Podcasts about unlv

Utah State head coach Blake Anderson joined Hans & Scotty G to talk about the UNLV win and look ahead to taking on Colorado State Friday.

Utah State head coach Blake Anderson joined DJ & PK Monday morning to talk about how they came back once again to beat UNLV and look ahead to a Friday night showdown against Colorado State.

What you'll learn in this episode: How to avoid SEO charlatans and ensure your digital agency is getting results Why a beautifully designed website doesn't necessarily equal a high-ranking website Why an SEO strategy means nothing if a firm doesn't have a proper intake system What insights you'll find in Jason's new book, “Law Firm SEO” About Jason Hennessey Jason Hennessey is an internationally recognized SEO expert, author, speaker, entrepreneur, and business executive. Since 2001, Jason has been reverse-engineering the Google algorithm as a self-taught student and practitioner of SEO and search marketing. His expertise led him to grow and sell multiple businesses, starting with a dot-com in the wedding industry. After presenting his SEO knowledge to a group of lawyers in 2009, Jason founded and later sold Everspark Interactive, cementing his reputation as a thought leader and authority in SEO for the legal industry. As CEO of Hennessey Digital since 2015, Jason grew a small consultancy to a $10MM+ business that made the Inc. 5000 list for the second year in a row in 2020, and he also runs SEO industry news site iloveseo.com. A keynote speaker and frequent podcast and webinar guest, Jason is a columnist for the Washington Post and a regular contributor to Entrepreneur, Inc., and the National Law Review. His team is currently preparing to open Hennessey Studios, a state-of-the-art audio and video production facility located in the Television Academy building in the heart of Hollywood where Jason will host a podcast interviewing entrepreneurs and business leaders. He also recently released his first book, Law Firm SEO, described as the “holy grail of digital marketing for lawyers.” Jason is a United States Air Force veteran and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. A New York native, Jason launched his SEO career in Las Vegas and grew his reputation in the legal industry in Atlanta. He now lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, Bridget, and their three children. Additional resources: Website: jasonhennessey.com  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhennessey/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jasonhennessey/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jason.hennessey.399 Twitter: ​​https://twitter.com/jasonhennessey  Published Book: Law Firm SEO: Exposing the Google Algorithm to Help You Get More Cases Law Firm Marketing Catalyst Podcast Transcript: When Jason Hennessey discovered SEO in the early 2000s, it was a largely unknown novelty. Today, SEO is the cornerstone of digital marketing, and Jason leads a successful agency, Hennessey Digital, that specializes in SEO and digital marketing for law firms. He joined the Law Firm Marketing Catalyst Podcast to talk about how he landed in the legal industry, why he's so passionate about empowering lawyers to understand SEO, and why he wrote his new book, “Law Firm SEO.” Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Welcome to The Law Firm Marketing Catalyst Podcast. Today, my guest is Jason Hennessey,. Hennessey Digital works with law firms to maximize their SEO, their search engine optimization, and rankings. Today, with ranks being impacted by all aspects of the online world, Jason's firm works with law firms on their websites, blogs and social media in order to maximize their rankings on Google. We'll learn more about Hennessey Digital's work today. Jason, welcome to the podcast. Jason: Thank you, Sharon. I appreciate you having me. Sharon: We're so glad to have you. Thank you much. To me, SEO is its own art and science. You can't do a lot more besides that. You can't become an expert in other things. Tell us about your background there. Jason: It's not like I was a kid and I said, “I want to be an SEO person when I grow up.” There was no such thing. I got into SEO back in 2001. I had just finished college. I was going to UNLV in Las Vegas after I had gotten out the Air Force. I was contemplating taking the LSAT to get into law school, and then my journey took more of an entrepreneurial route. I started a couple of businesses. As a result of starting the businesses, I had to learn how to market these businesses, and search engine optimization was one of the first things I studied. Back then in 2001, when I got into SEO, there wasn't a lot of information on it. There were a couple of books that were reliable and a couple of blogs, so I started to read up on it and I got pretty good at it.  Then in about 2008, I was living in Atlanta, Georgia—we relocated our family there—and I got asked to speak to a group of lawyers. There were 50 DUI law firms that didn't compete with each other, and they met for a mastermind in Atlanta. I got up there, didn't know anything about legal marketing, but I gave a presentation about how I was able to rank on Google for the keyword “wedding themes,” because one of my businesses was an e-commerce website. As a result of me being transparent, a couple of relationships were made; a couple of business cards were handed out, and that was the genesis of how I got into legal marketing. Sharon: Were they banging your door down saying they wanted you to do that for them? What happened there? Jason: After I showed them exactly how they could rank their websites on Google for the terms that were important to them with practical examples, I think they realized they didn't want to do that themselves; they wanted somebody to do it for them, or they already had people that were doing this for them that weren't as transparent or weren't getting results. That's how the conversation went: “Here's my card. Do you do this?” I'm like, “Well, not really, but give me your card. Maybe we can talk.” I thought, “Maybe there's something here. Maybe there are law firms that really need help with their marketing. They should be getting paid to do what they're good at, and that's being good lawyers, being in the courtroom, depositions.” We got one or two clients as a result of that. We turned those clients into case studies, and then we used those studies to grow our business.  Sharon: Was there something that intrigued you about doing it in the legal world? Jason: It's probably one of the most competitive spaces from a digital marketing perspective. I was up for the challenge because here I was, ranking nationally for another competitive space, wedding favors and weddings, and this was a little bit different. I didn't know the vernacular of law, so I started to go the conferences. I would sit in the conferences and listen, and I would listen to the phone calls they were getting as clients were working with them to truly understand their world and that vernacular. Since 2008, I've been immersed in that industry, so I'm one of the thought leaders in legal marketing. I just published a book called “Law Firm SEO,” which I'm proud about.  Sharon: Congratulations! We'll have a link to the book and you can tell me more about it. Jason: Thank you. Sharon: In our experience, when we started out we were working with defense firms, and they were still wondering whether they needed a website, let alone SEO.  How do you find the reception now? Does everybody say, “Oh, yeah, we do that. We spend millions of dollars on it”? Jason: Yeah, we do a lot of work with personal injury law firms. There's a lot of demand in those markets, and those are some of the most competitive keywords from a pay-per-click perspective. There are lawyers that will pay $400 or $500 a click just to send somebody to their website. Over the years, we've also started to work with criminal defense lawyers, bankruptcy lawyers, even business attorneys as well. In fact, I actually found my business attorney—I live in Santa Clarita—by Googling. Even me, as a consumer on the other end, I use Google myself to try to find things, whether it's a restaurant or whatever. Particularly in this case, I found my business attorney that way.  Sharon: Now, everybody finds everything today. The first thing you do is go on Google or one of the search engines. Whether you want it to or not, it puts it right there.  Jason: Yes. Sharon: What's the reception? Today, is it more like, “Oh, tell me about it”? Is it more like, “We have guys who do that, but I'm not sure they're doing a good job”? What do you find? Jason: I think that's it. It's a very nebulous space, and most of the attorneys are not really educated on digital marketing. They should be, and it's a little intimidating. If you were to go to a bookstore and pick up a book on SEO, it's in the computer engineering section. Lawyers are not really—their brains, for the most part, generally aren't wired to be coders. That was one of the main reasons why I ended up writing this book. It was to educate and empower lawyers, whether you're just out of law school or if you run a very successful, hundred-person firm. It educates and empowers you to understand it without the complexity of understanding how to write code. I break it down in a very easy-to-understand format. As a result, lawyers will now be armed with the right information to make good decisions with their business, to know how to keep score when they're paying an SEO company, and overall how to not get taken advantage of. In our world, there are charlatans that, in some cases, will leverage the nebulous and confusing world of digital marketing. That was my biggest thing, to make sure lawyers are never getting taken advantage of in this world, too. Sharon: You're probably in a similar situation to us. Being a marketing and PR firm, we always find that if we're talking to a prospective client, they say, “We've done that. We've worked with people. It didn't work.” You find yourself being two steps behind before you even start. How do you handle that?  Jason: This is one of the ways, to be honest with you. When they say, “Hey, I don't know. I've been burned so many times. It just doesn't work. I'm not sure if I should even do this,” we never really sell anything. When we work with a client, we're never selling; we lead with education, and the education is based on our experiences with the clients we work with today. In some cases, we'll be able to show them why it wasn't working, and we'll be able to educate them in a way so they understand it. If they really want more information, then we'll basically mail them a book. If they're curious about why it's truly not working, we'll say, “Here, read the book. This will give you a much bigger understanding of what goes on behind the scenes.”  Sharon: Do you find today, because search engine rankings are so critical no matter what you do, that practice areas that weren't interested before are starting to come to you? Let's say the corporate practice area might have said, “What do I need it for?” Do you find they're showing more interest? Jason: Oh, yeah, 100%, corporate. We even work with Ben Crump, who's a national civil rights attorney. That wouldn't have been the practice area we would have started to go after as far as marketing ourselves 15 years ago; “Let's go after a civil rights attorney.” But now, it's important. There are different aspects of coming up with a strategy. Sometimes it's just educating. Even then, it's educating with answers, FAQs, and creating video content to be more of the trusted source when a consumer is in the market for an attorney for whatever it is they need the attorney for. So, there's definitely branding, there's direct response, and then sometimes there's educational content that they should be putting out on the web. Sharon: Are you called in by lawyers, by managing partners, by law firm marketers? Who calls you in? Jason: It really depends. We like working with marketing directors because they speak our language, but most of the attorneys we work with, a lot of them don't even spend a lot of time in the courtroom anymore. These are businesspeople that are very aggressive marketers. Sometimes the most successful lawyers are not the best in trial; it's the guys or the ladies that are actually the best marketers. In most cases, we either work with a marketing director or we'll work with the owner of the firm who is the partner that does the marketing, that one that's buying all the billboard ads and on TV and radio. That's typically who we work with. Sharon: Do you find that all works together? My question is, do you ever have to come in and say, “O.K., we've got to tear the website up and start over,” or “Let's take another look at your social media”? What happens? Jason: Yeah, in some cases, we'll take over a campaign and one of the first things we'll do is look at the website. We'll try to audit, like what are the blockers here, what's going to have the highest impact, what changes can we make right away that will have the highest impact? We'll get in and do that, but we also educate. We bring our clients along so they truly understand what we're doing and it's not confusing to them, because if it's not confusing to them, they'll appreciate us a little bit more. From there, once the site is fixed, sometimes we'll go for a redesign if that's needed.  Sometimes the sites are nice as-is and we can take that and fix the technical, SEO side of it. From there, it comes down to a couple of things, like maintaining the integrity of the technical code. We do that on a regular basis. We develop content strategies where we write and publish content on our client's behalf, and then there's the stuff you guys do with PR in bringing the eyeballs to the website. That's so important. We work with PR companies for some of our clients. We also do something called link building, and link building is how you boost the popularity of your website. When somebody links to another website with a blue underlined link, that's like currency on the web, and that's how websites become popular. Once a website becomes popular, that's how it ranks well in Google, and that's how you start to get traffic. Sharon: You talked about charlatans. Are there companies that promise to give you a thousand links by tomorrow or something? Jason: Yeah, avoid those. Sometimes it's better just getting one link by becoming a member of the National Trial Lawyers or becoming a member of the Better Business Bureau. Sometimes that one link is better than a thousand of those spammy links that you referenced there. Sharon: Yeah, there's a lot you find if you're clicking around. What would you rank as the biggest barrier to success in this area for law firms, or what mistakes do you see? I guess those are two questions. What mistakes do you see in law firms? Jason: Making sure that you're following the right playbook and you have an agency that has some success in the area of law, because there is a difference between somebody that has a great deal of experience with e-commerce versus working with law firms. That's important, but believe it or not, the other side is that a lot of lawyers are spending a lot of money to bring in more phone calls and more leads, but sometimes that's where they fall down; they're not really prepared on their end with the proper intake. This was actually something we ran a study on, because one of our clients was saying, “Hey, I don't know why, but the SEO just doesn't seem like it's working.” We're looking at all the traffic and phone calls, and it's a campaign that's doing very well and it was really surprising to us.  What we did was plant a lead into his intake. We filled out a form submission on his website, and it was a real, qualified lead. Thinking that we would get a phone call within at least an hour, nothing happened. Nothing happened the rest of the day, and it turned out that we got a call back two weeks later. We were like, “Well, that's the reason why.” If you're getting leads and you're getting back to people two weeks later, there's something obviously broken on your end with your intake. That inspired us to go out and do a whole study. We reached out to 700 law firms and planted the lead around the same time on a Monday morning. Believe it or not, 42 percent of the law firms that we reached out to didn't even respond back to us. Sharon: Wow! I can't say I'm surprised. So many times, we may not be handling the actual SEO, but we will work with the law firm and the people answering the phones to put a process together and that doesn't happen. Jason: That's critical, because it's one thing to spend a lot of money to generate the traffic and the leads, but to fall down when they actually call, that's a constraint. A lot of law firms during their growth, they have to fix that. Sharon: It's more than a constraint; it's a real waste of money if you're doing your job and they're not getting the phone calls. Jason: That's exactly right. Sharon: Then people are saying, “Well, if you're not going to respond, I'm going to call somewhere else.” Do you find resistance to search engine optimization? When you say that's what you do, do you find firms saying, “Oh, we do fine”? Jason: We're not in the business of cold calling people, because (a) good luck getting through the gatekeeper, and (b), you're selling what seems like snake oil in our industry because it has such a bad reputation. I think a lot of law firms don't really understand what is involved with SEO, so in some cases, they have a designer that designs them a new website and codes it and they say, “Do you do SEO?” and they say, “Yeah” and then they build a new website. A couple of weeks later, they have a nice website, and they think they have SEO now because they can check that box, like, “Oh yeah, my developer did the SEO on it.”  That couldn't be further from the truth. SEO is something else. It's like your health. Seriously, I look at it like that. If you want to remain healthy, you don't just eat an apple and say, “O.K., I'm good now.” It requires constant jogging and eating healthy and dieting, and that's how SEO is. SEO is a core to your business. You have to continue to maintain it; you have to continue to make it better. Publishing content on a regular basis is important, making sure there are no issues within the code on a regular basis is important. It's definitely an ongoing strategy. It's just a matter of how aggressive you want to be. Sharon: What haven't we talked about that you want to let us know? Jason: The book that I wrote again is called “Law Firm SEO.” You can find it on Amazon. Sharon: “Law Firm SEO.”  Why did you decide to write it? Jason: I decided to write this, again, because it's been 20 years of me learning this, and I genuinely wanted to give back.  Like I said, I wanted someone in law school that is interested in the business side of law to get a general sense of what this takes; what this world that I'm going to be competing in looks like. So, for $25 on Amazon, you can tap into 20 years of experience that I've had to go through. Sharon: At one point, lawyers could do this all themselves. You didn't have social media and everything else that you need to think about today. Jason: Yeah, and that's point of the book. When you're starting out, you either have time or you have money to solve a problem. For example, my sprinklers broke this weekend. I don't know a lot about sprinklers. I can invest my time into going on YouTube and watching videos about how to fix sprinklers, or I could just call somebody and they can come and fix it. I'd prefer to use my money, in this case, to have somebody that's more professional come and fix it, but if I didn't have the money, guess what? I'm going to have to watch YouTube and figure this out myself. I think that's the same with law firms, whether you're just getting started or if you've been in practice for a long time. It really comes down to time versus money. Do you really want to learn this and, if that's the case, spend some time reading about it?  The book was written in a way where those that read it could certainly spend time starting to learn and teach themselves this or, alternatively, you could be armed with information now that you've read the book, and then you could make a better decision in hiring somebody to help you. When people say, “Hey, is SEO still valuable? Should I be investing in this?” I don't think SEO is going away anytime soon. The question should be “Should I do SEO versus pay-per-click? Where would I invest my money?” I don't think it's an either/or question. I think if you're able to generate business from paid marketing, continue to feed that marketing channel with a budget and continue to generate business as a result of that. If you're able to generate business with organic, with SEO, again, same thing. Continue to test it, tweak it, and then keep ramping up where things are working. I think digital marketing for law firms is very valuable, and I genuinely hope those that are listening pick up the book, “Law Firm SEO”—it's available on Amazon—and I genuinely hope that you get some real value from it. Sharon: Jason, thank you so much for being with us today. This has been very interesting and informative. Jason: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it, Sharon.

Hans Olsen, Scott Garrard & Lloyd Cole discusses Utah's impressive win over Arizona State, Utah State's come from behind win over UNLV and BYU's loss to Baylor.

Blake Anderson joins Scott Garrard and Kevin White after a win over UNLV

In this episode, Jacob Nielson is in Las Vegas and speaks with UNLV Football Insider and Editor in Cheif of The Scarlet and Gray Free Press, Alex Wright.  Wright breaks down why UNLV Football is struggling, what can hap it to turn things around, and shares what it's like being a college team in a multi-pro sports city.       

Utah State travels to Las Vegas to take on the 0-5 UNLV Rebels in Allegiant Stadium. After a bye week what do the Aggies look like and what do they need to do to pick up their fourth win? Is UNLV better than their record suggests?    Let's get in touch! You can find us on Twitter: Jacob Parker  Sports Desk  or on Instagram: Jacob Parker  Sports Desk or by heading over to our website usustatesman.com  

During our podcast on muscle composition a question was posed on what happens to the body when an athlete becomes fat adapted. That led us down a rabbit hole with two previous guests from UNLV, Dr. John Mercer and Tedd Girouard. In this episode we uncover the mystery behind FatMax, aerobic and anaerobic processes and the energy they use, and talk about how lactate isn't the thing that makes your muscles burn and how it's a key to you getting faster. Listen to this episode to gain knowledge about what your body is doing when you train and how to optimize your training to make the most of your body and the way it's designed to work. 

Utah State football head coach Blake Anderson, safety Hunter Reynolds, and offensive lineman Demytrick Ali'ifua join host Scott Garrard to discuss the bye week and this week's upcoming game against UNLV.

Godfrey, Richard, and Alex spend the first stretch of this episode talking not just about Iowa and Kentucky, but about how we *talk* about Iowa and Kentucky. Then, 10 schools whose coaches either are or aren't demonstrating proof of concept, including: Georgia Tech, NIU, Houston, Temple, Syracuse, Louisville, FAU, UNLV, Troy, and Mississippi State. And finally, vested interests and a Week 7 tasting menu. Subscribe to SZD's Patreon for bonus episodes and more at splitzoneduo.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Utah State head coach Blake Anderson joined the show to discuss the bye week and preparations to take on UNLV.

Utah State head coach Blake Anderson joined the show to discuss the bye week and preparations to take on UNLV.

Utah State head coach Blake Anderson joined DJ & PK Monday morning to talk about how they spent the bye week and now prepare to resume Mountain West play against UNLV.

In this episode, Lucas invites Chandler Marss on the podcast to discuss mitochondrial function, Vitamin B1 & different diets. Chandler Marrs MS, MA, Ph.D. spent the last dozen years in women's health research with a focus on steroid neuroendocrinology and mental health. She has published and presented several articles on her findings. As a graduate student, she founded and directed the UNLV Maternal Health Lab, mentoring dozens of students while directing clinical and Internet-based research. Postgraduate, she continued at UNLV as an adjunct faculty member, teaching advanced undergraduate psychopharmacology and health psychology (stress endocrinology). Dr. Marrs received her BA in philosophy from the University of Redlands; MS in Clinical Psychology from California Lutheran University; and, MA and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology/ Neuroendocrinology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Relevant links:Buy Vitamin B1 Here: https://www.ergogenic.health/product/thiamax-ttfd-thiamine-tetrahydrofurfuryl-disulfide-capsules Health Optimization Products: https://www.ergogenic.health/ Chandler Marss' Website: https://www.hormonesmatter.com/

A bye week is just what the football team needs as they prepare to continue conference play against 0-5 UNLV. At 9-3-1, soccer has dropped two in a row but looks to continue their success in the conference. The men's basketball schedule has been announced and the Mountain West, as always, will be a huge challenge.    Column: Ryan Odom's belief in analytics will help USU Basketball by Parker Ballantyne   Let's get in touch! You can find us on Twitter: Parker  Sports Desk  or on Instagram: Parker  Sports Desk or by heading over to our website usustatesman.com  

Michael Easter is a leading voice on how humans can integrate modern science and evolutionary wisdom for improved health, meaning, and performance in life and at work. He travels the globe to embed himself with brilliant thinkers and people living at the extremes.    He is the author of best selling book, "The Comfort Crisis" which has been adopted by Major League Baseball teams, top-ranked NCAA D1 football programs, top-tier universities and law programs, major corporations, tier-one military units, and more. Michael's work has appeared in over 60 countries. It's been endorsed by directors of the CIA and Navy SEALs, gold medal-winning Olympians, leading physicians, Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, Buddhist and environmental leaders, and more.    While Michael has taken a variety of intense life-changing trips including a 30-day adventure to the arctic of Alaska, he states that out of all the extreme endeavors he has done, getting sober was the hardest.    Michael is a contributing editor at Men's Health, a columnist at Outside Magazine, and is a journalism professor at UNLV.    In this episode, Michael shares his sobriety journey including what led him down the path of addiction, why he got sober, and how he learned to deal with the discomforts of early recovery. We chat about why people today are scared to get uncomfortable as well as certain stressors that are actually beneficial for us that we have done away with. Michael reveals daily things that ANYONE can do to push themselves out of their comfort zone and why you don't need a sauna or a cold tub to practice discomfort. Our convo gets into the dangers of certain current parenting styles and how they can be detrimental to the health of their children. We also get into his experience surviving 30 days in the arctic and what inspired him to keep going when things got hard and more.    Connect with Michael by clicking here   Connect with Doug by clicking here   More on Earth Echo Foods/Cacao Bliss:   www.earthechofoods.com/dougbopst   Use Promo code "Doug" at checkout to receive 15% off your order    

For Video Edtion, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/Qu8hpSBWzik Jamie Lee Farrar is a 34 year old burn survivor who just happens to been born with Cerebral Palsy. She holds a BSW in Social Work and is a crosswalk safety advocate. She was born 'pre maturely". Her first memoir, "Roll On" details the last 5 years of her life from the day of the accident (Jan 3rd ,2013 until her graduation from UNLV in 2017 with an epilogue in 2018 ) It's been a very cathartic and lengthy process, but Ms. Farrar hopes to have the book out soon.

Guest: Todd Simon, Southern Utah Head Coach In this week's coaching conversation, Southern Utah head coach Todd Simon joins the Basketball Podcast to discuss the scoring offense, triggers, and a relationship-based program. At the start of the 2021-22 season, Todd Simon will be in his sixth year at the helm of the Southern Utah University men's basketball team after being named the head coach on March 24, 2016. Simon led the Thunderbirds to their first-ever Big Sky Championship during the 2020-21 season, as they were named Big Sky Conference Regular Season Champions after finishing conference play with a record of 12-2. Simon was named interim head coach of the UNLV men's basketball program in January 2016 and immediately led them to three consecutive victories. During Simon's 17 games, the Runnin' Rebels ranked as the number one team in the nation in adjusted tempo, scoring more than 100 points in four games. UNLV finished with a 9-8 record, despite playing with as few as five scholarship players. Prior to being named interim head coach, Simon was in his third year as associate head coach with UNLV and had a critical role in assembling UNLV's roster, which Rivals.com ranked its 2014 recruiting class No. 5 in the nation, while the 2015 class was ranked No. 11. Prior to his tenure as a Runnin' Rebel, Simon served Findlay Prep for seven years in both head and assistant coaching roles. As head coach at Findlay Prep in 2012-2013, he led the team to a 35-1 record, including eight wins over top-25 ranked teams. Breakdown1:00 - Tempo and Scoring Offense4:00 - Painted Rim7:00 - Cutting10:00 - Practice Stats13:00 - Putting Pressure on the Floor17:00 - Attacking the Weak Side21:00 - Having Counters25:00 - Working with Elite Players28:00 - Managing Expectations32:00 - Psychological Adaptation35:30 - Actual Game Situations39:30 - Repetitions42:00 - Caring for Mental Health44:00 - Retaining Players in the Program47:00 - Middle Drive49:30 - Non-Negotiables on 5-on-551:00 - ConclusionTodd Simon's Bio:Bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Simon_(basketball)Twitter: https://twitter.com/CoachTsimon Basketball ImmersionWebsite: http://basketballimmersion.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/bballimmersion?lang=enYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/basketballimmersionFacebook: https://facebook.com/basketballimmersionBetOnline Website:Website: www.betonline.agBest in the West Video SeriesBest in the West Website: http://bestinthewestclinic.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Big episode this week as we thank you guys for getting us over the 100 premium subscriber hump! Two extra podcasts coming your way this week, so stay tuned for more and join us for The Summit on Thursday! 5:15 - UTSA fights off a testy UNLV team to improve their record to 5-0 on the year 22:35 - 20k plus pack the Dome to create a rowdy environment, throwing UNLV off their game at several points in the contest. How did the crowd differ from previous seasons? 26:34 - We need to have an honest conversation about Sincere McCormick... 36:40 - Did some UTSA coaching decisions make the UNLV game closer than it needed to be? 44:12 - Hoo boy did the Roadrunners' defense have some serious breakdowns against UNLV last week 48:42 - UTSA's defense was really great outside of some busted coverages as the Roadrunners forced turnovers and flashed their depth 56:43 - Will Western Kentucky be the best team UTSA has faced this year? Maybe not, but that offense is as good as advertised 1:11:20 - How can UTSA clean up their defensive secondary and beat WKU's passing attack?

Chris and Shannon talk all of Sunday's NFL action and UTSA head football coach Jeff Traylor joins the show to talk about the Roadrunner's win over UNLV.

Longhorns win! Cowboys beat Carolina! UTSA Roadrunners beat UNLV! and your High Five Play of the Day.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey on new brands in the CFP mix, timing on UNLV's AD hire, Air Force AD Nathan Pine on challenges ahead for the Mountain West and much more. Be sure to check your inbox to see more of today's news and notes from around the nation. We would love to know what you think of the show and you can let us know on social media @D1ticker. If you are not subscribed to D1.ticker, you can and should subscribe at www.d1ticker.com/.

Jeremy and Matt are back to recap Week 5 of Mountain West football. The conference is all over the board which makes this season very exciting. The league games are surprising so far with Hawaii upsetting Fresno State and Nevada getting its first win at Boise State in over two decaces. He also see a lot of promise in the losses from Utah State to BYU and also UNLV dropping a close one to UTSA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[audio mp3=“https://talkaboutlasvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Ron_Futrell_100421.mp3"][/audio] This week, Ira spoke with veteran journalist Ron Futrell, 8NewsNow sports anchor/reporter. In this 30-minute episode of Talk About Las Vegas, Futrell talks about his love of sports and why he never gets bored; why the Vegas Golden Knights lost their heart with the departure of Marc-Andre Fleury and how to fix it; the three criteria that Las Vegas needed to meet in order to have professional major league sports here; why basketball and baseball will be the next big sports for Las Vegas; how the UNLV football team will fare in the new Allegiant stadium; the challenge of parking at the stadium; and the impact of COVID on all Las Vegas sports now and in the immediate future,.

Take a dive into Ep. 154 where I start the show off with a discussion on Ben Simmons and where the situation stands with him and the Philadelphia 76ers as well as sharing my opinion on the situation and where I could see Ben Simmons potentially landing (3:52-27:40). I am then joined by another friend of mine in my fantasy football league and he shares what made his team so dominant in week 3 that led to him being the leagues leading scorer for the week (27:51-35:35). I'm later joined by a guest who has been a tremendous leader for his football team for countless seasons, current UNLV football player Julio Garcia (36:05-47:38)! Julio shares what made him choose UNLV to continue his football career, why he decided to redshirt during the middle of his career and much more!   Intro: 0:00-1:53 Ben Simmons Talk: 3:52-27:40 Fantasy Football Friends: 27:51-35:35 Interview w/ Julio Garcia: 36:05-47:38 Outro: 47:39-48:46 

The Caleb's react to the close win over UNLV last Saturday. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/beware-of-bulldogspodcast/message

Excuse the length this week but there's just so much to talk about. Between the Roadrunners amazing come from behind win, Jared's travel to Memphis, and the upcoming game against UNLV, we have a lot of ground to cover this week! 8:45 - What caused UTSA to have such a terrible start to the game against Memphis? 28:20 - Frank Harris showed why he's such a great leader of this offense after a gutsy and cerebral performance, ducking potential disaster after potential disaster. 34:53 - The injuries continue to stack up for the offensive line. We are well, well into the danger zone for this unit. 39:15 - Both coaching staffs made a lot of interesting coaching decisions which determined the outcome of the game. Where did Traylor and staff struggle and excel? 50:57 - Jared shares his experiences visiting Memphis for the game. 1:04:10 - UNLV is 0-4 but they're coming off their best performance in two years after taking a ranked Fresno State team to the fourth quarter. 1:10:20 - UTSA's 2015 season is a really good comparison for the start of UNLV's 2021 season. 1:22:23 - Expect UTSA to empty the bench on their offensive line, giving freshmen like Ronnie Garza, Frankie Martinez, Robert Rigsby, and River Gordon some looks.

Fresno State Bulldogs pull off another big win 38-30 over UNLV going into the weekend. They now rank #18 in the US according to this week's AP poll. Gov. Newsom has signed AB 37, which permanently required a vote-by-mail ballot be mailed to every active registered voter in the state. Organizers of the Hurtado recall effort in Kingsburg have until today to submit signatures to move forward in their efforts. Listeners comment on ballots. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Drew Marvick is a producer, writer, director, actor, horror enthusiast, and so much more. In this episode, we discuss the world of production, horror fandom, and why it's so important to not let the fear of failure hold you back from pursuing your passion. Drew's primary career has been as a producer in the commercial world, but he's branched into acting in indie films and horror movies. He talks about his work ethic and not having an ego on set. It's not about where you're at on the call sheet, it's about coming together as a team to do the best work possible. He breaks down what the commercial production process is really like - starting a completely functioning and successful business over and over for single days at a time, and shutting it down immediately after. Motivated by all the talented people with whom he worked, he made his first film, the cult hit "Pool Party Massacre" with a meager budget in his parents' backyard. That movie has taken a life of its own with unexpected longevity - after 5 years, it's still playing at film festivals. He uses it as an example for all the people who want to do something but don't because they are afraid. He hopes people see what he's done and think, "If he can do it, so can I." Connect with Drew @drewmarvick on all platforms. Pool Party Massacre Connect with me: https://pods.link/aardvarkgirl -- 00:29 I've been watching horror my whole life and been fascinated by it. But separately, I just also loved movies and photography, and wanted to do one or the other. I didn't think production was a real, attainable job. I thought you were born into it, or made in a factory or something. I just didn't think it was real, so I was going to be a photographer. That was my goal. And then I kind of did neither, and then fell into this. 02:52 I still thought maybe there was something, and maybe I could go to film school. And then my dad actually kind of talked me out of it. He just didn't think it was a good idea. And he basically said, “If you're really passionate about doing film or photography, get a degree in business. I will pay for your college if you get a degree in business. And then if you're still passionate about it, I will pay for you to go to film school or photography school after that. But you're gonna need the business sense to do either of those jobs. If you don't have it, you'll fail. But also, you want to make sure that you're passionate about it before you waste four years to be a waiter.” That's what he said. I think in the back of my mind, I knew he was probably right. I did get a business degree from UNLV. And when I finished, I had zero interest in going back to college to get any other degree, no matter what it was. And so I went into the management world.  04:57 When I was leaving Coyote Ugly, I happened to mention to an employee who was going to film school that if she ever needed a PA, give them my name, and I'll do it. She called me the very next day and said, "I'm working on a commercial and they need someone. If you're serious, call this guy, Matt. Here's his number.” That started a long relationship, because I ended up being a full-time producer for him for years. And now, I still work freelance for him to this day. I was going to take two months off and then get a real job again soon. And I still don't have a real job. 09:58 As a producer, business school makes way more sense than film school. Some people come out of film school lacking certain skills like interpersonal skills, and customer service skills, things like that. As a producer, you need to interact with people, and people need to trust you, and like you. I say that everyone should have a customer service job at some point. Even if you want to be a filmmaker, and you know that's what you want to do, you should still get a job where you have to deal with people, and you have to take people's crap, and you have to learn how to handle it. Because if you don't, you're going to learn later in life, and that's a lot worse. 13:15 I've never had an ego when it came to what title I had, or what job I was doing. We're all on the same page, and we're all equal despite where our names are on the call sheet. I'm just there to get the best result at the end of the day. It's just the way I am. And it's the way I am on all of my sets, like in the indie film world as well. Just because I'm the writer, and the director, and the producer, doesn't mean I'm better than anyone else on the set. And in fact, I tend to do the dirtiest work myself, just because I don't want to ask other people to do it. 18:57 The idea of making a feature film just seemed impossible for a large part of my life. But then by that point, I kind of got motivated by all the people that we work with, in this town especially. We work with so many talented people. There's so many people that are on set that are so much more talented than I am, and can do everything. I mean people that can shoot, and edit, and light, and know sound, and probably know storytelling, and can write a good script, and they have every single asset that you need to make a good movie, except they're afraid to do it because they're afraid to fail. So, at some point, I just said, “You know what? Then I'm going to do it. Like here, the least talented person in the room. I'm not afraid to fail at all. Like, I'll make a movie. And maybe it'll motivate you guys.” And so, that's really what the motivation was. It was kind of just like to kick a bunch of my friends in the butt and say, “Hey, look, don't worry. It's okay.” And I didn't even know if anyone would see it. I mean, it's a $6,000 movie that I made in my parents' backyard. I really thought it was just for fun, and so that I could have a movie under my belt, and understand how it worked. And then that could make a real movie someday, based on what I would learn from that. But I guess it turned out to be a lot more than that. It ended up having a long life. It turned into this thing that I never expected it to. 23:27 The fear of failure is debilitating for a lot of people. And I guess I'm just lucky enough that I don't have it. I mean, I don't like to fail, and I don't like to be embarrassed, but I'm not afraid of it because I know it's a part of life. And I've done it so much, and I've always come out of it just fine. I fall on my face for a living, so I'm okay with it. And you move on, and you learn from it. I think everyone else, if they could just get past that, they'd be a lot better off. So if I can be the person that, even if it is them saying to themselves, if this guy can do it, then I can do it, then that's fine. That works for me. 27:32 We were still able to have the Sin City Horror Fest last year, just not in person. It shifted to an online model. Now, in the future, we can still use it as a tool and kind of integrate it into the in-person festival so that people around the world can participate, at least in some way. So, we're kind of trying to figure out that balance as we're now shifting back. We definitely learned a lot. 29:39 Horror fandom is something that is so very unique. The fans are really loyal, and really rabid, and very active. So, it's great. And it's a community. And surprisingly, most of the fans are really nice, which I think people on the outside wouldn't expect when they see a bunch of people in black t-shirts with decapitated heads on them, and people wearing makeup and blood all over their face waiting in line to get into to a convention hall. They look pretty scary, but they're not. They're just people like us. This is just what they're into it. To me, it's the same as a person that paints their face green and yellow, because they're a Packers fan. Like, there's really no different to me, because that's just as weird. Spelling out somebody's name on yours and your friends' chests so that you can all stand shirtless together and root for your favorite quarterback is kind of the same thing to me as dressing up as your favorite horror celebrity or character. It's just a way of showing your support. 33:39 I think I'm both the cool dad and the weird dad. It goes in waves as they grow. My son is a teenager and I still have to drop him off like a block away from school because he's embarrassed. I'm definitely not the cool dad to him. Unless the times when it works out in his favor when he gets to meet Corey Taylor from Slipknot, because I happen to know him because of what I do. So, then all of a sudden I'm cool for like three seconds. But then I'm back to not being cool on the drive home, and he's telling me to turn my music down or roll the windows up because people are going to see him. My 10-year-old daughter, on the other hand, is still in this great phase where it is cool, and she wants to be a part of it, and she wants to be on set, and she wants to make movies, and she's writing scripts now. she's really good at it. She's very creative. I'm stealing some of her titles.  They've grown up around it. I mean, they've been on sets of some kind. They've both been in tons of commercials, and been on commercial sets, but they've both been on movie sets and at horror conventions their whole life. So, they're immune to it, but they're also fascinated. 36:36 As their dad, I definitely want what's best for him. And I want to be able to give them good advice and help steer them in the right direction. But I also love letting them figure things out on their own. I'm a single dad with two kids, so I spend a lot of time with them. And I am definitely not the kind of dad that's trying to get them to like what I like just because I like it. I don't tell my daughter that she has to listen to Slayer and buy her a Slayer shirt. We're listening to Justin Bieber, and I'm scream singing along with her, with the windows down, all the way to school. And sometimes on the way back, even though I'm alone. That's just the way I am and the way I want them to make their own decisions.  39:40 I've been an FBI agent. I've been a doctor. Now granted it was in a garage with a drill, but I was a doctor. I've been a lot of things. my career, is very schizophrenic. I definitely make my living on the production side as a producer, in the commercial world. But now that I'm starting to do so much more in the feature film world, and with horror projects, acting has now taken over. At least 50% of my work is acting now. I mean, I haven't been able to complete another movie because I've been in so many other people's movies. From what people that know me ask me when I see them, I think it's really hard for people to figure out what I do, which I like. 41:32 Commercial production is basically starting a business from the ground floor, doing everything you need to do to start that business. You're hiring, you're finding a location, you're getting all the equipment you need, you're working out your business plan, and then you're going to execute it for one day. And then you're going to fire everyone. You're going to liquidate all your assets, and you're going to vacate the building. And then you start over in a whole new business the next week. We start a completely functioning and successful business over and over and over again for just single days at a time. Which is why my beard is gray now. 43:22 Don't quit your day job, until you can't possibly do both things successfully. Figure out a way to do it while you're doing that other job, so you actually still have insurance, and you still have a paycheck, and you have some form of stability. Like, literally wait, even if it's years, wait until the day when you can't do both things because it's affecting your quality of life. And then if you still have the same amount of passion for the creative project, quit your day job and do it.  But if you've already pulled the ripcord and you're in it, don't be afraid to fail. Because you are. You're going to fail a bunch of times, and you're going to have really bad days. And you're going to work on really bad sets and work with horrible people. But it doesn't matter, that's the beauty of this. If you are on a bad set, or you're working for a bad producer, or with a horrible director, or a client that just sucks, it's all temporary. Unlike any other job, there's an end date. Just know that you don't have to deal with that. You're not stuck. You're gonna work on a lot of jobs, with a lot of people. And you're gonna find your family. And once you do, it'll be awesome. 48:05 If you've got 80 minutes you just want to ruin, then check out Pool Party Massacre. Or if you're a fan of 80s, low budget ‘80s-style slasher films, maybe you'll even like it. And if so, you can pick up a t-shirt, and a lunchbox, and a hat, and look like a weirdo. 

In hour one of The Greg Peterson Experience host Greg Peterson give updates on the action in the college football matchup between Fresno State and UNLV and the MLB late slate. Later in the show, Greg previews the Saturday MLB slate and dives into the MLB award markets, and discusses which players he likes to win. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Caleb and Michael learn a little bit more about UNLV before the Bulldogs game this Friday. We hope you do as well. Enjoy!

2X all county and all city pick at Walton HS, Only Pac 10 player to be ranked in the Top 10 of 8 categories when played at ASU, Former professional basketball player from 2007-2013 in Bulgaria, Italy China, Mexico, Belgium & Germany, son of the recently retired Coach Lon Kruger, has been an asst. at NAU, Oklahoma, and UNLV and currently the head coach at UNLV. Coach Kevin Kruger talks about:What parents taught himKind of high school player he wasCollege days at ASU & UNLVPlaying in the D League & overseas How he landed at NAU as an asst.Working for his father at OUUNLV: coming as asst., getting promoted, academics, being face of the programOutlook for the UNLV seasonLinks:UNLV Men's Basketball: https://unlvrebels.com/sports/mens-basketballCoach Kevin Kruger: https://unlvrebels.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/coaches/kevin-kruger/3374 Before the Lights Website: https://www.beforethelightspod.com/Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beforethelightspodcast/Aroma Retail link: Code- Lights10 https://aromaretail.com/?irclickid=0FDWhGVUjxyLTR3wUx0Mo36aUkB3td0cESYzXc0&irgwc=1 Join the Members Area: https://www.beforethelightspod.com/supportExtra 5Should the MW be considered as the next in line after the Power 5 conferences?How has transfer portal affected high school recruiting?Hardest place to be overseas Support the show (https://www.beforethelightspod.com/member-areas)

Caleb P. and Caleb N. talk about this Fridays game against the Rebels. Let's pack Bulldog stadium! Hope to see you at the game and tell your friends about the podcast. Enjoy!

Jeremy and Matt are back to preview the fourth week of Mountain West play. The games are starting to feature league matchups with a pair of conference games this week with Fresno State vs. UNLV and Boise State taking on Utah State. The whole slate has a mixture of very winnable games vs. FCS teams, a likely blowout against a top 10 team, and a few interesting games like Air Force vs. Florida Atlantic, New Mexico vs. UTEP and San Jose State vs. Western Michigan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Des Moines Register's Randy Peterson and Travis Hines look ahead to Iowa State's Big 12 season opener against Baylor in Waco as the Cyclones look to keep their momentum after thrashing UNLV last weekend in Las Vegas.

There's a place where sports and data meet, and it's as powerful a collision as on any football field!  Jeff Sagarin has been a figurehead in the sports analytics realm for decades, and we're thrilled to have had the chance to have him on to talk about his data journey!  There's a fair mix of math AND sports geek out time in this episode.  And, did we mention that Dr. Wayne Winston is sitting in on this episode as well? References in this Episode: 2 Frictionless Colliding Boxes Video Scorigami Episode Transcript: Rob Collie (00:00:00): Hello, friends. Today's guest is Jeff Sagarin. Is that name familiar to you? It's very familiar to me. In my life, Jeff's work might very well be my first brush with the concept of using data for any sort of advantage. His Power Ranking Columns, first appeared in USA Today in 1985, when I was 11 years old. And what a fascinating concept that was. Rob Collie (00:00:29): It probably won't surprise you if I confess that 11-year-old me was not particularly good at sports, but I was still fascinated and captivated by them. 11-year-old kids in my neighborhood were especially prone to associating sports with their tribal identity. Everyone had their favorite teams, their favorite sports stars. And invariably, this led to arguments about which sports star was better than the other sports star, who was going to win this game coming up and who would win a tournament amongst all of these teams and things of that sort. Rob Collie (00:01:01): Now that I've explained it that way though, I guess being an adult sports fan isn't too terribly different, is it? Those arguments, of course, aren't the sorts of arguments where there's anything resembling a clear winner. But in practice, the person who won was usually the one with the loudest voice or the sickest burn that they could deliver to their friends. And then in 1985, the idea was planted in my head by Jeff Sagarin's column in USA Today, that there actually was a relatively objective way to evaluate teams that had never played against one another and likely never would. Rob Collie (00:01:33): I wasn't into computers at the time. I certainly wasn't into the concept of data. I didn't know what a database was. I didn't know what a spreadsheet was. And yet, this was still an incredibly captivating and powerful idea. So in my life, Jeff Sagarin is the first public figure that I encountered in the sports analytics industry long before it was cool. And because it was sports, a topic that was relevant to 11-year-old me, he's really also my first brush with analytics at all. Rob Collie (00:02:07): It's not surprising then, that to me, Jeff is absolutely a celebrity. As a guest, in insider podcasting lingo, Jeff is what we call a good get. We owe that pleasure, of course, to him being close friends with Wayne Winston, a former guest on the show, who also joined us today as co-guest. Rob Collie (00:02:28): Now, if none of that speaks to you, let's try this alternate description. He's probably also the world's most famous active FORTRAN programmer. I admit that I was so starstruck by this that I didn't even really push as hard as I normally would, in terms of getting into the techniques that he uses. I didn't want to run afoul of asking him for trade secrets. At times, this conversation did devolve into four dudes sitting around talking about sports. Rob Collie (00:02:59): But setting that aside, there are some really, really interesting and heartwarming things happening in this conversation as well. Again, the accidental path to where he is today, the intersection of persistence and good fortune that's required really for success in anything. Bottom line, this is the story of a national and highly influential figure at the intersection of the sports industry and the analytics industry for more than three decades. It's not every day you get to hear that story. So let's get into it. Announcer (00:03:34): Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? Announcer (00:03:39): This is the Raw Data by P3 Adaptive podcast with your host, Rob Colley and your co-host, Thomas LaRock. Find out what the experts at P3 Adaptive can do for your business. Just go to p3adaptive.com. Raw Data by P3 Adaptive is data with the human element. Rob Collie (00:04:02): Welcome to the show, Jeff Sagarin. And welcome back to the show. Wayne Winston. So thrilled to have the two of you with us today. This is awesome. We've been looking forward to this for a long time. So thank you very much gentlemen, for being here. Jeff Sagarin (00:04:16): You're welcome. Rob Collie (00:04:18): Jeff, usually we kick these things off with, "Hey, tell us a little about yourself, your background, blah, blah, blah." Let's start off with me telling you about you. It's a story about you that you wouldn't know. I remember for a very long time being aware of you. Rob Collie (00:04:35): So I'm 47 years old, born in 1974. My father had participated for many years in this shady off-the-books college football pick'em pool that was run out of the high school in a small town in Florida. Like the sheets with everybody's entries would show up. They were run on ditto paper, like that blue ink. It was done in the school ditto room and he did this every year. This was like the most fascinating thing that happened in the entire year to me. Like these things showing up at our house, this packet of all these picks, believe it or not, they were handwritten. These grids were handwritten with everyone's picks. It was ridiculous. Rob Collie (00:05:17): He got eliminated every year. There were a couple of hundred entries every year and he just got his butt kicked every year. But then one year, he did his homework. He researched common opponents and things like that or that kind of stuff. I seem to recall this having something to do timing wise with you. So I looked it up. Your column first appeared in USA Today in 1985. Is that correct? Jeff Sagarin (00:05:40): Yeah. Tuesday, January 8th 1985. Rob Collie (00:05:44): I remember my dad winning this pool that year and using the funds to buy a telescope to look at Halley's Comet when it showed up. And so I looked up Halley's Comet. What do you know? '86. So it would have been like the January ballgames of 1986, where he won this pool. And in '85, were you power ranking college football teams or was that other sports? Jeff Sagarin (00:06:11): Yes. Rob Collie (00:06:12): Okay. So when my dad said that he did his research that year, what he really did was read your stuff. You bought my dad a telescope in 1986 so that we could go have one of the worst family vacations of all time. It was just awful. Thank you. Jeff Sagarin (00:06:31): You're very welcome. Rob Collie (00:06:39): I kind of think of you as the first publicly known figure in sports analytics. You probably weren't the first person to apply math and computers to sports analytics, but you're the first person I heard of. Jeff Sagarin (00:06:51): There is a guy that people don't even talk about very much. Now a guy named Earnshaw Cook, who first inspired me when I was a sophomore in high school in the '63-'64 school year, there was an article by Frank Deford in Sports Illustrated about Earnshaw Cook publishing a book called Percentage Baseball. So I convinced my mom to let me have $10 to order it by mail and I got it. I started playing around with his various ideas in it. He was the first guy I ever heard of and that was in March of 1964. Rob Collie (00:07:28): All right, so everyone's got an origin story. Jeff Sagarin (00:07:31): The Dunkel family started doing the Dunkel ratings back I believe in 1929. Then there was a professor, I think he was at Vanderbilt, named [Lipkin House 00:07:41], he was I think at Vanderbilt. And for years, he did the high school ratings in states like maybe Tennessee and Kentucky. I think he gave Kentucky that Louisville courier his methodology before he died. But I don't know if they continue his work or not. But there were people way before me. Rob Collie (00:08:03): But they weren't in USA Today. Jeff Sagarin (00:08:04): That's true. Rob Collie (00:08:06): They weren't nationally distributed, like on a very regular basis. I've been hearing your name longer than I've even been working with computers. That's pretty crazy. How did you even get hooked up with USA Today? Jeff Sagarin (00:08:23): People might say, "You got lucky." My answer, as you'll see as well, I'd worked for 12 years to be in a position to get lucky. I started getting paid for doing this in September of 1972 with an in-house publication of pro football weekly called Insider's Pro Football Newsletter. Jeff Sagarin (00:08:45): In the Spring of '72, I'd written letters to like 100 newspapers saying because I had started by hand doing my own rating system for pro football in the fall of 1971. Just by hand, every Sunday night, I'd get the scores and add in the Monday night. I did it as a hobby. I wasn't doing it for a living. I did it week by week and charted the teams. It was all done with some charts I'd made up with a normal distribution and a slide rule. So I sent out letters in the spring of '72 to about 100 papers saying, "Hey, would you be interested in running my stuff?" Jeff Sagarin (00:09:19): They either didn't answer me or all said, "No, not interested." But I got a call right before I left to go to California when an old college friend that spring. It was from William Wallace, who was a big time football correspondent for The New York Times. That anecdote may be in that article by Andy Glockner. He called me up, he was at the New York Times, but he said also, "I write articles for extra money for pro football weekly. I wanted to just kind of talk to you." Jeff Sagarin (00:09:49): He wrote an article that appeared in Pro Quarterback magazine in September of '72. But during the middle of that summer, I got a phone call from Pro Football weekly, the publisher, a guy named [inaudible 00:10:04] said, "Hey Jeff. Have you seen our ad in street and Smith's?" It didn't matter. It could have been their pro magazine or college. I said, "Yeah, I did." And he said, "Do you notice it said we've got a world famous handicapper to do our predictions for us?" I said, "Yeah, I did see that." He said, "How would you like to be that world famous handicapper? We don't have anybody." Jeff Sagarin (00:10:25): We just said that because he said William Wallace told us to call you. So I said, "Okay, I'll be your world famous handicapper." I didn't start off that well and they had this customer, it was a paid newsletter and there was a customer from Hawaii. He had a great name, Charles Fujiwara. He'd send letters every week saying, "Sagarin's terrible, but he's winning a fortune for me. I just reverse his picks every week." So finally, finally, my numbers turn the tide and I had this one great week, where I went 8-0. He sent another letter saying, "I'm bankrupt. The kid destroyed me." Because he was reversing all my picks. That's a true story. Rob Collie (00:11:07): At least he had a sense of humor. It sounds like a pretty interesting fellow on the other end of that letter. Jeff Sagarin (00:11:13): He sounds like he could have been like the guy, if you've ever seen reruns of the old show, '77 Sunset Strip. In it, there this guy who's kind of a racetrack trout gambler named Roscoe. He sounds like he could have been Roscoe. Rob Collie (00:11:26): We have to look that one up. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:11:27): It's before your time. Rob Collie (00:11:28): I don't think I saw that show. Jeff Sagarin (00:11:29): Yeah. Wayne's seen it though. Rob Collie (00:11:31): Yes. I love that. There are things that are both before my time and I have like old man knees. So I've heard this kind of thing before, by the way. It's called the 10-year overnight success. Jeff Sagarin (00:11:47): I forgot. How did I get with USA Today? I started with Pro Football weekly and continued with them. I was with them until actually why don't we say sometime in the fall of '82. I ended up in other newspapers, little by little: The Boston Globe, Louisville Courier Journal. And then in the spring of '81, I got into a conversation over the phone with Jim van Valkenburg, who is the stat guy at the NCAA. I happened to mention that going into the tournament, I had Indiana to win the tournament. They were rated like 10th in the conventional polls. Jeff Sagarin (00:12:23): And so he remembered that and he kept talking behind the scenes to people in the NCAA about that. And so years later, in 1988, they called me out to talk to them. But anyhow, I had developed a good reputation and I gave him as a reference. Wayne called me up excitedly in let's say, early September of 1984. He said, "Hey, Jeff. You've got to buy a copy of today's USA Today and turn to the end of the sports section. You're going to be sick." Jeff Sagarin (00:12:53): I said, "Really? Okay." So I opened to where he said and I was sick. They had computer ratings by some guy. He was a good guy named Thomas Jech, J-E-C-H. And I said, "Damn, that should be me. I've been doing this for all these years and I didn't even know they were looking for this." So I call up on the phone. Sometimes there's a lot of luck involved. I got to talk to a guy named Bob Barbara who I believe is retired now there. He had on the phone this gruff sounding voice out of like a Grade B movie from the film, The War. "What's going on Kitty?" It sounds like he had a cigar in his mouth. Jeff Sagarin (00:13:30): I said, "Well, I do these computer ratings." [inaudible 00:13:33] Said "Well, really? That's interesting. We've already got somebody." He said, "But how would you even send it to us?" I said, "Well, I dictate over the phone." He said, "Dictate? We don't take dictation at USA Today, kid. Have you ever heard of personal computers and a modem?" I said, "Well, I have but I just do it on a mainframe at IU and I dictate over the phone to the Louisville Courier and the local..." Jeff Sagarin (00:13:58): Well, the local paper here, I gave them a printout. He said, "Kid, you need to buy yourself a PC and learn how to use a modem." So I kind of was embarrassed. I said, "Well, I'll see." So about 10 days later, I called him up and said, "Hey, what's the phone number for your modem?" He said, "Crap. You again, kid? I thought I got rid of you." He says, "All right. I'll give you the phone number." So I sent him a sample printout. He says, "Yeah, yeah, we got it. Keep in touch. We're not going to change for football. But this other guy, he may not want to do basketball. So keep in touch. Who knows what will happen for basketball?" Jeff Sagarin (00:14:31): So every month I'd call up saying, "It's me again, keeping touch." He said, "I can't get rid of you. You're like a bad penny that keeps turning up." So finally he says look, after about five of these calls, spreading out until maybe late November, "Look kid, why don't you wait... Call me up the first Sunday of the new year," which would have been like Sunday, January 6 of 1985 I believe. So I waited. I called him up. Sure enough, he said, "You again?" I said, "You told me you wanted to do college basketball." Jeff Sagarin (00:15:04): He said, "Yeah, you're kind of right. The other guy doesn't want to do it." So he said, "Well, do you mind if we call it the USA Today computer ratings? We kind of like to put our own name on everything." I said, "Well, wait a minute. During the World Series, you had Pete Rose as your guest columnist, you want not only gave his name, but you had a picture of him." He said, "God damn it." He said, "I can't..." He said, "You win again kid. Give us a bio." Jeff Sagarin (00:15:32): An old friend of both me and Wayne was on a business trip. He lived in California, but one of the companies he did work for was Magnavox, which at the time had a presence in Fort Wayne. So he had stopped off in Bloomington so we could say hi. We hadn't seen each other for many years. So he wrote my bio for me, which is still used in the agate in the USA Today. So it's the same bio all these years. Jeff Sagarin (00:15:56): So they started printing me on Tuesday, January 8 of 1985. On the front page that day and I got my editor of a couple years ago, he found an old physical copy of that paper and sent it to me and I thought that's pretty cool. And on the front page, they said, "Well, this would be the 50th birthday of Elvis Presley." I get, they did not have a banner headline at the top, "Turn to the sports and see Jeff Sagarin's debut." That was not what they did. It was all about Elvis Presley. And so people will tell me, "Wow! You got really lucky." Jeff Sagarin (00:16:30): Yeah, but I was in a position. I'd worked for 12 years since the fall of '72 to get in position to then get lucky. They told me I had some good recommendations from people. Rob Collie (00:16:42): Well, even that persistence to keep calling in the face of relatively discouraging feedback. So that conversation took place, and then two days later, you're in the paper. Jeff Sagarin (00:16:54): Well, yeah. He said, "Send us the ratings." They might have needed a time lag. So if I sent the ratings in on a Sunday night or Monday morning, they'd print them on Tuesday. They're not as instant. Now, I update every day on their website. For the paper, they take whatever the most recent ones they can access off their website, depending on I've sent it in, which is I always send them in early in the morning like when I get up. So they print on a Tuesday there'll be taking the ratings that they would have had in their hands Monday, which would be through Sunday's games. Rob Collie (00:17:26): That Tuesday, was that just college basketball? Jeff Sagarin (00:17:28): Then it was. Then in the fall of 85. They began using me for college football, not that they thought I was better or worse one way or the other than Thomas Jech who was a smart guy, he was a math professor at the time at Penn State. He just got tired of doing it. He had more important things to do. Serious, I don't mean that sarcastically. That was just like a fun hobby for him from what I understand. Rob Collie (00:17:50): I was going to ask you if you hadn't already gone and answered the question ahead of time. I was going to ask you well, what happened to the other guy? Did you go like all Tonya Harding on him or whatever? Did you take out your rival? No, sounds like Nancy Kerrigan just went ahead and retired. Although I hate to make you Tonya Harding in this analogy and I just realized I just Hardinged you. Jeff Sagarin (00:18:10): He was just evidently a really good math professor. It was just something he did for fun to do the ratings. Rob Collie (00:18:17): Opportunity and preparation right where they intersect. That's "luck". Jeff Sagarin (00:18:22): It would be as if Wally Pipp had retired and Lou Gehrig got to replace him in the analogy, Lou Gehrig gets the first base job but actually Wally Pipp in real life did not retire. He had the bad luck to get a cold or something or an injury and he never got back in the starting lineup after that. Rob Collie (00:18:38): What about Drew Bledsoe? I think he did get hurt. Did we ever see him again? Thomas LaRock (00:18:43): The very next season, he was in Buffalo and then he went to Dallas. Rob Collie (00:18:46): I don't remember this at all. Thomas LaRock (00:18:47): And not only that, but when he went to Dallas, he got hurt again and Tony Romo came on to take over. Rob Collie (00:18:53): Oh my god! So Drew Bledsoe is Wally Pipp X2. Thomas LaRock (00:18:58): Yeah, X2. Rob Collie (00:19:02): I just need to go find wherever Drew Bledsoe is right now and go get in line behind him. Thomas LaRock (00:19:08): He's making wine in Walla Walla, Washington. I know exactly where he is. Rob Collie (00:19:12): I'm about to inherit a vineyard gentlemen. Okay, so Wayne's already factored into this story. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:19:23): A little bit. Rob Collie (00:19:23): A bit part but an important one. We would call you Mr. Narrative Hook in the movie. Like you'd be the guy that's like, "Jeff, you've got to get a copy of USA Today and turn to page 10. You're going to be sick." Jeff Sagarin (00:19:37): Well, I was I'm glad Wayne told me to do it. If I'd never known that, who knows what I'd be doing right now? Rob Collie (00:19:44): Yeah. So you guys are longtime friends, right? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:19:47): Yeah. Jeff, should take this. Jeff Sagarin (00:19:49): September 1967 in the TV room at Ashdown Graduate's House across from the dorm we lived, because the graduate students there had rigged up, we call it a full screen TV that was actually quite huge. It's simply projected from a regular TV onto a maybe a 10 foot by 10 foot old fashioned movie projector screen. We'd go there to watch ballgames. Okay, because better than watching on a 10 inch diagonal black and white TV in the dorm. And it turned out we both had a love for baseball and football games. Thomas LaRock (00:20:26): So just to be clear, though, this was no ordinary school. This is MIT. Because this is what people at MIT would do is take some weird tech thing and go, "We can make this even better, make a big screen TV." Jeff Sagarin (00:20:38): We didn't know how to do it, which leads into Wayne's favorite story about our joint science escapades at MIT. If Wayne wants to start it off, you might like this. I was a junior and Wayne was a sophomore at the time. I'll set Wayne up for it, there was a requirement that MIT no matter what your major, one of the sort of distribution courses you had to take was a laboratory class. Why don't we let Wayne take the ball for a while on this? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:21:05): I'm not very mechanically inclined. I got a D in wood shop and a D in metal shop. Jeff's not very mechanically inclined either. We took this lab class and we were trying to figure out identifying a coin based on the sound waves it would produce under the Scylla scope. And so the first week, we couldn't get the machine to work. And the professor said, "Turn it on." And so we figured that step out and the next week, the machine didn't work. He said, "Plug it in." Jeff can take it from there. Jeff Sagarin (00:21:46): It didn't really fit the mathematical narrative exactly of what metals we knew were in the coin. But then I noticed, nowadays we'd probably figure out this a reason. If we multiplied our answers by something like 100 pi, we got the right numbers. So they were correctly proportional. So we just multiplied our answers by 100 pi and said, "As you can see, it's perfectly deducible." Rob Collie (00:22:14): There's a YouTube video that we should probably link that is crazy. It shows that two boxes on a frictionless surface a simulation and the number of times that they collide, when you slide them towards a wall together, when they're like at 10X ratio of mass, the number of times that they impact each other starts to become the digits of pi. Jeff Sagarin (00:22:34): Wow. Rob Collie (00:22:35): Before they separate. Jeff Sagarin (00:22:36): That's interesting. Rob Collie (00:22:36): It's just bizarre. And then they go through explaining like why it is pi and you understand it while the video is playing. And then the video ends and you've completely lost it. Jeff Sagarin (00:22:49): I'm just asking now, are they saying if you do that experiment an infinite amount of times, the average number of times they collide will be pi? Rob Collie (00:22:57): That's a really good question. I think it's like the number of collisions as you increase the ratios of the weight or something like that start to become. It's like you'll get 314 collisions, for instance, in a certain weight ratio, because that's the only three digits of pi that I remember. It's 3.14. It's a fascinating little watch. So the 100 pi thing, you said that, I'm like, "Yeah, that just... Of course it's 100 pi." Even boxes colliding on a frictionless surface do pi things apparently. Jeff Sagarin (00:23:29): Maybe it's a universal constant in everything we do. Rob Collie (00:23:29): You just don't expect pi to surface itself. It has nothing to do with waves, no wavelength, no arcs of circles, nothing like that. But that sneaky video, they do show you that it actually has something to do with circles and angles and stuff. Jeff Sagarin (00:23:44): Mutual friend of me and Wayne, this guy named Robin. He loves Fibonacci. And so every time I see a particular game end by a certain score, I'll just say, "Hey, Robin. Research the score of..." I think it was blooming to North against some other team. And he did. It turned out Bloomington North had won 155-34, which are the two adjacent Fibonacci, the two particular adjacent Fibonacci. Robin loves that stuff. You'll find a lot of that actually. It's hard to double Fibonacci a team though. That would be like 89-34. Rob Collie (00:24:18): I know about the Fibonacci sequence. But I can't pick Fibonacci sequence numbers out of the wild. Are you familiar with Scorigami? Jeff Sagarin (00:24:26): Who? I'd never heard of it obviously. Rob Collie (00:24:29): I think a Scorigami is a score in the NFL that's never happened. Jeff Sagarin (00:24:32): There was one like that about 10 years ago, 11-10, I believe. Pittsburgh was involved in the game or 12-11, something like that. Rob Collie (00:24:40): I think there was a Scorigami in last season. With scoring going up, the chances of Scorigami is increasing. There's just more variance at the higher end of the spectrum of numbers, right? Jeff Sagarin (00:24:50): I've always thought about this. In Canada, Canadian football, they have this extra rule that I think is kind of cool because it would probably make more scores happen. If a punter kicks the ball into the end zone, it can't roll there. Like if he kicks it on the fly into the end zone and the other team can't run it out, it's called a rouge and the kicking team gets one point for it. That's kind of cool. Because once you add the concept of scoring one point, you make a lot more scores more probable of happening. Rob Collie (00:25:21): Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. You can win 1-0. Thomas LaRock (00:25:25): So the end zone is also... It's 20 yards deep. So the field's longer, it's 110 yards. But the end zone's deeper and part of it is that it's too far to kick for a field goal. But you know what? If I can punt it into the end zone and if I get a cover team down there, we can get one point out. I'm in favor of it. I think that'd be great. Jeff Sagarin (00:25:43): I think you have to kick out on the fly into the end zone. It's not like if it rolls into it. Thomas LaRock (00:25:47): No, no, no. It's like a pop flop. Jeff Sagarin (00:25:50): Yeah. Okay. Rob Collie (00:25:50): If you punt it out of the end zone, is it also a point? Thomas LaRock (00:25:52): It's a touch back. No, touch back. Jeff Sagarin (00:25:54): That'd be too easy of a way to get a point. Rob Collie (00:25:57): You've had a 20 yard deep target to land in. In Canadian fantasy football, if there was such a thing, maybe there is, punters, you actually could have punters as a position because they can score points. That would be a really sad and un-fun way to play. Rob Collie (00:26:14): But so we're amateur sports analytics people here on the show. We're not professionals. We're probably not even very good at it. But that doesn't mean that we aren't fascinated by it. We're business analytics people here for sure. Business and sports, they might share some techniques, but it's just very, very, very different, the things that are valuable in the two spaces. I mean, they're sort of spiritually linked but they're not really tools or methods that provide value. Rob Collie (00:26:39): Not that you would give them. But we're not looking for any of your secrets here today. But you're not just writing for USA Today, there's a number of places where your skills are used these days, right? Jeff Sagarin (00:26:51): Well, not as much as that. But I want to make a favorable analogy for Wayne. In the world of sports analytics, whatever the phrases are, I consider myself to be maybe an experimental applied physicist. Wayne is an advanced theoretical physicist. I do the grunt work of collecting data and doing stuff with it. But Wayne has a large over-viewing of things. He's like a theoretical physicist. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:27:17): Jeff is too modest because he's experimented for years on the best parameters for his models. Rob Collie (00:27:27): It's again that 10-year, 20-year overnight success type of thing. You've just got to keep grinding at it. Do the two of you collaborate at all? Jeff Sagarin (00:27:35): Well, we did on two things, the Hoops computer game and Win Val. I forgot. How could I forget? It was actually my favorite thing that we did even though we've made no money doing the randomization using Game Theory of play calling for football. And we based it actually and it turned out that I got great numerical results that jive with empirical stuff that Virgil Carter had gotten and our economist, named Romer, had gotten and we had more detailed results than them. Jeff Sagarin (00:28:06): But in the areas that we intersected, we had the same as them. We used a game called Pro Quarterback and we modeled it. We had actually, a fellow, I wasn't a professor but a fellow professor of Wayne's, a great guy, just a great guy named Vic Cabot, who wrote a particular routine to insert the FORTRAN program that solved that particular linear programming problem that would constantly reoccur or else we couldn't do it. That was the favorite thing and we got to show it once to Sam White, who we really liked. And White said, "I like this guy. I may have played this particular game," we told him what we based it on, "when I was a teenager." Jeff Sagarin (00:28:46): He said, "I know exactly what you want to do." You don't make the same call in the same situation all the time. You have a random, but there's an optimal mix Game Theory, as you probably know for both offense and defense. White said, "The problem is this is my first year here. It was the summer of '83." And he said, "I don't really have the security." Said, "Imagine it's third and one, we're on our own 15 yard line. And it's third and one. And the random number generator says, 'Throw the bomb on this play with a 10% chance of calling up but it'll still be in the mix. And it happens to come up.'" Jeff Sagarin (00:29:23): He said, "It was my eight year here. I used to play these games myself. I know exactly." But then he patted his hip. He said, "It's mine on the line this first year." He said, "It's kind of nerve wracking to do that when you're a rookie coach somewhere, to call the bomb when it's third and one on your own 15. If it's incomplete, you'll be booed out of the stadium." Rob Collie (00:29:46): Yeah, I mean, it's similar to there's the general reluctance in coaches for so long to go for it on fourth and one. When the analytics were very, very, very clear that this was a plus expected value, +EV, move to go for it on fourth and one. But the thing is, you've got to consider the bigger picture. Right? The incentives, the coaches number one goal is actually don't get fired. Jeff Sagarin (00:30:14): You were right. That's what White was telling us. Rob Collie (00:30:14): Yeah. Winning a Super Bowl is a great thing to do. Because it helps you not get fired. It's actually weird. Like, if your goal is to win as many games as possible, yes, go for it on fourth and one. But if your goal is to not get fired, maybe. So it takes a bit more courage even to follow the numbers. And for good reason, because the incentives aren't really aligned the way that we think they are when you first glance at a situation. Jeff Sagarin (00:30:41): Well, there's a human factor that there's no way unless you're making a guess how to take it into account. It may be demoralizing to your defense if you go for it on fourth and one and you're on your own 15. I've seen the numbers, we used to do this. It's a good mathematical move to go for it. Because you could say, "Well, if you're forced to punt, the other team is going to start on the 50. So what's so good about that? But psychologically, your defense may be kind of pissed off and demoralized when they have to come out on the field and defend from their own 15 after you've not made it and the numbers don't take that into account. Rob Collie (00:31:19): Again, it's that judgment thing. Like the coach hung out to dry. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:31:22): Can I say a word about Vic Cabot, that Jeff mentioned? Jeff Sagarin (00:31:26): Yeah, He's great. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:31:27): Yeah. So Vic was the greatest guy any of us in the business school ever knew. He was a fantastic person. He died of throat cancer in 1994, actually 27 years ago this week or last week. Jeff Sagarin (00:31:43): Last week. It was right around Labor Day. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:31:46): Right. But I want to mention, basically, when he died, his daughter was working in the NYU housing office. After he died, she wrote a little book called The Princess Diaries. She's worth how many millions of dollars now? But he never got to see it. Jeff Sagarin (00:32:06): He had a son, a big kid named Matt Cabot, who played at Bloomington South High School. I got a nice story about Matthew. I believe the last time I know of him, he was a state trooper in the state of Colorado. I used to tell him when I was still young enough and Spry enough, we'd play a little pickup or something. I'd say, "Matthew, forget about points. The most important thing, a real man gets rebounds." Jeff Sagarin (00:32:32): They played in the semi state is when it was just one class. In '88, me and Wayne and a couple of Wayne's professor buddies, we all... Of course, Vic would have been there but we didn't go in the same car. It was me, Wayne and maybe [inaudible 00:32:48] and somebody else, Wayne? Jeff Sagarin (00:32:49): They played against Chandler Thompson's great team from Muncie Central. In the first three minutes, Chris Lawson, who was the star of the team went up for his patented turn around jumper from six feet away in the lane and Chandler Thompson spiked it like a volleyball and on the run of Muncie Central player took it with no one near him and laid it in and the game essentially ended but Matt Cabot had the game of his life. Jeff Sagarin (00:33:21): I think he may have led the game of anyone, the most rebounds in the game. I compliment him. He was proud of that. And he's played, he said many a pickup game with Chandler Thompson, he said the greatest jumper he's ever been on the court within his entire life. You guys look up because I don't know if you know who Chandler Thompson. Is he played at Ball State. Look up on YouTube his put back dunk against UNLV in the 90 tournaments, the year UNLV won it at all. Look up Chandler Thompson's put back dunk. Rob Collie (00:33:52): Yeah, I was just getting into basketball then, I think. Like in the Loyola Marymount days. Yeah, Jerry Tarkanian. Does college basketball have the same amount of personalities it used to like in the coaching figures. I kind of doubt that it does. Rob Collie (00:34:06): With Tark gone, and of course, Bob Knight, it'll be hard to replace personalities like that. I don't know. I don't really watch college basketball anymore, so I wouldn't really know. But I get invited into those pick'em pools for the tournament March Madness every year and I never had the stamina to fill them out. And they offer those sheets where they'll fill it out for you. But why would I do that? Jeff Sagarin (00:34:28): I've got to tell you a story involving Wayne and I. Rob Collie (00:34:31): Okay. Jeff Sagarin (00:34:31): In the 80 tournament, I had gotten a program running that would to simulate the tournament if you fed in the power ratings. It understood who'd play who and you simulate it a zillion times, come up with the odds. So going into the tournament, we had Purdue maybe the true odds against him should have been let's say, I'll make it up seven to one. Purdue and Iowa, they had Ronnie Lester, I remember. Jeff Sagarin (00:34:57): The true odds against them should have been about 7-1. The bookmakers were giving odds of 40-1. So Wayne and I looked at each other and said, "That seems like a big edge." In theory, well, odds are still against them. Let's bet $25 apiece on both Purdue and Iowa. The two of them made the final four. Jeff Sagarin (00:35:20): In Indianapolis, I'll put it this way, their consolation game gave us no consolation. Rob Collie (00:35:30): Man. Jeff Sagarin (00:35:31): And then one of the games, Joe Barry Carroll of Purdue, they're down by one they UCLA. I'm sure he was being contested. I don't mean he was all by himself. It's always easy for the fan who can't play to mock the player. I don't mean... He was being fiercely contested by UCLA. The net result was he missed with fierce contesting one foot layup that would have won the game for Purdue, that would have put them into the championship game and Iowa could have beaten Louisville, except their best player, Ronnie Lester had to leave the game because he had aggravated a bad knee injury that he just couldn't play well on. Jeff Sagarin (00:36:11): But as I said, no consolation, right Wayne? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:36:14): Right. Jeff Sagarin (00:36:15): That was the next to the last year they ever had a consolation game. The last one was in '81 between LSU and Virginia. Rob Collie (00:36:23): Was it the '81 tournament that you said that you liked Indiana to win it? Jeff Sagarin (00:36:28): Wait, I'm going to show you how you get punished for hubris. I learned my lesson. The next year in '82, I had gotten a lot of notoriety, good kind of notoriety for having them to win in '81. People thought, "Wow! This is like the Oracle." So now as the tournament's about to begin in '82, I started getting a lot of calls, which I never used to do like from the media, "Who do you got Jeff?" I said confidently, "Oregon State." I had them number one, I think they'd only lost one game the whole year and they had a guy named Charlie Sitting, a 6'8 guy who was there all American forward. Jeff Sagarin (00:37:06): He was the star and I was pretty confident and to be honest, probably obnoxious when I'd be talking to the press. So they make the regional final against Georgetown and it was being held out west. I'm sort of confidently waiting for the game to be played and I'm sure there'll be advancing to the final four. And they were playing against freshmen, Patrick Ewing. Jeff Sagarin (00:37:29): In the first 10 seconds of the game, maybe you can find the video, there was a lob pass into Ewing, his back was to the basket, he's like three feet from the basket without even looking, he dunks backwards over his head over Charlie Sitton. And you should see the expression on Charlie Sitton's face. I said, "Oh my god! This game is over." The final score was 68-43 in Georgetown's favor. It was a massacre. It taught me the lesson, never be cocky, at least in public because you get slapped down, you get slapped down when you do that. Rob Collie (00:38:05): I don't want to get into this yet again on this show. But you should call up Nate Silver and maybe talk to him a little bit about the same sort of thing. Makes very big public calls that haven't been necessarily so great lately. Just for everyone's benefit, because even though I'd live in the state of Indiana, I didn't grow up here. Let's just be clear. Who won the NCAA tournament in 1981? Jeff Sagarin (00:38:29): Indiana. Rob Collie (00:38:30): Okay. All right, so there you go. Right. Jeff Sagarin (00:38:33): But who didn't win it in 1982? Oregon State. Rob Collie (00:38:38): Yeah. Did you see The Hunt for Red October where Jack Ryan's character, there's a point where he guesses. He says, "Ramy, as always, goes to port in the bottom half of the hour with his crazy Ivan maneuvers and he turns out to be right." And that's how he ends up getting the captain of the American sub to trust him as Jack Ryan knew this Captain so well, even knew which direction he would turn in the crazy Ivan. But it turns out he was just bluffing. He knew he needed a break and it was 50/50. Rob Collie (00:39:08): So it's a good thing that they were talking to you in the Indiana year, originally. Not the Oregon State year. That wouldn't be a good first impression. If you had to have it go one way or the other in those two years, the order in which it happened was the right order. Jeff Sagarin (00:39:22): Yeah, nobody would have listened to me. They would have said, "You got lucky." They said, "You still were terrible in the Oregon State year." Rob Collie (00:39:28): But you just pick the 10th rated team and be right. The chances of that being just luck are pretty low. I like it. That's a good story. So the two of you have never collaborated like on the Mark Cuban stuff? On the Mavs or any of that? Jeff Sagarin (00:39:43): We've done three things together. The Hoops computer game, which we did from '86-'95. And then we did the Game Theory thing for football, but we never got a client. But we did get White to kind of follow it. There's an interesting anecdote, I won't I mentioned the guy who kind of screwed it up. But he assigned a particular grad assistant to fill and we needed a matrix filled in each week with a bunch of numbers with regarding various things like turnovers. Jeff Sagarin (00:40:13): If play A is called against defense B, what would happen type of thing? The grad assistant hated doing it. And one week, he gave us numbers such that the computer came back with when Indiana had the ball, it should quick kick on first down every time it got the ball. We figured it out what was going on, the guy had given Indiana a 15% chance of a turnover, no matter what play they called in any situation against any defense. Jeff Sagarin (00:40:44): So the computer correctly surmised it were better to punt the ball. This is like playing Russian roulette with the ball. Let's just kick it away. So we ended up losing the game in real life 10-0. White told us then when we next saw him, we used to see him on Monday or Tuesday mornings, real early in the day, like seven o'clock, but that's when you could catch him. And he kind of looked at us and said, "You know what? We couldn't have done any worse said had we kicked [inaudible 00:41:14]." Rob Collie (00:41:13): That's nice. Jeff Sagarin (00:41:14): And then we did Mark Cuban. That was the last thing. We did that with Cuban from basically 2000-2011 with a couple of random projects in the summer for him, but really on a day to day basis during a season from 2000-2011. Rob Collie (00:41:30): And during that era is when I met Wayne at Microsoft. That was very much an active, ongoing project when Wayne was there in Redmond a couple of times that we crossed paths. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:41:43): And we worked for the Knicks one year, and they won 54 games. Jeff Sagarin (00:41:47): Here with Glen Grunwald. So they won more games than they'd ever won in a whole bunch of years. And like three weeks before the season starts or so in mid September, the next fire, Glen Grunwald. Let's put it this way, it didn't bother us that the Knicks never made the playoffs again until this past season. Rob Collie (00:42:10): That's great. You were doing, was it lineup optimization for those teams? Jeff Sagarin (00:42:15): Wayne knows more about this than I do. Because I would create the raw data, well, I call it output, but it needed refinement. That was Wayne's department. So you do all the talking now, Wayne. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:42:26): Yeah. Jeff wrote an amazing FORTRAN program. So basically, Jeff rated teams and we figured out we could rate players based on how the score of the game moved during the game. We could evaluate lineups and figure out head to head how certain players did against each other. Now, every team does this stuff and ESPN has Real Plus-Minus and Nate Silver has Raptor. But we started this. Jeff Sagarin (00:42:58): I mean, everybody years ago knew about Plus-Minus. Well, intuitively, let's say you're a gym rat, you first come to a gym, you don't know anyone there and you start getting in the crowd of guys that show up every afternoon to play pickup. You start sensing, you don't even have to know their names. Hey, when that guy is on the court, no matter who his teammates are, they seem to win. Jeff Sagarin (00:43:20): Or when this guy's on the court, they always seem to lose. Intuitively since it matters, who's on the court with you and who your opponents are. Like to make an example for Rob, let's say you happen to be in a pickup game. You've snuck into Pauley Pavilion during the summer and you end up with like four NBA current playing professionals on your team and let's say an aging Michael Jordan now shows up. He ends up with four guys who are graduate students in philosophy because they have to exercise. You're going to have a better plus-minus than Michael Jordan. But when you take into account who your teammates were and who's his were, if you knew enough about the players, he'd have a better rating than you, new Michael Jordan would. Jeff Sagarin (00:44:08): But you'd have a better raw plus-minus than he would. You have to know who the people on the court were. That was Wayne's insight. Tell them how it all started, how you met ran into Mark Cuban, Wayne, when you were in Dallas? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:44:20): Well, Mark was in my class in 1981, statistics class and I guess the year 1999, we went to a Pacers Maverick game in Dallas. Jeff Sagarin (00:44:31): March of 2000. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:44:33): March of 2000, because our son really liked the Pacers. Mark saw me in the stands. He said, "I remember you from class and I remember you for being on Jeopardy." He had just bought the team. And he said, "If you can do anything to help the Mavericks, let me know." And then I was swimming in the pool one day and I said, "If Jeff rates teams, we should rate players." And so we worked on this and Jeff wrote this amazing FORTRAN program, which I'm sure he could not rewrite today. Jeff Sagarin (00:45:04): Oh, God. Well, I was motivated then. Willingness to work hard for many hours at a time, for days at a time to get something to work when you could use the money that would result from it. I don't have that in me anymore. I'm amazed when I look at the source code. I say, "Man, I couldn't do that now." I like to think I could. Necessity is the mother of invention. Rob Collie (00:45:28): I've many, many, many times said and this is still true to this day, like a previous version of me that made something amazing like built a model or something like that, I look back and go, "Whoo, I was really smart back then." Well, at the same time I know I'm improving. I know that I'm more capable today than I was a year ago. Even just accrued wisdom makes a big difference. When you really get lasered in on something and are very, very focused on it, you're suddenly able to execute at just a higher level than what you're typically used to. Jeff Sagarin (00:46:01): As time went on, we realized what Cuban wanted and other teams like the next would want. Nobody really wanted to wade through the monster set of files that the FORTRAN would create. I call that the raw output that nobody wanted to read, but it was needed. Wayne wrote these amazing routines in Excel that became understandable and usable by the clients. Jeff Sagarin (00:46:26): The way Wayne wrote the Excel, they could basically say, "Tell us what happens when these three guys are in the lineup, but these two guys are not in the lineup." It was amazing the stuff that he wrote. Wayne doesn't give himself the credit that otherwise after a while, nobody would have wanted what we were doing because what I did was this sort of monstrous and to some extent boring. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:46:48): This is what Rob's company does basically. They try and distill data into understandable form that basically helps the company make decisions. Rob Collie (00:46:58): It is a heck of a discipline, right? Because if you have the technical and sort of mental skills to execute on something that's that complex, and it starts down in the weeds and just raw inputs, it's actually really, really, really easy to hand it off in a form that isn't yet quite actionable for the intended audience. It's really fascinating to you, the person that created it. Rob Collie (00:47:23): It's not digestible or actionable yet for the consumer crowd, whoever the target consumer is. I've been there. I've handed off a lot of things back in the day and said, "The professional equivalent of..." And it turned out to not be... It turned out to be, "Go back and actually make it useful, Rob." So I'm familiar with that. For sure. I think I've gotten better at that over the years. As a journey, you're never really complete with. Something I wanted to throw in here before I forget, which is, Jeff, you have an amazing command of certain dates. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:47:56): Oh, yeah. Jeff Sagarin (00:47:57): Give me some date that you know the answer about what day of the week it was, and I'll tell you, but I'll tell you how I did it. Rob Collie (00:48:04): Okay, how about June 6, 1974? Jeff Sagarin (00:48:08): That'd be a Thursday. Rob Collie (00:48:10): Holy cow. Okay. How do you do that? Jeff Sagarin (00:48:11): June 11th of 1974 would be a Tuesday, so five days earlier would be a Thursday. Rob Collie (00:48:19): How do you know June 11? Jeff Sagarin (00:48:19): I just do. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:48:23): It's his birthday. Rob Collie (00:48:24): No, it's not. He wasn't born in '74. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:48:27): No, but June 11th. Jeff Sagarin (00:48:29): I happen to know that June 11 was a Tuesday in 1974, that's all. Rob Collie (00:48:34): I'm still sitting here waiting what passes for an explanation. Is one coming? Jeff Sagarin (00:48:39): I'll tell you another way I could have done it, but I didn't. In 1963, John Kennedy gave his famous speech in Berlin, Ich bin ein Berliner, on Wednesday, June 26th. That means that three weeks earlier was June 5, the Wednesday. So Thursday would have been June 6th. You're going to say, "Well, why is that relevant?" Well, 1963 is congruent to 1974 days of the week was. Rob Collie (00:49:07): Okay. This is really, really impressive. Jeff, you seem so normal up until now. Thomas LaRock (00:49:16): You want throw him off? Just ask for any date before 1759? Jeff Sagarin (00:49:20): No, I can do that. It'll take me a little longer though. Thomas LaRock (00:49:22): Because once they switch from Gregorian- Jeff Sagarin (00:49:25): No, well, I'll give it a Gregorian style, all right. I'm assuming that it's a Gregorian date. The calendar totally, totally repeats every possible cycle every 400 years. For example, if you happen to say, "What was September 10, of 1621?" I would quickly say, "It's a Friday." Because 1621 is exactly the same as 2021 says. Rob Collie (00:49:52): Does this translate into other domains as well? Do you have sort of other things that you can sort of get this quick, intuitive mastery over or is it very, very specific to this date arithmetic? Jeff Sagarin (00:50:02): Probably specific. In other words, I think Wayne's a bit quicker than me. I'm certain does mental arithmetic stuff, but to put everybody in their place, I don't think you ever met him, Wayne. Remember the soccer player, John Swan? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:50:14): Yeah. Jeff Sagarin (00:50:15): He had a friend from high school, they went to Brownsburg High School. I forgot the kid's name. He was like a regular student at IU. He was not a well scholar, but he was a smart kid. I'd say he was slightly faster than me at most mental arithmetic things. So you should never get cocky and think that other people, "Oh, they don't have the pedigree." Some people are really good at stuff you don't expect them to be good at, really good. This kid was really good. Rob Collie (00:50:45): As humans, we need to hyper simplify things in order to have a mental model we can use to navigate a very, very complicated world. That's a bit of a strength. But it's also a weakness in many ways. We tend to try to reduce intelligence down to this single linear number line, when it's really like a vast multi dimensional coordinate space. There are so many dimensions of intelligence. Rob Collie (00:51:11): I grew up with the trope in my head that athletes weren't very bright. Until the first time that I had to try to run a pick and roll versus pick and pop. I discovered that my brain has a clock speed that's too slow to run the pick and roll versus pick and pop. It's not that I'm not smart enough to know if this, than that. I can't process it fast enough to react. You look at like an NFL receiver or an NFL linebacker or whatever, has to process on every single snap. Rob Collie (00:51:45): It's amazing how much information they have the processor. Set aside the physical skill that they have, which I also don't have and never did. On top of that, I don't have the brain at all to do these sorts of things. It's crazy. Jeff Sagarin (00:52:00): With the first few years, I was in Bloomington from, let's say, '77 to '81, I needed the money, so I tutored for the athletic department. They tutored math. And I remember once I was given an assignment, it was a defensive end, real nice kid. He was having trouble with the kind of math we would find really easy. But you could tell he had a mental block. These guys had had bad experiences and they just, "I can't do this. I can't do this." Jeff Sagarin (00:52:25): I asked this defensive end, "Tell me what happens when the ball snap, what do you have to do?" I said, "In real time, you're being physically pulverized, the other guy's putting a forearm or more right into your face. And your brain has to be checking about five different things going on in the backfield, other linemen." I said, "What you're doing with somebody else trying to hurt you physically is much more intellectually difficult, at least to my mind than this problem in the book in front of you and the book is not punching you in the face." Jeff Sagarin (00:52:57): He relaxed and he can do the problems in the room. I'd make sure. I picked not a problem that I had solved. I'd give him another one that I hadn't solved and he could do it. I realized, my God, what these guys they're doing takes actually very quick reacting brainpower and my own personal experience in elementary school, let's say in sixth grade after school, we'd be playing street football, just touch football. When I'd be quarterback, I'd start running towards the line of scrimmage. Jeff Sagarin (00:53:26): If the other team came after me, they'd leave a receiver wide open. I said, "This is easy." So I throw for touchdown. Well, in seventh grade, we go to junior high. We have squads in gym class, and on a particular day, I got to be quarterback. Now, instead of guys sort of leisurely counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi, they are pouring in. It's not that you're going to get hurt, but you're going to get tagged and the play would be over. It says touch football, and I'd be frantically looking for receivers to get open. Let's just say it was not a good experience. I realized there's a lot more to be in quarterback than playing in the street. It's so simple. Jeff Sagarin (00:54:08): They come after you and they leave the receivers wide open. That's what evidently sets apart. Let's say the Tom Brady's from the guys who don't even make it after one year in the NFL. If you gave them a contest throwing the ball, seeing who could throw it through a tire at 50 yards, maybe the young kid is better than Tom Brady but his brain can't process what's happening on the field fast enough. Thomas LaRock (00:54:32): As someone who likes to you know, test things thoroughly, that student of yours who was having trouble on the test, you said the book wasn't hitting him physically. Did you try possibly? Jeff Sagarin (00:54:45): I should have shoved it in his face. Thomas LaRock (00:54:49): Physically, just [crosstalk 00:54:50]. Rob Collie (00:54:50): Just throw things at him. Yeah. Thomas LaRock (00:54:52): Throw an eraser, a piece of chalk. Just something. Jeff Sagarin (00:54:56): I'll tell you now, I don't want to name him. He's a real nice guy. I'll tell you a funny anecdote about him. I had hurt my knuckle in a pickup basketball game. I had a cast on it and I was talking to my friend. And he had just missed making a pro football team the previous summer and he was on the last cut. He'd made it to the final four guys. Jeff Sagarin (00:55:18): He was trying to become a linebacker I think. They told him, "You're just not mean enough." That was in my mind. I thought, "Well, I don't know about that." He said, "Yeah, I had the same kind of fractured knuckle you got." I said, "How'd you get it?" "Pick up [inaudible 00:55:32]. Punching a guy in the face." But he wasn't mean enough for the NFL. And I heard a story from a friend of mine who I witnessed it, this guy was at one point working security at a local holiday inn that would have these dances. Jeff Sagarin (00:55:47): There was some guy who was like from the Hells Angels who was causing trouble. He's a big guy, 6'5, 300 whatever. And he actually got into an argument with my friend who was the security guy. Angel guy throws a punch at this guy who's not mean enough for the NFL. With one punch the Jeff Sagarin tutoree knocked the Hell's Angels guy flat unconscious. He was a comatose on the floor. But he wasn't mean enough for the NFL. Rob Collie (00:56:17): Tom if I told my plus minus story about my 1992 dream team on this show, I think maybe I have. I don't remember. Thomas LaRock (00:56:24): You might have but this seems like a perfect episode for that. Rob Collie (00:56:27): I think Jeff and Wayne, if I have told it before, it was probably with Wayne. Dr. Wayne Winston (00:56:31): I don't remember. Rob Collie (00:56:32): Perfect. It'll be new to everyone that matters. Tom remembers. So, in 1992, the Orlando Magic were a recent expansion team in the NBA. Sometime in that summer, the same summer where the 1992 Dream Team Olympic team went and dominated, there was a friend of our family who ran a like a luxury automotive accessories store downtown and he basically hit the jackpot. He'd been there forever. There was like right next to like the magic practice facility. Rob Collie (00:57:09): And so all the magic players started frequenting his shop. That was where they tricked out all their cars and added all the... So his business was just booming as a result of magic coming to town. I don't know this guy ever had ever been necessarily terribly athletic at any point in his life. He had this bright idea to assemble a YMCA team that would play in the local YMCA league in Orlando, the city league. Rob Collie (00:57:35): He had secured the commitment of multiple magic players to be on our team as well as like Jack Givens, who was the radio commentator for The Magic and had been a longtime NBA star with his loaded team. And then it was like, this guy, we'll call this guy Bill. It's not his real name. So it was Bill and the NBA players and me and my dad, a couple of younger guys that actually I didn't know, but were pretty good but they weren't even like college level players. Rob Collie (00:58:07): And so we signed up for the A league, the most competitive league that Orlando had to offer. And then none of the NBA players ever showed up. I said never, but they did show up one time. But we were getting blown out. Some of the people who were playing against us were clearly ex college players. We couldn't even get the ball across half court. Jeff Sagarin (00:58:33): Wayne, does this sound familiar to you? Dr. Wayne Winston (00:58:35): Yes, tell this story. Jeff Sagarin (00:58:38): Wayne, when he was a grad student at Yale, and I'm living in the White Irish neighborhood called Dorchester in Boston, I was young and spry. At that time, I would think I could play. Wayne as a grad student at Yale had entered a team with a really intimidating name of administration science in the New Haven City League, which was played I believe at Hill House high school at night. So Wayne said, "Hey Jeff, why don't you take a Greyhound bus down. We're going to play against this team called the New Haven All Stars. It ought to be interesting." Rob Collie (00:59:14): Wayne's voice in that story sound a little bit like the guy at USA Today for a moment. It was the same voice, the cigar chomping. Anyway, continue. Jeff Sagarin (00:59:25): They edged this out 75-31. I thought I was lined up against the guy... I thought it was Paul Silas who was may be sort of having a bus man's holiday playing for the New Haven all-stars. So a couple weeks later, Paul Silas was my favorite player on the Celtics. He could rebound, that's all I could do. I was pitiful at anything else. But I worked at that and I was pretty strong and I worked at jumping, etc. Jeff Sagarin (00:59:53): So a few weeks later, Wayne calls me up and says, "Hey Jeff, we're playing the New Haven All-Stars again. Why don't you come down again and we'll get revenge against them this time?" Let's just say it didn't work out that way. And I remember one time I had Paul Silas completely boxed out. It was perfect textbook and I could jump. If my hands were maybe at rim level and I could see a pair of pants a foot over mine from behind, he didn't tell me and he got the rebound and I'm at rim level. Jeff Sagarin (01:00:24): We were edged out by a score so monstrous, I won't repeat it here. I'm not a guard at all. But I ended up with the ball... They full court pressed the whole game. Rob Collie (01:00:34): Of course, once they figure out- Jeff Sagarin (01:00:36): That we can't play and I'm not even a guard. It was ludicrous. My four teammates left me in terror. They just said, "We're going down court." So I'm all alone, they have four guys on me and my computer like my thought, "Well, they've got four guys on me. That must mean my four teammates are being guarded by one guy down court. This should be easy." I look, I look. They didn't steal the ball out of my hands or nothing. I'm still holding on to it. They're pecking away but they didn't foul me. I give them credit for that. I was like, "Where the hell are my teammates?" Jeff Sagarin (01:01:08): They were in terror hiding in single file behind the one guy and I basically... I don't care if you bleeping or not, I said, "Fuck it." And I just threw the ball. Good two overhand pass, long pass. I had my four teammates down there and they had one guy and you can guess who got the ball. After the game I asked them, I said, "You guys seem fairly good. Are you anybody?" The guy said, "Yeah, we're the former Fairfield varsity we were in the NIT about two years ago." Jeff Sagarin (01:01:39): I looked it up once. Fairfield did make the NIT, I think in '72. And this took place in like February of '74. It taught me a lesson because I looked up what my computer rating for Fairfield would have been compared that to, let's say, UCLA and NC State and figured at a minimum, we'd be at least a 100-200 point underdog against them in a real game, but it would have been worse because we would never get the ball pass mid-court. Rob Collie (01:02:10): Yeah, I mean, those games that I'm talking about in that YMCA League, I mean, the scores were far worse. We were losing like 130-11. Jeff Sagarin (01:02:19): Hey, good that's worse than New Haven all-stars beat us but not quite that bad. Rob Collie (01:02:24): I remember one time actually managing to get the ball across half court and pulling up for a three-point shot off of the break. And then having the guy that had assembled the team, take me aside at the next time out and tell me that I needed to pass that. I'm just like, "No. You got us into this embarrassment. If I get to the point where like, there's actually a shot we can take like a shot, we could take a shot. I'm not going to dump it off to you." Thomas LaRock (01:02:57): Not just a shot, but the shot of gold. Rob Collie (01:03:00): The one time we did get those guys to show up, we were still kind of losing because those guys didn't want to get hurt. It didn't make any sense for them to be there. There was no upside for them to be in this game. I'm sure that they just sort of been guilted into showing up. But then this Christian Laettner lookalike on the other team. He was as big as Laettner. Rob Collie (01:03:25): This is the kind of teams we were playing against. There was a long rebound and that Laettner lookalike got that long rebound and basically launched from the free throw line and dunked over Terry Catledge, the power forward for the Magic at the time. And at that moment, Terry Catledge scored the next 45 points in the game himself. That was all it was. Rob Collie (01:03:50): He'd just be standing there waiting for me to inbound the ball to him, he would take it coast to coast and score. He'd backpedal on defense and he would somehow steal the ball and he'd go down and score again. He just sent a message. And if that guy hadn't dunked over Catledge, we would have never seen what Catledge was capable of. So remember, this is a team th

Chris Williams is back in Iowa and gives his recap of Vegas along with his thoughts on the Cyclones crushing UNLV. Then the boys talk about the Hawkeyes suffocation of Kent State. Many CFP contenders struggled over the weekend and we mix in calls and all things college football.

I thoroughly enjoyed my talk with Dr. Avedesian! We went WAY down the rabbit hole on injuries and sports performance. A lot of our discussion is cutting-edge research from a number of different sources. Jason Avedesian is a post-doctoral researcher at the Emory Sports Performance and Research Center. His research interests include ACL injury, sports-related concussion, and sensorimotor contributions to athlete performance and injury. Jason completed Bachelor's degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Kinesiology from Michigan State University, a Master's degree in Biomechanics from Ball State University, and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences (Biomechanics) from UNLV. For elite performance technology please visit: https://store.simplifaster.com/sku/83/ To purchase the Sprinter's Compendium visit: https://store.vervante.com/c/v/V4081803315.html --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ryan-joseph-banta/support

Jeremy and Matt are back to recap the third week of the exciting week of Mountain West football. The big wins came from Fresno State and San Diego State each getting a win over Pac-12 schools is huge for the conference. Utah State and Wyoming are surprising us in different ways. Colorado State got a win led by its defense but UNLV is still struggling quite a bit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In hour two of BetCenter hosts Ben Wilson and Jeff Parles give continuous updates on the action in the Week 3 slate for college football that includes a heavyweight matchup between Penn State and Auburn plus a high-scoring game between Virginia and North Carolina. Later in the show, the hosts preview a late-game matchup between Iowa State and UNLV. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Ep. 186 - Radio Crew previews UNLVSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Cyclone Radio Network crew previews Iowa State's game at UNLV. John Walters is joined by Eric Heft and Ryan Harklau.

We're back making picks for week 3! Phillip is joined by Chris Ross and Daniel Alexander to make picks for ALL 8 Big 12 games this week. Oklahoma vs Nebraska (09:36) West Virginia vs Virginia Tech (13:55) Kansas State vs Nevada (22:48) Kansas vs Baylor (27:10) Texas Tech vs FIU (31:35) Texas vs Rice (37:32) Oklahoma State at Boise State (42:38) Iowa State at UNLV (51:58) Plus non-Big12 games and our Dog of the Week! Join our weekly Pick 3 contest. Just visit HERE to sign-up at SimBull for FREE and make picks for weekly prizes and a chance at a Grand Prize at the end of the Season! Be entered for two free tickets to a Big 12 game when you sign-up at SimBull, and deposit $25 using the promo code NETWORK12; simbull.app. Save 15% off your first order at Homefield Apparel with promo code NETWORK12. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Leave us 5-stars and a review! Check out all of the Ten12 Network shows! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ten12-podcast/message

Nevada handled Idaho State in significant night at Mackay (10:02). The Pack goes to Kansas State Saturday — Three things to know, keys to a win, biggest concerns, and predictions (18:15). For slants, the Shoup brothers lament the Aces position (35:53), debate Carson TDs vs UNLV turnovers Saturday (42:59), celebrate Nate Cox (58:11), weight Jay Norvell's future (1:04:21), and give bets of the weekend with Paramount Sports Founder Lee Sterling (1:10:52).  To stay current everything on The Reno Slant, follow the brothers on Twitter and Instagram, and online at TheRenoSlant.com.

Now the season truly begins. After a look at the news, we dive into the good, bad, and lingering questions from ASU's win over UNLV. Then we get ready for a ranked road battle. We go behind Cougar lines with BYU insider Mitch Harper of KSL (48:52) for a in-depth look at ASU's opponent. Then we preview the game, give our keys to victory, and share our final score predictions.

On this latest episode of The Sun Devil Source Report Podcast, host Ethan Ryter is joined by site publisher Chris Karpman and reporters Jacob Rudner and Carson Breber as they discuss Arizona State's 37-10 victory over UNLV on Saturday. Covered on this episode: -- Discussion about Jayden Daniels' performance -- Discussion around the wide receiver group and who will step up -- The continued success of the rushing attack with good performances from junior running back Rachaad White and freshman running back Daniyel Ngata -- Whether the offensive line dropped off any in its performance in comparison to the season opener -- The impressive play from ASU's defense in stopping UNLV's positional run game -- Discussion about the defense's early struggles against the quarterback running game and how they were eventually able to stop it -- Shaky play from the Sun Devil secondary early that turned into dominance later -- Team inconsistencies that can still be addressed -- Discussion about the talent of freshman safety DJ Taylor in the return game -- Freshman punter Eddie Czaplicki's continued success in precision punting -- The return of junior kicker Cristian Zendejas

Hi everyone. I hope you are well. I've been feeling quite busy these past few days. Everything seems to be moving too fast. Maybe I'm just getting old. The first week of school felt intense and I'm already preparing for the following weeks. Anyway, for today, I have Sapira Cheuk, an ink painter and installation artist interested in ways of knowing through the body and how these modes of knowledge reflect or internalize external experiences. Sapira got her BA at UC Riverside and an MFA at Cal State Bernardino. She is currently teaching at UNLV, where she has found a welcoming art community in the Las Vegas area. I was connected to Sapira through the Rogers Art Loft and was glad to have learned about her practice. We also talk about Sapira moving to Hawaii from Hong Kong at a young age, Sapira hiding her art career from her parents early on, working in a collaborative project, and our unexpected connection with Zhuhai and the Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Hopefully, we will meet in Las Vegas. In the meantime, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this.Links Mentioned:Sapira's WebsiteSapira's InstagramDancing Together in a PandemicFollow Seeing Color:Seeing Color WebsiteSubscribe on Apple PodcastsFacebookTwitterInstagram

In hour three of BetCenter hosts Ben Wilson and Jeff Parles give updates on the late action in college football that includes UCS vs Stanford and Arizona State vs UNLV. Later in the show, the hosts preview Week 1 of the NFL slate and break down what betting interest they have with each game. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

ASU got off to a good, but imperfect, start to the 2021 season. After a look at the news, we dive into the Sun Devils' 41-14 win over Southern Utah, focusing on the highs, lows, and questions raised. Then we look ahead to Saturday's battle against UNLV. After going behind Rebel lines with Sam Gordon of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, we outline the keys to the game and give our predictions.