Full Transcript for 11-3-26 - The Mo Egger Radio Show Hour 1

passing grades. Unfortunately, there's an injury question. I am off on Thursday, which was already pre-planned, so we're not going to have Chad on Thursday. So we're moving his typical weekly segment to today. We'll talk some UC basketball, talk some UC football. And looking forward to that. My sincere thank you to Austin Elmore for pinch hitting for me yesterday at Twin Peaks in Florence. It killed me to not be there yesterday. For a few different reasons, not the least of which was that game on Sunday... provided a lot of content. Like, you could have done three hours on that game in and of itself. And I guess a few different ways of looking at it. A, there's no such thing as a bad win in the NFL. And I emphatically and sincerely believe that. No such thing. Winning is hard. Winning in the National Football League, I think, is harder than we give it credit for being. Mechanically, you'd rather be the Bengals than, well, the Baltimore Ravens, who we are going to talk about today. Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, Tee Higgins did their thing on a day where it often looked like Joe and Jamar had just met each other. They find a way to win. They come from behind late. I'll be honest with you. At no point during that game, and I mean this, at no point during that game did I feel like the Bengals were going to lose. You just had a sense that a bad Tennessee team at some point was going to do the wrong thing. And at some point, somebody was going to step up for the Bengals. Dexter Lawrence did. Joe Burrow did. Tee Higgins did. Jamar Chase did. Mike Kosicki did. But you could also look at it through this lens, and I think this is fair. That looked and felt a lot like 2024. And I use 2024 more than last year because last year Joe Burrow didn't play every game, but there certainly were elements of 2025 to that game as well. But the 2024 Bengals won nine games, and Joe Burrow played the full season, and he was an MVP finalist. But the team, it felt like their M.O. that year was, well, we're going to give up a We're not going to have a real plan on offense, but Joe and Jamar and T are going to do a bunch of cool stuff, and that's how we're going to get by. Quarterback's going to take a lot of hits. We're going to give up a lot of points. We're going to give up a lot of yards. We're not going to tackle well. We're not going to cover well. We're going to look like we got our pants down on defense a bunch, but we're going to be fine because Joe, Jamar, and T are going to save us. And it has felt like, I know that's never been their plan. I know they've never sat together in a room. And by the way, let me get this part out of the way. If you're wondering, wait a minute, where's Paul Daner Jr.? He's on his way to Madrid, which is why you don't hear him today. So my apologies for not mentioning that at the top. But it's not like the Bengals for all those years sat around and said, hey, here's what we want to do. Here's the kind of team we want to build. We're not going to stop anybody. We're not going to protect our quarterback. We're not going to tackle well. But we're going to be cool because Joe, Jamar, and T are going to do a bunch of cool stuff. That's not what they planned, but it's what they ended up being. And I think the most disturbing thing about Sunday to me was that script and that look seemed painfully familiar. And you could use that script. You could follow that script to beat the Tennessee Titans. You might be able to follow that script to beat teams that are better than the Tennessee Titans. You cannot follow that script to win a championship. And that's, I hate to say, kind of all that counts right now. I don't think it is far-fetched to suggest that as the standing stand at this moment, that you could pretty much pinpoint what the AFC playoff field is going to be by looking at who's in the top seven right now. And the Cleveland Browns may have... have something to say about that. I don't want to discount that team, despite what happened to them against the Pittsburgh Steelers. I don't think they're easy to play. I think there's the potential, at least, that they've got some stick around in them. But if you just do one through seven, Buffalo, Denver, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Cincinnati. 00:10:18 Speaker 3: New England. 00:10:20 Speaker 2: I think those are the seven AFC playoff teams. I find it hard to take the Baltimore Ravens seriously right now. I find it hard, although I think they're going in the right direction, for this year to take the Las Vegas Raiders seriously right now. The Texans may make it, but that's because they catch Jacksonville, and I don't think they catch Jacksonville. I think the seven AFC playoff teams, for lack of a better way of putting it, are set. And so how do you separate yourself from those other teams, from the other six teams? You don't do it by giving up 1,000 points to the Tennessee Titans. You don't do it by not tackling Tony Pollard. You don't do that by making Cam Ward look like a capable NFL quarterback, and you might go, Mo, it's a one-off, no big deal. But it's not. And, like, that to me was the takeaway on Sunday. Yes, they win. And, yes, they did the right things to win when they had to. And, yes, it's great that you've got a guy like Burrow and a guy like Higgins and a guy like Chase playing. it was funny, right? When it felt like nobody could catch a football, Bengals started throwing the ball to T Higgins and the offense sort of took off from there. But that to me is the takeaway. And so the questions are number one, why are we still watching kind of the same thing, right? Like that look, just the defensive look was very reminiscent of some seasons and some teams that just completely went sideways. And when's this going to get fixed? When's this going to get fixed to the degree that we could finally start talking about the Bengals being bona fide, bona fide legitimate contenders to get to the Super Bowl and win the AFC? 17 minutes

after 3 o'clock. Our lines are open. 00:12:01 Speaker 3: 513-749-1530. 00:12:01 Speaker 2: 866-702-3776. The defensive issues the Bengals showed us on Sunday are not going to be fixed today. by trading for Jonathan Taylor. They're not going to be fixed by trading for Tony Pollard. Not going to be fixed by trading for Brees Hall. So we're a week away from the trade deadline. Obviously, a lot of moves have already been made. Bengals are being written about as one of the teams that have expressed interest in Jonathan Taylor. And Jonathan Taylor makes them better at running back. He doesn't make him better at tackling opposing running backs, however. And so we've got to spend some time on what the approach should be at the deadline. And it cannot be. It simply cannot be. We made our big move back in April because over six months of stuff have happened since. And by the way, the Bengals are where you plan for them to be back in April. So why wouldn't you take another step and go make a move to get a guy or two who could help you rectify the issues we saw play themselves out against the Tennessee Titans. We're going to spend a lot of time on that between now and 5.30. We've got to spend some time on the Baltimore Ravens, who I think we can scrape them off the plate. I hate to do it because of injury, but it's injury. It's the games they've given up. It's the loss to the Bengals. I think the bigger question there is, now what? We've got to spend a little bit of time on that. Bengals off to Madrid today. We're going to go to Madrid coming up. in the 5 o'clock hour. My guy, Taron Bland, producer of this show, big Minnesota Vikings fan, wants the Minnesota Vikings to trade for Joe Flacco. We'll spend a few minutes on that coming up as well. It's 19 after 3 at Moegger. By the way, on Twitter, you can find today's show preview video thanks to Sharefax Credit Union. Sharefax.org. Go there right now. Learn about the benefits of Sharefax Credit Union membership. And you can send a tweet anytime during the show thanks to Delta Dental. We are loaded today. Brendel coming up in about 25 minutes. We've got the UC football game to talk about. The Bearcats down 42-6 at halftime to Utah. I didn't necessarily have UC winning the game as the most prominent spot on my bingo card. I didn't see them being down 36 at halftime either. The first college football playoff ranking of 2026. is going to come out tonight. Easily, that's the biggest news in the United States of America this evening. We've got a little bit of time on that we'll spend as well. Xavier's performance last night. Richard Pitino talked about that. You'll hear that coming up in 15 minutes. We'll get to the UC basketball performance last night, including an injury to a guy that you feel bad for personally, and you wonder what his absence could mean for the team long-term. We'll get to that with Chad coming up in 25 minutes. It's 20 after 3. I'm Mo Egger, thrilled that you're with us today. This is ESPN 1530

Cincinnati Sports Station. 00:15:05 Speaker 4: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. 00:15:08 Speaker 1: Traffic. 00:15:10 Speaker 2: From the UC Health Traffic Center, lung cancer. And 1530 broadcasting from the View. The Lightmore Group here in Mount Adams. If you missed yesterday's Tony and Austin football show. and it's available on the iHeartRadio app. Again, thanks to my guy Austin for pinch-hitting for me yesterday. I listened to that entire show live, and it killed me to not be there, but it was a nice respite from some of the stuff I had been going through. But I, A, appreciate Austin. B, it was a terrific show. If you missed it, go listen to it now. It's available on the iHeartRadio app, podcasts of this show, are a service of Long Necks Sports Grill. We've got folks waiting already. Let's go. Jim in Centerville. You're on ESPN 1530. Jim, good afternoon. How are you? 00:16:04 Speaker 3: I'm good, Mo. 00:16:05 Speaker 5: How are you doing? 00:16:06 Speaker 2: All right, man. What's up? 00:16:08 Speaker 3: You're better. I was afraid you. 00:16:10 Speaker 5: Were going to die there the other day. And then seeing you post from the doctor's office, I was legitimately concerned. 00:16:18 Speaker 2: Well, I'm good. Thank you. But it's good to be back. 00:16:20 Speaker 3: Good. Good. 00:16:23 Speaker 5: Just a quick public service announcement for anyone who goes to the Bengals games. If you're one of those people that whistles like your dad used to whistle at you when you're in trouble, they put their fingers in their mouth and do that really high-pitched squeal. Yeah. I would appreciate it if you just maybe didn't do it every play. We were sitting with some people, and I swear to you, every defensive play, and they kept the whistle going for like 10 seconds straight at each time. And, yeah, we ended up having to move because we couldn't deal with that. 00:17:09 Speaker 3: It was piercing. 00:17:12 Speaker 2: I mean, was it one person? Was it a handful of people? Was it somebody that anybody could say anything to? 00:17:19 Speaker 5: It was one person, and she was next to her daughter, I think, who was yelling something incoherent the whole time. They clearly enjoyed their tailgate. 00:17:31 Speaker 2: Of course. 00:17:32 Speaker 5: But, yeah, literally everybody around us was just looking at each other. 00:17:36 Speaker 3: Like, can we do something about this? 00:17:37 Speaker 2: I don't know. 00:17:39 Speaker 3: I mean, we were cool, but it was piercing. 00:17:44 Speaker 5: I will say the only thing that– Go ahead. 00:17:48 Speaker 2: No, go ahead. 00:17:48 Speaker 3: I was just going to– I'm just going to. 00:17:50 Speaker 5: Say the only thing that you couldn't hear, the only time you couldn't hear her do that was after Dexter Lawrence's sack. 00:18:01 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:18:03 Speaker 5: And I'll tell you, that overtime, the crowd won the game for the Bengals. 00:18:08 Speaker 3: The crowd, I. 00:18:09 Speaker 5: Know Joe Burrow, yeah, he scored the touchdown, but they had to call two timeouts right there because the. 00:18:16 Speaker 3: Crowd was so loud. 00:18:19 Speaker 5: That even if they'd made that fourth down conversion, they would have gone with no timeout and probably had four or five false starts and never. 00:18:27 Speaker 3: Gotten past the 50. 00:18:29 Speaker 5: It was so incredible. 00:18:30 Speaker 3: Listen to that. 00:18:31 Speaker 5: That was the noise I appreciated from that game. 00:18:36 Speaker 2: That's good noise. I'll tell you this. I was not able to go on Sunday because of not feeling well, but I was texting with the folks who sit with me, and one of them got shushed. Where, you know, everybody expects the crowd to be, understandably so, the crowd to be quiet when the offense is working. And I guess somebody who we sit with made like a room voice remark about something. I don't know. And it wasn't yelling. And like the person behind him shushed him. As if the difference between Joe Burrow being able to operate the offense was my friend saying something like, hey, before we leave, I have to go to the bathroom. So. 00:19:17 Speaker 5: Yeah, you're in the 300s too, I think. And that's where we were. And I guarantee you, I haven't watched the TV video or replay of that game, but I guarantee you would be able to hear this whistle. 00:19:33 Speaker 3: It was so loud. 00:19:38 Speaker 5: It's abusive I mean my goodness to hear that I still can't hear right because. 00:19:44 Speaker 2: Of that You know, I love a raucous crowd. I do think you have to be cognizant of how what you're doing impacts other people. And I think over the course of a three-hour football game, it's usually pretty easy to tell, like, okay, am I annoying people? And I can't imagine making that noise and not thinking, huh, Maybe I'm annoying some of the people near me. Perhaps I should stop doing this. 00:20:11 Speaker 5: Everyone was looking at each other and looking at her. We weren't shying away from trying to make her feel guilty. But, I mean, we should send her into a cave to find terrorists. I mean, that's the kind of people that need to go. They need to enlist in the armed forces and just be able to, like, scare people out of places. 00:20:34 Speaker 2: Well, for your sake, I hope next Sunday night she's not there. 00:20:40 Speaker 5: Amen, brother. 00:20:41 Speaker 2: Jim, thanks. 00:20:43 Speaker 3: Take care. 00:20:44 Speaker 2: Crowd and overtime certainly did seem awesome, I should say. We'll get to that. Sports headlines coming up. We'll talk about one of the area college basketball programs and how their season started with a bang last night. Next, ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 00:20:59 Speaker 4: Not just talk. This is sports with soul, sweat, and swagger. Tony Pike's Cincy 360. Tomorrow at 12 noon on ESPN 1530. Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. 00:21:14 Speaker 1: Traffic. From the UC Health Traffic Center. 00:21:18 Speaker 2: Sports headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet, home of

Lifetime, powertrain protection, and guaranteed credit approval from their family to yours for life. kelseyshev.com. Bengals made it official. Cassius Howe goes on IR after having wrist surgery. Team off to Madrid today. Taking on the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. Live on ESPN 1530. That game will start at 9.30 Sunday morning. College basketball tonight. Kentucky will host Manhattan in the season opener for Big Blue. Tip off at 7 pregame. 5.30 on ESPN 1530. Tonight, the initial college football playoff rankings of 2026 will be revealed. Expected to be ranked, the Kentucky Wildcats and the Indiana Hoosiers possibly ranked, and I believe that when I say ranked, in the top 10 Ohio State. We will see. I think they're the most interesting team to talk about tonight because How much do you weigh what's happening at quarterback versus what they've put on film, the resume? How much do you factor in how they performed against USC on Saturday night? We will find out. The Scott Satterfield Radio Show is also tonight. That's at 8 p.m. from the original Montgomery Inn on 700. WLW. Tons of college troops from last night. Brendel and I are going to talk about the Bearcat game in just a few minutes. It was a smashing debut for Richard Pitino's team. The Musketeers, Taryn and I were just talking about this, ball game over by the first time out. The Musketeers jumped out against Mount St. Mary's to a 13-zip lead. Never looked back. 00:22:56 Speaker 6: 97-52. 00:22:59 Speaker 2: There was a ton of great defensive pressure by the Musketeers. It was 39-5 with about four minutes to go, and I literally wondered, is Mount St. Mary's going to get to 20 points? Scored in lots of different ways, showed, I think, the ability to play a lot of different ways, and you typically don't hear coaches after the first game sound as effusive in their praise of their team as Richard Pitino did after the game last night. 00:23:30 Speaker 6: Well, I mean, I thought it was a terrific performance all around. I think besides a couple of the minutes in the second half, that was about as complete of a performance as we've had since I've been here. The defense in the first half, the unselfishness, 26 assists on 35 made field goals. We were relentless on the offensive glass. So besides a couple of minutes in the beginning of the second half, there's not a whole lot to complain from. So All three exhibition games were very valuable and certainly played great tonight. 00:24:07 Speaker 2: Xavier, his assessment, dead on. I don't know that there's an area that they didn't excel last night. Rebounding, defense, passing the ball, shooting from outside, getting to the rim. You can only do so much with a season-opening victory if it's not against a high major. Hard to not walk away from that game last night. Overwhelmingly impressed. by the Xavier Musketeers. In the field of 64, opening day marathon, NKU wins. Willie Foster, 24-10. The Norse get off to a great start, beating UTEP, 84-76. Miami University

came back. Luke Skalczak, 19, come back to beat James Madison, 86-77. They've now won 31 of their past 32 regular season games with a victory in Harrisonburg, West Virginia last night. The Bearcat game last night, I think mostly a smashing success. There's an injury issue we have to talk about. Chair Brendel will join us to talk about that when we come back. We're broadcasting from The View in Mount Adams on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 00:25:14 Speaker 4: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. 00:25:16 Speaker 1: Traffic. 00:25:18 Speaker 2: 13 from 4. This is ESPN 1530. Mo Egger broadcasting from The View in Mount Adams. Typically on Thursdays. We talk UC sports with our guy, Chad Brendel, barricadejournal.com. I am off on Thursday, pre-planned off day, not something last minute. And so we're not going to get a chance to talk to Chad, but there is lots to discuss. UC basketball season opening victory last night, the UC football game. And Chad and I look forward to spending a lot of time with each other in Houston this weekend. He is here now. We're doing it on Tuesday. Hi, Chad. 00:25:52 Speaker 3: I don't know. 00:25:53 Speaker 7: I'm researching dining establishments near the hotel today. 00:25:59 Speaker 2: So, for those who don't know, with Dan Hoard and Tony Pike in Madrid, the UC football broadcast on Saturday will be handled by yours truly and Chad, with Chad handling color, which means, my friend, talk as much as you want. 00:26:15 Speaker 7: I mean, there is one thing that's unknown in this situation, Mo, and that is that I talk a lot. 00:26:22 Speaker 3: So I think we'll make it work. 00:26:24 Speaker 2: I think we will. I'm looking forward to it. Jared Calhoun called his team's offensive performance embarrassing. 00:26:32 Speaker 7: I get it. 00:26:33 Speaker 2: Coaches have really high standards. There were some things I didn't love. I thought his grading was a little harsh. How about you? 00:26:40 Speaker 7: For his expectations, I'm not surprised. They were taking rushed shots. They were taking guarded shots. They were taking kind of wild attempts at the rim that they. 00:26:54 Speaker 3: Get counted as layups. I don't know that I would count them. 00:26:56 Speaker 7: As layups because they were not what I have seen from this team, from the Bahamas to the three exhibition games to the practices that I've been to. 00:27:07 Speaker 6: He. 00:27:09 Speaker 7: Expects a higher standard of how they execute offensively. 00:27:12 Speaker 3: That was not up to his standard. 00:27:14 Speaker 7: So I wasn't surprised, but my favorite line was I was watching, you know, watching all the clips at halftime and I wanted to vomit in. 00:27:25 Speaker 3: A trash can. Like, geez, coach, that's aggressive. 00:27:31 Speaker 2: I don't know. A little much, but, but yeah, I look, I've seen a lot of offenses that have made me want to do that. That was not it last night. What was your sort of 30,000-foot takeaway from the game? 00:27:46 Speaker 3: Really good second half. 00:27:47 Speaker 7: You could tell there were some jitters. 00:27:50 Speaker 3: I also think, and Jared. 00:27:52 Speaker 7: Won't point to this, but losing Jaden Hastings immediately, like the first possession of the game, Eastings is their most vocal guy, especially on defense. He's the guy that at the back of that defense is kind. 00:28:05 Speaker 3: Of frustrating everything. And when you lose. 00:28:09 Speaker 7: Him right from the jump, I thought their defense was impacted by that. The other thing that was wild, Mo, he said in his post-game press conference, and how many times over the last 35 years or whatever have we heard, we would have just played better on defense. 00:28:27 Speaker 3: We would have been better on offense. 00:28:30 Speaker 7: Jared Calhoun said, if we would have just been better on offense, we would have been better on defense. 00:28:37 Speaker 3: And it was a shock to my core. 00:28:40 Speaker 7: I got shivers down my spine when he said that because it is such a direct 180 from everything we've heard. And what he meant was, if we score... we can set up the press. We can set up our defense. We can be more intentional defensively where we're not scoring and teams are just coming down and, you know, kind of the way American, they wanted to grind the shot clock and, and, you know, run a bunch of sets. 00:29:07 Speaker 3: And he wanted to keep them from doing that. 00:29:09 Speaker 7: So it was a, it was a culture shock to hear a coach take the exact opposite stance on. 00:29:18 Speaker 3: Efficiency on both ends of the floor. 00:29:20 Speaker 2: I'll ask you about Jaden Hastings here in a second. Here's what I like, and you can speak to this. This is last night. This is a reflection of the three exhibition games. I like how they look coming out of timeouts. And to me, that says something about what's going on in the huddle. That says something about everybody's level of attentiveness. That says something about, you know... things are being clearly communicated. Maybe the things that are being prioritized in the huddle. And they don't score every single time, but I feel like in their first offensive possession, even if they don't have the ball coming out of the dead ball, I always feel like, and I saw it last night, they get good looks. 00:29:57 Speaker 7: Mo, I think a lot of that can be attributed to, and I think defensively they look generally pretty good coming out of timeouts as well. 00:30:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. 00:30:05 Speaker 7: That's the result of having offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators, right? Because what happens in those huddles? If it's coming out of, you know, the other team's got the ball, one of the defensive coordinators is going to be with the team and say, hey, this is what. 00:30:19 Speaker 3: We're looking to accomplish. 00:30:21 Speaker 7: And then offensively, I know Max Bent is kind of the. 00:30:27 Speaker 3: The guru of those. 00:30:29 Speaker 7: Out-of-bounds,

sideline out, baseline out, whatever plays, and he's able to get those guys, sit them down and. 00:30:35 Speaker 3: Say, hey, this is what we're going to run, this is what we want to do, and they. 00:30:39 Speaker 7: Are generally beautifully drawn up. You're going to get, it feels like, two or three times a game, it's an easy, easy basket out of a timeout because of something that they drew up in the huddle. 00:30:54 Speaker 2: What can you tell me about Jaden Hastings? 00:30:58 Speaker 7: I mean, it didn't look good, especially the second time where you know they didn't just throw him back out. 00:31:04 Speaker 3: I know a lot of people are upset that he went back out there. 00:31:07 Speaker 7: Cincinnati's got one of the best training staffs in the country, one of the best processors in the country. 00:31:14 Speaker 3: They tested that thing. 00:31:15 Speaker 7: They made sure that they were comfortable with him going back out there, and then it slipped back out. 00:31:22 Speaker 3: That's a little bit. 00:31:23 Speaker 7: Concerning about the structural– nature of his shoulder right now. My guess, we're not going to see him Wednesday or Thursday, excuse me. Wouldn't be surprised if they even maybe kind of held him out for a little while to try to get that thing back to as healthy as they can possibly get it. It's terrifying because If you had asked me at our college basketball spectacular a week ago, who is the guy that they can least afford to play without, Hastings would have been one of the first names out of my mouth. 00:32:07 Speaker 3: I don't know this for sure, but. 00:32:10 Speaker 7: The way that that went down, you have to think at least there's going to be a little bit of time where they're going to want to rest that and try to let it recover. Now they're going to have to learn how to play without him here for at least the very short-term future, I would think. Hopefully it's nothing long-term. I'm guessing we probably won't get any concrete news on that until we hear. 00:32:31 Speaker 3: From Jared on Thursday. 00:32:34 Speaker 2: Have you ever met Doug Gottlieb? 00:32:37 Speaker 3: No, but I have not liked him for a long time. 00:32:39 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:32:41 Speaker 3: He's kind of smug. It comes off as kind of smug, and that's not. 00:32:51 Speaker 7: Really my, you know, it's not a personality fit with me. I'm not a big fan of Doug. 00:33:00 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:33:03 Speaker 2: So I don't know him, but I have communicated with him via DM. And this was back when he was one of us. He was a radio show host. 00:33:11 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:33:12 Speaker 2: And he was very kind. And so I'm hoping to say hi in person to Doug Gottlieb on Thursday. 00:33:19 Speaker 7: Hopefully he's a lot nicer in person than he comes off on some of his TV and radio stuff. 00:33:25 Speaker 3: He doesn't do anything anymore, does he? 00:33:27 Speaker 2: He does not, no. I'm in the minority. I thought he was a good national sports talk radio host. What

you can tell I'm doing here is I'm trying to avoid talking about what it felt to be down 42-6 at halftime on Saturday night. 00:33:44 Speaker 3: I don't want to talk about that either. 00:33:45 Speaker 7: I got in trouble for what I had to say when they were down 42 to six at halftime on Saturday. So, you know, I'm trying to behave myself as well. 00:33:53 Speaker 3: That was bad. 00:33:55 Speaker 7: It was complete system failure. They couldn't get off the field on third down defensively, which was my number one concern that game. And boy, if that was a concern last week, I know I was like, oh, well, Utah was, like, number six in the country in third downs on offense, third down conversions. 00:34:18 Speaker 3: I was like, well, it can't be. 00:34:19 Speaker 7: Houston's got to be worse than that, right? 00:34:23 Speaker 3: No, they're first. 00:34:24 Speaker 7: Houston converts 60% of their third downs. That's my biggest concern with this defense is being able to get off the field. 00:34:30 Speaker 3: They did it in the second half. They were good at it against Texas Tech. They were good in. 00:34:35 Speaker 7: The first half against West Virginia, terrible in the second half against West Virginia. So it's kind of, you know, Jekyll and Hyde on... what this team is going to be on third down. They were terrible on third down. And then you throw in the, the two, you know, defensive scores and, you know, Houston had four, Utah had four possessions and they scored six touchdowns. And last I checked, that's pretty rare. That doesn't happen a whole lot. Uh, it was, it's the, the first thing that came to mind was that South Florida game in 2015, when it was 51 to seven or whatever. 00:35:10 Speaker 2: It was at halftime, 51 to three. 00:35:12 Speaker 3: And then the, 51-3. 00:35:13 Speaker 7: And then the other one was the bowl game in Hawaii that I think I watched for about six minutes and changed channels. It's the only time I remember in my 20 years of doing this where I was like, I'm not doing it. I'm not watching this bowl game in Hawaii that doesn't mean anything when it looks this bad. It looked that bad the first half on Saturday. 00:35:39 Speaker 2: They just seemed... And I don't know if this is a function of, look, we've seen extremes with how bad they were against West Virginia and then extremes with how good they were against Texas Tech. It felt to me like maybe this is a stupid way of looking at things. Utah's offense is so hard to prepare for that Cincinnati didn't prepare for the basics. And so they looked a step slow on Saturday. 00:36:07 Speaker 7: It looked like, and they do some weird stuff, don't get me wrong. Their ability to, like, move the eyes of a defense and then do something directly counter-opposite to what they're showing you was, I was really, really, like, I called, when they played Illinois, I said that Illinois' offense was like basketball porn. Watching the Utah offense was like the football version of that The way that they got you looking this way. I mean, they were having Dampier, like, sprint. Like, he was going to, like, speed option and then stop on a dime and drop three steps back into, like, a passing set. Like, Cincinnati did a bad job identifying what Utah was. 00:36:54 Speaker 3: Trying to accomplish. 00:36:55 Speaker 7: And Utah has, like, I don't know why more teams don't do this, Mel. Utah, the big guys are huge, right? 00:37:03 Speaker 8: Mm-hmm. 00:37:05 Speaker 3: And the fast guys are really fast. So you have that combination. 00:37:10 Speaker 7: A lot of teams, they're smaller and faster, or they're bigger and slower. Utah was like, okay, our big guys are really, really big, and then our fast guys are really, really fast. 00:37:20 Speaker 3: And I would recruit that way. 00:37:22 Speaker 7: I think that's a pretty smart way to build a football team. 00:37:26 Speaker 3: All right. 00:37:29 Speaker 2: Makes sense. I appreciate you adjusting your schedule for me, as always. We'll see you Thursday. 00:37:34 Speaker 3: Whatever you need, and I can't wait. 00:37:37 Speaker 7: I was trying to get us, like, I guess when you guys travel, it's you, Dan, and Tony in a row. And I was trying to organize to where maybe we could get that middle seat, like, empty. But I'm told that there's no– I was told there was a 0% chance there's enough room on that plane for there being an empty seat in our row. 00:38:01 Speaker 3: But I tried. 00:38:02 Speaker 2: Well, appreciate your effort. Looking forward to it. Will be fun. And we'll have a blast calling that game. Chad, thanks so much. 00:38:08 Speaker 3: Appreciate you. 00:38:10 Speaker 2: Chad Brendel, BearcatJournal.com. Coming up on 4 o'clock, ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 00:38:16 Speaker 3: This is SportsZenner. 00:38:21 Speaker 1: I'm Christine Lisi. This just in. 00:38:22 Speaker 9: The Ravens named rookie quarterback Joe Fignano. Their starter Thursday against Jacksonville. Lamar Jackson's on his way to IR. He'll have surgery on his injured right thumb. Tyler Huntley is out with a toe injury. Some interesting comments today from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on 105.3 The Fan. Said he believes the defense is improving and focused on necessary adjustments to get better. Also voiced optimism about the overall team's general direction. 00:38:46 Speaker 1: ESPN's Dan Graziano, not so sure about that. 00:38:49 Speaker 10: Are you going to go to the playoffs and do anything as the Dallas Cowboys this year with this defense? You just lost a double-digit fourth-quarter lead to Cardinals backups. 00:38:57 Speaker 1: I understand the. 00:38:58 Speaker 10: Cowboys want to believe they've put together a good roster that can compete, and it's hard to give that up when you convince yourself of it, but there's nothing that this defense is showing that makes you think they're close. 00:39:08 Speaker 1: Dan Graziano out on Sportsmanlike. 00:39:10 Speaker 9: As the clock continues to tick toward the expiration of MLB's current CBA, big change for Major League Baseball's labor deal proposal. Instead of instantly implementing a salary cap in 2027, it would postpone it until 2028. 00:39:21 Speaker 1: The reason? The difficulty of teams navigating free agency amid the current uncertainty. 00:39:27 Speaker 2: Hey, it's Evan Cohen. 00:39:28 Speaker 8: Coming up Wednesday, we'll react to the release of the first official college football rankings. Plus, we'll look ahead to the best weekend of the college football season. Hey, it's out sportsman likes to Tammy Stern right here on ESPN Radio, ESPN 2 and ESPN News. 00:39:48 Speaker 1: Your one stop for advertising? 00:39:50 Speaker 3: Call 844-845-8000.