FULL MON POD @SpenceChecketts on BYU @ Utah, the 0-6 Jazz, Big 12 latest + more

Alrighty, it is time.

What's going on on a Monday drivetime. It's about nine minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Monday afternoon.

It's chilly, but it is nice.

The sun is shining here and downtown Salt Lake City a ton as it is every single day.

It's good to have you along for the rides. Sense check.

It's beyond the micro porter, Larson behind the glass. We are off and running on this Monday afternoon with just a ton to get to. Of course, the bulk of our coverage will be rival Re Week. Anybody who talks into a microphone this week, whether.

It's on radio or TV.

I've already counted four daffy ducks walking watching some of the local stuff over the weekend. Rival Re Week said that in front of my mirror twenty times. But I'm sure I will mess it up once or twice between now and Saturday. But I just got to say right off the top, I love this week. I love the energy of the week. I'm excited to be on air this week.

We appreciate you, appreciate you making us a part of it.

I know you have a lot of options. We'll get you ready for the game. We've got great guests scheduled all week long, starting with a couple of really good guests today.

We'll get to that in a moment.

But for the one hundred and second time, Utah and BYU play football on Saturday night inside Rice Ecles Stadium, of course, eight fifteen Mountain time is your kick.

We'll have you covered with pregame Porter Larsen and.

A cast of characters live from the ESPN seven hundred tailgate lot of Guardsman's Way, Come on up and see us prior to the game. Porter is gonna get rolling at four fifteen four hours a pre game coverage for Utah BYU coming up on Saturday night, and there's a lot at stake for both teams in very different ways. So BYU at this point is a four point favorite. The official spread open at five. It's moved down one

You can field around the community.

So we'll get into it today and we'll attack it from every different angle. Of course, as we do on the show, we keep our eyes on our other local in state products.

I do not know when the Utah Jazz are gonna win.

A basketball game. They're on the road for three more games. It's Chicago, Milwaukee, San Antonio. They come home for Phoenix. In Dallas, they're on the road against the Kings and the Cliffs, the Lakers, the Spurs home against it.

I'm not kidding.

This could be like an OO to twenty five team, and I'm here for it.

I'm sorry.

I know that bums a lot of people out, but the best time to do this was two years ago. The second best time is now. So a little jazz basketball on the show today. RSL saw its season come to a horribly disappointing end in Minnesota.

Both games went to pks.

RSL lost both, So a season that we saw a single season record for both goals scored and points accumulated comes to an end. And now we find out what's next. Pablo has two years left on his deal. I'm sure my man's gonna be back. I don't know what you do as far as some of the personnel decisions that did not pay off at all. You know, it was odd to watch the new acquisition step up to the penalty spot and all missed their kicks on the road.

So Winnipeg tomorrow.

A chaotic, crazy weekend in college football, both in the Big Twelve and nationally. When we last spoke, there were eight unbeaten teams in college football. Now there's only five, and of course Bringham Young is one of them. We told you a Texas Tech Iowa State. Keep an eye out for that one. In Iowa State got God at home.

Is Houston good? I don't know?

Is anybody good or bad of the Big Twelve? I don't know, but Houston bk State at home. Arizona State went to Stillwater and just beat up on the worst team in the conference, which is wild Mike gun do you like prior to this year he never loses at home. Now he can't win, not even one conference game. UCF stomped Arizona and Baylor got a nice win for David rand at home over TCU, but upsets both in the Big Twelve and nationally as well.

A couple of more unbeatens went down.

Oregon is the best team in the country, deservedly, so Ohio State got a nice win and Happy Valley over Penn State cam Ward Man. Miami continues to roll, but when you look at some of the upsets. Clemson lost that home to Louisville, knocking them down a pig or two. Indiana remains clean. They just smoke bad teams, but they're undefeated. SMU with a good one over Pit which looks good for Brigham Young.

But a big upset is Texas.

A and m lost on the road to South Carolina, so if you're a Utah fan, the one thing that gives you a little bit of hope for Saturday is chaos every weekend in both the Big Twelve and in college football, because, as I said, the data at this point indicates that the by is the better team. I don't know who could argue that right now, right, so we'll get to it. Your Week nine in pro football wraps up tonight with a little Monday Night football. You can hear it on our radio station when we say

That's my guy, you know.

So when it comes to some of this rivalry stuff, I know, the competition can kind of overwhelm you a little bit, but when it comes to the actual personalities, you should know that, at least from my vantage point, most of the people that I've been able to get to know on both BYU and.

Utah side are good people.

So as Colannie says, wishing bad things on good people is bad for the soul. I don't know if Colonie said he said something like that, I'm paraphrasing.

So Klanie's going to stop by the show today.

Then Josh Furlong and covers the utes or KSL we'll roll by as well. So a little bit of everything on the show with a heavy lean towards BYU and Utah. Coming up on Saturday here in saut Lake City. It's supposed to be cold but clear as of now about forty five degrees a kickoff with clear skies that it is Utah, we could get a seismic snowstorm blowing in

Watch Duke.

You don't have a choice if you watch college basketball.

Duke's on ESPN every night. But watch Cooper Flag. This is the deal.

Guys.

What the Jazz are doing is hard, but the payoff could be great if Lady Luck finally shines upon them. So Richard Smith, Kyle Whittingham, Kladie Satake, Josh Furlong, Me Spence Check, it's all of you, the great listeners and Porter Lars from the producer.

Of the show.

On a Monday, you can kind of feel the axis here in Salt Lake. You can feel the underlying energy and anxiety. I love this week, I always have. But a lot of people don't like the anxious feel you know, yeah.

And I'm with you. You can feel it a little bit. You can definitely feel it up at the the Spence and kleone Ekles Football facility, which I was at this morning. And that's part of the plan, right, that's that's part of the process. Is games like this, whether it's big stakes or usually just rivalries. Right, it's either a big game, a bowl game, a conference title game, or a rivalry

Sports radio isn't. We can have fun out here.

Wait a second, are you telling me that building is named after Spence Ecles Yes.

Not check its so after all these years, I know.

I just felt like they liked the show, wanted to give you a little pub and they smacked it on there. It makes sense. He probably donates more money than I do a little bit. All right, let's get to it. Excited for this On a Monday, Richard Smith will be our first guest. But before we get the Smitte Curtis of our friends at Standard Restaurant Supply, go to Standard Restaurant dot com or stop by their convenient location here in Salt Lake City on a Monday.

It's time now for your opening tip.

Welcome to the Drive with Spence check it's on Utah's number one sports talk now into the studio of ESPN seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The opening tip of the Drive is brought to you by Standard Restaurant Supply, your one stop shop to build the best tailgate in town. Standard Restaurant Supply thirty five hundred south West Temple.

For the one hundred and second overall time, Utah and BYU will play football coming up on Saturday night, first time in three years. Last time, of course, BYU broke a nine game losing streak, and for the first time since twenty eighteen, BYU will be here at rice Ecles. BYU has not been Utah in Salt Lake since two thousand and six.

But as I said, the last time.

These two played, as we know, BYU got the better of it and there couldn't be more at stake in different ways in my estimation.

So let's dig into it, Okay.

So, first of all, the line opened up with BYU minus five, So Vegas essentially is saying with a you generally allow the home team a three point built in advantage just for being at home. So what Vegas is saying is they think BYU is a little bit more than a touchdown better than Utah football on a neutral field this year, and obviously the home stadium advantage comes

Okay, So we're gonna get into a couple.

Of elements here about what the weekend behind us means now for BYU, because the fact of the matter is BYU could still get got and most likely make the conference championship game. And honestly, when you look at the way the schedules are kind of unfolding, there's a really good chance that the two teams playing for the Big Twelve championship will be Brigham Young in Colorado. We'll get to more of that in a moment, but what a

Now, the other thing, the chaos in the.

Big Twelve is done, has really dampened the reputation of this conference around college football. If you're listening to any of these analysts, now, this is a one big, one big league period, end of story. So even if Utah enters the Big Twelve, or excuse me, even if BYU enters the Big Twelve Championship with one loss, it sounds like they're gonna have to win that game because there's not a partner that could essentially allow this conference to

So that's kind of off the table.

And as I said earlier, there's a lot at stake for both these teams in much different ways.

FORYA.

Of course, it is as they used to call it, the quest for perfection and continues because how nice would they twelve and oh season be And how nice would you know, a chance to go down to Dallas and play in the Big twelve Championship for BYU in their second year in the Big Twelve.

How nice would that be for them?

And then potentially a first round by in the CFP, and if we get really really crazy, potentially hosting a home playoff game at Lavell Edwards Stadium. All things that we were saying about Utah. Oh, I don't know about four four and a half five months ago. That's all on the table for BYU. Okay, for Utah, what's at stake is it's much different. Okay, Now, look, the only thing worse for a college football program with the expectations that Utah has as a result of what Kyle has built.

Games left to get two.

Okay, and I have a hard time believing based off of what we've seen that Utah can go to Boulder and get a Colorado team. And you got to give Dion credit, man, they are much better and improved year over year than they were a year ago.

For sure, Iowa State just lost.

But at this point, again, if you just go off the numbers in the data, I think Iowa State's gonna come in here as a favorite. As of now, things could change over the course of a couple of weeks. Then you're on a short week after Thanksgiving against a UCF team that's just another one of these big twelve teams that could probably get you if you're not if you're not right on that day. You know, ultimately that's what this conference has manifested as. But outside of the okay,

Morgan, does you know all those.

Guys up there do a lot of them played in it, ironically, some of them on the other sidelight coach with. So what the coaches are tasked with now is basically instilling in these young men over the next you know, five six days, this might be your last chance to be great in front of this community in a way where you will always be remembered. That's what a big time

That's why you remember Max Hall and Austin.

Coley and all the names and fourth and eighteen and Beck to Harlean and block kicks and three field goals and students rushing the field and a guy in suspenders trying to front Bronco Menen Hall and BYU fans yelling at Kyle's wife like that's beer being poured on people all the time, even though there's no beer in the stadium.

Right?

All of us locally, nationally, everybody thought Utah would be where BYU is. There's something close to it and that can't change. Okay, so there's no use in existing in

Maybe maybe we ease off the the mj.

Hey, to be clear, what was the first one you mentioned? Also, we got the radio play here. I gotta I gotta dig into the uh the uh the records to get some of the Quincy Jones ones. They're not they're not giving me any very many options.

On who Sinatra. Okay, but hey, but look Charles Ray, Charles Hey, look, I'll I'll tell you what.

Occasionally, Ignition by R. Kelly comes on my playlist and I'm like, what do you want?

It's a good song. What do you want me to do? You're dancing to? So you know what? Hello? Smitty. Let's get turn on Smitty's Mike here, let's get Smitty.

Dialed a way.

What is what what should do with Michael Jackson?

Maybe you haven't googled it in a minute. Uh, hey, just gonna I'm gonna back away from the Quincy Jones Michael Jackson.

That was That's one of the old time most successful partnerships.

And I'm not talking about how many how many records he sold. Man, his success is not arguable. We're on the same page with that one.

Hey, no, no, no, no, but hey, all you have to do is play anything from the Uh what was the documentary that came out in the in the last year on Netflix with the the.

One where they all got together? That was good. By the way, we'll play we Are the World. We can do that. That one's safe.

Yeah.

But Quincy Jones, I mean a legend passed old No.

And he was he was such a such an icon in in the music industry and uh and then at a time when when he was able to assert his leadership in the music industry with a lot of uh uh non new artists but also established artists who wanted to come and work with him, and he had a long run of success, and that's that's very sad to hear of his.

Passing, certainly, So that's gonna be the musical theme on the show today. We'll try to rebound from our awkward start. Richard Smith, you are a number of different things. You are a basketball savant, you are a longtime member of the Utah Jazz. You are a former baseball All Star and competitive softball outfielders extraordinaire. But you're also a man in our community that has been kind of ingrained in

Well, you know what's exciting about this, first of all, is that if we just go back a few months, right in July, when all the pre hype and all that stuff is taking place and everything before the season even started, if you looked at the game on the schedule this Saturday on November ninth, you would have thought, Okay, they're going to go into that game Utah is probably going to be eight to oh and BYU is probably going to be four and four.

Right.

That would have been the projection in July, And now you get here this week, the script is completely flipped.

And and of course this week.

With the flip of the scripts and b Yu, you know, running running away with a lot of stuff right now in terms of the conference and what's happening there and the position they are in and Utah you know, stumbling and and and being the place.

That they're in.

It just makes it more more exciting to discuss it, which I know this radio station will do odd nauseum all all week long. And we'll talk about the same quarterback issues you want to.

Talk about, the jazz you want to tell, we'll talk about We'll talk George, can't you.

Yes, yes, Smitty, we are going to cover Utah EYU football from every single.

As as it should be. Yeah, I'm just saying, but it's going to be.

And how about you, how about you and Porter and whoever whoever was responsible for getting Kalanie Satake on. I'm like the opening act for the guys.

Yes you are.

Yeah, I'm even in the same stage. But you know, well, look here, you've got Kyle Whitningham lived here. How many years mid I've been here forty three years.

This is home for you now, even though you go back to the high school in you know, in the soft part of Connecticut where I didn't grow up, But.

This is home.

So it's it's it's really the only thing that we have. Where we got Thanksgiving coming up. There are split tables. You know, people are watching this game with anxiety, so they don't walk into elder's corn and their b YU Google brought. You know, the dude in their ward is wearing his blue tie and his blue suit and he's gonna give you the crap.

So it it's the only thing we have in the state. The causes that dynamic.

Yeah, well, you know, and and uh in our house, Uh, my wife uh is a b y U grad And I worked at the U for a lot of years when I first came to Salt Lake, when I was working both at the University of Utah and and with the jazz and and we have one of those flags that I think is I don't know if it's been outlawed or you can't get them now.

Or what think?

Yeah, yeah, one of those flags where it's down the middle and it says, you know, uh, I forgot even what's on the flag?

Split split house or something or whatever.

You know.

The ones i've seen have both logos.

Yeah, yeah, well this has yeah, this has BYU logo on half and the UTAH logo on half. And it said, oh, you know what the word is on the label of the flag is house divided.

That's what it is. Yes, yes, And so that's what we have.

And and we'll have that flag up tonight for this week and then it'll be it'll be fun.

Well, and you and I were talking about something off air that I think is a worthwhile on air conversation, because I know this week hits some people much differently and they don't like it. They don't like the anxiety, they don't like the dissension, they don't like the heated exchanges. Now, I don't live online, so we'll let the message board people do the message board people thing. And I don't know how much of that really permeates in real life, honestly, don't.

But some people don't really enjoy it.

Well, I think that, and I think a good layer of the uniqueness spence is that within that church dynamic, you have the people who are by U supporters, who are you know, uh, largely members of the ld S church. But you also have a good section of active l d S people who are Utah fans, and so you have the b y U people. This is this is my perspective. Now, over the years, you have the b YU fans who look at the the l D S Utah fans and wonder, well, why why you over there?

Uh.

The b YU fans can't understand why they would they would be in that put themselves in that position. So that to me, that's always added another layer. And even you know, you know, you know we just mentioned the house divide. You have a lot of you know, like the the the Wilson family, you know, Zach and I and and and is said Wilson you know, their family grew up big Utah fans and all the time and

Really you know, recruit him. And uh.

And then so you have that kind of stuff where even within the house you have people who are rooting and had different rooting interests. So that that's what puts another layer to me. You're talking about the church thing and and uh and and people having a loyalty split that way.

Yeah, no, it's well said. It is funny how b y U fans you And we're generalizing here, So before I get a bunch of dms and emails, everybody to take a few deep breathts.

We're just generalizing.

But there is this faction of the BYU fan base that simply just views anybody that is LDS and decided to go apostate Utah with judgment. Then there's this faction of the Utah fan base that's LDS that looks down on the BYU fans is pious and holier than now right and all mine, and it just it ties into

No, I think I think they do, and I think that's what I has always been the interesting part for me, Spence. The people who are involved in it, the people who are in the circle so to speak, they get it, and they they do it with respect. They understand what the whole thing is. You know that, that's my opinion. The people who are outside the circle, who are the fans looking down from thirty thousand feet or whatever, they're

Bad about the other side or whatever it is.

And that's the part that's a little distasteful for me. I wish people would just like keep it above the line and have fun with it. And you know, because hey, guess what, on on Sunday, the game will be over and on Monday, everybody'll be back to their regular life or whatever. And it doesn't really amount to a lot of things other than hopefully a competitive football game between two familiar schools that the fans are ruining for and can get up for and and have fun with it.

So a lot of good points in there.

It felt like the fever pitch and this is just my little echo chamber here, it felt like the fever pitch for hate was at an all time high when Bronco was coaching BYU because Bronco and Kyle like, you got to call that thing how it is you could tell that there was no love lost, and you know, I'm privy to certain things behind the scenes that indicates that they just didn't like each other.

And that's all right.

But Bronco was like central casting for why you fans sometimes don't like BYU. He was pious, he was holier than now. He quoted scripture during his press conference. You know, I was down at a BYU event m seeing that i've or I did my show prior to the event down to Thanksgiving point, I've done it three years in a row now, And one of the BYU players told the story of Bronco coming to his house to recruit

Urban came over.

He invented Team down South and that's a stolen you know, and so you know that played into it. Utah was awesome, but it felt like after Klanie got the job, Kilane, to me, deserves a lot of the credit for what I perceived to be a little bit more civility among the two fan bases since he took the job.

That's my prism. Yeah, and I would agree with that. You know, kilani.

Is is such a first and foremo, such a good person, centered person. He understands the whole thing from both sides. He understands what it's all about, you know. And he's also one of these guys who's not full of himself. You know, he's he's doing it, you know, for the right reasons. He's he's coaching his team, he's got him going in a terrific direction trajectory and uh and the

Yeah, there's nothing that's well said. There's nothing not to like about either Kyle or Koloney. And I can tell you it's real because you know, we're not best friends, but I'm able to get to know them enough where I feel like I have a good read on the type of people they are. All Right, before we catch break one more thing on this and then we'll do a little we will talk jazz coming up. I mean, I don't really know what there is to say, but we'll try to say some things about the team coming

Matter what happens on Saturday night.

But unefeated season means a lot, you know, if they can enter maybe the CFP undefeated, maybe they have a chance to host a home playoff game in provo, Like there's so many things on the table for them. For Utah, Smidty and you know, for a lot of these players that don't know the intensity of this thing because they haven't experienced it or didn't grow up here Kyle did, Morgan did, like the coaches know it's at stake. So for Utah, I guess what's at steak here is maybe

That's got to be what's at stake, right I don't know what else.

I mean, there's still the bowl game thing, and I guess the only thing worse than playing in a throwaway bowl game is not being eligible for one.

So two very different dichotomies here.

No, that's it's a well the rivalry game and wanted to have the bragging rights all winter, you know, for your team is important. It's important for every rivalry game that that that's what that's really what the biggest nugget is. No matter what the circumstances are from from year to year. But for Utah, they're coming into the game playing an undefeated top fifteen, ranked, top ten team, whatever BYU is and whatever pole at the moment, and deservedly so they're

Uh.

As far as the CFP type situation, so so it's big other than the rivalry aspect of it for both teams.

Yes, it is all right, before we catch a break, we'll do a little jazz coming up. I looked at the schedule this could be zero to twenty or maybe even worse. Kind of a perfect song, right for a rivalry week. Little we are the World, right, A little let's be united?

Right, we should all on the chorus. I don't think we're waving our hands back and forth, weighing side to side. Oh I can oh. I love to sing. I sing very badly, just like I love to play golf. But I golf very bad.

Fair enough.

Maybe we'll uh, maybe we'll bring back you know what, Just play that song all week, We are the World.

Okay, everybody, A few deep brasks. Yeah, it's all good. That's right. Love your brother, love your neighbor. There we go.

I had a very famous spiritual teacher said that once upon a time it is Indeed, Richard Smith is live in studio doing a little Utah BYU last segment. All right, you know we have you in the top to talk jazz. You spend forty years in the NBA, you spend forty years with the Utah Jazz, and so I guess we will.

Smitty. I don't know when they're gonna win a game.

I mean, I've got their schedule pulled up like this is as bad as I think it has been for a long long time, and certainly I'm for it, as you know, because I do think, but I do want like this is really hard, Like what they're doing is really really hard, isn't it.

Hey, Spence. The whole thing is difficult. It's hard to win in the NBA period. Okay, it's even more difficult to win on a consistent level in the NBA. It's even another tier to try and get near the top where you're competitive enough where you're one of the five, six seven teams each year that has a legitimate chance at actually going deep into the into a playoff run. But this, as we've talked about before, this is exactly

Uh.

And now they're they're coming out of the blocks the way that you have have asked them to do for the last few years.

And so you know, and and.

You're exactly right when you look at the schedule, it's hard to predict where a win is gonna come from there on the road now, continuing this four game road trip in Chicago tonight and then Milwaukee and then finishing San Antonio before they come home and play play Phoenix and Dallas next week. It is a tough road to hoe. And but this is what they've set up to do. And you know it's going to be a very difficult

And I do not want to diminish the difficult ask that I know this is okay, I just don't see another path. And as you know, being in the front office for as long as you were, paths randomly manifest themselves out of nowhere, okay. And so obviously you leave space for a billionaire owner who's afraid of the second apron and wants to shed talent and is looking for picks and clean books and the.

Jazz have all that.

Like, I know that can happen, but the fact of the matter is you can't rely on that. And so from my prism and my seat, the only way to do this is slow and long and hard, and hope you get a little luck around, you know, just at some point, hope you get some lottery luck, or hope Cody's better than we think, or Keyante learns to shoot straight, or whatever all those variables are. But make no mistake,

What's the danger in that?

Yeah, well, there are a lot of factors there, But you also have to throw in how it affects the coaching staff for sure. For sure and the young coach that the Jazz have and Will Hardy, who by all accounts is very very studious, a very hard working guy. You know, he's trying to formulate a forge I should say, a career early in his coaching career by being a head coach in his mid thirties. And he's got a team that's that's in this situation, and that's tough on him.

Uh?

Is he balancing minutes? Is he is he doing what the front office wants him to do? And in playing guys in certain positions to to help in their their development and and uh projection as NBA players. I mean,

We are.

We have a game tomorrow night, we have a game on Thursday, we have two games on the you know whatever it is, and you're looking at it. When you have a losing record and you're at the bottom looking up and you realize we're not going anyway now, it takes it to another level where the players have to have that that that mental stamina to want to be able to keep coming every day to practice, to try and get better, to try and show how they can

It is a tough ask.

And when you're younger and you don't have the experience, it's even more so because those kind of things can really get embedded in you in terms of how your career is going to evolve as well.

So let's dig into you know, I always enjoy listening to coaches, right, so, so why I still love listening to Hube Brown if he's on a call of a game.

I thought Jeff was the best.

It's so crazy to me that ESPN claim that they didn't want to bring him back because they heard he wanted to get back into coaching. Then they hired Doc who him like three weeks later, then they hired Reddick, who's coaching the Lakers. So like Doug Collins on the broadcast or Steve Kerr, you know, like whenever I can listen to a coach, I like to listen to coaches, and will has been really interesting to listen to after games, because he doesn't say that as the kids would say

This is your three. He's safe next year, he's safe the year after.

But if this thing doesn't get turned around, he's gonna have a resume with a lot of losses on it.

And coaches don't love that. That's right, And and that's the hard part for him and his career. He's trying to build a career. He's trying to show, you know, the rest of the league and the basketball world you know that hey, I know what I'm doing, and you know I can learn if I go along, and I can get better, and I know how to manage players, and I know how to you know, deal with in game strategies and all those kinds of things that go

But JB has has.

A track record in the past, especially the last job he had in Cleveland where he did very well and and and you can see he's got that that the experience, he's got those games under his belt as a head coach for several years in the league. The people know, Okay, he knows what he's doing. He's just got to get some players and got to massage some stuff and move some pieces around, and eventually we're gonna be on that

Uh.

But sometimes they don't get another shot because of that, because they don't have anything on their resume to show, hey, I've proven that I can do this right. So Will Hardy is in that tough position because, yeah, he's got

It is exactly what it is. That's that's what they're going through.

You know.

It's it's tough. Uh, it's not pretty. Nobody likes it. The room is always heavy, okay, whether it's practice, whether it's on the team bus, uh, whether it's on a road trip like they're on now, because you're trying to find some ray of light that that tells you, hey, where we can turn this around. We can get better. We need to group together three or four or five games where we feel like, you know, we're clicking, we're

So since you brought up the election, is it possible just to say the final score is incorrect and we won and just claim the win. I mean, yeah, well, well apparently I don't know what the other option is.

Well, apparently you can because apparently no matter what the scoreboard says, you said, well they're they're wrong, you know, like, that's that's not right.

We won, we won the game. Let's just do it. Yeah, So I don't know what's going.

On there, So let's dig into the six and oh, Utah Jazz all right, So six, Hey, I wasn't there.

I didn't see the score. You know, don't come at me.

So I'm gonna draw a parallel here because the fact of the matter is, and you're one of the reasons we are spoiled as jazz fans. We've never won a championship, but we've rarely had bad teams, and when we did, it didn't last long because the front office iterations you were a part of, always made good moves to get

The job was Tyrone Corbin's last. I just didn't think he was going to rehire him.

And so you know, obviously players like al who played well here Paul Millsap, who is still a jazz legend, moved off some vets in the name of seeing what you had with youngsters. But that roster is much better than the roster that we're dealing with here. That's why it's a loose parallel. So the rookies were Trey Burke and Gobert. Alec was in his second year, Hayward was in his third, Favors was in his third.

At players like Jeremy Evans.

You know, then you bring in vets like Richard Jefferson and Andre Spidron's just to pay somebody to play for you and ultimately you want twenty five that year. But that year was about bringing Marvin Williams, who obviously was a pro while he was here. But that year, Smittye was about, right, like what do we have in Gordon?

Sure, yeah, and you're right, that's that's what was happening at that time. You know, the Golden State thing by the way, you know, you mentioned Richard Jefferson on just Midrinch, the Rush kid, Brandon.

Russian than Russia was part of that.

But that was you know, when you look, if you looked at it, you would see that that was probably in NBA Annals, the most lopsided trade ever made in NBA history because the Jazz got those guys who were all on expiring contracts. That's the reason that that the Jazz took them in at that time. Uh, they were gonna they were gonna have that money available the next year. They took that with several draft picks with it to trade for.

Uh, the the the Murray kid.

Kevin Kevin Murphy, sorry, Kevin Murphy, who we had we had drafted the second round the year before. All those guys came in and all the Jazz sent out to Golden State was Kevin Murphy who was then cut. And the whole thing for Golden State was opening up all this space for money so that they could uh uh, they could go get Andrea Iguodala. See now, at the time, we thought they were opening up the space to go get uh, Dwight.

How quick?

Did Dwight Howard? Was it Dwight Howard was a free agency the Lakers. Yeah, yeah, okay, I didn't know that that's interesting.

But it was, but it was.

But it ended up being Andrea Gudala was the guy they were trying to target and get after to put together with Curry and Thompson and Green and uh. And then they took off the whey they did, right, So that's what they were trying to do.

So the Jazz.

See, so when you're when you're in that position like the Jazz were at that time, you make a move, you don't give up anything. You're giving up a second round guy who maybe wasn't even gonna be on our team the following year, and and you got you got players who are on expiring contracts, you got draft picks, and you also got money. You got three million dollars thrown in the deal from Golden State and and all of that stuff.

You know, it was part of.

Dennis Lindsay's grand plan to try and open up space and try and move some pieces around and hope that at some point, you know, you can you can jump on something that that's gonna help your team, you know, to get forward. Now, what happens in the meantime, Rudy Gobert shows up? Okay, third year, fourth year, Okay, that's what the Jazz now are hoping happens with one of the guys they have on the roster, right, Who is that?

Who knows who that is? Right?

The Jazz also use one of the draft picks or the draft pic they end up getting from Denver in the trade on draft night we've talked about before they got them, Donovan Mitchell. And Donovan Mitchell shows up much quicker, much better, much more impactful than we thought he would be right out of the gate. So we were smart, we were good, We were lucky, whatever label you want to put on, it's more luck than anything else. Yes, And so you have all that stuff going on, and

Yeah, it's hard. It is.

And even though I agree with it and think for the first time since you know, Dennis took off and Quinn and everybody took off and they traded everybody. It feels like they're finally doing the thing. I still do not diminish out what a tough ask this is on everybody involved. All right, somebody, before we set you lose, do you dare give me a Utah b y U final score position?

Do you dare? Now? You know, you know how I know how I sit on those things, and I'll tell you this. You know what I do think.

I just think that when I look at it, the roles are reverse from what you thought they were going to be before the season started. Right by U is the undefeated team, the Utah is the team that's muddling around at four and four. It's a perfect scenario for both teams to all of a sudden do something they haven't done this year. In other words, for Utah to put something together where they have a consistent game offensively

Well, Smitty, I don't blame you at all. Always a pleasure to see my friend. We'll see us soon. Okay, thanks man, all right, we got Kilani Kilanie Satake hopping on the show today. Always enjoy my conversations with coach Kilane. He's gonna hop on probably around four o'clock. We're a little fluid with that situation, so we'll bring that to you coming up in just a little bit.

Josh Furlong covers Utah for Ks.

That will stop by of course, Rivalry Week, By the way, how are.

You on your annunciation?

And I want to be I'm not judging anyone here because over the years I've daffy ducked Rivalry Week like a million times watching the local broadcast last night, getting ready for the week, seeing how they're covering it.

I heard four or five why will we weeks? They happen? Have you ever got got on this before? I don't know about the the rivalry week one? Why will we week?

Yeah, it's your daffy duck it and we all do it. We've all done it at some point.

I mean I grew up to be clear with like a pretty gnarly lisp.

Oh, I didn't know that.

You can hear it make its way out every once in a while if you pay attention, you probably will now.

But I don't know.

About the the rs or the double up there.

I think I'll be good with Rivalry Week.

So that's of course going to be a lot of our coverage throughout the course of the week. We have some fun remotes. We'll tell you about a lot of good guests on the show to get you ready for the big game coming up on Saturday. Utah is a four point underdog as of now by us your favorite, but as we do every single Monday during the college football season. If you missed it from earlier, here is the head ball coach for the Utes.

Coach.

Wait, okay, Rivalry week. I guess we haven't said that for a little over three years, and so season is flown by in a way, in a way it's taken forever. But anyways, it's time for the N State rivalry. You know, our guys were both in by weeks, both schools in bye weeks, and so certainly seasons have gone completely different directions.

Uh.

Uh had a really good productive by week last week and and we'll resume practice today. They've had uh three days off, UH Friday, Saturday, Sunday off and so exious to get back on the field today and resume preparations and uh get ready for them, get ready for the game on Saturday. So questions cool, okay, justin go ahead.

Hm, okay, where is your identity?

Young young, fortality and attention to details to stay age, and.

It seems that you've lost that last month.

To how do you address this issues?

Really, wife, I would agree we're not as physical this year as we typically have been. Uh, and you really gauge that at least we gauge it by uh how you run the ball and how you defend the running man. We haven't been as good at that this year. Uh just uh, you know, tough to s pinpoint one exact reason for that, but uh, yeah, we haven't h haven't been uh our usual selves in that regard, and uh

You had talked about last week Brandon and and uh Isaac was studying.

Have you made it a termination?

Yeah, We've got a good plan uh right now. And and Uh, well, keep it to ourselves obviously, but we have a plan going forward and uh, you know, I guess nothing's ever set in stone, but we we feel like we're we've got a uh uh a situation that uh is best for us and gets us the best chance to win.

When you put in Brandon the last game, you said that you were looking for a spark I was ordering. Was it something that he showed you that led to, hey, let's give him a shot?

Any practice as opposed to well the other is that working with the other lots the list.

Straight little both little Both we weren't very productive offensively. Uh, I haven't been productively m much of this season since the first uh couple games, But uh it was a little of both. And uh I just thought that Brandon had been practicing extremely well as the number two guy, and just thought, given the circumstances, uh, it made sense to uh give him a chance and and see what he could do. So both uh, both things are correct, Kyle.

Was this the first time in a while that Utah has been the underdog heading into the Buau Utah matchup? How was it different in terms of preparation, how the players do the game, how you viewed the game, and you know, is it different having that you're going shoulder heading into.

The game to speak, Well, typically historically we've been uh pretty good in that situation, you know, with a with a chip on our shoulder. As you said, uh, mentality, I'm not sure, you know, the point spread doesn't really affect affect our thinking or how we go about our business or anything like that, other than uh, you know, maybe feeling like uh, you know we uh you know, just uh I that's unusual force you right, it's unusual, and so it's it's something that uh hasn't had occurred

Brandon Rose has been here for a few years. How have you seen his development uh over his time as utell?

He said, well, and he was really new well last year.

Uh.

In addition, but had that injury that knocked him out for six or eight weeks which really set him back, and then uh didn't uh get much uh any of anything going last year because of that. Uh spring ball. UH had some reps. Isaac uh got a bunch of the reps as well. But but Brandon has made steady and continual progress since he's been in the program. UH is playing his big us football right now is a ut Listen. Practice, there's not a big body of work to to gauge it off in game, but uh in

Feel he's obviously proved quite a bit of year to year. Who what is the strength.

Of that offense?

You know, I'd say the QB is the catalyst.

Uh.

You look at UH, individual rushers, individual receivers. There's nobody that just jumps out statistically. It It's a collaborative effort. But the uh, the quarterback is the catalyst in my opinion, And and playing good football. He's uh amongst the league leaders in pass efficiency. He and he's made some uh just a bunch of really timely runs during the course of the season, runs that that have made you know,

Now ago kin they going off the question Justin asked about identity. Is it harder in this NIL era to.

Kind of stick to your identity knowing that you're kind of have to appease guys or how do you how what's.

Your approach on that much harder? And it's uh. I think there's a lot of teams across the country that are that are feeling and going through similar situations. When you uh, you know, four or five six years ago, before the advent of the portal, whenever that was, you might replace twenty five guys out of one hundred and

In in the vein of the portal and just how you build your program. Obviously it's you've not had a lot of turn over comparison to other programs in terms of the foundational pieces that you've had.

Well, we did have forty five new guys this year for yeah, the rosters. It's during your half given.

Uh, I guess the impacts of that.

You know, has it changed, I I guess the way you see your co coaching philosophy and and the way this year has gone as it changed the way that you might approach it in in the futures.

H, I think for certain. And uh, you know you got guys that uh come to the program and are here for a year or two and uh either leave or you've got grad transfers that only had a year or two left. And so there's just it's it's constantly

This arborous series became dominant when you guys went to the Act twelve and they went in and then.

Before that, I think you go back like the last twenty years. I believe the youths had like eleven to nine advantage, right, and then there was a sepuation.

I think it's m I think it's more than that over twenty oh twenty years before what yeah, so thirty years ago and yeah, yeah, okay, yeah right, yeah. I mean it's it's been cyclical in a way.

But I'm I'm wondering now that you're back in the same conference at least for the time being, would it surprise you if it got more even like it was in a Mount West days at the end.

I could very well, I don't know. Then time will tell. I mean, why speculate on speculation. But that's great. Yeah, but but uh, who knows? I mean, who knows where college? Who who knows what will be in the same conference in two years? I mean, who knows that? There's so I can't really give you a good answer other than, uh, you know, being in the same conference. Certainly, I don't wanna say, uh it just as uh uh an equalizer

Yeah, to kind of go back to the transfer portal.

Obviously with quarterbacks like the NFL, they're starting to become the highest paid position.

Oh yeah, in college football.

Yeah, in terms of a roster building perspective and what you've seen from Isaac, has there been any pause? I guess from what you've seen from his play to potentially view him as the future of this program moving forward.

I know that's a very broad question and just curious.

Based off your person Well, just generally speaking, we had a ton of belief in Isaac and we think he's got a big upside. We didn't know he'd be thrust into the starting role of the game in half into the season. You know, we the idea and the plan was, you know, hopefully Camp stays healthy as it gets sporadic playing time along the way and continues to develop and really takes over in spring as the number one guy. I mean,

You've mentioned Noble whole still changes offensively obviously with uh who's the season change? What is the possible that chamiership of the quarterback or with Mike Jake taking over whether his play calling or how it matches up with the quarterbacks still.

Said, or either their relationship with Mike. I wonder how that quarterback.

Dynamic with well, I think it was not a a huge impact. I mean Andy Ludwood coach the quarterbacks and coordinated for years and so it's not like it's uh uncommon for that to happen. That's very commonplace for for uh coordinators to be the the QB coach. Now it's gonna become less common going forward because when they change the rules, like I said, this year, everyone's added to their staff to free up the coordinators a lot of in a lot of instances. But uh, the quarterbacks have

Looking at by you.

You know, you have a lot of guys that were formally on your staff running the program there.

To say the least.

Yeah, right, yeah, what do you feel like they've done?

I I guess well defined success this season with such a cohesive roster.

It seems like all cylinders are working for them.

I mean, what has kind of been the outside perspective from you?

You'd have to ask them for the r you know, for the real answer to that. But I know that they've got uh one, five, six, seven, eight, maybe ten guys when you count Badmin's and all the peripheral uh positions that that we're once here and so they're they're doing a a really nice job obviously, and uh, you know, I just would say that, uh, you know, they are hitting on all cylinders, like you said, and again, uh

You're the pact Jay, he'll play here and work for you. When you look at his defense, how.

Much you will it helped during the game?

How much are you looking at a lot of what you did?

And you know what he's thinking, and how much has he evolved.

In the years since he done.

Well, he's evolved. But the basic principles, the basic fundamentals, the basic philosophy is still intact.

Uh.

But Jay has done a terrific job putting his own stamp on it, just like Morgan's done a terrific job putting his own stamp on the defense here. But uh, the basic the you know, the building blocks are the same and that's really, uh what wins games. And you know, blocking, tackling, how you defeat blocks. I am and all that stuff is is what wins and loses games. It's not it's not plays, it's players and how they fundamentally operate. And uh, he's got those guys doing a great job.

In regards to as it get those almost four hundred snaps. And I guess with whatever starts against by us, is all experience a good experience or you have to make sure that you know you're helping build the quarterback's confidence by particularly well it's getting the right situations to play callwise.

Et cetera. Sure, I would say most all experience is mostly good experience, not that, but you can you know, there's there's situations where a guy goes in and and becomes shell shocked because it's happening so fast and he's not ready for it, and it can do some damage for a period. I'm not saying that's what happened to Isaac,

And Uch, you've been very candid.

About always candid, Yeah, every every day in my life, Canda. It's a good way to describe it.

Kay, you've been very candid about the conference ree line or race, just how you think the next three or five years are going to shape you know, how there's a potential power too or Super League.

How do you feel like winning in the state of.

Utah's program is right now for the future of that potential power too And obviously that's speculative, but yeah, you know, is there more pressure on you as a head coach, knowing the the states of those futures.

Uh.

Uh, Well, there's always pressure on the head coach in regardless of the circumstances. It doesn't matter if you're a Pop Warner coach. I mean, you've got pressure and and you feel it. And if you're all in then you care. And it again doesn't matter the level. But uh, I would say it's more a body of the work of the last twenty years, the thirty years, more so than

Uh.

There's so many things involved, you know, side, not not just your your uh win loss record overall though although that'll be a big importance. You know, how big is your stadium, you you're you're f following, and I mean just how you know just your overall state of the program and what you bring to the table. That's really what it boils down to is what do you bring to the table as a program, as a fan base to make yourself attractive to be in that Power two

All right here we go, all right there he is coach Wit.

We replay his media availability every Monday throughout the college football season. If you missed any of it, just head to the website excuse me, which is ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Austin Powers theme song? Is that what this is?

It is? But it's it's a Quincy Jones joint. All right?

Okay, well that works for the musical theme on a Monday afternoon. It's a big week, man, bring him young, rolls up to Risycle Stadium undefeated for Saturday Saturday night, tilled against the Utah.

You try, next guest, good friend of the show, the head coach of b y U.

Great to have Kalatee satake on a Monday, Coach kilate Happy Monday.

How you doing?

What's going on?

Spence?

How you doing?

I'm well, man, I appreciate the time.

So when you wake up on an of a week like this, How does it hit a little bit differently just juxtaposed to your other game weeks.

Oh, I mean it's I'm actually what was odd was having the bye week last week for both teams, and so that was the harder week to get through. But now that the game week is here, it's right around the corner. It makes it a little bit more normal than what we had to go through with the bye week. But I thought we took advantage of the extra time that we had, extra preparation and really looking forward to this game. I got to take advantage of what we

And obviously your wealth.

You're well aware of the dynamics that come into play here. And I want to go back to Big twelve media days when I was able to catch up with both you and and and a Rod coach a Rod and you both said to me, we will be better, we will be different this year, and eight games later, you certainly have klatatee. What would you attribute your undefeated start you most?

Is there one dynamic? Is it preparation?

Because the interesting thing is you made some transfer portal editions but you really just grew from within, which is not the model that a lot of people are using these days. So first of all, congrats on the start. How would you explain how this has gone down?

Well? I think we just had to believe in what we were doing and we know that the landscape of college football has changed quite a bit. But when it all comes down to it, having the principles, the things that we actually operate by, you have to double down on it. You have a choice to either do it or abandon it. And we decided to stick to what

For this year.

I didn't know exactly what that meant other than we feel we felt really comment going into this season. You know, we we're in a really good spot right now, but that that it doesn't change the fact that of our approach and and and the processes that we're trying to work through, we just happened to be eight no at now.

So for me, Kalani, it was Smu. It was the road when Smu that.

Kind of opened my eyes and I went all right, there's something going on down there now. I didn't know you were going to be a No, you never know about any of these things.

But was there as the head coach.

Was there one seminal moment, one seminal game where you guys were looking around, You're like, all right, this might be real. Does does one thing kind of jump out?

Well?

I think the thing that jumped out to me the leaders that I saw on the team just this was in camp. I just felt you just felt the difference in the way that these guys are the closest that they felt to each other. And then and then I'm seeing it the way that they're celebrating each other's accomplishments. So then you see somebody making the play, the excitement and energy that comes from their teammates and and even people that are that are in competition for the same spot.

So your media every Monday after the game has been really impressive. But it's one thing to say we want to make our eighth statement, or we want to make our ninth statement, or we want to win the week. All coaches have some sort of derivative of that. But how do you make that message permeate among the young

Well, I think we've been really consistent as a coaching staff and in our approach every week, and whether that's this year or last year, and doesn't matter that the week, we've been very consistent and then and how we operate. But I think the key is you can either be sad or happy, but there's one thing that has to happen. You have to go to work, and so it doesn't really matter what happened that day you come to practice.

And you've had tremendous consistency under center. And in the four games we saw Jake last year, there just were way too many decisions that ultimately led to turnovers that ultimately led to losses.

And it's been more.

I look, nobody's perfect, but he's been so much better this year. A year older a year evolved. Obviously, your wide receiver room is in my opinion, as deep as anyone that I've seen. So he certainly has targets. You've got three or four capable backs you've had to shuffle through when it comes to the health stuff and a little bit of an injury issue on the O line. Hopefully that's getting hold. But what stands out most to you about the play of your quarterback.

Well, I just really appreciate his approach to the game, so humble, and he's always willing to learn more. And and part of that learning is that I think we we as coaches want to want to focus on the negatives. It's like, hey, you got to do this better, got to do that better. But the one thing that he's

Had seventeen players score touchdown, You've had eleven players get a pick, You've had eight players get a sack. Like this is an absolute masterclass on depth and complimentary football. You're not getting this done with one or two guys. I mean that speaks too. I suppose the depth you've built up to get ready for this P four challenge.

Yeah, well, I think it's just everybody buying into their part. And you're right, it's been. The stats have been kind of spread out throughout everyone in the team, and I think it's just everyone just does buys into their role. It doesn't really out of your role as a starting role. If you're a backup guy, you got to be ready. You got to be ready for that moment just in case something does happen. And you know what happens, bence

Well.

Last thing you want is the injury to happen. But these guys are bought in and they're they're they're focused on what's happening. They're getting mental reps, and they're supporting their teammates and that's I wish I could take credit for them, but that's that's the stuff that they're doing for the position groups and from their leaders, and they're

Certainly, when you blab into a micro for four hours every day, you're gonna get.

A lot wrong.

Klaudie, I don't know that I've ever been as wrong as I've been about this Utah football team. How surprised are you as far as where we find ourselves up in Salt Lake with a youth sitting at four and four having lost four straight.

Well, I think, first of all the dangerous team because you can see the talent and you can see the toughness that's in that program. I think they've gone through some adversity. It happens in college football, and unfortunately the injuries can be a detriment to your program and even the momentum. But I do know one thing about that coaching staff and one thing about those players. They have high character and the ability to fight back. So we're

So it's been tough up here with the quarterback stuff, as you know, and Coach Witt has elected to not share who his starting quarterback will be on Saturday, so we know that Brandon Rose and Isaac Wilson will be splitting reps this week. Does that change the way you prepared for Saturday? There's this debate in college football, like does that really give you a competitive advantage? Well, Kyle thinks it does and it's not against the rules, So

I don't know.

We just I said earlier over preparing is kind of what you have to do as a coaching staff, and so there's things that we have to do. We have to prepare for whoever shows up under center, and that doesn't really matter who could be, but you can you can plan for anything, whether it's a wildcat situation or they they use a number of quarterbacks. I mean, that's they're right. I think coach with is right. It's to

On the other side, Kaladia, as you know, the numbers indicate this is still kind of like a top three defense in the conference. And that's Utah football, that's Kyle Whittingham football. It's also Kolonia Satake football, as we know. So when you study their defense, what stands out as far as how they've been able to maintain what they usually do on that side of the ball.

Well, it looks really familiar, you know what I mean. You look at the guys that are in our room, and the guys are working the defense. I know Morgan Scatty, I know coach Whittingham. I know they'll get that team ready, and I know the coach is Lewis Powell and Sharif. Those guys are doing a great job, you know, and Swani, I mean, those guys do a great job at getting their guys ready. So we've seen it every week and

Weekend, last thing that I know you got to get to.

It's all set you loose, But I view you as kind of what I perceive to be a leader into this generation of what feels to be a more civil relationship between the two communities.

Nobody, You're not going to get perfect behavior.

They're gonna be a couple of idiots that do something stupid, but that shouldn't, you know, overshadow what should be a really fun week. It's a week that I love, but Colonia, it's a week that some people don't because of the past and the energy and things that maybe have happened that have hurt feelings or what have you. So before I say you lose, just characterize how you hope this week.

Goes leading up to the game and then during the game as well.

Well.

I think this is how most fans want to be. And you have to remember that I'm a fan at heart, even though I get to be a coach for you know where they did.

We lose them mean?

And I kind of was raised in the in the the Lovelle and mac Era and then those guys were best friends. They really enjoyed each other's company. Even to this day, Patty and Mac and Vicki, they all have a great relationship, and so it's it's one of those things that you re celebrated. And when we were not able to play this game, we had to take an

Well said, well, I'm thrilled for your success, my friends, and it's been fun to watch.

It's real.

You've answered questions and I'll wish you the best of luck coming up on Saturday. And I really appreciate your time on a busy day.

Okay, thank you, my frien.

I appreciate you, guys.

Thanks all right, Kiani Satake head coach Brigham Young. They roll up here to Salt Lake as a five point twelve four point favorite. Now the line opened at five and it moved down to four and that's where it's remained, which is kind of interesting. When I saw five and went oof BYU Road Team rivalry game, insane Utah desperation. You can't fake desperation, say it all the time. I would imagine U Tu's gonna come out very, very desperate, not just for a good showing, but they've got to win.

You know, for a long.

Long time it was like maybe we can go to a bowl and beat BYU and that was considered success. The expectation has changed around here and that makes this season land differently and there's nothing that can be done between now and the end of the season to change.

That undeniable fact.

And I'm sure Kyle would admit that himself, and he all but has in his media availability. But for one day, you have one opportunity to be great in a game that matters to a lot of people. And that's got to be the message to the players this week, who I'm sure are still down in the dumps after losing four straight. I mean, Utah has lost going in, they've lost games going into both by weeks.

That's got to be hard.

I mean, I'm sure it just resonates and just kind of lingers and stays there.

And a win on Saturday.

It's not going to change what the season ultimately unfolds in too, but for one moment you can probably win back at community that right now is I don't know. I feel like the community is very nervous for Saturday. It'll be a fun night. As Kalanate just outline, no matter what, don't forget that kickoff time is eight to fifteen.

It is on ESPN.

You can listen to it, of course, as your home of the youths for more than seventy years here on ESPN seven hundred. Our pregame coverage with Porter Larsen and with Porter Larsen.

And Azekastiata and a bunch of other folks will be stopping by, Hey, cast of characters, stop stopping by our tailgates starting at four fifteen on Saturday, so come by and join us.

I think the Austin Powers theme song for Kilani worked pretty well. You use that as the intro for Klonia. I don't know why. It felt like it was an appropriate bump.

I don't know why either, but it did feel like it worked. And this one, I believe is also a music video theme. May be a soundtrack of some but it's good. I like the bumps. I like the Quincy Jones bumps.

Yeah.

Have you seen the documentary that his daughter, Rushida directed.

I think it's Netflix. You know what. I totally space that that is his daughter. Yeah, The Office of the Office Fame. She's very talented in her own right. You know what it was actually HBO. I knew that at one point and totally forgot about it.

It's really good because I look, I'm a music fan, and I had no clue just how far his reach went. I mean, a pretty remarkable career and he was a remarkable artist in his own right. Passed away at the age of ninety one. So yeah, that's the musical theme

Yeah, that's a low key game. Nobody's ever really heard of it.

People will probably gloss over it, so it'll be fine.

Well ultimately, I well let me start here. I like this week. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just that kind of like that competitive energy. I never played for a paycheck, but I definitely played in rivalry games and I always loved it.

I don't know what, but some people very much do not enjoy it.

And I don't know if it's a little PTSD from having your feelings heard at church from a BYU bro. I don't fully know what it is. But do you enjoy this week from your vantage point?

Yeah? I mean I think from a competitive standpoint, this becomes a very fun week every single year when it happens, right, I think there's a lot of fun to it. I understand where some people don't like it. I mean, like there's one hand of it where I hate the bau Utah week simply because of the vitriol on Twitter. Granted, that comes on a day to day basis, but it

Utah once again.

So if you can't get excited for that, I don't know what to tell you, right Like, I mean, this is what this is the reason you play the sport. You want to be in competitive environments, You want to be able to have this fun. So I, for one, love this type of week. I think it's fun and people should embrace it.

More so the data sometimes it's all you can go off of. The data indicates BYU is the better team. I don't think anybody can argue that now. But if you have paid attention to the way this game usually goes, more often than not, barring like a two thousand and four talent gap, chaos ensues in a way that you never ever anticipate. So ultimately that does give Utah fighting chance. By you opened as a five point favorite, Vegas typically

Let's start there.

Do you think that's the difference, that's the general difference between these two teams about a touchdown or so.

Yeah.

I mean, I think on the surface, you'd look at that, you'd say that's easy money for BYU, right, Like, it seems like a real easy spread to cover the way that Bau's playing and kind of the camaraderie and just kind of the general sense of what this.

Team is doing, that feels like easy money. But as you mentioned, I mean, this game is just chaotic. I don't know that you can.

Predict anything about this game. Anything that you know about

That doesn't mean.

That they're just suddenly going to roll over.

Right.

We see this in college football every single week where Florida last weekend was leading Georgia for some time. And it doesn't matter what season you're having, a rivalry game is going to be difficult. So yeah, on the surface, I honestly think that this is a b why used game to win, right. I don't think anybody is expecting anything different, but just the way that these two teams play each other, the fact that it's at Rice Cycle Stadium him, you know, the fact that there is still

But yeah, I'm the surface. This is a BYU win, but I don't know that.

It's going to be as clear cut as as many stink though I wouldn't be surprised to be why you could make it that way.

Yeah, and it really never is the way people think. I've learned that over the years. I rarely levy a prediction. Of course, it's part of our jobs. So we'll give you our predictions before we sat off air on Friday. But let's dig into some Utah stuff here for a moment. We're doing the QB thing, Josh, We're doing the QB thing. We just had Klanie on and I asked him if not knowing who's underst my guess is they have a

To me, it's it's trending towards Brandon Rose, and I think they just are trying to look for a spark and trying to get somebody that maybe has a little bit more experience under their belt, and experience being a very loose term there, knowing that he's had essentially two quarters of play. But to me, that's just kind of

What does that mean? I just I just.

Think there's a lot at play here, and I understand, you know, Utah's trying to do whatever they can to win now, and maybe that's Isaac Wilson, and maybe that's Brandon Rose. Ultimately it's up to them to decide. But this is a tricky territory, right. You've got to be able to not just go with your emotions. You've got to go through with the analytics. You've got to look at everything and see if this is the best course

I doubt that. But this this.

Becomes a very difficult challenge for Kyle, who already I don't want to say as a fractured roster, right, I don't think these guys are at each other's throats.

And they don't like each other.

I don't believe that at all. But I think when you continually kind of mess around with that and mess around with kind of that dynamic, that can open up a challenge where you lose guys because you know, maybe one you know, maybe guys think this should happen, or you lose your quarterback and you don't put confidence in. It's not an easy situation, and I get frustrated that we have to continually have this QB dilemma. The reality is is Utah really didn't prepare all that much for

So when you dig into the numbers, it still reflects the defense that is generally speaking, maybe top three, top four.

Some metrics are a little better.

The weird thing is the metrics that aren't very good defensively or the things they're typically really good at, namely getting to the quarterback and forcing turnovers where they're lasting the conference and fumbles recovered, but overall defense are second. They're top three to four in both just your nuts and bolts, your meat and potatoes of rushing past defense. But they're not creating havoc plays and they're not getting

Yeah.

I think that the biggest issue for this defense has just been its run defense, which sounds wild to think because this is you know, Utah's bread and butter. They're physical in the trenches, they stopped the run most years. They're always, you know, top ten, top five in run defense, and so you've got to kind of pair that with also their tackling. They've missed something like ninety tackles this year. I mean, it's been pretty bad for a team that

I think this defense is up to the challenge.

I don't think that Jake Rehtslaf is such a mobile quarterback that Utah is worried that he's going to escape the pocket like you know Xeon Christ did against Houston or with Houston or maybe some of these other quarter But that's not to say that this BYU team can't run. I think they've shown that they've been able to have

So what do you so, what do you think the message is?

It's tough, Josh, because as you know, there's nothing that can happen over the final four games to change where this season will end for Utah football. Like, the only thing worse than playing in a throwaway bowl game is not being eligible for one. I guess so, and there's a world that if they don't win Saturday, you know, they may not get Bowl eligible because they have to

What's at stake for Utah on Saturday?

Oh?

Absolutely, I mean I think regardless of where these guys come from. They understand that this game matters, right. Tam Rising was talking about this at the very beginning of the season on how much he hates THEYU and that's unfortunate that he'll never get a chance to play BYU. But I think that carries down to all these other players. They understand that, they understand that this is a big deal. But at the same time, this becomes even bigger because

Right?

You just ruined their season and.

They'll still probably get to a big twelve championship game and probably still have a better season. But what better way to just go out with this knowing that, Okay, yeah, you're preserving a potential opportunity to go to a Bowl game, and yeah, you know a lot of guys will probably opt out, but at least he still gave them a chance. But what better way than to just beat your rival and rub that in like even on your down years,

But I think this has to be it.

Right if you can't get a win over BYU, and that's a tall task on its own, but if you can't get a win over BYU, I just don't know where Utah goes after this. I think it further cements utah struggles. It further causes a division and kind of the fan base and the team and kind of where they're at. And so this becomes kind of an all in type scenario. You've put all the chips on the table. You're hoping that it goes red and that you can win some money and kind of carry that on to the next round.

But I don't know.

I love the winner take all stakes kind of mentality that this can be for Utah, but they have to approach it that way or else you know it's going to be BYU, and it's just going to be more proof that you aren't able to get the job.

Done BYU does get to the quarterback and they do create havoc plays. I read this stat and it's smacked me across the face BYUS outscored their opponents sixty nine to ten off of turnovers. Like that's nuts plus eighteen. That's six in the country. Fourteen picks is third. So this does come down to how do you attack that defense when you whether it's Brandon or Isaac, neither have shown the ability to really dissect the secondary or go

Yeah, that's a that's a really fascinating thing that I'm curious to see because they haven't really been able to do it much this year. And if Isaac's back there, you know b Wau's going to load up that box and really put a ton of pressure on it.

I don't know that they don't do that with Brandon rod either.

But if Utah and do things to kind of get creative, get outside of that, you know, open up the pocket a little bit more to make it easier.

I think that gives you tah chance.

If they continue to run the same things where they're inside zone, run it up the middle a million times and hope to you know, pray that you get something. I don't know that that's your answer. That's not to say that it can't, but you have to have more than Mackay Bernard. You have to mix in a Jalen Glover. You have to mix in maybe a Djon Stanley, Mike Mitchell.

Going to be the answer. BYU has scouted it, they've got staff.

That knows Kyle Whittingham's you know, offense, defense inside and out. And so you have to come into this game almost rewriting the playbook, letting Bajakan be a little bit more creative, or else you're going to be snuffed out really quickly. And then all of a sudden, you know that QB

How healthy, to your knowledge is Utah football outside of Camon Rising.

That's that's a tough one.

Utah has lost some offensive linemen and so that's going to be a challenge to see how they blend together. You've lost Money Parks, you know, this comes a difficult test on the offensive side of the ball where you know, especially Money, who's been able to spread the field. You don't have that guy. Now you have Dorian Singer, but that's really easy for somebody like Byu to to bracket him or do whatever they need to to stop him. Defensively, you've got to be able to get your defensive line

A lot of reference during his media the counter pay is most likely not playing and looks like Cody Epps will be out as well. But man, that wide receiver room sure seems deep. All right, Josh. I want to be careful here because I feel like the narrative has gotten a little out of control, that it's just going to be blue in the stadium on Saturday. But I will say that I've heard from more than a few people that have sold their tickets are nervous, do not want to be there In the case of BYU run

Yeah, I think early on, you know, especially as Utah lost to Houston and stuff, there was an initial reaction that I'm just going to sell my tickets. I don't really care. Let be what you you know what I mean. But I think as kind of those games went down, you want to be there, right. You want to be a part of that action. You want to be able to make sure that you're loud and representing your team. At the end of the day, this becomes one of the biggest games on the schedule, and so you want

Yeah, no, I'm with you all right.

Before I set you loose, just give me a quick thought because lost in well, the busiest time on the sporting calendar is the Utah men's basketball team gets rolling tonight Alcorn States, And certainly for me, I've got to dig in a little bit more. I've been pretty football centric and you know, jazz stuff, But just generally speaking, what is there to expect from this team? They're picked to finish last in the Big Twelve?

Yeah, I mean, I think this is a team that has potential to be kind of the roster that Craig Smith wants, right. I don't know that it's going to be as good as last year, especially in a Big twelve that it's going to feature several talented teams, But I think if they can kind of hit on the right things, they're definitely not the last place team there is potentially could be, but I think they have potential.

All right, buddy, well, I appreciate your time. Should be a fun week, so keep up the good work and we'll chat soon.

Sound great man, Appreciate it all right.

Josh Covers University, University of Utah for our friends at KSL. You can check them out on Twitter at JFERKSL is where you find them.

Two your Internet. Just all right, what's going on?

It is time now for the Drive at five powered by the Larry H.

Miller in Draper.

It's the Ford King, Utah's number one volume Ford Dealer and they're going to be any trade in price in town by seven hundred and fifty dollars anytime any day. Find us online at LHM Ford Draper dot com. The head coach, you'll bring him young Kalaude Satake. He's gonna stop by if you miss. Coach went his media availability from earlier. We brought that back around, as we are often want to do on Mondays during the college football season.

Of course, it is rival re week. Say it slowly.

You're talking into a mike this week, if you're on radio, if you're on TV doing a little podcasting, you got to say it slowly. Don't get daffy ducked. So of course that's gonna be the bulk of the coverage this week. Of course, other things going on as well. Monday Night foot gets going tonight to wrap up Week nine of Pro football with the Chiefs and the Bucks live at Arrowhead. But this is a big one, as it is every year. It's been three years since they've played, BYU breaking a

In different ways.

So kind opened up BYU opened up as a five point favorite, and it pretty quickly moved down to four. Now I thought it would continue to move. I'll be honest as I tell you do not gamble on sports. You work too hard for your money, keep it in your bank account, keep it in your pockets.

But for a rivalry game, for the road team to.

Essentially have Vegas tell all of us they're about eight points better than Utah because Vegas builds in three typically for the home stadium advantage, and all of us understanding how this game typically goes five felt like a spread people would jump on, but they haven't moving over moving only one point.

That tells you that people that do this, like there.

Are people that actually gamble essentially for a living, and dig in to all of these lines to try to find out as a wise guy, how you can affect the line or where your money should go. There's not a lot of action as of now on Utah by you essentially indicating that line is about right according to how people think this is going to go. So as we've been talking about all day, and if you miss coach with from earlier, go to our website.

It's ESPN seven hundred sports dot com.

Utah is gonna do the same quarterback thing where they're gonna not announce who's gonna start. It's gonna be Brandon Rose, Isaac Wilson, according to what we've been told, that will receive the reps with the ones, and then we'll probably all find out when Utah runs out to take the

That's off the table.

This is not an elimination game for Brigham Young by any means. In fact, there's a world that BYU goes two and two in their final four and still goes to Dallas to play for the Big Twelve championship. Texas Tech, we told you, we gave you that game on Friday. Texas Tech was able to up NI with state names, so they're they're not clean anymore. BYU's the only clean team, and is Houston good question mark? Is anyone good question mark in the Big Twelve? Or is everyone just bad.

A lot wrong.

I don't know that I've ever been as wrong as I've been about this Utah football team. But in the case that Utah Football somehow could have done what we thought that they would do and make it to Dallas to play for a Big twelve championship, you know, should they have been undefeated or with one loss, the hope is the other team that they were playing also undefeated one loss, so in the chance that Utah lost that game, hopefully finding a seat for them in the CFP. Obviously,

I mean, it just doesn't happen very often.

And I don't know what the CFP committee would do with an undefeated BYU team coming out of the Big Twelve, because it's clear that what happened over the weekend of the Big Twelve forced this conference to take a bit of a hit with the public sentiment for who people think they are, and listening to a bunch of stuff this morning to get ready for the show today, most everybody's landed on that's a one bid league. The champ gets in and that's it. And at this point I

Find out what's real and what's not.

We were going to do our Big twelve power rankings today, but as I told.

Porter, I'm like, what's the point.

The Big twelve power rankings today sound like this BYU was one and everybody else is tied for I have no clue because that's just kind of the deal. There were eight undefeated teams when we last spoke on Friday, and as of today, there are five, and of course BYU's one of them.

They stayed nine in the poll.

Indiana moved up because they continue to stay cleaning with the win over Michigan State. But if BYU goes to Dallas undefeated and Iowa State has one loss, and Iowa State beats BYU, does BYU have a chance to get in? I don't think so, because the rest of the schedule isn't that difficult. They've already played a pretty tough schedule, one of the toughest schedules in the Big Twelve.

But I think that's the unfortunate reality.

Even if BYU is undefeated and they play a one los Iowa State team, in Iowa State beats them, Iowa State goes and I think BYU stays back. I mean that's the problem with and look, we saw this in the Pac Twelve in a way, the Big Twelve has kind of proven to be as far as narratives there are created by people to cover football in the conference, it feels very similar, like more often than not, we're trying to ascertain is the Pac twelve just bad? Are

Are there one or two elite teams?

Or is it just a bunch of average teams that are like beating up on each other. The Big Twelve has kind of manifested itself that way, and most people thought that it would. I was just hoping most people were wrong, and certainly most people have been plenty wrong about several things that have happened this year. I mean, Oklahoma State, along with Utah and k State, were a top most of the preseason polls, and Oklahoma State can win a football game no matter.

Where they play.

The Gundy's record in Stillwater prior to the season was insane. I mean, he never loses down there, and this year, it doesn't matter who they play, doesn't matter where they played. They cannot win a football game in conference. They lose to Utah at home, they lose to West Virginia at home, they lose to Arizona State at home.

They're zero to three at home in conference play.

It did be Arkansas earlier this year, but in conference play they have fallen flat on their face. So yes, several things about this conference feels like they're completely flipped up, flip up, flipped upside down. It's very much bizarro Seinfeld stuff. As Byu wrote, who would have thought b Yu is going to be the five point favorite? Now the line is four over Utah to start the year. But that's where we find ourselves. So for Byu, it's not as clear cut as it was prior to the cast that

There just is.

We remember Brett Ratliffe, right, We remember Brandon Burton's block. We remember those moments when a player has the ability to find it within himself to be great for one game and that game is against by U. When you have a big game and you lead Utah to a win, it will change the way the community feels currently about this football team.

Now, we have to be honest.

Nothing will change the inevitable ending of what this season is going to be.

It's either a throwaway bull or no bullet all.

As I've been saying all day, the only thing worse as a college football program with expectations like Utah football had, and they have high expectations. The only thing worse for a football program that's used to winning conference championships and playing in Rose Bowls. The only thing worse than playing in a throwaway bowl game is not being eligible for one.

UCF Colorado's good. Iowa State I think is good UCF.

I'll put in a group of like ten teams like I don't know, they can get you on any night, or maybe you smoke them.

The problem is the data that we have in front of us.

It just can't give you any confidence as far as what we've seen from Utah football so far. It doesn't mean it won't be different on Saturday, it doesn't mean it can't be different for the final four games.

But trying to spin.

It any other way than really a horrible disappointment is disingenuous, It's dishonest.

I can't do that. I'd like to. The data indicates the defense is.

Still like a top three maybe top four defense in the Big twelve. I mean, most of their metrics are really solid outside of getting to the quarterback and causing turnovers, two things that BYU has been elite at this year. In a way, and you'll hear from Kalani coming up. What Kalade Satake has done is taking the mo of Kyle Whittingham and he's out Utah.

Utah.

They're the ones creating turnovers, They're the ones getting the quarterback, They're the ones that are causing havoc plays. BYUS outscored opponents sixty nine to ten off of.

Turnovers this year.

You can be very reductive with rivalry games and just talk about the turnover battle. Certainly that'll be paramount. But if you want to talk about that BYU has been ten times better than Utah at that dynamic of playing football right now, I mean, there are very few things right now that Utah is clearly better than than BYU, making this very intriguing and making this an opportunity for Utah football to show this fan base in this community one more time this year, because look, call it how

All right, wrapping it up.

When Dot she just do Quincy Jones bumps every day? Man, I gotta say this has been kind of a groovy bump day.

I'm kind of with you. As a result of his.

Massive catalog passing away at the age of ninety one, a legend. If you've not seen the documentary, it's highly recommended. Monday Night Football tonight. It will wrap up your week nine in the NFL. Bummer about Zach just came across the wires. Zach Moss injured neck. Looks like he's gonna be sidelined for a while.

Yes, everting more information there. Obviously we friends of the program. Zach is a friend of the program.

So we'll well, when you're filling in, Yeah, fair enough, that's so dude.

You do that.

I know that you do that.

You save all your ute homies for when you're filling in.

I'll be really just Zach that like genuinely hops on with me when I host.

But for a while, like I would be on vacation and all of a sudden I get the rundown for the show. It's like, Zach Moss, Eric Weddle, Britton Covey, I'm.

Like, what going on? That did happen one time? It did happen one time? That's one too many, young man. But anyway, Zach Zach Moss, Yeah, he'll be.

He'll be sidelined for a while, probably a multiple week thing. And that's set a time when he's kind of fighting for starting reps at the running back position. So bummer there, but not the first time that that guy's fought through injury and made it back and become a starter again.

So did you.

See did you see the video? I've got to say good for Jason Kelsey.

Yes. So.

One of the things, and this is not a hot take, Okay, a lot of people believe this. One of the things that is the most bothersome element of society right now is people. As Mike Tyson has said, the problem with people now is you can say whatever you want to to other others on the Internet without getting punched in the face. And what you have are these And by the way, I'm sorry, I can I cannot stand influencers.

I'm so over influencers.

So what you have are these people with cell phone cameras in their hand trying to create a viral moment by outwardly insulting others by saying horrible things about family members. And look, Jason Kelsey addressed it tonight. And I'm not one to advocate for hater violence, but in that moment, to see that peon little influencer who was trying to create the viral moment with his phone looking like he was about to pee down his leg when Jason Kelsey

Yeah, I'm with you there, I'm with you there. Obviously, it's it goes beyond like just trolling people in public. We've gotten to a point now where people are like harassing people in public to get views on their YouTube. And yeah, I don't know why we're making some of the people famous that are because they're like I don't mean to be rude, but like little chubby kids and their dads who say boom really loud, like as a

Yeah, ultimately this is probably just the world now. And I knew as soon as they monetize social media apps there's no going back. Like people are legitimately paying their bills off these social media accounts, which is okay. Just go watch the documentary on the social network stuff.

What do they call it, the social dilemma?

And then when you understand the business models of the people behind the scenes, part of this was ultimately to allow people to monetize their presence on the platform, so you couldn't do away with them, like we hear people talking about, well we got to get rid of TikTok because of the ties with China.

Good luck.

At this point, it's permeated in society where people are paying their bills on the platforms, which is part of the model, and.

It's not going anywhere. There's really no going back.

Yeah, and as you said, there's an incentive for people to continue to do what they're doing if it's getting them views, it's getting them clicks, it's getting them attention. That's the big one, I think. And yeah, I don't like it. I don't really get it. Like I turn on YouTube and I scroll through and see the people that are in the feed and Spence, I feel like I'm in a like a Rick and Morty ultimate alternate dimension, like not a real place. But I hope I'm not the only one.

I'm sorry, it's dark and here I can't see the sticker that's on my sweatshort.

What does that say? You voted? Thank you?

Do?

I need to send this out on social You gotta make my vote official. You got to post it online or it doesn't get to tabulated.

The RT virtue signaling. But I am wearing my sticker. I'm gonna wear it to the grocery store tonight. Should I wear it on talking Jazz with Dave five?

Yes, because you know Dave will bring it up. I'm sure he will.

My guess is Dave and I don't have much to talk about in that realm of the world, and I think I'll leave.

That test it tonight talking on TV. I will not be invited back. Hope, Hope.

You're all of voting. If you don't vote, you can't say rip about the outcome. And so election Day is tomorrow.

That's it.

Rant Overporter, What comes our way on a Tuesday show.

On a Tuesday edition of the program, we'll do Little Hoops. Tim McMahon for the NBA Daily Assist, and then we're talking college football. It's Scott Mitchell on site in person at ar Up for the Utah Blood Drive. Austin Coley, the former Cougar, an NFL wide receiver, will stop by the program. Riley Jensen will stop by the program. So we're talking quarterbacks, we're talking college football and sneaking to little Hoops as well.

Good stuff. We'll be out and about on remote.

We'd love to see you guys at Arup Blood Services and with that will say good night's special. Thank you Richard Smith, Kalani Satake and Josh Furlong for you to the sound you made miss from the show. Websites and option ESPN seven hundred sports dot com download our mobile app, Take us on the Go. It is the ESPN seven hundred out that's available for free in the App Store