We have some clouds coming in, maybe a little storm situation, and it's fall. Technically we're there, so the weather's going to start to cool down a little bit. But joining me now live in studio for an entire hour.
Man, my guy.
We've worked together in one way or another for like fifteen years.
TP.
Tony Parks the voice of the Bees. What's up, buddy, I'm sorry, I'm on the wrong.
No, you're good.
So you'll respect this as somebody who literally has done everything in radio.
You can talk about the jazz or take the trash out. That's what's great about you.
We've got a new board here and we've got a new setup in studio, so we're still trying to traverse that space. So Porter asked to actually turn your mic on. This will terrify you. I cannot turn my mic on or off. And we don't have a dump button every day for four hours. I'm like, don't don't don't say that one. Hey there pops in your head again, don't know, can't say that one.
So I take it. Britton Johnson will not be in studio foroff. I love that, man.
Do you need a dump button with Britton Johnson along for the Ride, longtime co host on Jazz Perff post how.
You been, Manthe's good. I've been so good, man. I love it. Man. Every day I get to wake up and I go to a baseball game. And today we don't have a game, but we traveled in last night, so my wife and our newborn daughter were there at home here in Salt Lake, at our place here, and got up today and had a great morning with her.
And you know, there is nothing like it. I wake up and I have an infant who makes fun little noises and squeals, and she just loves her puppy, and she loves her life and she can't wait to see what's coming up every day. And then after that, I go to a baseball game and I get to be around great people and I love the team that I work with. I love the team that is on the field as well, Manager Keith Johnson. Just like when you have that every single day, man, you are really alive.
And it's the final year of the ballpark, a place that's very near and dear to my heart for so many reasons. And so this last week I'm just gonna soak it up.
Man.
Six days. If you the fan you know, make sure to join us. You know, I'm gonna pump for tickets just because it's an iconic place. The weather's going to be great, but we have all these great tributes coming up, and I am just over the moon excited for what should be, you know, a great week of being around great people. This is the last week of the ballpark. Oh, we talked about it last week.
I just forgot that played way too much mediocre golf over the weekend.
It's taking the bandwidth.
How you dealing with that? What's it like over there last week of that ballpark?
Man?
I can remember, we all can remember going there forever ago and thirsty Thursdays in college and throughout the course. You know, like so many great memories. Obviously you're the guy for this. You have more memories than anyone outside of the late great Steve Cloukey.
So what's it like?
What's it feel like knowing that this thing is coming to an end in the Capital City.
I think it's very emotional for me because there's so many different chapters to it. Childhood baseball is where we felt most safe. When we made the move my mom and I to Salt Lake City. That was kind of our thing. It's how I grew a big Cubs fan because we watched WGN. No matter where we were, Greg Maddocks, I was on Dan Gil. Steve Stone was the star of our home Mark Grace. Yeah, I mean I had
Steve Stone and my mom teaching me the game. Anybody who knows my mom knows like that was the ultimate cheat code to have him and her together, Like teaching me the game was amazing anyway, So baseball is a big part to us. And then you know, when I got the job as the play by play announcer, I'll never forget it. I mean, I come back into the state of Utah really for the first time since Sophie was born, and I go up to the press box.
I had a Weaver State football game, and Steve Cloukey's calling it for radio and I got it on TV, and it's the first time we'd seen each other since he retired, Like there's some there's some stuff here. And the way he grabbed my arm and the way he shook it around, and the way he pulled me in and gave me a hug, and then the one thing he told me was, you know, I called the first game ever at that ballpark, and I think it's so beautiful that you get to call the last game ever
at that ballpark. So here's one thing people didn't know all year. I had remembered him saying that, and I put something together towards the last homestand to where I was going to bring different people in to call a few innings with me, just as a color commentary conversational on the TV. Brook loved, Yeah one, I'm Frank Layden. Yeah, it's an obvious one. There's just just all these different
people I was going to bring in. But the last one I was going to have was Steve Cloukey, and I know exactly the way that he would set up his book. I've studied it all the way down because he has all of his books in there, and I was going to set up the game book exactly like that. And when it got to the final three outs are six depending on how the game was going, I was going to have him call the final outs at the ballpark because I truly felt that's the way it should
have ended. And so as I think about that, that's another thing that gets me emotional about this week because I had those plans put into place, tell her that's mean.
Tell our listeners, do you ever listen to the podcast SmartLess The Bateman Will. It's a funny like celebrity podcast. It's like a guilty pleasure listen and they talk often about their industry as actors. When they use terms they tell, they follow up to tell the guests to talk to one of the co host sisters who has no clue about acting.
Does that make sense? Care? So for our listeners that don't know what a game book is, oh, explain what that is. Yeah, it's just like it's the way you have your score sheet and you have you know, the visitor and the home team, and the way you list out the starting lineups and all those different things. He and I have a very similar one. Yeah, very very similar. We have very different ways which way we format it. I put numbers in unique spots and I don't label it.
I just know what that number means, and so when I need it, my eyes go right to it. I got it, and I move gotcha, And it's the way and he was very much the same. Now we're different in exactly what we put where, but there's a style in which we had so I mean down to the tiniest details. He had a unique style. I had a unan style. So one thing that I would do is like, if somebody pops up the first base and it's caught, it's three. But if it's a pop up high in
the air, it's a big fat three. That's the way. If it's a line drive, it's like the straight lines gocha three. If it's a pop up and foul ground, it's a backwards fat three, like I do. Like just my mind automatically knows popped up in the foul ground. So there's a coding system that you have that your own style. And I knew his style inside out, So I was gonna set it up that way throughout the game, and that's how it was gonna end. I was gonna surprise him with it. I'm gonna make sure his family
knew about it. Yeah, and let it be because that's the way I believe that the final three outs and the broadcast and all that.
I still, you know, I had a twin pin tweet of my bob, my Steve Clokey bobblehead until like a week ago, and every time I think it, I still go white ones. Yeah, what how did that happen so over there. So Oklahoma City's in town. We've got Smith's family and I coming up tomorrow, Thursday, Thursday. On Thursday, we got to go Golden Night on Friday, fan Appreciation Night Saturday. Then the finale is on Sunday, the final game for the Bees of the ballpark here in the Capital City.
It's Sunday. Now.
Obviously, you and I are of the same about the Miller family and the goals they have. Yeah, and the Stewards they were over a team that you and I both worked for and still to this day I cheer for in the Utah Jazz So Steve Stark's front of the show friend.
Off air as well.
You know what they're doing to build a new ballpark, you know probably deserve A bottom line for me is I live in Salt Lake and it's a bummer that it's leaving, right, But I appreciate this endeavor that the Millers have taken on and hope that at some point it does lead to a major League baseball team here
in our capital city personally, which would be awesome. So as you look ahead, Tony to what's next for this little old ball club, what are some of your thoughts and what's kind of the redeeming feel of the organization.
I love the big steps that we're taking this year, and some of them were not witnessed. Some of them you couldn't see with your eyes, but great work from so many people who stepped into the ballpark ready to go with great baseball mindset and great business of baseball mindset. Right, you can be a baseball person, you could be a business person, but these are people who understand the business of baseball and it's going on long way. Derek Amacon a huge part of that. Cam Coglan a huge part
of that. Ty Wardle. I know I'm leaving some people out, but I don't have all day. But the point is a lot of people who are stepping in there with new roles, new responsibilities. They're doing a masterful job at putting together great concepts that are helping build and go bigger because a lot of what's happening is is we're moving to major league mindset and there were major strides that took place there. First of all, they got a
TV deal done in record time. That was amazing. I mean, the great work by from Cam Coglan to you know, obviously ty Wordle and everybody in between to make sure that that came together. We have all these games on KMYU, and we have more games than I think any minor league team out there on lineing or TV. I want to say, I'd have to double check that to be sure, but we have almost forty games right right then the
quality of our broadcast. Then we go into the features of our broadcast and they just kind of said, dude, you run with this. You make it the best it could be. Go and everybody's one hundred miles an hour to be the very best that we can be. Now, a lot of these things that were put into place behind the scenes you can't see. Next year, you're going to see things that a new ballpark that are going to be elevated to levels no other minor league baseball
team has. They are very serious about not just being good, not just being the best, but they want to run up the score. It's not about everybody else. It's truly about us, and it's about creating a major league level experience in a minor league ballpark. And that's the standard that Steve Clouke had for the broadcast. That was my number one goal coming into it as well as humanizing the broadcast and making sure that the listener felt connected
to what's happening. They're also doing that in their game presentation. They're going all the way when it comes to premium seating, everything involved. So that is I think a great runway into a wonderful campaign into giving this market the absolute best chance possible to have a major league team someday. So when you talk the stuff that you'll see, that's
what you're gonna see next year. And a lot of the things that have been under the surface this year also great job by I mean, from Amy Jackson to Dustin dell In. I mean, there's just a lot of people that have exhausted efforts, Brian Dever, everybody who's just gone all in on making this the best year it can be to give next year a big punch. Did you say, Derek Amercon, Yeah, Mark amcconwy porter, will you hop on the micro quick and remind Tony what our
official stances on our radio show about nepotism. Please not big on nepotism. You can't win with them, can't wait with them.
You know, it's just now that's just this radio show, that's just our opinion. I can't I kid marks the never met Derek, but Mark's a great guy.
Derek's a star. Yeah, that's awesome. Good to hear, huge star. He's been as close to MVP as anybody could be this year.
So before we move off the bees, give me the pitch man. Let's get people out this week. I I completely for I'm getting to a game this week, so let's let's hear it.
Five dollars tickets on Sunday. We're going back to nineteen ninety four. Five dollars tickets. Unbelievable, like concession items that will be at great value pricing team store items throughout the week that you're going to want to take advantage of with that wonderful tributes all week, iconic members that'll be there, former big name people who've played there. Won't give out the name yet, but you're gonna want to join us and be a part of that. Friday Night's
gold Golden Night. And I know that this is one that's going to hit to you personally. I mean, I know you know cancer has affected you personally. You and I have talked about this on the air. Off the air. That's a big one in the fight against childhood cancer. We're we're really really big on that, and my family is all in on doing what we can to support families. And so that night you get fireworks after the game,
kids get to run the bases after the game. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you know, fireworks on Friday and Saturday. You know everything that you're going to want to have, all the feels that made this place so special, You're going to feel it over and over and over again.
I was putting together some different videos and just wonderful tributes, so you know, at your last chance to get there to catch a B's game, whether you started there with the Buzz or the Stingers, or whether you were even you know, the trappers, or let's say go back to the goals. My favorite part is talking to every person giving me It's always a family story. My grandpa, my dad,
my mom, this that, and there was this game. They don't remember the score, they don't remember this, they don't know. Maybe they remember one player in one moment, but they never forgot the foam finger or the foul ball. There's always something there and I just I think that's what makes this place so beautiful. Yeah, that's what it's about. I mean I was, and you referenced, you referenced, go Golden Knight. So the fight against childhood cancer.
And I just had my twenty one years man twenty one year but I remember, thank you very much. I just remember I was twenty five when a doctor looked at me.
He was like, you're gonna die.
You have a brain tumor or you're dying, right, And so I can remember during my recovery walking up and down the hallways and it's the kids where you go.
Dude, what this five year old? Yeah, he is in here with no hair.
And I can remember in the in the room next to me when I was in physical therapy, literally relearning how to walk.
A mom. It's hard to talk about him.
Mom would come in the room every night and pray with her son, and he was twelve years old and his name was Nate. And I remember listening to her say a prayer with her son Nate, and then I woke up one morning and he was gone from the room and he died. He passed three weeks of listening to his mother pray with him every night. At the age of twelve. He died of a brain tumor that
could't operate on. It's just whatever we can do societally to fight our generations that thing, and that's what cancer is. I definitely applaud that. So where's the best place tell him for people to get tickets?
Yeah, SLBs dot com, that's where you're want to go. SLBs dot com. Amazing discounts, very valued pricing. Take advantage of all of that. And I've been telling people, don't just catch one last game, catch multiple Yea, be there multiple times. Every Night's gonna look and sound and feel a little bit different. You're gonna want to take a piece of that.
So all right, good stuff. So head over to the BS game this week. It's the final week of the Bees playing baseball in Salt Lake. Let's move over to the Utes. But before we get there, because you just jarred something in my mind. It really is. It's one of the things that as I age and as I continue to be involved in the world of sports, I try to have perspective on it's very much a zero sum game. We're not changing the world, but the generational connections.
I lost my grandfather about a year and a half ago, and you know, Big d Big Dave. He's getting a little older, right, So I'm watching my dad age. I said goodbye to my grandpa, and we have this book that was put together for all the grandkids and all the pictures. It's me and my grandpa golfing, It's me and my grandpa to Jazz game.
It's me and my grandpa to BYU game. He was a Cougar club guy.
And then the generational connection between my grandpa and my father and now my son who was twenty three. You know, he's fourth generation big sports fan. He's back east living in New York. On a Jets games, Yankee game, nick game, loving it. I walked through the tailgate the other day for it was prior to the Utah SUU game, and a gentleman called out my name. He listened to the station and they had a tailgate set up. It was
very extensive. They did the prep, they're barbecuing that drinks and it was packed and he said, I want to want you to I want to introduce you to my grandfather. He's the one that started all this. And I sat down, I talk with him, and he talked about buying a ticket to the old stadium for a nickel back in nineteen forty seven, and then I'm seeing I met his son, and then I met his grandsons, and they're all there at the Utah football game tailgating prior to the kick.
And you know the deal.
When you get into the job, you know, you kind of have to become agnostic.
You kind of have to become.
Immune or numb to fandom or else it compromises the craft of what you're trying to do. And sometimes it does feel too much like a job to me, and so to be reminded of really what it's all about.
You know, the stories that you get at the ballpark of people talking about generations of baseball fans going over the years, walking through a tailgate of Utah football where you meet the patriarch of the whole situation who's been going a Utah football game since nineteen forty seven, passing on to his kid, who's now passed it on to his sons. Oh man, that it reminds you, like we catch a lot of crap in the world of sports, like you don't matter, like there's too many other things
going on in the world. It reminds you why it's fun to exist in the toy asle that we do covering sports.
Oh yeah, because what you really are in love with is the emotions you feel in the connection with Michigan winning the national title last year. The connection I have with that with my mom because we'd watch clubs games in the afternoon summertime, during the day, well in the fall, Saturday and Sunday mornings. I would kind of take care of myself early so she could sleep in because she was waitressing, bartending, she was up late, stuff like that, and I would kind of have to take care of myself,
take care of the house. So she would get up and we'd watch football together. And I learned the game initially through Michigan football and her the cool song, cool helmet, cool everything. Oh my gosh, that was our team. They were the first team on a lot of times. So there's so much wrapped into that, and then it comes into my brother and it just expands out. It has nothing to do with Elvis Gerbach or Desmond Howard, I mean, but it was the memory and the excitement and all
of those moments that we lived through. Charles Woods and soaring through the air, picking off the pass in the end zone, and the Rose Bowl. It's the way my mom screamed when Tommy Hendrix picked it off in the end zone against Notre Dame in nineteen ninety seven, and the celebration in our living room. It's that stuff right there.
It's that it's watching her joy and excitement. So you as a fan, whether it's going to the ballpark, whether it's the fan of the utes and all that, what it really is about is your experience in your life, and and that is a fabric of what makes this so beautiful. And I wish we could get back to more of that instead of some of the toxicity that comes with sports. Especially now you know where I fill in on radio and do that and do more play
by play. I've been able to really absorb more into the beauty of what makes sports sports and why we love our team.
And one of the reasons why something like a stadium movie is a big deal to a lot of people.
It hits you in the heart.
You know, it hits you when you've grown up going to these games, because that's where your memories exist. And I remember going to Be's games with my with my grandfather and all these all these games, and it's ultimately, you know, it is the toy Isle. But it's a it's a it's a great way to connect generation after generation. We'll do a let's do a big college football segment coming up next. I want to do some Utah football. I want to do some b YU football, some Big
twelve stuff. We got a couple of minutes here, so let's do a scoch of jazz basketball. A scosh tony, just a scosh Okay. So Bowler rolled in the studio last week. Craig and Gordon come on the show once a week for an hour. Call it the Big Show, Big Hour. It's fun to be reunited with those guys. And bless his heart, we were going over the depth chart and I was asking him what he's watching out for, and as he was naming the names of the players most likely in the rotation, I'm just like, well, good
luck calling those games foul. So I mean, look, ultimately, we all know the deal, okay. And as I was saying you off air, Danny Ainge has a track record. Danny does not need me to stand up for him.
Okay.
His resume is out there, you can go look at it. And the fact of the matter is things like this take time. Here's the issue, Tony, as I see it, Vegas over underwins right now in the NBA in the Western Conference, because you remember we were both working over there during the Mitchell Gobert, Quinn, Dennis Lindsay ingles like
that whole thing. And so the walking line at the time was, we hope we're in a spot to capitalize on a window that opens when Golden State is kind of done and Lebron is a little bit older, and maybe Kawhi has aged out. Like when that happens, we hope to be in the spot to be the team with the players in their prime to maybe win something special. Yeah, now here's the issue, Vegas over underwins. OKC one, Minnesota two.
You're looking at this point, Dallas three. Let's see here, Pelicans, Kings, Grizzlies with jaw back, and then you get into there's the Kings, then it's the Lakers, then it's the war excuse me, the Suns. Then it's the Lakers, and it's the Warriors, and then it's the Spurs, then it's the Rockets, and the final two the only two teams that are not thought to be close to competing for a playoff spot in the West are the Jazz and the Trailblazer.
Those are the only two.
Bad quote unquote bad teams according to what the odds tell us in the Western Conference. Here's where the issue comes in. Okac is not going anywhere forever. They're awesome, and they're young. Jokic still in his twenties. Michael Porter Junior is still young. Jamal Murray if you can get back like Denver still has a runway of four or five years, sodas Minnesota, you can make an argument that the Pelicans do that.
The Kings do so.
Now the seven of the eight top teams in the West are better than the Jazz, and they're also young. So the window and this is kind of how you have to view the whole thing in pro basketball.
When will a window open?
And can we formulate our roster construction to be there when that window opens. Now, the windows like seven or eight years away, barring something completely unforeseen, I just don't see the direction forward to serious competition Tony anytime soon.
If it is so, First of all, you're right, there is a Danny Ainges playing the long game. You don't have to be okay with it. I've also said you don't have to pour money into it as a fan. If you don't want to, that is your chance. That is your choice. You are not any less of a fan if you don't. By the way, if you say cool, I'll wait for the long game and I'll put my
money into it. When things seem to be more of the approach that this team is a threat, there's nothing wrong with that as a fan, nothing wrong with that. This can't be a process though, where you just simply wait for everyone else to get worse. So is that kind of is the described way that you're talking about. That can't be it. Well, you have to believe in is your ability to identify the best players that make
the difference between being good, respectable, threatening, and elite eventually. Now, they believed in that process before Danny ageed it, and he was right, Tatum Brown, we can go on and on and on with the other names. And they threatened for a good number of years. Now that was a twelve year process, and for the first four years, I want to say, not a whole heck of a lot happening. Remember, they flushed out, they got a bunch of picks, they started over. Okay, the payoff is is a ring and
maybe more. I don't know if it's gonna take twelve. I don't know if it's gonna take eight. I don't know if it's gonna take I don't know. But what I do know is they have a belief in their ability with the process to identify those players, get them in and create the situation and the circumstance that gives them that championship level success. He has the track record
to prove it, but what it takes is time. Because what he did in Boston by quickly making trades and then winning the title in eight, he did it that way. I think it's gonna be tougher to do something like that in sul Lake City. With this, with free agency and all that, I think you're gonna have to go with your draft. You're gonna have to go with your guys. You're gonna have to be very selective, and you have got to hit more than you miss because you're not
gonna bat a thousand. But you gotta kind of be Reggie Jackson. When you barrel one up, you really barrel one up. And Danny ain't just proven that while he does not bat a thousand, he can have more strikes than he does gutters, And so that's what this is that we and I love that you've just been very honest about what this is, so you as a fan, you don't have to be okay with it now, but at least be honest with what it could pay off to be later. Yeah.
So in the immediate now, no no, yeah, no, well well said, so the hope, the sincere hope, truly, And I don't really know that I'm ready to emphatically anoint or dismiss in any of these young players. Does Cody get stronger, quicker? Is he able to take contact? Can he score on all three levels? Does he look like a promising young player? Does keyante? He had the Countess stuff. We won't do a lot of time on this Countes stuff.
Is really interesting to me because there are moments where I'm like, yeah, all right, that's real, right, and then there are a lot of moments where I'm just like, I don't know that he can run a team, at least at this age, has not shown his ability to be a leade guard. Does he show that ability this year? Here's what you got? You got marketing and he's awesome? Okay, Yeah, so he's the one you found throughout the course of everything you gave up. And I've always been the one
guy yelling into the void about the go bear deal. Okay, because I saw Rudy impact winning here in a way that he's impacted in Minnesota. And yes, they got a haul, but does that turn into and we still don't know?
So do we see something.
Excuse me, that we're not expecting from an Isaiah Collier? You get my point? Like, does one of the young players popping away we're not expecting.
Yeah, I think that's something that can happen, will eventually happen. I mean, you're gonna have progress. The key point is how much progress do you have with some of those guys? And what will happen with Danny Ainge is I do believe there's a shorter release than people would think. With him. It's a hell yes or it's a no. And I do think fans should like that because he is quick to make those moves. You you were the first to point that out when he first arrived. You were like,
this is what's great about this. If he sees it's not gonna work, he's moving right away. He's moving. He's not playing the Dante ex them. Hey, let's say, you know, I'll see how this and you know he's so young and he's so and it just it's the same story. It's the same crap. It's a different typer and it's over and over. No, no, no, no, no, it is Is this getting us where we want to go? No? Out? Can this get us where we want to go? Yes, let's continue to process and develop. We're not gonna hang
on to Alec Burks longer than we should. We're not gonna hang on to Dante Exe long ember should. And so that it sounds ruthless, it sounds like incredibly I don't want to say small money, like somebody would think. Man, that's so impatient. You're in a league where you can't wait. You can wait and play the long game with the big picture to win the title. But you can't play the long game with something that you don't see getting
good enough fast enough. And he has to be able to believe that he can identify what that is, know one he's wrong when he's wrong, and move Danny Ainge. I give him a lot of credit. He's been that way his whole career, and he's going to be that way with this.
Yeah, Danny understands sun cost fallacy unlike almost any other NBAHM. When it's time to move on, it's time to move on. I do wonder what this means for Will Hardy, who's in year three, who is a very proud guy who wants to win basketball games. But he's being paid handsomely. He's obviously part of the plan. I just have a hard time seeing this turn into anything really exciting anytime soon.
I hope that they can give him what he needs going for because I do believe culturally he's doing a lot of great things. I do believe systematically, I think he's a great basketball mind. I'm not just saying this because I've had a chance to watch it up close and see what's developing. I hope that they can say, hey, you've been a part of this process as we were going through the pain tolerance. He deserves to be a part of the process to give it a chance to see them thrive.
Yeah, let's hope you gets some players, because there's a reason he wanted them to trade for Dame Liller.
I can tell you that all right.
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We'll do some college football with Tony coming up next right here on ESPN seven hundred, Tony parks live in studio the Voice of the Bees Last Chance promo code style. As the Bees are saying goodbye to the Capital City, join the Solid Bees at Smith's Ballpark for their final two home stands as well their final home stand of the season. Porter laughs at me because I Ron Burgundy my reads. If it's on the script, I'm gonna read it.
Let's get Tony's mikel when we have a chance. September seventeenth to the twenty second, use the promo code Last Chance for discount of tickets and don't miss out on the final games ever at Smith's Ballpark. Don't miss out get your tickets at SLBs dot com today. A bunch of great promos going on starting Tomorrow night all the way through Sunday. So one last foray for the Bees
here in the Capitol City. Real quick, Tony, what's your opinion on I caught some because during cross talk with Sean Sean O'Connell's hosting our midday show now, he was giving away Disney on Ice tickets and he said something along the lines of, well, if you have kids, this will be great. Then he said, well, even if you don't have kids, you should go. That's a whole lot of second And I was too aggressive with my opinion, as you know me, as I want to do from
time to time. I guess this is where I'll settle on it because I was a little aggressive earlier. I don't fully understand Disney adults, like, like, you don't have kids, and you're calling up your group of friends and you're like, dude, what are you doing the third week of October?
Let's roll to Disney for like a week.
Bro, Let's crush a little small world to top on space, like you know what I mean. I'm not judging, but it's just not my thing. And I am a father, as you know, and I've had wonderful times with my son, my young son, at Disney World and on Disney cruises. But the way I phrased it earlier, I caught some pushback. People are saying that I was being too harsh. What's
your not not on adult that likes Disney movies? What's your opinion on adult who multiple times a year spends thousands of dollars with his or her friends to take week long vacations at Disney resorts without children.
Okay, I am not a hater on Disney adult fan, I'm not. I'm not no hate, I'm not. But you better get out of the way when something for the kids ever comes up, and you better let them have the front row seat, and you better let them go first, and you better make it about them. But you ever take too long with I don't care if it's a Star Wars character or or if it's Rapunzel or whatever, you better make sure that it is first and foremost for them, because that's who this is for. So Nat
and I did Disney on nice once. We ended up getting tickets and it was just her and I and it also was shortly, probably three months after our oldest daughter was more and so there was there was a little more to it, you know, And so we went and I remember being there with my wife and the first thing we did, I mean, all these families have all these little kids, and our seats were supposed to be at the front row of this suite and we were like, huh uh, all the kids go up there.
And we sat back on the barstools and you know, sat up at the table and had a good time. But we made sure every prize that was given out we gave it to one of them. Like anything that was given Ah, it is for them. So as long as you keep that part in mind. I'm all about I. I I not for me, Like I'm not dropping a bunch of money on Disney. My sister's big Disney adult fan. And now she you know, she has a daughter and stuff, and so it's great. But I'm not a hater on them.
But just make sure you don't impede on any child's experience.
If there's limited tickets, they get the ticket. Okay, it's good life advice. Ye, it's a much more serious tone than I was expecting. Bro, I'll meet you at Dumbo, the Dumbo ride, and then let's hit up Pirates and go to the Jungle Crew like you know what I mean. Yes, it's so expensive. You could do others anyway off my soapbut not for me.
Not for me either. Tell Parks live in studio.
All right, we had some time here, so let's seek into some college football storylines. And I gotta say, man, I think Isaac Wilson answered a lot of questions on Saturday. We learned the lesson around here last year of what it can look like not just without your starter, but without your backup. Cam was hurt last year, so was Brandon Rose. And I said after the Baylor game, I said, Okay, Isaac's the two. You know, you guys know your team way better than any of us do. So Isaac's the two.
If he's the two, it had to look better than it did against Baylor. Now, Dave Randa, as we all know around here, is a defensive savant. I mean, that's how he's made his way in the business. So I'm sure Baylor schematically was something that Isaac wasn't used to. But Utah State up in Logan is probably the most hostile environment that young man's ever played in front of.
I know, corner cannon get some big crowds, but I was proud of a man.
I thought he stepped up. I thought he met the moment. I thought he answered a lot of questions. What do you make of what we saw from Isaac on Saturday?
Isaac Wilson is much better than most true freshman quarterbacks, and by a mile by the way, he's going to get xp and atually better as the year goes on. The question is how good is he going to get and how fast? And which games are going to be the ones where the wheels wobble at all where you know, film crew or scouts try to catch up to him from each team, right, that being coaching staffs when they're
preparing for him. But the big one for this Saturday, the big question is Okay, Isaac Wilson will kind of jump is he going to take? I think this game is going to.
Be decided by the offensive line of Utah playing and simple.
This is a Kyle Whittingham game on Saturday. This isn't an Isac Wilson game. This is a Kyle Whittingham game. This is where your team is coming along, right. They're
taking quality strides. And I give this team some credit as some Kyle Whittingham teams in some of these recent previous years kind of started a bit slow, like maybe got away with the win where they didn't play all that well slow start to that game against Utah State, But those last three quarters I really liked the way the od line grinded and the way they started pushing bodies, the way they started executing, the way they started smashing. If they play like that, in this game, but they
got it do it for four quarters. If they win it up front, especially against the way they line up defensively, they get to dictate the terms. Life is much easier on Isaac Wilson and suddenly Utah with Kyle Whittingham, who knows how to get the best out of what any situation happens to be. If that happens, they win this game,
this type of game. There's so many games people are gonna remember about Kyle Whittingham, and they're gonna remember the Sugar Bowl, and they're gonna remember some, you know, landmark victories. To me, it's the at Washington State a few years ago where you find out your starting quarterback's not gonna play and you find a way to win. It's the home against USC where you're down big like that you
find a way to win. It's the Travis Wilson at home against USC where you barely score anything on offense, but you keep it close and you win at the end USC last year. I know I'm just pointing out USC games, but there's several of them that we can go to where it's like, man, oh, they won that game, the hell of a job and you look at the work of coaching and some of the guys that come through and help you in the win at home against BYU in twenty twelve, it was the field storming game.
That was a Kyle Whitningham game. Your longest drives for a touchdown were seventeen yards and thirty nine yards. You found a way to win with John Hayes Like that was dude, that was some work.
Yeah, And it's interesting. I was thinking about this through the prism like I'm watching Chiefs Bengals, and I'm like, Chiefs will figure it out. They're gonna win somehow, someway right, And I never fully and you probably experienced the same thing because on Saturday, I said this on Friday, that Utah State game had some of the tricky dynamics of what an upset game could encapsulate. And I say this
every Monday. One of the reasons I love college football so much is the unpredictable nature of it, and really good teams get got every week, and Utah rarely gets got in a scenario where they're not supposed to lose, so unless there is a cataclysmic injury situation like there was a year ago, which made last year a moot point. I don't even reference it. It's a miracle they got to eight. I thought that was a great coaching job. More often than not, when Utah football is supposed to
win a game, they win a game. He very rarely gets God when he's not supposed to get got So I view Saturday ultimately as a massive success because you handled your business and it was never fully uncomfortable.
I mean, they go down fourteen to three.
But I always get such a kick out of football fans who in the first and second quarter are tweeting like they're about to jump off their roof.
I mean it's the first quarter. You can't be up a million to three after one. Like, give it some time. Just see Bears fans in the city. Oh sure, they're sure.
But it was a combination of to your point, just a do your job work ethic coach, wit win. Okay, let's not get got here, let's not get let's not get stung by an end state team. When a lot of their players probably want to play for Utah. You know they're going to show up against a CFP contender to put good tape out there, and some of them did for their pro careers, like, let's not get God here. So that's simply put showing up getting to win when
it never was fully in doubt, it just wasn't. But then to know, because look, Tony, I know you're not a gambler, but if I called you, I said, hey, you have no choice but to put the Tony Park paycheck from any of your seventy million jobs on the line. And the bet is will came rising play every game this season. Who is going to bet on that? Like, I don't want him to get hurt, and we want
to see camp play all year. But I think it's fair to say that there's a really good chance that Utah is going to need Isaac in a pretty tricky spot in conference play because what's the confidence level the Cameron's just going to be under center all year.
It's hard to have that right now. No, it really is hard to have that. So you need Isaac to just continue to progress. And I love this kid. I love the first time I ever saw Isaac Wilson. He's playing in a game against Loan Peak and this is a sophomore game, so by no means it says varsity whatever, he's a freshman. It's early in the season and he throws a really bad interception before halftime, and I mean,
the coaching staff is just all over him. I mean, he was okay to be coached hard, and he took it on the chin and he owned it. He came out in the second half, they were down like seventeen eight minutes to go, and he rallied him back to win that game, and he made throws that were just insane. And I remember being like, this dude is tough. His name Wilson sling it, oh Man, no doubt about that. As a Jets I watched him from each piece of that not just grow a little bit, but grow so fast,
so quickly. And I understand college football is a different deal. I'm not saying a sophomore high school experience is truly what's going to represent his whole college career, but his mindset and also where he comes from in a family that has played at high levels. You can see that he absorbs things quite quickly. And then you have a coaching staff who's great at managing problem solving. And Jason Bennetti said it last year in that game against the USC,
Is there a program that's better a problem solving. No, there's not. So then you have all these ingredients with a chance for him to excel. I'm not saying he's going to hit all American level this next week, but I think he'll take a very good stride forward. And if that offensive line can play like they did during those final three weeks, I think they have a chance to have a great victory in Stillwater. Now, there's still plenty of variables. You gotta perform right. You have to execute.
You can't come out there on the road and get off to a slow start. You can't feel your way into this game. You can't take what the defense gives you. No, you just got to go get it. And that old line can make life a lot easier on a QB in Wilson, who I think has great skills and talent. By the way, you now have I think a great weapon on third down, red zone, cold Weather another one. I shouldn't say just one, but Loaner going up and getting the ball and Wilson with great touch like that's
that's fabulous. That's a great sign. So this is all formulating and coming together. And if this is that week where I think they polish it for four quarters they win this game, and.
I just think it was so good for the fan base to see a dynamic in place, and look, Oklahoma State will be a different challenge.
And if Isaac has.
To play on a random Saturday, a road game in a hostile Big twelve environment, then we're gonna see he's made of because this is a different thing. I'm not saying it's not, but for how bad it was last year when it was Bryce and Nate, then Nate than Bryson, then Nate and Bryson, the fact that the fans.
Were able to see it can look okay this year.
Even if Cam has to miss time, I think put a lot of fears to bed because the dude, you know the deal. The conversation for Utah football over the past three four weeks leading up into the season. Here Kyle say it, Here Coach lud say it, like, we need Cam to be smart, we need him to show discretion is the better form of valor. We need him to throw the ball away, we need him to get down, we need him healthy. And he lasted a game and
a half and here we are again. Now it's not a long term thing, and we're told that he is going to play on Saturday.
That's the plan against Oklahoma State.
But the fact that it took a game and a half for Cameron to miss a game, not a couple of snaps, not a couple of series, he missed an entire game that, in my opinion, brant a lot of it anxiety around here, like, oh, here we go again. It's gonna look like it did last year. And I think Tony, at least for one day, the fan base saw that it's not going to look like last year.
In the event that Cam No totally agreed, because now you're dealing with the guy with a lot more skills, and that's no slight to the guys before. It's just a factive. This guy has more skills. You watch the way he throws the ball, the different types of throws. He's more polished, he's more skilled. You don't have to protect yourself from him. It's not be careful Country. It's not John Hayes where you throw a deep once each half and then try to hand it off to John
White for the other you know whatever, sixty five snaps. No, that's not it. The preparation is going to give a more skilled quarterback when he's out there, it'll be in Isaac a lot more confidence on what's going on. Plus you have a great coach in Cam Rising who has no reason not to help coach this guy up right, because when Cam is fully healthy and ready, he's the guy that's back out there. Right. So there's a great amount of trust that's in this program. And I've seen
it ten thousand times. It's very very rare in this and in college football right now. With depth and experience on that coaching staff that you always feel like they're going to give you the very best chance possible with what you're working with here, and what you're working with is still very good. So I'm with you on the here we go again. It's gonna get anxiety. The one thing you got to do is exhale and say, man, we got a great coach in place. They're gonna come
prepared for a guy in Wilson. It's not like he's coming in there. Hey, you know, this is kind of his thing. He's new. We don't really know what he's made of.
No, I think we've seen some of what he's made of, and I think at his very very best, he's showing you some flashes to be great and I think he's going to show you continued flashes to be responsible.
The big one there, too is defense has got to come up with some more timely plays. The Snowden pick was I think as big as anything. It was awesome. Yeah, like that. I did not see a pick coming on that play. At best, they saw a PBu Like. The guy's a hell of a player, right, I chance see him up close a lot. So it's some of that all mixed in together to get what I think will be a close road victory. But I could see the
fan being a concern. The other thing you got to remember is be happy that you're in a conference that is not going to be like Oregon and Washington and maybe USC happened to be at the top last year, and you are dealing with a team that is well put into place to go give you a great chance the rest of the way.
Yeah, I think there's a lot to be confident about. I mean, I do think the next four games it's not an easy task. It's Oklahoma State, it's Arizona home, then it's at Arizona State, who's been a lot better than anybody thought. I'm a big UCF guy, but I'm not super down on TCU after that great football game over the weekend. That's how UCF just beat them and the other thing. And then we'll move on because I
have to wonder. Brock Hword hopped on the show prior to the season, and I actually heard him talking about this on the Utah Baylor broadcast as well. It's not a slight corner canyon. It's not a slight high school football. Andy Ludwigs playbook is ten times to what you know as it pertains to what Isaac Wilson has used to study. And it's a different thing altogether. It's a different level. It's more complex and nuanced. But I thought coach lud let him go. Look bit against Utah Stadi threw it
thirty three times. So I wonder, and again let's be clear here for people that are turning on the radio, same way they're talking about Isaac Wilson playing. Now Cam is expected to play on Saturday, But I wonder if Isaac needs to get back in there. Did Andy see enough from him on Saturday to continue to give him some freedoms to be who he is as opposed to to your point, just three yards in a cloud of dust, Yeah, I think he has.
I think he has I think he has the maturity. I think he has the focus. I think he has the tenacity. I think he has the responsible mindset where he can still play with abundance without having to be careless, but yet plays with the right amount of scarcity and understanding control and managing the game. And Kyle today was like, Okay, I shouldn't use the word managing because it sounds like
we're trying to protect ourselves from him. But no, he understands the full sixty minutes, the ten possessions or whatever, ten to twelve possessions, and he has an element to his game that he understands how to consume the whole game so well. And I know some of this is because I was so close to it for so many years, but I was so impressed, you know, with Zach obviously, and I'm impressed with Isaac in that way. I think he's well ahead of what most people in his position
would be, and so is he finished. No, but if you end up having to go to him again somewhere, because as you mentioned like that, there's an injury situation there that exists, you're not trying to speak ill of camp, but it just is what it is. You've got a lot of games left and you might need to have this again. And when you need to go to it, are you going to have Conference player of the Year
type performance? No? All American No, But what you will have is something that you can depend on to minimize the gap between who your starter is and who your backup is. Because last year it was quite a drop.
Let me get a quick by you thought from you before we catch a break for the five o'clock hour of the show. Last year, it just it was weird in a lot of ways for a team whose head coach was Kolonie Satake and his defensive coordinator was Jay Hill. To be I think they were last in the country in sacks. They could not pressure the quarterback. It didn't look great. Keaton slow Is are fully settled in, they get off to a decent start, then they get smoked
in conference play. But it was the defense that confused me. Because Klannie that's his thing. Jay Hill, that's his thing. We were talking about Dave Randa earlier. Klane cut his teeth under Kyle, so did Jay. They know the deal. They know that in order to win football games, you have to be stout on that side of the ball, and they are this year very stout defensively in a way that I don't think they were a year ago. Now, a lot of it's going to come down to Jake
and I'd sit down and turn on the game. He throws that early pick and I'm like, dude, what are we doing here? I mean, a Rod last week said I will eliminate the turnovers form my program. As QB goes out, throws an early pick and I'm like, Balhannah started warming up. It was on the broadcast they started warming up a hand in. I'm like, all right, they're going to pull the plug. But I thought Jake, just like Isaac, responded really well. Manson on Friday said Wyoming sucks.
B why you should roll. I wasn't convinced that Wyoming sucked, but they suck, and by you rolled.
Give me your thoughts on by He's clean start. Well, I think Wyoming isn't very good, and I think by You is going to be tested even more so here coming up. The big thing is can you play consistently enough? Can you stay away from some of the catastrophic mistakes that against Wyoming? You'll get away with here and there. Like Utah had a slow start in their game against Utah State, Right, you can't do that against Oklahoma State.
But at your best, which I think they showed during huge stretches of those final three quarters, you can dominate a team like that, and you can absolutely show the fundamental sound abilities to control a game by you. I still need to see more from them that they can avoid some of the catastrophic mistakes that give me belief that they can have a much better season than I
had originally expected. Right, some of that is still going to be a work in progress, and I think one of the big questions about them at a P four level, if you will, is can they get the players often enough to be that kind of program that emerges and grows. Right, there was an acclamation period for Utah to the PAC twelve, and that was clearly a few years there where they were sub five hundred, didn't go to bulls, things like that, and then all of a sudden it was eight plus
wins regularly for BYU. I'm very curious about that because the acclimation period is different, because you're recruiting, your situation is unique. I do think They have as good a staff as you could ask for, with great abilities to recruit in a variety of different ways. Now the big thing is just how good is their best And I think Jay who if you look at what they do defensively, Yeah, it comes from perfecting fundamentals, lane discipline, guys understanding their job,
not getting outside of themselves. But on offense, you've got to be able to make big plays more often enough. And then the other thing you're gonna need is you got to stay away from some of the catastrophic mistakes. So how they weigh that balance here spence against better competition that remains to be seen. And I think a Rod has a really big task on his hand to gauge and balance how that is because Kyle Whittingham, with his number of offense coordinators that he had for years,
had to figure out how to do that. With Travis Wilson, he had to figure out how to do that. I mean, obviously with John Hayes and some other guys. He had to figure out how to do that without depth, because when they would have some injuries to olign and then you have some quarterback issues, all of a sudden, you start one to five that's hard. So I'm very curious to see how a rod works and balances that. There's a real fine amount of work that goes into that.
And by the way, it was a part of some of those Utah staffs they had to work with that.
You know, it's funny some people may forget not to do the Trump thing, like everyone forgot. No, you're the only one that forgot. There was a time when it came to the Utah offensive coordinator spot where it felt like it was like, hey, does anyone have Dave Shram's number? Right? Like it was such a turnover right year in and year out. The coach lud has really solidified that. Let me ask you one more thing, because I don't think I've got your take on this, and I'm surprised. Now, let's be clear,
the reporting on this is murky because nil stuff. There's some websites here there and there's some reporting that you can look at. By all accounts, and this is a Ryan Smith thing because Ryan's a basketball guy. But by all accounts, BYU at this point has tremendous resources invested in their basketball program, yet they have not found the football equivalent of Ryan Smith. And I just thought, I mean, look,
I come from a family of BYU fans. I've got a brother who's the CEO of a company, and there are so many ex BYU athletes or just x BYU students to go on to start companies or MLMs and make a ton of money.
They'll love BYU football.
I'm kind of surprised the Ryan Smith equivalent for the football program has not manifested itself just yet, at least as far as our understanding goes.
So I said this from the beginning. I was working at America First Credit Union. There weren't many people in the office at the time. It was COVID, but there are a few people and we would talk football in this great time, and this nil thing really started getting big. They talked about how big a deal it could be for football, and that's what they wanted to see. Hey, there's a lot of people to support this team. They
could really get behind it in these different ways. I said, I think basketball is where they can really make it happen. Because you have a smaller number of players, you have a much better chance to garner some stars. You have a twenty thousand seed arena that you can pack. I think they have game presentation that is second to none. They're so good with their game and they're so good with their fan experience. I tip my hat to them all the time. They're really really good at it. And
that's not to disparage anybody else. I just think they really have something there that I think is very impressive, and so they've worked hard at it and they've taken a pride in it. I think if you're an athlete, you love to see that in basketball, the way that they do it. And people at Utah would say, well, well why not.
Us, Well, no, it's hard because you don't have enough people there to have some of what you're trying to build.
And obviously that comes with winning. And we can go down that rabbit hole another day. So it's kind of unfair to some of the other staffs trying to put together a good fan experience because bou basketball has something there. They put together some good wins there with Pope, they had a good run that you know, they went to
an NCAA tournament. Whatever, They're stacked right on paper. This year, this year, this year, the juice is just high man and you you did a lot with the coaching staff, so Niol With basketball, I thought was going to have the first big impact. I do think they can get there with football, but it's got to be with like a quarterback and then a key running back receiver, right, So you dial in on a couple of key positions for that and you target in on that, and that
is the way it would have to happen. That I think is a slower process. I really do believe it's a slower process there, Spence, and it's it's got to be something that's gonna come over time. Whereas basketball, I thought they would actually have it earlier than they have until now. Now they're ready to go. But I remember saying that all the way back and like the fall of twenty twenty, going no, this is this is actually where they can have massive advancement.
Oh interesting, because that's been the case. All right, Tom, great to see before I say you lose hit that be's promo again.
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