This song actually works in a lot of different ways, some which will remain off air. But excited on this Monday during Thanksgiving weeks to have Richard Smith live in studio, Smitty, you brought us a special guest.
I'm gonna let you introduce him. The floor is yours.
Oh no, well, no, this isn't. This isn't. First of all, I'm I'm I'm merely here as the pawn in this, in this whole whole charade that you've got going on.
You know, you think it's a charade.
Well, well, if you have me, I know, I know, I know that you're down at the bottom of the barrerel. So I gotta try and lift it up, you know, lift up. As you fill fill the water jug right, the cream rises to the top. So you get you get doctor Chris Hill in the studio, so he can bring something that makes sense to the show, you know, other than my my blabbering all the time.
So doctor Hill, how are you, sir? Happy Monday? It's Smitty.
You know there's an old expression you can bs the baker and get a bun, and you bs me you get none.
You got all? Right?
What's happened for a long time.
I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine.
This is going to be fun. Just three Northeast guys. We'll try to stay on track here. But I have a lot that I want to get to. First of all, we're kindred spirits. You enjoy Thanksgiving.
Like I do? Yes?
Oh, I sure do. Yeah, it's my fair. My staff is laughing right now. Notes from now, Oh my old staff, you know, best stay of here. Oh yeah, I drove them all crazy.
I love it. Yeah, so do I so do.
I All right, doctor Hill, It's been a minute since you and I have been able to catch up, and I just can't.
I'm shaking my head as.
I outline the fact that we're sitting here with seven straight Utah football l's first time since nineteen eighty six, and they're a nine point five point dog on Friday, which are to be a historic losing streak for Utah football. I get a lot of things wrong. I don't know that I've ever been this wrong about something, as far as how wrong I've been about this team.
How do you unpack this?
Well, you're not the only one wrong, So you're not the lone ranger. Yeah, yeah, we're all on the bandwagon. You know, now it's a seven Chevy de bandwagon. You don't know when he's on. But it took me so much by surprise, and still is taking me by surprise. Yeah, I'm just like wow each game and they're just I don't know what they would do. I forgot what those days are like. I mean, I still have that year as around. But boy, in the late eighties and nineties
before you and Smitty were born, it was brutal. It was brutal, and so you know, you just lose when you get up Sunday morning. That makes for a long week.
Yeah.
I wonder Smitty, how you've because obviously you were part of a lot of very successful jazz front offices, but there were down years when you were rebuilding and losing seeps in. I wonder how you compartmentalize this. As we've talked about Utah football and their lofty expectations and what it's like for a locker room when the losing piles the way it has for Utah football.
Well, you know, it's interesting the different spence is and guys would tell me this, who played professional basketball overseas in some of the domestic leagues where sometimes they only play once a week on the weekends, and they'd say, you know, well, you know you play in Greece. If you only play on a team that plays in the in the in the domestic league, you're playing once a week. You're playing on Saturday or Sunday. And if you lose, then you gotta deal all week long with all the
talking about and everything. You can't get back up on the horse till the next week. You know. In the NBA, you know, sometimes like the Jazz this week are going into a schedules starting tomorrow where they play four games and six days. So whether you win or lose, you
gotta go boom boom. We gotta get onto the next thing, right And you know, but in the football, like you know, with what the what the U football team is going through right now, you know, seven losses in a row, that's seven weeks, that's almost two months that you've had to listen to why can't you guys win a game? Why couldn't you win the game you just played? What's the matter with you? And it just I'll tell you
what I can only assume. You know, with those guys that especially when you're used to a winning culture and you're used to sustained success like Kyle Whittingham has had up there for all these years. That you go through something like this, and it's not just the losses themselves in the league and the expectations and all that, but it just wears you out emotionally and mentally having to hear about it all the time all the time. And I can imagine what those guys are going through, especially
now in the situation they're in. They don't have a bowl game to play for, so they have one game left on Friday, which you try and make it into your Thanksgiving Bowl game. Let's go guys, Kumbaya and all that stuff. But you know, it's hard to get that reaction from those guys, even though they know that on Saturday they come home from Orlando and the season's over. It's all done.
Doctor Hill, you're the man who hired coach Wit And I honestly, and I say it all the time, I have a good relationship with Kyle. He's good enough to come on the show a few times throughout the year, even though they practice in the afternoons. But I don't have a polts on how this has affected him. I try to I watched his pressers. He looks tired. When I had him on the show a couple of months ago, we had a few minutes before recording and I said,
how you doing? He said, this is as hard as it's been in a long time.
Yea.
His media last week, Doctor Hill struck me as a guy that said, no, not like this right, but I have no How do you think this has affected a guy.
That you know probably better than It's interesting.
I went to work out at UH where Schmitty and I do yoga.
Uh, we're peace with ourselves on it.
Okay, Yeah, yeah, I'm a rainbow amongst the clouds. So you know, one of the things is I hadn't been in the football center for all a bitch or three years. So I'm working out at Steiner and it was last Tuesday, and I thought, you know, sometimes it just eighty. I'm just going by and see if Kyle's in his office and just shoot the crap for a while. So, Uh, the secretary, Oh, we'll find him, We'll find him. He want to talk to you because I think, you know,
somebody's not going to say what's going on. Then I said, are you're breathing? Because I think so? I think so I said, okay, let's just talk about our grandkids. All right, Let's do that. And then the only thing by football is the whole quarterback thing. Let's be honest. You know, you don't the guy that touches the ball isn't you know your guy. It's like not having a picture, you know. So obviously he was really down. I thought he lost some weight, but you know, you can see the strains
there and it's like he's a deer in headlights. He's you know, this just is weird, you know, and I can't imagine, you know, being the idea, you know, I people will get, you know, upset. And this Kerns McCarthy, he owned the Tribune and all those families, and I used to go to Saint Ambrose and we lost to b Why you? And this is like nineteen eighty eight. I'll never forget it. And he's passing the plate along to collect money. I'd rather lose to the Russians than
be why you. And I'm sittinger going.
Hey, it just came to church.
You know. I thot the Lord had give me a break, and you know, and people around me are going, what the he? So Tomorrol story is Kyle's really really got to be worn out. I just looked on his face, and I think he was. He didn't want to rush out of room because we weren't talking about football, sure, and I never talked football at him, you know, I always talked about houses, you know, how's you managing the team, stuff like that.
But you know, he looked like he was really really tired.
Tell me this follow up here, because I truly don't know whether or not Kyle's decision to end his time as head coach is soon, and I don't know that this year matters as far as the context of what would be a really big choice for him. But what does your gut tell you as far as what you know about him? Do you think a season like this motivates Kyle to say not like this? Or do you think he's done enough where it's like one year doesn't matter. I had twenty really good years at Utah.
I don't know everybody that's over sixty, and I faced that too. Now I'm over seventy, and you know, you get I told him, you know, he's what about you? And I said, well, I didn't get down a yellow no pad and put one thing on the other, and I said, you know, nobody can tell you what to do, and you can try to we win this year, we lose next year. Okay, the oddsom we win in and blah blah blah blah blah. We all know it's a
crap shoot. And I said, this is pretty simple. But this is just why I sending you buy your home because it just has great street feel. The biggest investment in your life, the biggest decision you make is to marry your wife because it felt good and you loved it.
You didn't get a yellow no pad.
See if you went to the Dennis check or teeth and you get your bicycle from Consumer Report. So I said, you know what, it got down to the point for me it was a gut feeling. It wasn't like should I stay in out of the years? Should I do that? And I wasn't making six million dollars a year. I was doing all right though, but still it's the point where I don't know if you can base it on just one thing like that or what you're going to win, you're gonna lose.
It's so precarious.
So my advice is sounds simple, but it's your biggest decision outside of who you going to marry, you know, in the career like that, Yeah, having children and all the family stuff. I don't know how you can bas it on one little win or loss. It's for me, it was all about how did I feel? What did I want to do?
Interesting smittya.
I can't eloquently tie Kyle to Jerry as far as the way Jerry's career ended, because that's a different outlier.
That's a different thing.
It was a moment in time with a player now who has admitted that he was a prima donna and a selfish ass in his words, not mine. But I do remember Jerry oftentimes when it came to losing, internalizing it in a way that probably wasn't very healthy because coaches are wired like that. And I think what doctor hill Is described me with Kyle has kind of reminded me a little bit of every time Jerry would lose in fear that he's never going to win another NBA game.
Coaches are wired differently, aren't they.
Yeah, And you know, I also think that with the perspective of time and experience that some of those things start to get into a little more. You know, you're edges are worn down a little bit, you know. With with coach Sloan, you know, towards the end, you know, he just didn't want to deal with a lot of the so called heavy lifting that was involved in trying to keep the ship afloat and keep it going in
the right direction. Even yeah, you know, we had we had a good team, but uh, you know, but but you know with with with uh, you know what with Chris is saying about about Kyle. He's been there so long, has had such success, and has had a formula and knows what he needs to get done to keep that that that train on the track and going in the
right direction. Now in the last several years with the NIL stuff and the transfer portal stuff, and now you have the new you know, Big League with the Big twelve or or all those kinds of changes, you just you know, and then you have a season like this where the expectations were out of whack in my opinion, you know, back in June and July, where everybody's talking about undefeated and getting the CFP and getting to the national semifinals and blah blah blah and whatever, and all
that stuff goes awry very quickly and those things when you're at this stage of your career, whatever that is. For someone who's had that experience like he has had to have to absorb that and have to deal with all of that stuff, I'm not sure it would be as Chris is saying, you know, a one year decision
like lying, don't going through this again or whatever. I think for me, I would think it would be more about do I want to keep trying to do this the way that we're having to do it now, with the way that differently than I did it ten years ago, you know, a different approach, a different mindset. Do I want to do that? Do I want to reinvent myself in that regard at this point of my career? And you know, and getting slapped in the head like you do with a year like this doesn't help that process.
But but you have to sit, just just like Chris is saying, you have to sit in a dark room, you know, with the lights out, by yourself and just go. You know. Now, I heard his press conference today where he said, oh, I got plenty of gas in the tank. You know, I have no problem with that. So I think it's just going to be you know, something like that. I don't, but I'll say this, man, I don't like as an outside observer, a guy sitting up in row row twenty five, you know, just watching the games and
being a fan of the game. I don't like the vibe that the public in general is giving that, Oh, because he's had a bad year, you know, he's got to decide to retire and all that kind of stuff because he's lost it or he's lost the locker room or whatever. To me, my opinion, that is so much bologney that it shouldn't even be, you know, be talked about. You know, he they've had a bad year. Injuries, things haven't gone their way. All the breaks they needed they
didn't get. That's just what happened in the last couple months. And you know, you have to take it for what that is and put it in the greater perspective to try and assess what you want to do going forward.
So a lot of good stuff there, and it's doctor Hill. It's an interesting balance, right because Smitty alluded to this, and I believe it to be true that Kyle has.
Earned the right to go out on his terms.
Absolutely, That's how I feel, and I believe that that is the equity that he has built up in this market over two decades. But at what point, from an administrator's perspective, do you start to get concerned, Like, if we're sitting here, the three of us, let's make it an annual things Thanksgiving week, you guys are welcome here for an hour. If we're sitting here next year Thanksgiving week in there three and seven and Kyle's back, at
what point? Because it again, Coach wait To alluded to this earlier, it's hard to go out at the right time. It's almost impossible. But yes, I believe he has earned the right to call his shot. But from an administrator's perspective, when do you start asking questions.
When you feel like it? You know, you get to the point where I always tell everybody that you evaluate people.
Get real. You know, I got a PhD.
But I don't use all that stuff sometimes because some things are really simple. Like I just talked about it. So an employee comes into your office and says they're going to resign. Are you dancing on the tabletops or are you distraught? If you're dancing on the tabletops, you kind of got to go with what your answer is that's not happening, Kyle. You know that's not happening. And so it's just really one of those things where it's up to him. You know, the world of sports is
cruel and could change anybody. I was paranout all the time and you do something wrong and think, oh God. But like coaches, Jerry Sloan was the king. If he can't look behind you, you're a fighter pilot. You just keep got to go when there's no behind you. And you know they're eighty are wired different, but not not quite as different as coaches and ads have different. Ads have a couple of sports. So if we were good in basketball, bat and football, I could, you know, at
least have some sense of sanity. But you take guys like Jerry Sloan, who are the I mean, I'm a Jerry Sloan fan, and Kyle Samon they're just tough, smart guys, you know, and it's killing them, you know, I mean, you know you know how tough both those two guys are.
I mean, you wouldn't want to mess with him.
And you can imagine they go home and you know I used to say that, you know, coach goes to sleep at four in the morning, the ad goes to sleep at one point and the retired guy goes to sleep at eleven after the game. You know, it's just the way it is, and it's really hard. So you know, I just don't want to do any kind of hypothetical of what's going to happen, because he's earned too much respect.
I agree with you, all right before we catch a break, doctor Hell, and if you do not want to talk about this, it is well within your right to the
end of that microphone buzz off. I have nothing to say. However, when a few friends of mine who listened to the program heard me tease that you were going to be on the show today, they both sent me the same message, and essentially it said, Penny first thoughts about what Mark Harland decided to do after the Utah BYU game, and just you know, for contexts, I was down on the sideline, so I saw Mark kind of go at the officials when the game was still going on, which struck me
as odd. My experience with Mark is that he's been more or less a measured guy that's nice to me. I don't know him well personally, but I'm walking home across campus from the stadium after the game, and suddenly my phone is blown up, like I thought somebody had got an accident, Like what's going on? So I pulled my cell phone out and it was all the same. Did you hear what Mark Carlin just said? Did you
hear what Mark Carlan just said? Somebody sends me a link on social I watch it and I went, oh, no, I thought he was in a lot of trouble. Reht your Mark Northeast sleeping with the Fish's Big twelve commissioner Penny for his thoughts when he woke up and saw his cell phone by the way, yea so public reprimand forty K fine, And I thought Mark, I was relieved for him. I thought he was going to be in more trouble. So God asked the question her thoughts on that, Yeah.
You know, I was bounding to termine when when I left, and still am that any kind of administrative things that happened. I'm not going to blink my eyes one with the other.
Fair.
The last thing I do is I don't want to be seen as that old guy that's criticizing what goes on or not I can complain about throwing a past the wrong way or something. No, I think for me and I appreciate, let me not go into that because what I say it's not going to be worthwhile anything. So, and I don't know Mark very well anyway. I haven't spent much time.
With him at all.
So what you can comment on is, as the ad after a hard fought utah u Yu football game, if you feel like you're on the wrong side of certain things, that's that's a different type of intense emotion, isn't it.
Oh, it is, you know.
And there are times when I was in the hallway after game years ago. I don't forget it is if Kyle had the call, he didn't call a time out and the referee did and costs us essentially the game, and I'm in the tunnel and pretty upset and talking to the conference office. But in my job, I you know, maybe it started with Rick, but I was felt, you know, I didn't want to be near the bench ever or during the sideline, but this game was over. I'd zoomed
to the locker room. Started with Rick because I wanted to get okay, Rick, don't go, don't go. You know, It's almost like that was you know, I was, I was moving my feet and trying to pick up a charge, you know, And and I kind of got in that habit with everybody. This is Abel would help me too,
especially football, so I was always at them. I was upset at times whatever, But when I got down to the locker room, I kind of felt my job was to say, Liz, what do I need to do and go on to coach freaking out was you know, That's kind of my thing. So that was the way I looked at it. But there were times I was obviously upset. Everybody is, and you know, you just got to just ride with what your own personality is.
Yeah, okay, Well catch a quick break. Richard Smith, doctor CHRISO Live in Studio, got one more big segment coming up next.
We'll launch it at the five o'clock hour.
After that, don't forget the Craig Smith Coaches shows tonight at six, and then after that it's Monday Night football the Harbaugh Bowl with the Ravens and the Chargers. So keep it here on ESPN seven hundred. All right, We've got doctor Chris Hill former ad Up on the Hill, No pun intended there, Live in studio, Richard Smith forty years with the Jazz front office live in studio as well, a lot of intellectual brain power and great experience in this in this.
Little radio studio. So I appreciate your time here.
Okay, what what.
Forty years in the league? Doctor? How long were you an administrator in college? Forget? No, thirty years is the ad.
So a combined seventy one years of life experience in Sportsmittie, that's not nothing.
I'm just trying to pay you a compliment. Experience doesn't mean intellect. That doesn't mean that was smart for thirty one years. Oh, you did a pretty good job after you.
Was that the famous John Wooden line, don't mistake activity for achievements.
Fair enough? One more question about coach Wit.
One more question about Utah football, then we'll move on to some other things. Smitty referenced coach Sloan deciding, and I believe the phrase that Smitty used was he didn't want to do the heavy lifting anymore. So on the college side of things, we've seen Nick Saban, Tony Bennett,
and others powerhouse coaches. Saban, potentially the best of all time, walk away from the job that he loves, and now that he's in media, we know he walked away because he doesn't want anything to do with what the sport has become. Do you think there's any part of Kyle that looks at what the sport has become and doesn't want to deal with it.
Yeah?
Yeah, Well, you know random one day says we can't couldn't give you a hamburger somebody you know, eight years ago?
Yeah, and seriously couldn't do it.
A bagel or a bagel with cream cheese like that was how silly it was.
You know, it's interesting because the guys, at least I think it's interesting. The guys that have in that age bracket, they kind of grew up as coaches because they wanted to coach, and all of a sudden they started making money, you know, but they got into coaching because they wanted to tell the defensivettack, you got to do this, you got to move here, Scott.
You know.
I Ohs used to say, there's two kinds of coaches. When you go to some kind of convention. There's the guys in the corner talking about they're out of bounce plays or they're splits and they're getting in the napkin in there se the other guys over there because they used to chease Vana. He was the first one talking about their contracts with TV GUIDs and who they're sponsoring, you know, and I think a lot of those guys.
I think Saban probably was.
One of those guys as much as he's big now and all this money and everything, you know, and it's hard for that. It would be hard for me, it'd be hard for anybody that you couldn't really coach them up. And you know you're you're not in control. Oh coach, I'm sorry, I'm leaving because I'm making this much more money there.
You know, love, you tell you care about you. You know you've gone. And I understand the whole deal.
I understand why they need to have the portal and all this, but I just hope that they get contracts for kids where if they leave, at least somebody's got to pay somebody. You know, there's something, you know, the pros they got a model. You know, what are we shine away from?
You know? I used to call it. I call it now, uh work study. It is.
We're just like somebody working in cafeteria. They work their employees, it's okay, and they get paid for what they do if they do something valuable to get paid. Now that's hard because the four string tackle isn't really Scholarship is forty thousand dollars pretty good for an eighteen year old kid that's not playing. Yeah, you know so anyway, No, no, you just you.
Hit the nail on the head. What's happening is that they in college athletics now from my perspective, is that the genie is out of the bottle. And but and nobody knows where it's gonna go, uh next week. It's it keeps changing, it keeps evolving, it keeps getting more out of hand, more less and less able to grab it and to try and figure out what to what to do with it is the way I see it.
I mean, whether it's Nick say in in in UH in football, whether it's Jay Wright at Villanova in NCAA basketball, UH, to the most accomplished coaches, uh, you know in their respective sports, who both had a lot still in front of them, and they they both you know, apparently just said forget, I can't I can't do it, you know, and and uh and hey, Randy Ray did that up the road at Weber State. Great great success up there, sixteen years winning always in the hunt for a conference championship.
And at the end and near the end of February, and you know, and that and that thing came to him and he had a couple of his players is his last year, came and said, hey, an agent has contacted us and wants us to leave this week and and uh and all this kind of stuff to go overseas and whatever, and the you know, they end up staying. But you know, he was saying, well, that's if that's what it's going on now, like I can't deal with that,
you know. And plus now, like he said to me, if I happen to get another Damian Lillard at State, right, I got him one year and then he's he's going to u c l A.
Can you keep him for a year?
No, No, that's that's that's also you know the way it is now. So yeah, it's it's just a whole different thing. And and and and Chris is exactly right. The guys who who were into it because they love the coaching and the x's and o's and the napkins and on the on the coffee table and all that kind of stuff, and and now it's a whole different world. And and and why guys are getting into it from what I've seen in recent years, is a different rationale for getting into it. And it's it's not the same.
And it's it's that roads diverged, you know. And as Jogi Bear said, you know, when I come to a fork in the road, I take it. You know, you know which which way you which way you're taking it.
That's from his book. All I got the book. All the things he said, all the things I said, I never said.
That's right.
Every one of those stories, every one of those things has a little explanation.
You know, that place is so crowded. Everybody goes there anymore.
That's he used.
They used to have to work in the off season. He was a mader d Yeah yeah, okay, yeah yeah, it got so crowded, a place came so popular, his guys didn't come. Yeah, so got so crowded, nobody came anymore. And that was his explanation. But anyway, it I do think, you know, we can't be whining about it being different and all this and that, but it is different. So your skills and what you grew up with and how you handle this maybe not the job for you. Anymore different.
Yeah, and I think that and and and Kyle said that today. I think in the press he said some version of of Hey, the way it's changed now in recent years, you either adapt or or you or you choose option B.
Yeah, that is Yeah.
My problem is is that is that some coach, you know, Kyle, gets a player, develops them. You know, that's our that was what made Kyle's program win in those great years. And but now you you know, it's it's like, you know, in basketball, Rick used to take the guy out, you know, if he didn't hustle.
Now that Kai calls his uncle says okay, I'm supposed to play.
It's like, who's the guy practice he's talking about?
And the kids going with.
I didn't get back on defense. And you know, Joey, I think you know, Texas is gonna take me. So it's kind of like how do you coach them up? And in basketball, one of my big concerns is that college basketball is dropping. And you'll see Kansas game crowded. In this game crowded, but you know, the Utthes aren't getting people. But it's not uncommon around the country. I mean, by U and Utah State do well. But you kind of fall in love with kids if you're a fan.
You know, I've heard there from more people. You know, I bought my tickets and I'm watching Spence grow up as a sophomore and junior.
I can't wait to go back and see him.
And in basketball it's different because you can see him and then the reality is should go and look and see where their family is. Kind of grow up thinking, oh, this is my team, these are my guys.
I didn't know who's on a team this year. Yeah, it's a little bit like fans.
I don't want to be too corny, but they kind of fall in love with guys like I mean, hell for sure.
So you can't wait for I lost some weight stronger this year.
He can shoot better from the outside, beat all those things.
Yeah, it's just say it's you develop a relationship from your perspective. You think you know who they are and and something you know. It's just like running into you know, Tom Hanks at the airport and you know, you run up to hey Tom, you think he's gonna say, hey, hey, Chris, how you doing? You know whatever you know and and uh and and but it's always that that that feeling
that you have with them now. You know, Jerry Seinfeld was doing a little bit a while ago about growing up a Mets fan and all the guys he used to root for all this, all their career and stuff, and now he says they change, players change all the time. I don't even know who's who's playing anymore. But now I figure all I'm doing now is really basically rooting for laundry, because I'm just rooting for whoever's wearing the Mets shirt, whatever that is. You know, I'm rooting for
that guy. I don't know who he is, but he's got my shirt on, so he must be one of my guys.
But yeah, now the great Seinfeldt bit, let me ask you one more Utah football question, because I need to ask you point blank your opinion on exactly how we find ourselves here. And the hard thing about this topically, doctor Joe, is I do feel like you can be as reductive as saying if Cameron was healthy, everything would be different. I honestly feel that way. But we're talking seven straight l's and potentially eight, so on a scale of reductive Cam got hurt to holy smokes, how did we get here?
Well?
I think losing becomes a habit too, you know, and you lose your confidence and you know, our defense, you know, I mean, God bless them, they're doing great, but it kind of the end of the game, they kind of have no confidence and the team goes down the scores. I mean, they kicked butt for you know, a whole time, and all of a sudden something happened. So it's snowballs. It's not like we're getting beatd by forty and you
just call it a day. But I you know, the quarterback has obviously it's a quarterback game on offense.
So could they have better people back up?
It's pretty hard to quarterbacks, are It's not ey, no spoiled kids, and do they really want to sit on the bench and wait their turn. So it's worse than it's ever been, you know, So I do think it's part that. I think it's part the fact that your mojo gets down a little bit, you know, and all
of a sudden it just snowballs. And you know, I don't want to get back to the other thing we're just talking about, but you know, or nine guys on a team that played against BYU at one time, nine guys wild Yeah, so I mean, it's not like they're passionate about the utes because they also got Uncle Joe talking about another school. So when it starts to go south, especially in football where you're hitting each other day, you
know it's no fun. And we all know basketballs it doesn't matter, But I mean football, it's a hard thing. When it's cold out, you're hitting each other and you're starting to lose. So I think it's a snowball effect. And you can't outdo the fact that when you have a good quarterback, life changes.
Just out of pure curiosity, because honestly don't know, I just ream. Remember after the Rose Bowls, the back to back Rose Bowls, Fox thirteen did a really good piece on what that meant for the athletic department, what it meant for the University of Utah, how much free advertising, how much free exposure it allowed for the institution, and
therefore out of state enroollees were up as well. During a year where you don't make a bowl game, what sort of administrative consequences, if any, are there since they're not going bowling this.
Year, Well, they're the bulls you don't make money on. But I got you got to believe that people are saying, well, I really want to big one with tickets. You know, am I going to donate as much this year? You know, people start to get soft, so you worry. You worry financially, and you worry about the image with you know, to recruit new kids. And you know, losing is you know, it's brutal. You know there's no way about nowhere around it. And winning is off the chart the other way yep,
you know. So I mean they're they're they're not selling t shirts. I'll tell you that right now. So every little thing along the way hurts you financially. And you know, we've talked about Greg a lot and Marston and you know he's a dear friend and whatever, but he said, whenever we won in football, we go to national championship games and they think we were one fantastic athletic department. If we weren't, they say, now, you guys in Logan or some like yeah, provol and bristle at that stuff.
It's even bigger now. So you know it's why that football coaches get paid a lot. Man, It changes the whole deal.
Yeah, most states, they're the highest paid public employees. In my home state Connecticut. It's the basketball coach because Yukon's a basketball school.
But Smitty, let me go to you on this.
So we're nearing the end of football season, so Friday is the final game for the Utes, and after that's kind of behind us. We'll lean a little bit more into our Utah men's basketball coverage for our listeners out there that aren't acutely aware of how ridiculous the Big Twelve is in men's basketball, put a little context on what Craig and his group are up against coming up this year as a new member of the Big Twelve.
Well, the Big Twelve in recent years has been considered by most so called experts or those who are weigh in anyway, as the toughest college men's college basketball conference in the country, Tougher than the ACC, tougher than the Big Ten, tougher than the SEC, and and the Utes are going to have a hard time because in part I think, I think, first of all, I don't know what kind of favors they're doing themselves with the preseason
schedule that they have this year. They play one team from from my from my point of view, one team of any note before the conference season. That's when they play Saint Mary's in a few weeks. Otherwise they're playing all these schools that are the sisters of the poor and whatever to and and I and and I get it. I know what the what the end game is that they're trying to go into the conference season, you know, with a ten and one record or an eleven and
two record or whatever. It's gonna be so that they look good when they get into the conference. But but when you get to the conference, you're talking about you know, Kansas, You're talking about Iowa State, You're talking about Houston, You're talking about Baylor. You're talking about Arizona. You're talking about an up and coming BYU team that has a couple of really good NBA prospects on the team. You're talking about Texas Tech. You're talking about a solid Colorado team.
You're talking about West Virginia, Kant. Yeah, you know, you're going down. You're going down the list, and it's it's a long list, and and it's it's gonna be interesting to see. Now, you don't play everybody in the conference right the way it wasn't isn't football. You play a certain number of teams and and a certain number of home home games and road games, and so you don't play everybody, so sometimes you can escape, you know, and avoid playing a few big boys along the way. But
but it's gonna be a very interesting season. It's gonna be fun to see some of those teams that do come in, that come into the Hunts and Center this year to play, whether it's Kansas or whether it's Baylor. You know, some of these you know, really b y U is going to be a big game because they're they're very good, and these are gonna be tough games,
and I imagine the fans will show up. But but Chris, I think, unfortunately, I think at this moment in time for Craig Smith, who's trying to build his program in his fourth year, you know, fans are going to be showing up to these conference games this year to see.
The other team. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right on the mark.
You know.
And then I come in to see the youth unfortunately, because I've been to some of the youth games already, and as frank Leyden would would often say, you know, the game was just a rumor because there were like two or three hundred people there. You know whatever.
We went to the game together with Frank and Smith. My first game we went to on Saturday and Frank Frank is Frank is Nieva. But you know, it's interesting dynamic because now you know, it's like the Big Ten.
A little bit don't have to have is you have to have some marks in your false season.
It's really important in this and you know you need four or five to make a mark and then you have nothing to lose on them. You go three and two against some top teams. You know, even if you have to go to tournaments to play them. You know you're seeing Duke play Kentucky, right, or Duke plays Arizona or something like that. Well, neither team has anything to lose, and it really don't. And I know how that works.
And it's kind of the formula. You've got to make sure you have enough wins in non conference against a few good teams. But if you finish in the middle of the Pac twelve and you've got three or four tough wins in the non you're in. You're in and maybe got a decent seed. You know they'll get eight teams in at least. Yeah, it's it's quite a challenge.
And Craig is very front facing about it and you know, optimistic and you know, believes they'll get there. They were picked to finish last in the conference. But let me follow up doctor Hill on a question that we've discussed before. And if there was an easy answer, you just do it and you saw the thing. But as you know, I was a student at Utah in the late nineties. We planned our weeks around basketball games and it was
always jam packed and it was so fun. And whenever I go up to the Huntsman, now I'm like, what happened? You know, it feels like you're in some fever dream.
Yeah, it really it's hard.
You know.
I think when we you know, obviously when Rick left, it was you know, not only we were winning, we also had a guy in the sidelines that.
People came to watch him. Yes, you know, I mean they really did.
And you know, we had a couple of NJA tournament I mean, you know, Larry went to the sweet sixteen, and we started to creep up a little bit with attendance. So you got to win. But I mentioned earlier, I'm worried about college basketball. Yeah, I really am. I mean, we have a lot of people like basketball, and but Utah States been winning like crazy BYU is different. I mean they have always have great attendance, even on some
down years. But you know, now with a new coach and the players are getting and all that stuff, so you know, it is it's a shocker, you know when you go in now and you think those that are around in the nineties were like we played ten o'clock games. Oh I remember, and they were packed. Yes, I remember. Now you play a seven thirty game, you go on, I guess and what am I going to do?
Well? I tell people this.
You know, A good time to start a game is when your team's great. You know, that's it doesn't matter. What's a good seat in the house when your team wins, that's all. The seats are good when you win. Yeah, none are good. The hot dose are cold. Everything's bad when you lose. Right, So until they they can win significantly, I think it's gonna be tough coming back.
But a lot of schools are in there now. It's sad to say, all.
Right, Smitty, before we take our break and I let you guys go, we probably should talk about some jazz, since that's why we have you here.
More oft than not.
So I'll say this, over the past seven or eight games, offensively, they've been a lot better. Their offensive rating over the past eight games is like number seven in the NBA. Now they do not guard anybody, knock down a bunch of shots against the Knicks, but they have been offensively, I'll give them that. Anything standing out to you over the past seven eight games.
Yeah, well they they they made some shots in a few games. Okay. John Collins playing at the five has helped. I think somewhat they get a little bit. You know, he's playing very efficiently to this point, do you realize they've played John Collins has played all in all sixteen games the Jazz have played so far, do you realize John Collins has missed one free throw?
Well, that's impressive.
He's forty seven for forty eight from the free throw you're kidding, you knowssed. But but he's playing efficiently at the five spot. They still turn the ball over too much. They're still too loose with it. The transition defense, their man to man defense is really bad. There's still bottom five in all the statistical categories that that hasn't improved. It looks like they're trying to play some different guys, some different lineups, just to get something something going. They
played very well against nick Ay. I was impressed with the fact that they had a twenty point lead early in the third quarter. The Knicks went on a seventeen to oh run nineteen pointy got it down to two, and I thought, well, they're just gonna keep it rolling. And the Jazz turn around and came right back with a run of their own and bumped it back up to twelve fourteen and ended up being able to close the game out. That was a good game for them.
Now they're gonna have an interesting stretch here. They play four games in the next six days starting Tomorrow night. Spens very interesting in the NBA schedule. They played two back to back sets at home, which is very unusual. They play Tuesday night, Wednesday night, then they get two days off with Thanksgiving, then they play Saturday night, Sunday night at all four of those games right at home
into Delta Center. And then in the month of December with the NBA Cup thing that you got a couple flex games that they're gonna haven't assigned yet, but they're gonna end up basically playing eight of nine game on the road during the bulk part of December, and so
that's gonna be a tough stretch for them. So they're gonna they're gonna find out a lot about who they are, you know, during the stretch once they get to the Christmas holidays, you know, and and what the rotations are gonna be, and what the younger guys are doing within the lineup. Cody Williams hasn't shown up at all yet for me, they just call him the league brother the way. Yeah,
well they should. Well, while we had we had this discussion, uh the other day with someone you know, saying that really the I think it was on our show last week with Bowler when he mentioned the fact that, you know, we have the G League team, which is a developmental team. Well, most of the Jazz guys who are playing now should be on the G League team. That's what the G League is for. That's what those guys are supposed to be.
Twenty year old guys, twenty one year old guys one year in college here they come, not ready to play in the NBA, but they but they're force feeding him at the NBA. Okay, I get it. I understand the
wise of it, But but it's not. I'm not sure how much it's helping them because they're they're getting their heads knocked around most nights, and they should really be in in the G league setting where they can get better run, more extended run, and be able to get some level of success and taste that a little bit to see what it is at the pro level. That's but but that that that's gonna be an interesting time between now and the Christmas holidays in the jazz schedule.
Well, look, gentlemen, always a pleasure. Thanks so much, live in studio, have a great Thanksgiving.
Love to do it again.
Okay, yeah, I really appreciate it. It's comfortable with you here, and I can say some things I want to say that I love it so Richard Smith.
Great to see you, my friends.
Men's thanks Man, Happy Thanksgiving to you and everybody out there.
There we go.
They've traveled