The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Lack Of NFL Clarity, Spring College Football & Non-Florida Stories

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. I'm on my way. Is the Matt Thomas show. 12 of. What's happening, lunch timbers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to what should be a fairly active Thursday here on the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790.

I'm Matt. Really appreciate y'all spending some time with me this afternoon. As we take this program to 3 o'clock today, we've got Brent. and Riley producing a radio program with assistance from Andrew, and we look forward to having you guys with us all throughout the way in a variety of capacities. One is if you'd like to join us on the phone, 713-212-5-790, 7-13-212-5-790. You can also reach out to us on Twitter at SportsMT at Brendan Riley underscore. Joe George has his work on the other job today, so he'll be back with us tomorrow.

and then Ross off of his hiatus is back with us and all of us will be back together hopefully on Monday. A lot of little things going on today and I feel like there is a future bombshell about to happen in the world of sports and I'll explain that in just a second. I do want to tell you that today coming up at the bottom of the hour, we're going to talk to Brad Townsend. He is the Mavericks Beat Writer for the Dallas Morning News. and not that we're going to spend a lot of time getting into the Mavericks,

but he is one of about, I think, 10 or so print reporters that are in the bubble. Mark Medina, who is with the USA Today. He was on the show a few weeks back. He is in the bubble as well, but I think he's still undergoing quarantine. So he wouldn't be able to give us a whole lot of insight of what's happening in there. I think Brad has been able to clear it. It's been going to a couple of Dallas practices, and so we will talk with him about what it's like to he traveled from Dallas to Orlando with a rent-a-car, which in itself is a chore

because I hate to drive. I can't imagine driving that long-ass trip. But we'll talk to him about that, what it's like covering the teams and what he expects in the Western Conference, especially involving at least the two squads instead of Texas that may have a puncher's chance of winning the Western Conference. Brad Townton is going to join us at 1230. At 1.30 this afternoon, the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference, is going to join us. His name is Mike Oresco.

And Mike and the rest of the conference announcing today, and it wasn't, he's not coming on to discuss this per se. I've been trying to book him the last handful of days. But today, the American Athletic Conference announced that every football player will be tested for a COVID test 72 hours prior to kickoff. And some say that's great. Some say that may not be enough time. It's too much time in between, yada, yada, yada. So we're going to try to get a little clarification on what the conference announced today when the commissioner of the league will be with us at 130. And then at 2.30 today, the resumption of our non-Flority stories.

Brendan and I each have a story. Mine comes from, I want to say the state of Texas. And mine also comes from that website. Is it only fans or fans only? I can confuse you, Brendan. That is only fans. And we've confirmed it's real, too. Yes, we have.

It wasn't from some bogus website. Fans only sounds almost like a dating website. And I guess in a way. The thing that the debt caught me off guard is that basically, if Joe George is telling the truth, it's just nothing but nudes, right? You pay to see people's nudes. So I don't know that it was necessarily made

just for that reason, but it's certainly why it's popular. Yeah. What's the one dating app that basically? Basically, if you're attracted to them and they're attracted to you, it's an easy hookup. Tinder? That was kind of hot. I would say that was the early days of Tinder.

I think Tinder's kind of warped into more of a dating app, too. I do agree with you. But that was the early push on Tinder was, hey, you're hot. Hey, you're hot. Let's hook up. Right. Maybe that's what only fans will be doing here. Or fans only, whatever the hell it is.

I'm telling you, I did not know anything about this until somebody said, hey, you should jump into my account. I'm like, for what? I was telling a friend about what happened yesterday because it was hilarious that you didn't know. And he's like, what is it? So it might actually be more common than I realized. Or uncommon, maybe. I guess I meant more common not to know, yeah. It might be a more fringe website than Joe George or I were led to believe.

Well, again, I don't want any of you all invite me to your whatever it's called. I'm not buying to be to look at your nudes. It's not happening. Now, free nudes are one thing. Paid nudes are different. Not that I would endorse either one, but just say. All right, 713-212-5-790 is how you'd like to reach a show. So I was talking at the very top about how today could be a very interesting day.

There's a lot of little nuggets in sports. Apparently James Hardin is going to practice for the first time tonight for the rockets down in Orlando in the bubble. That should be interesting. We have Zion Williamson having to leave the bubble today because of an urgent family matter. Now, depending on how long he's gone, and depending on how long he has, if he tests while he's gone, he could return to the bubble and be in quarantine for as little as two days. It could be as much as seven days. And again, it just depends on where he's been, has he been able to get tested, yada, yada, yada. But it just shows you that,

especially right now, you can't leave the bubble, but you're going to have to come back and have some sort of quarantine. Tiger Woods is going to play. his first golf tournament since all this pandemic has come into play. He'll be at the memorial in Columbus where that's been one of his tournaments he always goes to because he has such great great admiration for Jack Nicholas. I was thinking about this, Brendan, and I want to see if you're thinking the same way that I am. Can you guess, and there's no, I mean, I'm sure there's a definitive answer, but can you guess the last time Tiger Woods played in a golf tournament, not a round of golf,

not a practice, not a getting on a course, where there were no fans watching him play? Oh, my God. I would have to think. It would have to be high school, right? Do you think it was high school even? How big was he? Because he was big by the time he was, like he entered golf, professional golf at a young age, right? Right.

He went to Stanford for a while. But there were crowds watching him play Stanford because he was obviously the phenom. This was the next great thing in golf. That's what I'm wondering. because the guy that was going to transcend the sport. I was probably somewhere between not born and very, very young when he was up and coming in golf. And so what I was wondering is, like, LeBron obviously drew crowds in high school. Was Tiger Woods drawing golf crowds in high school?

I think the answer is yes. That's why I was thinking about that. I'm assuming he was able to draw crowds a little bit at least when he was playing at Stanford. I don't know about his high school life, but that would put him at about 14 or 15. 15 years old the last time you played in a golf tournament where there was no one there to watch him? Yeah, that's crazy. That's a crazy long-ass time. Same thing with LeBron.

LeBron probably played some AAU games that were sparsely attended when he was in high school. I have no idea if this is true, but I think of NBA players is playing a lot of pickup basketball. But I mean, but I understand that. But my point is that you, LeBron is going to play an event. Real game coming up here in a couple weeks. And you can say the same thing for a lot of the players that are down in the bubble that haven't played in front of such small crowds like they'll be. I mean, you have practices, you have pickup games, but these will be games that are played that there'll be no fans there. So it's going to take a little bit of adjustment on that.

So we will get into a little bit about Tiger as he returns. And he's supposed to tee off, I think, with the next hour or so. And when he does, we'll start giving you some reports on that. Also, something gaining a lot of steam at this point, and I don't know what it is, but I'm telling you, the World Wide Web is preparing for an Uber bombshell, and it revolves around the Washington NFL team, and it has nothing to do with their name change. apparently the Washington Post and other journalistic enterprises could be dropping a story sometime today, or you never know, it depends. I'm sure they're trying to get everything in the line

that's going to make Daniel Snyder and the Washington NFL team put them in a very, very, very, very bad light. so much so that if you were to run to the streets of Twitter or run to any of the social media or just go on the internet and do a Google search that apparently the things that could be announced in this blockbuster story and or stories

that it could force Daniel Snyder to sell the team that formerly known as the Redskins now again I don't know what it is when it drops it will spread quickly and if it does here during the show, we will certainly address it. But it feels like to me, there is something going on with that organization that they are desperately afraid will get out and that will force the NFL to force Daniel Slander to sell the team,

much like Donald Sterling was forced by Commissioner Adams over the time to sell the L.A. Clippers. I don't know that to be a fact, but, I mean, there are exploits. players that are kind of saying told y'all knew this was coming down blah blah blah blah blah blah i mean a lot of inn remember just because you put something on the internet and you see it in a message board or a reddit page or on twitter that doesn't guarantee accuracy in fact more times than not it does not but if this has any legs to it this could be a bombshell that the name of the franchise is the least of daniel signage problems so we have a lot to get to to day. Bottom of the hour, we go to the bubble.

1.30, we talk with Commissioner Mike Oresco of the American Conference, non-Florida stories, but most importantly on a day like this, we invite you to join us as well. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 on Twitter at SportsMT. A reminder that James Hardin is expected

to partake in practice today. We'll discuss that and other things. As the Matt Thomas show moves along until 3 o'clock this afternoon, right now. Now a message for Big City Wings. You know, Big City Wings is Houston's wing joint. They're open for dine out and carry out and curb sign pickup and delivery at all eight of their locations. In fact, we had Big City Wings this past Monday.

It was so delicious. Experience the Big City Wings treatment. Enjoy one of their daily specials. They've got specials every single day. In fact, today is Thursday, which is buy one bone. Let's get one free. And they also have a great drinks to go category. That's right.

You can now get your favorite drinks to go with Big City Wings. That would be like margaritas, Long Island ice teas, daquiries, and more in the comfort of your own home. And don't forget to check out their new ranch water and Tennessee mule. Those are the perfect summer drinks to keep you cool. For all the details, go to bigcitywings.com. That's big citywings.com. More Matt Thomas.

Now on Sports Talk 790. It is 1217 on Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas show with you on Thursday. We go to the NBA bubble in about 15 minutes from now. Astros are going to play another inner squad game. They love these intersquad games. And today will feature Zach Granky on one side. I'm assuming Team Bagwell.

The other side, Team Bizio will feature Josh James. And it's interesting. Josh James has been gone, you know, what all but just a couple of days of camp. And he was busy helping his wife have her, their baby. and I decided out of mind, except for the fact that as soon as he got there, they're like, yeah, you're going to pitch. And it also sounds like either there's not enough competition

in that 4-5 spot or Josh James as we've been working out like a muddha while he has been gone. Speaking of Zach Grinky, last year in the World Series, game seven, Granky's on the mound, Soto at the plate for the Washington Nationals, and there was a pitch that crossed the plate that should have been called a strike. So says Astros pitching coach Brent Strom.

And it was called a ball. Brent Strom yesterday wanted to make sure that no one forgot exactly what happened. Here's the audio. I still reflect back and I know people laugh at me about it. On my screensaver on my computer is the 2-1 changeup that he threw to Soto that was a strike that got called a ball in the seventh inning and I think changed the entire World Series. Otherwise we'd be wearing World Series rings with Colt coming

in in the 8th and 9th and we would have another ring. But the pitch was there. It was not called a strike. Human air. Computer had it as 95% strike and I'm still pissed about it to be quite frank. So I hold on to grudges.

Damn. By the way, how does a computer have it as a 95% strike? I mean, my thought is, is either a strike or it's not a strike, correct? Yeah, that was really interesting to me. I've never heard that before that's how the system works. Well, my guess is he's saying that if the computer saw the pitch 100 times coming,

that 95 times out of 100, that's the only way I could figure it out would be considered a strike. What an interesting way to look at sports. Because if we ever moved that direction, wouldn't it be wild when it's like 55% strike? And that's a strike that changes the game? I hope you never bring that up again. I don't think you're saying something crazy. I'm just telling you I'm right there with you. I don't want anything to be 81% safe.

Would you rather they lie to you? Ball to strike. Say again? Well, here's the thing. I don't know where you're at on this, but I'm a big believer. Eventually we're going to get there. Like, that's just how things are going to be called. And if so, would you rather they lie to you? Or not lie to you, but just don't tell you the percentages.

I'm telling you, if it's a percentage, If we're having percentages judge whether or not a play is out or safe or ball or strike, then the system's flawed and you can't do it. Because I mean, at least an umpire. Say what you all about some of them being horrific at their job. They don't go, well, I'm pretty sure he's out. I'm 81% sure he's out, so I'll put my right hand up. I'm 97% sure that's a strike the cross of plates.

I'm going to put my right hand up and call it a strike. I'm not as big on the computers and robots as maybe some others are. I would just probably, if I had a chance to ultimately add my M2 cents onto baseballs, I probably would add more to instant replay. Because I just think there's just too many things that a camera can help us with. But I don't know if I want to go to robots. I don't know if I'm at that point. because of the fact I think it would add a lot of time to games.

You'd have to calibrate the size of the pitcher, the size of the plate, the size of the hitter. And I'm sure in 2020, the technology is very, very quick on that. But if it was the case and they could do it quickly with minimal issues, then they would have already probably done it by now. So I would just say, keep the humans out there, but let's give them a little bit more backup. And I think for the most part, Major League Baseball does that. Now, I wish we'd get rid of some of the egos that are out there because there's some definite problems, i.e. Joe West, i.e. Angel Hernandez. But for the most part, these guys do a pretty good job.

And for the most part, these guys don't want to be bigger than the game itself. But yeah, I don't know. But I just thought the Brent Strong quote was awesome because he's thinking about that. And did you hear the little end of what he said? If Granky gets the strike call, you bring in Cole in the 8th and 9th. and we're celebrating another world series. It is going to, it's going to feel like we're never, ever going to stop thinking about what could have been if Garrett Cole would have been brought into the game at the time.

Would the Astros have been guaranteed a victory? No, because Garrett Cole doesn't know what it's like to come in on a bullpen. Now he's also a badass, so I'm not necessarily concerned about whether or not he get the outs. And again, these things happen all the time in World Series games. I mean, the San Francisco Giants a half decade ago won a World Series with Madison Bumgarner coming in. And would he throw like four innings of relief, I think, something like crazy like that? You know what? These guys step in and help out when they can.

And so you have to play different roles come playoff time. But I hope, I really, because I'm an astro fan. I mean, I've been an astro fan. I was an astro buddy since in 1980. I really hope for our own mental health's sake that the Astros win a World Series in the next couple of years so we never have to keep bringing up

the fact that Garrett Cole was in the bullpen ready to go and did not get called upon to pitching that game. It's like Boston Red Sox fans. Look, they'll never forget Bill Buckner and the ball going through his legs, but they've won two World Series

since that's happened. And they've basically forgiven him, and they've said, let by guys be by guys, we got two World Series trophies in our city now. We're good. And look, let me tell you something. AJ Hinch, I don't know how wrestles he is. If he's wrestles at all about that.

Maybe he's more wrestles about how things went down in 2017. That'd be my guess. But it would also get some of the heat off of him because I do believe, and you know what, I'm biased and just accept that for what it is. I thought AJ was a very, very good manager. Did he make some mistakes, especially in that 2017 with all that?

that stuff going on with the trash cans and the stealing of signs, of course. But I thought AJ was a very good manager and usually pushed all the right buttons, especially in games where you had to work a bullpen game, where you had to constantly figure out what to do in the order and whatnot. I thought he was a very good manager, could understand why he didn't want to go to Cole. They kind of had an understanding, but sometimes you have to buck the understanding trend and just go with your gut and say, hey, we're in a one-run game or a close game or a tie game. Who's going to give me the best chance of holding out of a lead or at least maintaining a tie ball game?

Will Harris or Garrett Cole, who had been lights out the entire postseason. Out of curiosity, as someone who's been on the air for a lot of this stuff, was that one of the biggest second-guessing moments that you've done in your career in Houston sports? It's definitely up there It's definitely up But not only is it up there Because of the move not being made But basically Garrett Cole's like after the game

Showered Scott Boris hat on Like I was ready I could have gone Kind of thing That that made things worse Like you know I've only been in Houston for a year And I wasn't super paying attention to a lot of their teams But I remember like I went out for that game And I remember just thinking like myself as a non

You know not a guy who had a lot of experience with Houston sports thinking what are they doing here? Oh, for sure. It's my first what are they doing experience. Second guessing. We got a lot of those. We have a lot of those. I don't think Houston has more than, say, other cities, but you could do that.

I think good baseball teams get them more than any other sport. And I think good baseball teams that play in October get them more. Exactly. You know, do you, I guess, you know, if you're in a National League Park, do you pull the pitcher in order to get a pinch hitter and to get some more offense? I mean, all that kind of stuff. That's why I like, frankly, pitchers hitting, because it does give the element of, what do you do?

Do you keep your pitcher out there for an extra inning to get three more outs, or do you need some extra offense? Now, I'm not going to fall on the sword for not having pitchers hit. But I'm just saying I just like nuances of that. And I think baseball lends itself to more second-guessing October 1st to October 30th than you'd get at any point during the course of the regular season. Let's go to Orlando and check in on the bubble. Zion Williamson has left the New Orleans Pelicans bubble,

which means he's going to be quarantined again for a certain length of time, depending on how far and how long he's gone on where they have he had tested. James Hardin is set to practice today with the Rockets, if you believe, what Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports has to say. So we'll get to that, and we'll find out what it's like covering the NBA at Walt Disney World. Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News joins us. In a moment, 713-212-5-790. If you'd like to join us right now as well, 7-13-212-5-7-90.

With a message here for Hoops Basketball Goals and sporting equipment. If there's something missing in your driveway, well, if you have kids and no ProDunk Hoops basketball goal, then I know the answer is yes. You know, ProDunk Hoops has four different basketball goal designs to choose from, including their brand-new model. They call it the bear. It is heavy-duty. It is fully portable, and it's perfect for those picky HOAs. You can also get your bare goal with professional installation at pro dunkhoops.com. That's pro dunkhoops.com.

Then nothing we're missing from your driveway and it's exactly where your kids will be playing on a pro dunk hoops goal. Produnkhoops.com or 281-351-951.9822. Pro dunkhoops.com. Hey, it's James Arden. What a pass. What a finish. Listen to your home of the rockets on your smart speaker, just ask. Hey, Google, play Sports Talk 790 on IHR Radio.

That is something else, folks. Are you ready? Your teams. I love the Astro. The Rockets Cape Town. I got all my buddies with me. You are Houston Sports Talk 790. It is 1231.

Matt Thomas Show continues on Sports Talk 790. There are very few print journalists that are in the bubble in Orlando, and we are happy to have one of them join us here. He covers the Dallas Mavericks and all things NBA for the Dallas Morning News. You can find him on Twitter at Townsend. Brad Townsend with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Brad, it's Matt. I really appreciate it. I have to start off and asking, how was the drive between Dallas and Orlando?

Long, the longest drive I've ever made. And I don't know, maybe it was silly. Maybe it was paranoid on my part. But, you know, as I was looking at the steps, Once I found out that we had been granted a credential inside the bubble, the most problematic thing that I could think of would be, you know, getting on an airplane, potentially, and, you know, having no control over who was going to be sitting around me. So I made the decision to drive. The morning news agreed to, you know, let me rent a car. And I made it, I actually made it 15 hours the first day.

that was kind of crazy. Left at 6 a.m., I got into Gainesville, Florida, after 10.30 p.m., and so they just left me a short drive the following day. But to answer your question, long. That's crazy because, you know, as I travel with the Rockets and you travel covering the Mavericks, I mean, we're on planes at least once a week, if not more than that.

So it kind of was startling when I read your initial column about the decision to make that you thought, you know what, the plane just isn't what I want to do. And I certainly respect that. I just know having done the Houston-Orlando drive many times in my life, I would want no part of that. So I applaud you for taking the assignment and then actually driving down there. So right now, help me out, I told the audience about, is there about 10 of you, or is it a little bit more or less that are actually print reporters are able to cover the teams as a whole? I have not been able to put a finger on it.

when the NBA sent out the credential form, they said that no more than 10 and perhaps less print reporters would be allowed in the bubble. So those were the parameters that I was working with, you know, when I wrote my original story, we've been on some Zoom calls, there's been some Zoom calls between the NBA and the, quote, unquote, bubble reporters. just about protocols and goos and don'ts, things like that. But even on the Zoom call, it's kind of hard to, it's kind of hard to, I mean, I know some of the people for sure, New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times. I know those guys.

There's a few people on the call that might be ESPN producers. It's hard to sit. So it might be as many as 15 print reporters, but I don't think any more than that. So do you have full access to every team? or are they keeping you just to cover the Mavericks? Well, for the time being, I'm quarantined in my room. All of us bubble reporters, and the fact that most people flew in, I think that was part of this.

We were required to stay in our rooms for the first seven days. So I literally got to, when I finished the drive, I dropped off my car to the Orlando, at the Orlando Airport. The NBA sent a car. You know, a guy was wearing a mask. He, you know, dropped me on. He took me to the hotel that we're at. And from the time I got a key, somebody met me, handing me the key.

I walked into my room and I had not, and this was on Sunday morning, I have not stepped foot outside my room. So once we do clear protocol, once we do clear quarantine, and we have to be tested, every day. So each morning I get an email saying whether I, you know, past the previous days coronavirus tests so far, not going to wood on four for four. And so at the end of that seven-day period, then we are allowed outside of our current bubbles, which is, in my case, a 314 square foot room, into the rest of the bubble. And, you know, we'll have to wear special armbands.

We have to carry our phones with special apps that show that we have, each morning that we get up, we have to take our temperature. We have to take our pulse ox. We have to do a couple of other things. And all that information, along with our daily coronavirus test, goes into an app. And so when we get to certain checkpoints around the Disney campus, we will have to, you know, open our phones and open that app and make sure that we've got the green signal to go in.

So it's, you know, and that's just a snippet of how serious the NBA is about protecting this bubble. Yeah. We're visiting a Brad Towns that covers the Mavericks and the NBA for the Dallas Morning News here on the Matt Thomas show. So I guess now the presumption is if you are able to, able to clear this seven days of quarantine that you'll be able to, and again, you're not going to to have any one-on-one conversations with players, but what have you been told? How close were you be able to get to actually watching a practice and watching live games? There may be an occasion where I can have one-on-one conversations, but not within six feet.

We will, the bubble reporters are allowed to go to, you know, I guess I really didn't answer your question about how much I'll be able to cover. I could go to a rocket's practice. this if I wanted. I've got to let the rockets know a day and a half before, okay? Same thing with the Mavericks or any other team. So we can go to shootarounds, we can go to practices, and certainly we're going to be allowed into the scrimmages and the games. And so that's what's different in our access, in what's called the group two access. There won't be another group of reporters. They will not be allowed into practices or scrimmages or shootarounds. they can come to games, but they have to sit in a higher region of the smaller arenas

that the games are going to play at. And then they cannot take part of the pregame or postgame interviews in person. They will open their laptop and tune in by Zoom, just like some reporters are having to do at home. So the access is a lot less, is a lot more limiting. My understanding is that, you know, I'm kind of a case-by-case basis. If I go to a Mavericks practice and there's someone that I want to talk to and I arrange it through the Mavericks, I can as long as I don't come within six feet.

You know, I kind of can interview people from a distance. And I've got to wear a mask. I'm telling you, Brad, and you and I don't know each other. I think you're in for the assignment of a lifetime. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of I miss home. I miss my family. but just the experience of this, I don't think you'll ever forget. And I'm very curious about how long you're going to be there.

And I guess a lot of that has to do with maybe what's going to happen in the Lone Star State. Let's get to a little basketball for a second. Dallas and Houston, we're supposed to still play two times before the pandemic hit. We will obviously open things up with the Mavericks on the 31st. What's your general census of the team that you cover and how much could they be a wild card? in this very uber-talented Western conference. Yeah, I think a wild card,

X-factor, whatever you want to call it, I think the Mavericks are definitely in that mix. I do think it's important for them to, in that first game against Houston, is a great example. It's a huge game for Dallas, maybe not as much for Houston. Dallas trails Houston and Oklahoma City

by a game and a half. And I think it's, I think anybody should logically look at the standings and say that from the Mavericks standpoint, it's imperative to try to move up the standings. Otherwise, you're looking at a first round series against the Clippers, who the Mavericks do not match up well with. As we've seen, of course, it was, you know, months and months ago,

the Mavericks do match up very well with Houston. Yeah. I think the Mavericks are a team that probably Houston doesn't want to face given what happened in the regular season. But you know what? Who knows? I mean, everybody got here to Orlando. You know, rockets get here and they don't have Hardin.

I mean, everybody's literally starting from scratch. Every coach that I've talked to and heard from, they didn't even. start five-on-five workouts until they got here. Some of them didn't even start doing it until a couple of days ago. So you can just imagine going four months without playing any five-on-five. I mean, we're not talking about Rust here. We're talking about virtually starting all over. Well, that's why these three exhibitions, I think, are going to be a huge role in this, because this will give them a chance to actually see where their legs are at this point. Because, I mean, you can have all the individual workout you want, but we're trying to, you know,

48-minute scrimmage is going to see where these guys are from a cardio standpoint, because, you know, you're getting right into it. I mean, Dallas-Huston is as sexy as a first-night matchup could be, because, again, these two teams obviously played two competitive games earlier in the year. They're both the Western Conference teams that could, you know, they're kind of the sneaky picks. I'm very curious about how at least the first two weeks when you count the scrimmages in the early games, how both teams kind of fare out.

Yeah, me too. I mean, as you said at the outset, this whole thing is fascinating. It's a social, it's fascinating from a social standpoint, medical standpoint. I think when you look at pro sports in general, this thing has the best chance of working. You know, I just don't like the trend of the way things are going, you know, in general, with the amount of coronavirus cases, especially even here in Florida, I don't like the baseball's chance of pulling this off, going from city to city. Maybe NHL, you know, they've got more of a regionalized approach.

The NBA has played two-thirds of its season. It's trying to get any more games as kind of a ramp up to the playoffs. I worry and I strongly suspect that this is going to be it for our fall sports. I mean, maybe we're even, you know, high school football, obviously college football, things like that certainly seem to be in danger. So I think the world is going to be watching for sure. And it is going to be fascinating. And again, you can find Brad on Twitter at Townsend. He covers the Mavericks for the Dallas Morning News.

He'll be doing a lot of, I'm sure, NBA stories generally speaking as well. Thank you, Brad, for the time. It's nice to visit with you on the show. And I would say I look forward to meeting you soon, but it's not going to be soon, probably January when either the Rockets are in Dallas. You guys come back to Toto Center. But thank you very much for the time this afternoon. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

You got it. Brad Towns that covers the Mavericks for the Dallas Morning News. And he's with us here on Sports Talk 790. Our time is 1243. If you want to comment on anything, Brad just basically said, what's it? We're going to be playing some basketball this year, and the rest of sports could be in some serious trouble. I hope he's wrong. I think he hopes he's wrong.

But doesn't necessarily mean that that could be a possibility. I think the football side of things is really, really murky, especially when it comes to college sports. Let's take a quick time out. Come back and say hi to you guys at 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790

with a message here for the Shell Federal Credit Union. You know, you can win your purchase with the Shell FCU team. If you're already a member with Shell FCU, you're in a good spot. You've heard me talking about their amazing service, and you could just use your Shell FCU Visa debit card to pay for a transaction, and that transaction ultimately could be paid by the folks at Shell FCU.

Now, if you're not a member right now, do not worry because Shell FCU welcomes you to open up a checking account with as low as a dollar initial deposit. When you're ready to add money, go ahead and do so, make a purchase with that ShellFCU Visa debit card, and you could win your purchase. For all the details, go to shellfccccccc.org. ShellfCU.org. Welcome home to ShellFCU. Matt Thomas continues.

On Sports Talk 790. 1249 on 790. We will check in with the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference. Mike Oretzko is going to be for this at 130 today. The Americans going to ask all of her football players to take test 72 hours ahead of time. The number one question I would have from Mike when he joins is, is what happens between hours 0 and 71? And I don't know if they have an answer for that yet, but they're planning on every football player that plays to get tested in 72. The NFL Players Association announced today that 72 different NFL players players were known to have tested positive for the coronavirus as of July the 10th.

So at this point, we don't know if that's good or bad, and I'll explain. If you took every NFL roster, which is currently technically ready for training camp for the next handful of weeks, those rosters would be 90 players. You'd have times 32 teams, you're looking at about close to what, 2,900 players. if every player in the NFL on those 90-man rosters were tested during this time and you got 72 out of 2,900 or so players, that's wonderful news because that's basically what, give or take about 2% because 10% would be 280, 5% would be 144, so half of that, 72, yeah, be about two and a half three percent.

That would be very encouraging. The problem is no one knows, or at least it's been publicly announced, if every one of those 32 teams had 90 players test for it. So the percentages probably aren't two and a half percent. What they are, still to be determined. Even if it was the 53, though, which is your regular season roster, that still wouldn't be, I don't know if it'd be as promising, but that would be all right, wouldn't it?

So let's put this way. 53 man roster times 32 teams. That's what, 60, 100 players, give or take? Yeah. Okay. If I said 72 of 1,600, 10% would be 160,

so it'd be a little over 5%. It's a little high, but I don't think it's, like, damning. Yeah, it feels like to me, Brendan, that as long as testing results are under 10, no one seems to get really wigged out about it. I think part of the problem with our state is that we're getting 15, 16%, 17% yes results.

And that's why I think Governor Abbott and the rest of the state's kind of just getting kind of nervous because the percentages are not in that single digit mark. So, again, I don't know. I'm only reading what the ESPN report is telling us in that if we said if there were every single player that a 90-man tested, The percentages is minuscule, even if they didn't, as long as it's kept probably under 10%. I think it's an encouraging sign. I think it's also an encouraging sign that the NFL Players Association would release this. Because if you had some massive outbreak, then I don't know if you'd want to hide it,

but you certainly wouldn't be flaunting it, right? So that to me comes across as some bit of good news. I do believe, however, and I read a report today, that was retweeted off of a Twitter account that I follow. The Atlanta Falcons are not going to allow anybody to go to a practice, go. You know how they let you all go? Like Texans do this too?

They let you all go visit and see what they're doing. That's all gone this year. And that comes as really no surprise. And that this same report that I was reading about the Atlanta Falcons, players are still, to this day, pushing for no preseason games. they're thinking, all right, if we're going to take chances, we might as well take a chance in doing it in a game that actually counts for something. Plus, that's one less trip. That's one less opportunity to be on the field.

And that it also probably gives you a great opportunity to delay the start of the season. Because I can't imagine them playing one preseason game in August and then saying, well, we'll see you guys in a month. that would actually be a ginormous waste of time. It's kind of wild we're in mid-July here, and we still don't really know. Like, we don't even have a plan for what the football season would actually look like. No. That's why, in my mind, Brendan, I think the NFL season gets delayed.

I think the fact that we're not even talking about it yet is, yes, a pretty good sign that you're right. And it's not an indictment against the NFL. No. I mean, we're scared, aren't we? We as a collective society are scared about this. The NFL probably wishes that the NBA NMLB started just a little bit earlier. Well, I guarantee you Roger Goodell is going to watch every one of these games. In fact, not that I pay attention to the MLS, in fact, it just pisses me off when they're on,

because I like to watch the news sports centers and whatnot, and now it's gone because they're putting on. Like today was FC Cincinnati against FC something. I don't know what it was. I didn't care. But I had to go find somewhere. I had to go find some sports. knew somewhere and I couldn't find it because they had this damn MLS game on. But it feels like MLS has calmed down since they had that original

push where a couple of teams had a lot of testing. Positive test. So I don't know where we're going to end up on this. All I know is that please NBA, behave yourself. Please NBA. Continue to have the low number of positive tests that you're having. And if you're the NFL, we as football fans, we need your sport badly. But we can wait a month if we have to.

Because it feels like to me with training camp starting up in the next 10 days, two weeks, it feels like to me there isn't a single NFL team that's ready to get going tomorrow if it was asked to go. And that's why careless mistakes can happen when you're trying to force it, especially when you're not fighting a calendar. The NBA, fighting a calendar because they're going to smush into the next season. The NHL, fighting the calendar a little bit. Football's not fighting a calendar. Baseball's fighting a calendar.

But football isn't. of all the sports out there. All right. Second hour, the Matt Thomas show starts in a matter of moments. We'll get to some of the headlines the day, including Tiger Woods on the golf course and James Hardin, apparently going to be on the practice court today, as hopefully some more normalcy comes into play. 1255, Matt Thomas Show Sports Talk 790 continues after a message for TGS insurance.

If you would like to save some serious cash on your home policy, it's very simple. You get your cell phone out as you listen to my show. and you text the word money, Mone 1 to 23, 23, 23, 23. The folks over TGS insurance will ask for your address. You type it in, and then about 15 to 20 seconds after that, they'll give you a quote. If you love the value, you continue on with TGS. If you don't think it's a great value, then you simply hang up and say thanks very much. TGS insurance, no talking to anybody live unless you want to, but the savings are real.

The average 790 listeners saving about $900. A lot of folks are saving more than $1,000 and getting great coverage with a year. Houston-based company. In fact, one of the fastest growing insurance providers in the city of Houston. It's TGS Insurance. Please text the word money, M-O-N-E-Y, to 23-23-23-23-23. M-O-N-E-Y to 23-23, and start saving big in your home policy right now with TGS Insurance. This is the Matt Thomas Show. 101 on Sports Talk 790. Hour number two. This Thursday afternoon, I'm Matt Thomas.

Thank you very much for taking part of your day to listen to me. I appreciate that very much. You have choices. I think I'm a pretty good one, but we appreciate it nonetheless. Our conversation with Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News can be up on the podcast later today. Brad is one of 10 or so NBA reporters that is covering the bubble in Orlando. He's still in quarantine.

We'll be for a couple of more days. Could you imagine Brendan being in a 314 square foot room for seven days? and not being able to leave even once. I think the first couple days would actually be kind of nice. But after like two or three days, no, thank you. I could do it. Again, I had mono when I was younger, so I know what it's like not to leave an apartment.

It sucked. And the reason, and I guess it would be a little bit different for me because when you have mono, you're always tired, so you don't want it really necessarily going anywhere. If you were healthy and you couldn't leave your room, that's where I think you'd probably go bonkers. So when everything first started, shutting down. Like, you know, I'm only about a year removed from Michigan. And they, they were

treating everything way more intense up there. So it was a little crazy for me, like seeing how slow Texas was to react. So I would say I spent a month not leaving for anything but work. And then I lost my job. And I probably went a month leaving for only grocery shopping. And I don't think you're out of the ordinary on that one. I mean, there's a lot of people that are in that same spot that way. By the way, happy 52nd birthday of Barry Sanders today. I didn't know that. My second favorite all I'm running back. Who's number one? Earl Campbell.

Ari and Foster anywhere on that list? No. Really? I mean, I like him, but he's not one of my all-time favorites. I mean, I'm not saying he was Barry Sanders, but he was fun to watch. No, I mean, and again, your favorites doesn't necessarily mean they were the greatest. Fair. My favorite five, and we've got some phone calls to get to here, I would have to go Earl 1, Barry, two, probably Walter Payton 3.

who was my four and my five low key I love Reggie Bush I know his pro career wasn't anything special yeah that's college Reggie Bush was amazing I'll tell you who I liked a lot Marshawn Lynch and his prime when he went Beast mode

I mean that playoff run oh against the Saints so good sorry about that Saints fans trying who else is a favorite mine I liked Ricky Williams too I'll be honest with you I got to know him a little bit over the years, too. But for me, Earl and Barry are so high on the list that the number three, whoever that would be,

and it probably would be Walter Payton in my mind, would be such a drop after that. I wasn't a huge Emmett Smith fan. I just thought he was good, but he was just, I mean, first of all, it's hard for me to root for any Dallas Cowboy, any player. But, you know, him won in the all-time rushing mark when Barry should have clearly had it if he had not had quit early because he was just tired of being a deterrent lion. And then he ended his career in Arizona. It was just really bizarre.

But yeah, for me, Earl's one, Barry's two, they're really close to each other, and then the drop to three is pretty significant after that. Arian's on my list, but I appreciate what Arian did. You know what Aaron was so good at? He just looked like a gazelle. Does that make sense? Yeah, I actually, I do a rewatch podcast of old Lions games,

and I recently watched one that he played in, and I did not remember how smooth he was. I think his vision was amazing. I think he waited for his blocks beautifully. I don't think he ran himself out of successful running plays because he was too anxious to get to get or needed to go. He was so fluid, and I also think he got faster once he got into the,

you know, past the initial front four or front three. Some guys definitely have a second gear. Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Let's go and say hi to some folks, and if you'd like to join us again, 7-1-3-21-5-7-90. Wes and Humble first up on the Matt Thomas show. Wes, what's a good word today?

Matt, my friend. How are you and your family doing, man? Everybody's doing good. I appreciate you're asking. Fantastic. I was just calling to give you grief because you know how much of a soccer fan I am and you're bashing ML. Oh, my God.

Tell me the truth. Tell me, Wes, I know you're a doctor. Animal fan. I get that. But if you're getting up in the morning and you want a little sports fix, you don't want FC Cincinnati on your television screen, right? Come on. Well, I don't want Sports Center on my television either because they stopped being about sports about three years ago. That's true. I give you that. You know, I'd rather go to, you know, MLB.com or NFL.com or something to where there's not some political slight towards the reporting. But I'm with It's funny because, you know, as much of a soccer fan as I am, I haven't watched a lot of the games because they're messy.

You can tell the players they're not totally in shape. It's been a long layoff. Yeah. And but what it did reveal is it revealed two things. It revealed one that the MLS has done it the right way. So I hope that the other leagues are paying attention. They just did a second round of testing in MLS and had no more positive cases. And those are all the guys that are in the bubble, right?

Right. So I'm hoping that the other leagues are taking notice as to how the MLS has done it. And then, too, the negative is that, man, you know what? Sometimes watching a nine-eating baseball game is brutal enough. And to see how long of the layoff has affected soccer, I can't imagine how it's going to affect basketball or major league baseball. And I don't think football is coming back in September. I think they're so afraid to announce that because of the money issue that it will cause.

But I'm with you. I can't see football coming back. And I'm not really looking forward to basketball or baseball games until there's some sense of normalcy again. And it's going to be hard to watch. Well, I'll say this. If football does start on time, Wes, that means we're in a very good position in our country.

I agree. The testing is fluid and accurate, that there is a slowdown, and that maybe we even say, the end before the calendar turn, we've got some vaccinations in play. Let me. I just don't think there's any sign of that right now. And we're too close starting training camp.

And you cannot pick the boys up and say, hey, see y'all at Texas training facilities, August 15th, first game two weeks later. It doesn't work that way. Well, and you're right. You know, they're getting ready to do human trials on. It's not even really a vaccine. It's just an immunity booster that Johnson and Johnson has created. And that's not until September. You know, they're not going to have a fluid.

vaccine probably for another eight to 12 months, which is unfortunate, but that's just the nature of science. But I'll leave you with this. I hope the irony is not lost on you that all these leagues are going to a bubble in Florida when it's one of the hottest virus spots to date right now. And then it was just reported that the majority of their labs were misreporting positive cases. I mean, they don't have, I mean, from a medical perspective, they don't have their craft.

together and yet all these leagues are going to Florida. I don't understand that, but. Well, the reason, I mean, let's be brutally honest, your West. They're not going to Florida because the weather is good or, um, or the park is really awesome. They're doing it because they're compounds. That's what I do. If you have those compounds in another state, though?

You could. That's right. Yeah. You could. But if, but if, but if, but if, but if, but if, but if the NBA has. a relationship with Disney and ESPN and you're going to have a chance to choose multiple compounds. Wouldn't hurt to choose one that you've already got a business relationship with, right?

Oh, I agree. But if I'm a player and I'm online and I'm tweeting about how concerned I am about my personal health and the safety of the league and I've got Arizona staring at me with the lowest positivity rate in the country, and I don't know if it is, but I know it's a lot lower than Florida. Or I've got Florida, you know, I'm sitting here and I'm looking at the league. and I'm like, okay, what are you more concerned about? The product that makes you the money or just the money?

Well, that's a great question, Wes. And I'll say this. Thank you for the phone call. There's no reason why if Phoenix had the facilities to have a compound and put the bubble there. I mean, honestly, when you were thinking about before all this NBA bubble stuff came into play, where did you all think they were going to play? if they were going to take everybody and put them in one place. My first thought was Las Vegas because the NBA Summer League plays their games there,

and they know what it's like to have 30 teams in three to four gyms. Now, hotels would be plentiful for sure, but there wouldn't be the kind of parameters, you know, areas where you can't go, cannot go, that you would have in a facility like Walt Disney World. and I guess in theory you could do it at Disneyland too I've been to Disneyland probably four or five years ago I don't remember it being nearly as large as the Disney World Complex in Orlando I think it's substantially smaller like I mean I know it is

but yeah but I but they chose Orlando not because of anything except that it made the most sense it just did you mean to tell me you can put 22 teams and give them hotels and give them decent-sized rooms and feed them and put them in a park and put them in an area where they can go basically once they pass quarantine 20 square miles done I don't I don't think this was politically motivated it certainly was financially motivated because again there was a partnership already between ESPN Disney and the NBA but I don't begrudge them being there. The number one thing is no matter where they were going to put this bubble, the thing I

kept saying to y'all, and I think you all agree with me on this, is that it might be the safest place on earth. And I think it is. The MLS is proven. Once you get in the bubble, you've got a pretty low chance of getting it, much lower than you would if you were outside the bubble. I think the same thing right now could be said for the NBA. 112 of the Matt Thomas show.

They can't bubble college football. 15, making 18 minutes from now, we'll talk to the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference. Mike Oresco is going to join us as he announces protocols for his college football players if there is a season. Right now, a message for bronze roofing. The folks at bronze roof roofing have been satisfying Houstonians' needs for proper roof evaluation and inspections and repair. And hopefully, I would say hopefully you're not having to worry about roof repair, but if you are, I want you to call 281-480-9900. Whether it's a residential roof, a commercial roof, tile,

or a shingle, the folks at bronze roofing will have you covered, and they'll get you a thorough inspection, and they will do it for you usually within 24 hours. And the estimate is free, I repeat, free. 281-480-9900. Quality work and a fair price. 281-480-999 online bronze roofing.com. B-R-A-U-N-S

Bronzeroofing.com First of all, he's a great guy. He's a hard-working guy. It's Matt, and he's back. It brings his lunchtime, Houston, sports talk. Lunchtime, Houston Sports Talk. The Matt Thomas Show on 790. All right, here we go.

118, Sports Talk, 790. Matt Thomas show with you until 3 o'clock. Mike Oresco is going to join us, and he'll be with us from the American Athletic Conference. in about 12 minutes from now. So JJ Watt just tweeted seven minutes ago. It's not about a hamburger he's eating or what band he's listening to or watches his ultimate tag show.

He tweets the following. In the interest of having everyone on the same page in terms of what we know and what we don't know at this time, here are a few things I've learned about being on four NFLPA calls in the last two weeks with hundreds of other players. space keep in mind our rookies are scheduled to report in 48

hours so then he didn't want to list all those things on his Twitter account because you only get what 280 characters so you got a little notepad out and he did the said the following here's what we know and don't know dash

we want to play dash we want to be as safe as possible dash we have not received a single valid Ider plan that's infectious disease emergency response from any team or the league dash we don't know if our preseason games or not dash we don't know if there will be daily testing semi-daily testing etc dash we don't know how potential positive COVID tests would affect contracts roster spots

et cetera. Dash. Nothing has been agreed upon regarding what training camp will actually look like and how the quote, ramp up period will work. Dash, we want to play. Brendan Riley, we're not playing football in September. I'm telling you, it ain't happening. This sounds like the NFL's responses.

COVID question mark. Or like, you mad, bro? Like, they just, I really am interested to see if the NFL's game plan is just to pretend and nothing's happening. So you don't think commissioners? or Goodell on a Twitter account's like, JJ, call me, we'll get this figured out. I just don't understand.

How can they not have anything? We're in July. How can we not have a given fact whether or not there's going to be a preseason? To me, that means the NFL is like, well, obviously there's going to be a preseason. Why wouldn't there be? Do you think that the NFL just has their head up their ass on this and are just oblivious to what the rest of us are going through right now? I don't know, man. Honestly, it's wild.

I don't think we've talked enough about how wild it is. I think because we're so stuck and we're so busy talking about, well, MLB is almost back. NBA is almost back. That the NFL slipped. It is wild that we have not talked about this much yet. I mean, I don't know if JJ is super, Uber active in the NFLPA. Remember a few months ago when they had that they had voted for the collective bar agreement? He's like, oh, hell no.

we're saying yes to this well they did because they want to play football i wonder if he's one of those guys that jumps in both feet going in getting is getting in the muck and hearing these issues or is he the guy that's like oh i heard there's a conference call today let me jump in here and listen to it you know how that is when you have co-workers and whatever business you're in either you have guys that are actively involved in the company's welfare or you have people that just want to jump in just to say they jumped in. And I don't know the answer to that question, so I'm not going to presume either one. It's so hard to see him being that guy, but I get why you're making that read as a possibility.

You know why I'm making it, and it's not an indictment against JJ per se. It's just, if you're involved in labor negotiations of any sort, it's very easy to have an opinion on it without doing the due diligence, doing the legwork. You know what I mean? Like, and that's in anything. If you're in a union and your union representative comes to you and says, here's what we've been talking about, if you've not been involved in those labor negotiations and you haven't been involved in the back and forth and the give and take,

you'd say, oh, we're not going to work under these situations. We're not going to be paid these wages. Or we're not going to get this. We're not going to get this. It'd be very easy to say that. and I don't think J.J. Watt, if he's the kind of player, where he just jumps in when the time is right, he wouldn't be the only one doing that. Now, I will give him some credit. He says he's been on four calls in the last two weeks. That seems fairly active to me. Matter of fact, I'll say this. That's more than that's, I would say it's more than fairly active.

Four NFLPA calls in the last two weeks. That sounds like J.J. Watt's interested. calls and he knows as much as you or I about the NFL's plans this season. Which I guess the other question would be, then, what the hell is the other leadership doing that have been on more than four calls in the last two weeks? I tell you what, the NFL, you know, they talk about the shield, how it protects them from everything. They wanted the draft in April. And damn it, they got their draft in April, right?

Or whatever it was, May, early, whatever it was. they had no interest in listen to anybody say let's delay this they said we're going on because we're going to get huge television numbers there's nothing else going on and we are the NFL we rule the roost in sports and they do but this is the one time in my opinion that the NFL can't be the big boy on the street and take our lunch money they can't because guess who's taking our lunch money COVID the virus is taking our lunch money And this is going to take, and in COVID, I got great news for you, NFL. They don't care how big and bad you are.

They don't care that you're worth $12 billion. They don't care that America is waiting on the edge of our seats to get you guys to play in. COVID don't care. Kobe will knock you out. But to me, what JJ did today should be very scary because, and I'm not necessarily sure that if you're a, if you're a fan that you're scared of them. by what JJ wrote.

But if I was a player and I was following JJ and he and I were texting back and forth, I'd be damned if I go out there if you guys don't have your act together. So I don't know what's going on in the NFL. And if JJ's telling the truth, rookies are supposed to be in NFL facilities

in two days. Do you realize we're only, like we're less than a month away from what would have been week one of the NFL preseason? I'm not talking about the Hall of Fame game. I'm talking about week. one of the preseason. Under a month. Aren't teams supposed to be around

arriving, give or take in the next 14 days? Plus or minus? Everybody should be. So you were less than two weeks out from 32 teams with 90 players each showing up and J.J. Watt runs to his Twitter account. Now here's the number. I always tell you guys,

don't run to your Twitter account just to do it unless you've exhausted everything humanly possible to get a result. It feels like to me JJ went to Twitter because there ain't nothing. There's no traction happening right now in the NFL. That's why, again, I love the NFL. I know that 99.9% of you that listen to this show right now are craving some football.

But we got baseball and basketball that will carry us here. NFL, when you come back, come back, right? Come back when one of your star defensive players doesn't send out a tweet and has to go to his notepad on his phone to type up all the questions. Because if you try to force this, you're going to have guys saying the hell with y'all. You're going to have rampant yes results. You're going to have a stoppage of the season. And the NFL has in college, I put that in the same mix, has the most tumultuous returns of any of the sports going on out there.

Let's talk to Mike Oresco. He is a commissioner of the American Athletic Conference, and he will join us in the next segment of this radio show to see exactly how college football is handling such a thing. Right now, a word for Shaw's jewelry at the corner of West Gray and Montrose very close to downtown, right at River Oaks area, and they have been in the exact same location since 1966. No faux sales over at Shaw's. Their prices are always beyond competitive. Don't shop online either. You're looking to buy something very emotional, and, you know, frankly, it's a pretty good size financial purchase.

You want her, you want yourself to see exactly what you're looking for a purchase, and that's why you need to stop by and see what Shaw's jewelry is all about. They have the biggest selection of pre-owned Rolexes in the Houston area. They also have a great selection of gorgeous diamond studs or diamond tennis bracelets. And a lot of their purchases at Shaw's come at 0% financing for 12 months. Some exclusions do apply. At the corner of West Grand Montrose, that's the home of Shaw's jewelry. Your hoops.

The Houston Rockets. Your hits. And the Astros. And your honest opinions. All the tickles play. All in for Houston all day. This is Sports Talk 790. It is 131 on the Matt Thomas show.

Sports Talk 790. We have non-Florida stories coming up at 2.30 this afternoon. We have a chance to go over what JJ Watt had to say if you'd like to do that in a couple of minutes. But right now we are very pleased to be joined here on the Matt Thomas show by the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference. and I have been trying to get Mike Oresco to join us for the last handful of days, but needless to say, these college administrators are very, very busy. And today, it's trying to be a great day because, Mike, your conference made an announcement about testing. First of all, thanks for joining the show.

And could you explain what you guys decided to do today when it comes to football testing this fall? Well, thank you, Matt. And sorry, I couldn't join you earlier in the week. It's been, you know, it's been Groundhog Day every day. Oh, for sure. We have to go over a lot of the same things, and we get new information, and then, of course, new things crop up as well. But thanks for having me. As far as the testing, we wanted to go ahead of this.

We didn't want anyone to think. We knew that the NCAA-a-a-5 might be issuing guidelines, and we've been aware of those, and we have a pretty good idea of what they are. It hasn't been formally published yet. But we wanted to get ahead and show people that we are doing as much. much or more than they are going to be doing. Because, again, we're at a disadvantage because, you know, we're not technically, you know, a P5. And I have not, Matt, wanted to, you know, embark on, you know, or do things regarding the P6 campaign during the pandemic. You know, I just didn't think it was appropriate.

But we're not like some of the conferences that, you know, really can't afford to do this or have other issues. we are like the P5. We just are, period. And we have major medical centers and we have access to the best doctors and testing. And we wanted people, you know, to know that and get ahead of this

because we don't want any issue regarding anyone playing us who might think that we don't, you know, aren't doing the kinds of things that the A5 are going to be doing. We're going to be doing everything they're doing and we may even exceed their standards in certain areas. Mike, the question that was asked to some friends of my

when they found out I was going to have you on was, you're talking about these young men getting tested 72 hours prior to kickoff. What is the protocol? What's the strategy for hours zero zero to 71? Well, again, you try to create a bubble, and it's not going to be perfect, but, you know, it's going to mean, you know, you know, a certain kind of,

I don't want to use the term isolation, but, you know, trying to keep everybody in a certain protocol where they wouldn't be come in contact with, you know, with people who are not in the bubble and therefore, you know, ultimately would be safe and wouldn't have a risk of picking up the virus. It might not be absolutely perfect. Although if you pick it up very late, you know, I'm not, you know, our doctors are not really sure if it would be transvisible, but that's, we don't want that to happen.

Now, look, what we'd like to do testing even prior, you know, even, you know, closer to the game, but right now, you know, with the, you know, the PCR test, which is the, you know, the standard one, it's the most reliable. 72 hours gives you enough time to get the results back. You've got to have the results back. And you also have to have an accommodation in case tests get lost for whatever reason

or something happens or there's a potential false positive and there has to be a retest. There are things that, this is, testing is complicated. It's not simple, but we've got really good doctors and we've got really good labs and we've been testing all our student athletes

coming in and there's been some monitoring and other testing of them. So we already have been doing it. And again, will there be more rapid response testing that will be as reliable as the molecular PCR test down the road? There might be. And if there are, of course, would we adopt them? Yes, we want to get closer to the game time.

But we're going to do the best we can to create what we call the bubble and keep the integrity of it. And again, I've said all along that, that I think our student athletes in a controlled environment will be safer than if they were just out there or gone home and weren't being tested, didn't have the kind of health monitoring and health advice that they're getting on campus. So we'll see. But a lot of other issues, of course, surrounding whether we play or not, but testing has been critical. And we just wanted to make sure that we're doing the best we can.

And 72 hours right now, and we think that will be. the, you know, we don't have the document yet, but we think that will be the A-5 standard. And again, if you can do it, you know, within 48, within 24 day of the game. And you have rapid response tests, you know, the antigen tests that are getting better, but they're not there yet. They're not as reliable as they need to be. Mike Oresco, the American Athletic Conference Commissioner, joining us here on the Matt Thomas Show.

Mike, we're all vested in this, not only as sports fans, but as human beings on this. And I was telling the audience yesterday that on my Twitter account, I'd like to go to a lot of aggregate sites. And to me, it feels like I could get 25 Division I, athletic directors, and they give me 25 different responses. If I grabbed every conference commissioner, I probably would get different responses on this. Taking your commissioner head off, do you kind of feel the same way I do, that there is so much uncertainty.

There isn't a level playing field. and I think that maybe, Mike, if I talked to you a week ago, you'd have a different opinion about the future of college football as you maybe do today. You might even have the different opinion a week from today. Matt, there's no question, there's uncertainty. But, you know, life is filled with uncertainty and you have to navigate it, you know, and you have to try to do the right thing. We've been trying to use, you know, best practices.

We've been as diligent as we can possibly be. It's all been about health and safety. That's it. We've been concerned about that from day one ever since we canceled basketball. And our feeling is that if you're doing things for the right reason, you'll ultimately come out with the better policy decisions. It's not going to be perfect. You can't eliminate all risks. But then again, let's not look at this in a strictly one-sided way.

In other words, if you play college football, for example, or fall sports, okay, if you don't play what are the alternatives, what's going to happen to the student-assied way? athletes, are they going to be better off if they didn't play? If students are on campus, and that really has been pretty much a key, you know, a factor in whether we can play, you know, college sports. But if they are, and our student athletes are in, as I mentioned, that controlled environment where they're getting tested each week, they're getting, you know, medical advice or getting all sorts of other things, sanitation and hygiene are far better, if they're home and are going to a gym that doesn't have the standards we have, if they drop out of school or if they stay in school but they live in an off-campus apartment or even if they're on campus.

They're not necessarily being monitored the same way. They're not being tested the same way. What's going to happen to them? Would anyone track them? What happens if we don't play and we could have played in a safe environment? But there's student athletes who will be depressed about that. Our student athletes want to play. Our football players want to play.

And I think studies around other conferences show that it's close to probably, it's clearly between 90 and 100. It's probably closer to 100%. They want to play and they feel we've done things to keep them safe. But if they're not playing, you know, there could be depression and that could be an issue and there could be other things. It's not that simple. What I've been asking for, Matt, is, you know, I don't know what our ultimate decision is going to be. The virus will obviously, you know, have a big, you know, impact.

And obviously it's had an impact in Houston. But in the end, what we want to do is make rational decisions. All I've been campaigning for is let's think about this rationally. You don't want to engage in any hysteria. There's still some things we don't know clearly, but we do know a lot more than we did four months ago. And we have to, the pandemic may be with us for quite a while, and we may not have a vaccine. You know, we may not be able to, you know, guarantee 100%, say, but nothing is guaranteed 100%. And there are other risks that we do accept, and we have to accept them.

but, you know, we're doing everything we can to mitigate risk and to make this safe. And what's the alternative? Are the student athletes, our football players, our fall sports, or soccer players, you know, obviously basketball will be starting up? Are they better off, you know, not participating in sports if you can do it, you know, in a reasonable and safe way? That's the question we're posing to ourselves. We've got a medical advisory group. They haven't told us not to play. If they said, we don't think you ought to play, I think our presidents and chancellors would take that.

very seriously. Ultimately, it's their decision. They have to weigh the risks, but they haven't said that. And right now, you know, we'd like to buy as much time as possible, Matt, because I think you learn more, and maybe things in Houston will start improving, and maybe things in Dallas will start improving. We've got two states, obviously, Florida and Texas, you know, we've had some issues in Pennsylvania, but those seem to have subsided. So, you know, let's find out if we, you know, in a couple of weeks, we all agree that we probably have to make some initial decisions about whether we move the season back. Do we, you know, postpone play for a while? And then we probably have another few weeks to make a decision as to whether we have the season.

But I wouldn't, you know, I don't think we could make a decision based on, well, we can play in the spring because I think that's going to be very problematic. I really do. I mean, to play, you know, 20 to 25 football games in a compressed time period if you, you know, account for the 2021 season, something that is really something that's got to be looked at carefully. So you're opposed? Yeah, so Mike, you're opposed to playing spring football? Well, I didn't. No, I'm not opposed to it, but I think it's a absolutely.

I agree with Sandy Barber. It is a last resort. And then I don't know how practical it's going to be because what you don't want to do, Matt, is jeopardize the 2021 season in any way. And if you play in the spring, you know, what happens to the, you know, practices in the summer? In addition, you know, it could be counterintuitive, but what? you'd be indoors practicing in the winter. That's when the virus spreads more easily.

And, you know, one of the theories, I'm not a doctor, but, you know, in the warm weather, most people in the south and in the southwest are indoors, right, a lot of the time. And I guess maybe that, you know, to some extent helps cause the spread. We don't know. I mean, the doctors, I'm not a doctor, but, you know, you hear a lot, you know, you read a lot. This is not that simple a situation. And, you know, the two, if we lost the 20 football and the, 21 football season, that would be

utterly catastrophic. It would be very difficult even to navigate through if we lose the 20 season. We'll do it. Our conference is healthy enough, but it's going to be a very tough situation. The economic toll is really a

human toll if people lose their jobs and you have to furlough people or these communities that rely on football, people lose their jobs. That's a human toll. And that's something that, you know, you can play safely, then obviously that toll is mitigated. But that's the key to everything.

Can you do it safely? Can you test? Can you isolate? Can you quarantine? Can you trace? Can you do the things you need to do? And again, would these student athletes, you know, be safer if they weren't in a controlled environment?

They weren't being tested. They weren't, you know, having access to facilities there, you know, as clean as they can possibly be, you know, whether it's temperature checks, wearing masks. you know, social, just all the things that will be stressed by the coaches who are taking this very seriously. Those are the questions you have to ask, Matt. Before I let you run, and we've got Mike Oresco, the Commissioner of the American with us, and I'm vested in your conference. I have been since the day.

It was born. I'm a model of the University. Houston is involved, obviously. He's been there since day one, and Chris Pezman does a great job as our athletic director. We've already lost one game. Yeah, we've lost the Washington State game, it sounds like for sure. The BYU and the Rice games, and maybe non-com. conference is just a moot conversation.

But is there any thought? And the reason why I ask you this is because our league is still spread out. And a lot of leagues are, frankly, have become much more spread out than New Year's past with all the different mergers and whatnot. But does your league have a consensus? Could you see Navy play primarily teams in the eastern half of the country? Could you see U of H being asked to maybe play two or three other non-conference games that aren't involved in the league?

So it cuts down on your travel. the kids away from hotels and airplanes, or is it you've got to go all in and play at least a conference schedule to have a 2020 season? We plan on playing a conference schedule for sure if we play. And Matt, in terms of non-conference, that would be up to the individual schools. And they may, you know, they're going to lose some games and they may decide to, you know, substitute games that are closer by. Obviously, that might involve bus trips.

But we charter, though, for football, so there's not the same risk as commercial air travel and we're not you know we're still investigating the risks of commercial air travel because that you know olympic sports uh you know that that figures in more heavily there and so we're we're going to have to really review that you know carefully but in terms of football it's it's you charter and basketball too and so consequently we'll you know our plan is to play a conference schedule could we play you know our normal 12 we don't know yet if we couldn't play 12 would we play a hybrid eight and then have two non-conference games uh we'll Right now, we didn't view an all-conference schedule as something we'd prefer to do.

You know, we would like to keep – we have some key non-conference games that we'd like to keep. Army plays Navy. Navy plays Notre Dame. Obviously, TCU, SMU is a key game. You know, Houston, obviously, losing the Washington State game. Maybe there's a game closer to home that Chris can substitute. You know, I know he's looking at that. BYU has just lost five games, three-pack 12 and then two big ten. and they might be looking to play some of our teams.

Army might be looking to play some of our teams. But again, the charter travel really makes football, you know, in that sense, safer. And again, we're, you know, speaking of Olympic sports, as I mentioned, you know, we are looking at more regional schedules there and seeing what we can do. We haven't finalized plans. But it's, you know, it's a fluid situation. We talk to our ADs regularly. and we're trying to figure out, you know, what the other, you know, P5 are going to do

who have not said they're not playing non-conference games. You know, we think the Big 12 will play. I can't speak for them, but we think that they're going to play some non-conference games. As I said, TCU, SMU, it seems to be on. We have a Texas USF game, you know, no sign of any cancellation there. We don't know. We don't know whether SEC and ACC will want to keep some non-conference games. They have some important rivalries.

are also close by. You know, Georgia, Georgia, Tech and South Carolina, Clemson, and Florida, Florida State. And, you know, we don't play as many. We have Mississippi State game this year. We don't play as many SEC games. And the other thing, Matt, is we only have five P5 home games this year.

Last year we had nine or ten. And only half of our games, roughly, with the P5, our home games. Not this year. For some reason, we have, I think, 14 or 15, and more 10 of them or so are away. So we've lost some big 10 games. We lost four there.

We've lost a Pact 12 game. And our schools are looking to potentially replace those. And again, it's all continuing on playing at all. And right now, you know, there's real concern. But on the other hand, there's still cautious optimism that if we buy time, that things might, you know, be such that we can play. We'll leave it at that. Mike, thank you very much.

Commission. It's a pleasure to have you on my show. You're in a very difficult position, my friend. There's really no other way to say it. And I wish you and the rest of the ADs a lot of success. Hopefully numbers will start to drop, and we can get thinking about a schedule at some point down the road. Again, Mike, thank you very much for joining me on my show this afternoon.

Well, thanks for your support of the conference, Matt. You know, our president and chancellors have an even bigger job opening their campuses. No question. Who is our board member and, you know, one of our real valued counselors. And, you know, Chris Pezman does a great job. And my best to Dana and everybody in the Houston area. And also just for everyone's help, safety. I know you've had a tough time recently

and so I hope everybody, you know, things improve there and stay well. Thank you, Matt, for having me. We'll take that. Thanks again. Mike Oresko, the Commissioner, the American Athletic Conference joining us here on a sports talk 790. If you want to comment anything he had to say, you can do so right now. 713, 212,

5790, 713, 212 5790. We're with you to 3 o'clock today with a message for Big City Wings. If you want delicious tasting wings, tonight is buy one boneless. Get one free. of the eight big city wing locations soon to be nine they'll make the big announcement here in the not too distant future great tasting wings good burgers delicious salads appetizers

and the fried orioles are amazing and to go drinks as well margaritas and beers long island teas they've got a great selection of summer beverages for you as well if you're not willing and want to go inside you can certainly get it for a takeout delivery option as well so do yourself a great favor. Get yourself buy one bonus, get one free. Two for Thursdays when it comes of boneless wings today at any of the eight Big City Wing locations. To find the one nearest you,

you go to big citywings.com. Houston's Sports Talk for lunch. Matt Thomas returns. On Sports Talk 790. Thanks again to Mike Oresco for joining us on the Matt Thomas show. We've got another hour and change left to go. Non-Floral stories coming up in 35 minutes from now.

JJ Watt put out a tweet, wanting some information. Well, pro football talk just put something out a few minutes ago. I don't know if it was in direct response to what JJ said, but here it goes. The NFL will plan a COVID-19 list. Player gets full pay and will be eligible to return to practice after an initial three weeks. Within the next three weeks, he must be moved back to the active roster, sent to the injured reserve or release with injury settlement. That's heavy minutia, but it is at least a little bit of a response,

and my guess is that's what they were looking for. So again, and a pro football talk saying that there will be a specific COVID list that players could be placed on and will receive full pay during that time. By league rule, no teams may have fans at training camp in 2020. Instead, teams will be permitted up to two events, the stadium, if state and local rules permit, as they were asking about whether or not fans can go to training camps, The answer to that clearly is no. My guess is they're going to have those state local events at a price.

Go see your Texans practice for $14 a person, whatever the case may be. But I think that'll be very hard to find. 713-212-5-790s. So how you reach his show? Let me go to Jeff and Tampa before the top of the hour. Hi, Jeff. Matt. Yes, sir.

Great show again. We'll just go forward that, you know, Tampa loves you. And you have the greatest show in the world. Thank you. What's going on? Okay. Again, you just touched on it about what, you know, JJ wants. I think he wants to hone in on so many answers that like Mike, D.

He says, he goes, or the commissioner said, you know, you got baseball starting up and then the NBA and the NHL. I honestly think that, you know, Roger and the Shield and the players union have talked. And it said, okay, here's some preliminaries. Let's see how a hardcore bubble and a regional bubble and travel and travel and travel and play everywhere regionally works out. Because we're really not starting until when football starts in August. We're not really starting here. So we got like 30, 45 days of grace period to see numbers go down, science. typically or to see what really works and what doesn't.

And I think I agree with JJ saying, I need answers, but it's kind of like, hold on. We can't give you a lot here. He wants answers to questions that maybe the NFL is not prepared to answer. The problem is the tweet, and thank you, Jeff, for the phone call. I appreciate you listening as always. The problem is the tweet comes across as the NFL doesn't have even a plan in place. And that's what I think is. And if you've not seen JJ's tweet, I'll once again repeat what he said to open up this final hour of the show.

But as I read them, it'll come across to you that the NFL just hasn't given any thought of telling the players association what they're going to do. So we'll do that. And we will start that. Also, what else that I see that I wanted to mention? There's something else going on in the last few minutes that I thought was good to mention on the show. Let me so I can find it for you. Oh, just more thoughts about isolation periods, quarantining among schools in Power 5.

And oh, by the way, I wanted to see if you guys have a thought on this. Mike Oresco was just with us here on the show, and he sounded very much like he does not want college football to be pushed to January of 2021. And the reason for that is that you would smush 2021 into January to March and then go back and play in September. It sounds like to me that is very much against what I think college commissioners want. We had talked about it a little bit on the show yesterday. Sounds like that's something that Mike would like to use as a very, very much last resort.

157 on the Matt Thomas show, final hour. We'll talk about JJ. We'll talk about college football trying to smush into 2021 and how that may not be an option. We'll do all that after I tell you what's happening with the Shell Federal Credit Union. Shell Federal Credit Union has low, low, low auto loan rates. We're talking about rates as low as 1.99% APR for new, used, and refinanced vehicles. You get $250 in cashback on every auto loan. You can also ask about 90 days of deferred payments, and you can get two skip a pays a year with the Shell Federal Credit Union.

All I ask you to do is go online to shellfcU.org, shellfc u.org for details, and you can also apply while you're online. Remember, $250 in cash back on every auto loan with rates as low as 1.99% APR. From Shell Federal Credit Union and ShellfcU.org. Welcome home to ShellFCU. Yeah. This is the Matt Thomas Show. All right, 202 on Sports Talk 790. It is the final hour, the Matt Thomas show.

If you guys want to get it, you can do so. 713-1-2-125-7-90 coming up in less than a half an hour it's non-flora stories brendin where do we find your non-flora story this week i believe it is somewhere in kentucky i don't have it up at the moment but it is in kentucky you know kentucky can give you quality stories yeah i think it's actually i kind of had that thought it's probably a good place to go it's an underrated strange-ass state underrated for sure i also have a trend

um i feel like with a lot of mine there there are naked people involved in mine as well do I have naked people in mind is the big question you'll need to find out although if you believe what others say about only fans it's nothing but nakedness maybe you're here to prove us wrong 28 minutes from now j jay watt texted or put a tweet out at 110 this afternoon thank you for doing it during my show i appreciate that jay if you did not see it earlier i'll read it to you in the interest of having everyone on the same page in terms of what we know and what we don't know at this time. Here are a few things I've learned about being on four NFLPA calls in the last two weeks

with hundreds of other players. Keep in mind, our rookies are scheduled to report in 48 hours. Now, he has to go to a notepad page because the other stuff is just too much. It would be well over his 280. Here's what we know and what we don't know. He says he wants to play. We want to play. We want to be as safe as possible.

Those really go without saying, right? Those are the kind of stuff that you put in there to say, here we are to defend the honor. It's like putting out there, we love America. I think everybody presumes that you do love America. We have not received a single valid Ider plan that's an infection, disease, emergency response from any team or the league. We don't know if there are any preseason games or not.

We don't know if they'll be daily testing, semi-daily testing, et cetera. We don't know how it potentially, potential positive COVID test would affect countertraks, roster spots, etc. Well, pro football talks kind of already addressed that in the last few minutes. Nothing has been agreed upon regarding what training camp will actually look like and how the ramp up period will work. And then he closes out by saying, we want to play.

Brendan, in this particular case, I got to be honest with you, I think he did this knowing that I'm JJ Watt. We're close to an NFL season. And it's time for the NFL to start spilling the beans. about what their season is going to be about. I also wonder if NFL players, like JJ Watts, see what happened in the MLB and go, we need to start early.

Like not start negotiating early, because clearly that part's already been failed. But start getting out in front of this as far as what the narrative is. And that they're ready to go, it's just the NFL's dragging their feet. Exactly. Huh. Okay.

I could probably buy that. But man, what indications do you ever see the NFL drag its feet on anything. I don't think, I think typically the NFL just can power their way through anything. That's right. Just a rare circumstance where that's kind of not how disease works. Do you understand that they powered through the NFL draft? I kind of think what their plan for the COVID list, it feels like they're going to just

designate COVID a three-week injury and go about the season as normal otherwise. So that's their grandiose plan is to say, oh, you tested positive seeing three weeks by? That's what it feels like. God Almighty. That would almost be comical. If that's like, if that's all we get, it would almost be comical. All right. I think regardless of whatever and however JJ portrayed on his Twitter account,

I think this now sets things in motion where there's going to be a lot more people. Like, for instance, would JJ Watt tweet it out today? And I'm sure there's probably 10 or 15 other athletes that tweet similar things out. We just happen to care about JJ because he's a Houston Texan. this will be on national TV shows it'll be on the talkers it'll be on the sports centers and whatnot this got moving here today I bet you we learn more information between now and Monday

than we have had given to us in the previous 30 days it's a very low bar well yeah because the answers the previous 30 days have been nothing but the timing between the JJ Watt tweet and the pro football talk given us some of that information is it is interesting Isn't it funny how these things work? This is all about, hey, I got an NFL player busting our balls about how we're not doing anything and how we don't have a plan set.

Who can we call to put this out there? Oh, let's go to pro football talk. Florio put anything out there. He doesn't care. So that's the only nibble. I think what you do need is you need to get that full manual out there like they did with baseball. like they did with basketball and show America, whether it's their business or not, how the NFL is going to conduct their business, show the layouts of practices,

show them how they're going to test, how often they're going to test, were they going to put the guys, are they going to put them in hotels, are they going to put them in bubbles, whatever the case may be? Because here's the thing, nobody's leaving town for training camps. You're not like, you know, the Packers, not the Packers, like the Saints would go like to West Virginia sometimes, or the Texans would go or they go to Wisconsin. and nobody's doing that.

Everybody's staying at their own facilities. This is the time where you have to kind of show what you're doing. Especially if JJ's right, especially if rookies are supposed to show up in a couple days. Could you imagine being an NFL rookie? Here you are scared because you're about to step into professional football for the very first time, and you don't know the proper protocols because no one's giving them to you.

Let me tell you something. If JJ Watt doesn't have the protocols, I'll be damned of a rookie and the NFL's got them. So again, this could all be moot. We could have a better understanding of what the NFL is going to do in terms of getting the guys ready by Monday. I almost feel like they have to. If not, they're going to push back.

They being the NFL Player Association saying, if y'all aren't ready, nor are we. Don't you kind of think we're going to get pushed back either way? Yeah, I do. Well, I've been on the record. I think the NFL season gets pushed back. I think we don't play preseason games. I'm almost 100% sure the season gets pushed back.

Preseason, that might just be a bargaining chip they have to do because they want to get at least one game in. That I don't. I can't have as much confidence. But seriously, could you imagine if we took a private vote? And we went to the equipment managers, the head trainers of every NFL team and said, hey, are you all ready in five days for a start of training camp? What do you think percentages would be? They'd say, oh, yeah, we're good.

We're ready to go. I bet you the answer be zero and you're going to take the most pipe-outer sport, the multi-billion dollar sport, and then you're going to tell these managers and these trainers, well, we'll just power through it. There ain't no power through

in any of this. I can tell you that for sure. Especially when you're talking about a league as powerful as the NFL. But JJ Watt, not messing around the day. Have you guys seen anybody else? Is there any other high-profile players that have basically gone out for the NFL like JJ did so far? I feel like he's not the first, but I don't think anybody high profile has.

Let me tell you something. When you have to go to a notepad on your phone to type up crap, that's heavy, right? It's a good sign that you got something to say. Well, again, part of it was we want to play. Well, of course you do. We want to be in a safe environment. Well, of course you do. And at the end, we want to play. I don't think anybody that was worried about the future the NFL was concerned about whether or not the players were ready to play, because there's a lot of money to be made, billions of dollars of money. So, you know, again, everybody has their own way of putting out their own message, and that's just the way the JJ did it.

But ultimately, what he said is the truth. He's been on multiple calls and has heard squat from people in the NFL. We've been kind of saying the same thing. I'm still semi-blown away by what Mike Oresco said earlier. Because I always thought on the college side that playing in the spring would not be that big of a deal. especially we can get every duck in a row, make sure all your athletes are taken care of. He put it in kind of different terms for me,

thinking that in theory trying to play 25 games in a single calendar year might be too much. So I was a little, I wouldn't say shaken, but for me it was, you know, win and doubt delay. But as he said when he joined the show a few minutes ago, you delay in January. It doesn't necessarily mean that COVID is going to do you any favors then. it may not slow down.

As a matter of fact, it may kick up again because the weather may be cooler. If they're going to play, they're going to probably do it before the end of the calendar year. And it did kind of intimate a little bit that there might be a chance that just take this season off and get everybody and get this disease out of the way or get this virus out of the way and get the testing properly done and have a full vaccine before we try to send thousands of amateur athletes back on the college campuses. I've told you I'm pretty adamant. I don't think we're getting any football out of non-power-five schools.

Oh, so you think it's just power five schools? I do think Power Five schools will play, but I don't think we're going to get it from anybody else. I would not go that far because there are, there are, there's a lot of non-power-five schools to do very well for themselves. And that have enough facilities, technology, testing to play. It's not that those schools won't want to play, but I think those conferences are going to be the ones who have problems. Like, I think you're going to see entire conferences just decide that they're not playing. Especially if there are the conferences that look for those big paths and they're not getting them. Right.

Can you imagine all the schools in like the Mid-American conference that don't get to play Penn State now for big cash? Well, and just wait. I mean, I don't know where you're at on this, but I think every major conference is going to come around to saying only conference games. Yeah, I do too. I do believe that's going to be the case. 213. Matt Thomas Show continues here on Sports Talk 790. Bottom of the hour, non-Florida stories. And I got a newsie for you this week.

I swear I do. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 on Twitter at SportsMT at Brendan Riley underscore. And you may join us between now and 3 o'clock at 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 with a message here for Hoops, basketball goals, and sporting equipment. The folks at Hoops will manufacture a goal. for your driveway, for your cul-de-sac, whatever the case may be, and they'll do it the right way, all it takes is you calling 281-351-98-22 and getting them started.

281-351-98-22. Fully-tempered black glass backboard, fully adjustable goal from 5 to 10 feet, rust armor protection against rust and corrosion and installation. I've seen some of you. You can't install a basketball goal. It will be dangerous. It'll fall. It'll hurt kids.

It'll hurt you. and you'll be mad. Let the folks at hoops do the professional installation for you. All it takes is you call a 281-351-9822 or their website, pro-dunkhoops.com. That's pro-dunkhoops.com. Hey, it's Coach Dan Tony. Step back three and the corner is good.

Matt Thomas, my favorite voice in Houston. Now that's a little exaggerating. Back to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. So I did a little research on my non-flora story. You're going to want to hear this at the bottom of the hour. Girlfriend is 21 years old and she's making crazy, crazy money. Six figures a month, Brendan. Was this sent to you?

Yes. So for the record, you found this story when? Two days ago, it was sent to me. Because it's two days ago this story wasn't very big, but I've been starting to see it pick up a little. bit of traction. So you were technically in on this early, but you're going to be sharing it probably in the peak of when this story is being shared. Yeah. And I found some additional quotes on the girl, too. So she's nuts, but she's rich. She just is. All right. 713-212-5-790. Non-florita stories coming up in 12 minutes. Are you a NASCAR guy, Brandon?

very much not a NASCAR guy nor am I but I woke up this morning and unfortunately because ESPN decided to put on some useless MLS game I was flipping around to the various morning shows and the Today show today

had a reporter at Texas Motor Speedway up in Fort Worth that's where the next NASCAR event is yesterday they had an all-star event apparently and I don't follow NASCAR So I'm flying blind on a lot of this. It was in Bristol.

It was an all-star event where the winner of the event won a million bucks. That is in the storyline. The storyline is they had fans in the stands yesterday. 20,000 approximately went to the event yesterday. And they're saying that's about 15, 20% of capacity at the Bristol Motor Speedway. So have you seen pictures? Are they relatively distanced? They are social distanced.

They are having a great time. The one thing I did notice, and again, I only looked at two different reports on two different TV channels that were talking about it. They were, if you were to go to this event yesterday in Bristol, if you didn't have a mask on, you were not a lot in. So everybody had to have a mask that got in. but once people got to their seats they largely took them off so it was a crowd of okay I'll do it

but if I'm sitting with my three or four buddies or my members of my family and I'm one or two rows away from somebody else that I do not know I feel safe in not wearing a mask while watching a sporting event now I'm assuming Bristol is Tennessee

right Bristol Tennessee I got to be thinking thinking on a night or this heatway we were in through right now at a NASCAR track with social distancing I bet wearing a mask outside for a couple of hours would be a major pain of the ass in terms of just being frankly uncomfortable now the best thing to do would be to wear the mask the entire time for sure but I could understand why people want to take it off especially because a lot of people when they go out and the exercise and they walk around and they do things outside they do it without their mask on.

So while I am a huge proponent of people wearing mask, I wasn't particularly bothered yesterday with the people that were in the stands because, A, they had to have a mask to get in, so they had to have some sort of protection. And secondly, it did look like to me, from what I saw on the video highlights of this NASCAR event, that people were multiple roles from each other,

and that you felt safe not having a mask on while you were watching this NASCAR event. The big question is, you ready for this, gang? The next event, as I just said a few minutes ago, is going to be a Texas Motor Speedway, where the state of Texas for NASCAR events will allow up to 50% occupancy, which they're saying,

if ticket sales continue to be brisk and they continue to try to sell that percentage, we could have the largest spectator event with fans in the stands since this pandemic took place or started in March. There could be as many as 60,000 people at Texas Motor Speedway. So what I'll ask of you right here, if you're social distancing and you are watching what you saw in Bristol yesterday, And you are watching what could happen this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, and you bring a mask, and you don't have anybody that you don't know that's maybe one or two rows away,

would it give you a little more excitement about maybe going to see a sporting event? I'm going to just tell you who I am and what I do. I love sports. I love being at the events. This has been crazy having to watch stuff on television for a better part of six months now, or whatever it's been. I don't know if I'd be very comfortable. sitting in an arena, 18,000 seats with no separation.

But if I saw what I saw yesterday in Bristol and there's not a massive outbreak and positive test because of what happened yesterday at that NASCAR man, I would go to a college football game or a pro football game. And as long as I was separated by one or two rows or at least a good amount of distance and I had an option to wear a mask if I so choose, I would do it. So even though I'm not a NASCAR fan, I think we should all be very curious in exactly what happens this weekend in Fort Worth. Do they get to 60,000 people? That'd be half.

Texas has a half rule as compared to other states that say you can only have 10, 20, 30 percent occupancy. Texas, by Governor Abbott a couple months ago, said sporting events can have 50 percent occupancy outside. Would you want to go? because we got NASCAR fans that listen to be a good NASCAR fans of oh mad I've gone I've loved it love the experience 50% occupancy would be social distancing

but would also be the most amount of people in any at any sporting event period since March would you be willing to be one of those people to go now if you're like me and you don't particularly care for NASCAR there's nothing that NASCAR that would say hey come watches I don't think I don't want to be there for five, six, seven hours.

It would just be a waste of my time because I'm just not interested. It doesn't mean it's not interesting to a lot of you that may be listening, but it's just not my cup of tea. But if I was a NASCAR fan and I saw what I saw in Bristol and saw everybody behave themselves, there were no problems, and I'd go. And I think if NASCAR behaves themselves, especially in Texas, it's going to help out the other sports in our state. I think it really will. I think if Texas Motor Speedway this weekend comes across and has 45,000, whatever the number may be, and there are very few if zero positive test, that's an amazing sign for college football and pro football in our state. On the other hand, if they have this event and there's a massive outbreak and people aren't wearing their mask and they're not social distancing

and not sitting where they're supposed to be sitting, that's going to hurt. I think the city of Texas when it comes to trying to figure out whether or not we can have fans in the stands for upcoming college and pro football. Philadelphia has already said nobody no fans at Eagles games this year. None.

It just kind of shows you how important the television contracts are to the NFL. Because while that money would be certainly appreciated, they don't need it. I can't help but wonder how are NFL owners going to feel

if the Texans are allowed to have 50% capacity when I would suspect the vast majority of teams can't have any. Like, that's another thing the NFL needs to figure out. Are they going to allow any team to just allow as much in as they can? Yeah, that's great. That's a great question. For multiple angles. I mean, one's obviously financial, but the other's competitive advantage.

You know, if you're playing in empty stadiums in most places, but then you go to Houston or you go to Dallas and they've got 35,000 fans, like, that's a difference. That's a huge difference. Are you talking about from a cheering standpoint or from a financial standpoint? Everything. Everything. I think it all matters. And I do think other owners in states where they're not allowed to have anybody are not going to be happy if some teams get to have 50% capacity. Wow, you could have a fight between owners.

But the problem is it's out of the owner's hands. It's up to the individual states. How can you, how would you blame the Texans of the Cowboys for putting people in their stands? if they're governors of those respective states allow that to happen. You ask for some level of profit sharing, which we already see in a lot of sports. There's your answer. Have as many people as you want in games in Arizona or in Florida. Just make sure states that can't have fans in the stands, we get a little chunk of that.

Non-Florida stories. Next, 227. It is the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach a show with a message here for Cole, Chris. refreshing Coors Light. We're talking temperatures and the heat index wall above 100. How are you going to keep yourself cool

when you're sitting on the patio or just kind of hanging around the house? Getting yourself a delicious, cold filtered Coors Light. The cans, the Blue Mountains up top, means that they're ready to go. In fact, Coors Light has a strong connection. When Coors Light left Colorado

for the very first time and distributed beer elsewhere, where they go first, the state of Texas. It's just that delicious. That kind of legacy and that kind of history. in the Texas area.

So if you're looking for something that's delicious and clean and low carb, I want you to think about Coors Light made to chill. Go get you a 12-packed-day at your favorite grocery store and liquor store and just sit back, relax, drink responsibly, obviously, and enjoy the summer, enjoy trying to get rid of this heat and do it today with a Coors Light made to chill. Oh, smart device, so hot. want to touch the heinie.

No need to touch me, Mr. Sandler. Just ask me for Houston sports. Thank you very much. Tell your smart device to play Sports Talk 790 on IHard Radio. From first pitch, getting set for the first pitch, to final out. And that is the ball game. Your Astros play exclusively on Sports Talk 790. Flagship station of your Houston Astros.

All right, time now for now in Florida Stories. If y'all want to do this, go ahead. Because, you know, sometimes you wish this was visual. It's not a great visual, but just to put things in context. Her name is Jenna Phillips. She's on TikTok. She's 21 years of age from Austin. And there is video on her TikTok acting like a dog.

Okay. Have you seen what Jenna Phillips looks like, Brendan? I have not. Okay. I want to be as polite as possible, so please do not call me a sexist pig when I tell you. She's probably a five and a half. What was her name again?

Jenna Phillips. Here goes my non-flora story. 21-year-old Austin resident Jenna Phillips said that when she started filming herself doing dog stuff on her TikTok account, things like chasing a ball, Rolling about on the floor. She always felt like she was at heart of puppy.

She has now amassed nearly 120,000 followers on TikTok. In addition to that, she has a small army of subscribers who pay her $20 a month to watch some of her often not safe for work content on the only fans platform. Much of the money that she earns comes from facilitating the specific request of her patrons, one of whom apparently paid her $1,000 for a video. Despite having worked as a clinical optician for two years, she's now packed it in to live a dog's life full-time. She explains, I feel like a dog,

I just want to roll around, play fetch, get head-scrack, Ratched, run around and play. All of that. I have always acted like a puppy, but not in a sexual way at first. I used to pretend I was a puppy when I was growing up. Further quotes, I really love praise. I love hearing good girl. It makes my heart melt every time.

Only fans was just a hobby before I had been, before I had just been doing vanilla stuff. I then realized there wasn't really a market for female puppies. The majority of the puppy community is for gay men. Whenever I went shopping for the gear, it was only for men. I thought, screw it. Why don't I create the market? I know there's a demand for it, so why don't I supply it? It's now my full-time job.

My revenue has increased 100 times since I moved to puppy play content. I'm now making six figures monthly. If somebody tells me what they want, I will give them a quote. The more kinky you want, the more it will cost. However, there is a fine line as how far as she will go to accommodate her fans' request. She adds, some of the requests are a bit too much. People have asked me, okay, I can't read that part. Because I'm so into my kink, I'm very fetish-friendly.

I'm very open-minded. I'll try to understand where people are coming from with their kinks. I know a lot of people who would turn around to me and say, tell me that my kink is crazy, so I try not to be judgmental. I love learning more about kinks too. It's my lifestyle 24-7. Again, her name is Jenna Phillips. She's 21 years of age, and she makes $100,000 a month.

I'm going to be honest with you. It's really weird, and it's a crazy. crazy story, but like, good for her. To be able to turn something that you did because you enjoyed it into that kind of money, good for her. So let me get this straight. If you want to join her only fans club, you're going to have to ask her what she's going to charge you for what you want. So I think you pay a base fee just to like be a fan.

And then you have to pay for like requests. Like I think those are separate things. Huh. Okay, good to know So think like Think like you pay for Amazon Prime But you still have to pay for the products you buy Okay, so if you want the kinks, as she calls it

It's going to cost you than just the basic membership Exactly How do you think mom and dad feel about this? You know what? They probably don't love it, but you got to live your life I respect this woman Does it make you think about when you're opening up your own OnlyFans account?

Matt, if I could make that kind of money pretending to be a dog, I would do it tomorrow. I want you to please save that quote for future references on the Matt Thomas show. You wouldn't? You want me to act like a dog for six figures a month? If somebody would pay you that, would you do it? Well, of course the answer is no. It depends on how, I mean, let's be honest. She's not, in the only fan's bonus account, she's not doing polite things like going to fetch

a ball. There's things she's probably doing that we probably can't discuss on the air. So let me rephrase. I'm going to have you make six figures a month for you to do things with a ball that you're not comfortable with. No, that's a little bit different. No, there are probably limits I wouldn't be willing to cross that she is. See, I think there's nothing at this point she's not willing at least try once. Now, your non-flora to store. It's not going to live up to that. In Owensboro, Kentucky, man is facing several charges after deputies say they found him naked on a burglary... I'm gonna call it a robbery in progress.

The man had continued to say he had been using mushrooms with Jesus. When deputies arrived, they say they saw him in the home naked with blood and mud on his body. They had to tase him to get him to the ground. He actually was approaching officers, wouldn't listen to commands. He claimed he was using mushrooms with Jesus and playing a virtual reality game together.

So, hey, he and J.C. were busy eating shrooms and playing video games? Yeah. Virtual reality video games. Oh, the virtual ones. Like Pokemon? And when they got into the house, there were holes punched in the dry wall. Blood was smeared on walls. This man was, uh...

He was tripping pretty hard. Well, I'd like to say that's an out-of-the-ordinary story, but my guess I could find one of those in every single state. In like 10 of them in Florida. But not a bad effort there, my friend. All right. This might be the last time we bring up only fans on the show, right? I don't think we need to bring it up on a regular basis, especially since they don't spend any money with us. I mean, we never brought it up before.

Would you let them spend money with you? Well, I mean, there's a service to provide, right? That's fair. It's a more unique service is all I would say. I think watching a woman do strange things acting like a dog would be definitely under that category. Okay. Yeah, for sure. 241

I'm really afraid to look at my mentions on Twitter Let me go look at look here A quick I mean it was a great story Yeah by the way Del Raz 09 I'm learning about only fans on the air I didn't know anything about it

Is it as I don't think it's as common As some people are letting it on to be If it is we've got a freakish audience Well I think it blew up with the pandemic I think you had a lot of people turn to that as a source of income. Because TikTok wasn't giving you money. It was basically you had to go figure out a way to make some cash. And this is how you do it.

Yeah. And TikTok's also targeted to a much younger audience. That wasn't people. A lot of the stuff on OnlyFans, most of it, would not be allowed on TikTok. Now, here's what I would do because I'm a journalist. If I could get a free OnlyFans account, just to kind of perusey what's out there. Then I'd be able to better come to the show tomorrow and give you kind of an idea what you could find out there. I don't know if we can get you a free account, but I bet we could get people to pull together for you.

Yeah, I don't want to. I don't need to look that bad. I'm just saying that I'm here to provide a public service if those of you are hesitant in checking out exactly what Onlyfans is about. Because you never know. You might meet that special 21-year-old who acts like a dog in Austin, Texas. who's no more in about a five and a half making about $100,000 a month. Do you really, you call them BS on that, or do you think she's really legit making that kind of cash? I think there's a lot of money to be made in what, you know, and, yeah, if you're willing to do whatever people are requesting. $100,000 a month seems a bit excessive, but I bet you she's making stupid money.

Yeah, how do you climb that on taxes? What do you do for a living? I take care of people's dog fetishes on Onlyfans. Oh, okay, that sounds unreasonable. man they're they're in the fact that she doesn't mind going to bob for balls is nice too until the ball in the water she goes and her and chases after i've seen video of this thing again five and a half 243 final segment of the matt thomas show starts in a matter of moments here on sports talk 790 and probably not a bad idea for it to end maybe with only fans but certainly sports fans

713-212-5-790 7-1-2-1-2-1-2-5-790 with a message here for big city wings today is a huge day for big city wings it is buy one get one free boneless wings in any other eight houston area locations delicious made from scratch food great wings awesome burgers and today with it being Thursday double boneless wings and are you ready for this three dollar bud light aluminums all day long at any of the eight big city wing locations open for dine-in-in, take-out, curbside pickup and delivery. Walk-ins and reservations are available, and you should check out one of their new sauces, the Cool Ranch, absolutely delicious. They have some of the dry rub that are just favorites.

They have the garlic palm, they've got the Cool Ranch, Sour Cream and Onion, so many different options, so many different heat levels, too, you're really going to be satisfied if wings are on your crave list. So today, it being Thursday, double boneless wings, $3 but aluminum platinum platinum happening today at any of the eight big city wing locations to find that one near you go to big city wings.com this is Craig Ackerman the rockets are certainly popping the polypropylene

I know Matt Thomas all too well hey by the way this is my new catchphrase nothing but nylon look at Craig bits stealing me on my own show by the way it's nice y'all that you all want to offer me a go fund me account for my only fans account but I'm okay I told you we could fund it I know, but I just feel like I get in a lot of trouble in a very short period of time.

We'd probably also overfunded. I don't think it's typically super expensive. Well, it depends if I'm going to build this relationship with a stranger from Austin who wants to act like a dog. I'm just saying. Final segment of the show today, 713212-579 if you'd like to join the conversation. 713-1-2-5-790. And you can always say hi to me on Twitter.

at SportsMT and my producer, Brendan Riley, at Brendan Riley underscore. Astro's about to get underway with their another intra-squad scrimmage, Team Bizio versus Team Bagwell. Josh James is going to throw for one side, Zach Granky for the other. By the way, we didn't really mention it all today,

and it needed to be brought up. Justin Verlander is going to open up the season as the number one starter that comes to zero surprise. He will pitch on that Friday opener against the Seattle Mariners. And then slated to go second, just because of how things worked out with the COVID testing and whatnot,

it appears that Lance McCullors will be the number two starter on that Saturday. And then you'll see Zach Granky on Sunday. And then I think after that, it's kind of up in the air. I think if Josh James can perform well in the next week or so, that's really all those left in terms of trying to earn a spot,

he might be the number four starter and the number five spot probably still very much up for grabs. at least Justin Verlainter knows where he's going to go and that at least for the early going, the number two guy will be Lance McCullors. And I'm very happy for Lance. Lance really needs a full, healthy season and to kind of get rid of the stigma of a guy that's IP.

And I hate saying that because Lance is such a good dude, but we have yet to see Lance McCullors pitch an entire season to go deep. And he's helped out. but you are trying to think about him being a long-term ace for this roster, a lot of the requirements is being able to throw 200 innings, and he's never been able to do that so far in his young major league career. So he looks great.

I've watched some of the highlights of what's happening down at Minutemate Park, and he looks good. Verlander looks good. It appears to me among the frontline starters, the guys that you really are going to trust that the pitching looks well ahead of the hitting. Now, Fromber Valdez is out there, it's a different issue. And there are going to be some other fringe names that you probably don't know a whole lot about. And frankly, I don't know a whole lot about either that might make this roster.

I'll be very curious to see if Forrest Whitley has done enough in this period of time to gain a spot on the roster because he's obviously been put in some pretty important positions during these intra-squad games. As far as the Rockets are concerned, it appears if Chris Haynes from Yahoo Sports is telling us the truth, which I can't imagine he wouldn't, that James Harton is going to practice today with the Rockets in Orlando. And they're supposed to practice, I think, 4-4-30 somewhere in that range our time.

So if that happens, that's a very positive sign. Russell Westbrook, still not with the team. Luke Baamute is still not with the team. But this stuff is very fluid. When coaches say one thing, either they don't know the real answer or they're lying. But, you know, don't be surprised if one day you hear that, well, it could be four or five days

before certain players shows up. and then the next day they're there. That's how I kind of felt how James' situation was, because I think Mike didn't know a couple days ago, and then all of a sudden, Hardin shows up with a bubble. And it sounds like the quarantine time for him was very limited, which is a good sign, gets him a chance to work out with his team. So that'll be fun to see them come together.

PJ Tucker did not mince word yesterday. He said, look, we're going to go as far as James takes us. He is our leader. He is our number one go-to guy. We're just a better basketball team when he is with us. And I don't think anybody could potentially argue that. Of the bubble today, Zion Williamson left New Orleans's bubble to attend to what he's considering an urgent family matter. He has left, and now the rule will stipulate that when he returns to the bubble, and the presumption is that he is,

he'll have to sit out at least a minimum of two days and a maximum of potentially seven. It just depends on if he is able to get testing done while he is outside the bubble. So I don't know what the situation is. He was obviously severe enough for them to leave, for him to leave. And I don't know, frankly, if it's going to give him an opportunity to go get test while he is tenent of his family matter. But it could be his minimum of two, maximum of seven. So, you know, they're going to start the season. I think they start the 30th.

I think they're one of the two opening games. I'm not for 100% sure on that. but it sounds like to me that as long as he gets back in a reasonable amount of time, that New Orleans shouldn't miss him all that much, and that if he gets some test while he's gone, he won't have to be in quarantine for that period of time. We had Brad Townsendon from the Dallas Morning News earlier today, and if you've missed that conversation,

it'll be on my blog at Sports790.com. Brad covers the Mavericks and does the NBA for the Dallas Morning News. He's one of about 10 or 11 guys that gets to, talk to those players once they all clear protocol. All these reporters that are there basically are in a spot where they're saying, you know, you can't go talk to them yet because we've got to put you in quarantine. So he has not left his room in three or four days. He drove from Dallas to Orlando.

And then once he clears the quarantine and has been tested multiple times and make sure he doesn't have the fever and all that, he'll be able to start talking to the players. So a good conversation about what will be like life for him will be found there. Also, I talked today with Mike Oresco from the American Athletic Conference. He is their commissioner. And basically, I don't think he wants to play spring football. I think he wants to play football. My guess it'll be just conference late, maybe one or two non-conference games,

especially if you're talking about schools that are close to each other. But the thought of playing 10, 11 games in the first two or three months of 2021, then followed by playing a regular fall slate. Doesn't sound like something that certainly Mike Oresco wants to do, and my guess his opinion on that is not shared by just him alone. So be curious on that. Also, J.J. Watt, go check out his Twitter account today if you do so. He's a guy that's not happy with the NFL's protocol.

Lack of information. I'm sure Adam and Adam will discuss that as part of their show coming up today. Stand by for Wexler and for Clinton, and they will entertain the bejes out of you between 3 and 6 o'clock. For Brendan Riley, my producer, I'm Matt Thomas. Thank you for listening to the show this afternoon. Back with you tomorrow for Anything Goes Friday. It's a Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 7-90.

Talk to you all tomorrow.