Speaker 1: It's really easy to sit around and talk about what's wrong,
Speaker 1: So why don't we do it for a second. You
Speaker 1: and I were just talking before we press record about
Speaker 1: a lot of the calendar related stuff, and there's this
Speaker 1: senate build that they're trying to push right now. Some
Speaker 1: parts of it I like, some parts of it I
Speaker 1: don't like.
Speaker 2: But the whole.
Speaker 1: Concept of what they're calling the Lane Kiffin rule, which
Speaker 1: is painting this negative light on coaches who move before
Speaker 1: the season's over, which is not ideal to me, ignores
Speaker 1: the whole problem in the room, which is the calendar,
Speaker 1: which is why the coaches are moving when they're moving,
Speaker 1: And so everyone's got thoughts on how you fix the calendar.
Speaker 1: But you've lived it, like you've been involved in searches
Speaker 1: while the season's going on. You are a current head coach,
Speaker 1: describe the current state of the college football calendar.
Speaker 3: To me, it's a hodgepodge. It's all put together, and
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of things that were without
Speaker 3: looking into the unintended consequences. I think Joan Bos just
Speaker 3: have to get back to the roots and the big thing, Josh,
Speaker 3: I think got to move the season up. Football has
Speaker 3: always been a one semester sport, and now we're sitting
Speaker 3: where the championship game is the twenty sixth. And the
Speaker 3: thing I don't feel good about is I just think
Speaker 3: the College Football Playoff is deeply affected by coaching changes,
Speaker 3: and those coaching changes are necessitated because of the transfer portal.
Speaker 3: And I know you love banging on the group of
Speaker 3: six teams getting killed. Well, I think part of it
Speaker 3: is they had a big distractions because you have some
Speaker 3: wrong going to Florida and you have Chesney going to UCLA,
Speaker 3: and that's a big distraction. Yeah, just like it was
Speaker 3: it Oh Miss, just like it was at Oregon with
Speaker 3: their coordinators leaving. So I think the more we can
Speaker 3: get our season moved up and finished and then have
Speaker 3: time for the transfer portal per second semester, the better.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The one thing I guess if I had some commentary
Speaker 1: on like G five G six, the caliber of your
Speaker 1: average G five G six playoff contender today to me
Speaker 1: pales in comparison to maybe the quality you would have
Speaker 1: had Boise two thousands of UCF mid twenty teens, which
Speaker 1: is where another part of the Senate bill is kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. Where you sit in your shoes right now.
Speaker 1: It's this great catch twenty two. Like if you guys
Speaker 1: go play Michigan week one and a guy jumps off
Speaker 1: the screen, you're happy because you had a guy kill
Speaker 1: it that day, but you also know there's a thing
Speaker 1: called the transfer portal.
Speaker 2: I may be seeing the very last.
Speaker 3: Of him in the new Mexico uniform, but.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, if we live in a rule
Speaker 1: where you got five years to play five, but you
Speaker 1: also have only one penalty free transfer, I don't think
Speaker 1: enough people are paying attention to what that could do
Speaker 1: to fortify G five rosters to where you're not constantly
Speaker 1: having a look over.
Speaker 2: Your shoulder worried man. We're having too much success. Our
Speaker 2: entire roster is going to get gutted.
Speaker 3: No question. And you see it a lot in our
Speaker 3: league right now. You know UNLV's quarterback. Last year, Calandria
Speaker 3: started at Virginia, kind of came back to the UNLV,
Speaker 3: had a great year, and now he's at Nebraska. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we had Dorian Thomas who had a great year for US,
Speaker 3: had the great game against Michigan last year. I had
Speaker 3: transferred here from Arizona. Now he's at cal So you're
Speaker 3: seeing that quite a bit. That would be a very
Speaker 3: good change. And you know, again, I think probably to
Speaker 3: do something still with the head coaches. If head coaches
Speaker 3: leave to give the guys out, I think that's something
Speaker 3: they got to look at as well. But I think
Speaker 3: that'd be a positive change.
Speaker 1: When you've been involved with your name being mentioned, which
Speaker 1: is not going to stop as long as you have success,
Speaker 1: so it's like a really good first world problem. But
Speaker 1: when you've been involved with the concept that my season's
Speaker 1: not over, people are coming after me, and balancing the
Speaker 1: responsibility to your team. You want to be honest with
Speaker 1: your staff, you want to be honest with your family,
Speaker 1: but then you also want to maintain like the integrity
Speaker 1: of the competitive.
Speaker 3: Edge that you want to have.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a perfect way to handle it.
Speaker 1: What's the best way you found to handle it?
Speaker 3: Well, a couple of things I think of that. You know, One,
Speaker 3: you end up doing stuff late at night that becomes
Speaker 3: the answer. It's yeah, I can, I can talk to you,
Speaker 3: but it's got to be tonight after thirty after I
Speaker 3: finished the responsibilities of my team, and then I spend
Speaker 3: a lot of time talking with their team about it.
Speaker 3: As well, because I do think coaches and players are
Speaker 3: in the same situations now, you know, whether it's agents
Speaker 3: reaching out to our players and trying to tell them
Speaker 3: about their opportunities are out there. You know. The nice
Speaker 3: thing is that I was having an agent is you
Speaker 3: don't have to deal with it personally. You know another
Speaker 3: person dealing with you. But I I just try to
Speaker 3: tell our players and our coaches if we had to
Speaker 3: keep our focus on what we're doing our job at hand,
Speaker 3: and by doing that, you'll create value for yourself in
Speaker 3: the future. If you start worrying about other stuff and
Speaker 3: getting distracted, your product that you're putting out on a
Speaker 3: daily basis is not going to be as good and
Speaker 3: you're not going to create as much value for yourself.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's times, you know, it's nice in
Speaker 3: college football at the FBS level where you have that
Speaker 3: little break between bowl games or between the playoffs where
Speaker 3: you have some time down pack. I think that was
Speaker 3: trickier at the FCS level when I was an FCS
Speaker 3: coach because you go right for the regular season into
Speaker 3: the playoffs. You know, so when you're dealing with it
Speaker 3: with jobs or the portal, that gets really crazy. You know,
Speaker 3: we had a player Andrew Marshall starts at Nebraska now
Speaker 3: at Idaho who was ready to go, and he had
Speaker 3: a great game against Oregon in twenty twenty four of
Speaker 3: the first game, and that was the same thing. I
Speaker 3: kind of knew, a we're probably not gonna have this guy,
Speaker 3: and he knew we wanted to move on, and yeah,
Speaker 3: we had a big talk. That was when the portal
Speaker 3: open in December, so it was even more of a mess.
Speaker 3: You know, he wanted to try to go in day
Speaker 3: one and I just kind of told him, hey, and
Speaker 3: I talked to his parents. I said, we can't have
Speaker 3: you go in day one and still play for us,
Speaker 3: because I just think it's it puts too much pressure
Speaker 3: on you now and our staff. If you have one
Speaker 3: bad play, it's while you're distracted going in. I said,
Speaker 3: I'll try to help. You'll call these coaches, try to
Speaker 3: help you find a spot. But we needed to go
Speaker 3: in right after our last game. And it's tricky.
Speaker 1: A lot of times when we're talking about the coaching
Speaker 1: carousel season, the majority of the conversation is on the
Speaker 1: big jobs, like if Florida's open, everyone's got an opinion
Speaker 1: on the University of Florida head football job. But it
Speaker 1: also if you're in the running for the New Mexico
Speaker 1: job or the Idaho job, far less spotlight is put
Speaker 1: on those jobs. Therefore, far less people have opinions of
Speaker 1: those places. Far less people of notoriety had experience at
Speaker 1: those places. So like, sometimes, so when you're trying to
Speaker 1: feel a place out that you've never been, how do
Speaker 1: you get a scouting report? Like how do you figure
Speaker 1: out what New Mexico is about? Sight unseen?
Speaker 2: Really? For you before you take this job us.
Speaker 3: Your network, you know, I talked to coaches who had
Speaker 3: been here before. Kevin Cosgrove was a great resource for me.
Speaker 3: He was a retired coach now, but he was a
Speaker 3: decordinator when I was a player at Wisconsin and spent
Speaker 3: eight years here on Bob Davy staff. And I've probably
Speaker 3: talked about six or seven coaches who'd been here. You know.
Speaker 3: TCU was playing in the New Mexico Bowl that year,
Speaker 3: and uh, there there. GM is a friend of mine,
Speaker 3: Ryan Dorchester, and so he was here like on his
Speaker 3: site visit for the New Mexico Bowl game. And I
Speaker 3: told him, yeah, take pictures when you go through all
Speaker 3: the facilities. Me send me what these facilities look like,
Speaker 3: So you got to research it. But again, you're trying
Speaker 3: a lot of times is having those conversations, uh you
Speaker 3: at night after you finished practice, after you watch the tape,
Speaker 3: and now you're you're trying to do that. So I
Speaker 3: get the distractions. I see why you know. I'm sure
Speaker 3: will Stein and uh Tash got no sleep during that
Speaker 3: time where you're trying to get ready for the college
Speaker 3: football playoff and you're also working putting things together at
Speaker 3: a new head job.
Speaker 2: You're entering your second year here.
Speaker 1: You've been a head coach since twenty twenty two, which
Speaker 1: means you're still brand new on a lot.
Speaker 2: Of people's radars. Like there are very very.
Speaker 1: Huge chunks of the college football public that know of
Speaker 1: Jason Eck only recently. But pres is behind his camera
Speaker 1: over here. He was born in nineteen ninety eight. You
Speaker 1: started coaching in nineteen ninety nine, so like you've been
Speaker 1: you've been coaching throughout the entire adult lives of some
Speaker 1: of our staff here. And what I want to know is, like,
Speaker 1: how weird is it sometimes to know your entire journey?
Speaker 1: And there's like a laundry list of places you've worked
Speaker 1: and then still to be aware that I'm like a
Speaker 1: new commodity, Like the concept of me as a coach
Speaker 1: is still new to most people, and they're talking to
Speaker 1: you like trying to get to know you. You know, I've
Speaker 1: been around for a long time.
Speaker 3: Guys. One of my mentors helped me out who he
Speaker 3: was an administrator, but he texted me that, you know,
Speaker 3: we had some success as a head coach. You're you're
Speaker 3: a twenty five year in the making overnight success. But
Speaker 3: I learned a lot. I had twenty three years as
Speaker 3: an assistant coach. I mean there's a lot of times
Speaker 3: in my career I don't think i'd be a head coach,
Speaker 3: and I think everything that I kind of went through
Speaker 3: and I went through a lot of coaching changes when
Speaker 3: I was an assistant I worked for in twenty three
Speaker 3: years as an assistant coach, I worked for twelve different
Speaker 3: head coaches. But you learn a lot. You learn a
Speaker 3: lot through the way. You see how to do things,
Speaker 3: see how not to do things. You take a little
Speaker 3: bit from everybody along the way, and I think it
Speaker 3: put me in a position where when I finally did
Speaker 3: get the opportunity, I was I was ready to take
Speaker 3: advantage of that.
Speaker 1: You know you mentioned at some point you never knew
Speaker 1: if you'd be a head coach. Some guys who are
Speaker 1: current head coaches, if you ask them, they'll tell you
Speaker 1: my goal from day one was to be a head coach.
Speaker 1: I always thought I'd be a head coach. Other guys
Speaker 1: are like, honestly, this is not how it started for me.
Speaker 1: This is what it evolved into. Did you always from
Speaker 1: day one in nineteen ninety nine, I think, man, I'm
Speaker 1: I'll be a head coach? Or was there like an
Speaker 1: inflection point where all of a sudden it became real
Speaker 1: for you this this may be a possibility and it's
Speaker 1: something I could see myself doing.
Speaker 3: I was not that way, you know. I thought, maybe
Speaker 3: be an offensive line coach, trying to you know, move
Speaker 3: up the ranks, be a power power four, power five
Speaker 3: at that time, to get to the NFL and be
Speaker 3: an offensive line coach. I think that was more of
Speaker 3: my goal earlier in my career. Jim Huber, who I
Speaker 3: played for at Wisconsin, you know, had a great career
Speaker 3: as an online coach, spend a little time with the
Speaker 3: NFL at the end of his career and then you
Speaker 3: know John Stifelmeyer, who I worked for at South Dakota State,
Speaker 3: great head coach. I spent six years with him. Him
Speaker 3: and coach Alvarez were the two coaches I spent the
Speaker 3: most time with. And he told me after my first
Speaker 3: year there, he goes, I think you'd be a very
Speaker 3: good head coach. And he was the first person who
Speaker 3: really ever said that to me. And I think that's
Speaker 3: something I remember a lot with our players because the
Speaker 3: power of belief. I think when you show a belief
Speaker 3: in someone. I think that kind of changed the way
Speaker 3: I thought about things. And I'm glad he said that
Speaker 3: to me. I'm thankful for that because they got me
Speaker 3: thinking about it. And I really enjoyed being a head
Speaker 3: coach now because it's scary when you go into it.
Speaker 3: It's so different being a coordinator, so different being a
Speaker 3: position coach. Being a head coach is so different than
Speaker 3: being a coordinator. And I think there's a little nerves
Speaker 3: like it. Am I gonna be good at this? Am
Speaker 3: I gonna like it? And I found out that I
Speaker 3: like it, and my family likes it, and I'm pretty
Speaker 3: good at it.
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned something that triggered something to me
Speaker 1: because I you know, there, I assume most people watching
Speaker 1: this right now can identify with having self doubt or
Speaker 1: at least uncertainty about self and someone you respect showing
Speaker 1: more belief in you than you have in yourself, or
Speaker 1: maybe claiming they see something in you that you don't
Speaker 1: see in yourself at that time, because you never forget
Speaker 1: those people, No, you never forget those moments. Now as
Speaker 1: you get a little older, like you said, when you
Speaker 1: reflect on them, then you start seeking out the opportunity
Speaker 1: to do that with younger people. And I imagine like
Speaker 1: that happening with you has to impact the way that
Speaker 1: you interact with players or maybe even young coaches on
Speaker 1: a day to.
Speaker 3: Day, no question. And I've seen the power that the
Speaker 3: power of building belief in people, and I think that's
Speaker 3: maybe one of the best things they do as a
Speaker 3: head coaches get get people to believe, even though you
Speaker 3: know it might not be a you know, rational thought
Speaker 3: to say, we can go compete with Oregon when you're
Speaker 3: an FCS school, or you can beat UCLA when you're
Speaker 3: you know, you've been playing football here one hundred years
Speaker 3: and you've never beat a Big ten team. But when
Speaker 3: you build that belief in getting them in that right mindset,
Speaker 3: special things can happen.
Speaker 1: The u c l A game last year sort of
Speaker 1: slapped a lot of people in the face. It was
Speaker 1: one of those games where New Mexico is going to
Speaker 1: play u c l A.
Speaker 2: When people are like mapping out their Saturday.
Speaker 1: Most people probably didn't say I'm gonna end up focused
Speaker 1: on this New Mexico u c l A game And
Speaker 1: they're watching whatever game they're watching, and then that score
Speaker 1: starts flashing across the bottom line. You're like, Oh, New
Speaker 1: Mexico got out to a good start. Wow, they're pulling away. Wow,
Speaker 1: this is a blowout in the Rose Bowl. How impactful
Speaker 1: was that day for you? How impactful was it for
Speaker 1: the program?
Speaker 3: Oh? It was huge. It was huge for the program.
Speaker 3: And you know the thing about it, it was unique. It
Speaker 3: was a Friday night game. Yeah, so we had a
Speaker 3: you know, I got so many texts from you know,
Speaker 3: coaches who were at the hotel the night before the game,
Speaker 3: you know, watching their game. I mean that that game
Speaker 3: really stood out to me just in the coaching world.
Speaker 3: How many people watch that game and reached out to
Speaker 3: us because you have those you know, we're the only
Speaker 3: game on late at night on the on the West Coast,
Speaker 3: and it was very ina fluential for a program just
Speaker 3: because we had we had to rebuild. You know, we
Speaker 3: were only averaging sixteen thousand fans a game. You know,
Speaker 3: I think in the twenty four season here not getting
Speaker 3: great attendance, And I think that game kind of inspired
Speaker 3: our fans beating a brand name like UCLA and here,
Speaker 3: I think, especially in New Mexico because we've lost some guys.
Speaker 3: You know, the great basketball coach here, Coach Alford left
Speaker 3: here to go to UCLA, and even a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago they had a great basketball player down and
Speaker 3: bendtn who went to make millions at UCLA. So I
Speaker 3: think you had a little inferiority complex that we lost
Speaker 3: people to UCLA before, so to beat them I think
Speaker 3: inspired our fan base. And then we come back the
Speaker 3: next week playing in New Mexico State, we have thirty
Speaker 3: seven thousand people in the stands. It's the first sellout
Speaker 3: since two thousand and seven. So I think that was
Speaker 3: probably the most impactful thing to kind of get our
Speaker 3: program turned aroun was that when.
Speaker 1: To me, I have watched what you've done here and
Speaker 1: sort of felt the vibe start to shift from classical
Speaker 1: that's of basketball school mentality to.
Speaker 2: Whoa man, we can be good in football too.
Speaker 1: And it's really, really, to me, very correlated with what
Speaker 1: Kurt Signetti has done at Indiana. And it didn't happen slowly,
Speaker 1: like it felt like it all of a sudden happened.
Speaker 1: And you realize once a traditional basketball school even shows
Speaker 1: an ounce of potential in football, it's like a huge
Speaker 1: damn breaks and like all these people were just waiting
Speaker 1: to buy in, and you guys, it seems like are
Speaker 1: starting to feel that where that dam's cracking and it's breaking,
Speaker 1: and season ticket sales are going up and there's energy
Speaker 1: and people are.
Speaker 2: Talking about New Mexico in the middle of June. That
Speaker 2: didn't used to happen.
Speaker 3: It didn't happen here. And you know, again, so many
Speaker 3: people have shown you can do it great in both.
Speaker 3: I reme remember when Florida was good, when Billy Donovan
Speaker 3: was in basketball and Urban was in football, and when
Speaker 3: the national titles in both. Our fans have really turned out.
Speaker 3: Last year. We had the highest percentage increase in FBS
Speaker 3: and attendants. You know, we went from sixteen thousand a
Speaker 3: game to twenty five thousand a game, and now I
Speaker 3: think there's that was with not much buzz in the offseason.
Speaker 3: Now we're getting a lot of buzz, and our season
Speaker 3: ticket sales are rising up, and you know, I think
Speaker 3: people are realizing, hey, it's a lot of fun to
Speaker 3: do both. It's a lot of fun to come to
Speaker 3: the University stadium and have fun.
Speaker 2: In the fall.
Speaker 3: We were six and oh. The last time the love
Speaker 3: was were six and oh at home before last season
Speaker 3: was like nineteen thirty eight, something crazy like that. So
Speaker 3: you send them home driving home from the game happy
Speaker 3: it just like they usually do when they go to
Speaker 3: the pit across the street. And it's been a good combination.
Speaker 3: Our fans have really supported us.
Speaker 1: The NFL has become famous for how the social teams
Speaker 1: handle schedule releases. College football not so much, except you
Speaker 1: guys killed it a couple of weeks ago with the
Speaker 1: whole Sopranos themed schedule release. So I'm watching that in
Speaker 1: Nashville and I'm thinking, Man, someone was in the lab
Speaker 1: in that building. Some creative genius had to be behind this,
Speaker 1: But I didn't know who the creative genius as was.
Speaker 1: You know who the creative genius was and his slash.
Speaker 1: Her name is Kimberly. Kimberly is the creative genius.
Speaker 2: Not even on the payroll here officially, no.
Speaker 3: But she's a great supporter of our program. She's got
Speaker 3: a big social media presence that I think really engages
Speaker 3: our fan base, engages, you know, the female demographic. I
Speaker 3: have countless moms and recruits who come up and tell
Speaker 3: me how I follow your wife on Instagram already. So
Speaker 3: she had that idea we would love the Sopranos show,
Speaker 3: and then, you know, I'm kind of I'm not the
Speaker 3: detailed guy and the idea guy. I gave that to
Speaker 3: our team and then Brandan and Frank just kind of
Speaker 3: ran with it and had some great ideas and of
Speaker 3: how to how to market it, and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: we try to be creative on that stuff. We try
Speaker 3: to have fun and really we just got to get
Speaker 3: people talking about New Mexico football because for a long
Speaker 3: time people haven't talked about New Mexico football, and the
Speaker 3: last two years we've done a great job of that
Speaker 3: of getting some stuff to get us on the map.
Speaker 2: I always think.
Speaker 1: The job of a head coach varies greatly depending on
Speaker 1: where you have the job, and there some places where
Speaker 1: it's a legacy, blue blood like institutional bedrock part of
Speaker 1: college football. Ryan Day does not have to worry about
Speaker 1: getting Ohio State on the map, and so he does
Speaker 1: not have to therefore focus a whole lot of his
Speaker 1: energy on marketing. You've actually got to have the marketing
Speaker 1: hat on. You've got to have that almost like a
Speaker 1: pr hat on at times of.
Speaker 2: I got to make sure people know that we exist.
Speaker 1: I got to make sure we're on their radar before
Speaker 1: I even worry about performing. Ultimately, it comes down to
Speaker 1: wins and losses, Like you don't ignore someone winning. But
Speaker 1: how I don't know how different is that compared to
Speaker 1: just being like an offensive line coach in the Dakota's.
Speaker 3: No, it's different, and I think that's you know, I
Speaker 3: got these jobs, you know, Idaho and New Mexico because
Speaker 3: they hadn't been good, no one wanted to or the
Speaker 3: you know, the pool of who I had a beat
Speaker 3: was not as good as obviously who Ryan Day would
Speaker 3: have had a beat to get the Ohio State jobs. So, uh,
Speaker 3: it's definitely different. And I think about that sometimes and
Speaker 3: I think we play into h you know, to be
Speaker 3: in the underdog or decordinator. Coach Newinsky does a great job.
Speaker 3: It kind of calls our defense the mutch. You know,
Speaker 3: a bunch of you know, guys at the pound with
Speaker 3: no pedigree who do that. And sometimes I think, you know,
Speaker 3: one day we might have guys with a pedigree, But
Speaker 3: it's different. I think you have to adjust to the situation.
Speaker 3: And I found I really like it because I think
Speaker 3: it's really rewarding. It really goes back to what I
Speaker 3: saw coach Alvarez do it Wisconsin, and we took over
Speaker 3: Wisconsin program that was awful during the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 3: just awful and rebuilt that. And there's a lot of
Speaker 3: programs that have just won. Whoever the head coaches won
Speaker 3: historically over the years, probably because some outside factors, whether
Speaker 3: it's your recruiting base or that. And still those guys
Speaker 3: are really good coaches. But I think there's something that
Speaker 3: I find personal satisfaction of kind of giving people hope,
Speaker 3: building believe even in your fan base, and getting them
Speaker 3: excited where they haven't been excited to go there. And
Speaker 3: I enjoyed that personally.
Speaker 1: You've been on some staffs like you Wenona, not Whynona
Speaker 1: Winna State where.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a loaded staff.
Speaker 1: No one knew it at the time, but there were
Speaker 1: multiple future FBS like D one head coaches that were
Speaker 1: on that staff. But not everyone's on the same timeline,
Speaker 1: So some guys get jobs before other guys get jobs.
Speaker 1: When some of your peers maybe are on like a
Speaker 1: rung hire or two runs higher on the ladder than
Speaker 1: you are, how consistently is that feedback spilling down or
Speaker 1: how much are you're reaching up for that feedback to know, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's what's just out ahead of me?
Speaker 2: What should I expect?
Speaker 3: I think those guys are valuable helpers. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: one of my uh you know, I think my two
Speaker 3: biggest mentors probably is a head coach were Stigelmayer and
Speaker 3: coach Alvarez. Well, those are guys who you know, started
Speaker 3: their head coaching journey in the nineties, you know, so
Speaker 3: now you're starting back when I'm a first head coach
Speaker 3: in twenty two. I mean, they're looking back thirty years
Speaker 3: probably forget a lot of stuff from your first year
Speaker 3: as being a head coach. A guy who I worked
Speaker 3: with at at Idaho who was a head coach a
Speaker 3: few years ahead of me. Jonathan Smith, you know, did
Speaker 3: a really nice job at Oregon State and then you
Speaker 3: know a stent didn't go as good at Michigan State.
Speaker 3: But you know, he was a guy I reached out
Speaker 3: to a lot about, you know, first year putting the
Speaker 3: staff together, his first transition. You know, he was a
Speaker 3: year ahead of me when he left Oregon State to
Speaker 3: went to Michigan State. I think that's valuable to talk
Speaker 3: to those guys who've been through things, especially in recent times,
Speaker 3: just their experiences, learn from them. You always try to
Speaker 3: learn from other people and what they did or what
Speaker 3: they would do again if they had to do it
Speaker 3: over again, so you're not making every first time mistake yourself.
Speaker 1: What is your sort of core philosophy and putting together
Speaker 1: a staff? A lot of guys really really depend on
Speaker 1: feedback from others. Some guys want to have had personal interaction,
Speaker 1: although that's not realistic. You're going to fill out an
Speaker 1: entire staff. How do you go about putting staff together?
Speaker 3: I think the biggest thing I want is I want
Speaker 3: people who have good energy, because I want people who
Speaker 3: the players, the student athletes are excited to work with
Speaker 3: every day. They're excited to go into the office, and
Speaker 3: this is evolve. I remember sitting with one of my
Speaker 3: first interviews at Idaho with a player when I first
Speaker 3: got there, just trying to you know, I sat down
Speaker 3: and met with everybody on the team and just got
Speaker 3: their take on it. And you know, one of them
Speaker 3: told that, you know, I try to when I come
Speaker 3: into the facility, I try to go through this backway
Speaker 3: that's longer to avoid going by the coach's offices. And
Speaker 3: that just was like a red light going into my head.
Speaker 3: That's not what you want, you know, you want the
Speaker 3: players just come and sit down on the coach's offices,
Speaker 3: hang out. So the energy and when you're assistant, you know,
Speaker 3: staffs are so big. When you're assistant, you're always going
Speaker 3: to have a guy or two on the staff who
Speaker 3: you have a professional relationship with, but you know he's
Speaker 3: probably not your cap of tea, not somebody you'd want
Speaker 3: to have lunch with or have a beer with. Now
Speaker 3: that I'm the head coach, I want everybody under staff
Speaker 3: someone who I would I just enjoy their energy. I'd
Speaker 3: want to be around them outside of work. So that
Speaker 3: was my starting board. You know. From there, you know,
Speaker 3: I think you have to compliment yourself, you know. You know,
Speaker 3: I knew when I got to Idaho, I hadn't done
Speaker 3: a lot of Pacific Northwest recruiting when we were the Dakota's.
Speaker 3: I needed some guys who had some really strong connections
Speaker 3: and knew the lay of the land New you know,
Speaker 3: right off the bat, you know, what are the high
Speaker 3: schools we have to go to? Same thing when we
Speaker 3: came here. You know, I had we hadn't recruited Texas
Speaker 3: when we were up in Idaho, just because the travel
Speaker 3: distance and costs. Well, New Mexico, that's her neighbor, you know,
Speaker 3: I had. I had to hire a few guys right
Speaker 3: away who I knew were dialed in in Texas. And
Speaker 3: one thing that's helped me is having all those jobs
Speaker 3: and working under twelve different coaches. I worked with a
Speaker 3: lot of people at the lower levels, and I was
Speaker 3: able to identify, you know, some really talented guys who
Speaker 3: I had worked with. You know, we had a few
Speaker 3: guys last year. We had four coaches on our staff
Speaker 3: who got powerful jobs, you know, right after the years ended.
Speaker 3: And those were guys who never had had powerful jobs.
Speaker 3: So I knew some kind of really talented outstanding guys
Speaker 3: who just hadn't got that break yet. And then you
Speaker 3: also you know lean on your network. You know our
Speaker 3: strength coach who does a tremendous job for us. He
Speaker 3: he had worked with Rob r which my first decordinator
Speaker 3: at Idaho who's now the decordinator at Nebraska, and so
Speaker 3: he you know, Rob just went to bat and he goes, I, No,
Speaker 3: you don't know this guy, but I'm telling you he's
Speaker 3: really really good. Yeah. He's been with us now five years.
Speaker 3: So I do think people I really trust who I've
Speaker 3: worked with. You know, I love when guys have skin
Speaker 3: in the game when they recommend someone to come work
Speaker 3: with us, because I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 3: recommend someone to not work with them, but when they
Speaker 3: were saying, no, I want to, I want to work
Speaker 3: with this guy. I want to be back with this guy.
Speaker 3: That's powerful, but it's not one hundred percent. But you
Speaker 3: got to you got to really dig in. But I
Speaker 3: want the energy. You got to have people who can
Speaker 3: relate to the young people and connect with them because
Speaker 3: there's so many coaches who know a lot of stuff,
Speaker 3: but it's all about what the players know, and you
Speaker 3: gotta connect with them. To get that across.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the one thing that's always fascinated me
Speaker 1: about the difference between a great mind versus a great coach.
Speaker 1: You can know every bit of football there is to know,
Speaker 1: and if you can't put it in someone else's mind,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like making a teacher ineffective.
Speaker 2: You are an ineffective teacher if you can't put it
Speaker 2: in my mind.
Speaker 1: Now, I don't know that you can totally quantify what
Speaker 1: that skill is, but I imagine you realize pretty quickly whether
Speaker 1: I hazard or not, no.
Speaker 3: Question, And uh, like I said, a lot of it's
Speaker 3: just it's that it's that energy. It's the thing that
Speaker 3: they want to be around. Because you know, if you're
Speaker 3: if your players don't want to be around the coach,
Speaker 3: they're not asking a lot of questions, they don't want
Speaker 3: the meeting to go longer. They're like, get this meeting
Speaker 3: over with so we can, you know, go back to
Speaker 3: the locker room and hang out. But if you know,
Speaker 3: if they feel like they like the energy, they like
Speaker 3: the vibes, they feel like they're getting developed, and that's
Speaker 3: powerful and uh, coach, coach evers you to always say
Speaker 3: this to the staff and this is something it's always
Speaker 3: stuck with me. He said that if if your players
Speaker 3: feel like they're getting better, you're not going to have
Speaker 3: a morale problem. And I really think that's critical as
Speaker 3: a group of five school to try to keep guys
Speaker 3: from going in the transfer portal. You know, they have
Speaker 3: to feel like you're developing them and you're getting them better,
Speaker 3: and it's not well, if I can go to a
Speaker 3: bigger school, I'm sure we're going to get developed better.
Speaker 3: So I think that is critical for your morale your team,
Speaker 3: to your players feeling like you're adding value to their life,
Speaker 3: into their career by their experience of being part of
Speaker 3: your program.
Speaker 1: So people identify you currently you're the head coach in
Speaker 1: New Mexico, you were the head coach at Idaho. You've
Speaker 1: coached in the Pacific Northwest, You've coached in the Northern Plains,
Speaker 1: You've coached in Big Ten Country. But you went to
Speaker 1: high school in Georgia, Like you were right in my backyard.
Speaker 1: You're intimately familiar with the state of Georgia. So A
Speaker 1: explain to people why you were there, and then B like,
Speaker 1: what do you remember about Georgia?
Speaker 2: What stands out to you The most.
Speaker 3: You know, I've lived in like fourteen states in my life.
Speaker 3: You know, I was in a coaching family. You know,
Speaker 3: I didn't take the you know, the easy route. You
Speaker 3: see a lot of the the Bowdens or the Patinos
Speaker 3: where you have a you know, a father's son in
Speaker 3: the same sport. But my father was a Division one
Speaker 3: basketball coach, so it's tough to find any day that
Speaker 3: he was the head coach at Toledo. So I'm there
Speaker 3: might be some other father son different sport football, basketball,
Speaker 3: head coaches. There's none that I'm aware of. So we
Speaker 3: moved around a lot, and we were I went to
Speaker 3: Junior High in Ohio and I was all set to
Speaker 3: go to high school there, and then they lost the
Speaker 3: MAC championship game by one point to Miami, Ohio, and
Speaker 3: he kind of got pushed out at Toledo. So I
Speaker 3: kind of saw how my mom tried to talk to
Speaker 3: me out of going into coaching because she saw that,
Speaker 3: like where I went to high school was decided by
Speaker 3: a one bucket and he ended up working down in
Speaker 3: South Georgia and Albany. The team had two names over
Speaker 3: two years. It was the first year was the South
Speaker 3: Georgia Blues and then it was the Albany Sharpshooters of
Speaker 3: the Global Basketball Associate. So he stopped us in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: We moved to Atlanta and went to Saint Pias the Tenth,
Speaker 3: spent all four years there. That league ended up going
Speaker 3: belly up, and then he got back into coaching at
Speaker 3: the college level at Loyola University Chicago. H spring of
Speaker 3: my junior year, and I'm very thankful he let me
Speaker 3: stay and finish my senior year at Saint Pias the
Speaker 3: Tenth in Atlanta, and uh, you know, I think it.
Speaker 3: I think it capitalized my level football. I mean I
Speaker 3: was already moving that way. My body was more pulling
Speaker 3: guard than shooting guard, so it was a better fit
Speaker 3: to be in football. But you know, just seeing having
Speaker 3: spring practice and pads, you know, having ten practices in
Speaker 3: pads and you know the you definitely feel how important
Speaker 3: you know, the football is in the South and there's
Speaker 3: some special about it. I really enjoyed our time there.
Speaker 3: It was a little bit of an adjustment get used
Speaker 3: to the humidity and the heat and the summer workouts
Speaker 3: down there, and then it spoiled me because then when
Speaker 3: I went to my freshman year at Wisconsin. It was
Speaker 3: like the hardest winner of my life because, uh, you
Speaker 3: got spoiled by being down the weather. But yeah, the
Speaker 3: Southeast football that that sec footprint, you know, going to games.
Speaker 3: And we had a great running back at our school
Speaker 3: who Philip Rogers, who went to Georgia Tech. But you know,
Speaker 3: I'd tag along with him on all of his visits
Speaker 3: and things, and so I went to Georgia to Sanford.
Speaker 3: I was a walk on in Wisconsin, so I wasn't
Speaker 3: very heavily recruited, but he was heavily recruited. So it
Speaker 3: was fun to go to those you know, college of visits,
Speaker 3: game day visits as a high school player.
Speaker 2: Now you were in high school what years?
Speaker 3: I graduated in ninety five, so my four years I
Speaker 3: played would have been ninety one through ninety four. Had
Speaker 3: a lot of great you know players around there. Patrick
Speaker 3: pass was at Tucker, one of our rival teams. Matt
Speaker 3: Harpering was a great quarterback for Marist and then ended
Speaker 3: up having a great NBA career with the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 3: A lot a lot of good players throughout there in
Speaker 3: Georgia around that time.
Speaker 1: You're in you're in the Atlanta area in like the
Speaker 1: sweet spot of sports history. There Braves have blown up
Speaker 1: in the nineties.
Speaker 3: Olympics.
Speaker 1: Olympics are coming to Atlanta in nineteen ninety six, and
Speaker 1: I'm like almost too young to remember, kid at that point.
Speaker 1: I do remember, like watching the Olympic tours come through,
Speaker 1: but like that, that's me. That's the bedrock of my
Speaker 1: childhood is remembering how great the Atlanta Braves got in
Speaker 1: the nineties and how like every every bit of attention
Speaker 1: in the sports world all of a sudden shifted to
Speaker 1: Atlanta because of the Olympics.
Speaker 3: It was huge that we'd go to a lot of
Speaker 3: those games. My father grew up in Wisconsin, so he
Speaker 3: actually was a Milwaukee Braves fan as a young kid,
Speaker 3: so he he kind of got caught up in that,
Speaker 3: and we would go to games. I'm I'm a Cubs fan.
Speaker 3: We know, whenever the Cubs were in town, we'd go. Uh,
Speaker 3: don't tell my principal. One day I skipped school for
Speaker 3: an afternoon businessman special to go Cubs Cubs Braves game
Speaker 3: one spring but uh, and then the Olympics I went back.
Speaker 3: Even that was the summer after my freshman year at Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: I made sure I you know, went back for that
Speaker 3: to hang out for a few days with high school
Speaker 3: buddies and go around with some of those events. And
Speaker 3: that was what happened in time in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: So like when you've been where you've been, you've experienced
Speaker 1: all the kinds of weather that the United States can
Speaker 1: offer from a football perspective, I haven't. So Like I
Speaker 1: grew up in the South, So people from the South
Speaker 1: get painted as very soft. You don't want to play
Speaker 1: up north in November and December, which is true.
Speaker 3: Like we don't.
Speaker 2: Define cold, what is cold to you?
Speaker 3: To me? But we talk about that. And like when
Speaker 3: I was at South Dakota State, you know we had
Speaker 3: playoff games in December and blizzards. Uh. You know, we
Speaker 3: played the Villanova in a sideway snow snowstorm in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: played Duquine in a first round matchup where you could
Speaker 3: not see the field that was white. They were trying
Speaker 3: to shovel it off. Uh. To me, it's it's like
Speaker 3: anything else, it's something you can't control. You got to
Speaker 3: block out and focus on what you can control, so
Speaker 3: you embrace where you're at. You know, here we embrace
Speaker 3: the sunshine. We get three hundred and ten days. Ye
Speaker 3: love the weather. Uh, you know we we embraced that.
Speaker 3: You and Idaho we played in the dome, so you
Speaker 3: embraced having the dome and always.
Speaker 2: In the dome.
Speaker 3: The dome the dome. College Football four team made it
Speaker 3: famous and you know it was the perfect weather always.
Speaker 3: But at South Dakota State, you know, the other three
Speaker 3: Dakota schools and fcs all played in domes, so we
Speaker 3: really leaned into that. And h you know with tell
Speaker 3: it recruits that you know, hey, if you're gonna play
Speaker 3: in Lambeau or Soldier Field and you're a pro, you
Speaker 3: gotta be ready to be doing that. So I think
Speaker 3: you lean into it, and I think it's a unique
Speaker 3: thing in football that adds to something that many people
Speaker 3: love watching those NFL games in December and January or
Speaker 3: weather as a factor and lean into whatever you have.
Speaker 1: How many ask some broad questions because you can take
Speaker 1: it anywhere you want, But as a head coach, you're
Speaker 1: still pretty new in that role, just a few years
Speaker 1: into that role.
Speaker 2: So I of course imagine you had a vision of how.
Speaker 1: You'd handle things when you become a head coach, and
Speaker 1: you got a game plan for everything, and then half
Speaker 1: of it gets thrown out the window when you start
Speaker 1: seeing how it really works. So take what you've done
Speaker 1: so far and what you've accomplished so far, but also
Speaker 1: like what you want to be the vision for where
Speaker 1: you want to go. Where are you on that whole timeline.
Speaker 3: Personally, you learned so much your first two as a
Speaker 3: head coach because there was a lot of things when
Speaker 3: I first got to Idaho. Yeah, I haven't thought of that,
Speaker 3: or I didn't know we had to do this and
Speaker 3: that type of things. You know. I uh, I was
Speaker 3: never a great budget guy to deal with my family
Speaker 3: and stuff. So now you're you're looking at all these
Speaker 3: numbers and trying to put this together. Uh So I
Speaker 3: learned so much, and I think that much much better
Speaker 3: prepared me for the transaction coming here, just because I
Speaker 3: knew what to expect. I knew you know that that
Speaker 3: first thirty days when you get a job, it's like
Speaker 3: drinking through a firehoset. You know, so many people are
Speaker 3: you know, you have you have like six hunderdun return
Speaker 3: text messages and it's you know, some people just congratulate,
Speaker 3: and you have people who want jobs, people who have
Speaker 3: a player they want you to recruit, and it's it's overwhelming,
Speaker 3: and I think being prepared for that the second time around,
Speaker 3: you kind of know what it takes and you know
Speaker 3: how you got to organize your day. Uh So I've
Speaker 3: learned a lot through the process. I think it was
Speaker 3: a smoother transition coming here. Uh I think it was
Speaker 3: still you know, still evolve. But I think the thing
Speaker 3: that that I that I've tried to do with our
Speaker 3: staff this year is I think, you know, one of
Speaker 3: my strength was creativity and driving that when I was
Speaker 3: more centered on, you know, running the offense as an
Speaker 3: offensive coordinator. And I've really tried as we had some
Speaker 3: adjustments to our staff this year, I tried to really
Speaker 3: target that because you have to stay on the cutting edge.
Speaker 3: You have to keep having new ideas. You have to
Speaker 3: keep you know, tweaking things in college football. The rules
Speaker 3: have changed a lot recently, and just with all the
Speaker 3: off the field stuff. I think the key with that
Speaker 3: is you have to stay ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of talk about the way G five
Speaker 1: slash G six football is covered. It always really heats
Speaker 1: up around the playoff because everyone's got this opinion on
Speaker 1: should there be an auto bid or not should the
Speaker 1: G five have its own playoff? And I always find
Speaker 1: myself conflicted because purely from a product standpoint, I'd love
Speaker 1: to watch a G five playoff and it'd make more
Speaker 1: sense then from a practical standpoint. Okay, but that's a
Speaker 1: financial cord that you're completely severing.
Speaker 2: So I get both sides.
Speaker 1: Truthfully, if I structured the playoff, I'd probably keep that
Speaker 1: G five inclusion, even though like it doesn't starve my
Speaker 1: own personal self view of sports or whatever. But you're
Speaker 1: in the middle of this. You're a head coach at
Speaker 1: this level, So how aggressive do you have to get
Speaker 1: not just for your program, but like for that entire
Speaker 1: moniker to make sure I'm doing my part to make
Speaker 1: sure we're viewed the right way, talked about the right way, represented.
Speaker 3: The right way.
Speaker 1: Here's what I'd love for us to do, or here's
Speaker 1: how I love this world to exist. How much of
Speaker 1: that responsibility do you feel.
Speaker 3: I feel a responsibility for that. I think every time
Speaker 3: I talk to our team, I said, every time you
Speaker 3: play a game against a team like that, you know
Speaker 3: we got to compete because I think you know, there's
Speaker 3: probably some TV executives out there, which there were no
Speaker 3: uh you know, power for FCS games or power for
Speaker 3: Group of five games, and every game was you know,
Speaker 3: a power for or even SEC versus Big ten game
Speaker 3: that way. So I think how you handle yourself, how
Speaker 3: you compete in those games are important. I do think
Speaker 3: access to the playoff is important, and I know, let's
Speaker 3: keep tweaking the rules. You know, they tweek the rules
Speaker 3: right away when boys you got a home game to
Speaker 3: make sure that didn't in the game, and then they
Speaker 3: tweak the rules when two teams snuck in. That uh
Speaker 3: you know, really was more of the ACC's tiebreaker issue.
Speaker 3: They wish they had. The Mountain West tiebreaker didn't help
Speaker 3: us last year, but it was a better tiebreaker for
Speaker 3: getting the best teams in there. I think we have
Speaker 3: to have that, But I know, I think there could
Speaker 3: be some creativity. You know, I wouldn't mind seeing if,
Speaker 3: you know, if one team went to that, then maybe
Speaker 3: the best other six group of six teams have a
Speaker 3: little playoff, and especially if we're moving the season up,
Speaker 3: I think that could be some great uh you know
Speaker 3: TV things, because people still tune into those Bowl games.
Speaker 3: I mean the TV ratings for those bowl games, the
Speaker 3: two groups of six teams are are better than NBA
Speaker 3: regular season games. So I do think I feel that
Speaker 3: every time, as a group of six school, you're representing that.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure those coaches then feel two bags. They
Speaker 3: got big jobs right away. But you know, I'm sure
Speaker 3: they were not happy that they didn't have close playoff
Speaker 3: games because that opens up the conversations that well, they
Speaker 3: didn't belong, we should, we should get rid of them.
Speaker 3: But you know, I think you want what's best for football.
Speaker 3: And again the part to the problem now is all
Speaker 3: the players transfer up and you see how fewer fcs
Speaker 3: and group of six programs are getting guys drafted because
Speaker 3: of the movement of talent upwards because of the money.
Speaker 3: You know, you hope that that doesn't ever discourage programs
Speaker 3: to the part where they start cutting programs and not
Speaker 3: funding it, because those still are valuable training grounds that
Speaker 3: you know, if I wasn't for Fairer State football that quarterback,
Speaker 3: it all miss true when you've got developed to lead
Speaker 3: them to the semi finals like they did. So you
Speaker 3: hope it doesn't get to that point. And you know,
Speaker 3: I've coached a Division two, I've coached at FCS, So
Speaker 3: I do. I try to keep the best of college
Speaker 3: football as a whole, including those lower levels, in my
Speaker 3: thoughts of what's best for the game going forward. But
Speaker 3: I am I am concerned at some point there may
Speaker 3: be a time where the power for schools say all right,
Speaker 3: we're going to have you see it just creeping eight
Speaker 3: conference games to nine, where there eventually they say, hey,
Speaker 3: we're not going to play FCS. We're not going to
Speaker 3: play a group of six, and that's be a shame.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I think you guys last year popping a nine and
Speaker 1: win season took a lot of people by surprise. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the local preseason expectation level was, but
Speaker 1: I'm almost certain you exceeded whatever the preseason expectation level was.
Speaker 1: So then you entered this year and you've got the
Speaker 1: you know, the expectation level all of a sudden is
Speaker 1: there because you've set a precedent and you got a hole. Obviously,
Speaker 1: make sure you hit reset in the building. There's no
Speaker 1: complacency that sets in. There's none of that. But there's
Speaker 1: also big changes in your conference, Like there are a
Speaker 1: lot of teams that used to be in this conference.
Speaker 2: That now if migrated to the new Pac twelve.
Speaker 1: So like the landscape of the conference is different too,
Speaker 1: So I mean, how much of a player do you
Speaker 1: expect to be in this conference race this year? It's
Speaker 1: still spring, obviously, but how good can this team be
Speaker 1: this year?
Speaker 3: I think we can compete for a conference championship. And
Speaker 3: I every day when I drive in, I look up
Speaker 3: at the back of the press box. We haven't won
Speaker 3: a conference championship here since nineteen sixty four. It's been
Speaker 3: a long time, and you know, we lost a lot
Speaker 3: of good programs, So I mean, it was in some
Speaker 3: ways a shame that the league broke up, But Boise
Speaker 3: State had been a power. I mean, that's an amazing run.
Speaker 3: They've had over countless different head coaches have done a
Speaker 3: great job. Coach Danielson is doing a great job there now.
Speaker 3: But you lose a team like that has been picked
Speaker 3: to win this league twenty straight years, that opens things up.
Speaker 3: And I really thought coming here that that was my goal,
Speaker 3: is to make it where New Mexico was a consistent
Speaker 3: contender every year. And I think, you know, we'll be
Speaker 3: up there, and you know, ne Umob's gonna be very
Speaker 3: good this year. Coach Mallon does a great job. Coach
Speaker 3: Chang's done a good job at Hawaii. I think they'll
Speaker 3: be tough. And then North Dakota State. I played them
Speaker 3: a lot when I was in South Dakota State. They're
Speaker 3: going to be a good, good addition to the league
Speaker 3: and I wouldn't be surprised if they're right in the top.
Speaker 3: And then with a transfer portal, you can't. It's tough
Speaker 3: to judge. There'll be somebody like we were last year,
Speaker 3: the team who no one thought and we picked the
Speaker 3: finish eleventh last year in the league and then we
Speaker 3: tied for the regular season title. There'll be somebody like
Speaker 3: that in the league too. It makes a big jump
Speaker 3: up because they do a good job in the portal.
Speaker 3: So it'll be a challenge, but I think we can
Speaker 3: factor certainly in this race, and I expect us to
Speaker 3: be there every year.
Speaker 1: Jason, it's our first trip to New Mexico as state,
Speaker 1: not just the university.
Speaker 2: You took care of us man. We appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much. Jeff must be twenty one plus and
Speaker 3: present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas
Speaker 3: Star Casino or eighteen plus and present in DC first
Speaker 3: online real money wager only five dollars first deposit required.
Speaker 3: Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets which expire seven
Speaker 3: days after receipt. Restrictions apply see terms at sportsbook dot
Speaker 3: FanDuel dot com. Gambling problem Call one eight hundred gambler,
Speaker 3: or visit FanDuel dot com slash RG call one eight
Speaker 3: eight eight seven eight nine seventy seven seventy seven, or
Speaker 3: visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut, or visit
Speaker 3: nd Gamblinghelp dot org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit
Speaker 3: Gambling Helplinema dot org or call eight hundred three two
Speaker 3: seven fifty fifty for twenty four to seven support in Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: Or ball one eight seven seven eight Hope, n Y.
Speaker 3: Or text Hope and Why in New York