The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show: MLB Potential Plan To Play, Bill Worrell, Future Of CFB

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. Yeah. At H-Town, what's happening in lunchtimmers? Good afternoon to you. And welcome to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790

with our producer, Joe George, our buddy Nicolode taking a couple weeks off. Sports RV, Ross Villa Real alongside as well. I'm Matt Thomas. It's nice to have you with us. Today is an interesting day on the radio program. We're going to span the globe of interesting sports things. Maybe not the globe, but just at least locally.

Chris Pezman, the athletic director at the University of Houston, is going to join us at 1 o'clock today to talk a little bit about how he's coping as an administrator in this time where there are no sports on the spring level with all the college stuff and how that affects scholarships and the rules and all that about granting an extra year. plus the notion that Ross and I talked about a little bit yesterday, there's no hurry for college football. Weather isn't going to be that big of a deal, and 99% of college football teams don't share stadiums

with other franchises. So we'll talk to Chris about that coming up at 1 o'clock. If you missed the conversation this morning with Kirk Herbstre and DeShon Salsbury, we're going to replay that for you at 1.30 this afternoon. We took a good chunk of it. addressing the rumors that Kirk may be on Monday night football, addressing the conversations he had about when he came out a couple weeks ago and said that there will be no college football this season.

And then a couple of thoughts about Joe Burrow and Jalen Hertz, the two of the more recognizable names in this upcoming draft. And at 2 o'clock, we resume our series of people we miss hearing from, Bill R.L. Long time, Houston Sportscaster. Wonderful. If you were to put the Hall of Fame of Houston Sportscasters, or the Mount Rushmore, if you will, he's on there.

Okay, we know you're putting yourself on there. Who else is on there? It's got to be me, Worrell, and then we'll let you figure out the other two spots. You are the OG, Matt. Thank you, very much. But yeah, Bill Whorell will join us at 2 o'clock this afternoon, very much looking forward to that. We had a great time yesterday with our Monday night meeting. It was our first one we kind of did, and I actually thought of this in bed at about 1130 on Sunday night.

I was like, we've got to just try some different things, and that's what we're all doing here in the media landscape, much less sports media landscape. And so we did it for about 35, 40 minutes yesterday. Had a really good time. Ross was able to change his background. And I need to get to the hints how to do that because you're not going to tell me how you did it. You can figure out in like three minutes, Matt. So you're saying instead of, what do you think I'm some Zoom genius? Or you think I just figured out. I think you need to help me. I think you can figure it out. I need to make you a self-starter when it comes to computers. I just have to help you way too much. This is true. This is true. But we had a meeting yesterday on Zoom that we put on our

Facebook live. And you can still see it. Still see it on our Facebook page. Did we blog it or two? Can we go blog that as well? I don't know. Because here I'm assuming everybody's on Facebook, which isn't the case. But we had a good visit yesterday with many of our hosts. We'll hope to get, we're going to rotate the different hosts around the next few weeks, but it was fun to do a Monday night meeting. And we'll do that every Monday for the foresee of the future, because let's face it, nothing to do at night especially. That's true, yeah, as far as sports, besides binge watching your favorite shows or whatever.

That's true. So let's get to, and again, nothing's going to be a piping hot headline day, just because we've got no games to do, but doesn't mean there aren't a lot of sports to discuss. Major League Baseball today, getting a lot of attention, and it's about resuming their season

and how badly they want to get that going again. And the number one, one thing that has been talked about as of within the last handful of days is taking all the baseball teams, all 30 of them, and sending them to Arizona, not for a reboot of spring training, but to play baseball for the foreseeable future. Now, for those of you who have never been to spring training in Arizona, in Florida, which I know many of you that have listened to this show have gone at least once in your life. The teams are spread out all over the state. There's a lot in the south corridor where the Astros are.

There's a lot on the other side of the state up and down that corridor. But there's two, two and a half hour, three hour bus rides between, you know, seven or eight of the baseball teams. In Arizona, everybody's within about 75 miles of each other. And a lot of them are like five miles apart. So it's a really condensed area. You also have on top of that, you have Chase Field with the Arizona Diamondbacks play. They're talking about triple headers there daily. And they're also talking about playing in these spring training facilities to get the season going and have games.

Now, what they're asking of their major league players is to get in the bubble. This is the real legit, Ross, the first time we've talked about legitimately a bubble where you take all the baseball teams and our training staffs, the essential personnel, you fly them to Arizona, you put them there, and they play for three or four months. And they don't get outside the bubble. The bubble would be the baseball fields, the team hotel. That'd be about it. And everybody's getting tested before they go, and then they're going to get tested like every couple of days or something? I don't know if that has been discussed.

That's the, yeah, but once you enter the bubble, you're going to enter clean. You're not going to go in with, you know, obviously. But if one person has it and is in that bubble, it could be, it could break out pretty quickly. Yeah, I would assume anybody that has the virus doesn't get inside the bubble, which means that player could be gone for additional 14 days, could be two week, whatever the case would be. I think when you get in the bubble, you are getting in free and clear. Okay. Because I'm worried about Dusty Baker, Maddie's 70.

Well, I'm worried about anybody, for that matter. But, yeah, people that are older are going to be in a... Brent Strom. How old is Brent Strach? How old is Stram? You got to be in that 70 group. We may have one of the older staffs in baseball. That's what I'm saying. Strom is 70.

Strom is 71. I'm worried about him, too. So here is, you know, first of all, Major League Baseball came out today and said, whoa, whoa, slow down. I know this is a report that's... out there, but we're thinking about a variety of things. And that's not necessarily not the truth, but they're also trying not to push. Because here's the thing, you've got to be sensitive with people just trying to survive. You got to be sensitive about trying to put hundreds of people,

actually probably close to 1,000 people when you think about it, 25 man rosters times 30 teams, that's 750 people right there, well, actually 26 man rosters. Then you have coaches, you have trainers, you have equipment people, you have statisticians, my guess is they would be very limited of any media personnel, you'd have to have some broadcasters that would broadcast the game. So you're looking at about 1,000 people, give or take, maybe even a little bit more.

Yeah, because aren't you going to have to expand your rosters if you do this? Because there's no indication right now of minor league baseball, so you're just not going to have a farm system for injuries? Like, they'd have to just bring up their whole 40-man roster. Wouldn't they, potentially? That's right.

And that's why I think major league baseball is like slowdown. We haven't thought about this. But you also don't want to have 40-man rosters adding 40 times 30, which is 1,200 player. I mean, you're actually adding another. I mean, my guess is this bubble community is trying to, they're going to try to make it a limit as possible. And our broad, I mean, our broadcasters essential? No, no. They can do it from TV, right?

The theory you could. But then you have camera people. You have a director. I mean, you're going to be adding. So I'm saying 1,000 people. It could be 1,500, 2,000 people. but the bubble would be the ball fields, the clubhouses, the wait room, and the hotel. And then for how long, though? Do you think for the entire season?

They're saying between, could be anywhere between three and four months. Jeez, you can't see your family for 90 days? That is correct. And that's where some of the problem is. First and foremost, they're saying, women. We have young families. We have, our wives are pregnant, or we have there are within six months. Now, granted, you're also talking about people that probably can afford, if they don't already do so, have a terrific health care, I mean, baby care, you know, nannies, whatever that kind of thing. So we're not talking about people that are barely living paycheck to paycheck. But the overriding factor on this is a major league baseball is telling its players association. If you want to be paid this year and we do this, you don't have a choice.

What about minor league players? Like he said, with the 40 man, I mean, you're going to have to have guys you want to call. up, is there going to be minor league games going on somewhere and everybody's, the bottom of everybody's 40 man is going to be playing somewhere? That I don't know. So I'm saying, like if you have, if Verlander goes down, you've got to call up a pitcher, where's he getting called up from? And if he is in the bubble, how's he playing games in order to stay sharp?

This, I think it's all conjecture right now. Yeah, I don't know. I think like anytime we come up with these things, there's just so many questions. Especially baseball. I think baseball more than others. This is enough talking. This is, this is, there are enough people in the baseball world, Jeff Passing, spent a lot of time

that this morning your buddy on ESPN talking about. So I was watching Jeff Passon this morning and he was like, I texted a player a few weeks ago

and he didn't say who the player was. This is Passon's words and I'm paraphrasing me. He says, I'm hearing about a floated idea out there that they're going to

go to Arizona and he's, and the person said this person texted back to Passon, no effing way. Passon goes on a few seconds later and says,

my wife, wife just told me if we're going to get paid this year and you have to play this way, see you later. Wow. Not just only one person. Yeah, still. I mean, there's, I mean, what if, say, you're a baseball player and your mom gets sick and she's in the hospital or something or heaven forbid somebody dies? You're just going to miss their funeral because you're in this bubble, I guess, too?

Well. I guess they're not going to be funerals. No, what you'll do is, what you'll do is if you leave the bubble, you're out for two weeks, at least. Yeah. Until you get retouch. Because that's what they're talking about. They're talking about, yeah.

My guess is once you leave it, yeah. It's like a 10-day DL, but it's a 14, like, quarantine type of deal. Yeah. But I think the argument is, what do you do with that roster spot? Because if you do run out of a starting pitcher, you don't want to over-attack. I mean, at bare minimum, guys, you have to increase the roster size to 30 or 32. And then if you have an injury, well, then that may be just tough, you know, whatever, because of the fact that you're normally not accustomed to having a 20,

you're normally supposed to have a 26-man roster. If you go to 32, maybe that can compensate for perhaps an injury or two. But I mean, remember like last year, didn't the Astros have a bunch of rash of injuries? And you've got like guys like Abraham Toro getting called up and stuff like that. I mean, if you get four, literally can happen, four or five guys go down. Yeah. And you don't have an infield. I guess you're going to have to shift guys and put Josh Redick at first or some crazy stuff like that.

They've already told mentally baseball go away. We're not worried about you right now. That's interesting. What my guess would be, if the decision was made tomorrow that Major League Baseball is going to play in the bubble, they would have to say minor leaguers work on your own. And if we need you, first you've got to clear the test to get in the bubble, and then you're going to have four, five, six, ten days to work yourself into baseball condition on your own. But this is all contingent on a faster test, right?

Yeah, yeah, everything. You have to have a test that gives you immediate results of positive. Because you can't test a Corona for a minor league player for coronavirus. Wait, what is it, like 10 days right now, seven days, wait for a result, and then they can enter the bubble. Your player might be healthy by then. That's true. That's true. So, like, they have to have an immediate testing for this to be a legitimate option.

No matter what you want to say about this guys, the reality is that there are just as many people that want these sports to go on. It's a lot of them is the fraternity of athletes that know that they're going to not get their salaries this year. And if guys are, you know, that's $25 million or $15 million of money, they'll never get back. And that's what's sinking in right now. It is the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-5-79. If you want to get in today, 7-1-3-212-5-790 on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Joe George. Radio.

We just had lunch here at the office a few minutes ago. And I will tell you what was in my fortune cookie. And I put it on on Twitter already at SportsMT. And I want to know the meaning of it. Maybe you guys can help. 1214. 713. 212.

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conversation most respected by head coach Bill O'Brien I have a tremendous amount of respect for Matt Thomas in his career here in Houston of sorts the Matt Thomas show This is the Matt Thomas show

Sports Talk 790 Good afternoon to you 1219 is our time Cardinals head coach Cliff Kingsbury on a Zoom call with Arizona media says, he has no doubt the Hopkins Johnson trade

will be finalized before the NFL draft. Guys, it kind of has to be because they've got swapped fourth round picks and the Texans have a second round

pick that they can't have the Texans can't draft it until the trade gets finalized. Because if it doesn't get finalized, you know, as Ross, as you said yesterday, well, you can pick for each other.

Yeah. What if they just say the flat-out trade doesn't work at all? Then you have to then you renege on what you said earlier? No, I think you have to have this thing done before the draft, which is still giving yourself two weeks.

Could somebody not pass a physical and you still force the trade? No, the trade would be void. Nullin void? Well, when the Texans traded Dwayne Brown, they were supposed to get, what, Jeremy Lamb? Yeah. And then instead of, when he failed this physical,

they got increased compensation. They got a better pick, I think it was. I think it was a fifth and became a fourth throw a fourth and became third. You can trade an injured player, but you cannot, I don't think you can trade, if both players fail the physical, I think the trade becomes zilch, and then you have to

rework the trade. Hopkins won't fail. Yeah, he should be fine. Even if he failed as physical, the Arizona doctors would be like, no, he's fine. Probably. They'd have to. No, Bill O'Brien just said that DeAndre failed it because he's got, quote, a bad attitude. Doesn't work hard, money through Saturday.

A lot of crap. 713-212-5-790. 1 o'clock. We'll visit with Chris Pezman, the head director at the University of Houston, 130, the very interesting conversation that's on Sean Salisbury had with Kirk Cribe Street, 2 o'clock today. In our people we miss hearing from series,

we say hello to Bill Worell, longtime Rockets broadcaster. Also, long-time Astros broadcaster, too. And we'll did a lot of college football for HSC back in the day. And was a Channel 2 sports anchor before... What? Yeah, before I moved to Houston back in the 70s. I didn't know that.

Yeah. These are things you, you know, you've got to learn and you've got to listen to the show. Listen, learn, what show? Love. This show? Yeah. All right, Ross. So we had lunch today.

And I have not looked at the replies yet. Of the... The photo I took of my lunchtime fortune cookie. Oh, okay. What is... That you tweeted at SportsMT. Yeah. I tweeted out, you will soon witness a miracle.

Let's find out what people said. Okay. Does Joe know where the Twitter is... to reply music is. I don't know. All right. Well, maybe he finds it. ATX Hobo Girl says, no comment. Okay. That's rare because she has a comment usually about everything. That's a fact.

Ed Joan Hughes says a pill to lose every pandemic pound that is discovered. You got the pandemic pounds, Matt? I told you I gained five. Okay. It's not bad. I feel like okay on that. That's fine. My eating habits have been terrible. Let's see. At Tyler Harder 1 says the trade falls through. Hop comes back and butt be able.

B, it's fired. Hmm. All right. Let's see here. NFLQ21A is just a really bizarre human being. You ever knows there's a lot of people that are bizarre on Twitter? Yeah. That's life.

At Houston bread, OB gets canned or the McNair sell the team. I like, course, you got five likes. Out Dow Raz-09, the return of God friended me. Hmm. Maybe the dumbest show ever created on network television. You love that show. I hate it. At Jordan Prado says 30,000 followers.

Amen to that, brother. That would be a miracle. At SportsMT. At Harvard 7V hair growth. See, have I ever really come to you? And you've known each other for 10 years. Have I ever ever come to you and said, man, I wish I had more hair?

No, I don't think so. Isn't that strange? And I think I need credit for not making bald jokes, hardly maybe ever. Because they don't. It's just not clever. It's not clever. And it really doesn't.

me, I've seen pictures of myself with hair. I am way more attractive without hair than I am with hair. In your opinion. I mean, I would border I'd be borderline Adonis like, basically. We'll follow your shot, Photoshop some hair under your head and see what we think. I don't think so.

We'll make a poll on Twitter. At Siloth says the Texans will finally make a trade that isn't horribly one-sided against them. At B. Grick 626, DeShon Watson traded for 50% of his actual worth. What do we get in the value of 20% with David Johnson?

15%. Depends. O'Brien gets fired. The Houston Texans fire Billy O. Hop tray gets nullified. Houston Texans will fire Bill O'Brien and the Astros will bring back A.J. Hinch. Let's see.

Yeah, that's about it. You ever notice that any tweet sports-related in the city of Houston always comes full circle to Bill O'Brien should get fired? Yeah, well, speaking of mentions, Matt. which you got. We were talking about the greatest punts. Did you want to go through those at some point? We'll do that later in the show.

Let me do it right now. You want to do it right now? Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, the Houston Texans tweeted out, the best of Brian Anger's 2019 punts, which let's just say it on its face. Let's say that the Texans were having a perfect offseason, and everything was going great,

and they lost a tough one in overtime to the Chiefs or something like that, and they kept all their players, they re-signed Tunsel and Wats, or whatever. for everything we're going perfect. That'd be a stupid post. Who cares about Brian Anger's best punts? Hey, Wendy City Lover there. Who's the Bears punter?

I don't know. How many punters can you name? Me? Yeah. I don't even, right now, I don't even know if I can name. I don't even remember the Texans punter name. Johnny Hacker.

Okay. Okay, let's just Johnny Hacker. Who's he played for the Bears? The Rams? The Rams. Okay. If the Rams had a Twitter account, Do you think they would put up best of Johnny Hecker punts?

Let me go look through the L.A. Rams. You do that later, but the point is that Brian Anger's punts are a Twitter post. First, yeah. So giving that, let's just say everything was perfect. It would be a stupid post. Now you consider how upset the fan base is and how mad they are. It becomes even worse. So let us go through some of the replies.

It's Breezen with George Benson is the song, by the way, Joe. Anyways. Breezing with George Benzett. George Benson. This is the CEO for show. Says B-O-B considered the Hopkins trade a fair catch. Oh, a little pun there. I like it.

I like it a lot. Bill O'Brien being employed makes me angry. Best of Texans hashtag 2020 would be hashtag fire Bill O'Brien. Reminds me of how B-O-B punted away DeAndre Hopkins for nothing. See, I always think these are better reads when the music is fine. Should I wait for the beat to drop? Yeah, go ahead. We'll wait.

At Sports RV. At SportsMT. On a slow city climb. At show George Radio. To 30,000. Oh, month. What is your name of the show? Space City Saturday?

Yes. I'm proud I got that running. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Can you show that punt where he punts OB out of Texas? Ouch. This no sports thing's got me watching punting highlights. There is something positive.

There you go. No one wants to watch somebody. punt. That's not B-O-B being fired. Fire Bill O'Brien. Take note. O'Brien's offensive scheme and play calling. They're going to be needing a great punter. Fire Bill O'Brien.

We riot and boycott you. Fire O'Brien. Only the Texans have something called best punts. Let me ask you to all this. Because I think we got enough to that. Hashtack Fire O'Brien. Do you think Bill O'Brien's like, you know what, I know people hate me? Let's just give them more. do you think he's in contact with the social media department to say, you know what, let's piss these people off every single day until they just can't take anymore.

Because whoever's running the social media department, by the way, I think that job is still open by the Texas. I think someone quit and then they opened the job. Well, whoever's running, it should not be putting best punts of the year on their Twitter account. I mean, what's next? Here, the long, extended cut of its football time in Houston. Why don't you just really anger the people? Someone said, thanks for this. Can we get a best of the Texans theme song next?

So we're down to punts hoping we forget about the D-Hop trade and Bill O Stoge's ineptitude. I mean, the next tweet from the Texans' PR, the Twitter account is going to be, we're raising ticket prices 20%. Your thoughts. Yeah. Man, that's funny. God, I, they, they're, speaking of a bubble, Ross. Should have punted it and not faked it.

Kansas City. Ooh. Too soon. That's way, way too soon. They are so, that bubble over there on Kirby is so tone deaf. Brian anger punts.

Brian punting highlights. I mean, guys, no matter what they tweet, though, it's awful. Happy birthday, Nate Hall 32. And in there, it's happy birthday. Let's celebrate by firing Bill O'Brien today. Everything is Bill O'Brien. It's, I feel

so bad for the people running those accounts. No, you don't. That's got to be miserable. You know what? Here's the thing. We do feel bad for them. But they're getting terrible direction from somebody that's a manager. Okay, but who is the person? Who is sitting at their manager? Whatever. They're at their desk. I don't care where they are.

Like, man, we got to do something about the PR's bad. We did, you know, we did our town hall with the season ticket holders. I think that went well. Bill came off pretty well. What else can we do to really just show how great we are? I know, Brian Anger punting highlights. Who has that idea pop in their head and think it's a good idea? The anger family?

Let's do this. Next segment of the show right here. Let's think of three or four more other things that Texans' Twitter account can put out. Okay. You all ready for that? If you got any ideas, at SportsMTMI on my Twitter account, you can call us at 713-212-5-790. 7-13-2-1-2-5-7-90.

More things that Texans' Twitter account can put out besides Brian Anger. But what the hell is a punter highlight? I didn't even look at it. Okay, there's a big kick. Hang time of 4.6. Yeah, I was going to say, is there a hang time counter on these? God.

Tone-deaf is the word we keep using. Tone-def. But you know what? They're not toned up because they hear it. They just don't want, they don't care. That's true. Because Bill O'Brien's running everything. And he says, you know, we got a really good punter.

He gets, he's a good teammate and he works hard. Let's build a highlight package around it. Was maybe Bill O'Brien put it together. Is he on like I movie putting together Brian Anger punting highlights? God, it's just nuts. He's bored and being quarantined. Yeah, you know what? That's how powerful is.

He's running the social media department of that team too. 713-212-570. 7-1-3-212-5-790. For the message here for the Shell Federal Credit Union. Hey, their branch locations are obviously closed, but they're still assisting all their members in the drive-thru, online, buy phone, and making special arrangements as needed. As always, the folks at ShellFCU are there to provide your members,

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More details at shellfcuh.org. Welcome home to ShellFCU. Hey, it's Craig Ackerman. Listen to the home of the rockets on your smart speaker. Just ask. Hey, Google, play Sports Talk 790 on IHartRadio. 234 on the mat time. Do it 1234. I got ahead of myself a little bit there. Chris Pesman is going to join us. I thought I directed at U of H in about 25 minutes.

Wonderful. I really want to get to his college football because he's an administrator. He has scheduled his games, television contracts, work with a commissioner's office. That behind-the-scenes stuff, I'm very fascinating by, so we'll talk with him about a lot of that coming up at the top of the hour. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

The Houston Texan's account needs new material that won't get ratioed. Can you help? What can we possibly put out there that wouldn't get ratioed? Deshawn was Mac? DeShon's back? No, no. DeAndre's back. Hashtag we're sorry? Even if they, what if they even, I think maybe we signed Deshawn Watson to a long-term deal. I think even Laramie Tonsul saying we did that would get ratioed. Doesn't do it. Yeah. The only person because here's the thing, there aren't people that are worried about long-term Laramie Tensel being here five years. Because what would happen is, if he winds up going somewhere else,

it would be just another mistake by Bill O'Brien by trading all for the first round picks and whatnot and getting nothing back in return. But there isn't an emotional attachment to Laramie Tunsell, like there's an emotional attachment to Deshaun Watson. Because he's your draftable guy. He is the guy that you've built up, and we've seen him flourish and seen him become the quarterback that he is today,

still probably has even more to grow, to be honest with you. that's the only I can't imagine could you okay let's say they say Deshawn has re-signed X years X million dollars

the comments are yay or now just get your fire coach gone and we'll be all perfect I don't know I don't even think Deshawn Watson Ross

a contract signing would necessarily fix these issues no it wouldn't fix the issues I just think we're trying to think of one single thing they could put out

that wouldn't get ratio people would probably still be mad the replies to that would be like finally Bill O'Brien got his head out of his ass or finally Bill O'Brien did something right or a move in the right direction or something like that. That would be something that would invigorate

the fan base a little bit because right now this is about, I mean, this has got to be a top three low point for them. Which is crazy to say because they just went 10 and 6 and made the division around the playoffs. But the way they lost in the playoffs and then losing DeAndre Hopkins and then, I mean, just Bill O'Brien being the way that he is, this feels like one of the lower points of the franchise. And that's a franchise that's been through multiple two and 14 seasons.

Tyler Hammer, Harner 1 says Bill O'Brien relieved of his GM duties effective immediately. I think they would still get crushed on social media. People would still be like, Cal, how could you let this guy ruin the franchise? How can you let him trade D'Andre Hopkins and then fire him? I think they would get annihilated on Twitter. There's just no winning right now with the other.

So basically the Houston Texans can't get away from anything put out. there. Mother Teresa blesses the Texans. Hmm. Can she bring back she can perform a miracle and bring back DeAndre. Nice to see you, Mother Teresa. Can you do something to put a curse on Bill O'Brien? I mean,

and I'm not even saying this is because of social media, because let me tell you something, Ross. We've had, we had Twitter going full throttle when Gary Kubiak was the coach. And when Rick Smith was a general manager. I remember signing up for Twitter in about 2008 in Minnesota. So we're not talking about this something that just

in the last five years that the previous coach didn't have to adhere to. The hate, I've never seen the hate so great for the Texans, the Texans organization than I do right now. Does it match the season tickets? Does it match the people that are going to the games? No, never will. Because there's too many Texans carins out there that will, and when I say Texans, I'm also talking about the mail version of that too. That will still go to the games. What's the male version? Texans. Well, no.

The people that are traveling Texans are the ones that just ought to be ashamed of themselves at the end of the day. That not only will they, do they bind to everything the Texans have, but they will go to on the road to city halls and cities across his country. Or various monuments or the Liberty Bell. And drape the Texans flag across something and then get beat 37 to 10. They win some games on the road, Matt. They win 11 and 5 and 10 and 6 the last two years. Like, I would, if I was at traveling. Texan, I would only go to Jacksonville.

Tennessee's been pretty good to him, too. Does anybody need to visit Jacksonville more than once? I've never been to Jacksonville. Exactly. I've heard... You are Mr. Traveling Hoare. You've never been to Jacksonville. Well, I'm not a whore. I'm just a traveler.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, that. A traveling whore would be just to get on the go on the road just to do it. Have you been the Jacksonville? No. Either one of you. I've heard North Florida's a little dice. It's not on a list. I knew North Florida was in trouble.

Remember when the Super Bowl was in Jacksonville that one time? And they were going to bring in cruise ships to house the median fans. I knew that was not going to end well for them. Yeah, North Florida sounds like a bad spot. I feel like more Florida stories come from, say, Daytona North than anywhere south. It gets a little dicey up there in the panhandle. Now, I have gone to Pensacola and to Destin multiple times and really enjoyed it there. As a matter of fact, I'd even see myself buying a retirement home.

up there. You know, if I wasn't when I called this career a career. Yeah, but not Jacksonville. But I'm not going that far. Jacksonville, that North Florida-Georgia line seems... Are you in a band right now? I'm talking about the band? Oh, I didn't realize I tried to do that, yeah. That just seems as dicey as it is in that little...

Tallahassee, yeah. That 250-mile stretch in that area. A lot of weird, crazy people come out of that Tallahassee area. Yeah, 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-790. Let's go to Jeremy on the Matt Thomas show at 1240. Hi, Jeremy. Hey, so let's do like a, let's play the, what's your low point as a Texas fan moment. And mine would be, I think it all started unravel when we had to trade picks to get rid of Osweiler.

We all knew at that point. But maybe the worst ever was not having the sign and trade thing going with Laramie to where we're getting, we had to get rid of a couple of picks. and then now we're about to be hamstrung by his contract. At what point do we say, okay, you went all in last year, you failed. We have to rebuild. That's why we traded DOP was to begin the rebuilding. Let's go full rebuild. When do we get rid of Deshaun to get picks and start stocking up picks?

Because I don't think we have any for like the next 15 years or something. So we've got to start somewhere. I'll hang up with it. All right. Well, they do have picks starting in two years. It's just not 15. They didn't get, they didn't give away the complete organization for the next 15 years. But it feels like, I mean, look, the offensive tackle was taken this past year or guard or whatever. Whatever Titus Howard. Whatever Titus is going to eventually be. So it was a first round pick. Yeah. They didn't move up to get Deshawn. He was a first round pick that worked out. True. First round picks have been decent for the Texans. Max Sharping is going to be a guy that I think is going to be, I mean, didn't take him long to get him. Decent, yeah.

Install in the starting lineup. Improving. I mean, yeah. Again, the offensive line isn't atrocious as we thought it was ever going to turn out. It's improving, yes.

You could see in the next couple of years that group gelling together and being a good, being a good above average offensive line. Isn't it their strength besides quarterback now? Well, it's better than its receiving corps,

which it wasn't before the trade. It's better than its running back core. Yeah. What else is there? defensive, are you offensively only? I mean, maybe tight ends is tight ends a separate group because you could argue tight ends are stronger. Yeah, I would say tight ends are stronger

than the offensive line. Right. With all the Jordans and Darren Fells? And Kahlohawaring. And who could forget? The Great. How can you forget? We never saw him. All right, let's see this. But you play water polo. That's true. We'll size it up. Strengthen the team number one quarterback. Yes. What's number two definitively?

O-line. Over D-line. Seconder? I mean, are we doing offensive only? No, we'll do both. mix it together. I think tie-ends are number two. Over-defensive line with JJ. Because JJ is the only thing that scares me all right now. What else is happening on the defensive line right now?

JJ and Timmy Jernigan and Jacob Martin. I think Jernigan's be all right. Martin will be all right. But if J.J., if J.J. wants to play like you did in the playoff game, the first one, that was pretty cool. Now, he was not much to be heard of or seen in the Kansas City game, but... Okay, let's do this. He's coming off a torn pack.

So you're telling me the offensive line, which was hands down the worst position going into last year is now the second best. Well, it's a low bar, right. It's not because they're great. All right. So let's go, O-line 2, D-line, no, tight ends three. Okay.

D-line-4. Linebackers five. Oh, I put the linebackers up there, actually. So linebackers of above. I like Bernardic McKinning, Zach, Dylan Cole, signed his tender. Zach Cunningham. Okay, let's put them number two. I'm fine with that.

Whitney Merciless included in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do that. Okay, so let's go. We're going quarterback, linebackers, offensive line. tight ends defensive line then wide receivers

wide receivers secondary general manager I was going to say I knew you were going to do that running back running backs are above Bill up Bryant and the GM

yeah yeah for sure I like Duky J Duky Johnson can play a little bit that turned out to be a third round pick right in return because he played more than a certain number of games oopsie Daisy

it's okay You got to, Ross, you got to give up something to get something. Okay. Maybe more than you thought you were going to give up, but that's neither here nor there. 1244, the Matt Thomas show continues. Sports Talk 790. Chris Pezman on the college landscape in 15 short minutes right here on Sports Talk 790. Don't leave Matt Thomas in your car.

Take him with you. Download the free IHeart Radio app for your phone at sports790.com. Just remember you'll have to feed him. Matt Thomas Show continues at 1240. 47. We're having some entertaining times trying to help out the Texans' Twitter account with topics they wouldn't get ratioed. I've come to the opinion, Ross, there's nothing that we can say unless Bill O'Brien gets fired from both the coaching and the general manager's spot that they're not going to get ratioed. And now if they if they do that, which never is going to happen because Bill O'Brien is hoodwinked cow to some incredible level, then there'll be a bunch of hallelujahs.

you so long. Thank you on coming back. What can I buy my season tickets? Short of that, even Deshawn Watson getting a new deal, which I don't think is going to happen this offseason. I don't think so either. There may not even be a Laramie Tunsell signing before the start of the regular season. Now, the Texans don't have this policy like some other teams that say, if you don't get something done during the off season, we're not going to talk about it during the season. They signed Whitney Merseals, remember doing a new contract extension right in the middle of the season last year. I think Rick Smith was that guy. He was the guy. Yeah. I don't think that's prudent. I know that some teams have that philosophy, but I, look, you're a general manager. You are

scouting all the time. You are organizing a draft board, but you're also, you know, you're ultimately responsible for the salary cap. You're also responsible for figuring out what's happening two or three years down the road to just turn off the, I don't want to talk about extension talk in September, October. I think, I don't think it's responsible for the organization. So, if that is the new Texans, that is one thing that I think they do do better than what Rick Smith would do in saying that we don't get into contract negotiations when the season starts. I mean, I get where there, if that's the thing, because deadline spur action, right? If you're an organization that says, we're not going to negotiate during the season,

so we're cutting everything off then because you do have all those things to worry about in the draft. And players go down. You've got to try out street-free agents. You're scouting college football at that point. I mean, you're doing so much that maybe you just don't even want the headache. And you're only talking about a handful of players anyways that are going to want to extend. That's to my point. That's to my point is you're only got three or four players to worry about that you should be able to keep them on the,

you know, if you're building, if you had a desk full of stuff, you keep their file folder real close to you. Because you're only not talking about 15 players talking about three or four. And here's the number one thing I think about it is if you are one of those general managers, and I think this is more in baseball than it isn't anything else. If we don't negotiate during the season, what are the chances that person comes back? There's no scientific number. but I knew when Marvin Gonzalez

a couple of years ago did not get a new deal before he started his final season with the Astros, he was going to go somewhere else. You all knew that Garrett Cole was, if the Astros were not going to pony up

like you're poning up for Justin Verlander, he was going to go test for agency. If there is somebody in my organization, whatever sport it is, and I love that person, and I wanted to make sure he doesn't wear anybody else's gear, I'm never going to close off contract negotiations.

Because frankly, most of those contract negotiations are done between the agent and the team. The player very rarely knows what's going on. Yeah, but how much can you, I mean, if you're negotiating of somebody all offseason, from February to September, I mean, how much more negotiating is there to be done during a season? But you're also assuming that they do it every day. There could be weeks in a time where they don't negotiate. Yeah, of course. I mean, I say, oh, pay us this much.

No, pay us this, we're going to pay you this much. This is our offer. This is our offer. I mean, how much is, how intricate are these in negotiations? How much back and forth can there possibly be between Laramie Tunsell and the Texans right now? I think if the Texans want Laramie Tunsell, they need to keep the open lines of communication going. Now, I may be wrong. I'm saying my philosophy is the right way, but I just watch too many athletes and too many sports when they self-impose a deadline.

Those players rarely ever come back. I mean, a lot of times deadlines, like I said, deadlines per action. If you say we're not negotiating past this point, then something will get done. The only deadline really is whether or not to accept the franchise tag. And then you had that exclusive window after that to renegotiate it before the franchise tag kicks in. Those are the only deadlines I think of. But I can just say by example, the Texans have re-signed players. Nick Martin got a new deal.

Remember Nick Martin got a new deal right in the middle of the season last year. Whitney Marshall's got a new deal right in the middle of the season. So all I'm saying is I would never be a person that would close the door unless the player came. to me and said, hey, I still like it here. I want to be here. But maybe us talking about contract as I'm trying to compete for whatever we're supposed to be doing, individual or team accomplishments is a distraction. Let's just back it off. But usually it doesn't happen that way. Usually it's what you were saying. The team puts a deadline and says, hey, if you want to be here, we're either going to do it now or we're going to do it after the season. And I just don't see very many players going,

You're right, that makes sense. I'm not going to come to agreement in March, but let's talk about this again in October. Usually by that time that person said, well, you know, if the aster's good of happen if they really wanted me in March, I'm moving on. I just see too much of the self-imposed deadlines hurting the teams. And maybe it's not really hurting the teams. Because the team may say, look, you can negotiate to her blue in the face every day. I only think you're worth $15 million a year.

And you can say you're worth $22 million a year in the month of May, July, or September. But if I only think you're worth $15, $15 a year, $1 million a year. that's all I'm going with. So it can kind of run both ways. I just like, I don't mind hearing the mid-season act was in contract extensions. And that may be something that ultimately might have about Dak Prescott.

You never know in Dallas. And there's a lot of other players in the same spot. And it may ultimately happen with Laramie Tunsell because this year he's under a contract that he originally signed with the Miami Dolphins. Well, Dak is franchised, right? Right. Can you negotiate in the middle of the season?

I don't know if it's middle of the season, but there's a negotiating period. No, I know they can now. I'm talking about if the season starts, I don't think they can negotiate. But at least in his spot, he's going to be making a lot. What's this guy? What is he supposed to make next year? Sort of 30, right?

I think of 35-ish. Is it that much? Well, if Kurt Cousins is making 33, how can Dak Prescott say I'm only worth 30? Because you're the average of the top five. He stays on the franchise. Oh, you're talking about what he's going to be in the franchise. I'm talking about his negotiation. I believe it is 30.

Yeah, he's got a great backup. You don't want to re-sign me right now. I'll take the average of the top five. $30 million. Yeah. So, man's set for life. no matter what. It's funny because Lance and I, we were in the mornings,

we would always Josh about, you know, his player evaluations, and then I would have one. I said, I've liked this to Act Prescott. And I kind of just flippantly used his name because I did like him in college. I saw him a couple times before the University of Houston. Right. And I would have never thought even watching those games back then when he was part of Mississippi State that he'd be ever be a $30 million dollar quarterback.

And then who was your next big draft pick? John Brown. John Ross. Oh, John Ross. How's he doing? Let's see. I think he's still on the Bengals? In three years with the Bengals, he has 49 receptions.

He was hurt his first year, right? He's improving, yeah. So I'm one for two. Thomas Sports Enterprises one for two. Maybe Joe Burrow changes that. Yeah. Maybe Joe Borough brings John Ross to prominence. I still have a chance of hitting that one, right?

He's not off his rookie contract yet. Joe Burrow, John Ross, A.J. Green? Yeah. Joe Mixing? I'm actually feeling pretty confident then. Maybe we feel okay about that. By the way, I will make my announcement next week of the latest Thomas Sports Enterprises draft pick to click. Well, you know, John Ross, he only played eight games.

He was heard again this year. He would have had about 1,000 yards and six touchdowns if he played a full season. So maybe you're right on that, Matt. Maybe that should be your sleeper pick in our fantasy football league. Joe Burrow or John Ross? John Ross. I'll take both of them. Okay.

It's good to hit both on those. Although Joe... Wait a minute. Here's the thing about Joe Burrow that kind of bothers me. We're going to have Dame Brugler on from the athletic. He's their NFL draft guru expert. He's been on the show a few times. He'll be with us tomorrow.

Why was he the can't miss college quarterback? And man, this is the best thing in college football is seen in terms of a pure passer. And now there's all this time of, can he really do it at this level? Is his arm not strong enough? That's what happens every draft. Everybody's the best prospect forever. And then they rise and they fall. And he'll probably end up going number one overall.

That's why I don't think Trevor Lawrence won't go number one next year. They're just going to pick and pick and pick and they're like, oh, Justin Fields is the guy. Do you know why? Do you know why Joe Ballot was supposed to be the guy or two? Do you know why Joe Burrow won't not succeed if he doesn't succeed? It's because he's got the bingles around him. Exactly.

It's the worst situation you can go into. Every quarterback's taking one overall. Is it a bad situation, though? Yeah, but they have an unproven coach. AJ Green doesn't want to be there. Help me out here. Carson Palmer's a bingo was pretty good, yes? Until he forced his way out.

Jeff Blake was a below average quarterback with them David Klingler was unfortunately a bus for them Don't forget the great Achilles Smith Achilles Smith I mean man the quarter Andy Dalton was average at best right He had some okay years But just decent a couple years But just basically decent

We turned the red rifle What was that JJ Wattline We turned the red rifle into a Whatever pistol water pistol or whatever What was the gun from Christmas story I never saw it. You never seen a Christmas story? No, just bits and pieces.

Point being is that if you're a quarterback, the last game, it just started to history. The last great quarterback for the Bengals is Carson Palmer. He wasn't even great. Before that, who did it, Boomer Asiason? I think Carson Palmer was better as a

Cardinal and a Raider, wouldn't he? But was he bad as a bingo? He was okay. No, they were pretty solid. In the last 40 years of the Bengals, not that we've spent a lot of time talking Cincinnati Bingle football. I can think of three decent quarterbacks, Ken Anderson, Boomer Assayson, and Carson Palmer. Is there anybody I'm else for, I'm forgetting about in the last 40 years of Cincinnati Bingle football? Because Assison was the quarterback when went to the Super Bowl, right?

Kenny Anderson was Super Bowl when they took on Montana in the, in the, uh, 40s. 49ers. Yeah, I know. That's, that's, that's you telling it. That's why Joe Burrell, like, I don't know if I really want to go there. That's awful. All right, Chris Pezman, Athletic Director, University of Houston, joins us to start the second hour of the Matt Thomas Show next on Sports Talk 790.

Is the Matt Thomas Show. What on Sports Talk 790. It is the second hour of three. Coming up at 130, a great. visit that Sean Salsbury had with Kirk Herbstre of ESPN about college football and maybe Kirk doing Monday night football. At 2 o'clock, another great alum of the University of Houston will be with us, Bill Worell in our series of people we miss hearing from, the longtime Rockets and Houston Sportscaster. Speaking of alums, our good friend Chris Pezman, Vice President Intercollegiate

Athletics, joining us for the University of Houston here on Sports Talk 7.9. Paz, what's going on, friend. What do you say, Matt? Hey, you got War L on. I'm impressed. I feel honored to be on your show today when you've got such a distinguished cast of entertainers and spokespeople. Yeah, frankly, you're dropping my all-time list here. So you're like 15th on the all-time you of age list, but I don't want to push that along. So I feel sorry for you on that, but that's okay. Thank you for joining us, nonetheless. Hey, I appreciate it. So what's it like you've been doing a few Google hangouts with the kids talking to student athletes, obviously through phone and or text and or through Zoom.

What's it like as an administrator with these kids that were ready to play softball, baseball, anything else in the spring counter, and all of a sudden, just because of this virus, it just went away immediately? Yeah, you know, more than anything, I think it's, you know, there's a lot of questions they're asking that are really fair that, you know, and we just don't have the answers to yet. You know, how quick will we be back? you know, what's it going to look like when we come back. But, you know, for the most part, our kids have done an incredible job of managing this.

Our coaches or administrators of helping, you know, transition kids to taking classes online. You know, literally the university made that switch during spring break. We delayed school coming back for about a week, and all of a sudden, you know, you go from having in-person classes to your entire program academically is online. And then the other part is just, you know, making sure all of our student athletes are in a good place, mentally, physically, you know, that we're able to take care of anybody that has a need, you know, for nutrition, you know, outreach, all those things. We're trying to fill those gaps as best we can, but it's hard when everybody's spread out literally all over the state and country. And how about, you know, working out, making sure they're doing the right things? I mean, this is an important time for Dana's kids, for Calvin's kids, and maybe not so much because their season would have come to an end and maybe even hopefully maybe it would have been in Atlanta.

But how are these athletes doing the right thing, especially when you've got, you know, spring football and then ultimately you've got training camp coming up in a couple of months? Yeah. So for all of our programs are what your strength, conditioning staff created virtual workouts for all the kids to perform. So, and it's kind of, you know, you do it. They created them with or without access to weights, and they got pretty creative. How do you stuff around the house? There's some pretty cool videos out there that are kids that put together showing their workouts. But the hard part, you know, as it is with anything, you can train so much at some point, it's, you know, it's you've got to.

We play sports, and sports typically involved being around or your teammates or opponents. And, you know, everybody's understood. that that's on hold right now. And it's not easy. And anybody that tells you how soon we're going to be back from this or is making projections, I think, you know, I don't think anybody really knows. Chris Pezman, the athletic director at the University of Houston

with us here on Sports Talk 790. Pez, we found out not too long ago that the spring athletes were able to come back and compete again. Had the logistics worked out on that for you in terms of what their scholarship is because you've got incoming freshmen that have also been promised some sort of scholarships. What are the logistics on that right now as we speak? Yeah, first and foremost, the NCAA did absolutely the right thing. These student athletes, this was completely out of their control,

and so they should not be punished whether a senior or freshman on losing a year or competition. With that said, if all our seniors came back, we went an analysis. I actually just got it yesterday. it will cost us about a half million dollars in new money. So we're working through with our coaches or those in the spring that were affected. Some of these kids naturally are not going to come back. They want to move on with their life and graduate. Some want to, you know, in some sports, whether it's golf or baseball, want to pursue, you know,

being in the professional leagues. So there'll be some reduction in that cost. we're working through trying to figure out, you know, what we can afford to be really honest with you. We're concerned with our revenue streams. You know, we took a pretty good hit with our instability distribution going down because the tournament wasn't played. And then you're looking at the fall and trying to forecast what, you know, our major revenue opportunities are with football and basketball, which represent the bulk of the financial streams that come into the athletic department. and what that could be and how that would affect our ability to provide for opportunities.

At the end of the day, the rule that the incident of the way passed is, you know, we are not obligated to provide a scholarship to a senior that comes back. You know, and so, you know, to me, I think that they put the onus back on the schools to make that decision, which is fair. And so we're trying to understand, you know, what our real exposure is. and what we can afford because, you know, right now, you know, projecting what I have to spend versus the revenues that we're anticipating are, you know, may not be there is pretty significant. So, well, we're going to end up having to make some hard decisions sooner than later.

So frankly, let's just be real honest here, if a softball player doesn't get the money or a tennis player or a female soccer player or a baseball player, it probably goes underneath the radar, right, pass? but if this was to be extended to say basketball from this past season, a lot of kids would have said, well, I would have come back, but my scholarship wasn't there. Is there some truth to that that because these are not Olympic, these are not, these are Olympic sports, they don't carry the same sort of cashier to the pros that maybe some kids will have to accept it and move on and maybe won't have to face, you know, the schools wouldn't have to face any sort of public backlash because of that? No, I, you know, I think, you know, with the, to be honest with you with social media. I think everybody's voice carries pretty far, whether it's a – Fair point.

You know, Olympic sport athlete or whether it's a, you know, a revenue sport. And so, you know, that – I don't think that would be as much of an issue. But what's at stake here is, you know, football and basketball, which are fall in winter sports, we're not affected. It's the spring sports. So the scenario you played out isn't going to be equitable in this situation. But, you know, I mean, let's use track and field, for example. Leroy and Carl believe that with the seniors coming back in the freshman afternoon,

and they literally will have one of the greatest four-by-100 teams, you know, in the history of four-by-100 teams for college sports. And they said it. So I'm just parroting what they said. So, you know, does that impact your decision to bring back that senior track and field athlete that's on a partial scholarship? or not? Is it competitive or is it somebody that is pursuing a degree? Part of that, what will factor into this is kids that are pursuing their first degree versus a secondary degree, a second bachelor's or a

master's degree, ensuring that our student athletes lead here with a degree and where people are in that process. So I think all those things are going to factor into how we, try to attack this and take care of our student athletes as best we can. And it's no surprise that the college basketball players were not given an extra year because of what? I mean, was it ever seriously considered, do you think? You know, I think it was discussed because of the tournament, but, you know, they had completed the majority of their season. You know, for us, we lost one senior, Chris Harris.

You know, I would have loved to make sure that Chris had gotten another opportunity to be, in the NCAA tournament with us at the University of Houston. But I think at some point you kind of have to create a line and say, you know, if you've competed and finished your season, then, you know, we're moving on. And so many teams were not going to be in the NCAA tournament and said you would have had to project, you know, whether a team or a senior would have been in the tournament and how would you take that into account and getting them any other year? I think probably the way that they interpreted it and applied the rule is,

the best possible and most consistent way to do it. All right. Now the $64,000 question about college football. And the one thing I brought up to my audience, and look, we're all just trying to think out loud on this. How do you put 100 kids, because that's what college footballs are, 90, 100, whatever, with the staff, with the trainers, with the equipment, how do you put them in a safe area where they can work out, they can have their own locker room, they can practice,

they can have competition, and then mesh all these other people. with these other schools are the same number. It feels like to me, Chris, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that there isn't a calendar for the 2020 season because TDCU Stadium, with exception of the roughnecks, but 99% of college football facilities, the universities control the dates. So if you said the college football season doesn't start until December the 15th

or it doesn't start until January 15th, and you claim a national championship in April, you, in theory, in theory, could do. that. How much flexibility do you think the NCAA, your conference and college football in general, have in playing the 2020 college football season? Let me answer this a different way. The financial stakes of not playing or repercussions of not playing a football season are so significant. There's going to be a way to do it and play it and do it responsibly. Obviously, we can't put, you know, like you said, 110 student athletes on the field versus, you know, a traveling team coming in with, you know, 85 student athletes on the other side and risk getting anybody sick or putting them in jeopardy.

So, you know, the timeline is going to reveal itself on what is feasible. You know, one of the things that I think that we've got to be careful of is not boxing ourselves in and not putting, oh, you got to have. two months to get ready to play a football season. I think in this day and age, our student athletes, even though they're not with us right now, in college athletics in general, you're dealing with a lot of kids that, you know, are used to working out on a very regular basis.

The acclimation period, let's use the state of Texas, as an example, is probably more important here than it is, you know, in the southwest and southeast than it is probably other parts of the country because of the heat and humidity. And I'll use Texas high school football as an example. You know, I think they get 14 practices before they play a game. So I think, you know, whether it's 30 days or 60 days,

I would try not to limit ourselves to how much time we have to or define a period that it has to be, you know, 60 days of preparation prior to season because I think we're used to doing it with less time. be honest with you, kids that are in high school and shoot when, you know, I mean, obviously everybody says back in the day, like when I came in, you show up in fall ball, which is the second week of August and you're ready to play, you know, at the end of August. I think we can do that safely. But, you know, there's a lot of really smart people out there, obviously much smarter than me that will help guide us to this process. So, you know, the reality of it, yeah, the reality,

though, is, and I was on this to the audience yesterday, not a lot of only do, does a full Alabama stadium take care of the finances of the entire athletic department, a full LSU stadium and hopefully a full TDCU Stadium? But frankly, there's a lot of schools that take paychecks to come play in those facilities. I mean, any middle American school is going to get maybe $900,000 to play the University of Michigan. That funds their program. I mean, no college football season, Pat, and I'm preaching the choir on this, would devastate everybody, not just the complete haves, but the ones that want to be a half that rely on playing those on the road games, those paycheck games to fund their athletic departments. Yeah, and I would tell you probably understand it, Matt. Most of those guaranteed games where people go to, you know, high-level programs that have lots of money, those guarantees now are in excess of seven figures.

And that's pretty standard. Yeah, you're talking, you know, 1.2 to 1.5 and sometimes close to $2 million for those guaranteed games. The department subsists off the revenue that's generated from football and basketball. And the general ratio that is used is 80% football, 20% basketball. So if you don't have that 80% revenue stream that's associated with football, it gets dire very fast. Now, look, I'll say this, you know, if we're not able to play, you know, we are dealing with much, much broader issues as a society with the, with the, the state of the economy and what it would be like if we're not playing. But I am confident we're going to find a way through this and we'll be able to play the

season, whether it's we push back a little bit or, you know, the idea of floating it out and playing in spring as you alluded to, I think we all control our venues or access to them or the bulk of us do, so that's doable. I mean, if you could imagine playing football in the spring, I mean, you'd have NBA, college football, you know, Major League Baseball, the Masters, all these events going on at once. You know, if you're ever going to lay on the couch, that's the time to do it. It's true. I'm still pretty optimistic we're going to find a way through to do this in the fall.

I hope so. And I want you getting out that couch. I want you getting all that weight back, all right, to be careful. You know, I'm getting fat. That's for sure. And the scary part is I've got more hair in my face than I do my head. Same for me. Pez, good to hear your voice, my friend. Take care of us. We'll talk to you soon.

Matt, thanks for having me on. I appreciate you. And everybody out there, make sure you wash your hands so we can get back to normal as fast as possible. I appreciate your brother and go Coogh. And go Coogs for sure. Thank you very much. Chris Pezman, Vice President, Intercollegiate Athletics here. On the Matt Thomas Show, Major League Baseball wants to play sooner than anybody else. We'll explain next. 116 on the Matt Thomas show, Sports Talk 790. Greg Vizjo here, the heart of the order is up right now. Matt Thomas is swinging for the fences here on Sports Talk 790.

A really interesting conversation with Kirk Herbstry that was on this morning's Sean Salisbury show coming up at the bottom of the hour. The Kirk Herbstree? The Kirk Herbstree. Sean, it has a lot of ESPN connections. My connections, Bill Orl, people we miss hearing from coming up in 40 minutes. U of H alum, correct? Yeah. A former baseball player at the University of Houston. Wait, what?

Yeah. I'm learning so much about Bill World just today. Yeah. All right. What position did he play? I believe he was a pitcher. Don't hold me to. We'll ask him.

Okay. We'll ask him. Chris Pezman, thanks again for joining us on the U of H.S.I, athletic side. Yeah, look, I think there is a certain notion of you don't want to put everybody playing all the sports at the same time. You don't want to have the Masters, the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl, the final four. You don't want all that in one month. I mean, because they do want to space each other out. But if we're pushing and pushing and pushing but still want to play, there's going to be a long game of stuff.

we may have some of these sports in this marketplace that we may have to put the Astros on Kota. I'm okay with that. If you think about the Masters weekend on CBS, they're going to have the Masters, college football, the NFL. So they'll have Masters, what, Thursday through Sunday? They'll have Masters Thursday and Friday on ESPN.

Yep. Which Thursday and Friday now are big college football days on ESPN. Yep. You'll have the Saturday SEC game will be on at 11 o'clock in the morning, so then get that out of the way by 2.30, so you can run the second half of the Masters. And by the way, it's going to start getting darker. It'll be darker during that time.

So you'll only be able to have like three hours of coverage because at 530 it'd be dark. There's a log jam. There's going to be a serious but fun logjam, provided we get sports again. That's a much bigger and much more pleasant problem to have than what we'll worry about right now, whether or not we will have gaining games at all. Absolutely. It's going to be, it's going to be so weird to go from zero to 100. Oh, yeah. There will be no gradual rise.

because we're going to get the draft, which is going to go ahead in two weeks, and then we got, then theory, nothing again. Although Major League Baseball thinks they're going to have something to start. Let me run through the things. In May, maybe. That's right. So I'll read it, and then you guys tell me what makes sense,

and then what doesn't sound practical. The plan would dictate that all 30 teams play games at stadiums with no fans in the Phoenix area, including the Arizona Diamondbacks. Chase Field would be used for triple headers, 10 spring training facilities and perhaps even nearby field Nearby field like the softball field? No, my guess would be Arizona State.

Okay. University, Grand Canyon University as a baseball team. I have a serious question about this. I know you wanted to go through it, but what are the fences like in these? Aren't the spring training fences a little short in some facilities? A little bit. Not much. Not much.

Matter of fact, more spring training facilities have major league. They mirror. Yeah, because. Yeah. When you go put the Red Sox in Fort Myers, they have a little Fenway Park there. Yeah. They're all the same dimensions because they want them to be acclimated. I was just wondering about that.

Yeah, they're all about the same. I think straight away in West Palm Beach, forer feet, which is what most majorly parks are. Players, coaching staffs, and other essential personnel would be sequestered at local hotels where they would live in relative isolation and travel only to and from the stadium. So again, clubhouse at the stadium, workout room. your hotel room, the ball field. Only four places you're going. Federal officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the National Institute of Health,

how are supporting of this plan. As long as what Joe said, these test results come back very quickly. It's compared 10 days, 14. We're talking about, what do they say, 15 minutes, something like that? Is that what they're hoping? That's what their hope is. They're like 15, 30 minute turnaround.

They also do not want to. They're going to be politically correct. They don't want to take away tests. that would be given to normal people that are really suffering with the coronavirus. Now, what the skepticism is is separating these baseball players from their families for what would be, quote, an indefinite amount of time. Because if it's not deemed that we cannot play in front of fans for 12 months, there's no reason opening up 15 more stadiums, 30 stadiums.

You put everybody in Arizona and you go into this bubble for an indefinite period time, maybe the entire season, and you play out the season there. None of these facilities are going to be covered, right? Not a single one, which means. It's going to get like 115 degrees. That's what I'm saying. Which means you're looking at 10 a.m. first pitches, probably Phoenix time. Hell, why don't you go?

It goes like 6 a.m. I mean, seriously, it's going to be 115 degrees in the afternoon there, right? Well, first we're going to have triple headers at Chase. But that's only going to take care. It's only one field. I don't think University of Phoenix Stadium would be applicable for baseball because it's a football facility. I don't think they'd be. You could probably convert it.

Yeah, they probably could. I don't see why not. That's got a roof. I mean, how would you convert a, I've been there before. It is a legit football field. It's, you know, it's lengthwise. You know, you know, circular stadium multipurpose. Nobody builds those anymore.

I don't know. That has not been discussed. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if they could pay it all. I mean, they put, well, the football games at Yankee Stadium, right? Yeah, but it's a wider field. It's a more circular stadium. These football teams are lengthwise.

That's true. They used to play baseball games in the 60s. They can go one way, not the other. The LA Coliseum, like, left field was like 220. I'm not kidding you. Yeah, maybe they have to do something like that. I mean, you know, like they play, remember they play games of the Alamo Dome and how the Rangers would play spring training games there?

And like, a home run to either one of the foul poles was like 255. I don't think you want to make this a pinball machine. So, but the issue is, can these adult men and their stabs be away from their families? For in theory, if you play a hundred game schedule, because you're not going to play 162, that's ridiculous. You play 100, and you play 25 games in a month, six days off in between, maybe even less, you're talking, in theory, four months of a regular season, followed by another three or four weeks of playoffs. So maybe somebody says as long as six weeks, six months.

But you're hoping maybe like halfway through everything is cool and you get in all clear. You're hoping. Why couldn't they just bring the families with? Because you're just adding to the compound. You're adding to the bubble. But if everyone's able to get tested beforehand and tested consistently? All the family.

I mean, how many people are we're talking about now? I know. But what if it's like wife and kids? What's 30 times 30? Is that 900? So then you're asking these players are prioritized who's important in their family and who's not? Well,

wife and kids are the importance. What if mom lives with them? Yeah, I guess mom has come to. No, I'm not trying to be cold. I'm just trying to keep the list keeps going. They want this. They want, yeah, the list would go in lists. Yeah. Maybe you get five no matter what.

Like if you have six kids, you're like, hey, you got to cut one out. Yeah, I don't know. Could they do a way where they let players, leave the bubble for two weeks at a time? But then they got to, I mean, I don't know. I don't think they want the logistics of that, though. I don't think that's what they want. They want this to be as seamless as possible because it already, Ross, is very complicated.

I don't think they want to have a, you know, like if you're in the military, you get a weekend pass. I think once you get some leave. My guess is this, Ross, if you leave the bubble, you're done because then you're out there with everybody else. or at least they have if you're in the bubble. Now the bubble is going to be also a variety of, it's a few miles. It's not like the stadium and hotel is all next to each other. I'm talking about how many baseball fields plus Chasefield,

which is in downtown Phoenix and the hotel. So we're still talking about a fairly wide group of square mileage area of the Phoenix-Fenix metropolitan area. It's not like they're just going from, like over NRG, the practice bubble, the stadium. It's way bigger than that. And you're also trying to house third. baseball teams.

At 30 players each, that's 900 players and coaching staff and trainers and equipment managers and other front, you know, like general managers, statisticians, you know, scouts, because you've got to scout other people's games. It'd be easy for the scouts. It would be traveling. You're looking at 2,000 people. I don't know. I think baseball should do it just because I think it changes the future of baseball forever.

Part of me wants them to do it because I want to see how successful it is. Well, think about all the, if there's nothing to watch, everyone that doesn't watch baseball, they're watching baseball now. There's no other sports. Yeah, you would have, MLB Network would have a game on every hour of the day. Yep. It could change baseball's fandom and projections of their concerns. But in reality, we were talking about the weather, because what does it really start getting hot in Phoenix? Or about June?

Yeah. You're looking at 8 a.m. games, probably. 8 p.m. games? Yeah, 7 or 8. Which still would be very hot. And maybe you are playing a first pitch at 11.05. Starting in May, the average high is 94 degrees. June, it goes up to 104, July 106.

Well, you're really risking that for about May 15th. All right, we'll take some calls, and we'll also hear from Kirk Herbstry as part of the Sean Salisbury show. The Matt Thomas Show continues after a message for bronze roofing. many of you obviously are now home way more than you were in the past because you're working there, you're spending your weekends there, you're not going out, hanging out with friends and family, unfortunately. But it doesn't mean you can't take care of your home while you've got this extra time.

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The most complete coverage in the city on Sports Talk 790. Your home for your home teams. Wow. The visit with Kirk Herbstree coming up in a matter of moments. Right now, Will's in Clare Lake on 790 at 135. Will, thanks for holding. Good afternoon. No problem.

Good afternoon, sir. What's up? So the reason I'm calling it is because I've heard several conversations about these major league players, Holly being sequestered for three months for games. And I'm like, that's nice. You know, they could pay a lot of money. Suck it up, Buttercup. Because me, I did, by choice, I did 13.

years and three tours in the Army. I went overseas. I went six, seven months without seeing my family in one stand. And then when I came back, I got to see him for two weeks. So I mean, literally, they're getting paid millions of dollars. They need to just deal with it. Their families with all the technology they have, it's like their family can be sitting in the room with them. I don't know what to think about that. Well, first of all, you're right. I mean, they are playing baseball. They are doing it because they want to get paid. And thank you for the phone call. But we're not, even if you make $50 million a year, you're going to miss your family. Regardless of what amount of money you make, you're going to miss kissing your wife,

kissing your babies, spending time with their kids. I think it's perfectly normal to believe that, to have empathy for somebody like that. But at the same time, this is a decision we made by the Players Association to say, if you want to get your 2020 salary, these are rules we have to play by. Nobody likes going offshore, Ross, but if you've got to pay the bills, you've got to pay the bills. And this is what the bills, this is what the job will require in 2020 for these baseball players, if they want to get compensated, they're most likely at a bare minimum going to have to start the season in Arizona. Yeah, and I mean, this is also something they haven't signed up for.

And I don't know that it's going to be like a deal breaker or a breaking point. It's just something they're not going to be happy about. If they want to have games, it's going to have to be, it looks like it's going to have to be this kind of scenario. So, yeah, well, I get it. There's a lot of people that go away from the service. A lot of people go internationally and are gone. I mean, they wouldn't be the only people in the world that would have to miss their family for a period of time. It's just something new to them.

And it's totally natural to say, hey, I'm going to miss my wife. I miss my kids. I want to see them. Everybody in the world in 2020 is having no just one way or the other. I have another question. What if a player, let's say, you know, Carl's Correier, whoever, or Jose L. Tuvae or George, like they need arthroscopic knee surgery and they'll be out only for a couple of weeks. Where do they, is there a hospital nearby?

They go to whatever hospital, and then they quarantine and they stay for two weeks, and they're just away from the team. How do they rehab? My initial thought on that is not having... You'll go get worked on and then get wheeled back into the bubble? There will be an official hospital, sure. That would have full surgical facilities. But what if people want to work with their team doctors

or they want to choose who they get... You can want and get out how you want. This is the rules. If you want to play baseball, we will have a Major League Baseball vetted surgeon that will take care of all the people's needs. What if the player... I guess you could go to your... your own guy and then you'll be out for two weeks.

Again, I don't know if they're going to let you back in the bubble once you leave. Like once you're out, you're out? Don't know. It's like survivor. Because they don't want people going in and out. But people get hurt. People, I mean. That's what I'm saying.

Maybe it's a. People are going literally there. It's going to happen. Absolutely. Soar shoulders, torn ACLs. Broken ribs. Broken ribs. Broken wrist, all that kind of sort of stuff.

Issues to work out. All right. We're going to go a little late on this. because we think it's worth it. Kirk Herb Street visited with Sean Salisbury this morning. Very interesting conversation about the college football landscape. A couple of players that we obviously have a lot of interest in. But the visit this morning with Sean started with a rumor that is out there that Monday

night football, still looking for perhaps a new broadcast crew, would think about bringing Chris Fowler and Kirk Herb Street to the broadcast. That begged the question, would he give up the Saturday game day and the Saturday college football to do Monday night football. Here is the answer from Kirk in his visit today with Sean Salisbury. Let me put it to you this way. If they ever approach me about Monday Night football, and I've told my agent it would have to be in addition to what I do because I'm not leaving college football. I just can't. It's just my passion. It's what I love. If they wanted me to do it on top of it, I would do that and be obviously a lot of work. And I don't even think, you know,

that would be something that would happen. But if they said, hey, we need you to come off of game day. We need to come off the Saturday night game, come off, you know, the Rose Bowl, come off the national championship, all those things that I call to do Monday Night Football. I personally would not want to do that. But when they asked you about this coronavirus in college football and NFL, You said you'd be shocked if we had a college football season. You still feel that way, and why did you, why do you believe that still? First, let me get perspective on that interview. It was with Ian Fitzsimmons.

Who's a buddy of yours. Right. Buddy of mine, I'd be like honestly talking to you kind of thing. Right. So it was more just, I'd just come back from spring break early because my twin boys who are Clemson for their freshman year, they were with. It was one of those perfect storms. Our twins, our middle son, Zach, who's a junior, his school, and our youngest son, Chase.

All four of them were on spring break on the same week. So we had a spring break set up. I was like, man, we get all six of us back together going on spring break. And in the middle of that spring break, all hell breaks lose, travel restrictions, get, you know, everybody's quarantining. And so we have boarded in the middle of our spring break and got home. basically did what everybody, whatever Dr. Fauci said to do, we were following the guidelines. And this was all new. And I wouldn't listen to any of the politicians. I'm listening to a little

man in the glasses, whatever he said. I was taking a heart, you know. I hear you. The sexiest man alive, Dr. Fauci. And I mean, I loved his presentation. The way he talked. I was just liven with him early in the game. So I was listening to him and how real this was. And it was so fresh and so new. So this was two or three days on the back end of being forced to end our spring break. And I was talking to Ian. It was like at 10 o'clock at night. And I was almost thinking out loud more than the way it was reported by so many people. It was like I stood on top of a mountain top and said, there will be no football in the fall. That's a shocker. Right. Yeah, and I was just simply stating to Ian like I would, you meant, dude, this is scary.

Right. Like this thing is, this is like, until they find a vaccine, I don't know, man. There may not even be football. There may not be football in the fall. I don't know how they can green light it. How do you put players together in locker rooms and let them hit on each other and sweat and work out and shower and just those close proximity? Forget about coaches who are older and fans. in the stands. I was like, man, I don't know

until they get a vaccine. How are we going to do this? That was really all I said. And from the next seems like two weeks, it was Herbstreys says this, and then all the reporters would go to the coaches or Herbstreys said they're not going to have a season. And these coaches like,

well, screw Kirk Herbstre, I don't know who the hell he thinks he is. And it's like, wait, what? Well, I wasn't like trying to make a statement. God, if anybody wants football, it's guys like me and you, please. Like, I'm I'm done. All I got is horse for anything right now.

I am dying. You see what happens when you're good at your job, dude, and your Kirk Herb Street? You could just in passing with a guy say, yeah, man. I'll be shocked if they have it. What? That's what I said. Dr. Herb Street standing next to Dr. Fauci. It's your fault, Kirk Herb Street.

Yeah. Dude, of course. Exactly. That's crazy. Exactly what happened. Yeah. Kansas State Athletic Director, whoever the heck that guy is, he's like, I guess Kirk Hurstree thinks he's a side.

He better just stick to football. It's like, uh-huh. Well, we're taking, we're taking you off your visit to Manhattan this year because I don't think you're going to be there. I know, man. I'm like, holy cow. I was more scared and just thinking out about to a friend who happened to be on radio because I always just, like, I'm not a speed on the desk kind of guy. I'm not, I want to be the story kind of guy. That's just the opposite of who I am.

and man, I just said that. I was being honest and kind of vulnerable to the moment. And the way it got reported by a lot of people was really taking, I felt like taken out of context. But, you know, we're all scared right now. We're all just like, what the hell's going on? And we're worried about family and friends and our jobs and our lives, you know. And so if some guy stands up and says, man, I don't know if there's going to be football,

it's like, you don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. But I think we have to, this is two weeks ago, and this thing's changing daily, maybe even hourly. And after talking to Ian and doing that interview and all the reactions, I've talked with a number of people who are in the know. And I think after hearing from what they've said, this is more of the college game, not the NFL,

I think in the college game, because it really represents 80% of almost every athletic department's budget. Right. if they have to push the sport back, worst case, to starting in December and almost becoming a spring sport, I think they would be willing to do that. You know, start in December, play bowl games in May, national championship in late May, which would be bizarre. But I think that shows you what extremes they're willing to go in the college game to make sure they have college football. So that would be, to me, Doomsday. You know, after this is two weeks later.

have college football, but I think are they going to start on time? You know, all those kind of things. Whether there be fans in the stands to start out, right. Whether it be fans and the stands, all that kind of stuff. All of that, we don't know. But I do feel pretty comfortable after talking to a lot of people who reached out to me after that comment that, you know, they're going to come hell or high water. They're going to have a season.

But as I said, I think they have like three or four different contingency plans right now waiting for that, hey, everybody's free. moment, when will that be? And based on that, they're coming up with, hey, business as usual, push it back a month, push it back a couple months, or, hey, let's push it all the way back to December and play it like a spring sport. But I really don't think they'll miss the season completely. Hey, would you take Joe Burrell first if you were the GM of the Bengals? Absolutely. Absolutely. The one knock on Joe is he was a one-hit wonder. You know, if you look at his career, backed up at Ohio State.

behind J.T. Barrett and then lost the job to Haskin, decided to transfer his junior year at LSU. He had kind of a okay to below average year by his standard, by a good standard. And he would tell you it was really as much about the system. He was under center, eye formation, kind of old school LSU football. And then, of course, that year goes by. They bring in Joe Brady from New Orleans. They bring in that Sean Peyton, Drew Bree's offensive style. And it was a perfect fit for him and his.

receivers and the skill around him and the rest is history. And I think you probably would agree. Decision-making, accuracy, toughness, competitive spirit, leadership, playmaking ability. I guess the one caveat I would say is I don't know, I don't really know the Bengals system with Zach Taylor. I don't know what they're running. But if you go out and bring in Joe Burrow, if you don't, you can't get Joe Brady because he's now with Carolina, you better run an offense that's,

nearly similar to what they're running in New Orleans. Amen. You know what I mean? So get the system and go get Joe Burrow, and I think it's a no-brainer. I think that's a game changer. That kid had a year I've never seen in my entire life after watching a lot of great quarterbacks. And it was his ability to full field progression reads and ability to go, boom, boom, boom.

He had an answer for any coverage. show, you know, show one coverage pre-snap, go to another at the last second. He might fool him early, but he would adjust to it and eventually come back and put big drives together. He's kind of, you know, it's very similar to the way the Chiefs attack, and they can score in the blink of an eye. Yep. Yeah, and I think his athletic ability isn't appreciated. The kid, the kid has a nastiness to him, almost like you get done talking to him, and he's like, man, he's kind of. He's a prick.

I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you love that. I've gotten to know him a lot better, so I know there's a nice side to him. But, man, that dude has a killer instinct about him that he carries everywhere. And his teammates love that about him. So I think on many levels, it's a no-brainer, especially for a franchise like the Bengals. It seems like every year they can't make the right decision.

This would be, I think, a perfect decision for them to make. No question. Last minute I got with you, your overall thoughts on Jalen Hertz is a pro. He's a local kid here in Houston. What do you think? Well, I think as the NFL game continues to evolve, and man, I turn on these NFL games, it looks more and more like what we watch on Saturday.

Forever, it was the other way around. It was the college game trying to try to get their quarterbacks ready for the NFL. And the NFL forever, just standing strong saying, you know, they were bringing a big 12 quarterback and say, no, no, no. Robert Griffin can't adjust to our system. You know, he's not going to work out eventually or whoever it was coming out of the Big 12 and these Texas Tech style offenses. And finally, Andy Reid and others said, you know what?

I'm going to start to tweak my system to the skill set of the guy that I'm bringing in. And I think that's really changed when you evaluate a quarterback like Jalen Hertz, who is not going to be at his best sitting in a pocket. and doing what Joe Burrow does. Full field, progression, read. That's just not his thing. But if you can find a way with his competitive spirit, with his playmaking ability,

with his ability to create, make a lot of throws-off platform, there's a place for him without a doubt. And I don't want to compare him to Lamar Jackson because Lamar Jackson, to me, there's only one guy, Michael Vicks, it ever was as twitchy and scary at that position. And that would be Vick.

So I don't want to compare him to Lamar, but I would say that he has an ability to create and make plays. And his personality and his mojo and just his alpha presence in a locker room to me brings a ton of value because he's so serious about his craft and about making sure everybody else is serious about their craft. So there's a lot of value there. But I still would tell you, if you watch him throw in shorts, without just seven on seven, no defense against air. You're not going to find a guy. A guy can throw the football. It's not about can he throw.

It's beautiful throwing the ball. It's can he continue to develop reading coverage and be able to come off of A and B and find C. Like that to me is an area that he still has a lot of work to do. Really great conversation. Kirk Herb Street with Sean Salsbury. You can catch Sean every morning, 6 to 10 right here on 790. What is y'all's thoughts about Kirk and Chris Founder on Monday Night Football?

I know the reason why he does want to keep the college on Saturday, but beyond his love. Because let's be honest, guys. Monday night football rotates announcers every few years, and he doesn't want to be embarrassed by having to gain, to leave one for the other. And then if people don't like his style because it's Monday Night Football, and it's not the grandiose game of college football, he doesn't want to look bad. So I think he wants to have his cake and eat it too,

and I think it's a right decision. I already know I'm the best at the game in college, and we'll try this Monday night thing and people embrace me for doing Monday night. It'd be great. If not, I can go back to my college and feel just fine. You think that's why he wouldn't leave? A small part of it.

Small part of it. Not a big part. I think he loves college football. We talked about this yesterday, Ross, the ESPN is still offering millions of dollars to Drew Breeze reportedly as a standing offer. Like as soon as he retires, Drew Breeze would be the Monday night football guy.

So if you're Herb Street, how do you sign a contract knowing that there's even those rumors out there that they're trying to negotiate with Breeze? They've been wanting Peyton Manning for years. Yeah, you could get dumped at a moment's notes. And has Sean McDonough's career ever recovered? What is he doing now? He was number two on college football? Yeah.

He went back. Still it just feels like it's not what it will. Like his path was to be number one college football. Can he ever be the number one college football guy again? Or ever, will he ever be now? Because Chris Fowler is one of that for the longest time. The difference there is is that Kirk Herb Street is the number one, number one college football analyst, period, end of story. If you take him away from that and he does get replaced, whatever.

You know who Kirk Herbstreet replaced when Craig James moved? I mean, Craig James was the Kirk Herbstreet before Kirk Herb Street was. Craig James sucked, though. So bad. But he was on forever. He moved to CBS. and he wasn't there for very long. And then he goes back to ESPN and doesn't get his spot back on game day

because Kirk Herb Street was better than he was. I think there's a small part, not a large part, but a small part says, you know what? I already know I'm the goat in one. If I go try this and I'm successful, then I can be potentially the goat in two. But if it doesn't work out, I have my Saturday bill, which I never left, and I'm still the best at what I do in that position. And there's no way to know that. I would just think that he's, maybe he's just,

a college guy through and through and that's his thing. There are people who love college football more than NFL. I'm not arguing that. I said that he does love his college football, but I think that he's also hedging his bed a little bit to at least know that if something doesn't work out on Monday football and Drew Breeze goes in there or paint Manning changes his mind, that Kirk still has that that top spot on the college football that no one can take from him because he didn't leave that spot. That's how I would do it. That's how I would do it. I think he just loves college football more than anything else.

That's what I would think. But I don't know. Neither of us or no. We're not in his head. Honestly, I think the college football is the better job. That's debate. Yeah, that's actually arguable for sure. But the problem, yeah, the problem is that Monday football keeps changing. We went for basically 20 years of Al Michaels, Dan Deirdorf, and Frank Gifford.

Ever since then, there's been seven or eight crews since then the last 15 years. actually Madden and Al Michaels were on Monday night football for a while until they lost the Monday night package ABC did to ESPN and then those guys said I'm not going to ESPN to do Monday night football I'm going to go to NBC and do the Sunday night game.

It was yeah Michaels left in 06 and then he did and then Tariko did play by play until 15 so he did it for the next nine years and he had Jaworski as a partner he had Joe, a little Tony Cornhizer for a little bit and then him and John Gruden were probably

the best duo if you were to put the Monday night football greatest broadcast teams together you go Frank Gifford Howard CoSell and Don Meredith is one you probably go Al Michaels do you put him with John Madness 2 or is Madden more associated with

things more associated with Summerall you put Al and Frank and Dan is 2 and then you probably put Mike Tariko and John Gurdness 3 It was for a little bit. It was Gruden, Toriko, and Jaws. And they kicked Jaws this side. Yeah, for a couple years.

Such is a problem. It's nice to be liked and I'd be nice to be wanted by multiple different organizations. That's for, or the same organization, that's for sure. All right. Speaking of a broadcasting goat, people we miss hearing from. Long time. There's not a Houston sports broadcasting hall of fame, but there was. He'd be in it.

Maybe. Maybe you should create it, Matt. I'm very busy. I mean, I guess I could during this time. Yeah, what are you doing? doing nothing. I'm raising my children. Kim's raising the children. The TV's raising. That's true.

Bill Rell joins us next. 157 on Sports Talk 790. Is the Matt Thomas show. Time is 201 on Sports Talk 790. It is the final hour of the Matt Thomas shows. We get you ready for the A-Team coming up at 3 o'clock today. Earlier we had our buddy Chris Pezman on, the Vice President Intercollegiate Athletics for the University of Houston to talk about how he's handling the student athletes

and what they're doing to get themselves ready for the next football season of future of college athletics and speaking in college athletics and a great cougar Bill Orell, my partner, Rossville-Oreal, wanted me to ask you, were you a pitcher or a shortstop at the University of Houston way back in the day? I was a pitcher.

And your career, ERA was what? Do what? Your ERA. What was your ERA back then? Oh, hell, I don't even remember. That's all right. Well, I pitched in the 60s. Do you expect me to remember that far back? That's true.

So were you all, you weren't even in the Southwest Conference, right? That was before then, correct? That was before the Southwest Conference. So we played as an independent. And my junior year, we lost to Texas in the best two out of three. and they went on to the College World Series. And the next year, my senior year, we beat Texas in Austin. That was a team we had Tom Pichoric, one of the great college and pro baseball players.

And then we went to the College World Series that year in 67. Oh, the good old times. I miss college baseball. Coach Wittings had a nice job over there, and I'm sad that his kids are not able to compete this year. How are you feeling? How's life? I know that you've enjoyed semi-retirement. You still doing the games, obviously, in the home on AT&T,

but this has got to be even a stretch for you, not having to call a game in a long period of time. Yeah, it really is. I have never, I had been off before when we've had strikes and shutdowns. Two times it's happened to me in 30-some-odd years, and so that's the only other time I haven't done basketball games, So this is unique. But we live in that time now where this is the only thing we can do.

And I think pro basketball, when a couple of guys tested positive, Adam Silver shut it down right away. So we were the first league to do it. And Adam's way ahead of the curve there. So he says it may not be until June. We'll just have to wait and see. But he promises that we're, We will finish the season, and I'm hoping he's right.

Are you as fascinated at I am when you see the daily updates, whether it be if you're looking in the paper or watching TV or looking on the Internet of the variety of different options out there. Do any of them seem to make practical sense to you, or all this comes with every scenario comes with different sorts of questions with it? Yeah, I think the big question is, Matt, is how many games you will be able to get in? should you go to the playoffs right away? And, of course, you've got two or three teams that are on the outside looking at that would like to play some extra games to get into the playoffs.

And you have another option, too, of maybe taking the season all the way to, since it's an indoor sport, you could take it back all the way to September, October. And I've even heard an idea floating around that you would start 2021. on our 2020, 2021 season on Christmas Day. And you've heard that talk, too, where there have been a lot of owners in favor of starting the season on Christmas Day with five or six double-hitters, you know, and go from there and extend the season through the summer. So I think the owners are taking a hard look at it and they're doing everything. should do. And I'm just confident, I think, that we will be able to finish out this season when we're all able to go back to some kind of normalcy. You know, Bill, my kids ask me about, you know, have I ever gone through something like

this? And I obviously, the answer is no. We've gone through 9-11. We've gone through hurricanes and other sorts of terrible weather events, but those have been very short-term. In your life, it has spanned, you know, multiple decades and been able to experience so many things both in the world of sports but in news as well with your longtime background at channel two is there anything close to this in your lifetime that that you can equate this to or is just something completely out of out of context of anything else that's happened in our life yeah nothing nothing close to it of course with the assassination of president kennedy of course that didn't last that long i'm trying to decide whether to postpone games

that was the only thing. We've had a couple of natural disasters, as you mentioned. And Matt, I really appreciate that you're not getting me to compare this with the 1918 pandemic. Thank you very much. I was going to say World War I, that's not fair either. So I just wanted to make sure you do that. No, that's not. But I thought that was coming, and so I was waiting for that.

No, no, no. You're being very good to me today. I'd rather do that right to your face as compared to doing it on the phone. You know what I'm saying? We're visiting with Bill O'Rell, one of the great Houston sportscasters of all time. I will say this, Bill, we have done more YouTube watching of old games and whatnot, whether it was Dreams quadruple double, watching some playoff games, watching a no-hitter.

I mean, there have been a variety of interesting things. Are you much of a guy that, you know, and I know you love playing golf and love staying active? That's part of the reason why you are as sharp as you still are to this day. But do you do a lot of reminiscing of gold games? you either were a part of a team or a part of a broadcast or is that something that just doesn't happen a lot for yourself? No, I don't. And there's one reason why I really don't like to listen to myself. And I critique myself too hard and I would rather not, I'd never really like to look at old games because I sit there going, gosh, I wish I'd have said this or I should have said that.

And so I really don't look at a lot of old games, but it is fun to see these old games. I'm with you. Some of the, you know, I did one quadruple double, and they took it back the next day. The NBA did on Hakeem. He really had two quadruple doubles, but they took one away from him. They said the score's table was too lenient with some rebound. He got there at the end of the game, so he didn't get. the quadruple double, but he did get the other one.

And I remember doing that game, and boy, he took it right down to the wire before he got it done with an assist. But, yeah, we've had a lot of great games. I'll tell you, I wish they would show that game back my first season in 1980. That was the one where Calvin Murphy and George Gervin squared off in game seven of the, the semifinals in the NBA, and Gervyn had 43, and Calvin had 42, and the Rockets won to advance, and that was that first year where they finished under 500, 40, and 42, and went to the NBA finals. Yeah, that was my first team I ever followed, and I became a huge fan of Moses Malone,

almost from the get-go, and Mike Dunleavy and everybody in Calvin and, you know, been a love affair ever since then. We're visiting with Bill Orell with us here on the people we miss hearing from segment of the Matt Thomas show at 209. Speaking of Hall of Famers, Rudy gets in. And I've told my audience, Bill, and you have the same relationship with Mike that I do. But I travel with Mike. And I really have grown to appreciate not only his coaching acumen,

but his personality and his professionalism, the way he treats people. I'm speaking in Mike Dan, Tony. I'm assuming all those years, you and Rudy had that same sort of report when you were traveling around the NBA together. Yeah, we did. Rudy was was just he's just probably the nicest person

that I've ever been around. I can truly say that he he's always thinking about the other person. He's always putting the team ahead of any of his wishes. He was like that when he was a player and that's why so many people liked him.

You know, he was Michigan's. He's still number three in all-time rebounds in Michigan history. He was a heck of a college player and a five-time all-star. But he decided when he retired that he wanted to work from the ground up. He started out scouting. And then Bill Fitch moved him to the bench to be the third coach and kind of the developmental coach. He looked at a lot of film. Didn't have a lot of. He didn't have a lot of back then, but we had a couple of satellites at HSE, which you know, we started in the early

80s. He was able to come over there and look at some other games on the satellites, so he was able to put up scouting reports. So he did it from the ground floor. I mean, he did everything that a coach needs to do to prepare, so that by the time he became the head coach, he knew what system he wanted to run. He knew the players he wanted to have on his team. And he put that team together in a hurry around the Keem Elizewan.

And then he had to take A Keem who'd already been in the league 10 years. And for your team, I need you to change your game a little bit and make it look like it was a King's idea. Rudy was great in the huddle, too. I remember, you know, players would tell me that you could tell he'd played the game

before he was a players coach. They'd come in there and they'd talk about what they wanted to do, and then he'd listen to them, and then he dropped up proper play. So I see that a lot in Mike Dentone. He shares with the players. The players love him. They're very much alike.

And I remember Mike, the first thing he told me is when I first met him, he said, why isn't Rudy Tom Jonovic in the Hall of Fame? Because Mike, Mike did a lot of things Rudy did. You know, Rudy was way ahead of his time. he had a center in Akeem Elyjuwon who didn't play like a normal center. But he learned to pass and he surrounded him with three-point shooters. And he could also post up at either side with Clyde Drexler on one side. And he posted up with Akeem.

And if you look at their formations in the way they spread the court, they played a lot like the Rockets play now. So it took the league about 15 years to catch up. And finally, being catching up, the Basketball Hall of Fame decided to catch up and give him his proper due. I'm so happy for him. I'm happy for you that you're enjoying your life now. I know you're playing a little bit of golf here and there. Are the golf courses pretty empty or fairly busy these days?

Well, it's everybody walking, and that eliminates a lot of players. Yeah. So you have to walk and you maintain, it's easy for me. me to maintain my six feet because everybody hits ball so far past me. That's true. They're way up ahead of me, so I don't have to worry about any. My social distancing is just fine. But you just have to stay sharp.

You have to do what you can do and get through this. But I think we were a little late getting started as a country to catch up to this coronavirus, but I think we're on the right track. and if it's going to take a couple of more months. And I know everybody's impatient, but it's so important to follow the guidelines so that we don't lose thousands of more people to this terrible virus.

Amen to that. I hope to see you very soon. If it's not until June 15th, I know you know when I look like. I know what you look like. We'll do some more games, have some fun, and maybe crying an NBA champion. And like you were talking about earlier,

I'm all forebill. I don't know what your thoughts are. I do think the NBA should move its season back to December 15th, December 20th, because I just feel like there's so much good basketball in the first two or three months of the year that America just doesn't catch because they're still getting their fill of college and pro football. I think a December to August, say late August champion would be perfect for the NBA and give them more of the shine that I think the league deserves. I agree with you. Let's do it.

All right, Bill, thank you very much for the time. We really appreciate it. I'm glad you're doing well, and we'll hopefully see you very soon, my friend. Well, I miss seeing you, Matt, but I listen to you a lot. You got one of the best talk shows in the country. Thank you, friend. Bill Warrell, John is here. Take here now.

All right, Bill Warrell from AT&T SportsNet, and, of course, one of the icons of Houston Sports Television. Time is 214. Ross has been sitting on this story he wants to discuss. It's our friends at MMA, the show must go on. We'll explain where that show could be showing, no, where it could be going, I should say. Coming up next, 215 on the Matt Thomas show, this is Sports Talk 790. Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson here. You're listening to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790.

Thanks again to Bill Whorell for joining us for a few minutes here to 219 on the Matt Thomas show. All right, so MMA, Ross, I have tried. Because I do like boxing. I like a good heavyweight fight, especially if you're in partisan for it. I have tried MMA. It's just not my jam. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate

those people who like it. I understand its value. Dana White is one of the great sports marketers of this century. And he believes the show must go on. So I want you to explain the audience where he's taking the show. Dana White is securing a private island

for UFC fights. What are we going to call this, by the way? Fight Island? I don't know. UFC president. Dana White is committed to resuming operations in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, this according to ESPN. He has secured a location in the United States to host UFC 249 on April 18th,

which is headlined by Justin Gieffey and Tony Ferguson. Sure. He started work on an undisclosed island where he would book fights for international athletes who can't come into the United States. This place is where the fight's going to be on April, he has it locked up for two months, so he's going to continue to pump fights out. He secured an island. The infrastructure is building right now.

They're going to do all the international fights on the island. I mean, this reeks of a really interesting documentary slash reality show. Well, he's like Fire Fest, but with UFC. That's what I said. Yeah. It's either going to be genius marketing or it's going to be a fire festival-level disaster that will ruin the UFC and cripple it. First question.

Why does the island help out with the international travelers more so than just come in any city in the country? Because is it not going to be owned? Is it like unincorporated? Is it not owned by any? I think it's like unincorporated. But didn't he say in the United States, though? Well, I'm sorry. The UFC 249 is going to be the United States.

We don't know where the island is. Right. He said for like his international fight. So I think there was one scheduled. No, they just had one in Brazil. So he would be crippled. if he didn't have international fighters in his next UFC. Is that right?

I mean, most of the guys are not from the United States. I think it's like, uh, it's like 60, 40. Yeah, I wouldn't know how to break it down. More like U.S. Could he have a good car with only U.S. fighters? Yeah. I think a lot of the good fighters are from the United States, but it's also a very international sport.

So it is. And so, I'm sorry. So if I was unclear, the United States is where the April 18th card is going to be. After that, apparently is when he's going to start pumping out fights on this international undisclosed island. I don't know if they're ever going to disclose where it is from an undisclosed island in the Pacific or whatever. It's UFC 250.

I don't mean to be Debbie Downer on this. Okay. But let's go a little over logistics of this. First of all, you're going to have to bill whatever it is, which is going to require people to build this area. I didn't build a little octagon. You're not going to have fans there. You then are going to have TV crew to shoot everything and produce and direct.

Yes. you're going to have to put these people in hotels or at least place, if there's such a thing, or a FEMA tents like on Fire Fest. Yes. You're going to feed them. And oh, by the way, how do you know that this uninhabited country or piece of land that you're on is not full of disease? I guess you're going to, you test them before the fights because the incident testing is apparently becoming more wide available. You just have the fighters there. I guess you're going to need what?

fighters, trainers, doctors. Is this going to be sanctioned by anybody? There's no athletic commission. That's not clear. Are they going to go rid of the rules? Are they going to go back to like UFC 1 where you can just do whatever you want? And it's basically human cockfighting. I got terrible news for you.

You kick him in the balls and gouges their eyes out. This is not going to work. I would watch it. I'm not saying you're not going to watch it. Yeah. He's going to have way too many logistical issues. I don't know. He's now.

So he's saying that no one lives on the island. There's just a piece of land that just sitting there. He doesn't say that either. It's a private island and it's undisclosed location. Yeah. Did you watch the Fire Festival? Yes, I did. The original Fire Festival was supposed to be on the island owned by Pablo Escobar.

And then they moved it to another one that was, there was tourist activities and the Bahamas, I think it was. So, I mean, I don't see why they couldn't pull this off if they find an island with some, level of infrastructure. And by the way, how are you going to get satellite transmission out there, too? That's a great question. You should tape it and then... No, you're right. You could tape it. If there's no journalist, like... If there's nobody covering it and nobody's tweeting about it... You get NDA, non-disclosure agreements. You could take the film or the tape, whatever you're doing with it, and then you could digitally send it to somebody else. Yeah, I mean, they film The Bachelor and Survivor and all that, and the people go on their press tours, and they can't say anything on what happens.

Yeah. Couldn't bet on it, which is a huge... Well, you can't bet on anything, right? You could. You just... You online. Yeah. But you'd have to make sure that nobody... You can bet on The Bachelor and you can bet on the Survivor. Do you? Who does that? People bet on The Bachelor.

Do they really? Yeah. There's Fantasy Bachelor. Now, there are bets out there, but doesn't mean people bet on them. Oh, they do. People bet on wrestling. It's scripted. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of my...

And look, you know, I love wrestling. But they bet on something that's scripted outcome. That we know, that somebody knows... And not some person. Many people know the outcome. to. Maybe not 50 people, but certainly 10. I just found season 24 bachelor odds. Is that over now? Joe, you're a bachelor guy, right? Is that Peter? Yeah, Peter. Oh, that's over now. Pilot Peter. Okay. Hannah Ann was the

favorite. Who won? Hannah Ann. Hannah Ann? Hannah Ann? Hannah Ann was 8 to 1 to win. Madison was 10 to 1. Madison for second. And by the way, I only watched one episode of the Bachelor this year, and I was able to get the entire season done in one, in one episode. Well, that's my first first season this year. Because your wife? Yes.

His wife's making him a lot of watch a lot of TV. He had to watch Cougar Town. Watching Graze Anatomy right now. Crazy Anatomy? Cray's Anatomy? Yeah. I was in early... I told you this before.

I didn't tell you this. I was an early Grazenanami guy until every person died in violent ways. Yeah, so I'm in like season three right now. It's still pretty solid. Like, it's an okay show. Can I give you some spoilers and move ahead a little bit? I already know all the spoilers.

I know McDreamy dies. McDreamy dies. The one guy gets hit by a bus, the other one has an airplane fall on her. I mean, it's just the most ridiculous ways to die. Not the good old-fashioned normal that she has cancer or he has cancer. It's let's have a 70-mile-an-hour bus hit somebody in the face. Once it gets, I told my wife, I was like, once it starts to get bad, I'm out. Like, I'm not going to watch 17 seasons of this or whatever.

Yeah, when they start having bizarre deaths is when they jumped the shark for me. So we're going with this. Oh, okay. I want to throw a question. And I don't know if people are listening or calling or whatever it would like to. What's the strangest thing you've ever legitimately put a bet on? I've bet on WNBA, in the MLS. Ross and I have gone to Vegas in the summertime, much to our chagrin.

And we've made stupid bets. Can I count online blackjack? Anything you bet on. Yes. Anything you've bet on. Mine is betting on horses. going to the book in Las Vegas and putting money down, we're doing absolutely zero research.

I would bet on horses exclusively by names. Yeah, what's wrong with that? That's stupid. You bet on the ponies. What else are you going to do? It's not like, I mean, they change the odds on horses.

It's so difficult to win anyways. Right, right. I mean, you think you're getting value of like 22 to 1 and ones that'd be nine to two at the area. Yeah, exactly. But that's the dumbest thing I've ever done. I've never bet on a... And then like half the bets,

horses you bet on get scratched. I have done over unders on hockey games for some stupid reason. Oh, those are fun. But I feel like I've done okay with that. You bet the over on the hockey and you're always rooting for goals. That's what makes it fun. Bet the over. All right, Ross, you've done WMBA.

I've seen it you that personally do that. Yeah, there's no problem with that. I have a serious problem with that. I'll do it again. All right, Joe George. Chicago Sky are looking good this year, man. I would say online blackjack and there's something that doesn't make me feel great about betting on Macon football on like a Tuesday night.

I like Macon football. I just don't, it's Tuesday college football. I don't really like that. Toledo Rockets are looking good this year, Maddie. You're telling me that you would bet a Miami, Ohio, versus Central Michigan game. Yeah, I used to.

I don't gamble anymore, but I used to, yeah. Why don't you stop gambling? God, build up a lot of debt. Yeah, it is what it is. All right, so if anybody has got any ridiculous betting, like, I think betting on The Bachelor would be dumb. I think betting on wrestling would be super stupid. Because, again...

The UFC is tough. Yeah, what's wrong with betting on any of that? Like UFC because things happen so fast. Yeah, I mean, especially you have to look at the weight classes. Weight classes, I feel like heavyweight. Underdogs are good because he takes one shot to knock out of heavyweight. Because Brock Lesner took on McIntyre for the WWE Championship dinner night. And Drew McIntyre is an athlete.

He's chiseled. But to tell you the God's honest truth, there's never a fight. A real legitimate box. If wrestling was legit, if boxing was legit, including, including. clearly is legit. If they got, if they got, there's no way in the world Brock Lesnar ever loses Drew McIntyre and anything. I'm sorry. He's just an absolute beast. And I saw some of the highlights of the W of the championship match. And did you buy, did you watch WrestleMania? Yeah, I did. But I've also seen Brock Lesnar fighting the UFC and no, he's

really overrated. Okay. But forgetting about that. The first 20 minutes of the fight, of the match between McIntyre and Lesnar, Brock was beating the hell out of him. Yeah, I mean, it was just, and it was just like the finishing moves. And it was like five minutes. How was the oil looking? Were they nice and oiled up and greased up in underwear? That's what he always does. He always goes to the oil car.

Don't listen to him. What color was the underwear they were in? So here is, this is to show you how what a sham WWE is. So after McIntyre supposedly beats Block Lesner in this massive beat down, how long was about? I felt like it was like less than 10 minutes. Okay, 10 minutes. But he's getting his ass beat for nine of the 10 minutes for he puts. finishing move on and he wins the championship.

Then last time on Raw, they put him in the match with the big show. Who's about, I don't know. I thought he retired. I did too. He got a new TV show to try to promote it. How tall is Big Show? They claim seven foot tall?

Okay, so he's 6'8. How many does he weigh, supposedly? They claim 500 pounds. So he's 420. Still a beast of a man. True McIntyre, going after Brock Lesner, is not going to have enough oomph in his body

to take a beating from the big show. That's why you don't bet these things. It's on a script. Don't do it. I can never imagine betting on wrestling. That actually might make it interesting for me. What you're trying to do is you're not trying to figure out who the athletes are. You're trying to figure out what the promoter wants.

What's the better storyline? I mean, that's what you're basically betting on. True. I think at that point you do have a problem. Somebody did tweet us that B. Shardy says, I'm currently betting on Russian ping pong and tearing the league up. What? I like that.

There you go, B Shardy B. I bet on curling in the Olympics one time. Except I didn't know the rules, so I'm not really sure. I didn't know it's like 20 minutes after it's over if I won. B Shardt is doing it. He's got some serious bets out there. Madden simulation games? I'll bet on those too.

Ross, did you bet on the 2K tournament? No, I didn't. I wanted to. I think Devin Booker's looking pretty good. Although, didn't somebody get beat by 50? I like Pat Bev's. That's how I think is going to be a lot of trash. If any of you've done a really stupid bet, let us know what it is.

either on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV at Joe George Radio. You can call us too. 713-212-5-7-90. What's the dumbest thing that you're willing to admit you bet on? Oh, I bet on when our waitress would come back to our table. We set an over and under. I won that one. You know what that is?

That's good dinner time fodder. Yeah, I bet like 20 bucks. I bet we do dollar bets all the time. We win a bet with games. The dumbest bet I ever made in person in Las Vegas is I bet heads and tails on a Super Bowl. That's fine. Yeah, you got to play juice. If you did it with a book or with another person?

Did it with the book. Yeah, there's juice on that. No, don't do that. It just, it was one, I felt like a dirty, you know what, after that. 713, 21, 2, 5, 790. What were you saying? Nothing. Okay, 713, 21, 2, 5, 790.

The pandemic continues. The no damn sports pandemic. I'm not leaving my house. Luckily, the most infectious lineup in Houston sports continues. Now. Here's Matt. rubber-gloved, but still Jesus-sandled, Matt Thomas. Sanitize those toes, would you?

You don't know where they'd been. I knew if I asked for somebody to call the show, Ross, and tell me a bizarre, weird bet. We'd go to our buddy, David, in Las Vegas. Is that right? David's been listening to us for a long, long, long, long time. Before we asked us the weirdest bet, David, you live in a ghost town. Did you ever think in your entire life you'd be living in a ghost town right now? Oh, my stars, no.

And it is, I am restless and bored and a little depressed about it all and worry about money and all the rest. And on the other hand, I'm healthy for now. And as always, we can count our blessings because they're all those people that got a worse than us. But this is not why I moved out here. So you get on Las Vegas Boulevard, the strip. And every hotel is closed, correct? A few of them have police cars outside, making sure nobody messes around while they're closed. But that's about it.

No, it's, there are more people running around out here doing whatever than for whatever reason when you go. I don't know if they're all really grocery shopping. I get the sense that people aren't really adhering to the stay-at-home thing very much, but I don't know where they're going. I mean, they're not doing anything very interesting, but there are more cars on the road than I can really explain. All right. And also, they have not stopped building that stadium. All the workers are still out there, making sure that that new Raiders state for whatever just in case. That's the one thing the governor is let's keep going on.

Well, there's got to be football to be played. You've got to have a stadium to do so. All right, let me check today. Well, more importantly, there's a Garth Brooks concert. They're supposed to open at the last week of August. I got a ticket for it. So, I really good. Okay.

So let's say Ross and I, we're going to come to spend the weekend at your palatial estate. We were going to leave this Friday and come back this Sunday. We can fly on United Airlines right now. Ross, we're going to fly regular coach or basic economy? Regular coach is fine. All right. I'm not fancy. We're going to go 127.

round trip, David, to come see you. If Ross and I decided to stick it out and go to basic economy, we could fly a round trip to Vegas for $57. Yeah, well, I'm not sure it's worth it. No, it's not, unfortunately. I'm not a bad cook. I mean, I'll do the best they can for dinner, but it gets pretty old after that. So these betting stores, when everybody says, everybody knows I bet on everything, right? It's why we've got here. One of the things, when people say, what's the weirdest thing you ever a bet on? I usually say women's figure skating because I did make an Olympic bet on women's figure skating

which I won by the way. And that that was my stock answer to that question. But I have to say, the present circumstances have had me hit a new low a couple of weeks ago when the only thing on was Australian rules football, not rugby, but you know, Australia, you know, Australian rules football, of which I do not know the rules. I don't know anything about it. So I bet this game. And Not only did I bet a game, I didn't know the rules.

First of all, at halftime, the league announced they were shutting down after the second half of the game. That was the last chance to ever do this. This thing was on television. It was on like ESPN2 or something. But it was also the worst bad beat of the year. I mean, ever. I bet I couldn't figure out the side. It'll research, and I liked the total.

I like the under 51.5. and I lost a game when it landed on 52 on a penalty kick as time expired. A penalty kick was awarded with no time remaining, and I lost by half a point on a total on Australian rules football. That's got to be the low for all time. I don't even know how you would put together points on that, nor do I particularly care. I just know that I feel bad for you that you lost a bet on Australian rules football. I would say that's a need for serious clinical help and therapy, but you're a pretty normal guy, I will accept this under this one situation.

Well, no, desperate times. Golf for desperate measures, and for a sports handicapper, believe me, these are desperate times. Would you bet on wrestling? Would you do it? I thought about it. I really, I really don't. First of all, I don't enjoy the spectacle, the sport, whatever we call it. I do not.

It's not something I really want to do as negative utility to me. But, you know, the whole thing about betting on something that's a pretty determined, scripted thing. I don't think I can quite go there. I understand. Well, Dave... I can't do the virtual NASCAR. I can't do that. Oh, yeah.

I have bet Belarusian soccer a few times in the last few weeks, but the games aren't on television, so it's not much fun. I mean, you're sitting there. Betting on a soccer game, watching the score change from zero, zero to zero one, like on your cell phone, it's just not great entertainment. I understand. Stay safe, my friend. Keep Vegas alive because we're coming as soon as it opens up.

I'll be here for you when you get here. All right, buddy. Take care yourself. David in Vegas, joining us here on the show. Ross, never in our life will $57 get us a round trip to Las Vegas. Never again, unless you're going spirit and then you have to wear all your clothes under the plane. So you and I go typically in the fall. Now, so let's do this.

Let's go. And Joe, you can go with us, by the way, if you'd like. You said you stopped gambling, though, right? Still go with you, though, and drink. Okay, good. It's fine. Let's go Let's pick the calendar up here

Let's book Let's go with October 20th Okay Any weekend October sound good to you Sure, why not? No, October 20th

I got a wedding that weekend All right October Do you really? No, you don't because it's 16th is the wedding No, the week's... No, the 23rd is the wedding Okay, so who's getting married? My friend Josh.

Josh, who? Josh, who? He's from Illinois. So you got invited to a wedding? Yeah. Are they going to have it? That's a, they don't know. Okay, so we're going to leave Friday, October.

Can you get your deposit back from the place you book? We're going to leave Friday, October 16th and come back on Monday, October the 19th. All right. You would think that maybe we're back to somewhat normal, hopefully by then? All right. Check the airfare. We can still get there for $167 round trip. That's in regular economy.

if we want to go basic economy where basically we don't get to choose our seat and don't carry a bag and all that, it's $97. It's a stock is what it is. You can cancel at any time, right? United is letting you cancel and just use it towards it like Southwest does. Yeah, what's it on Southwest, though? Probably comparable, maybe even a tinge bit higher. Okay. I'm closer to hobby personally.

Okay. Well, I have a Southwest credit card, so yeah. Oh, yeah. I can do Southwood with you. Thanks for you paying for my flat. Is that what you're saying? Appreciate you, Maddie. George, Nick, Joe, whatever your name is back there, not paying for yourself either.

Dang. So if you went with us, would we get you back in your bad habit? Would your new bribe let you go? No, no, no, I just have to be, I mean, I can gamble. I just would have to. I would just bring cash. I would keep an eye on you, Joe. You want me to. I would just bring a certain amount of cash, and that's it.

I'll slap your hand if you try to make too many bets. You said, what week? The 16th and then fly back the 19th? Yeah. Yeah, it's like 220 on Southwest. Yeah, so Southwest is a little more expensive. Oh, screw that. Yeah.

What's spirit right now? No. $4. No, you're not a lot of life spirit because we don't think you'll get back. They're going to charge you to breathe air in the cabin. The one time I flew in Vegas, once in Vegas I did spirit and it was awful. Yeah, I swore it off. If people fight on spirit when the skies were okay, imagine social distancing and not like they're up on spirit.

I love that. People had like the boombox too loud. There's fist fights breaking out on Spirit Airlines. Love it. You're not six feet from me. Bitch I am. Oh, fights. Terror at 30,000 feet.

Or just a normal day at spirit. 244. Back to wrap it up in a minute. I hear on Sports Talk 790. Here in H-town, we're social distancing experts. We've been socially distancing ourselves from Dallas since 1836, which is one of the reasons why we've never had an STD. The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 790. I want to remind you, again, if you missed out on a Monday night meeting last night,

which we did on Facebook Live. You can go back to our Facebook page at Sports Talk 790 and see what we did last night. We had five hosts. It was myself, Ross, Michael Connor, Adam Clanton, and Chris Gordy. We'll rotate the people. Matter of fact, Joe, you and your fellow Space City Saturday,

compadre, Adam Sager, will be invited to the next Monday night meeting. Who will kick it out? I would say Ross for sure. So whose performance was not great last night? Everybody did great. We had a great time. Wait a minute. What?

What? Because I feel like you... I had the best background. If you put more people on there, the chance of somebody dropping and kind of... You can put as many people on there as possible. Why not? What's the problem? You want to put like seven or eight people in there?

You probably should actually... Because I got glossed over for the couple of questions. That's okay, though. No, you didn't pay attention to one of them. Well, I was arguing with Wex. And I knew what you were asking, but I just kind of did that for a fact. It looked like you were arguing with yourself on the Facebook coast. I know.

And you were arguing... That was after the fact. watched it live. It was all streaming. You were arguing as the Sports Talk 790 Facebook account on the half of Ross. I couldn't figure out how to switch it to me. Okay? Anyways, fine. I'm out. I don't want to be a part of your stupid review anyways. No, Ross is back. We'll kick out. We'll kick out, Connor. No, I'm out. Okay. And we'll take my place. And we'll invite Sean. I think maybe you should max it out of like four, though. Okay. Four's good. You can do four and then we can do a nice equal rotation.

That's fair. But it's the Monday night meetings. We'll do that. And I'll do that. And I'll moderate because for those who didn't see it, I do five questions and we kind of rotate the answers around. And the guys don't know the questions at all ahead of time. Most of them are about sports, but a couple of them was, here's one for you, Joe. I'll give you a couple. If you were to join a fictional family or a real family, television movie or in real life, and you got to go quarantine with the family, what family would it be? Let me give you some of the answers from the show yesterday.

Adam Wexer wanted to join the Kardashians. No, that was you, Ross. That was you, right? Yeah. Adam wanted to join the Alex Rodriguez, Jennifer Lopez family. Weird. I was joining the Ewing's because it's power and sex and control, which is based on my life in the nutshell as it is.

Okay. And I forgot who Connor, who Connor wanted to join. So it's who I want to porn team with and enjoy them and like have a good time? Yeah, you're not a member of the family. You're just joining the family. Oh, then I'm joining the Watts. Derek. Oh, not a bad call.

Like that would be a good time, I feel like. They're from Wisconsin. You know they're throwing them back. They're throwing them back. They're eating well. Because mom's cooking. And they're very successful. It's called Cornhole Joe.

Fine, cornhole. Has they started their new TV show yet? Ultimate Tag? What in the family? I don't think it starts like in two weeks. I have zero. Watts happening? What are they calling their show?

I think it's called Ultimate Tag. It's just a game of tag. Yeah. But Ultimate. Okay. That tag movie, by the way, was just okay. I haven't seen it yet because I just didn't, I wasn't that interested. I was really thinking it was going to be because all the people in the cast really made me think it was going to be just this amazing.

And it just got dumber and dumber. I mean, not the tag. It's a smart intellectual topic to begin with, but. Wasn't it based on a true story? Oh, yeah. Well, the concept of the story is idiotic. Does it be playing tag with a group of guys your entire life? Yeah.

And then we also ask how much weight you've gained during this pandemic. I've lost a few. I'm like up and down. I've been like down two, up five. My high water mark was up eight, and then now I'm down, I'm down to about plus three. I'd just been eating a lot of chick-fil-a and takeout,

and that's what I was doing before anyways. Yeah, I'm like plus three and a half, I think right now. Which is not bad. I don't think that's bad, really. Yeah, you're fine, Matt. That's okay. You're doing great. I think you look great, Matt.

I don't ask you your opinion, but thank you anyway. Because everybody's calling it the quarantine 15, right? Quarantine 15, longer-lasting of and the freshman 15. Well, see, the freshman 15 is a myth. I had, like, the freshman 36. Did you really gain 36 pounds? Probably something like that.

I think I gained, like, not my freshman year, but I think I gained like 40 pounds to college. Yeah. That, uh, those beer and the carbs, the food. Yeah. That's all you can eat dining halls. Oh, man. God, we used to tear those up.

Freshmen, we used to have dining services Monday through part of Saturday. Sundays we run our own completely. It was in North Texas. And we lived across the street from a Burger King and a dime. Dominoes and Schlotteskies, I want to save it. Did you take some chicken tenders home in a napkin so you could eat them later? Didn't do that, but you could get a large, one-topping carryout. You can eat, which, you know, you're walking $5.

It's like a hot and ready, Matt. But way better quality. Okay. Yeah, little pizzas, Little Sears pizza doesn't do much for me. Little Caesar's bread sticks, though, goat. Crazy bread is not that great. Crazy bread is amazing. I think that's overrated and the pizza's underrated.

Hmm. Whoppers were two for 222. Ooh, I remember that deal. It was quality. That's a good deal. And here's the problem, I don't do that anymore, Joe. This makes I was surprised,

but I was portly going into college. I gained 15 when I didn't need to be gaining 15. So the freshman 15 was more like a little cherry on top for you. Freshman 15 was like cholesterol count, blood pressure, you know, fat grams, all the bad stuff. Yeah, see, mine was like my junior. through senior and second senior year of when I game I didn't get any wait in my first year as college.

But then once I got to the University of Houston, I was working full-time at KSV. I didn't live page to page because I was working full-time. Now here I'm with you. Sorry. Things are going okay. Dane Brugler is going to join us on the show tomorrow. Yes, he is.

From the athletic. Not going to join the A team. Coming up right now, we got Daryl Morey in one minute. No, I'm just going. I had to say it to get Wicks for going. Are y'all going to ask really good, interesting questions so we can replay some of it for the show tomorrow? No, we're going to replay it on the nightcap tonight. No, no, we're fighting over replays on nightcaps.

And you can play, it's fine. It's the general manager of the Rockets. I think it's important that we replay it. Okay. And that's it for the show today. Joe George, thank you very much for your efforts this afternoon. We're proud of you, Joe. Thank you to Ross for bringing it.

Thank you to Chris Peasman and to Bill Warrel for joining us on the radio program. The day, Dane Bruegler, among our guests tomorrow. Thanks for listening. Go check out that Facebook Monday night meeting we had. Two of those guys that were on the Monday night meeting are next. Their names are Wexler and Clanton. They are part of the A team, and they're up right away here on Sports Talk 790. Enjoy the rest of your day.