And I will wish our guy, Chris Comradnie a very happy Wednesday. Ck.
How are you, buddy on barefoot on a carpet? It couldn't be better. How are you.
Barefoot on a carpet? Well, I am on a carpet. I am not barefoot. I am at the Utah Red Zone store, at the campus store University of Utah. But I'm older than you are. When I was here at school, we called this the bookstore. What did you guys? Bookstore?
We called it the bookstore.
Funny story, Once upon a time I was asked to be on the cover of a brochure, you know, because when you think of University of Utah, you think of, you know, people who look like me. So I think it was nine Spring of nine. I can't remember what the brochure was exactly, but it was on some racks in the old bookstore. So if anybody has a copy of some obscure University of Utah specific student magazine from sixteen seventeen years ago, hit me up.
Now, that's all I want to see. I'm sure I do not have that, but maybe we can track it out at some point. One more Utah student experience question related question based off of us being here on campus today, had a little PTSD rolling in because the parking situation continues to be very similar to what it was when
I was a student. We had this running line my friends and I where oftentimes somebody would leave to go to class, then suddenly ten minutes later they're back at the house and he'd say, wait, did you go to class? And they said, well, I've wanted to, but I couldn't find a place to park. It feels like there's like a collusion involved, like a racket somewhere, where they simply
do not want you to be able to park. Even if you pay for the top end pass, you are ticketed, and this revenue has to fund something serious because it continues to be like the biggest roadblock between students and diploma is the inability to park at the University of Utah. Did you experience the same thing.
I did, which is why my last year and a half I started taking the bus smart And when you were a student back in the day, you would get a free UTA pass. I don't know if that's still the case, but living in the abs, living by the capitol, straight shot, I can't remember the name of my bus, but I loved it dropped me off right by the by the Hyper.
I don't know if the Hyper still exists anymore. I think it was. It was a once upon a time.
It was like considered to be the most dangerous building on campus because if like there was a short premer that's supposed to hit this place anytime soon, that it would basically crumble to pieces.
So that was my stop.
And yes, like once upon a time, I decided that it was no longer feasible for me to drive my beat up old Subaru to try to find a parking spot at the University of Utah. But it's not as bad as I will say in terms of availability, Utah's bad. But my friends, and I'm sure you have friends as well, My BYU friends have told me horror stories about being ticketed on campus around the apartment buildings down there, Like horror stories that like maybe we're out of their car
for three minutes and they got got so granted. This is I'm not, you know, doing the Holy word thing when it comes to parking places on the drive.
But both places have problems.
I'll say that, okay, equal time, equal time, And if you're just tuning in Ck has now created a beef between BYU and Utah students and who has a worst
parking situation? So chime in on that, all right, Ck, You are a truth teller, and more often than not, I will begrudgingly admit that you're typically right on a scale of the unknowns on Utah football on one side, and podcast people that are already talking about Devin dan pier is potentially winning a Heisman on the other side, Where are you with your belief that this quarterback will deliver the things he needs to deliver to make Utah contender in the Big twelve this year?
Well, he has one thing going form that he's never had and maybe never will again, as it's one of the best offensive lines in the country watching its back. They return all five starters, a couple bookend tackles that are.
Likely to be first round picks.
Obviously, everybody knows about Spencer Fano being projected potentially as a top ten, top five pick. That helps, and it helps having some talented, albeit unknown running backs behind you.
This is going to be a work in progress.
Man.
I'm going to say this again and again.
But it really really expedites the process for Jason Beck and his offense because of the personnel they have up front with the big guys.
Other than that, like, are.
People going to believe that because Wayshaun Parker had a decent freshman year at Wazoo while Wazuo was playing kind of it's fake CW schedule last year. Like is he going to turn into the thousand yard fifteen hundred yard back that Utah was used to having for a decade. If you want to be an O to miss, you can believe that. But you know, conversely, Kyle Whittingham came out last week or this week and said there's kind of not a definitive pecking order at the running back
position right now. So and we haven't really even gotten to the wide receivers yet. I know, you know, Kyle talks about they got their travel guys, Well, they've had travel guys for a very long time, and too often their travel guys don't necessarily translate to guys who show up on game days. Whether that's quarterback play, whether that's play calling, whether that's individual skill, you know, all of that is up for debate. Devin Dampierre is a talented player.
You've seen his highlight packages but again, I'm going to proceed with caution and say, like, he accounted for a bleep ton of touchdowns and he looks really fun when you watch his highlight reel, but he still threw for twelve touchdowns and twelve interceptions on a bad New Mexico team last year. Granted, rising tides lift all ships or
boats or whatever. I get that idiom, but like, the reality is is he's going to have to be a lot better if Utah is going to be in contention for the Big Twelve this year, because I'm fascinated to see how the learning curve is, because I think it might be a little steper than some folks around her belief.
Yeah, and I tend to agree with you, and I don't know. I try not to only have shills on my show. When Homer's on my show, I don't enjoy those conversations because there's no authenticity authenticity, and I just end up rolling my eyes more often than not. But I haven't heard very many people discussed this kind of
trepidation that you're outlining. And then I tend to agree with when it comes to Devon himself, And there are plenty of examples, you know, cam Ward is the most recent example of quarterbacks who started at a lower level of competition and ended up rising up to the occasion. I mean, Helly was the number one pick overall. Even Aaron Rodgers at one point was a junior college kid. But what do you make of what I perceived to be more or less consensus belief that Devon really is the guy?
Well, how do I how do I phrase this without outing a bunch of folks? In our industry, people can watch a highlight reel and overreact that is this. You can be a media member and you can be a fan,
and sometimes those two realities intersect. And if you watch Devin Dan Pierce highlight reel from last year, you think, Okay, if this dude doesn't have to necessarily take off and run for his life as often, if he has a reliable run game, if he has guys to throw to, like maybe there is something waiting to be unleashed within this player. But again, we have to like if we're if we're being responsible, we can't overreact to what you see on tape at a totally different school with mainly
different you know, members of cast members. Granted Jason Beck the signal caller or the play callers is coming with him.
But like.
I think when we talk about preseason prognostication and just getting hyped about the season, I think it's easy for media members nationally or locally to be like, did you see this guy's tape? Can you imagine what it would look like if he had you know, everybody you know beefed.
Up around him? Yeah, you can. You can imagine that.
But as we've seen here locally at the quarterback position at Utah the last twenty years, it is pretty difficult to like stay upright, stay successful. Like before Tyler Huntley and Cam Rising, it was pretty slim pickens man. I mean, like Travis Wilson, bless his heart for all the times he sacrificed his body, was kind of considered to be the best Pac twelve quarterback of Utah's era.
But before those guys.
Came along, so long winded way of saying, you can get excited about a player's potential, but I think you have to be responsible about, you know, hyping it to the point of maybe being unfair to the player, because as we've talked about as well, like you're setting unrealistic expectations for a guy who may you know, experience some roadbumps along the way, and that's totally fine because he's entering a level of play that he will not have faced during his time in New Mexico.
So Big twelve strength of schedule Baylor has the heart of this is according to CBS Sports, Baylor has the hardest schedule in the conference. TCU is two and they they put Utah at three as far as the hardest schedule in the conference. Now, I think if you're a YOUTE fan, the good news is now we have the AP poll and we have the Coach's Poll, which is somewhat of an unseious endeavor. But all three ranked teams at least as of now, and it's preseason, so so
many things will change. Play here in saut Lake, So Texas Tech is your conference opener, number twenty three team in the country. Arizona State's the highest ranked Big twelve team at eleven. They play here in Salt Lake. KSE State comes in at seventeen. It's the second to last game on the schedule, in the final home game for the youth. So you have that when it comes to
strength of schedules. Some tough teams, but the majority of the tough teams you play are here in Salt Lake, tough road game of course down at BYU in Provo. They do have to play in Waco against Baylor, who a lot of people are high on, and they closed the season at Kansas who just got a three hundred million dollar check today. Nice department, Yeah, it must be nice. Seven point five ck is the Vegas over under for
Utah football this year? Does that feel right to you or do you think they can maybe scratch double digits?
Oh?
I think for me as somebody who's followed the program obviously very closely for a very long time, but is no longer.
Covering it, still trying to pay attention.
Through the lens of the folks on the you know, the ground level, like you and the b writers. I think I'm going to say like eight to nine makes sense in terms of a ceiling. Granted, nobody really saw the floor coming the last couple of years during the Camp Rising debacle either, So I don't know if if getting to ten or eleven wins is doable considering the amount of questions we still have on the offensive side
of the ball. I mean, Spence can't go understated like, how little we know about this team on the offensive side, ball like we can't and like again you have to be responsible. But Utah does have one hell of a big.
Thing going for it.
They have an amazing offensive line, so that will help, Like I said, but in terms of how Jason's going to call, you know, plays, who he's going to call plays for on the outside, nobody knows. They brought in a bunch of receivers from places parts unknown, you know, bit piece guys that were at decent size schools to small schools.
Nobody knows.
I know they brought in the kid from New Mexico, who is one of Devin's you know, favorite targets from last year. But how does he translate, you know, to the P four level. How does the kid who is at cal, who was at Notre Dame before, how does he translate everybody's excited about his stature? How does the kid from southern myst Like I mean, like list goes on and on, and that doesn't even really account for
the running game. So if Jason's able to put a functional, fun offense together that can playoff of Utah's you know, typically strong defense, I think eight to nine is realistic.
So some news came down today that I do think is noteworthy as it pertains to the way things have been handled here in the state pertain, you know, as it pertains to reporting injuries. And this isn't an interesting topic to me because I've heard in the past Lincoln Riley, Lane Kiffin among others, almost mock coaches that believe not
reporting injuries actually gives them an advantage. So it really depends on which coach you hear from, which coach you talk to as far as their opinion on this dynamic. Now we know coach with and Klane have always kept their injuries very close to the vest, and they've decided to be clandestine, and it leads to a lot of
frustrations in the fan base. And you know, ultimately the days of making it to your seat and then waiting to see a Cameron Rising runs out of the tunnel with his shoulder pads on are now over because the Big twelve has now joined the ACC and the SEC and the Big Ten. So all P four conferences k are now required to report injuries. Number one three days before the game and number two ninety minutes before kickoff. Listing players is available probable, questionable or doubtful or out,
depending on their status. I think it's the right move. The pro's been doing this forever. What do you make of the announcement out of the Big twelve today?
Necessary saves a lot of people a lot of headaches locally. If I had to guess, this is just totally opinion, my guess would Kyle would eventually go if unless the player is absolutely out, you'll see probable or questionable. I like Kyle like that would be I guess now, I don't know how if you know there's going to be some twisting of the arm behind the scenes to say, like if this player is one hundred percent available, I think there will be ways to kind of massage the availability reports.
We'll see how that goes. But yeah, it's necessary.
It's long overdue, and Kyle's always said he's long branded a proponent of if it becomes a conference wide initiative, that he would support it, but until then, it wouldn't make sense for him to tip tip the opponent's hand, you know, tip his handed the opponent, so to speak, as he said ad nauseum over the years. So I think it's good. I'm fascinated to see how it's deployed.
I don't think you'll ever get to the point of of where the NFL is where you get pretty you know, specific reports, but that comes with, you know, a player's association in the union and setting sort of realistic expectations when it comes to both sides. But I think the ACC you know, adopted this was one of the first
power conferences to adopt this. I don't know, I can't remember if the SEC or ten have as well, but it's it's going to be a breath of fresh air, so to speak, for people to know kind of where rosters stand on a week to week basis.
So an interesting dynamic here with BYU. Okay, so BYU in both the Coaches poll where they're ranked twenty three and the AP poll where technically their ranked twenty six. Both those polls indicate that plenty of people believe BYU is a better team than Utah because they're ranked out of Utah in those polls. Now, if you look at the Vegas odds and I have the DraftKings odds up, there are different sports books that are a little bit kind of fluctuating with this. Utah is plus six hundred
to win the Big Twelve. That's behind only k State and Texas Tech, and it's actually tied right now with Arizona State. So the Vegas favorites when the conference are KSE State, Texas Tech, and then right behind them are Arizona State. In Utah, Baylor's plus six fifty that would
put them at five. BYU is plus eighteen one hundred, and in some sports books they're plus two thousand, which puts them behind Kansas and just ahead of Colorado, and that would be the number eight spot in the Big Twelve, and then they're over under in Vegas is six point five wins, So Vegas is not in lockstep with the Poles who believe BYU is ranked a little bit higher
and it's a better team than Utah. Now, a lot of this is pertaining the schedule, a lot of this is pertaining to probably the unknown nature under center, but it does sound like Bear Bachmeyer is gonna win that job. A freshman who Aaron Roderick recruited heavily out of high school, wanted him badly. Bear ends up at Stanford for springball, transfers to BYU. Jake's at Tulane McKay Hillstead it sounds it sounds like he's still in the mix, but it
sounds like Bear is gonna win this job. What do you you know, what are your thoughts on just kind of what I perceived to be several different layers of trying to analyze who Byu is with the polls to saying one thing and Vegas clearly saying another.
Well, I'm probably a bigger proponent of the fact of the uncertainty around the quarterback position because I understand that, you know, Jake Gretzlov had some you know, highlight reel
games last year. He had some great comeback performances in the fourth quarter, obviously, one of the biggest being that performance at Rice Cycle Stadium late But the but the reality is, it's like Vegas is never going to trust the team that doesn't have a seasoned veteran under center unless they are a blue blood, which is you know, the Ohio State is going to break in a new starter.
But they just won the national championship. They have probably the Heisman frontrunner and Jeremiah Smith and one of the best defenses in the country. B Yu a little different boat, but I mean people forget that last year, like b Yu their their mantra. Their MO was like defense and takeaways and setting up Jake and that offense and really good field position, you know, patterns where like they were able to take advantage of that, and like when LJ. Martin was healthy, like he was the guy that was
getting the bulk of the carries. So you know, I understand why bear Bachmeier will you know, be the starter if he is, because as you mentioned, Aaron was.
Really high on him. He was a really highly touted recruit.
But I don't think historically Vegas is going to trust kind of a ringe top twenty five AP or top twenty five Coaches Bowl team to really go deep in the season if they've never had a guy who's taking a single snap.
Your thoughts on the eight people, I mean, we've already discussed the coaches poll, which appears to be somewhat of an unserious endeavor. Kyle Bonnagura, one of our friends from ESPN, he said the only coach he's ever been able to get on record to admit that he actually did it was David Shaw, who then followed up by letting him know he did it once and then stopped doing it after that. I told you a few years back, I texted a coach locally and asked him if he had
ever done this before. He said the same thing once. Then he just outsources it. But the ap polesk at least is consistent with folks that actually seem to pay attention. At least that's their job. And you know, there's some similarities between the two, there are some differences. So how accurate it look? None of us know anything. As I say all the time, they won't even let us do
a Big twelve preseason poll anymore. But generally speaking, how much doc do you put into the ap pole juxtapposed to the coach's pull?
Has the culture wars come for our poll? Spence, I might have missed something.
I think, so okay, I feel like it. Yep.
Well, I know they dissuaded everybody from participating in the preseason Big twelve poll, which I guess from the Big Twelve's perspective, it makes sense because last year it was such a clown show that pretty much everybody who is projected to go from eight to sixteen finish one to eight and vice versa. But listen, man, I'm a proponent of the a peopole like these are mainly people who covered the sport for decades and even if they're younger,
they know the sport inside and out. I mean, my guy Ralph Russo, who we hired from the who was like the chief AP college football sports writer, wrote a great column last week about you know, finally having finally having a vote because he was usually you know, tasked with putting it together because that was his old job. Now he's with the athletic and he finally gets to vote, and he wrote an interesting column. And I think Stu Mandel wrote a story about.
The history of the AP pole.
So like, I don't know, man, I'm maybe I'm being a little facetious when I talk about the culture wars coming for our polls, but I don't think it really necessarily puts anyone at a significant disadvantage one way or the other, because at the end of the day, the players and the coaches have to go out and prove it, and more often than not, if you have a good season, you'll be rewarded. I mean, nobody had Indiana as a
top ten team last year. Nobody had SMU as a top ten team last year, and I really hope I got that. But like, the reality is is if you have a good season, you're going to be rewarded.
Don't don't overthink it.
Wait wait, wait, are you are polls woke? Are we saying that polls are woke? Now? Well, I have to ask John Paul Okay, fair enough, Thirteen of the teams in the final AP Top twenty five poll last year were not ranked in the first AP pole last year. So you know, there's always this debate about whether or not if you're ranked too low to start the season, are you punished at the end. And there really is no data to back that up. Chris, There just isn't.
Like the bottom line is what you said. If you win and if you perform, the polls will adjust and you'll be fine at the end. Hey, I referenced earlier the news that came down today. So the University of Kansas received a three hundred million dollar check today from David Booth. It is believed to be the largest single gift in the history of collegiate athletics, and by far the largest largest in school history. They're in the middle of a stadium transformation and renovation. Of course they call
it the David Booth. They just call the campus David Booth campus now at this point, so it leads to a larger topic Chris, about where we find ourselves here in Salt Lake with the University of Utah. I don't have hard data. It's hard to understand exactly where every school is. You just do the best you can based off the talents they're able to acquire via the transfer portal. But if this is look, it's not just Kansas, it's
Texas Tech, we could keep going. There are so many athletic departments and schools that are being bankrolled by really not kind of rich people like f you money rich people. You know, is is this a reality that Utah is going to have to adjust to and you think they can?
Yes? And no.
I mean I'm always going to be the voice that says, if you win, if you give people a reason to pay attention to you locally and nationally, that is a.
That is clout, that is kind of a.
Measure, And if you can sustain that, then you really got something, because if you got people talking about you, then maybe there are other big fish, you know, the you know, the deeper depths of the pond that maybe you haven't thought of or haven't been able to reach for a while, and it's always going to come down to for me, product on the field, or on the.
Basketball court or wherever.
So if if you can sustain a product that is worth paying for, that it's worth watching and worth talking about. I think more often than not, you're going to be fine.
All right, before I sit you loose, Let's just sneak in a little RSL New York over the weekend. And look, man, I am not one. I don't like refs. They remind me of people that take jobs in parking enforcement. I don't know why you would ever want to do that job.
That's a full circle spence. We started talking about parking enforcement. Yeah it's a good job.
No, it's good.
Let's call the callbacks UK and the stand up comedians world, So call back to you know, meter maids and folk that work in that industry. I'm not here to stand up for the officials, and I don't usually blame the officials, but I'll tell you what, man, with all the inroads that the game of soccer and the sport of soccer have made in the country, and the talent that we're seeing playing this league, and you know, soccer specific stadiums
and the progress of the business of soccer. It does feel like the officiating in this league has not kept up with progress at all. And I cannot sit here and tell you I believe that that game was properly officiated. Pablo called it the worst field they've ever played on, and it certainly looked like and on television. Diego might need a rest. He's going to miss the game this weekend, and Charlotte ultimately that may not be a bad thing.
But your thoughts on the situation involving the sceries of miss calls and unfortunate events for RSL against New York last Sunday, I.
Think I'm going to go more with like RSL probably should have put like three goals away by halftime and or put themselves in that position in the first place, like the first twenty minutes RSEL was all over the Red Bulls and probably should have scored multiple goals. And I understand that, like the reality of the situation is like the officiating can be bad in sports, and it
can be frustrating. The problem is is when you have something like var and it's not properly utilized or oftentimes like wrongly utilized.
Then it's like what are we doing? And I think Pablo.
Masterrunni has said that multiple times and in the last year or so regarding var or bar whatever we're calling it, Like, unless it's going to be utilized properly, then it kind of just slows the flow of the game, confuses fans, confuses players, and just doesn't necessarily have the type of positive impact that.
It's supposed to do.
But again, like I'm going to be the guy that says, you know, Rsel probably should have been able to handle business themselves.
The field was gnarly bad, Like I could not believe that.
The last time I saw a field that bad Spence was when I was covering RSL twenty fourteen. And this was back when Deloy and his group would really kind of farm out Rio tinto stadium at the time for lots of events, and the grass would get punished.
It would just take a beating.
And I was covering like a high school soccer championship game, and I took a photo of the field and I put it on Twitter, and like within ten minutes, nat Borcher's text mean he was like, Chris, call me, I need to talk to you about the field. What is going on because they were at it.
They were on a road trip or something.
But Spence, it looked like a high school football field at Rio Tinto Stadium, Like soccer is not designed to be played that way. And I have no idea what the hell was going on at I don't even know what the stadium is called anymore, Red Bull Arena or whatever. But it was a crocious, so long winded way of saying RSL has found it's, you know, found itself on the side of really bad calls lately. But I don't know, man, Like the lunar thing was ridiculous, but like the last
the last minute penalty call was the right call. So it's it's kind of like you're you're kind of putting yourself up against it, and you know, if not for Rapa Cabral, that game's already done because he saved the penalty penalty earlier on. So one thing that can't be kind of understated though, it is like how bad this team is in the attack, Like they have the second or worst expected goal versus actuality stat in Major League Soccer, meaning x G versus actual measures the team's actual goal
goal scored against the expected goal scored. A negative number is bad Spence and RSL is the second worst in the league at it. So I don't I don't know if this team has what it takes to make a playoff run at this point. The calendar is slimming as we speak, and nobody's really taking the bull by the horns of that position.
So we'll see.
We'll just be prepared to get a crying emoji tech from Trey after that breakdown, Christopher, just so you know, I want to find my moves the way Trey has found his to be as optimistic as you about something as he is about oursell There's no doubt. All right, young man, thank you so much for the time. Enjoy the rest of the week and we'll chat too. Appreciate you, Chris Cameronnie from the Athletic always appreciate his time. All right. We're live today at the Utah Red Zone store here
on campus. When I was a student here, we called it the Bookstore. It's different now though. And the manager, so the boss, Camille Brady, is our guest. Camille, how are you.
I'm good?
How are you?
So?
You're the You manage the entire store, just.
The Red Zone, just the multiple managers that kind of handle all of the sales floor. But anything with the university logo on it is is my area.
Okay, very nice. Well, I was a student here in the late nineties. It looks like a much different place. It's a much different experience. You guys have done a great job. We are sixteen days away from football. Tell us about some of the products here that you're most excited about.
Yeah, we are super excited about all the new stuff come in and obviously under armour, the sideline gear, all the stuff that the players and coaches wear. That's always super exciting and people want to get their hands on that. We're also bringing in a couple of really cool new brands, so a lot of people are familiar with the name Peter Malana now a lot of people in utail love Travis Matthew. Those are two new brands that we've brought
in that are super exciting. And then one in women's that I'm really excited about that's a little less known. It's called Game Day Social. A lot of really cute crew necks, cozy stuff, really cute like oversized fits and stuff, so really on point with you know, the trends, right now very nice.
And also it appears that you guys have a brand new layout. I mean, I haven't been here in a while, but it feels like a brand new place to me. Tell us about it.
Yeah, we have been working super hard lately, kind of updating all of our graphics. We have completely changed how the red Zone is laid out, so we have a really nice, big, big, beautiful section of women's clearly defined ladies. You'll be able to find anything and everything now super defined, really fun kids area.
And then.
Tailgate is popping out here too soon, like you said, sixteen days away from football season, so we'll be ready to go get our fans everything that we need.
Love it well, Camille, thanks for having us here. It brings back great memories for me to be on campus. Good to meet you and we'll chat soon. Okay, some thanks for having me. All right, Camille Brady the Red Zone manager, come on buy and say hi. Centralized you know, centralized location. It is the Campus store, which now includes a brand new layout and a brand new Red Zone store. All right, I want to tell you about my friends at Ifa Country Stores. It's time to start thinking football
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