mindset of what has become not a wasted season, because there's still four games left, but a season that fell so short of what I guess so many of us thought
could have been. You know, and uh, frustration is an understatement given the amount of talent that we know exists on this roster, coupled with the injury bug, coupled with just the overall just decisions that have been made within this staff. It's just I don't I don't know, man, It's it's a witch's brew of of of yeah nothing.
Before you ask him, Troy, I was gonna you said witches brew, which is fantastic analogy. I was gonna say, so, this too stews like at the restaurant's called misery. Yeah you want, yeah, you want something?
Yeah, like an applete aptly named after you know, the Stephen King novel as well, where the author comes in basically bludgeons or not excuse me that the fan comes in and bludgeons the author, which I could foresee. And if you look kind of carefully, Fancier locally have gone to bludgeting the coaching staff pretty quickly here.
Right, Oh for sure.
I mean this is probably the quickest I've seen this fan base turn on the coaching staff, especially for football.
I guess, well I were in the we're in this kind of age, right some social media they would have done the same thing for Macovic.
Oh yeah, they.
Would have done and I did they did? They give someone a grace.
I think there was always let's see if he can recruit, like if he could get the guys here, maybe things will change.
But that he didn't even care about that.
I don't know how long that lasted though, I don't know. I think I think someone someone's flame was was burning real bright for that first like six months of his being here in Tucson, not just necessarily his coaching tenure, but trying trying to turn Khalil Tate into a pocket passer when the opposite maybe would have been a better move. Like the first and the things we're not going to go as planned.
He would have saved his job had he not done that. Maybe maybe, But you know what, you know what you know what it turned for me for something, and you were involved with this. You want to guess what that?
No, go tell me.
So we're at the press conference in the in the press conference room at the football stadium, and you asked him about his childhood or something like that, you know, how was it growing up being And he looks at you says, uh, why you ask him this question? And then you you you respond to him, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm thinking, because you're not you're not available any other time.
Yeah, yeah, I remember that. I asked him what it was like selling insurance. Yeah, he was an insurance salesman before he turned into coaching football, which incidentally, he actually gave a really good response. He just like gave me flat asking the question at that moment, which I mean again, like you noted, like what else was I going to ask you?
Right, You're not gonna pull them aside and say, oh, Gil got a quick question.
But there was no one on ones there there's still and you know, you know, looking at this season, guys for Arizona three and five and fan base down its throat and everything like that, how much different would this be with just two games Texas that game and this past week against West Virginia the ball bounces a couple different ways, and three with this second half of the schedule,
a week or half of the schedule. What would be the outlook with the schedule and just a couple of bounces the other way?
Yes, I mean then then we're talking at least it's respectable.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
You beat the team that you're supposed to beat, right, like you're supposed to beat West Virginia across the board. We're not making There's no excuse for that. A team traveling from across the country that's more injured than you, like backup quarterback missing, they're still off. I mean there there's just no excuse. And I mean I even said
it on the broadcast on Saturday night. You it's nice that we got a chance to see the glimmer of something of life in that fourth quarter, But it's like, does it really have to get to that point?
No?
I know, this is this is uh Tom Brady trying to save his marriage in the in the final two weeks of his marriage. Honestly, what's the point?
Yeah, yeah, and it's and it's and it's so it's so disheartening because again we know, we know what this team is capable of. And I think that's what that's what burns Totter. Right, for all the success that they had a year ago, and for all of the expectations, even if they were unjustly like too high, given what they succeeded in doing last year, they weren't totally out of the realm of realism, like that that team last year could be doing great things this year.
Right, They're just not.
Yeah, and imagine, imagine your broadcast, your your website, Troy might lack of optimism would have been fantastic two years into it, thinking holy crap, this this two year stretch is unprecedented.
Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean they were set up for a two year stretch that Arizona football stever had never seen, right and it was right there. And I think that's the frustrating part. And the other frustrating part is, you know, everybody talks about the offensive issues. The defense was the question mark coming into the season, and by all accounts, I know, there's injuries and they gave up thirty one points, but that is one hell of a coaching job by joining King of his defensive staff, and
it's shown weekend and week out. But when you're not getting any production offensively, and that was the thing supposed to be your you know, bread and butter, it's frustrating to a fan base when when your bread and butter is the problem.
Yeah.
We can add over say, the the job that Dwayne Kina has done this season, given everything that he's had to, all the challenges he had to overcome with the injuries and all that, which is just like just the nice blade between the ribs of of of a season that's gone pretty much downhill since Week four. But yeah, I mean, what can you say because at this point there are no excuses anymore, right because you're at the point where, let's be honest, we're passing midway point of the season.
Every team you're facing is injured, right, not more than others. So what does it come down to? It comes down to coaching, to scheme, to want, to desire, and I don't I don't necessarily think that that wanton desire is lacking in this squad, despite you know where they're at
right now. You can still see the fire obviously, otherwise you wouldn't have seen no op Fid had taken himself and you know, truck like three defenders into the end zone and that's fourth quarter, And if that's your team captain, you follow his lead, right, But it's just a it's just a cumulative everything that has gotten to this point where now you're wondering, are the coaching staff going to be around in twenty twenty five?
Right? Right?
There could be some changes other than the head coach. Right, let me ask you, Damien, because I know you don't typically do this. I know your former colleague did with David Kelly, maybe on online but maybe not on TV. Do you are you allowed to editorial wise or have you given a situation like this?
I trute not to, because, like I mean, I have my own opinions, but normally I just kind of like keep those to myself. That was never my strengths. That was Dave Cooney and David Kelly's strength. But when it comes to editorializing, now you're at the point where it's like your eyes can't can't lie. Like like the product
on the field, it doesn't deceive you. You see exactly what's going on, and there are only again so many excuses and so many avenues of blame that you can place before it comes down to the reality of man, this this there's something wrong with this team. They have not figured out what that is, and that is super concerning. So that's not even editorializing. That's just observation that anybody
can see, right like opinion or not. Let's just let's just tell it how it is, Like this team is just bad and right now, really the crux of bitfalls on the coaching staff. As far as I'm concerned, No I.
Agree, So let's move to basketball real quick, at least the men's side. Uh, We've seen a couple of exhibition games. I'm not sure we can get from them. But what what do you like in what you see?
And Trey Townsend, we trust.
Yeah, I would have been That's where I would have gone to first. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean that that kid is is going to be fun to watch, going to be fun to watch. And I will say this in the press conference last night, I liked the questions you were asking Tommy Steve about Caleb and his maturation and and the one question specifically of how how has Caleb learned to appreciate what you're trying to get him to appreciate? I thought kind of hits fail on the head, because if we're going to see any growth out of.
Him, that's kind of the whole point, right exactly. That's why he asked it. I mean, you could tell the guy to bring in the newspaper, but if he doesn't or doesn't enjoy it, what's the point of bringing in the newspaper.
That's exactly right, That's exactly right, And I think that's going to be a very interesting storyline. Maybe the storyline of the season, because you know he Caleb has said the same thing going into the season that he said last season, which was, you know, team, team, team, I'm here to support the guys. And yet you know, uh, he was he was being Caleb love what comes naturally to him, which is when when you know he's got the ball, maybe times out of ten, he's going to shoot that ball.
Right.
So let's see how that progresses over the course of this final season for him and what he's learned, if anything, and that'll be interesting to watch.
So so both of you the question to both of you, then involving Caleb, you first try so okay, we have we know how good he is, right and what he can do and what he can't do or whatever. Uh, He's there's four dudes on this roster who are NBA prospects give give one or whatever his name is in ESPN has him the fourth. He hears him like eighty fourth, uh, with with the Carter higher Brad LeeJ and kJ and then and then Krebs. Okay, four or five of them?
Right?
So if this, if Caleb's that good and we've seen it, why is he so underrated NBA wise?
I don't think his game translates to the NBA, and I think they're trying to get where This is where Tommy and the staff is kind of helping the Milana help not only helping the team, but helping his game for the next level is can you score with the ball and without the ball in your hand? Can you be that guy that goes around screens and keeps on moving and finds a way to score it? Because at the NBA level, he's not going to have the ball in his hands a lot. So can you be that
scorer without the ball in your hand? And you're seeing that play out here at Arizona, and I think that's going to help him for his chance at an NBA shot effectively?
Can you keep moving?
Yeah? Is he right?
You?
You what you follow the NBA? Damon?
I do for the nature of my job.
Yeah, okay, So let me ask you, is there a what do you call it? A comparable?
I think a comparable And this is a very bad comparison because I don't think he could do it at that high of a level. And it's not a knock on Levit's just how good this player is. Is a Jamal Crawford high volume score you're going to take a lot of shots to get to your twenty points. But I don't think he can be offensively efficient as a guy like that, and he doesn't have the ball handling skills that a Jamal Crawford has.
All of that is true, and actually that's that's actually a very good comparison with if you like, put the parameters around it, you just put around Actually, wow, I didn't even think about that.
That dang, nice one, Troy. I like that. Thank you.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
Yeah, I have a good thought every now and then.
Well, thank you depicted our show to do it. Thank you. I appreciate that. Anybody else you know, did you see Carter? I thought, I thought Jalen paid well, really well. I did my story on him because I'm gonna save my Carter story for later. But Carter Bryant was I said, holy crap, the wonder they went after this kid because he can do so much.
He's the most.
Underwrited afterwards, did say afterwards about Carter saying that now and now, it's a matter of what I the kid knows that do so much, then it's a matter of it wasn't pretty much seeing the game as.
A whole, right, Like yeah, yeah.
Not not having such tunnel vision was that kind of point.
Yeah yeah. And then my question to him after it was because he's facing the people, He's facing the kjs and the Wells and all that. Like like Lutska teams, the second string would get the first string to play better and they would get better in return. He's that guy that's going to benefit from playing against better people.
Agreed. Agreed, Hey can we can we talk a second about Henry?
Oh yeah, yeah, no, I let me tell you because I love the guy.
But go ahead, wait wait, okay, what do you You love the guy? But what?
No? No, no, But I wanted to hear your observation because when I first saw him two years ago, I'm thinking this kid could stretch it. He could do a lot of different things. He just needed to gain some weight. Maybe he needs to he needs to the demon almedia uh diet.
The tape for him. Yeah, no, I I was. I wasn't surprised, but it was just so nice to see in that first game, and to a lesser extent in this game his range right, Like in the warm ups last week, I watched him, I was standing right the her baseline because I was getting ready to do my broadcast out there, and I'm pretty sure he went six for six from the on the arc from my end, went to the top of the key. I think he may went five or six top of the key, and then I know what he did on the other side.
But I was like, man like pure seven, like Frank Kaminski vibes Wisconsin, like, if you get an opportunity to show that off, and then he did. Then he did show it off in the game later that night, which was exciting. And he's only done that a handful of times. Because he only had the opportunity to do that a handful of times. I'm like, ooh, that's gonna be that. That's another thing that's gonna be fun to watch.
And honestly, I think one thing that people don't talk enough about him is his toughness. A lot of European players did not for a lack of toughness, playing a little bit of a softer brand of basketball. Last night, he took the ball and he made a power move into the post and went up to go dunk it over. The dude just tried to straight up dunk it. Got fouled, went to the foul line and hit his foul shots. But you can't you can't teach that mentality. I'm gonna throw it down right on.
So just real quick before you go, because we got to go h in the last few years, including Sean's big guys, I'm going to say that this is the best big guy he's uh that you has had in that time. And I just think of Collocal Caleb Tarzuski, who else two bells, two bells. Yes, he's gonna better than anybody else. I could be wrong. You think.
Every time about Henry Henry. Oh wow, I don't know, man, I got to see more evidence of something. I don't know. I don't know if I can put the nail on the head right there. I think I think a lot of it will come down to that toughness and just like just instinct, you know what I mean, Like get the ball down the lane and do not be afraid to just break somebody's face. Yeah, go up there, plam it down and do your job right, be a legit
rim protector and just don't be afraid. And that's not say he wasn't afraid before, but now he's going to get the opportunity, especially depending on how mo mold situation pans out, how much longer heat out for Let's let's see it. The approve will be in the pudding right.
Thank you Damian for showing up. Thank you even though you forgot about you.
Thanks man always, Man always, you're talking with you day.
We got to go way over. We're gonna have verry Jillian, I promise next after this break. We're an Arizona men's basketball fan. You know it's been successful for nearly forty years.
Now take a look back at the Ludelsen 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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Streamy live on the Ihearts Radio. While this is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to Iying the Ball here at Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and today is Troy I just send from Goezy Cats. Ryan is control. Now we have Barry Julian Ua football from nineteen eighty eight to nineteen ninety two. Three three post game you know, you know playoffs not playoffs, but you know bowl games we did.
Yeah, thanks for having me on Steve.
Yeah, very good to talk to you. I told everybody there was this dude behind me. He was talking Tom and I'm thinking he's got some great insight on what's going on in this place. Who is the guy? And uh then I find out you. I'm thinking, I gotta have you on the show.
Yeah, it was good to see you. Yeah, we did. We played in uh three Bowl games when I was there, Copper Copper. Yeah, we played in the Copper Bowl there in eighty nine. There was in our home stadium against North Carolina State.
Yeah.
Uh then, yeah, then I think I believe in ninety we went to uh Hawaiian and played in the well.
Before you go to the third one. I don't think you guys showed up in Hawaii.
No, we didn't know that. That one was the tough one. We uh we ran into a buzz sog against Syracuse, but uh it, it was a fun little venture and that's for sure.
Yeah, too much fun probably, And that was the third one.
The third one, they sent us down to El Paso, which at the time it was is a John Hancock Bowl, which is now called the Stun Bowl. We played Baylor down there and lost the close one, but uh yeah it was. It was a great experience. Now there to go too.
Yeah, so let me ask you you have those seats are nice seats on the north side. Uh, you're you're you're talking about you know, what should happen? Are you are? Are you a frustrated fan, a frustrated former player, or just the dudes who's watching when you're watching?
You know, I think, honestly, Steve, you know this, this team in the new college football atmosphere has really changed. Obviously, we talked about that. You know, we had twenty kids I think that that graduated and we had another twelve or fifteen that went through the portal. So you know, you couple that with a new head coach and two new coordinators. I mean, yeah, you're you're just not gonna
have the same team as you did last year. But you know that being said, I think, you know, the core of those that were watching is back, and there's a lot of optimism. Honestly, there's slashes of brilliance there. But no, I mean, you know, expectations are a good thing and a bad thing, and we said them pretty high last year. So yeah, let's just let's ride the wave and see what comes out of it the rest of this year and into next year with coach Brennan.
And in terms of you know, you've been through the grand of a college football season, You've been there with coach tikto me and been through that type of environment. How many similarities do you see in terms of the way Arizona's coach and the presence of the coaching staff between me and and Brennan. Good question.
Yeah, you know, guys, I've seen a couple of practices here locally, but uh, you know, one of the main difference is obviously, you know they sent us down to camp coach Chiefs and and co Chiese was just it was isolated and obviously we didn't have the cell phones back then. But you know, the team camaraderie was just the biggest difference I think that most teams face now. Uh you know, back then, it was it was a lot of spending time together. Honestly, we did, you know,
played cards, We did dominoes. I mean, guys, just we hung out. There weren't these cell phones, it wasn't there wasn't social media. So uh yeah, I think what coach Brennan's done and having Chuck csal on Board and Hunley and you know, those guys that brings a lot of that back, and you know, you try to institute a lot of those you know, those past things that made us successful into these teams now, and it's a challenge. It's just a different world in college football, that's for sure.
So let me ask you, uh, And you could be as honest as you want or straightforward. And I even feel guilty in asking the question. So I get a lot of texts obviously during the game and in otherwise, and one of my friends or somebody who knows what I do, says, I was all for I was all for h Brennan coming in. He had the Dick tell me past. Uh, they didn't tell me that they hired Dick Tony h And I asked. I asked Jay at
our show on the Casino last week. I says, did everyone think or or maybe has over romanticized Dick's time here because a lot of people love that time, right and it's probably the last time that they've been successful. But so you don't know where I'm going with that question.
Yeah, I mean I do steve a little bit. I mean, obviously, money has TV contracts the game is, like I said, has changed, right. I mean Coach Tomey's contract back to the day, I believe was like one hundred and eighty five thousand dollars. But you know we had guys on our team that would run through a brick wall for this guy.
Right.
So now you cover that with with these coaches that are making millions in nowadays, and there's you know, there's loyalty and there isn't loyalty. But yeah, you know, coach Brennan, he might not look like a raw rock kind of guy, but neither was Coach Fish, you know, and he's had success at the San Jose State. I think he'll be good here. We just need stability. This program needs stability. It doesn't need a flash in a pan. And I think over time, give coach Brennan, you know, a chance,
and I think he'll bring that. Do you think?
And honestly, you know, I've been around covering someone era, the Jetfish era and now the Brett Brennan are and I've seen different coaches. You know, you come from San Jose State. Before that, you are a wide receiver coach at Oregon State and the expectations at our stayed in
San Jose State and the success he had there. Do you think there might have been a moment where you are at Arizona and the expectations were much higher because of the previous staff and the players, where maybe it overwhelmed this coaching staff at some points throughout the year.
You know, guys, I don't know the ins and outs of it, because, like I said, I'm an alumni looking in and I have an alumni call with the team, you know, once a month. But I tell you that every coaching style is different. You know. You look at the raw Rock coaches that we've had in the past, like Mike steps and Rich Rod, and they were just different. You know, we had guys that are a little bit
more calmer and they've had success as well. Plus you got a lot of other outlying factors and and you know, the coordinators are are a big reason for that. Who you hire and who you put in place to coach these kids is a big, big decision nowadays. So you know, the leasha short. Every every administration wants wins right now.
But in the way of college football right now, with this nil and with the transfer portal, I mean, it's it's a different beast back in the day, if we wanted to transfer, we had to sit out two years before we can go in, right, I mean, you know, so it's and there was no money opportunities like there
is now for these for these kids. So you know, the best thing we can do is a two talk community, I think is support them, keep coming out for the games and know that we have some two high quality kids on this team and no Fafita and t Mac that these kids were offered millions of dollars and at least stayed And so, guys, I would applaud them for their loyalty because you do not see that on the college landscape anymore.
No, I, no, you don't tell you. But so you're right, You're right. Nice, nice that they stick stuck around and now they're dealing with this. So another thing, and I apologize if I asked this question and maybe didn't ask it right before. So you're seeing them behind me and you're making these observations, you know, offensively, defensively, So what would you do to change that offense? Or would you or is it more than that?
You know, guys, again, I played tight end when I was there my five years there, you know, we kind of saw little bits and pieces of that because coach Tomy had actually hired four different offensive in my five years, so it made it difficult and everybody's got a little bit concepts. Of course, it was a little simpler back then. We ran a two tight ends set and we ran even number of plays of the right, odd numbers of the left. So there wasn't there wasn't the spread them
out isolation one on one time. You know, there wasn't that.
It was football.
Exactly. So you know, yeah, these there's a whole lot of motion and wheels in place that that all got a gel and combined at the same time. And and honestly, uh, you know, like I said, with all the changes earlier before, I think that you know, it's going to take a while. And and that's the coaching job is to keep it positive, uh, keep it motivated. And then as fans and an alumni, that's all we can do is support the team and and and give them our best foot forward.
You talk about stability, uh, and and you saw you see the internet, you know, in that night, I tell you you you even showed me they're either wanting to fire the guy during the game and that's not stability.
No, no, it's not. And and then that's again that's one thing we did not deal with back in the day is the social media aspect of it. And these kids are bombarded with it, you know, I mean, it's uh, it's something we never have. I mean obviously around campus back in the day, get a pat on the back or you get a kick in the shorts.
Yeah, right.
But but times have really changed. I mean, nutritions change, weightlifting in the in the programs have changed in the off season. I mean, like I said, there's there's a lot of different outlining factors that only head coach can control. And he can surround himself, you know, by the guys you hire, so you know, for good or for bad. The administration made a choice and that coach Brennan's our coach. And and like I said before, would just let's stick with the game plan.
Do you you often think that you were born thirty six years too soon?
Well, now you look at the size of the players now, Steve and no, I went no part of this because I was actually considered a medium suys guy back in the day. I got after I graduated high school, I got to UA campus I was only like six two maybe one hundred and eighty five hundred and ninety pounds, soaka wet. And it was an eye opener real quick because you go from that big fish in the little
pond of the little fish to a big pond real quick. Yeah, no, I don't want I'm good right watching it from the sideline. I'm good.
Yeah, okay, I was talking more nil than it was anything else. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Well, hey, appreciate your time. Thanks. We'll have you on again maybe when things get a little bit better.
Yeah. See, guys, thank you, appreciate it. Give a shout out to all those guys that's that come out and support it and continue to do so. Thanks for your time.
Yes, thank you, Thank you for that was a very Julian former. U A tight end back in the day when I first started many years ago. Okay, we got about two minutes one minute minute, Hey, Gabe, but we saw that you were trying to call in. We didn't want to kind of get in and not have the call or call in. So, Gabe, if you're listening, give us a call on the other side of the hour, because we gotta go. We're gonna have breaking news. Maybe
you call. You're gonna have a lot of breaking news. Okay, so maybe if we have some breaking time or lack of time, you can call doing the breaking news. Thanksgape and everybody