The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Peter Burns On SEC Deadline For Season & Texas A&M Punishments

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

Is the Matt Thomas Show. Second hour of three, Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk 790. Hope you guys are in a good mood today. Two hours to the long three-day weekend, at least it is for us. Y'all be safe this weekend, wear your mask, social distance, and thoughts and prayers. Those of those who are people that were trying to go see Van L. Ice playing in Austin. Right now, a good friend of the show, a very talented sportscaster. radio background, but now he's a TV star with the SEC Network,

but it'll always keep to our medium when we call on them. That's our friend Peter Burns here on the Matt Thomas show. Peter, long time to talk. How are things, my friend? Well, a lot better had we actually had the Vanilla Ice Hunter going, but now that that's being canceled, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do this weekend, Matt. I mean, that was the whole game plan,

and now my whole summer screwed up now. I know, but as I was telling the audience, I was in Sacramento doing a Rockets game, and Vanilla only, carried a half of the halftime. What else does he have in his repertoire except like two songs? I think, yeah, well, once you get

play that fucking music and you go by Ice Ice Baby, I think that's pretty much the only thing. I remember seeing him in college over UTSA and saw him once and I'm like, yeah, we could go after about about eight minutes. Like, I'm good, we saw it, we came, we saw, we conquered and we got the hell out of there early enough. So

yeah, that's okay. I think it's more of an IQ test. Like the IQ test is one, did you buy tickets of vanilla ice and two, do you wear maps and I think both of those kind of go hand in hand at this point. Yeah. Last question about this, then we're going on some other things. All right. So we were talking about how if you're really drunk, Vanel Ice is just amazing.

I brought up Casey and the Sunshine Band. Normally just to hear them sing would be atrocious. But if you're out or at a club and you've had five or seven or 11 drinks when play that funky music white boy comes on, you just jump out of your chair immediately. Is there a group for you that sounds better after a few cocktails? I will tell you. You have to have 11-D cocktails. You can't just have 5 or 6 of them.

But if you have 11-D cocktails, the one that does it, nickel back. And I'm just telling you because every person, I'm telling you, like, Matt, I'm talking like 2 a.m. You're hammered with your boys or, you know, you're in the back of an Uber, back when we'd actually get into other people's cars back in the day. And like, and it comes in, it's just so over-the-top cheesy that you're just like, yeah, I'll sing it. it. And honestly, I saw them in concert a couple of years ago in Denver, frankly not bad. And by the way, if you ever ripped Nickelback and a lot of people do the great Rolling Stone article they had about Nickelback going, hey, do you guys care that everyone calls you like this, like the most over, like produced and like dumb band ever? And he goes, I don't really hear a lot of that criticism when I'm flying on my own G5 jet and the $100 million I made. So that's a, that's a credit to Chad Kroger for doing it right, I guess. It makes me hate them even more. They have their own G5, but that's not here nor there. All right, Peter, a story out of ESPN within the last hour about Texas A&M getting a year of probation. How much have you guys been watching over this?

And is there, can you fill in some details that for those of this may have not been watching the details of some early troubles for Jimbo at A&M? Yeah, I mean, so I talked to some people at A&M, not officially with the athletic department, but people around the university and in the athletic department about, hey, how serious the deal is this? And they kind of just laughed. And they said, listen, I said, it was basically. wanted, you know, it was a conversation that Jimbo had with a kid before he was supposed to have it in a time period he wasn't supposed to have it. And Jimbo has said, hey, listen, it was my bad. You know, it wasn't like, you know, SMU bags full of money and, hey, all of a sudden, you know, everybody's driving Mustangs around and stuff like that, the SMU days. But again, at this point,

you don't want any of this, you know, I mean, recruiting is a lifeblood in the SEC. And so anytime, Matt, they start taking away a couple of official visits and you get put on probation, that doesn't help. And the other thing that's kind of tricky now, too, is that there is a six-month show cause for Jimbo Fisher. Now, you know, Ross Biorch's the new athletic director over there. They're happy about this upcoming season if we do get one about where this program's at and what they're building there.

But a show cause could be one reason that if A&M ever tries to get out of the contract that they could say, hey, listen, this was in a contract that if there was a show cause, we could possibly get out of hiring you. So, I mean, that's something to look at. But, again, I think it's much to do about kind of nothing at this point. You follow the league a lot closer because, of course, you're one of the stars of the SEC network. We were just thinking on paper, Callumann's the most experienced quarterback in that half of the division. Their schedule certainly lines up for a very favorable eight to nine win run.

If there were such a thing as a preseason prediction, which you normally do during media days, you're not going to have it this time around, at least not yet. where do you, where do you slot A&N with all the uncertainty with the changes in LSU and Alabama? Well, I mean, you know, they played, what, 19 freshmen last year. They got 17 starters, including Kellen Mon, who him, maybe Kyle Trask, really the only big, you know, quarterbacks that have been there on campus for a long time. And so, yeah, I mean, I've got them in the West. I got them as kind of a 2A and a 2B along with LSU.

I still think Alabama is a little bit of step above because of what they bring back. But right now, I think A&M and LSU are the two teams that could contend and get into Atlanta. It wouldn't be an unbelievable surprise. And, you know, I talked to Jimbo about how disappointing last year was. And, you know, he kind of told me off the cuff saying, listen, he's like, the reason why we knew that we had Clemson, we had George, we had these tough games on the schedule, we were going to play a boatload of young guys, get them develop. because these were the next two years in which A&M was going to break through.

And so the plan was kind of going to plan until this little hiccup in the road today. But again, I don't think any of the A&M stuff today really puts a hurdle of them not being able to at least compete this year, and especially in 2021. Busy with Peter Burns, SEC Network here on The Matt Thomas Show. I'm just curious from a pure programming aspect on your network. You've showed a lot of great games and features and that type of thing behind the scenes kind of stuff. How forthcoming had the coach has been to join your radio, your TV shows and whatnot, knowing that at least once in a while showing your face isn't the worst thing, especially when a lot of things in the sport of college football, at least right now, is pretty dormant.

Oh, it's funny because for the first two or three months, they were just bored as hell, Matt. I would actually have coaches going, hey, if y'all want to have me on, this is the week to do it. So, I mean, I pitched an idea of the SEC Network. I said, well, let's go back and go look at some of the famous times in SEC history with some of the coaches. And Miles on had reached out and said, hey, let's watch Kick Six together. So we watched part of Kick Six, you know, the crazy game in the Iron Bowl a couple years ago where they won on the return of the extra or the field goal. And so they have been great.

I will tell you this, though, after about a month and a half and continuing to have them on the shows, they were like, all right, we're good. Like, we've run enough to do it. And, you know, I would tell you this, there's a level of frustration right now among SEC coaches and athletic directors of people not taking this coronavirus thing seriously. And I think there's a, there's a medium ground. Like, you know, the athletic directors and the coaches are looking at going, man, we are, we're socially distancing. We're doing everything we can. We've got all of this testing set up.

We don't like any of them. We're wearing masks, but we're doing it. And yet, as soon as we leave the facilities, We're seeing the bars are open and nobody's wearing masks. They're like, why the hell are we working this hard to have a season if all of a sudden everybody else doesn't think this is a big deal? Because the athletic directors and the coaches know that their university presidents aren't going to allow them and shouldn't allow them to have college football

if these numbers keep skyrocketing like we're seeing all throughout the South. I have no doubt in my mind, Pete, that the Pac-12 SEC, Big 10, Big 12, there's all different sort of concern levels, optimism, pessimism. There's nothing. Is there consistency within the SEC? Or are the folks in South Carolina and Georgia and Auburn feeling differently than, say, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt right now? No, I mean, they're all in the same boat. They're all in the same boat right now going, listen, we don't like this any more than you do.

But now you've seen every single coach. I mean, you had Phil Fulmer sending out a tweet a couple of days ago saying wear a mask if you want to be in Neeland Stadium. Like, do it now. I mean, hell, Matt, you had Nick Saban. Think about this. Like, Nick Savon is like, does not want to put up with any BS. Nick Saban filmed the PSA about wearing a mask with their mascot, the elephant. So it's like, you know, it's gotten to the point where they're like, they understand how important it is.

They just want to get back to football and they're just befuddled about how the people around them right now, younger generation won't do at least the bare minimum, which is, hey, we're not saying stay home all the time. Could you at least wear a mask? Could you do it? And I haven't heard an unbelievable amount of frustration because now they realize that these numbers don't go down within the next two weeks. They're going to at least postpone the season, I would imagine.

And then the question of having, you know, kids on campus in the fall and even having a college football season in the fall is at jeopardy because people won't do the bare minimum. them. It's affidine and crazy to me. Yeah, Peter Burns with SEC Network with us on The Matt Thomas Show. So give us a timeline, if you even believe there is one, about some come-to-Jesus decisions about kids returning on campus, kids playing football, fans and stands, maybe a pushback of the season. What have you been told? Because let's be honest, your network is going to have a huge saying in this because they've got a program their lineup for the next handful of months.

Yeah, I mean, we're three and a half to four weeks. I mean, that's what I've heard from Greg McGarity, the AD at Georgia, and I've talked to Scott Strickland at Florida and all these athletic directors said legitimately they've got three and a half four weeks before they have to say, okay, we're on, we're starting on Labor Day weekend, we're good to go first week of September, or there will be some type of postponement at this point. I mean, you know, Matt, they don't want to play in the spring. Like they just don't want. They want to be able to play as many games as possible. They want to have the season. They want to have as many fans in the stadium right now. But the reality is that you can't continue to have these cases go up, okay, regardless of what the death toll is or whatnot,

they're just not going to be willing to put university and student athletes at this risk because of the liability and because, A, it's just not the right thing to do. So they've got three weeks, and that's why these next two weeks, Matt, I'm not lying. The next two weeks right now are probably as important for this college athletic world in the last hundred years. being bad serious. Because think about it. College football doesn't get played how much money. That normally has about 80% of an athletic department's budget. Then all of a sudden, everyone else, how do they get funded at that point?

I don't know, especially with the NCAA only giving out about 30% of their funds after the March Madness this year. It's crazy. Any thought of you thinking the SEC saying, we're going on with a one or two conferences saying we're out this year? Any thought of we're pushing through, or is it all, do you think the Power Five has to come collectively together to play this season? I don't think they have to collectively come together. I think that they're communicating as much as possible. But right now, I mean, the story came out today. Southern Cal had said, hey, we're going to have players, you know, all of our students on campus.

They have already switched that as of today saying almost extensively they're going to go online campus. You know, they're going to be doing school online. And remember, you know, Alabama opens up the season or supposed to open up the season against Southern Cow, USC to begin the year. So, I mean, again, the bad part about it is I'd love to have answers. But as the commissioner of the SEC, Greg Sanky, said, this is legitimately changing every 48 hours. You know, every day they have these conference calls. They get more information and they talk to more people. And every single day, I mean, if we had this conversation a month ago, we're looking great.

But ever since Memorial Day and all this new spike that's going up right now, there's a lot of people that are worried about what's going to happen. They're not making decisions right now. They're going to give it three weeks to four weeks and figure out, and by that last week in July, you're going to know one way or another. Last question. What SEC Network show or game have you seen so many times you've memorized the exact moment of every important play in that game?

Well, the LSU game where Warren Morris hits the walk off against Miami, that was always our rain delay game. Oh, my gosh. We'd have a ton of them. So we'd probably play that 800, 900 times. But I still, honestly, I still love watching LSU beaten Texas this year in Austin. And just the fact that, you know, Joe Burrow threw for, what, seven touchdowns against Oklahoma, in the first half, I can watch that 9,000 times and it won't be enough. All I was saying is this.

I need to start watching more your network because the Big Brother Channel ESPN shows Celtics Lakers games almost at nauseam, and I'm just over those two teams right now. So I will now spend my hours of sitting at home watching SEC Network because I want to make sure that we get enough Peter Burns airtime and honoring all that is LSU athletics. because, of course, I work with that. Hey, as long as we don't show Trace McGrady's score and, what, like 37 points in 8 seconds against the Spurs a while back.

I'll be in good shape. That's actually a pretty good idea, NBA TV, if you're listening. Wouldn't be the worst. Now, as long as you don't show money, Genobey blocking James Hardin in game six. Hey, can we all, can we at least agree here, even though I'm a Spurs fan, you guys are Rockets fans, that we just don't like the Mavericks.

Can we all agree on that personally? Yeah, yeah. We don't really count them. Oklahoma City's more than division foe than Dallas is, to be honest with you. Peter, it's great to your voice. Congratulations again on all your success. You've worked your ass off and I'm proud of your efforts, and we hope to bother you maybe closer when we'd actually have some real football in a few weeks, hopefully.

We'll have eight margaritas and drink and sing nickel back together. Matt, I can't wait. That's not going to happen. But thank you, ice ice baby to you. That's the one and only Peter Burns, ESPN SCC network. a great, great visit to this radio show. 115 is a time. Up next, Daniel Snyder, the owner of Washington's NFL football team,

wants a new stadium back in the District of Columbia. Only one thing is going to hold him back, at least, it sounds like today. We'll tell you what that is in a moment. 115, Sports Talk 790.