Matt Jones (2:01)

Comedy Off Broadway in Lexington Welcome Cincinnati native and club favorite Josh Sneed November 14th and 15th. Then catch the return of AGT finalist Preacher Lawson November 21st through the 23rd and November 28th and 29th. Don't miss the Queen of Comedy and Lexington's own Adele Givens. For tickets to all Comedy Off Broadway shows, call 859-271-Joke or visit Comedy Off Broad.

Matt Jones (2:32)

This is Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage.

Ryan Lemond (2:36)

Now here's Matt Jones.

Matt Jones (2:38)

Welcome everyone. It is Kentucky Sports Radio Thursday, December 4th, I'm Matt Jones here at the KS Bar and Grill. On a cold day in Lexington, Kentucky, you can give a shout. The Clark's pump and shop phone line, 859-280-2287. A Vision Auto Glass text machine is 772-774-5254. In this edition, sponsored by the TJ. If you call TJ, he'll make them pay. Look at all these people on their phone, everybody. This is what we all are. Now we just makes. You're the one. You're the one sitting there and not. And not staring down at your phone. Including Mario, who I think is attached physically to his phone. He is working, though. We are here on a, like I said, kind of a cold day. You come out to the Taka Spar, see us have a little food. Today, 11 o', clock, Will Stein will make his KSR debut. Will, come on here. Very much looking forward to talking to him. Ryan, Drew, Shannon, Nice to see you guys.

Drew Franklin (3:35)

We got to start with first, how's the patient? How's Larry? Give us an update.

Matt Jones (3:38)

Yeah, he's doing okay. You know, thank you all for the literally hundreds, maybe thousands of people who've written something kind saying you were thinking about him. It was. He is. He's still in the hospital in Knoxville, which is the place they go because it's close to Middlesborough and is still recovering. So I still would ask that people pray for him. He's got, you know, a little bit of a road. It was an. What they had. He went in for one procedure, and they unexpectedly had to do a second one. And then, you know, my mother lost a very close friend of hers, and that funeral was. Was during that period. So I went because I wanted her to get to go to that. And anyway, so you were Larry's nurse for a while? Yeah, I was like 24 hours of caretaker. Not gonna say. I mean, this may surprise people, Drew. That's probably not my strength.

Ryan Lemond (4:35)

Did he like his gummy clusters for dinner?

Matt Jones (4:38)

You know, it was. It was good. I was. You know, I'm not. I don't think anybody likes hospitals, but, I mean, if we're being honest, you know, I had that experience of being in one for. For, like, 10 days, and that was a difficult time for me. So I'm not a huge hospital person, but, you know, this one is. This one is nice, and the people were very nice. But, yeah, it was. It was, you know, this. They didn't get. They didn't get espn, so I didn't get. I didn't get to see any of the game. Should have moved into a different hospital. Now it sounds like I didn't miss anything, but I didn't get to see, like, one minute of the game. I was following it on my phone, and I was just getting frustrated. You know, I don't know if you've all ever had to do that. You just. You're like, all right, when I hit refresh, hopefully the score will be better. And then it was like 56 to 50. And I said, okay, here we go. And then I think I refreshed it, and we were down 6159 or something. I just forget it.

Drew Franklin (5:36)

I think somebody down in Knoxville pulled a little prank on you. That's the only room it didn't get.

Matt Jones (5:41)

ASPN feels like the only thing they had, the only thing that would come in clear with no static was Fox News, which it was like, all right, now you just tease me.

Drew Franklin (5:49)

Come on.

Matt Jones (5:50)

You can't. You can't do this to me. But I got, you know, had a good time. This was kind of nice. They brought. This will be a moment like I remember forever. They brought a guy. The Knoxville Symphony came and played in the lobby of the hospital. First of all, how nice is that?

Drew Franklin (6:06)

Very cool.

Matt Jones (6:07)

That is very. For the patients. And one of the violin players came, and he came into Larry's room and played. Really talk about making Larry happy. So that was real. That was really.

Ryan Lemond (6:17)

Can only imagine how that light Larry up.

Matt Jones (6:19)

So that was really. That was really nice. Sure.

Drew Franklin (6:21)

He wanted to get up and get his base out and enjoy.

Matt Jones (6:23)

I think he would have if he could have. So. So anyway, thank you all very much.

Drew Franklin (6:26)

So glad he's doing well.

Matt Jones (6:27)

To everybody that. That reached out and. And, you know, checked in. I. I do really appreciate it now. I did. I was driving back. I didn't get to get back for the press conference. I was driving back and I listened to it old school. Like, listen to it on the. On the radio, which you don't. I didn't know you. How many people did that. It was on this station. It was. I listened to it on the radio, and I thought it sounded like. I thought it sounded great. Excitement in the room.

Matt Jones (6:58)

Will. It was interesting because I don't think, like, Will's not a rehearsed guy, so it felt like, to me, it was kind of off the cup. We got natural answers at times. I thought initially it was a little nervous, which I get in that situation. You were there, right?

Ryan Lemond (7:12)

Did you go?

Matt Jones (7:13)

What did you think of it?

Ryan Lemond (7:14)

Very Cool. A lot of people there. A lot of people.

Matt Jones (7:16)

Was there a lot of people?

Drew Franklin (7:16)

Yeah.

Ryan Lemond (7:17)

And it was broken into sections. There was like a fan section, a former player section. Then you had the current team, the guys that wanted to show up. Then you had, of course, the media. Then some rich people, but just the whole nutter.

Matt Jones (7:28)

There was a rich people section. Yeah, specifically people probably call it donors.

Ryan Lemond (7:32)

I guess I should call them donors.

Matt Jones (7:33)

If you're not rich, you cannot sit here.

Ryan Lemond (7:35)

Everyone there looked rich, I guess maybe, I don't know their incomes, but great turnout. I mean, they had pyro inside shot some. Some Goldberg sparks off out at his will. Stein came, and then we've had. We've seen him kind of twice now when he came out at Rupp, that was a huge pop. And we saw his energy where he's fist pumping. And then in this, we're getting to see a little bit of his character, a little bit of a potty mouth, which I like in my football coach.

Matt Jones (7:58)

Yeah, so I thought about that. I mean, very like, drop some. Drop some curse words, said he wants.

Ryan Lemond (8:03)

His quarterback to be an MFer. Is exactly what he said.

Matt Jones (8:07)

He didn't say the word.

Ryan Lemond (8:08)

He didn't know he said MFer. I couldn't say the word.

Matt Jones (8:10)

Well, that's good. Don't we want that? Right?

Ryan Lemond (8:12)

Yeah. This is football. You want a little bit of that juice.

Matt Jones (8:14)

It was interesting. First of all, let me tell you a few things just in list listening that I liked. Okay. I liked probably the two answers I liked the most. Answer one was he basically said, okay, it doesn't matter whether you all like the new era of college football or not. It is what it is. So we got to go do it. I've been preaching that you. I've been preaching that forever.

Ryan Lemond (8:35)

I wrote Matt Jones will love that.

Matt Jones (8:37)

Quote, because I don't. It doesn't matter what your opinion is like. It really doesn't. Unless you're in Congress and you're making the decision. It does not matter what your opinion is. You have to take what the rule. You gotta. People gotta stop whining and they gotta take what the rules are and they gotta go in. And the fact that he said that, Ryan, it was literally music to my ears. I felt like I had written it. I was so excited.

Drew Franklin (8:59)

Yeah, basically. He basically said something like, well, like it or not, you have to adapt. And we, we are going to be able to adapt it from day one. I. I loved it how he got a little emotional talk about his wife, but then the more he Went on, the more fired up he got. Like, he said he dropped a couple F bombs when he met with the players yesterday afternoon. Got me fired up, ready to go.

Matt Jones (9:15)

But. But you need that answer. Yes, you need that. Then the second thing, and I think this is important. I am really proud of how everyone involved has handled this transition from Stoops to this. I'm proud of how Stoops handled it. Stoops could have, he, he could have taken us to the mat for the $37 million. He ended up not doing it. I mean, he's getting the 37 million. He's not going to be broke. But I, I appreciate that he did it in a way that, that, that's good. I, I've heard this on KS board. I've heard that actually he has a really as positive as you can have a situation with this, with uk, with Mitch, with everybody involved, and he gets it. And I think I said, I think he's going to stay in Lexington. And then I love that Will Stein brought, you know, talked about him yesterday and talked about his influence because it is there, right? It is. I mean, like, this is a better job than it was when Stoops got it because of Mark. And so I like that Will said it. It just felt like rather than this being a break, that we've seen this sometimes where it's a break and then, I mean, we saw it. We've seen a lot, actually. Just saw it in basketball where, like, it's awkward for a while and people don't know what to do. It feels like that this has been as good as it can be.

Ryan Lemond (10:31)

Yeah, they're doing a great job. A lot of new coaches won't even mention the last coach at all to. To avoid that. I mean, you look around the country, I know we're not some other programs, but there's just other chaos at other.

Matt Jones (10:41)

Schools.

Ryan Lemond (10:43)

Or pen where they're shipping cookies back and forth. We just, I mean, it was outside of the outcome of the last couple games and it being nasty, wanting to change. It's been pretty smooth. Even fans that were really upset with Stoops have turned that off because they got the move they wanted. And everybody's trying to shine a light on the positive days.

Matt Jones (10:59)

Yeah. And I like that he said, look, we're going to score points. And he. Let me tell you something, and this is not a criticism, okay? It's a little bit. Now you got to back this up. But he had some. He had some, like, cocky lines. What was the one he said that I Texted you, Ryan. Something like, people are going to want.

Drew Franklin (11:17)

To play coach with Will stuff.

Ryan Lemond (11:19)

People want to coach with Will.

Matt Jones (11:20)

He said, everyone in the country will want to coach with Will.

Drew Franklin (11:23)

Stop. I loved it.

Matt Jones (11:24)

And he. And he did himself in the third person. Everyone will want to coach. I mean, I loved it. Like that does. But I thought, man, that's some confidence. Everyone in the country will want to coach with Will.

Drew Franklin (11:36)

Stein said they're going to light up the scoreboard. You know, that's what we want to hear, man. You just. Just that boost of energy into the program. I want to go back to what you said about Stoops. I love the fact he gave him these flowers and kind of said. And I think it was so good because it sounded so sincere. I think Stein was 100% sincere in his gratitude to coach Stoops.

Matt Jones (11:53)

Trust. His direct quote was, trust me. Everybody wants to work for Will Stein.

Ryan Lemond (12:00)

I like it.

Matt Jones (12:01)

Win Will Stein's money there. I loved it.

Ryan Lemond (12:03)

I like the third person. He also. He didn't say teams by name, but he's basically said, we're going for the big teams in the sec. Like, you know, we have our tier that we want to be.

Matt Jones (12:13)

He was very.

Ryan Lemond (12:13)

He was looking to the top. Top.

Matt Jones (12:15)

He was very adamant. We're gonna win here, but we're not settling for just winning. I mean, he set the expectations that for years people have called this show and said, which is, can we go to the playoff? Can we go to the SEC championship? And I've always been like, I don't know. That's not what he said. Now, all coaches say that kind of. But he said it like, that's what we're. That's our expectation. Not that's our goal. That's our expectation. I mean, that's setting it high. Do you like that?

Drew Franklin (12:47)

Yes. That's what I want to hear. I want him to come in and tiptoe in. I want him to come in, knock people over. So, like you said, man, you got to. You got to adapt. And he's the guy that's going to come in and be able to adapt to whatever offense he has with these players. He has. He mentioned that. So tell me.

Matt Jones (13:03)

I'm going to be a little bit jealous because I would have loved to have seen this. Tell me about the moment he came out at rup. I, of course, didn't get to see it.

Ryan Lemond (13:09)

They did it very early, so the crowd was still on fire. Score was low. He was the. Why they did two wise. They had a tayshawn y in the second half and a first half why for him. And I compared it to the Minna Field dunk because it was loud. But then he started lifting his arms and it's like we hit another level that I didn't know we could have. Like Rupp arena already exploded when he walked on the court. But when he started throwing his arms and yelling let's go. It somehow kicked in another gear. It was, it was one of the cooler moments, especially non basketball things that I've seen in a long time in.

Matt Jones (13:37)

There since I'm going to end up later in the show being a little critical of this person. Let's let me be fair by being positive. Do we grade the transition from Stoops to this new coach to Willstein in the process for Mitch Barnhart, do we grade it in A?

Drew Franklin (14:00)

I think you have to grade it in A. Somehow he got Stoop to agree to a better buyout. Somehow he got the one guy who was the top of all of our wish list within what, 24, 48 hours.

Matt Jones (14:10)

14 hours from when they announced Stoops departure, when they announced Stein was the coach.

Drew Franklin (14:15)

So be critical if you want to Mitch, but on this situation, the way he handled it, it's a definite A. Yeah, I agree.

Ryan Lemond (14:20)

I said it the day after the hire. I have plenty of Mitch complaints. But the fact that you went out and got the name that everybody wanted and did it quickly. Now I know I think he kicked the can a little bit down with another coach, ended up in Florida. But everybody loves Stein so I'm not going to penalize him for that. I think he did a great job of getting it done quickly, especially with everything has to move so fast this day and age and building teams and everything in the off season.

Matt Jones (14:40)

So there have been a couple whispers now that it's over that the initial conversations about at least gauging interest and again, I'm not saying Mitch was part of it. I bet he probably wasn't. But. But they, but that they started after the Tennessee game that there were like some conversations of okay, what could happen? What would you think? That makes sense to me and I'm good with it because it did lead. I mean we kept from a circus. I mean Penn State has had a job for six weeks. They still don't have a coach. So like I think it helped.

Drew Franklin (15:12)

I think that's when most of the fan base to realize a change needed to be made. Now he won a lot of people back over with the Auburn win, the Florida win. But that Tennessee game, keen kind of Start the downhill slide where they're going to make a change.

Matt Jones (15:24)

And I'm glad, you know, I kind of talked myself into. While still really like Brian Hartline. But then I had some folks, I had somebody I know really well who. Who likes Brian Hartline, who said, listen, Matt, Brian Hartline's a good coach. He's going to have a lot of success. He was like, but he's a lot. He was like, he's. He's a lot. Just like, he's. Well, they were like, he's a little bit of a jerk. And I don't know how that would work with Mitch. He's. And he said, so he's a lot. This guy. We'll see. But does not seem like that.

Ryan Lemond (16:01)

No. And I, like, we're talking about how cocky and confident he's been. But there's also been, like, humble moments where yesterday he was talking about he looked out the window of the plane and saw his police escort, and he couldn't believe how many police cars were there. And he's like, I'm taking pictures. Like, I cannot believe this is me, that I have a police escort.

Matt Jones (16:15)

Yeah.

Ryan Lemond (16:17)

Moments like that, too, that bring him down to showing that he still has that excitement and appreciation, too.

Matt Jones (16:21)

And I am a sucker for the whole. Like, I was sitting there in the stadium and I wore the jersey, you know, Jared Lorent, like, I'm a sucker for all that. You know, as Mark Pope is finding out, it doesn't really matter if you lose a bunch, but at least for now, it's really nice.

Drew Franklin (16:39)

The things he said made you convince you that he was a Kentucky fan at heart. Talked about all those games he went to at the old Commonwealth Stadium. Talked about he got starstruck at Rupp arena because there was tape. Tayshawn Prince sitting there.

Matt Jones (16:49)

Go.

Drew Franklin (16:49)

That's Tayshawn Prince. You know, he's one of them.

Matt Jones (16:52)

He's. He's of the age, though, where he would have been a kid and, like, Tayshawn Prince would have been like, oh, that is Tayshot. Like, literally. Tayshawn Prince is probably his. Jamal Mashburn, for me, in terms of, like, whoa.

Drew Franklin (17:05)

Yeah.

Ryan Lemond (17:05)

He said he was like, why am I the wide? Make him the why now. They ended up doing both. But he also listed several football memories. Now, he did name most of them were losses.

Matt Jones (17:13)

Yeah, he started with the Bluegrass Mirror.

Ryan Lemond (17:16)

I mean, we're Kentucky football fans. That's kind of what our memories are. Even named the which bowl was it against Penn State and was it Outback Peach?

Matt Jones (17:23)

Yes.

Drew Franklin (17:25)

That one the Outback bowl in Tampa.

Matt Jones (17:27)

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, that was the. Was Music City. Music City's where we lost to. Or did he.

Ryan Lemond (17:32)

No, I'm talking about the one in the 90s with the football. I mean, he, he named a lot of our heartbreaks, too.

Matt Jones (17:36)

We did.

Ryan Lemond (17:36)

Which taught me out. He really is one of us.

Matt Jones (17:38)

Yeah. 859-280-2287 Talk a little bit more about the press conference. I want to talk a second about what Mitch said at the press conference, which was a a testy thing. And what about the cut man? Cut man.

Drew Franklin (17:53)

Cut. Cut's gonna cut.

Matt Jones (17:54)

No, Filter.

Drew Franklin (17:55)

Filter.

Matt Jones (17:56)

That's Next.

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Ryan Lemond (18:25)

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Matt Jones (20:00)

Welcome back. It is Kentucky Sports Radio, 859-280-2287. Come on out and have lunch. By the way, we'll talk a little bit about this in the second hour. Big weekend coming up. High school sports, UK volleyball tonight. UK basketball Friday against Gonzaga. We're gonna have all of you coming from around the state. We'd love to have you here. We're gonna have the games. We'll have the Gonzaga game. We'll have the volleyball games. That starts tonight. Who do they play tonight? It's like Hampton or Terriers. Oh, God does love a Terrier. But not tonight. We're number one seed. Well, we'll, we'll get to all that. That'll be kind of a second hour thing. One person says, Matt Mitch doesn't get any credit for hiring Stein. A trained seal could have hired him. It was an easy hire. Yeah, I don't, I'm sorry, I don't buy that. You have to give. You know, that was the same. He didn't get. People say, hey, when he didn't get credit for Cal, that was Mike Pratt. Like, no, sometimes the easy pass is the right pass. So, yeah, I mean, and it's, I mean, it's, of course, it's a little bit of a risk. He's never coached before.

Drew Franklin (21:01)

Right.

Matt Jones (21:02)

So, yes, if it works, he gets credit, just like he will get. I mean, I know he went through six guys or whatever. He gets Pope. But if Pope wins here, he deserves credit. You're going to blame him if it doesn't work. So he gets credit. If it does.

Drew Franklin (21:16)

I give him a lot of credit. Especially like if you said he started on the process after the Tennessee game, moved super quickly after the Louisville game had him here, you know, just a couple days after we lost that game to Louisville. I think he deserves a lot of credit for how he handled this situation.

Matt Jones (21:29)

One person writes, matt, Will Stein has Billy, our sports confidence.

Drew Franklin (21:34)

He does a little bit.

Matt Jones (21:35)

A little bit. A little bit. Billy, our sports was more delusional in the early days. I think Will has. At least Will's accomplished some things. Billy was coming in cold, talking about dating Jennifer Lawrence, who word on the street is Will might actually have dated.

Drew Franklin (21:50)

Back in the day.

Matt Jones (21:50)

Back in the day.

Drew Franklin (21:52)

Nice. That's, that's, that's my first question at the next news conference.

Matt Jones (21:56)

Well, we're going to have, you know, you might remember. Yeah. Shannon, I mean he's on the show today.

Ad Voice 2 (22:00)

You could ask.

Matt Jones (22:02)

We're not going to ask him about different because like he's. He's married. We're not going. We're not going to ask his family. His family might be on the call. So we're not. We're not going to ask him that. That's why you don't get to ask questions. Is that, Is the, Is that answer right there? What I would like to know is, and I'm being serious about this. 772-774-5254. We have him here for like 15 or 20 minutes. What would you ask him? Because I want to ask him. Like, he answered a lot of the basics. I'll probably do one like, what's it like to be here? But then we got. I want specific things. If you have things you want me to ask, you got 40 minutes here to let me know. What. What are you interested in, Drew?

Ryan Lemond (22:37)

I heard him tell Tom Leach that he's not going to call the plays. Like he'll be very involved but won't be, you know, the full time play caller. Which kind of surprised me since that surprised me a little bit mentioned to hear about.

Matt Jones (22:47)

And so is that again. I've been off a little bit a couple days. Not totally plugged in. Is Justin Burke going to do that or do we know yet?

Ryan Lemond (22:54)

We don't know official role, but yeah, he'll be added.

Matt Jones (22:57)

But we don't know if he's the oc.

Drew Franklin (22:59)

There's reports out there that he will be those.

Matt Jones (23:01)

Yeah.

Drew Franklin (23:01)

I mean it's not officially.

Ryan Lemond (23:02)

They haven't finalized anything.

Drew Franklin (23:03)

Okay.

Matt Jones (23:04)

And I saw he was going to be on the staff. The Texas San Antonio coach had a weird. He was asked about it and he was just like, justin Burke's better than Will Stein. What? Did you not. Did you.

Ryan Lemond (23:15)

I saw that someone gave me.

Matt Jones (23:16)

That's not exactly what he said. But that was. It was weird. He almost said it like that.

Ryan Lemond (23:20)

Yeah, I, I had to. Did some. Did some digging because it was so weird. I guess there was some context. Fans were upset with Justin Burke and now the defenses they're playing are tougher. So he was trying to kind of be like, lay off Justin Burke. He's not playing the same defenses that we had when Stein was here. So the numbers aren't.

Matt Jones (23:35)

And then I guess they're bringing the director. So he did say he was gonna have a gm. Yes, we love that too. Right?

Drew Franklin (23:41)

In this day and age of college athletics, you absolutely have to have a GM In Place.

Matt Jones (23:46)

Not according to Mitch Barnhart. Yeah, he was very. Even though we're hiring. Mitch Barnhart's the only person who would. We would announce we're hiring a GM and he would defend not having a GM during the announcement. But regardless, I'm glad we're doing that.

Ryan Lemond (23:59)

Yeah. Might have been first reported by right here at this, this table.

Drew Franklin (24:03)

It was.

Ryan Lemond (24:03)

Oh, it was 24 hours in advance. Now that we're keeping up with the new cycle.

Matt Jones (24:06)

You too him. Oh, Drew. Just remember Drew R. Franklin.

Ryan Lemond (24:11)

Yeah.

Drew Franklin (24:11)

Hell, Frank Franklin had a little scoop. Who was on the plane with Will Sny when he flew over here.

Matt Jones (24:16)

One person said. Was it C4?

Ryan Lemond (24:19)

I made that part up.

Matt Jones (24:21)

One person says. Matt, does it mean anything that the crafts were not at the press conference? I can say that they're. They were. They are out of town. And so I, I don't read anything to the into that. I believe Will Stein set in the craft seats he did at the basketball game. So I, I think that will be. That will be fine.

Drew Franklin (24:41)

Yeah. If they're out of town, it doesn't. No indication they're not around supporting this move right now.

Matt Jones (24:45)

I mean, I wasn't like, you know, I mean, just to give you. I wasn't there either. It doesn't mean I don't support it. Sometimes the life happens and people have to do things. One person says. I love the experts are saying how great of a higher Stein is. That makes me more confident. This does make me confident. Normally I don't care what experts say, but like none of us know. I mean, we've all probably seen Oregon play, but we've not probably broken down their play calls, etc. The fact that people who cover college football all say this dude is really good. And some people, I mean, Todd McShay was like, this may be the best low profile hire of the entire cycle. That can't help but Drew make you feel good, right?

Ryan Lemond (25:25)

Yeah. And I've seen some Oregon fan accounts tweeting about how they miss him, stuff like that. I mean, anytime a team is losing someone and they're not, you know, upset about it and they're actually torn up, I mean, that helps our case. I've seen some national things ranking the hires so far this offseason. It was almost unanimously number two behind Lane Kiffin, which is a pretty big deal. So yeah, the response outside of Lexington and Big Blue Nation has been all positive, it seems.

Matt Jones (25:50)

Did I. I saw someone sent me a thing on the text machine. Is there some recruit that was going to go to LSU that people rumor think might end up here a receiver or something or am I dreaming that.

Ryan Lemond (26:01)

Yeah, there's a receiver. I'm drawing a blanket Darby, something like that. There's been.

Matt Jones (26:05)

There's one Darby Allen.

Ryan Lemond (26:06)

Watch the wrestler.

Matt Jones (26:08)

Okay.

Ryan Lemond (26:09)

He would have liked the pyro yesterday.

Matt Jones (26:10)

He's not very tall, but no, the.

Ryan Lemond (26:13)

Personnel we're all having to learn on the fly. They did a great job on national signing day keeping people including a bunch of receivers. I don't know who Will will keep as a coach, but Washington, the wide receivers coach is one to watch because he kept.

Matt Jones (26:25)

Well, he was the wide receiver coach was acting like he was staying.

Ryan Lemond (26:29)

Honestly, I don't know a lot behind the scenes over there but the two practices I went to, both times I was like that dude is awesome because he is in their grill and actually coaching. We saw what happened with the freshmen this season turned into stars by the end of the year and then he retained his signees. So I'm not Will's advisor but if I were keeping anybody, Washington would be.

Drew Franklin (26:45)

High on the list, I guess. He said signing day was also yesterday. They got 12 guys. So not only say not only was he busy, you know, just adjusting. He had to go recruit guys and get them to sign yesterday.

Matt Jones (26:57)

And he also has a game plan he has to do for Oregon here at some point too. We'll take a break. 859-280-2287. Take your calls.

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Matt Jones (27:07)

He'll make him pay. Now more of Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage.

Ryan Lemond (27:12)

Here's Matt Jones.

Matt Jones (27:14)

By the way, some people with good questions. This is why I like to outsource some things I hadn't thought about for me to, for me to ask during the.

Drew Franklin (27:22)

Ask our new coach.

Matt Jones (27:23)

Yeah, during our phone call. That's at 11 o'. Clock. I'll probably do one of those things where I push him as long as I can before we have to take a break because I think I only get one segment there. 859-280-2287. Text machine. 772-7745254. One person writes Matt George Clooney was on the Kelsey podcast. Said he was a huge UK fan. I feel like we don't hear him about him enough as a UK fan. I'm glad he did that. I, I know he is. Hopkins is kind of friendless, friendly with him, says he is but like we don't hear about it a lot. We need him to come to a game. Wouldn't it be cool to see George Clooney at a game.

Ryan Lemond (28:01)

Yeah. There's been other podcasts in the past where he'll mention he's a fan, but I can't think of a time he's popped up at a game.

Matt Jones (28:07)

I don't think so either, but I've.

Ryan Lemond (28:08)

Seen him, like, online.

Matt Jones (28:09)

I've seen him, like, wearing a Kentucky shirt, playing basketball. But, like, I don't know if he still plays basketball. He's got to be, what, his mid-50s now? Probably so.

Drew Franklin (28:16)

Oh, he's older than that, is he? Yeah.

Matt Jones (28:19)

Yeah, that'd be a good question for Trivia One night. How old is George Clinton? You want to take a guess?

Drew Franklin (28:23)

I'm going to say look it up.

Matt Jones (28:24)

And tell me how Ryan does.

Drew Franklin (28:26)

Okay. I want to say he's 64.

Matt Jones (28:29)

64. Wow. What do you think he is?

Ryan Lemond (28:31)

61.

Matt Jones (28:32)

61. What is he, Shannon?

Ryan Lemond (28:33)

He is 64.

Matt Jones (28:36)

Wow. Look at Ryan getting it exactly right.

Drew Franklin (28:39)

I stayed at Hollywood Express last night.

Matt Jones (28:41)

You got to come up with a different joke like that. He has said that joke so many times over the years. The years. Just a new joke. Can you do it?

Drew Franklin (28:49)

I can do it. I. I do want to mention one more thing. It tickled me about the news conference yesterday.

Matt Jones (28:53)

The word. Like the fact you use the word tickle.

Drew Franklin (28:55)

Yeah. You know, all the. The pyro, the. The sparks, the fire extinguisher shooting up in the air. We're all excited. Let's go, let's go, let's go. And then Eli Capiluto gets up, talks about the got new Gatton donation.

Matt Jones (29:09)

Let me say this, okay, See, I actually disagree with you. I actually thought Eli Z. I actually thought it was pretty good.

Drew Franklin (29:15)

I thought it was way.

Matt Jones (29:16)

I thought if I.

Drew Franklin (29:16)

Well, here's way too much. I want to hear from my coach. Damn it. Get off the stage.

Matt Jones (29:22)

That's odd. Now, again, I was hearing it on the radio, but I actually thought it was a pretty good speech. And I remember thinking, if I was Mitch Barnhart, I would love how nice elo Eli's being to me.

Drew Franklin (29:32)

He was. He was very complimentary, man, you just.

Matt Jones (29:34)

Don'T like listening to Eli speak.

Drew Franklin (29:36)

I just think that's the wrong place in time for that situation, man. We're all. All the bands playing, the cheerleaders are whoop dee doing. And then we got talking about the donation business. Building.

Matt Jones (29:48)

Okay, well, you do it. I guess. You make a fair point. I actually thought he was. Okay, okay, so I. I do have to. For you. I gotta talk for a second. About the Mitch thing.

Drew Franklin (29:59)

Yeah.

Matt Jones (30:00)

All right. So.

Matt Jones (30:03)

I have an overall frustration with Mitch Barnhart that he does not talk to the public. Public, because he does not. He only talks on media days. And sort of what you're getting at right there, Ryan, media day is about the coach and like, so it's hard because you're sitting there, everybody's in a good mood and you don't want to be harsh to the AD in that moment. But when else are they going to talk to him? He doesn't ever do press conferences. So he was asked about the nil situation. And I mean, I'm not saying this was a shot at us or me, but I think it probably was. And here were his comments when asked about does Kentucky have enough in IO? Go ahead and play it.

Mitch Barnhart (30:41)

We're confident what we're doing. John. People have asked that question 19 different ways from all the stuff that's been going on, and it's exhausting. You know, enough, enough about have we got enough? We've got enough and we're working at it just like everyone else is working at. We're no different. Everybody will JMI, they've got Learfield, they've got Learning Field. We've got JMI, they've got Learfields, they've got play fly. So this notion that we don't have enough is ridiculous. We've got enough. We've got to resource it the right way. We've got to assess talent the right way. We've got to acquire it the right way. And we've got to make sure we're within the boundaries and the rules. We're not going to break the rules. That's flat out. We're not doing that. We will do it the right way. We don't need to do that. We're good enough at what we do. We've got good people. That's why we hired this guy. He's really smart, really smart. He's put together a really good game plan of how they're going to do it. And they've. In the first day, they've made some really nice adjustments to what we're doing and we'll be fine. But that notion and all this nonsense has been created variety of places that we don't have enough or we're not working at it has got to stop. It's enough.

Matt Jones (31:46)

All right, so I have a few few thoughts here about it. Number one, as an athletic director, you don't get to tell people enough or it's nonsense. That can't. Your answer cannot be Just stop talking about it. Stop asking me things. Your job. You are the leader of a public institution. You are not the CEO of a private company. You are the leader of a public institution. When people have questions, and it was John Hale who asked it, who is not exactly the most confrontational guy in the world. You do not get to look at them and say enough nonsense. You get. You say you've been asked 19 different ways. You've done two press conferences in eight months. Do not tell me you've been asked 19 different ways. You don't go in public. Okay? You don't ever talk. So you have not been asked 19 different ways. Kentucky signed a deal to do nil is going to be the most important thing in college sports for the next 25 years. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. Kentucky signed a deal with JMI to basically do their nil, unlike every other program in the country. Nobody else has a situation like ours. They've essentially turned their nil over to a private media company. Now, is that gonna work? I don't know. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But there is not one person, myself included, who's a lawyer, knows sports and knows politics. And I don't even know how it works. I don't even know what our setup is. You know why? Because they announced it via press release and then never explained it. No one understands it. I called people at JMI the day it came out and they couldn't explain it to me. There's people at the university that can't explain it. And to sit there and tell the fans to basically shut up.

Matt Jones (33:41)

We'Re fine. Well, if we're fine, why did we win four games, five games next year and switch our coaches? All right, if you're gonna take the position that we don't owe you all an explanation, well, I don't like that you're the head of a public school. You do owe people an explanation. You've now taken the athletics department and basically made it private, and I think so. You don't have to release stuff to the public. So I'm never going to accept we don't owe you an explanation. But if you're going to say that, then you better win, right? And you better get recruits and you better not have rumors of Kentucky can't get nil deals done for these guys.

Matt Jones (34:24)

So the idea that you can just stand up there and say it's nonsense, it's not nonsense just because you say it is, rather than get mad, why don't you explain what we're doing. There's not one person who can explain what we're doing, not one who's negotiating the nil deals. How much money are we giving to football? How much money are we giving to basketball? Mark Stoops has basically acknowledged he literally said pony up, which was. Which I think he shouldn't have done, but was an acknowledgement that at a time we didn't have enough money. So I'm just supposed to believe Mitch, say we've got enough? Because I say it. Well, okay, fair enough. Then why haven't we won? So I hated that answer. I think it distracts from a good day. And I would say anytime a leader is asked a question and their answer is to just get mad at the fact the question is answered or, excuse me, is asked, that's on the leader. That's not on the people asking the question. If the media and the fans do not understand what is happening at uk, that's because you haven't told them and you haven't talked about it and you haven't. You've not made it to where anyone gets it. And that's not our fault. That's your fault.

Drew Franklin (35:48)

Well done, Frank Jones.

Matt Jones (35:49)

I'm just. That really frustrates me because, you know, Drew, it's not nonsense to ask that. No other school in the country is doing it like this. Yes, these other schools have media deals, but they're still letting their private collectives do stuff. We're the only one that's taking it in house. And I don't know, man, since we've done that, we haven't signed a basketball recruit yet.

Matt Jones (36:15)

And I'm. I'm nervous about it. Will it work? It might, but I don't think it's crazy to ask about it.

Ryan Lemond (36:22)

Do you know? And I was smiling. That's my Mitch. There he is talking to him like they're five year old.

Matt Jones (36:26)

Yeah, he talks to us. That's exactly right.

Ryan Lemond (36:27)

Any press conference I've been to which is biannual, he talks to the media like they're kids. And I can't believe you're questioning me. This goes back to the Cal Stoops thing. He called a press conference and sat with Stoops and scolded us, saying we're making up a story and I'm thinking you emailed me and told me to be here and now you're yelling at us. Anytime he gets challenged on anything, and this wasn't even challenged, it was a very basic question and he lost it. And he was pretty unhinged the question. Before that he got on some rant about people not appreciating Mark Stoops and he's pounding the desk and everyone's looking around like you fired him. But also people are looking around like who are you fighting with? Because the people in front of you, no one has done the things that you're arguing about right now. It was like an unhinged press conference. And I see why he doesn't get out there because he cannot handle it. He cannot handle any criticism. And this wasn't criticism. This was John Hale from the Herald Leader asking if our money situation is good enough for the coach you just hired. And Mitch, you could see it like a switch flipped. He could not handle it. And he was talking to everyone like their three year old just spilled something in the house.

Matt Jones (37:22)

He acts like he is act and he's not always like this. Mitch is a good guy. I think he's a wonderful man privately. But he has this issue where he acts like the media and to some extent the fans work for him that he can just talk to you like you're his employee. How dare you ask me a very normal question. It's a very normal question. I cannot imagine what it would be like for him if he was at a place where they did ask really hard questions. Can you imagine if Jerry Tipton was still here and he asked a question, what would happen in that scenario?

Ryan Lemond (38:05)

Watching that, I was getting flashbacks of when I asked him about the checkerboards.

Drew Franklin (38:08)

And he went from me.

Matt Jones (38:11)

About checkerboard checkerboards. He has. He's very much an old school. Like I said it. That's enough.

Ryan Lemond (38:20)

I feel like my grandpa was yelling at everybody.

Matt Jones (38:22)

Yeah.

Ryan Lemond (38:23)

And then like an old man just mad.

Matt Jones (38:26)

I. I've had to say to people at UK a lot because they all kind of reflect him. I have said to them, I want to remind you, I don't work for you. By the way. It's a little thing. But let me just give you a final example of why UK Sports is behind in this regard. There was a press conference yesterday introducing the new coach. Question for you. If you had a press conference introducing a new coach, what's the point of doing it? Publicity. What if I told you that unless you were jmi, you couldn't broadcast the press conference. They didn't let any of the TV stations broadcast it. The only one that could do it on radio was the official one, which is ours. But when Louisville does a press conference, they'll let anybody. The whole point is to get it out there press. That's the whole point. The point is publicity. So they had an official press conference where you could only show it live if you were their official station. And guess what? The stream didn't work.

Drew Franklin (39:30)

Nope.

Matt Jones (39:33)

That is ridiculous. And it's the only. Let me tell you something. It's the only school in the country that does that. We are the only school that would call a press. You remember when Cal got hired, that press conference was everywhere. And when we get hired, it's on the JMI stream and then it doesn't work. And by the way, I'll note on the radio, they finished it early and they cut off the last 10 minutes of his talking so we could hear analysis instead of the guy talking. It's ridiculous.

Ryan Lemond (40:04)

Sounds about right.

Matt Jones (40:04)

It's ridiculous. And I hope that this kind of thing changes. But that answer summarized to me why I'm worried now, not so much about the football program I'm excited about. I'm looking forward to talking to this new coach. But why? I'm still worried about the athletics department. That answer to me was the symbol as to why. We'll take a break. Be right back. KSR.

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Matt Jones (43:03)

Techie Sports Radio, 859-280-2287.

Matt Jones (43:08)

Couple people are saying that the, the press conference was on WLEX in Lexington, which it was. That's the official TV station. So again, like that you only get them through the official TV stations, which is my. Which is the same as it being on our station. Look, from a, from a selfish respect, it's great that it's only on the station you're listening to me on now, but from a program perspective, that doesn't help. And again, I'll note, if it's such a great idea, why does no other school in the country do it? We finish 4 and 8 and 5 and 7. And then I get told that what we're doing is brilliant.

Matt Jones (43:48)

I think that, I think if, you know, there are people who say to me, why don't you just trust what he's going to do when we're going 10 and 2, then Ryan I'll trust and not ask questions.

Drew Franklin (43:59)

He is the leader of one of the most powerful entities in our state. They're trying to get us to support it and be behind it. Well, then explain it to us. That is your kind of. Isn't that your duty as the leader to explain why you want us to support your new entity that you've.

Matt Jones (44:15)

When you surround yourself with only people who agree with you or you Only allow entities that agree with you to ask you questions. You become separated from the rest of the world. World. And we see it in politics and we have seen it in sports. That's why I give so much credit to people like Mark Stoops who would come on here after they were critical. When I was critical of Cal, what did he do? Stopped coming on. I'm going to ask Mitch to come on. I hope he will. But the more criticism he's gotten over the years, they've retreated. And I love Tom Leach, but Tom Leach is not going to ask those questions because he's paid by this. But when is the. And then the very few times you get a question from somebody who's not paid by uk, you get that reaction. That's a problem. It just is. And I'm not, I'm not gonna let it ruin the day because Will's gonna be awesome here in a few minutes. But it just is.

Ryan Lemond (45:12)

Leave aside that he doesn't know how to handle it and was clearly unhinged and shaking. That was an opportunity to get more. Like, he's saying it up like, we're good. Stop asking coal miners for 50 bucks if we're so good. That should have been. We're in a great spot, but we can always do better for Will Stein. We got to feed these studs. I like where we're at, but we need to keep this energy going. No, he said it's enough. All right, so we're good. Cut it off. Nobody needs to donate.

Matt Jones (45:35)

Figured out that was a chance to.

Ryan Lemond (45:38)

Ask for more and say we're going to do better. Who wants to anything? Just be like, I'm good. We're done here. No more. Tell us you need more. Say you're working to get more. But it was like, no, everybody shut up.

Matt Jones (45:47)

We're fine. That's a really good point. I hadn't thought about that. Who's next? Shannon? Dave. Dave. Go ahead, Dave.

Ryan Lemond (45:54)

I continue prayers for your dad's speed of recovery, Matt.

Matt Jones (45:57)

Thank you very much, sir.

Ryan Lemond (45:59)

Hey, I know it's a. I know it's a football centric day, but I got a basketball question real quick. Unless I'm missing things, there's literally nothing being said about the injuries, about jq, about low diabate, and there's. There's work going around that the, the diabate thing is that there's some disciplinary issues involved. Hope you've heard something.

Matt Jones (46:19)

And yeah, I don't think I have not heard that it's disciplinary. Beyond just people speculating. I think it's an injury. We saw him go down, you know, so I mean I. It's tough. I mean I will go into the Carolina game at some point. I mean.

Matt Jones (46:38)

You can't lose that game. And then you did. We're just not very good. And that stinks. But we're just not very good.

Ryan Lemond (46:46)

I know with so much excitement and the national championship expectations to just be 03 at this point, none of us considered Owen 3. Some people, you, I can't remember who picked what. Some people probably had us losing the Louisville maybe losing another one, but oh, and three and getting blown out two of them and having a 10 minute scoring drought in the other. It just doesn't get you excited for what.

Matt Jones (47:04)

It's not very good. And I actually had listened to a podcast on my drive to Knoxville where the guy talked about how the, you know, in the NBA they're always looking for the next thing. And the next thing in the NBA right now in offense is offensive rebounds. Basically. If you look at the offensive rebound rate in the NBA, it has exploded this year. Teams like the team that would have led the league in offensive rebounds five years ago is now like 19th. Like offensive rebounds has become the focus and people crash the boards. I thought I listened to that and I go, oh, that's interesting. I'm gonna, I want to look at some of that stats. I want to see how it applies to college basketball. And then I saw that we gave up 22 second chance points to North Carolina.

Drew Franklin (47:46)

They had 20 offensive rebounds, North Carolina.

Matt Jones (47:48)

But basically they were like all this. Essentially what the NBA coaches realized is with so many threes being shot, what do threes lead to? Long rebounds. And the thing to exploit is now you have a better chance of getting offensive rebounds because if you position yourself right, the rebounds coming out longer, better chance to come to the offensive player. And the Houston Rockets specifically have decided offensive rebounding would be their thing. And it's worked amazingly well. And I was like, man, that's really interesting. I wonder if we'll start thinking about that in college. And then 22 offense, 22 second chance points that night to North Carolina. I was like, maybe Hubert Davis, listen to that podcast.

Drew Franklin (48:25)

Poor Malachi was doing everything he could, but man, they were just, they all crashed the glass. That big guy. They've got just big strong butt post player that got every offensive rebound they weren't trying.

Matt Jones (48:36)

I know he likes big butts. He likes it. All right, we will have Will Stein here next on ksr. His first interview returns Kentucky Sports Radio.

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Matt Jones (49:49)

Ah, greetings from my bath festive friends. The holidays are overwhelming, but I'm tackling this season with PayPal and making the most of my money. Getting 5% cash back when I pay in 4. No fees, no interest. I used it to get this portable spa with jets. Now the bubbles can cling to my sculpted but pruney body. Make the most of your money this holiday with PayPal. Save the offer in the app ends 1231.

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See paypal.com points can be redeemed for cash and more.

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Paying for subject to terms and approval.

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