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I've always been crazy in the trouble that it's putting me through. Then thested, the things.
That I did and I didn't do.
I can't say I'm proud all things that I've done, but I can't say I've never read.
Alrighty, sports fans, welcome back.
It is the Drive with Spence.
Check it's here on ESPN seven hundred ninety two one FM, you Tells number one Sports Talk. I'm Scott Mitchell filling in for Spence all week. I'm here all week. I'm here twice on Saturday. And enjoy the HDL and make sure to tip your watter. I'm excited about what's going.
To happen right now.
I'll tell you that much we have with us none other than Trevor Riley, former Utah Great and former NFL player and former coach, current coach, former coach, Trevor, Welcome to the show.
How are you doing today?
Well, I just want to say, mister Mitchell, it's an honorous speak to a legend. I'm doing very very well. How you doing?
You know, I'm living a dream and it's not a nightmare.
So I feel like I'm up one, you know, on the competition.
Here a little bit. What are you up to these days?
Well, ain't that's the question today? Mark two is football practice to that of six forty five UTA Islanders at Zions Banks Stadium in Herriman. We we've got to know college in about twenty five days. August twenty third.
Oh, very very very nice. How good for you? Well, thanks for joining the show. I appreciate it.
Well, it's great to be here. I want to ask you a question, Scott quickly getting into it? What do you think of Utah's quarterback? I got to ask you. I went and saw him the other day. I have asked you questions. I want to think, Well, what you take on this guy? I don't know much about him. I'm kind of not being the loop. Can you fill me in? What do you think of this kid?
Well, let me tell you about Devon dam Pier. You know, the quarterback right lee or wrongly, has such an impact on the outcome of games, and even more so in college. And what I like about Devon Dampier is that he really is a multifaceted player. He can manufacture offense in a lot of different ways. He has the best sack ratio of any player in college football, so it doesn't get sacked very often. He's very elusive. He's a he's a smart runner, you know. I think I think, uh,
Cam Rising maybe wasn't a smart runner. You know, he liked to run into trouble and uh, you know, which was you know, part of what made him great too. But uh uh and Devin control the ball fairly effective. So you know, I believe he's a catalyst for Utah to be being able to be more explosive and score more points on offense. And and if you if you do that, then then the team certainly is going to
have a very very good year this year. I don't I don't see it being a real big problem that he's kind of moving up, you know, in a in a tier of sports. You know, I think he's you know, because he's a really good athlete. He'll adjust to everything. He's got some good people around him. Offensive line wide receiver position is still kind of up for grabs. But uh, I think he's going to have a huge impact on on the team this year.
I really do.
Well. I appreciate kill me and I'm asking because I'm going to be going to practic this tomorrow sometime next week. I'm gonna be looking at the kid we're running the spread offense in our team, and I know, Utah, it's gonna be well a newbie but really an oldie if you go back to Irber and the other stuff. The spread offense. Man, you know, I'm just I'm learning a little bit about it and where I've heard about this
kid because he's a winner. I know they won five games last year in Mexico Movie four, but not an easy place to win. And I hear that this kid has the intangibles. This is a little short but I'm interested to see. You know, I know, I know how big you are, Skuy. I know you know, in the old school offenses that was kind of a premium. So I'm interested to see how it works. You know, he's the shorter guy, but they're running the more spread, open offense.
I think I'm interested to see if it works. Honestly, this is a new before it's been a while since we run this offense.
I think it worked. Here's the thing about offense. I'll just get I'll just enlighten you. Okay, it's really simple. You just pick a guy and let it fly. That was the best advice I ever got, and and it was really good advice. And then the other advice was, no matter how good your defense is, you can't beat a perfect throw.
So that's the truth.
That's all you gotta do.
You just just make a perfect throw and pick a guy and just let it fly and everything else will happen.
All right.
I have to ask you this. I I have been wanting to ask you this question for some time now. I need I need to understand. Are you on an NDA where you can't talk about your experience of Colorado?
Or can you? Can?
You? I can talk about I mean, yeah, I can talk about it. I don't like to hide anything, right, absolutely if it's if it's fair game, they all talked about it.
So what was what was Deon like?
Because he's fascinating to me because he's so flashy, you know, and he's so kind of in your face, but there's a lot of substance there, and I really like a lot of things that he says and does.
What was it really like coaching with him?
I would say that a NFL guy, he's about appliche about that, that's kind of a moniker or a character when he's in the public light. But at the same time, he really wants to help these kids. So his heart and the message behind closed doors is always about the kids first. And even with the you know, when you talk about football stuff, he wants to take care of the kids, like players, like like like pros. I mean, so it's the whole, the whole conversation is always about
kids with him. Now, some of the extracurricular stuff people get excited about, I look at it more like the WWE. You know, football and Twitter and the Internet in general is a platform for characters, and I think Dion plays the role as well as he can. He's trying to enact change in his you know, the communities that he grew up in and coming to Colorado, Scott. You know, that's not the most urban setting or the most his
black people just there's not a lot of them there. Okay, He's bringing a whole different type of message to a group of people, and it's it's an interesting thing to watch. It's kind of like, you know, it's machine learning. It's too totally different types of machines interacting. And I'm a big fan of Dion. Uh. You know, everybody has their faults or problems, especially me. I'm not anyone to say that.
So whenever people are critical of anybody. I'm always you know, what's the the big general message with him as he wants to help kids, and I think he's put his money where his mouth is.
I'm glad to hear that because I do. I like a lot of what he says, and I can resonate with a lot of it. So it is fascinating. Speaking of of Dion, He's hired Marshall Fall Hall of Famer, Warren Sapp Hall of Famer, Byron Lefwich, longtime NFL quarterback, Super Bowl champion himself. He surrounded himself with a bunch of Hall of Fame NFL players. Is that a good
Is that a good thing? Does that work? Having all these because there's kind of maybe this, well, NFL players they don't really want to, you know, spend the time and put in the hours.
Like a like a coach has to do. Maybe they're a little bit of prima donna. What what? What?
What do you feel about hiring of signific an amount of high profile former NFL players?
Well, I think it's definitely a double edged short because a lot of times, as players that we get ready for we can get ourselves ready for the game right when you talking about getting ten other people ready, that's a whole other animal. Sometimes personal rore teams don't cross over. With all that being said, Warren Staff was fantastic a short time I spent with him. He was fantastic, inspiring, informative.
Now to your point about NFL guys, right, especially some Hall of famers, they're not going to get coffee and they they've paid their dues to the game in that regard, and that sometimes doesn't sit well with coaches. But you and I were in the NFL, dude, and you if you're a Hall of Famer, you walk into a room
of football guys and you're the guy. And so that's kind of a thing where with Warren, with Marshall, with with Prime, I think Prime, you know, as Prime always says, even in the Hall of Fame, there's levels to it, right, I think Prime is probably in the penthouse of the first team. All a history of the NFL is probably question so in that room, right, he still carries a little bit of weight. There's still a little bit of reverence.
Right when Dion says something with football, it's like that's Deion Sanders, Dude.
So back when you played for some reason I got in the first segment I got, I went, I went kind of down memory lane a little bit, and there was one of the things that popped in my head.
I didn't say it on the.
Radio, but I remember a time when coach Sula, who was pretty hard nosed, and you played for a guy Bilichick who was pretty hard nosed well, and Winningham was no you know, uh aqual either. But Coachula one year said, hey, all the veteran players can stay home during training camp, and but if we have any issues, then you're all back in the dorm. So we have this big meeting, like, you know, hey, don't screw this up. Like Coachula doesn't do stuff like this. This is nice that we can
stay home. And so, you know, we go two or three days and the guy guy messes up big time, really bad. And he in fact, he he didn't show up one day for practice and and he didn't show up till six o'clock that night, and he made up this, He made up the story that he was kidnapped and he and he was taken out into the Everglace.
Such like Miami, I got a story like this to keep going, keep going. Could happen?
No it did.
So it's just like this guy's in the ever He says that they took me to the Everglades.
Really, they took him out in the Everglades.
He took his car, he had to walk back, and so so the FBI gets involved in this and they start asking questions. They realize this guy's not telling the truth, and so he finally admits the truth. He says, look, I slept in, I panicked. I didn't want to mess it up for the team, so I made up this story that I got I got kidd So so back in the dorms we go, and the team was so furious with this guy that they taped him to a palm tree.
Oh my goodness.
And he and he and he was out there, you know with the with the athletic tape, you know they tape your ankles. They this guy do a palm tree for he was and he was out there all night long. Did you ever have any crazy things like that happened when you played in the NFL.
Well, I gotta tell you. College was a little college. We had more of that stuff. Okay, okay, college was and it got cleaned up as we got older. Okay, but you know there was a lot of that hazing, but it would say we were just wild man, you know, twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, guys would do wild stuff. Yeah, And in the NFL, we saw a little bit of that carries your helmets here there. And I saw rookie dinner in Miami. I was playing for the Dolphins. I
saw a lot of stuff in Miami. I was only there for six Then I saw some crazy stuff in Miami. But we had a rookie dinner where you know I was. I was in a rookie but I was there. And this is the end of the season and one of the one of the vets, right, Hall of Fame guy, he's the table. He talks about thirty five rand. He says, give me five thousand dollars your finest wine to go. It's not high. I want to get to four thousands. He walked out. So you see, while I saw a
guy in Miami one time, a linebacker. He didn't show up for the first game. Okay, we're in la he goes missing. I mean, that doesn't happen. Then we find out he's flown out to his former team. And this is all during the week of the game. So any story you tell me about Miami Dolphins, Scott, I gotta tell you. I believe you. And they made a movie about it, didn't Jim Carrey, wasn't he in a movie The spintera pep Detective. Wasn't about somebody that the Dolphins?
Well it was it was Dan Marino and that someone stole the Miami Dolphin mascot the Dolphins.
There you go, who done it? Okay? And I got to tell you the Dolphins just because I described Miami. I see, it's like Las Vegas and La had a baby.
Dude, you know what that is a perfect why that is? Yeah, I was just going to say this is you know, they say what state. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and Miami's probably didn't times worse.
So dude, I went to spring Bak there one time. Let me tell you what. Those can't tell the stories here, but you see wild stuff. And just like I saw that, I didn't. I just show that the NFL was wild, but Miami was. I was in New York, Miami, in Boston, Miami, and the short time I was there was the wildest. It's crazy.
So training camps have started you know fall camp at the U has started. How did you like camp? What was your what was your take on going back to football?
I would say I'm the last of the generation of two a days. Okay, they ended my the year after I left. They didn't allow them anymore. I think it was twenty fifteen. Wow, we had two days. And I know the old days were harder. They always were harder in the old days, right They always say that, but go ahead.
I just said, of course, yeah, I agree with you.
So there's always the stories of that. But I remember camp being a time to compete. So there was always jobs and for whatever reason, they always tried to replacement. You saw it was and it was a good thing because we're bringing good players, right right, so Nate Orchard, right, we were bringing in guys behind me or I was like, and so James Iono. There was a lot of guys that I was always for me. Camp was a time where I had to fight, all right, that was fight time.
That was the time to go. I had to whoop some people's butts to make sure and this is my spot, you get what I'm saying. So there was a you don't really compete against the offense or the opponent. You're competing against the offense, and you're competing as an eventsive player against your competition by seeing who can fight harder. And I'm interested to see that. I want to see that fight in this team this year, Scott. I got to tell you they lost a quarterback last year, and
I thought they powered a little bit. I thought we had more in the tank than what we gave and so I think coach would agree with that. The message this year is we're going to they should fight. We got to fight for every down, every inch we freaking play. I want to say that you'd fight it out like we used to, you know what I mean.
Yeah, it's a good observation because I would agree with you. And there just wasn't There wasn't that determination. And you have to wonder because you know, coach Whittingham's done such a great job there and culture and and uh and having that fight and uh and and it felt like he almost slipped up and said, hey, you know, he goes. I couldn't end my career on what happened last year. So it almost sounded like he was ready to retire.
And you wonder if maybe subconsciously he was a little bit more relaxed because maybe he thought he was going to retire. And uh, and and and because I don't get a sense from the team this year that they're like, oh, you know that there seems to be a sense of urgency. There does seem to be a lot of fight and a lot of a lot of players for a lot of reasons. But uh, I just wonder if that that might have something to do with it.
I don't know.
I think that Scott. You know this now that they're a pro organization, they're making plans two and three years in advance. They want to win now, right, Yeah, but when you're buying freshmen, Okay, so everybody has to listen to this. Now, when you're paying rookies, you're buying freshmen, you're paying for development, you're buying you're buying your time right right, you're waiting to see. So it's a fine line. Last year they went all in on the quarterback, right,
and not a bad move. You've got a fifth year, sixth you guy coming back, you got Keithy coming back. This is a veteran team. So they thought by the end of the season they were a m team because of the injuries, and because of what had happened, I would say Kyle was not ready because he would probably consider this, you know, maybe he was ready to retire. Because if I'm looking at it and I haven't told me so, I'm looking at it from an organization standpoint,
that's the peak. The peak they're supposed to return the investment on that year. Does that make sense with the quarterback and all the guys returning, that was the year where the full investment return was supposed to comment. It was a complete disaster, obviously due to injuries among other things.
Speaking of coach Witting, m what's your least favorite memory of coach Witting?
Oh? For sure, when we used to roll. They don't do that here anymore, but I always care when we had to roll. They used to roll. Its old school military. He didn't high school too, but we used to roll. It was the thing in football. And that was the worst memory I ever had a coach. Okay, running if we ever were late or did something really bad, you know, rolling was always last resort. It was like if a guy refused to come to practice or missing study hall
three or four times. That was my worst memory, though it was a ute was always having to roll because I was afraid it was only I couldn't beat everybody out. I would get motion sickness. But other than that, I had a great time with Coach. I liked the toughness. I thought it was good for us. I liked everything about it.
Honestly, hold on a second. When you say roll, would you like just do somersaults and roll?
And they used to roll on the side. There wasn't like long, long gated rolls, roll for fifty yards, roll for one hundred yards, nothing. That was just roll on your side. But what it was was just mental toughness, his old school marine training. Again, I don't do that anymore. They I've done it for a number of years. But that was, you know, that was That was my least favorite memory of Coach. And other than that, and it wasn't even that bad, right, we're just rolling. It wasn't
like it was. But other than that, I Coach was pretty fair, all right. If you talked to him and really have a real conversation, I think people will find it Coach leading him as a parent guy.
What what what? What? Why'd you go to Utah?
I wasn't going to go to Mike Leach's to tech. Okay, I signed there at a high school. Leachs was, you know, he's in the I got an interesting family, right, We're from San Diego. We're working in Tijuana and we're working in the other places. We were contractors and so always making networks everywhere. And uncle Mine Kurt Salisbury his brother actually Brett Salisbury's mof coordinator, brother of Sean Salisbury. I
think you know him. Scott quarterback and he's on the radio. Uh. He played rugby with Mike at b YU back in the eighties, and so when I was coming out of high school, Kirk kind of raised me a little bit, right, and I went to a rugby tournament with Mike Leach at University Cow. It was a b way. We were union, you know, I was sixteen. I got to meet Leach and hang out with him for a weekend. He liked my tape, so I was going to go there. I get off my mission and Leach just one eleve games
and they didn't give me the extension. The whole thing with Adam and then the Adam James thing came up next year. But my dad was like, hey, you might want to read between the lines. He's probably not going to be there much longer. So my brother was walking onto Utah as a basketball player and a football player a j Riley you know, seven and eight, excuse me, and so they knew who he was and they said,
my brother said, hey, my Trevor is available. And so I came off my mission and I opened my recruiting and it was the UCLA with Norm Chow Utah or Leech at Tech, and so I chose Utah. They had Paul Krueger just graduated and coach. But told me, he says, this is where we see you being the guy. And so that's kind of how that went. Dude in the scalley arrange with a guy named Steve mcdonne, I told this last week, set up a meeting in Saint George, and the rest is history. But I got to you
kind of on the back door deal. I was, you know, it was a push forward. I was kind of basically a walk on.
What was Mike Leach like?
Because I love to listen to him, interview him during the PAC twelve Days like he was just I wanted to go spend like a week with Mike Leach.
So funny story, Okay, I want to hear my uncle Ketho and he's talking to brother telling stories about the time Mike Leach invited my uncle Keith and Uncle Kurt to come to Loveock to present their Pop Worner football offense to him. I swear to you, just told me a story. Okay, he says, put it up on the board. So they're up there and they're dissecting our twelve year.
Old Pop Warner football k And so he's that type of guy right when I when I committed to him, I was it was it was in La or something, and he calls me and my uncle's on the phone and by the end of the conversation it was like a half hour.
He's talking to me about wild blueberries in Norway. Was there a very interesting guy. I think he went with the flow. I went visiting a Mississippi state and he showed up like the practice every day and then the team as soon as he showed up late, they stopped
the practice. Every player on the team to start clapping for him and cheering form so complete players coach definite cowboy from Cody, Wyoming And he was a great guy to me, dude, always nice, always took the time when we needed to hire it at Jackson State, Dion had me reach out to him and within hours we had to Brett Barbloni, another guy as recommendations, and then he invited us out to go visit him. So very open guy,
very caring and always was nice to me. And again he invites my uncles to go out and present their Pop Warner offense while he's coaching at Texas Tech. Just a crazy fun guy. Now.
So a funny story about Mike Leach.
After my second year with the Miami Dolphins, I played in the World League in the offseason with the Miami at the Orlando Thunder and he was recruiting and came through Florida and stopped at our practice and watching because we ran a no huddle offense and we ran a spread offense essentially like back Galen Hall was our coach, and we had a wristband. We just called the places
at the line of scrimmage. And he goes, that's what I want to do, and he says that that was the catalyst that started his whole air raid spread offense.
On that drive down there, he told me, yeah.
And that that and I was playing for the team back then and that was fun. So he was he was great. What's that?
But let me ask you that about that offense? Who was the person on your guys staff that was pushing that offense? Do you remember?
It was Galen Hall.
So Galen had been the Yeah, he'd been the coach at at Florida and it's a very offensive minded guy. Had spent a lot of time with actually Joe Paterno at at Penn State and so and we just had like we very very rarely ran the football. It was very fun. I had a blast one of the funnest times. In fact, you you played for the Stallions the Salt Lakes staff, Yes, and it was a similar type of thing. Oh, I just loved I loved it, and I was just pulling so so hard for that league to actually succeed.
And I just have a tender heart for spring football and all that stuff because it made a huge difference for me in my career.
I went back to the game, got totally.
About when you play, and I played right. It was me Silver Slinga, Mike Purcell, A lot of the Utah Wyoming guys were on this team, right, and we killed it on defense because our minds were free We just loved to play. It was fun to play it, man. I remember John Peace told me when he got out of the military and was done playing, he came back and was getting his degree at Westminster. He played on a scrimmage team for him and they used to go on practicing people and in his late twenties. Wow, And
I asked him, said why'd you do? They said, I just love to play, man, I just love to play. So that energy then when you're around it, right, that just the walk on energy that called they'll play for free type guys.
Right.
I love those type of dudes.
Man.
I love the atmosphere.
It was a fun time, it really was. I get it all right. Well, I'm gonna let you go. Really enjoyed this. Good luck with practice tonight, and hopefully we'll see you around soon.
And be'st luck to you. Really enjoyed this today though.
Thank you, yes, mister Mitchell, and always good to talk to you. We'll talk to you soon.
All right, sounds good. All right, there you have a Trevor Riley. What a fun conversation. I hope you enjoyed that because I sure did. ESPN seven hundred listeners help children at the Road homes, start school and Style. Stop by the advocates in Ogden, American Fork or Murray. Pick an apple from the tree and you can supply clothes and backpacks for a child at the road home.
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