You live today at the Utah Red Zone here on campus. We used to call it the Bookstore for you old utes, so you know right where that is.
Right across from the library.
You can park in the visitors a lot to give you a thirty minute time limit and then you better be in your vehicle after that or they will ticket you. A bunch of great deals on yout gear to get you ready for football season and basketball season two. Saw Alex Jensen here at the bookstore earlier and Wes Wilcox, the general manager of the Utah men's basketball program. We'll bring in Sammy More today from Ute Zone to talk some Utah football. Former Utah running back Zach Moss will
stop by later on. But on a Wednesday afternoon, let's welcome in my friend Andy Larson from the Salt Lake Tribune. Andy, Happy Wednesday, buddy.
How are you doing.
I'm good, man, How are you?
I'm good? I'm good. So not a lot of jazz stuff going on.
And I think I can if I stretch my imagination, I think I can picture a forty six, forty seven year old Andy Larson with a couple of dough being kids driving a minivan. I think I could probably picture that at some point, but we'll we'll deal with that later. The Mini Van himself has been traded back to the Utah Jazz. George Niang and a couple of second rounders to the Jazz, a salary dump move for the Celtics.
Your thoughts on this deal and whether it really means anything at all for the Jazz in the interim or in the future.
Yeah, look, I mean it's the kind of deal that the Jazz should be doing, right like. This is the kind of thing that I had wanted them to use their salary on in the last few years. And the Danny Ainge era was rather than kind of signing your threw you banks, is you get trading for John Collins, is use that salary to go get draft picks and and get assets in a return for players, right like. And that's really what the Oklahoma City Thunder did, most
notably with the Al Horford deal. Got a first round pick to take on the contract, then sent out, then got another first round pick to trade him to the Celtics, you know, And so for the Jazz to get two second round picks on the front end of this deal makes a lot of sense to take on what's not a big salary, and then I think they could potentially get a pick in trading Yang later on if he plays well. Now, he didn't play that well for the Cavaliers last season. He did play pretty well for the
Atlanta Hawks. We'll see, you know where he ends up falling out in twenty twenty five to twenty six. But again, it's the kind of move that the Jazz should be making. And you know, what George does on the basketball court is of frankly no real matter to the Jazz because they're not gonna win anyway.
So yusef Nurkics, George Niang, Kevin Love, and Kyle Anderson. Of the four vets that are technically still employed by the Utah Jazz, how many of them will be employed on opening night?
On opening night? I would say two, maybe three of them. Look, I mean, obviously there aren't enough minutes for all those guys plus council about k plus you know the Ace Bailey plus remaining Jazz use that you know, Lowry Market and obviously three or you know the three and four the Jazz have on the Trotter or Brice sense Abot, et cetera, et cetera. But I do think that, like, you know, there you can just kind of fit those guys and kind of do some rotation rotating stuff that uh,
you know they did last year, right. I don't think that Jazz are going to like look to dump those guys for for negative value and and yeah, you know, ultimately maybe there's a team or two that decides this is the right thing. But yeah, you know, I it's it's hard to say, like right now, no one's like in the market for like a backup for or maybe backup three and depending on what you think Kyle Anderson
is right now. But you know, I would be a little bit surprised to see Kevin Love remain with the team. We'll see, Like, I don't think there's a lot of I think that As are gonna kind of play this out until training camp and see what kind of interest there is around the league.
So you know, I do feel like there is the potential and I don't know how Will's going to approach this. And I understand what Austin has said about you know, playing the young players, and it feels like that is the team's approach this year. I just can't imagine, like if those guys are still on the roster, and you know, Will decides to play usif Nurkic twenty twenty five minutes or George Niang twenty twenty five minutes, or even Kevin
Love or Kyle Anderson. I do feel like there's the potential of a frustrated fan base that could see minutes that should go to Ace and Walter Clayton Junior and the rest of the young players. If any of those minutes are allocated to the Vets. What do you think the reaction is going to be here in the market.
Yeah, people are gonna be mad, and I think like fairly so, right, Like, it doesn't make any sense to play like use of Nurkis is a perfect example, right Like his coach in Bosnia just said be euro Basket that he's not he's so out of shape he's not even sure he can run right now, So like, you know, what are we doing if you're playing Nirks? What are you doing? Right? But some dumped him too, you know
it just it doesn't make sense. But I guess if you play Nirkic over those guys right like now, if they're injuries and you know you need someone to fill the minute, great maybe you feel like you can motivate a non hard worker to work harder if you play George, you know, if if if you know, guy makes a defensive, bone headed move fits for a couple of minutes, and
then you throw George Yang in the game or whatever. Right, But ultimately it's not like George is a great defender either, you know, It's just yeah, I mean, I think the organization has been pretty clear that, hey, this is going to be about the youth, and they're going to make the playing time decisions that rek like that.
How would you articulate the Austin Ainge experience so far and what are the differences that you've seen in the decision making process with Austin being the primary voice as opposed to whoever it was before him. And I don't I still don't think we fully understand whether that was
Danny or Justin. I mean, I suppose the buck stops with the owner, and it stops with the owner with the jazz now in a way that it didn't used to stop with the jazz, And quite frankly, it stops with the owner in a way that it really doesn't stop with a lot of teams in the NBA because that's Ryan's approach, which is is right because the man
with the gold makes the rules. But now that we have a few months of Austin being in charge, how would you articulate what you perceived to be maybe the differences or kind of what what has that dynamic been like for you?
The big difference is, you know, I think we saw in the Colin Sex and you and Colin's fields where they were willing to take pretty bad value deals back in order to fix a timeline. And I think what this Jazz team has un poorly in the last couple of years is go half in on the timeline, right, whether that's acquiring a John Collins when they did in their in the rebuild, whether that wasn't moving Colin Secon earlier,
whether that was extending Jordan Clarkson. They have made moves this summer to need to basically get away from those mistakes that I think Danny Inge clearly stuffs too long with those guys now, you know, And I think this Georgi Youang deal is more about the picks than it
is about George Yang. And you know, the the chances the Jazz have one kind of last big chance to do this with Larry Markinen and then maybe you can do it on the side with the four veterans you named, But like you know, that's to me, the big issue, the biggest clear difference from from Austin age to to its predecessors is that willingness to lose on a deal to make it uh fit the timeline fits the actual action. Rebuild the Jazz team from what they've been doing over the last few years.
One more jazz question, then we'll move on to some other things. Actually, no, two more jazz questions. The first one to ask you is do you anticipate any other movement? I mean, I want to say they traded Donovan in August or September, and I think they traded about Donovich in like late September, and you know, most of the big deals in pro basketball are probably done. That could change if there's some sort of seismic Yiannis situation or something.
And there's still some decent players out there that are unsigned. But do you feel like I think the roster's full, I think they've met their salary requirements hit the floor.
Do you think this is the Jazz team we're going to see come fall?
Yeah? I mean, they don't have to do anything, but I'm kind of with you that, like, hey, they can't have this many veterans. They probably do make one move before then, you know, we got to figure out what the John Ponzie deal is. There's some small stuff. I would be surprised ever we see a marketing deal before training camp. I mean, I think it just makes sense to let him play the beginning of the season kind of try to raise his value. He's had a good
preparation for EuroBasket so far. And because I do think Quake of all the Jazz's players that veterans who didn't have trade value in the end, Blowry is clearly a step or five above, and so to give him the opportunity to show off that value, I think it's probably worth doing, all right.
Last one, our buddy Gordon Monson, our mutual friend who I did radio with for years and you work with over the trib wrote.
A piece in response to a survey that was done.
By the Action Network, and I've talked about it since Gordon wrote it, and I've discussed it with guests. Essentially, there's a big portion of this fan base that feels like they're a priced there's a big portion of this fan base that is unhappy with results.
Obvious.
That's obvious because the results have been really bad for three years and they're going to be really bad for maybe another two or three years. I feel like we have a very smart basketball market and Jazz fans rule, and they continue to show up and they continue at least at the arena to show patients and show that they're still invested. The local TV ratings were down this year juxtapposed to what they are when the Jazz are good. I don't know if that's too surprising, But what are
your thoughts on what this survey said? And do you think there are certain portions of this fan base that have their patients wearing thin a bit?
Yeah, you know, it was it was an interesting survey, and it's a small sample size, right, Like I think it was three thousand fans in the NBA, which is
you know, about one hundred for the Jazz. That being said, like, look, I do think and you here and I hear from them all the time that there were a significant continual of Jazz fans that feels that this is not going well right, that this rebuild is taking a really long time that maybe they send Afrited Donovan Minrudy and then heck, even if you say, hey, the three build is the right thing to do, maybe you should treat your fans
a little bit better. And while they're think there have been significant wins on that with you know, I'm going to count like Jazz plus or SEG plus as a big part of that, I think there have been significant l's too, right, Like they've raised season ticket prices six percent last year for some fans win and I think it's an average of three percent if I'm remembering that, right, despite the team being the worst team in Jazz franchise history, and I think kind of blaming the fans for those
those ticket prices and in ways that I thought was really pretty unfair. I think there's significant Yeah, you know, I think those are significant and real worries that I understand fans concern, and ultimately I wish the mister Entertainment group was a little bit more caring about what those fans say, because I do think, for you know, there's they have put off this mindset of well, if you don't like it, you can leave, and I don't think that's the right way to treat fans who have been
around for a decade, you know, following Jazz. I mean, this is just a beloved franchise, so that thinks that you know, they're having good things too, and I think that's worth noting. Again, everything is solved by the Jazz being good one day, and if they turn out not to make the playoff for a decade, then we're gonna see some really negative opinions about Ryan Smith. And you're kind of continue to grow.
Okay, Andy Larson, mister triple team, mister Jazz b writer
from The Tribune. I don't know if we're going to have a triple option coming soon, but you've been writing about Utah football, and you were up at the practice facility during media availability recently and you wrote a piece steeped in solid evidence that we've discussed on the show and other people have pontificated on what Utah would look like would have looked like last year if they even had a competent offense, and there's a lot of optimism
that the offense will be both competent and maybe even more than that this year. I am more of a
you know, miss ur state motto, show me guy. I don't know enough about these players, including Devin, including the wide receivers, to make any sort of audacious claim about what they can be this year, but based off of kind of what you dug in and what you witness when you were up here not too long ago writing about the utes, do you feel like you've seen enough to at least believe have some confidence this offense can be confident enough to compliment which will be another excellent
defensive unit.
Yeah. Look, you know, I think there's real reason to be optimistic about it. And I think the biggest reason to be optimistic about it is how for the quarterback situation was last year, right, Like, it is really really easy to improve on the two hundred and fiftieth ranks
quarterback and college football last year. And you know, if you look at the other quarterback to play, the three hundred ranked quarterback by Pro Football focuses creating system which you know has some plause, but like overall where you can do some sort of analysis on it is pretty reasonable for where like Isaac Wilson and and the rest injured camerasing it that our Brenda Roads ended up last year.
I think Devin Dempire is a really good quarterback and in fact is rated really highly by Pro Football Focuses metrics and kind of had enough good games against good competition last year that you can see it's kind of really working in the Big twelve. I'm less confident unlike the running attack when it goes through the running backs and just frankly kind of outside the tackles wide receiving, just the wide receiver corps is you know, it is
what it is. It's it's asking a lot. You have a lot of different options from a lot of kind of unproving guys at the P four level. But I just think that like, hey, if you block well and I think this utha offensive line will and you have a good quarterback who creates plays out of nothing like Devin Dempier does. Like I think, ultimately it's pretty easy to imagine the youth offense being a touchdown better next year.
And if they're touchdown better next year, then all of a sudden, you know they are a eight, nine to ten win team and maybe even more. Right so, if everything comes together, then yes they can be a playoff team. And that's kind of what's so exciting to see. We'll see what ends up happening. You know, it's always easy to kind of say that now when it's preseasons, But I do think there are real, real reasons to be optimist about this use offense.
What are what's the other side of it if if you took the if you just took the contrarian point of view as far as what your concerns are, Because for me, I'll just go back to what I said when inenter the question, I've got to see it. I always say this during the first portion of the college
football season. It's observation, not conclusion. And they've got a pretty soft landing spot in non con with a UCLA team that's in flux, cow Poly team that they'll smoke by sixty and a road trip to Laramie, which shouldn't be an issue. So I've got to wait to see what they look like, you know, with this kind of soft landing spot in non con But if he took the other side of it, reasons to be a little bit you know, skeptical and critical about what this could look like.
What does that sound like, Andy?
Yeah, I think like Devin Dempier had some turnovers last year and some interceptions, and I guess you know, obviously the height issue I think is notable, right, Like, I went to practice and he is relatively short among quarterbacks, there's no doubt about it. Kind of like the worst case scenario looks like essentially he ends up throwing some picks early and then Kyle Whittingham kind of takes the keys away from him a little bit, right, And to be fair, we have seen that in the history of
the youth offense. Is uh, oh, we have a quarterback who made a mistake. It's time to run the football, and that approach is probably not the best in terms of scoring points in twenty twenty five, and especially may not be the best approach given you know what looks to be a two back running back system and you know what what ends up being, you know, may need to be a one dimensional offense if those rains are pulled away. So that would be kind of like the
scenario to me that maybe most likely that I see. Okay, all of a sudden, the youth offend struggles a little bit, the defense isn't as strong as you hoped, and then you know you're looking at probably still better than five and seven, but like six wins, seven wins becomes a real possibility.
All right, Andy, let's do a little RSL before I say you loose man. I've talked about this at problem on this week. We just chatted with CK. I'm not one to go too hard on officials as it pertains to results.
I think there are other things you can control.
And my sincere belief is over time, these things even out. I get the frustrations. The Lunas stuff against New York was wild. I mean it looked to me like even in real time, you should have been able to see that he was drugged down. But there's also part of me that believes that kid needs some rest and maybe a week off against Charlotte and the worst thing and
then I guess the pks. We could debate whether or not those were the right calls, but before we get to your confidence level or lack there of the rest of the rest of the way, how did you digest that result against the Red Bulls?
Yeah, you know, it's it's both stuff and fair, if that makes sense. Right Like, you got out to a big, big Elder lead and a good goal from Gozo, and then I didn't like much of what I saw from RSL after that, Right, Like the Red Bull did play the better game clearly from from that point and had way more chances and Arthl went off the back foot and went off the front foot and couldn't get a whole lot else going. And so that's what you know we've seen when RCEL is playing poorly, is just they
can't get bad attack going. And it was kind of a return to that, like April may form a little bit, which is which is troubling. Again, Diogo was a no show, so look and then yes, the Diego Luna stuff was insane and that or he should be made fun of every time he's seen in Utah and et cetera, et cetera, Like he should. He's a bad person who should feel bad.
I think, like ultimately though two to one isn't an unfair result, and I do just want to see kind of the game changing additions on the pitch for more of it, right like Ron Cruise and and always like should make a difference and you can see spaces where they can make a difference and hopefully this can be more cohesive of an attack. You know, some of it.
I think with the field to in New York, that was a terrible field they played on so it's always going to be kind of sloppy, but RCEL looks and played sloppy, and I think ultimately it's hard to really too fairly complain about the two one result given how the ninety minutes win.
If we pan back a little bit. Do you believe the officiating in MLS is a problem, Yes.
But it always is. Like I don't necessarily believe that pro has gotten worse. I do things like it's harder for them now because there are more teams and MLS and therefore more games for them to referee. But I you know, I think ultimately, honestly, VR has generally done a pretty good job. Like Inside Video Review every week is actually really good watch to learn how these guys are making decisions. I would definitely like it to be better.
I think it is of a lower quality than other leagues, to be sure, but I think, you know, that kind of fits that mols's standing is what like the tenth best soccer league in the world if you're an optimist. So yeah, like I think I really do wish it were better, and it's hard for me to also like point to things that they can do necessarily week in week out that other than maybe like have a little bit more humility and changing being correct decisions on the field.
All right, last thing, there are nine matches left.
I don't have an update on the olatun g work visa situation.
Hopefully he's available this weekend.
Pablo on the show did say he will start Ruan Cruz coming up again Charlotte this weekend.
RSL is one point out of the playoff race.
Nine teams make it in MLS and that is more than half your conference. So if you don't make it, it's a bad look. How you feeling the rest of the way with nine matches left, you think we have a playoff team on this roster?
Yeah, it's funny. I saw some playoff odds earlier this week and indicated fifty percent chance in fifty percent out, which is kind of how I'm feeling right Like, I think ultimately RFL can play better than what they've shown this season and have such a talented midfield and a really talented keeper in Rapa Cabral that you can see them absolutely making the playoffs. And the kind of the bummer is if you do make the playoffs, you're so hoping you may still be in that eight to nine
game and we'll see. You know that that's not a great place to be, but yeah, look I think it's I think this team has talent, and I think like there is the possibility you just kind of throw in a cruise in an Ola Tunji and then all of a sudden everything makes sense because there just have been such obvious weak winks on this team. But the schedule is not easy either. You've got LSD for a couple of these matches, like it's gonna be really tough, and yeah,
we'll see. I mean, I feel again kind of in that fifty to fifty zone is about right for what we have to think about this RSL season.
All right, Andy Friday, on this program, you are driving the ship.
Give us a quick tease before I set you loose.
To be determined. You know, we're still planning guests and whatnot, but I'm looking forward to talking. Actually, I get a decent amount of use football with Porter. We're gonna have Jason Batakiao on. I hope I need to selpporder that. But that's my guy from the Salt Lake Commune. He's done some really awesome US stories, including one about Isaac Wilson.
He released today and then yeah, we'll have a variety of guests from around the world, sports TBD because I don't actually know who we have yet on Friday, but I am looking forward to it.
All good, Well, I appreciate you filling in. Enjoy that and we'll chat soon. Andy, thanks for the time, Bud, I'll good.
Thanks.
Then, Andy Larson saw Lake Tribune at Andy B. Larson is where you find him on social media. Typically covers the jazz. He's been doing a lot of work with the Utes.
And he will be on this radio show coming up on Friday with Porter Punch of other guests.
They'll talk some ute football, some jazz hoops, college football, NFL RSL, all the usual things. All right, we're live today at the Utah Red Zone Store centralized here on campus. If you're an old ute like I am, we used to call this the bookstore, but it's a brand new layout and they've got brand new gear to get you ready for football season, which is only sixteen days away. So come on buy and say hello and check out some of this gear prior to the start of the season.
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