FULL SHOW: Utes insider Steve Bartle talks Utah’s talented O-Line and running game | Lehi Pioneer…
is here. Check it out. And you’re locked on to Utah’s highest rated, most listened to sports radio station. It’s my station. It’s my station. This is Hance Olsson and Scotty G on 975, the KSL Sports Zone. It’s a wild time on those freeways, people. Be safe. Be careful. Jeez. And if you are by chance stopped on the freeway, the parking lot that is northbound I15, right out right now. What happened? I apologize. That’s a long wait for you, Lloyd. I pulled it up. I’m sitting there. What would I call you at about 4500 south or something? Yeah, it was about uh 11:30ish, 11:25ish roughly. 4500 South I-15 to Delta Center, which should take about 5 minutes. Showed an hour and 54 minutes. And I was pulling a couple of maneuvers. Lloyd was like, “You got to get off 3,300.” Because you were checking it in here on UD do. Well, let’s start out. I said, “Hey, be very safe. Whatever you do, in every little thing that you do, I said be safe.” No. Lloyd said, “If you have to dump some bumpers, do it and get your butt out here as quickly as you possibly. We got a show to do, people.” So, to anybody sitting on the I-15 in a complete parking lot, I apologize. That is a miserable time. But be safe out there as you make your way to the airport or make your way to work or wherever you’re headed. Wow. Since you have a long time in the car, thank you for listening. Yeah. Thanks for sitting in with us. Thanks for sitting in with We got a couple things we got to get to. Steve Bartle’s going to come on at 12:30. Give us a Utah camp update. Yes, I think so. Okay. I only say that because he was good. He was going to join us at 12:10 and I said, “Hey, we need to move to 12:30 because Hens is in a traffic jam and I haven’t heard back from him.” So, hey Steve, if you’re listening, we’re good for 12:30, right? I’m sure that he’ll jump on with us here at 12:30. We’ll get into some Utah camp and we’ve got all kinds of stuff. We’ve got camp sound for BYU that we’ve got to jump into. We’ve got a couple of pieces of breaking news that’s going on in the Big 12 that we’re going to get to. But before we do all that, Lloyd, we got our first box, which was overnighted. What? Yeah. Did you see this? I have not opened it yet. And if you’re on the YouTube stream, uh yesterday we just said, “Hey, we’d like to highlight some local football teams.” And you know, one of the cool things John Gruden did was open up a bunch of boxes of college football teams. And this this came through and this is a cool deal. I don’t know who exactly has sent this, but I know that we got a heads up yesterday. I’m just zooming out the camera so people can uh can kind of see what you’re what what’s what’s happening right now. We got a heads up yesterday that um a box is on the way. Let me see if this is what we thought it was going to be. Hey, don’t slice yourself up with like John Gruden almost did with that that Utah care package. No, no, no, no. I I won’t. Okay. So, if you’re streaming on the YouTube channel or wherever you watch these videos, I don’t even know where people watch and I I can’t believe that people actually Plus app, KSL Plus, you name it. KSL Sports app. People want to see whatever faces. Okay, it is what I suspected. It is Lehi. And that is legit. What do you think of that? That’s nice. So, they’ve sent a hat in here for each of us. Uh, let’s see. Let’s see what else they’ve got in this in this goodie bag. So, by by the way, Lehi plays tomorrow night and they play Maple Mountain. Oh, nice little polo. Little Lehi Pioneer polo. You could always use that. Good looking. Absolutely. Nice little polo shirt. So, nice hat. Nice polo shirt. Uh, looks like a Is there a Lehi pennant in there? Oh, there you go. Nice little Lehi practice shirt. Hey, and that’s a nice That’s a canvas tee. That’s a nice canvas tee. Tell me you have There’s a There’s a a Lehi like pennant flag pennant. There is a Lehi flag pennant for you. No, there’s not. Yeah. What do you need it for? Are you being serious? I’m being dead serious. Yeah, they sent some What? They sent some Lehi logoed shoes. Some Air Zooms. So that looks like a 10. This is a 10. Is that what you are? Yeah. Oh my goodness. Wow. That’s amazing how that worked out. Nice little box of gear for everybody. So, couple t-shirts and some hats. You want to come and grab this hat, Lloyd? Yeah, I’ll come and grab the hat. And there you go. The Lehi Pioneers. By the way, uh I know that Gruden always talks about some of the big boys that come out of these colleges and he always talks about the big NFL players, but when we talk about Lehigh football, you know, we talk about I’ll get your sizes here in a second. When we talk about Lehigh football, we’re talking about uh guys big- time names. Guys like Rock Olsen. I mean, come on. It is. I mean, he’s he’s the big one, right? Rock Olsen out of uh Lehi. You have Don Hulker, big- time tight end. Went to BYU, finished out of Colorado State. You’ve got the Brous boys right now. One of the Burau boys is a quarterback at Colorado State. You got some good players that have come out of Lehigh and they’ve got multiple championships. So, awesome. Excited to see Coach Hadfield in his first year, too. Ed Larson has called it quits here in the state in high school football and he’s moving on to bigger and better things and coach Hatfield will be taking over and we’ll see how this thing goes. It looks good on you Lloyd. Not bad, huh? Yeah. Yeah, it looks sharp. Murray High, where you at? I like it. I like it. I was so hungry for football last night that I went out to an eighth grade football game. You’re a sick man. Not really, actually. It looked pretty. that kid that throws dimes. Well, I’d heard about this upand cominging eighth grade quarterback that’s supposed to be all things everything. He’s he’s lost like one game since he started flag football years and years ago and here he is in eighth grade padded football. So, yeah, I went out there to watch him. Yeah. Yeah, he’s the real deal. JJ Lu, for any of you out there that haven’t heard the name, you’re probably going to hear it. The guy was throwing all over the field. Lloyd, eighth grade. Did you even have a quarterback that could complete a pass in eighth grade? No, we had we had a running quarterback. Yeah, we didn’t have No, we had running quarterback. We didn’t throw in eighth grade. No. No. And that dime in that that I was want to say was that might have been that first pass that I saw. That dime in that corner. It’s tight. Was very tight. It was tight. There was some QB option stuff, but it was a lot of fun to get out there. High school football ready to kick off. Uh Lloyd, Scotty, myself, we are going to take a look at a couple of the different high school programs in the state. H you know, you send a box in, we’ll uh we’ll take the gear, we’ll wear it, we’ll highlight your team and have a little bit of fun with it. It’s kind of an exciting time. I know high school football doesn’t get the love it deserves here in the state of Utah. And Scotty and I really don’t we really don’t give the high school teams the amount of love that we should give them because they really are incredible. They do so many great things and this state helps so many kids find that activity that keeps him out of trouble including my son who it did keep him out of trouble and it made a big difference for him. So appreciate it and it’s a lot of fun. Can’t wait for high school football to kick off in this thing. I know Lehi is supposed to be a real deal team. Corner Canyon again is supposed to be a beast. Skyidge as always extremely competitive. I know that team is always well coached and always very competitive. But as far as the big boys 6A go, uh I’m excited to see those three teams there at the top of the list. You know, 5A, we get into the temp views of the world and and I don’t know what’s going to happen with Temp. my old teammate and my dear friend stepped away from the head coaching duties at Tempview and I know that that’s being handed over to a different coach and I hope that they can find their balance and do some great things but high school football kicking off tomorrow here in the state of Utah. More Hans and Scotty coming up. Steve Bartle joins us next. We’re going to get some Utah camp updates. Miss any part of the show? Every moment of every show is available in podcast form by searching Hans and Scotty on your favorite podcasting platform or online at kslsports.com. This is Hance Olsen and Scotty G on 975 the KSL Sports Zone. Well, if you’re looking in on the webcams or whatever, YouTube links and KSL apps or whatever, you’ll see Lloyd Cole and I. We’ve got our Lehi hats on. So, thanks to Lehi for sending in some gear. Excited for a high school football season to get started coming up tomorrow. Things will be kicking off and we’ll be getting around the valley. I am headed out to the Lehi Maple Mountain, I believe, game that’s going to be going down tomorrow night. Excited to see what Lehi looks like now that my son has left. It’s It’s kind of funny when you have a kid that comes through these high school ranks, you you fall in love with the team a little bit and it hooks you just a little bit. Plus, you know, early exposure to football, I need it. And seriously, I’m out there watching eighth grade football last night and I was diagnosing defensive sets. I was identifying coverages. I was just taking a look at all the different offensive sets. And in my mind, I’m starting to get ready for the color analysis for BYU. No, it was very vanilla. They ran two defenses and there was probably three different offensive sets, including a Wildcat, and it wasn’t, you know, overly difficult, but it’s just fun to get back into the form of football and know that we’re going to be having some major football coming up here very, very shortly. Steve Bartle. He is our University of Utah insider. Gives us all of our youths coverage. He’s going to be joining us here in just a second. We’re going to be taking a look at some of this Utah camp stuff. And for those of you that don’t follow me on Twitter, I’d like to have you do it because I did a couple of film analysis of the two offensive tackles for the University of Utah and Steve Bartle. I don’t know if you got to see the film that I put out on Caleb Lomu and Spencer Fono, but I’m telling you, this might be the most special complete offensive line we’ve had in the state of Utah in my 20 years on air. Steve, they are pretty special hands. Uh, you know, they’ve when you watch Spencer Fono, you watch Caleb Lomu, it’s it’s amazing, you know, they they come at it from different different ways, right? So Spencer, when you watch him, you see the refined technique, you see the balance with Lomu. It’s a little bit, you know, he’s not as technically refined, but man, just his natural athleticism, his his strength, his balance, um you know, those important qualities that you need to play outside, you know, on the edge at tackle, you know, those guys have them in spades, right? So, I think this offensive line has the potential to be, you know, really good and and Jim Harding has had some um you know, some some good offensive lines. I was I think I was talking with Scotty about this, you know, last last week, but you go back to that 2016 offensive line with Garrett BS and Isaac Osciotta and Dan Kevy, JJ Dilman, those were four draft picks, you know, from that line alone. And that’s sort of the bar, you know, for for Utah when we’re assessing, you know, how good can this group be? That’s the bar for me. Um, I think this group, they’ve they’ve got potential to have, you know, to see Fono and Lomu, uh, you know, become early day draft picks. And you know, even beyond those two, there’s you’ve still got to know toi and and Michael Moki and and Jiren Comp who, you know, are very solid offensive linemen as well and are going to be key to Utah this season. They also have draft potential. So, yeah, I’m with you, Hans. This this group has potential to be really special this season. Three of those guys that you mentioned, Tanoa is a fifth year senior. Jiren K a fifth year senior, Michael Moafisi a fifth year senior. You know, these guys have been with Jim Harding. The best thing is fifth year seniors that have been with Jim Harding um if I’m not mistaken the entirety of their career. Did Tanoa was a a Utah commit, wasn’t he? Yeah. So, they’ve they’ve all stayed, you know, they committed, they followed through and and been with Utah the entire time. you know, to Noah, he committed originally to play defensive line, but they quickly made that move to the offensive side of the ball for him and and you know, all all five of those guys have played, you know, with Tan to Noah playing more the last couple of seasons, but Jiren and and and Mo have played a lot of football and you what was interesting, H was, you know, Jiren Gump being named captain, I think that caught a lot of us by surprise. um you know when when you you already have one offensive lineman it’s Spencer Fono but you know knowing Jiren and how much he loves you know Harding he loves the the offensive line room he loves the University of Utah football program you could see how much it meant to him to be named captain and and and I think that is um you know it speaks to who he is as a as a player and as a person and what he means to that locker room. So, you know, we always talk about it with leadership. You want it it’s it’s player leadership is important. Kyle, you know, talks about that all the time is you need player leadership. And I think when you have, you know, your best group, which is the offensive line, unquestionably far and away the best group on this Utah roster, and you have that sort of representation on the leadership, I think that means a lot for Utah football this season. Well, I’ll tell you what I love about it, Steve, is you go back and you watch or you just go back and look at the the numbers, the stats of the New Mexico offensive line. Now, I I know that Dan Pierre, he extends a lot and he gets out a lot of sack situations, but one of the most efficient offensive lines in the country last year was New Mexico. And Jason Beck was able to do that with limited talent. Now you add great talent. You put a scheme in that emphasizes offensive linemen being clean and giving quarterback opportunities. This group is going to be very interesting. I cannot wait to watch this play out. All right, let’s move to the second point of strength. This is from my point of view and you can correct me if I’m wrong and you can move on to your favorite, but I would go offensive line number one and I’d go these three linebackers number two. Leavi Demoney, John O’Hal, and Lander Barton. You know, I think that Utah and BYU, if you were to take the collective of linebackers in this state, it’s the best linebackers this state has ever had collectively. These are all big-time draft picks, all great football players. But take me through Levani De Mooney’s camp to this point because it’s so nice to have him back. Another fifth year guy. And then John O’Hal and Lander Barton. How have those three been working together through camp? Yeah, it it’s it’s a big deal to have those three, you know, back this season, right? Because, you know, Lander didn’t have the year he wanted last year. Didn’t perform up to expectations, you know, for himself and for others that that, you know, went into last year thinking he was he was going to have a great year. And obviously coming off that injury in 23, it just took a bit longer to get back to, you know, 100%. But I think he hit his stride again, you know, late last season. So for Lander to get him back and to, you know, have that extra motivation uh to be better and to prove, you know, doubters and and and prove himself right essentially. And then John O’Hal, I’m excited for him. You know, he he made that move to linebacker at the end of fall camp last year. So, it was a quick transition and you know there were a lot of growing pains last year moving up um from safety to linebacker. I remember Chase Hansen talking about that all the time that you know the difference in terms of how quickly you have to see and and react to things is is night and day different from safety to linebacker. even though, you know, there’s not much difference between the two positions on the field, you know, and where they’re placed, the the speed and and just the way that you have to react is just so different. So, for Jonno, I think, you know, him now having a year under his belt at linebacker, I’m really excited to see what he can do and what sort of step he takes in his game. And then with Leavanni, you know, he’s just a veteran presence who’s played a lot of football, has seen a lot of football, understands, you know, the game at just a different level. He’s been a a high performer over the course of his career. And to have him in that room is significant because, you know, there are a lot of young guys in that room as well. Guys that are going to be viewed as the next guys up, you know, once this group moves on. And to have Levani in that room is significant. And you know, for Swan, it’s such a luxury to have those three with the depth that he’s recruited over the years. And just to kind of that’s what happens with this linebacker room there. It’s just they bring in, you know, these young talented guys. They have veterans in the room that sort of set the standard and and that’s uh that’s going to be uh really vital for this group this year and moving forward into the future. Yeah, you bring up Swan and and people don’t understand what they have in Colton Swan. I’ve known Colton for a lot of years and I’ve always known that this man is a brilliant mind and I truly believe when the day comes that Kyle Whittingham leaves and Morgan Scy assumes that office, I believe that Colton Swan should be one of two that should be up for the defensive coordinating position because he has got such an incredible eye for talent and he’s got an incredible eye for linebacker movement and placement. I’d love to see that guy be able to get an opportunity to take that next step um as a potential defensive coordinator. He’s great, isn’t he, Steve? He really is. Hans, and you know, it’s that is going to be a fascinating um thought process for whenever Scally does take over, you know, and figuring out that defensive coordinator position because, man, he’s got great candidates on his staff already, all of whom you could make a case for. you know, Share Shaw obviously being his his best friend and and and running mate in the secondary, you know, that he would just that personality in that sort of role and what that would mean for Utah on the recruiting trail. And so, yeah, that’s going to be a tough decision, but Utah has, you know, some really good coaches on on this staff on that defensive side of the ball. I you know, one guy, if we’re talking about coaches, one guy that I’m really fascinated by this year specifically is going to be Luther Ellis because he’s got five freshman in that room and they’ve got a couple guys that they need to step up and, you know, talking to people over the last couple of months. There’s a lot of lot of optimism and confidence in Luther Ellis and what he’s been able to do with that group um in terms of their development with their technique and their the way that they play, you know, in that system. I’m I’m I’ve got my eyes on Luther this year to see just what sort of job he does with this young group of tackles because as Whittingham said on Monday, they feel they’ve got some superstars uh you know coming up in that in that tackle room. Steve Bartle. He is our University of Utah insider here on KSL. Does a great job up to camp knowing these coaches, watching these players, and giving us some really good insight. Um, all right. So, most confident with the offensive line. I’m second most confident with these linebackers. Number three for me is going to be the running back’s room with Way Shawn Parker and Nikkari Rogers. behind those two, what kind of running back power do you have? And would you trade that out maybe for the quarterback room? See, I’m I’m a little bit worried about some of the depth in the quarterback room. I feel like Isaac Wilson would be two. Um, and you know, we’ll probably look at Bird Fickland three would be my guess. Or maybe they’ll flip-flop. But where do you where do you find the most security? Number three position group. This is such an interesting conversation, H, you know, because I’m thinking about it and, you know, I almost want to to bring up the tight end room with uh, you know, with Don Bentley returning. Um, you know, he’s pencil in as as the starter as you know, your your typical traditional tight end type. But I’m telling you, Hens, they’ve they’ve got some guys that that can do some things in that tight end room with, you know, who they’ve moved to that room with Hunter Andrews and um you know, Otto Tia making that move and and JJ Buchanan. You know, that could be a group that, you know, we we talked about it when Beck was hired that, you know, what was the tight end room going to be like? How much of a priority was it going to be with Beck coming in with his spread system? And I think Beck has done a really good job of, you know, obviously bringing his system, bringing his offense, but I think incorporating, you know, some of Utah’s traditional strengths and that tight end room has been a big strength for Utah in recent history. And with the type of athletes that they’ve recruited, I think I think they found, you know, some interesting, you know, players that can play that tight end spot. So, you know, I I think running back with Wayan Parker headlining that group. I think that’s a safe call uh you know with with that room but I think tight end might surprise some people where you know if we’re talking about how safe and how secure do you feel about a position group I feel really optimistic about that tight end room and what it’s going to be because you know getting back to running back you’ve got wayan and you’ve gotten a carry Rogers who came to Utah from New Mexico and you feel good about that one-two punch I’m actually about to publish a story here you know that addresses this very thing I think I think Utah is is in search of that third running back who is going to emerge as that third guy because Beck, he likes to use multiple backs. You know, he used a a heavy rotation last year in New Mexico with three running backs. I think they’d like to find a third to to keep in that. And it’s it’s a heavy competition between, you know, guys Devin Devin Green, Bryce Duke, Daniel Bray, and Racing Gillery who are two freshman. So, you know, it’s it’s a big competition and I think you feel good about the top two, but Utah would really like to find figure out who that third running back is going to be. All right, final thing, Stephen, and we’ll let you go. So, you talked a little bit about the DTackles. I would expect Dallas Valkley and Aliki Viamahi start in the interior. Obviously, Logan Fono is going to be rushing off one edge. I’ve got three guys that I am expecting. I’m going to list them in order and this is this is just from my my feeling in order of who I expect to start and the depth chart for the opposite end of Logan Fono. I’m going to go Cash Dylan one, John Henry Dailyaly two, Paul Fitzgerald three. How far off am I on that? I don’t think you’re off at all, Hans. you know, again, uh, had this very conversation with Scotty last week and the guy, he asked me to pull out the crystal ball and and I said, you know, it may not be coming out of fall camp, but, you know, at some point this season, at the very least, I think Cash Dylan is going to be the guy that emerges as that starter opposite of Logan Fono. you know, based on what we’ve heard um you know, over the last based on what I’ve learned over the last couple months about Cash and and the work that he’s put in this off seasonason, he’s worked hard, you know, to to put himself in this position to start this season. And that work has seemingly parlayed into, you know, a pretty successful camp and obviously competing against Caleb Blommo and Spencer Fono every week. That’s that is, you know, that’s great competition to help you get better each and every day. So, you know, for Cash, I’m with you. I think he emerges as the starter. It may very well be coming out of camp that he’s named the starter. Uh, you know, with with the West rest of that group, I think John Henry Daly, uh, you know, is is in that mix. Paul Fitzgerald is in that mix. And then Lance Hollesclaw, I think, is is going to be, you know, another another name in that defensive end rotation. I know that he’s he’s put on, you know, a good amount of weight where he came to Utah around 225. He’s now up to about 240 lbs, which um, you know, should help him round out his game. uh he brought good athleticism, good burst, and that get off that you need, you know, as a pass rusher uh coming off the edge, but adding the size that he has, I think, uh I I I think that’s helped him um you know, in this competition as well. So, you know, this group is going to be deep and it’s it’s going to have a heavy rotation this year for sure. The three sports writers I respect the most nationally have Utah all ranked in the top 25. Now, they were just outside of the AP and they made it in the coaches. Is that right? Coaches poll had Utah in the top 25. I don’t think they did. Did they not? Don’t think they did. Yeah, I don’t think they did. Yeah. AP just had him in the 26 uh 27 spot, but the three national writers that I respect the absolute most had them in there. One as high as number 17. Are you buying the top 25 hype or do we need to slow our roll, Steve? You know, I think I think for the most part, you know, at least here locally, Utah fans and and those that cover this team, we understand what this team is, right? We we understand what last year was, injuries derailed their season, right? and and so um you know you look back at last year and and still despite all of the injuries that Utah faced um still a number of one-score games which speaks to what they have you know on this roster that defense specifically and so you know I think there’s a lot of um reason to be optimistic about Utah um I’ve come to to feel like you know this team there’s enough here where you feel good about seven to eight wins, but the the question marks that linger with this roster, if Utah gets those answers and you know they’re positive answers that this team can get to 9 10 wins this year, the the biggest hurdle for them is going to be the schedule. And yes, they play a lot of home games, but they’re still bringing in a number of of top competitors in the Big 12 this year. So, these are going to be very competitive games, um, very physical, uh, type games. And so, that’s going to be tough. This schedule is is difficult, uh, with the opponents that they have on them. So, you know, home that homefield advantage is going to be key to Utah, uh, you know, getting back to competing for the Big 12 championship. Um, but yeah, I I think we understand kind of what this program where this program’s at with coming off of that 24 season being five and seven and, you know, all of the issues that they they, you know, went through last year. I think the you understand what Utah has on that defensive side of the ball. You can count on them to be uh to have another good defensive year. Uh we’ll we’ll we’ll learn a lot about Utah in the first couple weeks with this offense specifically and what Damp here and what sort of impact he can make this year for Utah. Man, Stevie, I don’t know if I’ve been this excited for a Utah season a long time. Just just the unpredictable with everything changing offensively and all the talent I know that’s back defensively and the respect that I’ve got for the defensive side of the ball coaching wise and this is as excited as I’ve been in a long long time, buddy. So, let’s keep them healthy. Let’s all hold our breath here for the next couple weeks that everything is on the up and up and we’ll see you out there on game day, buddy. Sounds good, hands. Appreciate you, brother. As always, Steve, appreciate you, man. And again, Steve has a story that’s going to be dropping about those running backs at kslports.com that you’ll be able to find. All right, take a quick one here with Ant Scotty. We’ll come back a little bit of what you may have missed. Uh, I’ve got a bone to pick with some things that are going on in the NCAA right now and some coaches acting like cryb babies. I know people are glorifying it, but there’s some coaches that are acting like cryb babies. I’m actually going to fight against it a little bit and a lot more. That’s all coming up. His Scotty 975 DSL Sports Zone. [Music] I’ll tell you one thing that’s nice for Utah State as you know pretty much every kick time now with the exception of one game actually I think even MC State has been announced that Hawaii game looks awesome. Well the kick time for MCN MCN State has not been announced yet. So outside of the one game Lloyd they know every kick time. What did you just say about Hawaii? The Hawaii game looks fun. 1000 p.m. I don’t know. I I think it looks fun. I know Scotty’s extremely resilient. I mean, I’ll enjoy watching it from It’s a 10 PM kick against Hawaii. Saturday, October 11th. It was just announced. It’s going to be streaming on the Mountain West Network. But that is going to be a late kick against Hawaii. This is what’s crazy, Lloyd. This is what’s absolutely madness about college football right now. Utah State has a 10:45 a.m. kickoff this season. And they’ve got a 10:00 PM kickoff this season. And then they got everything in between. They’ve got a 5:30, a 7:45, a 700 p.m., a 100 p.m., a 6:00 p. p.m. They’ve got everything in between. They’ve got a 10:00 a.m. Our guy Scotty G has everything on every end of the spectrum here. He does from 10 to 10, 10 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and then everything in between. It’s like you’re not giving college football players any stability, any normaly. It’s like, yeah, you might play on a Thursday, might play a Friday, might play on a Saturday. Hell, I don’t know if we’re into some matching play on a Wednesday. I don’t know. Hey, you might kick at 10:00 a.m., but you actually might kick at 10 p.m. That’s a 10 p.m. kick time against Hawaii. That’s crazy. But that is college football. Everybody’s trying to make their money. You know, these kids are calling for it. They want their money. And the best way to get that money is from TV contracts. And now with all this revenue sharing that the house versus NCAA1 now where schools can pay these kids $20.5 million, you want every penny that you could possibly make. And what’s crazy with Utah State games, I think that I counted seven different networks that these games are going to play on. Lloyd, seven different networks. You got the Mount West network. You got the SEC Network. You’ve got CBS Sports. You’ve got um you’ve got FX1. So, the new let’s see, the Utah State Air Force game is on FX1. You’ve got Altitude Sports. The the Utah State New Mexico game is going to be on Altitude Sport. It’s like FX1. It’s what? It’s everywhere. Yeah, these games are all over. It’s crazy. I don’t know, but that’s where we’re at right now. Oh, one game on KMYU. So, it’s really just across the board. But Utah State all but one game their kick times have been announced. And just know this, it’s everything from 10:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. I do like that they know actually at least know the kick times instead of this instead of this whole, hey, where are we going to where are they going to be playing this week? I don’t know. Let’s wait till see if they if maybe they win, they might have a good time or if they lose, it’s probably going to be a bad time. It it is nice to know your times. Oh. Oh, and I will tell you this that not every game is kicking at 8 o’clock or later like the ones I’ve seen. So BYU has got four times announced. Three of the four or later. And they’re going to get more. They’re going to get more late. They’re going to get more late. 8:00 p.m. or later. I’m creeping up on my 50s. Lloyd. Oh, come on. I need my Metamucil. What do you want? What do you want? A warm glass of milk. I need my Metamucil. I need my golden corral. I I need my teas with socks. Like you shut your mouth about teas. You remember when Gordon Monson turned 50? He was in sweats. Hey, those weren’t teas. Those were 247. I’m sorry, but Gordon Monson’s not wearing teas. He’s wearing Doc Martens. Like, come on. No, no, no, no. He’s wearing Birkenstock. Sorry. Birkenstock. He had Burks. Yeah, Birkenstock. Like, come on. He had Burks. teas. It is crazy budget. But we’ll go get that money. I got a bit of a bone to pick with some college coaches. I’m going to do that next. Looking for the latest on the Jazz Utes, Cougars, and Aggies? We’ve got you covered. This is Hance Olsson and Scotty G on 975, the Sports Zone. [Music] It’s kind of funny how these shows come together and you know, you get going in a direction and and I definitely want to talk about BYU and Utah’s camps and every once in a while something comes along and it just strikes you the wrong way and you’re thinking to yourself, I would really like to rant on this. And there’s a couple coaches right now in the news. You’ve seen Thomas Hammock with Northern Illinois. He’s the NIOU head coach. He’s been in the news a lot recently, but Thomas Hammock went in front of a mic and decided that he was going to rant on NIL and the transfer portal and paying kids and all those kinds of things. And then earlier today, Scott Frost, the head coach for UCF, decided to do the same. And I think I’ve got just a different approach to this. And as I heard them talking, I I there were so many things that popped to my head. First of all, if you’re a mom or dad out there, this is going to strike a chord with you. And you’re going to be like, “Damn right, Coach Hammock. You’re 100% right. You’re absolutely right, Coach Frost. That’s exactly how it goes.” And and and that’s great. I’m going to push back against it just a little bit. But first, I want you to hear from him. This is Thomas Hammock. He is the head coach at Northern Illinois. And this was yesterday after practice. He had some things to say about his disappointment in the transfer portal. Yeah. To me, I mean, to be honest with you, I love the challenge. You know, it don’t bother me one bit because you know what? In life, you going to make decisions, right? Sometimes it’s going to work in your favor and sometimes it’s not. I told our team the other day, you know, we lost all these guys. Let’s see who plays. So, it’s all good when people put it on Twitter. Hey, all glory to God. I’m going in the transfer portal. Let’s see if they play. How many of them guys going to play or travel or get snaps? You know, I was think I was going to tweet something the other day, a picture of me, and say, “You know what? I enjoyed my college experience. I didn’t get one dime, but the lessons I learned was more valuable than any money you can ever pay me.” And I appreciate that because that is long-term. People are are losing the fact that this is short term. I coached in the National Football League for five years. Five years, right? Don’t lose fact. Don’t lose focus of what the long term. Get your degree. Learn valuable lessons that’s going to help you in the long term of your life. That’s the whole purpose. This is a transition from being a kid to a grown-up. And I hope people don’t lose focus of that. Everybody’s talking about everything else besides what is the most important thing for going to college. Because if you going to college to go get a couple dollar, you might as well go get a job. This is too hard to to go get a couple dollars. Learn the lesson that you need to learn to be successful in life for the next 40 to 50 years of your life. That’s that I I would do it again for free. For free. Because of the things I learned. That’s why I’m standing here today because of what I learned in college. Not because of how much somebody gave me. That’s what I would tell people. And and parents, they need to learn that lesson, too. Stop trying to live through your kids. Go to teach your kids what what are the things they need to learn to be successful. That’s what I’m telling my kids. I don’t I don’t care about no NIL, no revenue share. I can care less. You need to learn things in college to get you prepared for life to be a father, a husband, to work, everything else. Those are the most important things. That’s what people are missing in my opinion. Just my opinion. I bet you think I’m going to sit here and go, “Yeah, coach. Dead on coach.” Because I’m sure a lot of you are probably pumping your fist in your car saying, “That’s right. That’s what I love. It’s about college. It’s about football. It’s the purity of the sport. That’s what it is. Lord, I’ll bet even you were like, “All right, I like it, Coach Hammock.” Huh? Preach, brother. Okay, I agree with this sentiment. I completely disagree with the reality of it. Completely disagree with the reality of it. All of it. Coach Hammock, you are speaking from a selfish point of view. and you know it and that’s fine because you got to create a team, keep a team and you’re trying to build men and that’s that’s fine. So I totally understand where you’re coming from but just understand coach these kids that are transferring are still getting the college experience. They’re still getting their degree or the opportunity of a degree. They don’t have to have that college experience with you. And they don’t have to have that four and five year consistent college experience like you had or like I had. They don’t. And Lloyd, I’ll tell you where this came from. And I try to stay out of trouble anytime Scotty’s gone because I you’ve been doing this with me for a lot of years, Lloyd. And sometimes I’ll have an opinion that that is in left field. And this might be in left field, but I but I’m okay to stand alone on this island because I’m speaking from a place of experience. All right. When he just said, “How many of these guys are going to play? They transferred, but how many of them are going to play?” All right, coach. Let’s take it one step further. How many of these guys are going to have an opportunity to play in the NFL? I’ll tell you how many. 1%. Okay. How many of these guys are going to have an opportunity to make the type of money that they’re being offered right now in their life? I’ll tell you how many. 1%. And I tell you how I know that. I made the most money I will make in my life. In the first seven years after college playing professional football, I played three years of NFL. I was cut in my third year. I played four years of AFL. I made more money in those seven years than I’ll ever make in my life again. And guess what? If I could have transferred and I could have made $750,000 like a kid that’s nearly like a son to me is currently doing because he transferred, he took the money, I would absolutely do it. And I wouldn’t bat an eye because I’ll tell you something, Lloyd. The things that I learned in college, they’re great. They’re great and I love the loyalty with Lavel Edwards and I loved playing for Lavel Edwards. But you know what’s helped me the absolute most as a father and a husband? Now I’m 20 years retired. You know what’s helped me the absolute most? Those initial investments that I had for my NFL money. That’s what’s helped me the most. My 401ks. I I had I had six years of 401ks. AFL paid 2 to one. NFL paid two and a half to one. you pack those 401ks in when you’re a young kid that you’ve got 15,000 to pack that in and they put in 45,000 or or whatever it is or 40,000 38 something they put in that money and you let that sit, you know, the the initial money that I got from the NFL, I I put a down payment on a house. We talk about, oh, kids can’t buy houses, kids out of college can’t buy houses. You’re damn right they can’t. But guess who can? a a college kid that took a payday and is going to still get the college experience and is still going to get the degree and is still going to be able to get the money. So don’t sit there with sour grapes, coach hammock, and stomp around and be like, “Well, you need to be experienced. You need to sacrifice the money. You need to No, what you need to do, coach, is go to your niu head office and say, “We got to find more money for these kids to keep them around so we can give them the college football experience and we can give them the money because that’s just where we’re at.” I’m sorry to say it, that that’s just where we’re at. Oh, and and you want to talk about the things that you learn from sports, you learn that in high school. Hold on a second. you. Yeah, I learned a lot in college playing sports. I learned my my my team concepts and my work ethic. And Lloyd Cole, who played high school sports, knows as much about work ethic and commitment to team and team execution. He knows as much as I do that played seven years of professional football. Why? Because he played high school sports. You learn those concepts in high school sports. Now that you got the opportunity to make money in college sports, yeah, there’s a level of commitment. And yeah, we’ve seen kids do it. I’ll just hell, I’ll give it to you right now. I’ll give it to you right now. Dallas Vakle, defensive tackle, the University of Utah, he left money on the floor. Now he’s making money and probably got an increase at the University of Utah because of everybody that was knocking on his door. He left money on the floor, but he’s still making money. Yeah. I mean, people need to understand that. Same with Smith Noden. Smith Snowden I I don’t know. There was a lot of money out there. There’s a there was a a perfect storm of money for college athletes out there that he could have gone and grabbed and he left some of it on the table, but he’s making money. He’s making good money. And we’ve talked about it. We’ve talked about when this and NL became a thing, this money that they’re getting, whether it’s Cam Rising or whatever, like the what’s coming with this, what they’re able to do with this money is a leg up. It’s a step up from I mean college when you’re trying to figure things out. Like it’s being able to invest at that age. Oh, it’s Lloyd. My I How old were you when you got your first house? I was in my 30s. You were in your 30s. In my 30s. And these kids can now do it in their 20s. Yes, they can. even in this market that we’re currently in. And the kid that I’m talking about, I believe that he did buy a house. Some some will, some won’t. Some are going, you know, cross country and they’re taking the money out east or they’re taking the money back west and I guess it’s out out west and back east. But, you know, these these kids have an opportunity to make money. And what I’m telling them right now is make the money because you can. You’re learning your work ethic. You’re learning team concepts. You do that in high school sports. And then when coach Thomas when Hammock is sitting there saying, “Well, the college experience and you learn and you get your degree.” Wait a second. When niu is not the only place you can get a college experience. When you take that money and you leave NIOU and you go to Notre Dame and you take a $750,000 a year paycheck, well, you’re still going to get that Notre Dame education if you want. You might not have to. You know, if you make that amount of money and you’re that good, then the NFL comes calling and and the money’s going to be there. But here’s the thing I don’t like. These comments are coming from Thomas Hammock, who’s probably got a million and a half dollar contract and has been in college coaching for a lot of years. He’s got his full wallet padded with millions of dollars. And it’s really easy to sit there when you got millions of dollars and say it’s about the team concepts and it’s about commitment and it’s about turning down the money and staying in our atmosphere to get our college experience. Coach, honestly, it’s not about that. you’re taking another job at Middle Tennessee or wherever you’re going to take the job. It’s not about that then. The the person that’s getting hurt in all in all this is the fans. The fans are the ones that get hurt with all this for the most part as far as as far as learning and I’ll just say I’m selfish and radio because we get to know we’ve always gotten to know these kids coming through, you know, the program whether it’s at BYU or Utah and and the rivalry is hurting because these guys don’t they’re not familiar with each other. Yeah. like they’re not familiar. They don’t know what the rivalry is because guess what? They just came from uh I don’t know SC or wherever they transferred from and now they’re in the program. Yes. Like they don’t know what the rivalry is about. The fans don’t know these guys. They like nobody the the day and age of of g of getting you know what I’m going to get Brian Johnson’s jersey because that’s my guy. Yeah. Or I’m going to get you know Taesm Hills jersey because he’s been here for three years and that’s or we’re going to retire those jerseys. Yeah. Are we going to retire? When are you going you’re going to retire a jersey like Shadore Sanders who just who’s only there for one for for two years? Bat of the eye. Come on. So th this is what I’m saying. It’s it’s just absurd. It it it’s sour grapes. You’re reaching. And the other thing it is it it’s like political hot button topics, Lloyd. Like there are there’s political radio out there on the left or the right and all they got to do is bring up one scenario and then the people that are on their side can huff and puff and they feel all good about it. Then they don’t even realize there’s an opposite side to it that’s really upset, maybe even possibly hurt by it. And this coach is feasting. He’s praying upon the college fan that wants to ste see stability on his roster and he’s praying on it. So he’s throwing these comments out there when they’re completely irrelevant. Man, you can make money. You can still have the college the whole college experience. You don’t have to sit there and not make money. And yeah, it does suck for programs and it sucks for some of these coaches because they lose the talent. But you know what, Bronco Menhal this thing 87 new players on a roster and I guarantee you Bronco is going to find a way to win. He will. He’ll find a way to win. So do that, coach. Don’t sit there and blame these kids for taking the money and getting the best the best start in life they can get because the best thing that I took away from all my time in football. The best for my family and for my wife was the financial gain in the seven years of pro football that I played. It’s the best thing I took from it. The second best thing was the team and concept and the and the work ethic. That’s the second best thing that I took from it. The third best thing that I still haven’t used that I went back 14 years later and got was my degree. I’ve I’ve got a health science degree. I I don’t know. At some point, I guess when you fire me, Lloyd, I could go be a PE coach. Yes, you could. But, you know, we sit here like, “Oh, well, let’s set them up for life.” Most these guys m most men and women come out of college, they don’t even use their degree. They go into a field that might require a degree, maybe some type of government workforce that will require require a degree, but they they don’t spec they don’t specify. And so I just uh yeah, anyways, kind of taking a different angle on that and I apologize if it’s ruffled your feathers. Bad and ugly coming up next. Also, another 60 and 60 drops. That’s all next. It’s time to saddle up and talk about the winners and the losers. This is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Now, here’s the good. [Music] Well, for the good and for this segment, we’re going to have to move a couple of things because the NBA schedules have just dropped and the Utah Jazz schedule is f fresh and hot off the presses and we got to get out to it just to take a look at, you know, some of the details. I I know that this is a different years compared to some, but here to help us kind of break this down and how it’s playing out. and I’m getting my initial look at it is our Jazz Insider for KSLsports.com, Ben Anderson. Ben, how you doing, bud? Good. How are you? Good. So, this thing drops. I’m just taking a look at it. It, you know, there a couple of fivegame road trips here and there, but I don’t know what what initially stands out to you when you get the new Jazz schedule. It’s not a murderer’s row right out of the gate, which is interesting. Um, I’ll have to go back and pull up the whole schedule, but uh, it’s not, you know, impossibly difficult. And last year, I remember the schedule was really difficult really early on. So, you know, you weren’t facing any of these kind of nothing teams until later in the season, which by that point you were already, you know, kind of tanking and and you were, it was easy to lose those games, but you racked up a lot of losses early. And this year, you know, Phoenix is not great, Portland’s not great, uh, Charlotte’s certainly not great. You’ve got a couple of those teams, even like Indiana, I know they were in the finals last year, but Atlanta, Chicago, some of these teams are not killers and you play them early, it’s a chance to rack up wins and that can change the tone of the season a little bit if you get a little artificially high because you’re winning games or or how that ends up looking. Even Boston, you know, you talked about Indiana, but I’ll talk about Boston, too, because who knows what Boston’s going to look like or be, Ben. Yeah, exactly right. those types of teams that might be some fluky wins for the Jazz that you weren’t necessarily expecting. Uh, and if that’s the case, you know, that you have to make up for those at the end of the year if your goal is to have one of the three or four worst records in the NBA and that ends up being difficult. You know, that means you have to be aggressive at the trade deadline to unload guys or you have to be aggressive tanking. And, you know, Austin said the Jazz weren’t going to be doing that anymore. Uh, but I think if it’s going to cost them their 2026 draft pick, uh, especially if it’s a top 10 pick and it might go to OKC, I think I think that tanking will come right back. Six of the first nine games are on the road. How much does that matter for the Jazz? Uh, yeah, that’s that’s certainly a way to uh lose some games early and and that helps. But, uh, again, if if you go on the road, you bond. I mean, you know how that is. That’s sometimes how young teams really get together and figure it out. Kind of not worried about anything else. You nothing but eat, drink, and play basketball. uh might put you in a spot where you win games you weren’t expecting to otherwise. Talk a little bit and and tell the Jazz fans a little bit and NBA fans a little bit about the Emirates NBA Cup and what’s playing between s December 9th through the 15th. Uh yeah, so the Jazz will open on uh Halloween night against the Scenic Suns. They’re also paired with the Kings and then much more difficult, the Timberwolves and the uh the Thunder. you know, you win those games, the players have a chance to advance and play in Las Vegas. And if you win that, all you could win a half million dollars. So, I think the interest would be there, especially with a young team. You know, these aren’t a bunch of guys who have already made their max contracts. This is a lot of money for these young players, but I don’t know if the Jazz are really going to be competing in this, which means they’re going to get some extra days off in the middle of December as opposed to playing that 83rd game, which the teams that win it have to do. So, back when the Utah Jazz had a competitive roster, I would look at the first couple weeks, but I would spend most my time studying the final four to five weeks because if it was a competitive team, I wanted to make sense of maybe where they could work. Could they work all the way to the four spot? Could they potentially work in the three spot or do they find themselves in a playin situation? Um, when we look at the back end of the schedule, they do finish with four of their last five on the road. Um, you could go as far as to say the same as what I just mentioned for the start. It’s the same at the end. Six of the last nine games are played on the road to end the season and to begin the season. So, six road games. So, I guess coming down the stretch, Ben, if it’s a one-two race for the worst records in the NBA, it it looks like the Utah Jazz could find themselves on the road and and put some losses up. Yeah, I think conceivably that should be beneficial for them. The games I would have circled there, they played Washington twice after the trade deadline. They played them on March 5th on the road and they played them at home on March 25th. Those are obviously going to be two very big games. Uh because I don’t think Washington’s going to be very good this year. Then you’re circling kind of Brooklyn, Charlotte, etc. But most of those games come, you know, earlier in the year. You’re right. If you’re at that point where you’re thinking, “Oh, are the Jazz going to accidentally pick up a win in a tight race?” You close after Washington on March 25th at Denver, at Phoenix, home against Cleveland, home against Denver, at Houston, at OKC, at New Orleans. Maybe you circle that as a winnable game, though New Orleans has already traded their draft pick next year, so they should want to win. Home against Memphis, at LA. You could very realistically close the season on a nine-game losing streak, meaning your last win of the season is March 25th. And if that’s the case, yeah, you’re probably in pretty good lottery standings. Hey, one thing that kind of stood out to me and I I don’t know if this is something that’s been recent over the last couple two or three years or or if it goes a little bit further back and I just didn’t recognize it, but playing the same team in back-to-back games like playing Houston twice in a row or Minnesota twice in a row or New Orleans twice in a row. You know, there’s quite a few of these groupings. Is is that a new thing? Is that something that the NBA is is working or or have I missed that over the years, Ben? No, that is a relatively new thing. Team used to do home then home. You know, you would play in Salt Lake and you’d fly to Houston or whatever. You’d play it back toback that way. Now they’ve just realized, hey, let’s just cut out a travel day and just have them play, you know, a Friday, Saturday or a Friday, Sunday, uh, in the same city and that way no one has to fly anywhere. And it just kind of reduces the wear and tear on the legs. And I actually think a lot of this started kind of postcoid. That first year teams were playing a lot of games really tightly together. They realized they just couldn’t fly everywhere. So, they’ve just started jamming in some of these, you know, two game kind of quasi baseball type series uh in a single city, but it is only the last couple of years. And I think they were worried that, oh well, fans aren’t going to go see a team on Saturday if they just saw them on Thursday. And I just don’t think that’s been the case so far. This isn’t breaking news for Jazz fans, I’m sure, but not a lot of national TV. Kind of walk us through what what to expect on the big stage. Uh yeah, actually two are two games that I guess would be technically national. One of them fully uh it’s going to be on NBC and that’s against the Clippers on January 27th. So cool to, you know, have that be our affiliate. That’s going to be a true just nationally televised game on a Tuesday night. And then on a Monday night, they’re going to be on Peacock when they’re on the road against Kevin Durant and Houston. Uh, I was wondering if maybe Ace Bailey would give the Jazz a little bit more of a boost if Prime would pick up some of those games or if ESPN would pick up games to see him. He’s going to be a highly touted player and fans are going to be curious about him, but they really only pick up the two NBC games. Tell us how that works where you get a game picked up on National Late. So, that can happen. Uh, you know, there are uh flexibilities for these or the these uh these companies the same way in the NFL. you know, Sunday night early in the season, you think, well, I think Lions, Packers is going to be a great game. And then you get to the end of the season, the teams are, you know, ravaged by injuries and they’re four and 12 and no one wants to watch them the second to last week of the season. They’ll flex it out for whatever the better game is that night. Uh, they can do that as well. Now, I would imagine the Jazz will play both of these games. It’s not late enough in like the playoff run where they were going to bump anyone in these games unless, you know, randomly the Rockets are terrible or the Clippers are terrible, the Jazz. But if this was like a March game and you know the Jazz were going up against the Lakers and they decided, “Oh, actually there’s a Thunder Rockets game that matters a lot more.” They could probably flex you out. I’m not sure how the NBA dealt with that with, you know, Amazon and ESPN, but we’ve seen it. You know, the J the the Jazz lone national TV game last year was when ESPN thought the Lakers were going to have Luca make their debut. It was this weird Saturday game and he didn’t play. So, the Jazz had this random game in LA with nobody really wanting to watch because nobody important was playing. As I just kind of blink and get the first look at this, I’d say 80% if not 85% of the games tip at 7 or 7:30. Again, 80 to 85% at 7 to 7:30. Then you’ve got your spattering of mix and match in there. Maybe a couple of 8:00 tip times. You’ve got a random four:00 tip time against Dallas the beginning of January. Um, there might be one or two six o’clock tips, but for the most part, expect 7 7:30 p.m. tip times. You’re going to be able to find it on your local networks. Only two currently on national television. You’ve got a couple of fiveame road trips. Those are built in there. Um, you got three fivegame road trips that are built in currently to this schedule. But other than that, Ben, anything else that pops that jumps out to you that you wanted to comment on? Uh, no. Oh, you look at the All-Star break. It’s always kind of interesting to see when those come in. And that’s February 12th, uh, is the Jazz’s last game they play on a Thursday and aren’t back till the next Friday. Uh, sometimes that gets moved around weird. You end up with these short dates. So, the Jazz get a nice healthy break there. Uh, and then the season ends a little bit early. Uh, April 12th is a little earlier than I remember. Now, only two or three days, but uh, that’s a pretty that’s a pretty notable date to end that early. And you know what? Some of the guys returning, you know, John Collins is back in the season opener. uh he’s going to make his debut with the Clippers uh against the Jazz. And of course, I actually want to see Jordan Clarkson on the road in New York. Um I think that’s going to be fun. I think Jordan playing at Madison Square Garden Gardens. Kind of a perfect marriage. And that’ll be on uh believe December 5th in New York. So that’s a cool game as well. I’m just trying to count through and see any backtobacks. I mean, I’ve counted six backtobacks through the middle of December. Um I I don’t know. You know, been it’s kind of hard. I’m trying to engage with the schedule because I always do. I always love to print it out and I mark it up and try to make some predictions and some thoughts, but where the Jazz are just in full tank mode, it’s it’s tough to get overly excited about it, but I appreciate you taking some time and breaking it down. Happy to answer. Thanks. There you go. Ben Anderson, our Jazz insider. You can find him at kslsports.com, but and you can also see the current Jazz schedule. Ben just tweeted it out and you can follow Ben on Twitter, Ben Hoops. That’s Ben’s hoops. Take a quick break. Come back to Whole World News. Oh, all right. Well, Barry Barry whole world news. We’re going to announce our next 60 and 60 coming up next. This is your top 60 and 60 watch list as Hans and Scotty gets you ready for the start of the 2025 college football season by highlighting the most influential players on their team for the upcoming season. And now get the call, baby. Let’s go. Here’s today’s newest addition to the watch list. [Music] Welcome back. Hans Scotty 975 the KSL Sports Zone 60 and 60. It’s not the same. I know. I’m bummed, too. We don’t rank them, but we do highlight him and the coaches talk about him. I’m excited about this one. It’s another University Utah safety. Big- time player, Nate Richie. Nate Richie has been in the program for many years. Very solid player. Uh very consistent. You can always count on Nate to to do the right thing and take care of his business. An extremely hard worker and a really good football player. He is very good football player and he’s going to have to have a great season. Uh I’m excited about this backfield between him and Tail Johnson and some of the edges that you’re going to be able to find. Smith Snowden is such a such a durable universal player that he can do so many things. So great stuff for the University of Utah. Their defense is looking very solid. Always is, isn’t it? It is. It is. And And it’s nothing different. You know, we just had Steve Bartle on to talk about the linebacking situation. I actually think the defensive line is in a is in pretty good order. I think it’s in pretty good order. You know, one of the questions was who’s going to play opposite of Logan Fono? The other question was who’s going to play opposite of Smith Snowden. And there’s good options out there. or whether it’s Elijah Davis or others, there’s some really good options for this Utah defense. Cannot wait. Game one against UCLA. I don’t know if there’s a bigger game. Utah, UCLA, UCLA’s got so much to prove. They’ve put so much into that program. I don’t know what they paid that Tennessee quarterback, Nico. I I I’m I’m sure it’s in the million pluses. And I don’t know what they paid their offensive coordinator to leave Indiana after he made a run to the college football playoffs, but I’m sure it’s in the the multi-millions. They’ve got a lot of pressure to go perform and they’re taking on a Utah team that their back is up against the wall. Kyle Whittingham is a cage dog right now. Kyle Whittingham after a five- win season is probably losing his mind. So, I cannot wait. Let’s kick this game off and let’s get it going. Utah, UCLA. You’re going to hear from Don Vanado who has been in the news a lot lately. He is senior ESPN writer and a Pulitzer Prize winner. He joins us next. Sports Zone number one. Miss any part of the show. Every moment of every show is available in podcast form by searching Hans and Scotty on your favorite podcasting platform or online at kslsports.com. This is Hance Olsen and Scotty G on 975. the KSL Sports Zone. [Music] I’m so excited about this next guest. It’s not often that you get a Puliter Prize award winner on your show and he is one of the best journalists when it comes to the NFL and investigative reporting. He’s done so many great things in the world of sports. It’s Don Vanada, one of my favorites. Don, how are you doing? Great. Hans, how are you? I’m doing fantastic. It’s appreciate you coming on and I I got to start with this because I don’t know if we’ve ever had a Pulitzer Prize winner on the show. What What’s it like to win a Pulitzer? Uh it was pretty thrilling. Uh I was lucky enough to be part of a staff at the Miami Herald at a very young age that won a Pulitzer Prize for our coverage of Hurricane Andrew, which devastated South Florida, uh Miami Date County in 1992. Um, I was in a comfort in motel in Florida City. They got devastated by 165 mph winds and wrote a first-person story about how we survived the storm, myself and nine others in the in the hurricane and uh and then just for months uh was down in South Dade County reporting and uh so it was an absolute thrill and then was lucky enough at the New York Times to be part of two two Pulitzers there as well. So, it’s been a it’s been a fun ride. Yeah, I know. I know that it’s there’s been multiple looks at this and I I know multiple stories, but in all your travels and the things that you’ve done where you’ve been with the Times and I know you’re with the Herald and and with ESPN, what is some of your favorite things just your your background with the investigation and and journalism? What have been some of your favorite things to get into? Well, you know, I covered the Bill Clinton impeachment uh in in 1998 for the Times. I was in the Times Washington bureau. That was just an unforgettable story that that whole year uh with those allegations and how Clinton handled the Monica Lewinsky relationship that he had. Um that’s certainly up there. Another highlight of my career I think is when I was at the times I went to London and spent six months investigating the Murdoch phone hacking scandal and uh for a magazine story that ran in September of 2010. And I’m very proud of that story which uh you know we raised all sorts of questions about the way Scotland Yard handled it and uh there there have been a lot of stories but you know I was always a frustrated wouldbe sports writer. I wrote a couple books about sports while I was at the times and then in 2011 uh ESPN came calling and recruited me to join the network as an investigative reporter and I’ve been just having a blast since. Um there’s there’s a lot to investigate in the world of sports and uh and so it’s been a it’s really been a fun ride since uh joining the network about 13 years ago. Well, let’s jump into one area because yours is one of the first pieces that I read a couple of days ago when the John Gruden lawsuit dropped and the Nevada Supreme Court sided with him and allowed this lawsuit. kind of walk us through the investigative part of this with John Gruden as you jump into this. What angle are you coming at it with? Well, it was a it’s a resounding victory for John Gruden uh that came out on Monday with the Nevada Supreme Court. Um, John Gruden, as you may remember, filed a lawsuit against the National Football League and against the commissioner, Roger Goodell, back in 2021. That those emails that were leaked that cost Gruden his job as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, uh, Gruden believes they were leaked by Goodell and by the league. Now, they were offensive, uh, emails that Gruden had written years earlier when he was working at ESPN as a commentator for Monday Night Football. uh you know he used homophobic language uh you know very very wrong language in these in these emails that he sent uh and it cost him his job but he felt that it was a hit job that was done on him by Goodell and for all these years it’s been tied up in the courts with a lot of appeals the NFL wants the case to be heard by an arbitrator behind closed doors and we won’t know anything about uh what’s happening wants the case heard in open court and uh and the Nevada Supreme Court on Monday uh ruled in Gruden’s favor that this case will now be heard in a Nevada courtroom and there will be discovery to get to the bottom of who actually leaked the emails that cost Gruden his job and his career as a coach um and and what those motives were. So, but from an investigative standpoint, uh I mean it’s a really good question. I mean, now it’s well, what happens next? Is the NFL going to appeal this decision? They’ve already asked for a rehearing by the Nevada Supreme Court. I don’t think that’s likely to happen. Uh and then their final uh step they can take is to appeal this decision to the United States Supreme Court, which again I don’t believe there’s a very strong likelihood that the US Supreme Court will take the case up and then is what happens next. And you know, a lot of the buried secrets of the National Football League, this goes back to the Dan Snyder investigation that was conducted. Uh there’s 650,000 emails that could be uh opened up as part of discovery here. Emails that were sent by the former general manager of the Washington Commanders to people all over the league, including Goodell, including people in the league office. And uh and what Gruden’s trying to find out is why was there only 11 emails out of those 650,000, his 11 emails that were selectively leaked against him, and what else is there? So the stakes are very very high for the National Football League going forward with this case. That’s a pretty good question. I you know and I think John’s got a good question and a and a good angle and a good case on this. And I I was looking at the ruling, the 5-2 ruling, and in your piece you talked about the justices did not determine whether or not the league had leaked Guden Gruden’s emails. So is that the basis? Are we just trying to get to the leak or does John Gruden really want to expose these other multiund,000 emails that have have been concealed? That’s a really good question. So, uh, I think fundamentally what John Gruden wants to know is who leaked these emails. Uh, Goodell has denied it. Dan Snyder has denied it through a spokesman. Uh there are other suspects um that we wrote about a couple years ago in an in-depth story for ESPN that ran in the summer of 2023 as well. Everybody has denied it. Somebody took it upon themselves to selectively pick out these emails out of, as I said, out of 650,000 uh and leaked them to both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times uh over the course of a weekend in October 2021. And um Gutten was basically forced to resign and pressure was put on Mark Davis, the owner of the Raiders, by Roger Goodell personally. There was a phone call that we reported uh a couple summers ago where uh both Roger Goodell and Jeff Pash, the NFL’s general counsel, called Mark Davis after the first set of leaks came out on Gruden and said, “You got to do something here because more leaks are coming.” This is what Goodell literally said to Mark Davis. So from Gruden’s perspective, well, how did the commissioner know that? And so he’s going to try to get to the bottom of it through discovery and find out, but whether or not his motive is to blow up the whole league and and find out all these other emails and what’s there, uh, I don’t think he would say he wants to do that. He really wants to find out, you know, who leaked this. But in the course of that, depending on what the judge decides on discovery, there could be a lot of secrets that come out in the course of uh of this, you know, this lawsuit that Gruden can now fight in open court in Nevada. This stuff is incredible. You know, I I was able to play in the NFL for a period of time, and I I know that there’s a lot of workings that go on in the NFL, and there are always things that left a mystery and a bad taste in my mouth, the way certain things were handled, and and you could see it. So when you really start to dig, I think that it could be really intriguing for a lot of people. And if you do get complete discovery and they start opening the books on some of these things and we get to see some of the things that Gilbert was talking about with Washington or that Goodell had gone back and forth about, it could get really interesting and really ugly. You know, one other story that I know you were reporting on is Lloyd How Jr. form former executive director of the NFL Players Association and him resigning. What kinds of things were you able to see or find or or hear through that resignation? Well, our reporting I I worked on that story with a colleague of mine by the name of Kayn Kaylor, and uh we did about two weeks worth of stories where we found out a lot of uh interesting uh and ultimately controversial things about How’s tenure as head of the National Football League Players Association. One of the first things we found out is that he struck a confidentiality agreement with the National Football League. So, the Players Union and the NFL uh hid a collusion ruling that came out last January that the NFL won, but had a lot of information in there that would have been useful for the players when they were negotiating their contracts, particularly the high-end, highest paid quarterbacks in the NFL and wide receivers uh over this off season. And yet, Al decided to keep that information that could have been useful to his membership uh hidden from them. So, that was the first story we broke. Then we found out that Hal was moonlighting with the Carile Group, which is a private equity firm that’s trying to invest in National Football League teams. And there were questions raised about whether that was a conflict of interest. And then um you know, we had a couple of other stories. And then finally, we found out that he was Al was visiting strip clubs um once during a National Football League Players Association retreat in Atlanta with two employees and expensed it to the union. also a car ride that he took from an airport in Fort Lauderdale to a strip club in Miami. Uh this the car sat outside for seven hours overnight while Hal was inside and we we got those receipts and reported on that right as we were getting ready to report on his strip club uh outings. Uh how resigned and uh and now there’s a new interimm executive director named David White uh the former executive um uh who led the SAG after union. That’s the Hollywood union with 160,000 members. White is now the interimm director who took over after Hal resigned a couple weeks ago. It’s incredible stuff. Honestly, it’s just unbelievable some of the things that you can uncover when you do the right work and you start to get to some of these things. I I talk about the NFL PA. People don’t understand that those NFL PA dues are taken out of our checks as NFL athletes. And I’m trying to remember back. have been retired for 20 years. So, it goes back a long way. But, I want to say they were between8 and $12,000 and uh $16,000 in some cases where they just take it out of your check and it goes right into the NFL PA. They do pay certain portions back, but it sits there for litigation. It’s supposed to sit there for player protection. And when you find that it’s misappropriated, it’s it’s unbelievable to me that, Don, that somebody could get in there and manipulate, maneuver outside of those guidelines. Well, that’s that was the reaction of a lot of the uh members of the executive committee uh who actually made Lloyd Howell a finalist for the job when they when they read our story, revealing that, you know, union money, money that came out of their dues, was used for strip club outings. you can imagine what their reaction was and um and just obviously beyond the fact that union dues are are used for that um and the outrage over that there. You know, we also had other reporting that uh Hal was only in the office a couple of days a month. This is a job that he was being paid $3.6 million a year to do. And uh he was kind of an absentee executive director. There was a lot of things we uncovered in our reporting over those two weeks that led up to his resignation. And uh yeah, I mean the job of the NFLPA executive director, as you know, as a former player, it’s to fight tirelessly every waking moment uh on behalf of the membership who pay these dues and expect that you’re going to go into battle as executive director against the National Football League. U another thing that that Hal did that’s interesting is just a year into the job, he was telling uh various reporters that he thought 18 games would be great. He thought an expansion from 17 to 18 games would be terrific. And he he told The Athletic, you know, who doesn’t want more football? Well, well, that’s probably the biggest leverage point he has in the next CBA um is to fight against that to try to, you know, win more money for the players and and and win concessions from the owners. And yet, um our reporting showed without really talking to many players, he’s saying things that Roger Goodell and other owners were applauding. So there was a lot to his tenure that was questionable to say the least. And uh as I said, he resigned uh you know a few weeks ago in disgrace uh you know after these run of stories that we did for ESPN. Talking with investigative reporter Don Vanada Jr. senior ESPN writer, Puliter Prize winner. I could go on and on. The list is very long and we appreciate Don’s time. So, when you start to jump into the Jerry Jones biography and your background is investigative journalism, tell me what it’s like to walk the line because I know Jerry Jones is private and I’m sure that there are things that he doesn’t want uncovered, but I’m sure there are things that he wants to get out there. So, what’s it like to take on a project like this, Don? Well, that’s a good question. It’s an unauthorized biography which uh which means it’s uh it’s it’s not a sort of Jerry Jones rubber stamped uh book. Um however, having said that uh I have been uh meeting with Jerry and interviewing him for the book and uh we’ve had some lengthy sessions where we sat down and talked and um you know I got the first taste of of uh covering Jerry in 2014. I did a profile for ESPN. Uh the title of is called Jerry Football. Um where I spent a summer with Jerry and and did a in-depth profile of him. There was a fair amount in that profile he didn’t like. Uh you know that I investigated and found out and uh and I had always thought to myself he really would be the great a great subject for a book because he’s really if not the most influential person in American sports over the last 50 years certainly in the top five or top 10. And I mean, so much of what the National Football League has become is um thanks to Jerry’s great vision uh for for what it could become. And um and also he’s just a larger than-l life personality. Uh and uh and somebody who, as Cowboys fans could tell you, it’s been now almost 30 years since the last uh NFC Championship appearance or Super Bowl. Uh and and so that’s also fascinating, too. And and so yeah, I mean it’s I’m I’m towing the line between writing a book that I hope will be will tell people new information about Jerry and I I feel pretty confident it will do that. Uh and also just be an entertaining read uh and something that brings you into Jerry’s world. It’s a biography that’s that’s the whole uh sum of his life. So I’m going back to his childhood in Arkansas. A lot about his relationship with his father. His father was his hero growing up. his father was a grosser in North Little Rock. Um his relationship with his mother and uh with Jimmy Johnson and Frank Broyals, his coach at Arkansas and then how he made his money as a Wildcatter. And there’s incredible stories of Jerry uh you know being dead broke multiple times in his 20s and 30s, relying on debt uh as he was uh trying to make his fortune in uh in Oklahoma and in California uh and then buying the Cowboys and then obviously the arc of his career as the owner and general manager. There’s just so much that’s fascinating. And I’m going to hopefully also take readers behind the scenes of uh Jerry, you know, in in NFL meetings and and locking horns with Roger Goodell and Paul Tagly and uh suing the league as as he did in the ‘9s and the and uh counter suing them after the league sued him over the sponsorship issue. So there’s a lot there. It’s a it’s a big ambitious book, but I’m having a great time doing it and I hope it’ll come out in about a year. So looking at a 2026 release? Yes. Hopefully in the fall of 2026 I’ll get it out. I’ve got I still have quite a bit of work to do and my day job is keeping me from spending as much time on the writing as I’d like and the reporting, but uh but I I I’ll I’ll get it done. That’s the goal is to have it out in the fall of next year. That will be a book that will be in my possession and I will read it with great interest having played in that league and knowing what Jerry Jones is all about. I I can’t wait. And you know, when you when you get done with that, I wouldn’t mind seeing another owner or two um being a booked like that in including a former Colts owner that just passed away. Um you talk about Jim Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Jim Jim Ers is a is one of the fascinating owners for sure. The the late Jim Ers and Jim’s coming out as he did against Dan Snyder. Uh my colleague Jeff uh my colleague Seth Wickerssham and I did a story uh a few years ago about Snyder and how Snyder said the NFL is a mafia and how Snyder was telling people he had dug up dirt on Roger Goodell and on Jerry Jones and that if they tried to take the team away from him, he was going to put all this dirt out. And we did that story and within a week at the next NFL owners meetings in New York, Jim Mercier came out and said, “We’ve got to like look very closely at whether we’re going to keep Dan Snyder uh in the league.” And, you know, took took that step and uh and just a couple weeks after that, Snyder announced he was selling the team and uh you know, sold the team for $6 billion uh to Josh Harris and the Josh Harris Group. So, uh I mean, another owner that potentially could be a book is Dan Snyder. uh you know what Snyder did to that franchise and um you know and it was such a toxic workplace culture uh you know he fought with his partners and uh that’s also another sort of sorted tale and how much uh that the league actually did uh to protect Snyder until the very end is is fascinating. I’m going to get into a little bit of that in my Jerry Jones book because Jerry and Snyder were quite close for a long time. So, there will be a subplot of my Jerry Jones biography involving Dan Snyder and and and other owners as well. Robert Craft and Mara, the Rooneyies. Uh they’ll all be uh characters in my Jerry Jones biography. Wow. I cannot wait for this to release. And you know the one thing that I could say about Mr. Ers is he did love his players and he he treated us like family and anybody that was in that locker room, you were treated like family. Now, we knew that there were skeletons and we knew that there was addiction and we knew that there was some bad behavior, but we loved the way he treated us and the way he made us feel like family. And so, from a player’s point of view, Don, he was a spectacular spectacular person. And that’s what’s that’s what’s exciting to see about some of these biographies. Well, that counts for a lot hearing you say that. I mean, you know, firsthand. And I and I’ve always heard that and I’ve had a lot of respect uh for Mr. Ers uh in in my dealings with him. And uh like I said, I mean, he took this courageous step. I mean, there were any number of owners in that moment when Snyder was really really at at the end of his rope. Um but was hanging in there. And it was ERS who had the courage to step out of this owner’s meeting. he was the only owner who did it and said, “We have to take a really hard look at Dan Snyder and whether he belongs in this league.” And uh as I said, within a matter of just a few weeks, Snyder announced he was selling the team. And um I don’t know whether he would have done that uh if Ers had not said that. And uh I I know that Jerry Jones also, who had been supportive of Snyder, uh was no longer supportive once he found out what we reported, that Snyder had dug up dirt on Jerry. And uh that was the last straw for Jerry and which we’ve reported and I’ll and I’ll go into more detail about about how all that happened in my book. Well, you know how much guts that takes, Don, because everybody’s got a pretty dirty house and Well, that’s Well, that’s right. Exactly. And and and not just that, it I mean, in including including Jim Ers, right? I mean, you know, uh but but it was any number of owners could have done it and it was only ERS who did it. And uh uh as I say, it was um it was it was a bold move and um I believe it was, you know, the the last straw for Snyder. I think he read the the writing on the wall at that point and uh and decided to sell the team. You can write read him at ESPN. He’s a senior ESPN writer and uh you are going to be able to find his books. You can find plenty of his work including the work that he’s put in for John Gruden and others. He’s fantastic what he does and really appreciate your time, Don. Thank you, Hans. It was great to visit with you. I hope we can do it again when the book comes out. Would love to come back and uh and talk about it. We will do it for sure. That’s Don Vanada Jr., senior ESPN writer, Puliter Prize winner, and much more. Give me that Jerry Jones book. Man, I want that book. He’s sure been in the news a lot. You know, you think about every aspect of the NFL that he’s been a part of major decisions. It always feels like he’s the Oz. He is the puppet master. When big decisions are coming down, whether you’re extending seasons or, you know, you’re working to extend seasons, big- time decisions, rule changes, always feel like Jerry Jones has something big to say and has some type of massive influence on it. So big thanks to Don Vanada for his time here on Hans. And I want to let you know that I made sure he knew how to say your He even goes, “Did you say his did you say Hance?” He even said it correctly. And I said, “Yes, you got it. That’s right, Hance.” And I don’t know why somehow they always autocorrect. Well, yeah. I’m a little bit nervous because I believe it’s Vanatada, right? Not Vanata. No, it’s Vanata. You got it. Vanada. You got it right. You got it. I I was a little bit nervous. I’m like maybe because I’ve read his stuff for years and I’m like maybe I’ve mispronounced his last name and maybe I said Natada and it was Nata and he was like you know what Hans on one on something like that I always go and double check. I’ll go find an interview somebody that we haven’t maybe had on before. Yeah, I’ll go check an interview somewhere else and be like okay that’s right. More Hansen Scotty coming up next. The wheel is loaded and it’s time to talk some sports. This is Sports Roulette with Hansen Scotty on 975, the KSL Sports Zone. Well, we’ve got football season coming up. It’s coming quickly. And you listen to Hansen Scotty throughout the football season. You know, Scotty’s out there busy with his Utah State playbyplay. I’m out there busy with BYU color analysis. Lloyd’s out there busy with his Utah pre and post. And we all come together. We all really do deep dives on each of these teams throughout the game weeks. Well, there’s a reason that we’re the most successful, most downloaded, and most listened to sports radio broadcast in the state of Utah. It’s because we’re all kind of involved very intimately with these universities and football teams. If you want to sponsor or have an ad or be a part of a segment of the Hansen Scotty Show, all you got to do is text Hance to 57500 HS to 57500. Just text it. Text it right now. Let’s just say the college football season is a good time to be a part. It is. And this is your final month to do this where you can text and be a part of it. 57500. Text Hance and all it does is it it notifies one of our salesmen or sales women and they’ll get back to you and they’ll give you some ideas of the cost to run a sponsorship or run ads through the Hansen Scotty Show. If you don’t want it, you don’t want it. Who cares? I mean, we’ll move on. We’re all better for it. But even if you’re just curious like, well, what does it cost to advertise on sports radio? You’re going to get that those numbers without any commitment. It’s just a number to try to get some information and see if you could be a part of it. 57500 text. And one thing I’d encourage you to do if you’re curious because I I actually had somebody DM me, Lloyd, and they said, “Oh, well, I’m excited for the Morning After podcast. As of right now, there is no more Morning After podcast. This is true, people. Sorry. This is true. We’re done doing it for free. And it’s just a lot of work. And yeah, we had, you know, we used to joke about it. Um we used to say, “Oh, well, 25 people.” It was more like 6 to 8,000. Like that’s it’s a lot of downloads. But um it just hasn’t sold. High listening with the uh that podcast. High listening. High listening. So, look, we’re we’re not going to do it as things stand. But, by the way, I’m so glad that you finally said that cuz I’ve carrying that burden of saying there’s only 25 listeners on it. Yeah. Has killed me for a long time. I know. To just in honesty, it’s like a big sigh of relief. Like, actually, it’s it’s did it’s done really well. Yeah. Just so everybody knows over the last what what have we been doing? Six years, seven years. Six, seven, eight. Probably six or seven years. Yeah. We’ve been doing a while. Just so everybody knows that the number one single downloaded piece of audio for the zone over the last six or seven years in in a given week has been the Morning After podcast. But the amount of listens per episode is through the roof, but it has to go away because they it can’t get sold for one reason or the other. So maybe you’d like to advertise on it. Maybe you’d like to save the Morning After podcast. If you want to be that guy, just text HS to 57500. All right, sports roulette. It’s rocking and rolling. Let’s spin it, Lloyd, [Applause] more crying and complaining. Yeah, it’s it’s becoming a pretty common theme by college coaches. This one is coach Frost with UCF. These coaches are upset about transfer portals. They’re accept they’re upset about kids taking money and leaving. Here’s coach Frost talking about the latest in NIL, the Tennessee situation, what happened to Tennessee with losing their quarterback and everything in the portal and walking out. Is that something you’ve thought about or is that something as a coach you you look at what’s going on with the state of college football? Well, I I don’t ever really want to comment on anybody else’s program or any other other kids. I don’t have all the details on that. All I will say is, you know, it’s easy to get the wrong people in your ear sometimes and get bad advice and and not necessarily even talking about that situation. I just think in general there’s there’s people in some of these players ear um that don’t always have best interest in mind. And you have a tendency in life to think grass is always greener somewhere else and usually it’s not. Um and when you’re 18, 19, 20 years old and you think money is everything and uh it’s not. uh you know, happiness and success are way more important than that and I’ve learned that personally. Um I’m happy here and happy to be back here and uh I think sometimes decisions are made for the wrong reasons, but um that’s life and um hopefully we can try to educate guys too as much as we can and and uh mentor them as much as we can to help them make their decision. Have you encountered any situations of like trying to renegotiate terms on whether it’s NIL related or have you encountered any situations maybe they had faced up there? Any situations what renegotiating any of the terms of some of these NIL agreements? Yes. Um, I don’t think anybody’s really happy with the situation we’re in now, except maybe the uh institutions that have just unlimited money to spend and they want to keep that advantage. Um, if people really knew what went on, it’s uh it’s a mess. Um, it’s constant negotiation and it’s a bidding war for every single player whether they’re in the portal or not. That’s the reality whether people want to admit it or not. And um you know it’s a sad state if a if a sport as beautiful as college football is won by the people with the richest boosters. Um and that’s kind of where we are right now. But um hopefully they’re trying to put some guard rails around it. And I think it would make the game a better game if there were at least some uh some restrictions and and and rules in place. Some things in there that I really agree with and some things in there I really disagree with. You weren’t crying that with the richest boosters when you were like at Nebraska. Yeah. Like I mean played for the richest boosters. Maybe you didn’t turn it around, but we’ve seen those facilities at Nebraska. Um so that’s Coach Frost with UCF. So boy, a couple things. Okay, let me start with this. Lloyd, I’m going to ask you a question. Out of anybody that has a reason to give a college football player bad advice, is there anybody with more reason than that head coach? No. Exactly. So I I want So when you hear Coach Frost say, “Well, these kids are out there getting a lot of bad advice.” Okay. I don’t want the advice from the head coach because his whole goal is to keep his money. How does he keep his money? By keeping you on the roster. How does he keep you on the roster? By telling you that, yeah, you play for less money, but we’re going to stay here as a team. And you know, it’s really selfish of you to jump in this transfer portal. Well, yeah, there were moments where it might have been selfish of you, but now kids are doing it and teams are playing. Oh, and it’s kind of a poor sports loser mentality to say, well, I just hope it’s not the biggest booster. Hey, guess what? Some schools jumped in this thing and they were like, we’re going to compete. Guess what? It’s it’s legal to pay. So, let’s go out and get the money and let’s pay. Well, to those teams and those universities, I applaud you. Well done. And in case Coach Frost is thinking that the only place that a kid can get a Coach Frostlike experience is UCF, you’re wrong, man. You can get it at the University of Utah. You could get it at Brigham Y Young University. You could get it at Utah State University. And for my sake, I’d like to see all the top athletes in this state. So, I just think, you know, when when a coach says, “Well, these kids are getting bad advice from somebody.” It’s probably coming from you, coach. You’re telling a kid not to talk to an agent that could get him more money. You’re telling a kid not to jump ship and take the extra $350,000. That can be life-changing. Because the reality is 1% of these kids are going to get a shot in the NFL. 1% got a chance to make money right now. You got to let me make that money. If I can make it and it’s out there and it’s available, you got to let me make it. And you can’t browbeat me over it. You can’t shame me for it. All you can do is embrace it and get out to some of the rich people in Florida and say, “Hey, if we want to keep our talent here in this brand new updated media center and we want to keep them here in our stadium in our city and keep them a part of Orlando, well, you got to step up with money.” Well, do it. It’s just there are people that are outworking people out there. Just so everybody understands be it’s not like people were like, “Oh yeah, just take my millions at BYU.” People had to go out and explain in depth. They had to knock doors and they had to hit the phones and they they had to do work to find the money. Find the money and get competitive. And I say this to with the Big 12’s best interest at heart. I love the $300 million infusion that came in from Kansas. Kansas just found one of the most wealthiest infusions of money in all of college football. Why am I happy about that? Because I want the Big 12 wealthy. I want the Big 12 outspending money, recruiting big because I want a Big 12 champion. Yeah, I would love a dominant run where the Big 12 provided five of the next six national championships or six of the next six national championships because that would only bolster and strengthen our state and our current football status here. All right, we’ll take one last break and we’ll come back. We’ll wrap things up and get you ready for JJ and Alex. That’s all coming up next. Hans and Scotty, you’re locked on to Hans Olsson and Scotty Chin. That’s right. On 975, the KSL Sports. Well, big gigantic thank you to Lehi High School. What do you think, Lloyd? Good stuff, man. Uh, they sent us a box of goodies as they’re getting ready to kick off their football season. Good luck to Coach Hadfield and the Lehi Pioneers. You get your hands on one of these hats. They’re They’re legit. They’re good. They’re nice. Yeah, it’s nice logo. I’m actually kind of interested in the high school gear thing. Um I did see I think we may be getting a box from the Caveman. So, anybody that’s out there listening that wants their high school football team, American Fork or is that Yeah, American Fork. It is American fork. American Fork. Yes. Okay. Okay. Sometimes I get American Fork and Spanish for Fork mixed up. You want your team highlighted? Talk about some of the greats. Guys like Don Hulker at Lehigh there. Multiple state championships over the last few years. Rocks. My son’s got a couple of state championship rings. Uh you got the Brusso boys, Matt Brousoe, who just left Utah State and he ended up at Oklahoma State. Um, you got Jackson Brouso, who was the quarterback of the state championship winning team, who is currently a Colorado State. Uh, there the list is really deep. A lot of great Lehigh football. Oh, Jay Hill. The the Jay Hill. Yeah. Did you know Jay Hill played at Lehigh? Are you serious? Yes, man. He’s a Lehi pioneer. The one and only defensive coordinator BYU. Lehi’s come a long ways. It’s really grown. Yeah, it has. from when I was in high school. Yeah, it was kind of the uh kicking dog of the just tiny, but they became a powerhouse. All right, there you go. Big thanks to all of our guests today. Steve Bartle for coming on, giving us some Utah camp insight. Don Vanada Jr. coming on. Great interview with him. That was some fascinating stuff. It’s always nerve-wracking to get these sports journalists, these investigative journalist surprise winner a little bit. It’s like, geez. Always like, well, you’re a little too classy. I mean, the guy just got in a Twitter war with Dan Patrick. Yeah, he did. Yeah. Yeah. He was brought up on on on that show. Yes. Yeah. When Dan Patrick’s going at you and you’re sending tweets back like, “Don’t you question his journalism. Do your homework.” It’s like, “Oh, the Danets are going to be on their keyboards. I guarantee this. We’ll figure something out.” But great stuff there by Don Vanada Jr. You can catch those interviews at kslports.com.
Hour 1
• Lehi Pioneers care package
• Utes insider Steve Bartle
• What You May Have Missed
Hour 2
• NIU coach Hammock thinks the transfer portal is hurting the education of athletes
• Good: Utah Jazz schedule reveal | Jazz insider Ben Anderson
• 60 in 60 Watchlist
Hour 3
• Senior ESPN writer Don Van Natta Jr.
• Sports Roulette
• Final thoughts
1 Comment
Chasing the money isn’t about that 150k paycheck, it’s getting 150k instead of 130k. Your rant on that is a bit misguided. Nico is the perfect example, he jumped and ended up getting the exact same amount.