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Speaker 1: This is ESPN fifteen thirty. The University of Kentucky has

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Speaker 1: a new football coach, Will Stein, who is a Kentucky native.

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Speaker 1: His dad played at Kentucky. Will went to Louisville. He

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Speaker 1: replaces Mark Stoops, who had been in Lexington for I

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Speaker 1: think the last thirty five years. Jeff Picoro, color analyst

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Speaker 1: UK football, longtime friend of this show. In this radio

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Speaker 1: station ABC thirty six, and Lexington is with us high pick.

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Speaker 2: How are you, mo? I'm well yourself, I'm great.

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Speaker 3: I am so fun to be on the show with you.

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Speaker 3: And let me just say this, thirdbody can hear us.

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Speaker 3: I'm so happy Tony is back too, because the two

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Speaker 3: of you are fantastic together.

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Speaker 1: Well you and me both. And that's way too kind

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Speaker 1: of you. Why let's before we look ahead, let's look back.

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Speaker 1: Why did things kind of get sideways under Mark Stoops

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Speaker 1: the last couple of years.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, Mo, every job you take, you're always

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Speaker 3: looking to get to better yourself. And I think three

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Speaker 3: years ago, you know, he had one foot out the

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Speaker 3: door to Texas A and M and I think he

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Speaker 3: came back to bite.

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Speaker 2: Him a little bit. And I just I don't know

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Speaker 2: if you say.

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Speaker 3: The fire wasn't there, but it just, you know, I

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Speaker 3: just don't believe you're gonna have guys like Joe Paterno

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Speaker 3: and Wood he hates anymore.

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Speaker 2: That's Stavin. Look at Saban, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, ten twelve, fourteen years.

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Speaker 2: That's about it.

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Speaker 3: At one job, they you know, five years ago, they

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Speaker 3: were ready to build statues for Mark and they were

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Speaker 3: also gonna build a statue for John Caliperi, and then

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Speaker 3: they couldn't wait till they both of them left.

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Speaker 2: It's amazing.

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Speaker 1: Now you're right about that. Will Stein is the guy?

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Speaker 1: Are you excited about this?

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Speaker 3: I am? And because okay, Moller's quarterback, right, Matt Konatowski.

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Speaker 3: He's a four star quarterbacks number twelve, fourteenth in the country.

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Speaker 3: He has said that he has not waivered one bit.

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Speaker 3: He's actually going to be at tomorrow. They're having a

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Speaker 3: big press conference to introduce Stein to everyone, and he

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Speaker 3: said he's going to be there and show his support

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Speaker 3: for his new coach.

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Speaker 2: So that's kind of cool.

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Speaker 1: All right, very good. Why is he the guy?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you could look at the offense that

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Speaker 3: Oregon has. I mean, there are two offenses that are

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Speaker 3: absolutely ridiculous in college football. I'm sure there's a lot more,

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Speaker 3: but you look at Oregon, you look at a higher state.

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Speaker 2: Both of them close to five hundred yards.

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Speaker 3: Two years ago, Oregon's offense averaged over five hundred yards

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Speaker 3: a game. They averaged this year thirty nine points, last

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Speaker 3: year thirty eight.

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Speaker 2: The year before was over forty.

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Speaker 3: So look, in this era of college football, you have

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Speaker 3: to score to win, and I don't mean seventeen points.

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Speaker 3: Those days are gone of seventeen fourteen scores.

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Speaker 2: If you can't.

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Speaker 3: Score twenty eight points in a game, you're not going

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Speaker 3: to win very many. He's an exciting brand. He's a

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Speaker 3: younger guy. He's embraced the nil and the transfer portal,

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Speaker 3: and that's the thing that took you know, you look

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Speaker 3: at all these older coaches who are I.

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Speaker 2: Can't do this. Nick Saban, he's you know, you have

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Speaker 2: thought he coached forever.

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Speaker 3: He just said, I'm not into paying these kids, and

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Speaker 3: you know, uh so, I think it's huge that whatever

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Speaker 3: program you have, be at Cincinnati, Kentucky or USC you've

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Speaker 3: got to have somebody that understands the nuances of now

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Speaker 3: college football.

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Speaker 1: Is does he inherit a roster where he's gonna want

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Speaker 1: most of those guys back.

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Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I think that this is a this is

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Speaker 3: a really good roster that there was one thing here

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Speaker 3: you were, there is two things you're You were very

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Speaker 3: senior oriented, especially in the offensive line, but everywhere else.

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Speaker 3: It was a great sophomore class this year that Stoops

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Speaker 3: brought in two and some three years ago because.

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Speaker 2: A lot of them were also red shirts.

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Speaker 3: He's got a kid like Cutter bowlliet quarterback who's still

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Speaker 3: three more years to play, a great building block, two.

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Speaker 2: Running backs coming back. The weakness is going.

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Speaker 3: To be offensive line, but the defensive line is stout.

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Speaker 3: The secondary is really good. They've got two juco players

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Speaker 3: that have committed and another one yesterday, six twenty five pounders.

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Speaker 2: So it's a pretty good roster. Mote really is.

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Speaker 3: I just think that there was a little staleness around

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Speaker 3: the program and that's gone now and I think there's

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Speaker 3: a lot of excitement. Look, you want to bring somebody

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Speaker 3: in that's going to cite the fan base. And it

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Speaker 3: was between Heartline and Ohio State and Stein that was

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Speaker 3: the final two. And with Heartline, you know that it's

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Speaker 3: just a part time gig for him until Ryan Day

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Speaker 3: leaves and he takes a job at Ohio State, so

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Speaker 3: I'd love to have Heartline here. I think he's a

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Speaker 3: fantastic coach, but a kid like Stein would be here

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Speaker 3: for ten or twelve.

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Speaker 1: Years with Mark Steubs. And look, he had ten win seasons.

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Speaker 1: He accomplished a lot. But it did feel at the

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Speaker 1: end like it was time. After the Louisville game, he

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Speaker 1: was emphatic, I'm not going anywhere. You wouldn't expect him

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Speaker 1: to have, given the fact that you know he'd be

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Speaker 1: leaving a lot of money on the table, but just

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Speaker 1: given what he had done and given that buyout that

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Speaker 1: he's going to get, were you surprised that things went

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Speaker 1: down at the end of the way. They did.

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Speaker 3: Not, particularly because he he and Mitch Barnhardt, the athletic director,

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Speaker 3: sat down and I in his contract if he was terminated,

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Speaker 3: which would have been with Sunday, in his contract with

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Speaker 3: sixty days, they had totained thirty seven point seven million

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Speaker 3: dollars and that was the sticking point. And he went

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Speaker 3: in and I don't know what the final numbers were

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Speaker 3: or the years, but he he I guess, gave in

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Speaker 3: and said, look, we can spread this out. I wanted

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Speaker 3: to make this as amicable as possible. And just today,

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Speaker 3: about thirty minutes ago, well, he put out a really

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Speaker 3: nice statement saying, you know, he thanked the university, all

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Speaker 3: his players, coaches, and Big Blue Nation and you know,

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Speaker 3: blah blah blah. But the key was spreading that out. Now.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if it's ten years.

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Speaker 2: It's still three point seven million a year.

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Speaker 3: That's a pretty good stalary for the next ten years

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Speaker 3: for sitting on.

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Speaker 2: You know, sitting on your back porch and smoking a cigar.

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Speaker 1: I'd like, I'd like to do exactly that with a

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Speaker 1: fracture of that kind of money from an NIL person.

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Speaker 1: And this is the question that gets asked with every

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Speaker 1: job in America, every coach that gets hired. What's the

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Speaker 1: NIL situation? Is it good? Is it where it needs

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Speaker 1: to be? Where's it going to be under the new guy?

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Speaker 2: I think it's good, but not great.

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Speaker 3: And the reason I say that is because you have

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Speaker 3: to remember there's a behemoth here that feeds the Commonwealth

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Speaker 3: and that Kentucky Basketball, and they have to get their share.

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Speaker 3: You know, you know, they only give you twenty million

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Speaker 3: dollars in the SEC, so it's not split fifty to

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Speaker 3: fifty but it's it's a pretty pretty fair amount goes

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Speaker 3: to the basketball team, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean, is there is there a ground

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Speaker 1: swell of support to increase that for football? As will Stein,

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Speaker 1: that is going to be asked about nil, what should

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Speaker 1: this look like realistically moving forward for football?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I think we could talk about this all day. But basically,

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Speaker 3: the twenty million is what is given to you by

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Speaker 3: the NCAA, and then anything outside of that has to

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Speaker 3: be a true nil, meaning you can't just pay a

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Speaker 3: guy money. He has to do a commercial. He has

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Speaker 3: to actually do something supposedly for the money.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: You can't just say here's a car and one hundred

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Speaker 3: thousand dollars come to our school.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: So that's the deal. And and JMI, which is the

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Speaker 3: media outlet for the University of Kentuck.

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Speaker 2: I think lear Field is for Cincinnati. You would know that.

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Speaker 3: But you know, they pay a lot of money and

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Speaker 3: they're the ones that kind of the gatekeeper for NIL.

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Speaker 3: They have a huge collective down here that they take

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Speaker 3: care of. And that's one of the buckets is how

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Speaker 3: do we got twenty how do we fill these other

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Speaker 3: buckets to match that? As it just for instance, you know,

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Speaker 3: Laying Kiffin. Supposedly, Alice you said, we'll give you twenty

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Speaker 3: five million dollars to build a football team.

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Speaker 2: So that's what you're up against.

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Speaker 1: All right, So you got Kentucky and Carolina tonight, and

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Speaker 1: then amid all this, the volleyball team might win a

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Speaker 1: national title, right.

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Speaker 3: Wow, you know that's the thing that's crazy. They're gonna

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Speaker 3: be at home all the way to the Final four

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Speaker 3: as a number one seed and the number two team

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Speaker 3: in the nation.

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Speaker 2: So it's pretty exciting. I don't know if you've ever been.

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Speaker 3: It's really cool to go see in a person, it's

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Speaker 3: it's it's actually a pretty exciting and fun event to

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Speaker 3: go see.

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Speaker 2: But they're good.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, basketball team plays North Carolina tonight at ninet

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Speaker 3: thirty and then they turn around to play gonzag on Friday.

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Speaker 2: It's there.

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Speaker 3: I'll tell you what people wanted them to play this hard,

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Speaker 3: hard schedule. So Mark Posts is sure I'll take anybody. Well,

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Speaker 3: he's lost twice already on national television to Louisville Michigan State.

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Speaker 3: Here's the problem, b You're probably gonna lose four or

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Speaker 3: five games in conference. Right if you lose to North

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Speaker 3: Carolina tonight and possibly to gonzag on Friday. Now you're

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Speaker 3: up against it in trying to get into just get

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Speaker 3: into the Ncity Tournament with all these losses.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and Mark Mark Pope looked like he was looking

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Speaker 1: for a rope after that Michigan State game, which was

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Speaker 1: not encouraging. All right, tell me quickly. You know will

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Speaker 1: Stein's dad pretty well?

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, Matt and I were roommates back then, and

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Speaker 3: Tony will tell you all about this. We had what

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Speaker 3: was supposed to be two a days, but three days

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Speaker 3: we lived. So we lived on campus together in the

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Speaker 3: dorm and he was my roommate my sophomore year. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: he's a great guy. He played defensive end. He's an

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Speaker 3: attorney in Louisville now and still a huge He and

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Speaker 3: his wife both are UK graduates. So it'll be fun

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Speaker 3: to see him tomorrow at the press conference.

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Speaker 1: All right, you have a lot going on. I appreciate

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Speaker 1: the time as always, men, Thanks so much anytime.

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Speaker 2: Oh,