The Mo Egger Show w/ Chad Brendel -- 7/5/24

Chad is in for Mo, and he's talking Reds, Bengals, and Bearcats. He chats with Keegan Nickoson, Dan Hoard, and Austin Elmore, on ESPN 1530!

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
And away we go. Happy fifthof July, everybody, it's the Moeger
Show. I am not Moegar.Mo is off today. I'm Chad Brendle
and I'm filling in. Terreen's nothere, but Austin is. So we're
in good hands. It'll be interestingto see how Austin handles the challenge of

(00:37):
the bumper music. I heard yousaid them some bad things about me and
my taste in music, Like,no, no, no, I did
not bad things. It's just differenttastes than mine. You listen to what
you listen to. Everybody has theirown tastes. I don't disparage it,
other than to say it might notget me in the mood to do my
show that if if there was anydisparaging remarks, it might have been that.

(01:03):
But you're the producer, so youget to play whatever the hell you
want. I have to deal withit, right like. It's one of
those Uh, it's like a youngpitcher, right like, he doesn't get
to call his own game. Thecatcher calls the game, and the picture
just has to deal with what thecatcher tells him to do. Right So,
you know you're the full timer here. I'm the part timer. I

(01:23):
just have to follow your lead.Just don't go to country on me.
How was your fourth Austin? Itwas good. It was very very chill.
Play a little yuker, Hello cockouwash the red legs. Yeah,
I enjoy. I was supposed togo to a party. The people hosting
the party committed cardinals sin number one. They postponed their holiday party. That

(01:49):
you can't do that, right likeyou can't postpone your own holiday party.
So then we were left with nothingmuch to do. And I did what
I always doing this waits Austin.I start a fire, smart move hung
out by the fire, had acouple of friends stop by, had a
couple of cold beverages. I savedthe day. At one point, Austin,

(02:10):
we had a little, a little, a little cell moved through right
over the top of the brendle casa. I took the lid and I put
it on the fire, but Ididn't cover the fire all the way so
that some oxygen could still get inthere, and it didn't put out the
fire veteran. And then when thefire or when the rain moved on,
I lifted off the lid and thefire actually was better than it was before

(02:32):
I put the lid on. Wow, so I kind of saved the day.
I saved the fourth of July.Uh yeah, put that on your
resume. I did. I savedthe fourth of fourth of July. Do
I get a banner? I shouldget a banner. We can work on
that all right, But it wasgood. It was a good fourth of
July. Ready for this is aweird like thing. This weekend, right,

(02:55):
it's like a free weekend because itfeels like the weekend has already happened.
We are all we all think it'sMonday. I'm convinced in my brain
it is Monday. When I wasgoing over the Red Series in my head,
I was thinking the games were playedon Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
So when I was referencing in myhead Game one, Game two,

(03:15):
Game three, like, oh,that was the game on Friday, Wait,
damn it, it is Friday.When that means that game would have
been on crap Tuesday. It's it'snot good. It's it's messing with all
of our heads. But you know, we're working our way through it.
The Reds sweep the Yankees. Howabout that? Didn't have that on your

(03:38):
baseball bingo card? With as inconsistentlyas this team has played, especially in
games two and three of a series, and a fantastic in Game one.
But they go to New York andlook, if we're being honest with each
other, if we're in the trusttree here, that is not a Yankees
team that is playing to what theirrecord indicates right now now. But guess

(04:00):
what, that's okay. You areallowed to play teams when they're in a
little bit of a downturn. It'sone hundred and sixty two game season.
Nobody but the Big Red Machine isgoing to stay hot for one hundred and
sixty two games. So you're goingto play some teams that maybe aren't playing
their best baseball at the time thatyou play them, Then what is your

(04:21):
job? Beat that team? Andthat's exactly what the Reds did. So
I don't want people you hear thisor Charlie talk about it. I've seen
it on Twitter a bunch, heardCharlie talk about it on the Old Sincy
three to sixty program. And it'snot that I disagree, but talking about

(04:43):
the record when the Reds played theYankee or you know, the Reds record
against the Yankees, the Dodgers andthe Phillies. That that's not really fair.
Do we then start talking about allthe times that they've pooped down their
leg against bad teams. No,like that, that's not the standard you
hold a team too. But overone hundred and sixty two games, here's

(05:05):
what is important. Coming out ofthat three game set in New York over
the weekend, you now have ninegames between now and the All Star Break,
nine games, and those nine gamesare all at home. And those

(05:26):
nine games are against the Tigers,the Rockies, and the Marlins. Sorry,
it's ten games, my bad,four games against the Rockies, ten
games that you have a chance.Now the Reds are three games under five
hundred three, that's it. Fouras choppy and at times frustrating that this

(05:53):
team has been, they have managedfor the most part to tread water.
You now have a golden opportunity goinginto the All Star Break to put yourself
back in the picture, to gointo the break the unofficial halfway point.

(06:15):
Since we reached the halfway point lastweek or beginning of this week, I
don't know. Again, I'm notgood with days right now, but you
have a chance to go into thebreak maybe a little below where you ultimately
thought you were going to be onJuly fifteenth, but also not that far

(06:38):
off, not that far off.If this team can muster a seven and
three, they would go into thebreak one game over five hundred. That's
not asking for anything ridiculous. That'sasking for them to beat three teams that

(07:00):
on paper, they should be betterthan. That's asking them to hold serve
at home and play well coming offof a series where you just swept the
Yankees in New York. And ifthey can do that, then the conversation
starts to turn. Then you canstart looking a little bit more optimistically into

(07:26):
that back half of July when playresumes on the nineteenth from the All Star
break. After this ten game stretch, it's pretty rough. It would be
nice if you were able to buildyourself a little bit of wiggle room right
here, because while you've got Tigers, Rockies, and Marlins over these next

(07:49):
ten days coming back from the break, you have Nationals, Braves, Rays,
so you have to be careful youdon't give it back. And those
three series, along with the Cubsat home to end the month, and
then those three series are all onthe road, by the way at Washington

(08:09):
at Atlanta at Tampa Bay. Washington'snot great, but Atlanta very good.
And Tampa Bay is always a teamthat's tough to be because they're well constructed.
So that's what we're going to findout, really what this Reds team
is about. The other reason thatI'm a little bit weary or on alert

(08:37):
for what happened in New York asthis team did something that's uncharacteristic to this
team, and that's hit a bunchof home runs. This is not a
home run hitting roster was not builtthat way. Remember this is we are
reimaging the Reds into a speed team, into a team that you know,

(09:01):
takes the extra base and moves runnersand scores from you know, second and
goes first to third as often aspossible, and a team that leads the
majors, or at least they didat one point this weekend. Do they
still lead the majors and steels Autie, I believe they do. I know
they. I know at one pointthis weekend they took the lead. I

(09:22):
didn't follow the other teams at thetop close enough to know if they still
haven't, but either way, yeah, they lead the Brewers by six at
the moment. That's pretty impressive fora team that doesn't get on base.
You know, it's not a teamthat's hitting the ball exceptionally well, but
they're still being aggressive and staying trueto the style. But I guess my

(09:43):
question is, does what you sawthis weekend maybe make you long for the
days where can we get one ortwo of those power guys in the lineup?
Can we get a corner outfield orthat smacks thirty five forty home runs
a year? Because I do thinkyou don't have to go completely one way

(10:05):
or the other. You can bea team that likes to keep the ball
in play and be aggressive and putthe pressure and still have a couple guys
in your lineup that mash home runs. Because let's be honest, they don't
sweep that series in New York withoutthe long ball. It was almost exclusively
the extent of the runs that theyscored. And sure, Christian Carnacion Strand

(10:31):
is not here for the rest ofthe year. He's not coming back.
They just gotten Ael v Marte backand he is still clearly rounding into form.
But that you know, they havegone this shortstop, middle infielder construction

(10:52):
of the roster and drafting guys thatthey feel have the athletic profile to be
moved around. That's all fine anddandy, but you know what, the
shortstop profile does not include a lotof power. Are there a couple short
stops with big power? Yeah?Is it a position traditionally that you look

(11:15):
at and think of like you thinkof first base, third base, right
field, left field. No,it's not. And what you're seeing I
think with this team when we haveseen the offense struggle is you're not seeing
that ability for one swing to takecare of a win. And we saw

(11:39):
that a couple times in New York. I mean, what did they have
for the series nine hits? Ithink it was what two on Tuesday and
three or four on Wednesday that theywere not It was not the Bugs Bunny
cartoon where the guys are just dancingaround the bases. I know I always

(12:05):
date myself when I make pop culturereferences, but yes, I grew up
watching Bugs, money whatever. Soit would be nice watching this reds evolution
of this core maybe include a littlebit more power, a little bit more
consistent power, and not just hey, that guy's probably gonna hit fifteen home

(12:30):
runs this year. I hope they'reall timely. It's not really how it
goes. We've got some good stufftoday. Kegan Nickoson from Bearcat Journal is
going to join us here in aboutfifteen minutes. Keegan is off Monday to
Las Vegas, where I think thehigh on Monday is going to be projected

(12:52):
to be the hottest day in thehistory of Las Vegas. Can you imagine
that the hottest day in the historyof a place that's hot all the time?
One hundred and eighteen degrees, Butit's a dry heat. It's fine.
It's not hot at all. There'sno humidity, so one eighteen really
isn't isn't all that bad. AsI told Kegan when he tried to tell

(13:15):
me that, go stand out onthe pavement or find some blacktop and stand
there for three or four minutes andsee how your shoes react to It's fine.
We also be joining the five o'clockHour by Dan Hoard talk a little
Bengals and talk some Bearcats, andhis new UC podcast. First episode came

(13:35):
out last week with Steve Logan.I know they've got a bunch of really
good stuff in the works, includingJosh Harrison, former bear Cat that will
be on shortly as well. We'regonna talk a little Bengals in the five
o'clock hour. And my topic,my Bengals topic today is pretty simple.

(13:58):
When is this next group? Soyou know, I kind of separate Bengals
drafts into two groups at this point. The first group Joe Burrow t Jamar
Chase. That group that was allselected when the Bengals were terrible, quite
frankly, and they were drafting inthe top five, and they had all

(14:22):
the advantages of getting guys, youknow, the best guys available at the
top of every round. And thenthere's the next group when they started to
win, and the question becomes,when are we going to start seeing those
guys become the key names at thetop of the roster because time is running

(14:46):
out on that group a little bit. You know, this will be year
year three for the guys that weredrafted after the Super Bowl run, and
those guys contracts are coming up fairlysoon. It is time for those guys
to become top of the roster guys, for those guys to become guys that

(15:07):
are the reason the Bengals are winninggames. But if you look back,
the majority of this roster are guysthat were drafted in those drafts where they
were picking early, or the teamsadjusted philosophy on free agency where they have
done a really good job going outand getting effective guys in free agency to

(15:30):
continue moving listening forward. But that'snot long term sustainable. Some of it
has to come from the draft,and we need to see that next group
because I think that's the problem we'vehad with Duke Tobin and this scouting department
in this front office is when they'vehad the chance to draft early, they

(15:56):
have knocked it out largely, theyhave knocked it out of the park.
When they're drafting in the twenties,the high twenties into thirty thirty one to
thirty two, it's been a grabback. There has not been nearly the
level of success. How did thePatriots stay on top forever? They were
effective at Tobacco drafts, and thatgoes for anybody that has sustained success in

(16:21):
the NFL. Kansas City it hadwhat they felt like was going to be
running back issues. Then they goin the back of the draft, they
get a running back. All ofa sudden he becomes a star. The
Bengals have to start hitting there andalso with Inner Miami No Messy but Inner
Miami coming to town this week.I'm curious your opinion on where the casual

(16:44):
fan is for FC Cincinnati, becauseI think that's the next step, right.
They have a very loyal fan baselocally, and they are one of
the best teams in the league goingon a second year in a row.
Are the casual fans starting to bepulled along, because if they are,

(17:07):
you can see the sport growing inthe city. If what they're doing right
now is still, you know,struggling to get that buy in from the
casuals, then it's going to bedifficult long term. Even though they have
all the things that you need inplace right now. To continue to be

(17:30):
a factor, You've got to getthe rest of the city to buy into.
Let's take a break more after this, Since that he's ESPN fifteen thirty,
Cincinnati's esp You are perfect? Areyou just gonna mess with me all

(17:52):
day? Lost? I'm sorry tothe people that listen for the the stylings
of Tarren Bland on the ones andtwos, but you Austin's aut He's gonna
make it difficult for you today.You know, Chad a week from tomorrow.
I'm gonna be seeing this man,Clint Black in concert in person at

(18:15):
Country Concert in Fort Laramie, Ohio. Very much looking forward to that.
And in the meantime we're just killingtime. I mean, that was so
country radio. That's the most countryradio thing I've heard of. The listening
too country hits right here at wc K. Why are you are you
a poker guy? Audie? Iused to be a poker guy. Did

(18:37):
you start talking like that? Knockit off? Turn the music off.
Sorry, I can't help them music, can't help myself. You're listening to
w c K y country hits.The The World Series of Poker main event
is ongoing right now, really yeah, the big one. And I saw
a guy I think it was Wednesday. It was first hand to the tournament

(19:00):
Austin, first hand to the tournament. He's got pocket tens. A ten
comes on the flop, so he'sgot a set of tens on the first
hand, and the turn is aneight, so the board pairs eights,
so now he's got a full housetens over eights. Feeling pretty good about

(19:21):
yourself? Firsthand right river comes nothingand the guy that he's he's playing against
goes all in odd right, firsthand to the tournament. We're shipping it
first hand. Yeah, pocket eights. Oh the guy on the first hand
of the World Series of Poker tenthousand dollars, he played one hand and

(19:45):
lost a full house tens over eightsto quad eights. Oh? Now,
how how do you recover from that? That's a tough scene. How do
you recover? How does your brainallow you don't? I mean I was
playing yukre yesterday and we were upat one point, I think twenty to
one, and we lost, andI didn't sleep last night. How could

(20:10):
you? Yeah? Why did youhave twenty? Uker only goes to ten?
Buddy? We played bid? Weplay real, real Yuker. So
you play spades, play bid?Yeah, I don't know what spades.
You don't know what spades is.Spades is is it's yugre with the whole
deck and then you have to callout how many tricks are going to get?

(20:30):
Oh? Okay, And so you'replaying that's not ker, it's it
is. It's bid Yuker. It'sa variation of where I come from.
Chad here on w C K wyckon the hits. That's bid Yuker is
what that is, and that's whatwe played yesterday. I've never heard of
it, and I've played yukre mywhole life. I've never heard of spades.
If you oughtn't to, well,I mean the difference being spades you

(20:52):
have you have the whole deck.Yeah, we don't play the whole deck.
Okay, you play uchre cards,but correct spades rules. Right,
there's no kiddie, right, yeah, all right, let's let's take a
break. Keegan Nickolson getting ready tomelt in Las Vegas next week for Big
twelve Media Days a Legiance Stadium.Nobody does it bigger than the Big twelve

(21:17):
Austin, Nobody more after this Cincinnati'sesp In fifteen thirty. The silence speaks
volumes, Cincinnatisy. Here we go, rolling along. It's today after a

(21:42):
holiday. Do you like like aThursday Wednesday or Thursday fourth of July Austin.
Uh, yeah, if I takethe rest of the week off,
yeah we didn't, Yeah, wedidn't. We're here, so now it
just feels like like there was aweekend and now today is a whole work
week. And somehow I'm supposed toadjust my brain to believe that tomorrow is

(22:03):
Saturday. Are you working all weekendjust on Sunday? Okay, extra inings?
Yes, that's fine, Yeah youcan. That's it's like having the
weekend off, right. You justcome in and talk baseball for a couple
of us. That secret. Nobody'slistening. It's fine. We are joined

(22:25):
now by none other than Ace Beat, reporter for Bearcat Journal dot com.
One of the only good things aboutthat site I hear. I hear a
lot of bad things about the ownerof that place, But Keegan Nickoson,
I hear a lot of good thingsabout And if you're wonning, we are
almost a football season. You wanthow close we are? Next week is

(22:48):
big twelve media days in sunny LasVegas high of one hundred and eighteen coming
up next week for Keegan Nickison.Keegan, how have you been preparing for
the sweltering heat in Las Vegas nextweek? I'm trying to find a way
to pack ice or dry ice inmy bag and carry it with me the

(23:11):
entire week. But I don't thinkthe TSA is gonna allow that to happen.
Are you gonna get it? Areyou gonna get one of those little
fans like the portable handhound fans gonnaget like a frog towel. I'm gonna
have like cool underwear and shirts andstuff. So I'm trying to figure it
out. Lucky for you, youwill be at a Legion stadium for most
of the time. Yes, yes, I'm going to be pampered that entire

(23:36):
week that I'm there, So I'mdefinitely not complaining. I joke around with
it because we know Audie is aBig ten guy, but the Big Twelve
does go above and beyond for situationslike this. I mean, like you
were in Dallas last year. Likethe food that they serve you down there
as as a member of the mediais akin to going to a restaurant,

(23:57):
very expensive restaurant every day, likeevery meal. Like that. They do
it right in the Big Twelve.Yeah, I mean, that's one of
my favorite things about covering the BigTwelve is they like to they like to
show everyone that they're not the soand so or so called little brother of
college football or college sports. Youknow, they're not trying to just secede

(24:21):
to the the Big Ten and theSEC. So it's always it's always a
great experience being able to be atbig events like that and especially you know,
JayR World is awesome and the leadingstadium is going to be awesome.
But the cities they go to alwayshave a lot to offer. But I
will say, I mean the Bigten they don't. They don't you know,

(24:44):
they don't lack like the ACC andSEC. They just go to a
hotel ballroom that they they run outLucas Oil Stadium every season. So they're
doing good too. So Austin cancompete with us on that. I'm not
even going there. I'm not evenI'm not even going in the middle of
that war. Uh, Cincinnati,the media poll came out, UH,
Cincinnati predicted fourteenth. Honestly, forme, sounds about right. Like you

(25:10):
want to you want to prove thatyou're better than what you showed last year,
that you're better than one in eightin the league. Go win some
games, Go win some damn games, and then you know what they'll do
next year, they'll talk about youdifferent if you go prove that you're you're
better than fourteenth. The only teamsbelow them are Houston, who they beat
last year, and Arizona State,who is just a dumpster fire of a

(25:34):
situation. Uh. If you wantto be top ten in the league.
If you want to be top sixin the league, if you want to
be top four in the league,go win games and and then and then
people will respect you and vote.Do you agree? Do you see it
differently? I think that's the onlyway to see it in terms of,
you know, the media poll andand how the rest of the country looks

(25:56):
at Cincinnati. They have to lookat last season and kind of copy and
paste that to this year, whilealso giving a courtesy look to all the
additions that Cincinnati made. But withthose additions, they only brought in a
few guys that you know, everyonecan look at and be like, Okay,
that's plug and play. They're betterthere, and those guys should contribute

(26:18):
and make Cincinnati better. A bigchunk of their additions out of the transfer
portal were guys who have good toolsthat are rather unproven because they played at
the FCS level or the Group offive level, and you see was able
to get them on campus. SoI think if you see is right about
a lot of those guys who havea little bit of risk with them just

(26:41):
because they're unproven, they're going tobe able to surprise a lot of people
because they brought in a lot ofthat kind of talent and they're expecting them
to contribute a lot. But youthink, you know, Kai Stokes and
Evan Pryor from Ohio State and thenJared Bartlett and Derek Canteen are kind of
those few guys who or just youknow, tried and true plug and play

(27:02):
day one that everyone can look atyou see and say, you know,
he did a really good job gettingthem out of the transfer portal and they
should be able to help you thisupcoming season. From what you saw in
the spring and from from what they'veadded offensively, what do you anticipate season
one looking like for Brendan Soursby asthe quarterback of this this program. Yeah,

(27:26):
I kind of see it being Ithink it's going to be a good
year for him, but I thinkit's going to come with some bumps along
the way. I think he onlyplays at one level and that's like eleven
out of ten. You know,he plays a super aggressive style of football
at the quarterback position. He likesto stretch the field, he likes to

(27:48):
extend the pocket, he likes totry to make plays downfield, and we've
even we've seen him take on fourdefenders at once in a running game and
plow through them for a touchdown likehe did against Illinois. But this kid,
he showed a lot of flashes atIndiana last year, beat Wisconsin,
almost went on the road to Pennstateon won with some different coaching decisions there

(28:12):
at the end of that game.I think Indiana might have come out on
top of that one and then putup I think forty five points of Illinois
and put up a lot of offenseat Purdue. But his issue was he
threw a few too many interceptions insome of those games. But that's going
to be a product of the aggressivestyle he plays. So you see fans,
I think that they're going to likewhat they see in terms of stretching

(28:33):
the field, taking shots downfield.But you know, with his style,
he's going to make some throws thathe's going to regret. Kind of like
the Josh Allens of the world,who just you smash all the buttons at
one time and just try to makea play. I think that's kind of
what Brendan Swerzy is expected to be. If you look at his analytics.
The one area that he really didstruggle with was pressure and being able to

(28:57):
get things done when the pocket iscollapsing, which is a bit of a
concern because guess what, this wasan offensive line that allowed a lot of
pressure last year. Are they goingto be able to overcome that both on
the line and through hopefully some somecreative play calling that that you know,
keeps Soresby from being a statue inthe pocket, because I think that was

(29:22):
a lot of the issue, ormuch of the issue we saw with Emray
Jones last year is once he reallygot kind of rattled at that pressure,
he knew the pressure was coming,he was never the same quarterback. They've
got to figure that out this year. Yeah, I think I mean this,
this offense starts at the running game, and I think everyone knows that
Corey Kiner is coming back. Yougot the same offensive line, a better

(29:45):
offensive line coming back. Because itsounds like there's going to be some competition
for that last tackle spot because youknow, they got zager Lozawicki out of
the transfer portal and a guys likePhillop Wouder and Judea Milana really impressed that
car well so far. So there'sgoing to be some competition. So this
offensive line has a lot of depth. They're expected to play eight to nine

(30:07):
guys, so there should be alot of fresh faces and fresh legs throughout
the game. But I think Storesbyopens it up for the running game so
much, and the running game opensit up for Storesby so much, so
I think it's definitely going to bebetter. But like you said, I
mean, Cincinnati finished eighty first andsacks allowed last season in the NCAA with
twenty seven sacks allowed, So that'ssomething that and that was with the quarterback

(30:32):
that Forte was running like escaping sacks. Yes, but he also ran way
too early and got himself into troublewhen his first read wasn't there. Sure,
So I think Doorsby's pocket presence andawareness is one of the better things
about him, and that's that's somethingthat he's going to provide that Cincinnati didn't
have. So they're going to havemore opportunities to make plays. I think

(30:56):
that's overall a plus compared to lastseason. But you know, he's offensive
linemen. They want to prove something. They weren't happy with how last season
happened and how it turned out.That's why they decided to come back.
And now they have a quarterback thatthey can kind of play their best for
real quickly. On the basketball front, a little bit of a reshuffling of

(31:18):
staffers towards the middle of the roster, if you will. On West Miller's
coaching staff, you have Bill Comercome in as the director of operations,
a veteran well the the assistant tothe head coach or I forget exactly what
the title the game it is,it's operations. He's running operations. And

(31:42):
then you have Tim Buckley come inas an assistant coach, replacing Leffler,
Josh Leffler. And then you haveJake Thielen being replaced by Jalen Stowe,
who was in a g Wes Millerearly in his time here. What is

(32:04):
your take on kind of the newlook staff, even though you know Wes
and Andre Morgan and Chad Dollar andDrew Adams are all still around it,
there's been some change. Yeah.I haven't been able to get in the
Coma or Stowe a lot. Ithink Stowe kind of provides that young coaching

(32:24):
energy that Steeling had, and Ithink you kind of need those roles on
your coaching staff to try to,I don't want to say relate to the
guys more, but it bridge thegap. A younger face bridge the gap.
Yeah. But in terms of Timbuck Bluckley, you know, I
sat down with him and I'm planningon publishing the story later tonight or early
tomorrow. I think he's a fantasticaddition. And I think what a lot

(32:50):
of people don't know about him isthat he was the person who helped recruit
Dwayne Wade de Marquette under Tom Creanand then Cody Zeller and Yogi Ferrell to
Indiana when he was a Cream aswell. And initially he came on to
Cincinnati and he was in that leftlerrole of you're not going to recruit a
lot, You're just go You're gonnado more basketball stuff, game day stuff,

(33:12):
strategy stuff. But now with thisnew NCAA role where all six coaches
can recruit with four going at onespecific time, I think that's a huge
move for Cincinnati to get such atalented and seasoned assistant coach that can help
on the recruiting trail who's shown alot of success in his ability to recruit
some big time players. But Ithink fans should be excited because his nicknames

(33:35):
was shot Doctor and that's their numberone bugaboo with this team last year was
that they make shots. And nowthey bring in the guy who earned Indiana
from a bottom two hundred team inthe country in three point shooting to four
of his nine seasons in Bloomington theywere top ten and three point shooting.
So I'm really looking forward to whathe does with guys like Dan Skillings,

(34:00):
maybe even Dayda Thomas. And thenDayda Thomas can shoot thirty six thirty seven
percent from three. He's going tobe a massive player on this team,
whether he's a starter, whether he'scoming off the bench, because of what
he provides defensively. I did geta look at Buckley working with data a
little bit on his shot what wasthat Wednesday? And you can tell just

(34:23):
listening to Buckley like teach shooting.There's a reason Indiana made the jump that
it did. Like that. He'sreally really good at understanding the mechanics of
it. All. Right, man, enjoy Vegas. I should be there,
but apparently being a dad is important. So I've got to stay home
and I am sending you instead.Do not get like, do not have

(34:46):
like a heat stroke or anything.Okay, stay cool, I'm going to
try not to. I'm not golfing, so that shouldn't be an issue.
Okay. If you need to buyone of those little handheld fans and you
can, you can build me forit. Okay, Okay, I gotcha.
Keegan nickoson Bearcat Journal. Thanks brother, we'll talk soon. Save travels.
There you go. Let's take abreak more after this. Since nat

(35:07):
He's ESPN fifteen thirty. I wasrear ended on my way home from work.
Now my back hurts. The insurancecompany doesn't care. Does anybody care?
Okay, okay, now you're talking, Audie. Come on, Chad,

(35:30):
Audi. Do you know it's aNational Bikini Day? I'm aware of
it. Yeah. I saw thathashtag and I went to click it in
the off in the studio, andI was like, I probably don't do
that on the company wi FI.I probably shouldn't have. I probably shouldn't
do that, so I didn't,But it's there, the hashtag National Bikini
Day. I got a message froma listener says Austin, you should do

(35:55):
the entire segment with your country voice. I could do that. And this
from Marty Marr and he also sayshe's starting to think I grew up in
a house with a couple of brothers. I only listened to old school West
Coast rap and I play spades,I'm invited to the next cookout. I
listened to more than West Coast hiphop. I listened to Outcast, I'm

(36:16):
down with the South, and thenit's some East Coast but definitely more more
West Coast based, because that waswhat was popular in the mid nineties,
early nineties, mid nineties. Sothat's what I grew up on. Look,
let's be on suburban white kids grewup on hip hop in the nineties.

(36:36):
That's what happened. So you're gonnaget a bunch of forty year olds
that listened to hip hop growing up. I think I told you the story
Austin my brother one time. Ithink Kelsey was like nine, ten years
old, and she was listening tosomething my brother didn't approve of. And
my brother's given my younger brother atthat has given me the lecture on you

(36:57):
can't her listen to that music atten year years old, I said,
Nate, we were listening to NWAat ten years old. Whatever she's listening
to is not anywhere near as bad. We were listening to two Live crew
when we were that age. It'snot the same calm down, relaxed Junior.

(37:21):
Yeah, but I think I could. I could. I could do
the cookout. Like my cooking isready for the cookout. There's no question
that you are cookout eligible and cookoutready, Chad. Before we end the
hour, can I give you aquick Reds update? Yes, just moments
ago coming down. The Reds todayannounced the following transactions. They have placed
on the ten day injured list catcherLuke Mayley he has a herniated disc in

(37:45):
his back. They have placed onthe Family Medical Emergency List outfielder Jake Frayley.
They have selected from Triple A Leuisfull catcher Austin Wins and infielder Edwin
Rios who and they have designated forassignment Levi Jordan. I didn't even I
didn't even get time to dislike LeviJordan. Yeah, as he related to

(38:06):
Montelle. No, but one gamehe played like Michael he did. Yeah,
Michael for the Birmingham Barons. Michael, No, no, no,
Mike Jordan from the Chicago bull Ithought you med Triple A or Double A,
you know what. Actually, probablyMike Jordan with the Washington Wizards.
That probably yeah, alright, let'stake a break. Hour number two coming
right at your phone. Mines areopen all hour by one, three,

(38:27):
seven, four, nine, fifteenthirty. This is Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

(39:00):
This report is sponsoring bio. Therewe go our number two. Since
that he's ESPN fifteen thirty. ChadBrenda and from Lager. Find me on

(39:22):
Twitter at Chad Brenda. You canbuy me bearcat journal dot com all over
the Internet. I've kind of beenignoring the exclusive content on my Only Fans,
Austin, but I'm gonna get backto that here soon. Oh.

(39:47):
As Austin mentioned, I tried toget away from the Only Fans conversation.
That's why I'm down here today andnot down the hall. You've brought it
up again. I just in passingin passing. As Austin mentioned. At
the end of the last hour,a couple reds transactions. Luke Mayley with
a herniated disc in his back onthe ten day injured list, Jake Fraley

(40:14):
Family Medical Emergency List, so heis out. And then they selected from
TRIPAA Louisville Austin wins Catcher and infielderEdwin Rios while designating for assignment Levi Jordan.
David Bell, just speaking to themedia said Frehley had a family emergency.

(40:37):
This via Joe Danoman. MLB hasthis roster move available to us.
They've utilized that. He said Jake'sdaughter is fine, which is very good
news, and then also said theyexpect to have Luke Maylee back right after
the All Star break, which meanswe should see Luke Mayley next sometime Opening
Day next year. I would havebeen Opening Day twenty twenty five. Yeah,

(41:00):
geesh, it's sad that we haveto make that joke. I wish
we didn't have to make that joke. But guess what we do. Uh,
we don't have don't believe we havea lineup yet, do we?
We do have a lineup. Yeah, if you'd like that, I can
give that to you. I wouldlove it. All right, Here's how

(41:22):
the Reds will line up. We'lldo a little taste of Sincy three to
sixty. Here. It'll be Indiaat second, leading off Ellie day La
Cruz bats second. He plays shortstop. Jamer Candelario bats third. He's the
DH The first baseman is the cleanuphitter. Spencer Steer, Nick Martini bats
fifth. He's in left. TylerStevenson bats sixth. He's the catcher tonight,
no Lvi Marte will bats seventh andplay third base. Will Benson bats

(41:45):
eighth, He's in right, andStuart Fairchild bat's ninth. He plays center
tonight. Carson spires on the moundfor Cincinnati once more India de la Cruz,
Candelario, Steer, Martini, Stevenson, Marte, Benson, fair Chew
with spires on the map. Butit's it's weird looking at Reese Olsen's stats

(42:08):
for the year, isn't it thestarter that the Reds face today? He's
two and eight is a three thirtytwo ERA. Pretty good to be two
and eight sixteen starts The wild thingfor me. In his last seven games
his ERA is four eighty one,But in his last three games he's gone

(42:32):
eighteen and a third and given upfour runs. So there are some wild
swings with Reese Olsen this year.But I have to think this is probably
going to be a lower scoring game. We've not We've seen spires be really
good and be able to limit opponents. This Tigers offense is it's not great,

(42:58):
and Olsen has done a good job. Even though he's not getting in
the win column. He has hehas kept the Tigers around far more often
than not. Is that a couplebad out If you look at a couple
of his starts. On June seventh, he gave up eight earned runs in
four innings against Milwaukee right and thengave up four earned runs his next start
in five innings against the Nationals.Then after that he shut out the Atlanta

(43:21):
Braves in six innings. It's prettygood. It's a it's quite a stretch
for rees Oulsen, big right handersix' one one sixty rees olsend.
Frankie Montas, what's the difference?Yeah, there you go. That's through
their facing tonight, Frankie Montas.It'll be interesting Austin to see what they
take from this weekend series against theYankees. The main thing for me being,

(43:47):
it's amazing what happens when you playpretty clean baseball, when you're not
looking around, going what in theworld are these guys doing. When you
elevate your concentration because you're playing theYankees in Yankee Stadium, your senses are
heightened. This happened I think whenthey went to play La and Chavez Ravine,

(44:10):
and the attention to detail is alittle tighter. And the understanding is
there's less margin for error, soyou better be on top of your game.
And then that happens and you're winningclose games in really tough, hostile
environments. Why in large part becauseof things like we saw on Tuesday.

(44:36):
What happened on Tuesday? You askReds go into the ninth inning, bottom
of the ninth with the one runlead, Alexis Das comes on Austin.
If you had the chance to bet, does Alexis d As walk the first
batter he faces? How many timeswould you place that bet? All of
them? Well, you know,eventually you start losing money because I think

(45:00):
anytime he comes into the game hisfirst better result odds to walk are about
minus two fifty, right, Andas is every other reliever in the bullpen.
They did it three times yesterday,yes two days ago, two days
ago. So the thing that Diazdid was he came in facing eight nine
and one in the Yankees lineup downa run. If you let somebody get

(45:24):
on base, if you mess aroundand allow the Yankees to get to Wan
Soto and to get to Aaron Judgethere's a better than decent chance you have
lost the game, or at leastthey find a way to tie the game
with their two best hitters, andnow you're going into extra innings in Yankee
Stadium in game one of the series, and who knows how much different the

(45:45):
weekend looks. But you know what, it didn't feel like we had a
bunch of I do I think fairChild through to the wrong base once are
he threw home and allowed a runnerto go from first to second when he
had no shot at the play toget the guy. But we didn't see
a lot of that. We didn'tsee a lot of sloppy base running where

(46:08):
a guy gets thrown out at homeby fourteen steps and you're scratching your head
going what just happened. We sawthem play smart, mostly fundamentally sound baseball,
and they got good pitching and theydidn't blow their foot off defensively at

(46:30):
any given point in time. Andthe end result is getting wins in a
tough environment to put you back ina position to play your way into contention
again. And that's what's going tohave to continue. That's what is going

(46:51):
to take this team from losing onerun games to winning one run games.
Because it's fine and dandy to beaggressive, but if you're sloppy, you're
not being aggressive, you're being stupid. There is a fine line, but
running yourself out of innings, givingaway outs, walking the first batter,

(47:17):
if you're a bullpen guy coming intothe game, all of that little stuff
over one hundred and sixty two gameseason, if you're not good at those
very simple basics, knowing how manyouts, where are the runners, who's
batting, who's in right field?Do they have the arm to get a

(47:39):
guy out trying to score from second? And then they also had some pop,
and that is not something this teamhas consistently flashed. Home runs were
the deciding factor, I would sayin every game in that series. When

(48:05):
you look down the list, it'sthree guys with double digit home runs.
Ellie with fifteen, Candelario with fourteen, Steer with eleven, Benson nine,
nobody else more than six. Indiaand Stevenson have six. I get it.

(48:30):
Christian and Karnacia and Stram was supposedto be here to provide some pop.
Noel Vie Marte just got here.He's supposed to provide some pop.
But this is an offense right now, that doesn't do a great job getting
on base. They hit for alow average, and they don't drive the

(48:51):
ball out of the ballpark. Iam afraid that while what we saw a
Yankee Stadium was great, that philosophyfor this team is not sustainable. It's
not a team with multiple thirty homerun guys. I mean, they're at

(49:14):
the halfway point. They only haveone. They're past the halfway point.
Ellie's the only guy on pace forthirty and one of the smallest ballparks in
America, Great American small park.They, as they know it, there
has to be some kind of balance. You know, you look at the

(49:34):
Braves. What do the Braves have? They have speed, they have aggression,
they have all those things that theReds want to have, right and
then they also have quite a fewguys that can pop the thing out of
the yard at any given moment toturn a one nothing deficit into a two
or three to one lead. Wesaw what it looked like this weekend if
the Reds had more of that,because they controlled those games by hitting the

(50:00):
ball out of the ballpark. Iunderstand wanting to be more sustainable offensively,
playing a little bit smaller, playingwith a little bit more speed, not
trying to be a Beer League softballteam like the Reds had for two decades.

(50:22):
But it doesn't have to be oneor the other. There is a
happy medium. You have nine spots. You can have guys with speed mixed
in with guys with power. Icheck the rule book on my way in.
That is allowed. It does nothave to be one of the other.
So hopefully the Reds are taking noticeof what happened this weekend at Yankee

(50:45):
Stadium and saying, going forward,we're going to make life easier on ourselves.
There's a couple guys that can justdrive it out of the ballpark.
Phone lines are open for the restof this hour, So if you want
to talk some Reds, give mea call. If you want to talk
some Bearcats football, basketball, whatever, Bengals. Like I said, we're

(51:07):
gonna get to the Bengals in thefive o'clock hour, figuring out what this
next wave looks like of young guystrying to make a name for themselves,
because for some of them, theclock is ticking and it's time for them
to produce, not just for themselves, but if this Bengals team is going

(51:30):
to take the next step. Allthat and more plus Dan Horde coming up
at five to twenty more after this. Since Anty's ESPN in fifteen thirty Cincinnatis,

(51:51):
I thought we were making progress,Audie. I mean, it's a
good to feel good kind of tune. But it doesn't Does this hide Tony
up when you play it for him? Uh? He ignores most of the
music I play. That's how Ido this. I do this for me.

(52:12):
How is your guys working relationship?Do we need to get you guys
in counseling? No, you've beenyou've been married a long time now,
the two of you. Uh huh. It's it's very much a big brother
little brother thing. Okay, butI think it's a good, good working
relationship. But he doesn't pay anyattention to you. No, he does,
He doesn't. He just doesn't carethat much about the music. He's

(52:35):
not as musically inclined as as Icorrect. That's fine, that's fine.
Yeah, I've been trying to teachhim for almost four years now how to
hit the post. Yeah, hejust he purposely doesn't do it. That's
something that bothers me. I tryto teach him to be a better broadcaster.
It's something else broadcast professionals learned howto do at a very young age.
Right, It's one of the firstthings you learned. Right. Uh,

(52:59):
Tony never went to broadcasting school.He was a dumb jock. So
well, he's a jock. I'mjust kidding, Tone, I'm trying to
incriminate you. The good news isit's on this show, so it would
find him much easier if it wason his own show. Correct. So

(53:20):
here we're kind of bury it.We bury the lead a little bit.
Let's get to our guy, Dickand Dayton Dick, what's going on?
My brother? How are you?Hey? How are you? Chad?
I like what you and Boston we'retalking about the Reds. I was starting
to worry when they're in their slump, But now they're just producing and looking
pretty good, aren't they? Theyare. The problem is there's still and

(53:45):
some of this is definitely because ofthe injuries. There's just gonna be some
inconsistencies with this team that you're you'regonna have to deal with. But as
long as the starting pitching stays solid, if they can just be a little
more crisp Dick, they can bea little tighter. I think they can
make a little noise at least whenit comes to like a wild card spot.

(54:05):
They're not catching the Brewers. Yeah, you know, I'm thinking this
year it's gonna be. Hopefully hedoesn't get hurt. I know he's been
practicing, but it's gonna be.I say down to Joe Burrow this year
because I don't know. Is theirschedule pretty rough this year? The Bengals,
I haven't seen it. Uh,not nearly as rough as they picked
a good year to be fourth inthe division? Oh did they could?

(54:29):
The other three I think have threeof the five, three of the four
toughest schedules in the NFL coming intothe season. So yeah, they caught
a little bit of a break there. But you know, Joe's gonna have
to The thing is they'll be asgood as the defense allows them to be.
I think, yeah, Hey,you know what, if you want

(54:50):
bumper music, I got a CDor little It's called The River Boat rants
in Ohio. You and you andTony and Austin would like it. It's
got Bill Bailey and Slow Boat toChina, Rocky Top. I would have
send it up there, you know, I mean Tony doesn't even pay attention.
So Austin could play whatever he wanted, and I don't think Tony would

(55:12):
know the difference. Yeah, youknow, I'm music. I've been I've
been lost this week, you know, because of the holiday, But I'm
back tomorrow. I'm going to ajam and then the rest of the I
played four days a week. Austinand and Chad, how about that?
How about that? Dick? Goodwork? Yeah? Well, I like
maybe sometime you could hear me play, you know, absolutely, We'll give

(55:34):
it a shot, sending that bumpermusic. Have a good day, Thanks,
have a good day, Dick.Would you play Dick and Dayton's bumper
music? Austin absolutely. He playsthe banjo with the Kettering Banjo Society,
he does. We talk about itmany times. You think the same birthday
as Pete Rose. Do you thinkTony would notice if you started playing some

(55:57):
stuff from from Dick and Dayton's band. I don't think think he would know
it's Dick and Dayton, but hewould certainly notice the banjo. Okay,
Yeah, he would come up withsome story and picking and grinning, right,
yeah, he would. He wouldsay something like that for just the
one, like the one phrase heknows to make it sound like, you
know, he knows what he's talkingabout. That's that makes sense. That's

(56:21):
about right. All right. Phonelines are open through the rest of this
hour. We got Dan Horde comingup in the five o'clock hour, Austin,
I'm gonna lean on you heavy inthis next segment. Oh boy,
I f C Cincinnati Okay, they'vegot a big game coming up. We
need to discuss f C Cincinnati righttheir game within her Miami Game of the

(56:42):
Century. People are calling it yeah, but I am. I'm curious about
your feelings on how the common fanhas reacted over the past two years to
this becoming one of the premier franchisesin Major League Soccer. I think it's
it's fascinating as we head into itgame of this magnitude, even though Messi's
not gonna be here. Just takea break. Phone lines are open five,

(57:06):
one, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty. This
is the home of the Bengals.Sincati Sports Station ESPN fifteen thirty. Killing

(57:28):
me out more? Are you gonnagive me? Are you gonna do this
again? We're the last segment youplay. You play something for me to
like It's like a golfing right whereyou go out and you have a horrible
day, but you hit that oneshot six inches from the pen and it
like it. You're just dangling thecarrot. I'm Pavlov's dogs right now for
you. Uh No, I'm reallyjust kind of having fun playing whatever I

(57:52):
want to play. Your son,never mind. Chad Brendle in for moeger
Mo will be back on Monday.I assume is Terran coming back Monday too?
I think so Terren's actually here rightnow, which you know has me

(58:12):
confused. I'm very confused. Butyeah, I believe Moor. I believe.
Yeah, they're both here. Okay, yeah. Uh. At the
Cincinnati big one for the Orange andBlue on Saturday as they they play Inner
Miami. That's a home game,right, yes, yes, Uh.

(58:34):
The they trail Inner Miami by twopoints. Uh. The points per game
are identical. Uh. Inter Miamihas played one more game, so a
little bit better points scoring. Theirtheir defense is not as good or is
not not as good as Cincinnati's defensewas when healthy. Does this concern you

(58:55):
at all? Austin Inner Miami andColumbus the two teams sandwiching Cincinnati and points
Miami being two points ahead, Columbusbeing nine points behind. They have much
stronger gold differentials than FC Cincinnati andMiami's gold differentials. Nineteen Columbus is eighteen

(59:17):
f C Cincinnati's gold differential even thoughthey're they're fourteen and four fourteen four and
three, to be exact, theyonly have an eleven goal differential. No,
I don't find it all that concerning. They did certainly get off to
a slow start offensively, and Ithink that's where a lot of that comes
from. They've kind of been planningat a better pace as of late.

(59:39):
You know, I think the backend of the defense, that back line,
all those injuries, is going tobe a challenge for the rest of
the year unless they go and makea move, and especially if Miles Robinson
gets called up to the Olympic team. So if that's the case, I
think that they're going to have todo something to shure up the back end
of the defense. But their offenseis humming right now and they're figuring out

(01:00:02):
ways to score goals and I thinkthat'll increase as long as the defense is
stabilized well, And I mean that'sthe thing is even like the defense is
not going to be as good asit was with two of your best players
out, so you're gonna have tobe a little bit more aggressive offensively.
And it seems like they've understood theassignment at least. Oh yeah, yeah,

(01:00:22):
And I think Luca Origano coming inplaying a role. Kevin Kelsey coming
in, it's kind of taking someof the weight off the shoulders of Luciano
Acosta and just kind of opened thingsup for him, and you're seeing them
bear the fruit of that. SoI'm curious. You're you're a big FC
Cincinnati fan. You've been that wayfor since the inception, right, You've

(01:00:44):
been a FC guy. Yeah,I mean I really like soccer. Yeah,
I don't know that. I'm I'mnot the most well versed, but
I like, yeah, yeah,you're a fan. You a fan,
You a fan. Sorry. Yeah, it's a little, a little not
like us, Austin, Okay,I know, right over your head,

(01:01:07):
yep. How do you think thecasual sports fan in Cincinnati is progressing?
As FC Cincinnati has become one ofthe premier, like highly run organizations in
the MLS. Does it feel likeyou're seeing because I think we've established they

(01:01:30):
have a loyal thirty forty thousand fanbase that's going to fill TQL Stadium and
and you know, makes them oneof the better franchises in the MLS.
I'm just curious what you read ison how we're seeing the casual fan kind
of adjust to FC Cincinnati going fromexpansion franchise to one of the best franchises

(01:01:54):
in the league. Yeah. Ithink you know that there are there was
a lot of people that gave FCCincinnati a shot and they liked it,
and now they pay a lot ofattention, and now they're close and now
they've been retained. Yes, Ido think that happened a little bit when
the Reds and all the other thingshappened with Phil Castellini. But the Reds

(01:02:16):
did get some attention back on themlast year, and I think some people
just generally are more interested in that. And there is always going to be
this kind of I don't know,like this hesitation towards being a soccer fan.
I still think a lot of peopledon't quite understand it or don't like,

(01:02:38):
you know, the amount of foulsthat are called with the way players
act when they're fouled, and Iget all that, but the fact of
the matter is what they have donecannot be ignored. No, I'm curious
winning a supporter Shield and being aperennial contender for MLS Cup and running your

(01:02:58):
organization as well as any team inMajor League Soccer and better than a lot
of teams in the other major professionalsports should be respected. I just don't
know how much people know or realizehow good they are at what they do.
Yeah, I do wonder. Ithink you touched on part of it.
I think we just still have apretty large chunk of the population that

(01:03:22):
doesn't know soccer, so in orderto tune in and become a die hard
fan, they have a lot ofwork to do. Although I'd argue I
deal with a lot of people regularlythat are football and basketball fans that might
not have the most football and basketballacumen when discussing said things, So maybe

(01:03:44):
it doesn't matter. But I mean, growing up as a kid in America,
like you have a basic understanding Ithink of football, basketball, baseball.
I do think there's still a learningcurve with soccer on It's hard to
root for a sport where you don'tknow the basics. I went through some

(01:04:04):
of this when my daughter started playingvolleyball. I didn't know volleyball. Like
I knew the basics, right bumpsthat spike play volleyball as a kid,
get the serve over the net andthen try to win the point. But
I didn't know the rotations. Ididn't know the strategy. I didn't know
you know, the different formations.What's a five to two, what's a
six' one, what's you's what'swhat does it mean when you use two

(01:04:28):
setters or two liberos or like allof that stuff. I have had to
like kind of work pretty hard tofigure out over the last two years.
I think that is something that socceris still kind of fighting in this space,
don't you Yeah, I think so. And I always tell people that
if you the best way to fallin love with it is to go to

(01:04:53):
a game and see it in person. I think it is such a more
enjoyable sport in person, where youcan see the whole field, you can
have a better understanding of what teamsare trying to do in the styles,
and see the formations and really kindof have a respect for the ability that
the people have or the players have. It's really easy to fall in love

(01:05:17):
with it when you go to gamesand want to follow it afterwards. But
it is a relatively simple sport whenyou think about it. Yeah, I
think the best way people always askI don't really know what off sides is
or this, that and the other. I mean, the best way to
describe off sides that I was toldwhen I was just getting into soccer is
imagine you start to play in footballand the receiver is lined up behind the

(01:05:42):
safety, right, so like whenthe ball is snapped, the receiver's already
passed the safety. That's like theeasiest explanation of off sides to be And
I was like, oh, okay, I get it now. And I
just think there's people that also justdon't have any interest in opening up their
heart or their time to a newwhich is a shame because it really is
a great sport. And we haveone of the best teams in the country.

(01:06:05):
Well, I find it funny becausethis team has been starved for a
winner, right, and I don'tsince that ground swell that I kind of
expected for when they got good.Yeah, like you have. The die
hards are the diehards, and kudosto them, Like they have been out
in front of this thing, youknow, for a long time and and

(01:06:25):
put a lot of time and sweatequity into making this thing what it is.
I just it's just interesting, likeseeing kind of the it's not water
cooler talk right, like they havenot gotten to the point where they're the
Reds are the Bengals or or yousee or Xavier, and that's going to
take time. I'm not expecting inyou know, four or five years all

(01:06:48):
of a sudden like they're they're consistentlytalked about. But guess what, right
now, there't anybody that wins isat the clip that they are. Joe
Burrow doesn't win at the clip thatthey are. Yeah. Uh, did
you see before I take a break, did you see this story out of
South Korea? Austin. I can'tsay that I did. Uh. So

(01:07:10):
there was a robot administrator in SouthKorea that they it does like uh,
you know, paperwork, and itworked a year. It worked a nine
to five job for a year.You know what it did, Austin,
What did it did? It threwitself down a flight of stairs and killed
itself this week, Oh my gosh. Oh no. The robot was one

(01:07:32):
of the first such creations to behired by the Mayor's office. It's been
helping employees with daily documented delivery,advertising and providing information. Yeah. It
started uh circling in one place forsome time before jumping, indicating that something
had gone wrong. Wow. Eveneven the robots are like, ah,

(01:07:55):
this nine to five thing? Yeah, what's that say about that? I
don't know about this? It saida lot. Let's throw myself down the
stairs, take a couple of phonecalls when we get back. Cincinnati's ESPN
fifteen thirty and this week's markin youfound Terrence Friday playlist? Oh, no

(01:08:24):
words? No, this is fromthe Alex Eagan playlist. That's why there's
no words. Yeah, I meanit's a classic Michael Jackson jail singing it
in my head right now. Cincinnati'sESPN fifteen thirty. It's the Moeggers show
rolling along Fredeman and Jones on baseball. Here in a couple of minutes,

(01:08:47):
let's talk to my guy Mike inlike Los Angeles. Mike, how are
you this wonderful Friday. I'm hangingin there. Good postpone my hostice and
my friend is my old veteran friendis drive. We've got a map of

(01:09:08):
Guy Pieri's restaurants. You there,you go in California, Arizona, and
Nevada. So that's what we're doing. Yeah, forces at the bottom of
my list right now. I don'tmuch care about any of it. But
what cracked me up when I caughtthe beginning of the show was you were
going off about empty bottles of bourbonor something I did. So what people

(01:09:33):
do back here, mic is theyjust buy bottles of bourbon and don't drink
them. They just sit them thereto look at. If I buy a
bottle of bourbon, it's to drink. I don't buy it as a souvenir.
That's what my dad used to sayabout a car. He'd say,
you got three cars in the garage, you drive one? What? What?

(01:09:56):
What? What's the point? Right? Why are you gonna buy a
Why are you gonna buy one hundreddollars bottle of bourbon and not drink it?
I'm with you, man, Soyeah, that's that's the popular thing
around here. Like if you cometo my house, there might be some
bottles of bourbon, but they're allgoing to be open and in different states
of me getting to the bottom ofit, not on display for you to

(01:10:19):
look at. How much I spentfor a bottle of bourbon that I'm not
gonna drink. Get out of here. So it's a little show off.
Yeah, really, that's what itis, Austin. Don't be so quiet,
Austin. You make me nervous whenyou don't say this is not his
show. He doesn't want to talk, Well, he's tough. He can

(01:10:41):
get through it. I gave anopen invite to talk. He just is
like, I'm good. I talkedthe first three hours. You don't want
to talk to me anyway. SoHey, I don't really have anything else
to say, Chid, but Iwas going to ask you a favor.
Okay, if Austin, If Austingives you my phone number, can you
give me a call. I gotto get your advice on a couple of

(01:11:02):
things I'm dealing with right now.Yeah, you could like messing with it
and only at your convenience. Okay. I tonight, I have to go
straight from here to a party thatwas supposed to be yesterday, but they
got scared of the rain and theycanceled the fourth of July party. Mike,
can you believe that that's sad man? But I'm sure a lot of

(01:11:26):
people had a bummer night last night. No, it was gorgeous. It
was the weather was perfect. Yeah, it didn't even rain. Everybody got
scared that it might rain, andit didn't even rain, Mike, kind
of like with these imminent snowstorms thatdon't happen. Oh, they had.
There was a They sent the kidshome from school this year on the fear

(01:11:47):
that there might be a tornado,Like they closed all the schools in Greater
Cincinnati because there might be a tornado. I also wanted to ask you too
when you call about I need tocontribute to a charity in Cincinnati, and
I just don't know. I'm loston it. So I thought maybe you

(01:12:09):
could give me some good advice onthat and maybe even help me with it.
So if you get a chance,give me a call. Austin stet
my number. No, I'll giveit to you. What were gonna say,
Austin, I was gonna say tworeally good ones, Sam Hubbard Foundation
and Meals on Wheels. I knowTony's gonna be doing some work coming up
with the Sam Hubbard Foundation. Theyhelp with supplies hygiene products and stuff for

(01:12:30):
kids at schools and stuff. Somaybe that's one to start. Thanks Austin.
Yeah, I've been donating to theCovenant House for the homeless teenagers back
in Cincinnati for a long time.Awesome, and I just can't imagine a
homeless teenager. Yeah, I'm nottrying to throw a damper on the show.
But anyway, all right was greatthis weekend swept the Yankees. I

(01:12:54):
really don't know how that happens.I know, hey, how long has
how long is? And I'm doinga boy on his name ship the first
base and the Yankees great first basementfrom the Cubs? How long is that?
He's played some? But he's outright now. I'm not sure Austin's
given me the music to get outof here. Mike, Okay, well,
well I'll give you a call.Okay, we'll talk soon. Thanks,

(01:13:16):
Thanks Bell, all right, thereyou go. That's uh Brenhaman and
Jones on baseball. Up next Sincinnati'sESPN fifteen thirty. Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
Traffic from the uc Health Traffic Center. The University of Cincinnati Cancer Center

(01:13:36):
is opening the most comprehensive blood centerin the nation. The future of cancer
is here called five one, three, five eight five uc CC Watch out
for some slower traffic that's causing onfive minute delay on southbound seventy five between
Shepherd Lane and Paddack Road. Andyou should know that both east and westbound
Mac Road between South Gilmore Road andWildwood Drive is currently closed due to an

(01:13:59):
accident. I'm Nicole with traffic.Here we go, ripping through the afternoon
hour three The Moeger Show. I'mI'm not Moegar, I'm Chad Brendle.
Moa is off today, probably somewherenear the water. Good for him.

(01:14:33):
We've we've spent a lot of timeon the Reds over our number one.
We're gonna transition to the Bengals firstoff, though the Reds are back in
action tonight. First pitch. Rememberno balley sports tonight. This is on
an Apple TV. Chance for theReds to get showcased out to the nation.

(01:14:59):
You have Carson spires for the Reds, Reese Olsen on the bump for
the Tigers. Spires to and onewith a three thirteen era. He has
been outstanding since being put in thisrole. Olsen two and eight, But
don't let that deceive you three thirtytwo eer. The good news for the

(01:15:21):
Reds is he throws right handed,so that should help some Let's get to
the Reds lineup for today, ifyou will. First a couple transactions.
Luke Mayley herniated disc in his back. He's on the ten day injured list.
We will see him at spring training, probably that they say that he

(01:15:46):
should be back and ready to goafter the All Star break. Jake Frayley
placed on the medical emergency list handlingsome issues with his daughter. But where
it is, she's okay, juststandard procedure. I feel you, Jake.
It sucks, man, trust me. I know. The Reds selected

(01:16:10):
from TRIPAA Louisville Austin wins a catcherand infielder Edwin Rios they designated for assignment
infielder outfielder Levi Jordan Austin, youdo a great job with the lineups.
Do you want to do the lineup? Yeah? I can do the lineup
if you want me to do thelineup. I mean, it's one of
the things that you really knock outof the park. On Sincy three to

(01:16:31):
sixty, it kind of feels likea sarcastic comment. I don't know if
that's now it's being genuine or not. I think sometimes with the way that
this lineup has gone this year.The sarcasm is inherent. Sir Chantna City
connects Friday at Great American Ballpark againstthe Detroit Tigers. Here is how your
Cincinnati Red Legs will line up.First pitch seven to ten on seven hundred

(01:16:55):
WLW and on Apple TV. Youcan listen to the broadcast and watch it
syncd up at the same time thanksto our good friend David dy Armbruster,
among others. Leading off, playingsecond base, Jonathan India. The second
batter is the shortstop, Elie dLa Cruz. Jamber Candelario bats third.
He's the d h. The firstbasement and cleanup pitter is Spencer Steer.
Nick Martini bats fifth, he playsleft. Tyler Stevenson catches in, bats

(01:17:19):
sixth. Noelvie Marte will be thethird baseman. He bats seventh, batting
eighthan and right field Will Benson.Stuart Fairchild bats nine, he plays center,
and Carson spires on the mound.Once more for Cincinnati, it's India,
Dela Cruz, Candelario, Steer,Martini, Stevenson, Marte, Benson,
Fairchild with Spires on the mound.I think like I think if Jose

(01:17:43):
are using need of a day off, like I think you could. You
could. I would love to dothat. I used to do pa,
I used to do it as well. And uh, it's a there's an
art to it, and you arevery good at it. Thank you.
That is not sarcasm. That isnamed genuinely appreciating your craft, sir.
Thank you. Seven to ten tonight, Reds and Reds and Tigers. And

(01:18:05):
look, you got ten games beforethe All Star break. You got a
chance to do something. You gota chance to take momentum into the break.
It starts tonight against the Tigers atGreat American Ballpark, Bengals talk.
You brought up something that is alongthe same lines as what I'm going to

(01:18:27):
talk about. Austin during Sincy threesixty and that was in an ESPN article
looking at the young core for youknow, a lot of the top teams
in the NFL. I think itdid every team, But who cares what
the young core looks like? Forthe bad ones? The Houston Texans being
at the top of that list,the Bengals were, you know, bottom

(01:18:49):
third almost in young core And alot of that Austin I think is reflected
when can you just simply do somethinglike, pull up the roster and look
from ages twenty twenty four back.You know, I think twenty four is

(01:19:11):
kind of considered that. Like,I think for the most part, maybe
you can you'll disagree with me onthis. If you're gonna make a splash
in the NFL, generally it isknown by age twenty four twenty five.
You think that's fair. You don'tsee a lot of guys in the NFL
that like they're twenty seven, youdo. You see a lot in baseball

(01:19:32):
because baseball their prime is a lotdifferent than the prime in the NFL because
of the physicality of the league.I think generally by that twenty four age
range, guys have shown themselves thatthey've got a chance to be really good,
or they've shown themselves that they're goingto be a bench guy, or

(01:19:53):
you know a guy, a specialteams guy, a guy that you know
maybe deserves his spot but is notgoing to be playing Pro Bowls, or
you know, being a starter anda key component on a team that wins
a championship. Let's look at byage. Can you tell me if you
think this is a problem age twentyone? They got two guys that are

(01:20:15):
twenty one Cedric Johnson defensive end,and Amarius Mems. I think everybody looks
at Mems and says, hopefully,this guy is going to be a big
piece of who we are going forward. Players that are twenty two. Not
a ton of these either, andsome of this remember the extra COVID year

(01:20:41):
that was granted to everybody in footballhas kind of pushed the entrance age back
a little bit. I would thinkin terms of you know, guys and
in il you can stay an extrayear in college if you're projected to be
a later round pick, maybe getmore money in college than you would on
that first NFL deal, and thengo in a year later. Twenty two

(01:21:03):
year olds on this Bengals roster.Jermaine Burton, I think everybody believes he
has a bright future if he doesthings right and shows that he has the
work ethic that maybe people questioned incollege. Jackson, McKinley, McKinley Jackson,
Sorry, Chris Jenkins, Trey Mosley, Miles Murphy. Year two,

(01:21:27):
we'll see. Those are the guysthat are twenty two, twenty three.
Eric all Dehijon Anthony, I thinkI got that right. Jordan Battle,
big year for Jordan Battle, JustinBlaizek, Noah Kaine, Elijah Collins,
Dax Hill. Very big year forDax Hill. I think if Dax Hill

(01:21:49):
is going to make a splash,it needs to be in year three.
PJ Jules, Matt Lee, AustinMcNamara, Josh Newton, DJ Turner.
Not a lot of names in thattwenty three group that you look and say,

(01:22:09):
man, this franchise is counting onthose guys going forward. And then
twenty four year olds Chase Brown,Cole Burgess, Jackson Carmen. Is he
gonna be here on opening day?We'll see Aaron Casey, Jamar Chase.
That one goes without saying, MichaelDowell, Alan, George cam Grandy,

(01:22:35):
Trey Hill, Yoshavas, dj ivyEvan McPherson, Joseph Osai. Josephi is
only twenty four. Doesn't it feellike he's been on the Bengals for like
seven years now around? Isn't thatcrazy? Cam Taylor Britt cam Sample.
The point being, yes, thereare some guys scattered in there, but

(01:22:59):
there's not a lot of guys thatyou consider. I mean, in that
group, how many guys Austin aretop of the roster guys Jamar Chase,
Cam Taylor, Britt This Bengals team, even though they've done a great job
of not getting too old, they'regetting older and it doesn't feel like there's

(01:23:23):
a whole lot in that younger groupthat is ready to bust out. That's
it's such an important year for ChaseBrown, for Yoshabash, Jermaine Burton,
you know, if he can comein and capitalize on a situation where you
know there's there's not a direct likethis guy is the replacement for Tyler Boyd.

(01:23:44):
But you don't see a lot ofof youth in the trenches, which
I think is concerning. They've triedand Miles Murphy and Joseph Asi this is
obviously at two different stages in theirtheir contract status, but a massive year
for both of them because guess what, Hendrickson and Hubbard aren't getting any younger.

(01:24:09):
That the pass rush has to startcoming from somewhere else to supplement what
those guys are doing. The secondarygot destroyed last year in large part because
they turned it over to the youngguys, and the young guys weren't ready
yet. And now you're going toenter into this next phase probably after this

(01:24:30):
year with Joe and Jamar both makingmassive dollars, what did the Kansas City
Chiefs have to do when they allthe money went to Chris Jones and Pat
Mahomes and Travis Kelce. They hadto rely on what they were able to
do in the draft to supplement thetop of the roster stars. And guess

(01:24:56):
what happened. They leaned on thoseyoung guys, and those young guys have
turned into a really, really gooddefense for the Kansas City Chiefs. That
has to happen here, that's thenext step. That's the progression that these
Bengals need to take. And unfortunately, we don't have a lot of knowns

(01:25:19):
in that group. We have alot of maybes. We have a lot
of I'm waiting to see, Wehave a lot of He's been given a
lot of chances. Joseph Asiba hasn'tbeen able to stay healthy to take advantage
of him. That group has gotto at least put a dent in this

(01:25:41):
question that I have on what thenext wave looks like for the Cincinnati Bengals.
And what that wave does is determinesyour star power going forward, because
you're not going to be able topay everybody once you pay Joe and Jamar,
you're not going to be able tojust dish out you know, these

(01:26:02):
massive contracts left and right for guysthat you want to keep at the top
of the roster. The only wayto do that and stay relevant and continue
to win is to continue to hiton the young guys and their development through
your draft classes. We think there'sa lot of talent scattered in throughout that

(01:26:25):
group, but the next step isshowing that they belong. Dan Horde speaking
of the Bengals, Voice of theBengals, Voice of the Bearcats. Coming
up next, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Since up not hip hop, but

(01:26:54):
I like this song, Pardi.I can roll with this. Cincinnati's ESPN
fifteen thirty The Moagger Show. ChadBrenda in for Molager Austin Elmore on the
ones and twos. He probably didn'twant to talk as much as I've had
him talk today, but he's beenan excellent addition to the show. Let's

(01:27:15):
keep it moving and talk to oneof my favorites and the voice of the
Bearcats. The voice of the Bengalsand the host of a new podcast for
the Cincinnati Bearcats, none other thanthe Great Dan Horde. Dan, how
are you, Chad? I'm great? How are you? I'm doing good.
I've I had a Fourth of Julyparty yesterday that got postponed, Dan,

(01:27:36):
So I have to go to aFourth of July party when I leave
the studio today. You think aboutthat. That's I extend the holiday as
long as possible. Plea to doanother one on Saturday if you can.
Yeah, But if you have aFourth of July party, you don't cancel,
right, You power through and youhave the party. Because it ended
up being great. Yes, itwas it canceled because of weather, or

(01:27:59):
was it canceled because of something else? Because of weather, fear of a
thunderstorm, But it didn't have gotchalike a school cancelation because it might snow
right right exactly. And then oneof those so I made. I made
mac and cheese, like a lotof mac and cheesecause they're supposed to be
like forty people at this party.And now the mac and cheese is at
the party without me, and I'mnot going to get there until the mac

(01:28:20):
and cheese is all gone. Dan. That's where you need Kelsey to,
you know, put a plate asideto make sure that you do not get
left out of your gourmet mac andcheese. I'm sure it's good. I
know you like to cook. Yeah. I added a new secret ingredient this
year, condensed milk. Condensed milkmake it, yeah, a little sweeter,

(01:28:42):
little creamier. You know. I'mkind of weird where mac and cheese
is concerned. We are completely goingout the rails, by the way.
I'm just interview. But that's fine. I do not like I do not
like really cheesy mac and cheese.I like it on the dry side,
so not you know, not bonedry, right, But I don't want
noodles swimming in cheese, right.That does not appeal to me at all.

(01:29:04):
So hopefully your gourmet mac and cheeseis at least somewhat on the dryer
side. Well there's I don't likeit swimming like I don't. I don't
like it soupy. The key iswhen you make it, you let it
sit for a little bit and thenoodles will absorb some of the moisture and
then it's it's not as soupy.That makes sense and something now in this

(01:29:25):
case, because it was made foryesterday and won't be consumed until today.
Sometimes that allows it to be alittle bit dryer as well. Yes,
so a day to arrest. Sothis might turn out perfectly for you if
I, if I get a chance, if I if anybody saves me some
I'll take a picture and send itto you. All Right, I'm good.
Let's talk about the check it out. Thank you. Let's talk about
the new podcast. Give us someof the inspiration and the thought process behind

(01:29:51):
this. You're talking to you seelegends, members of the athletic department,
members of student athletes and coach andpeople from across the spectrum. What was
the thought process going into this thing? Well, you see, had a
podcast several years ago called Behind thebear Cats. It was generally hosted by

(01:30:12):
Matt Noonan. I did a fewof the episodes, but there were changes
in the sports information department, therewere changes in the video department, and
that podcast just kind of disappeared,and I felt that it's kind of been
a glaring weakness ever since that wedidn't have one. Internally, I know
that Zach sit felt the same way, and I think we both had the

(01:30:34):
desire to not only bring it back, but after seeing what the Kelsey brothers
have done and what a good podcastslash video cast. Looks like that was
kind of the inspiration. So Zachreally kind of took the lead role in
making it happen, and we've takedseveral episodes. Only one has come out
so far, but as you mentioned, we're going to try to get a

(01:30:55):
little bit of everything, So SteveLogan was our first episode. We've done
it with Kevin Hub, Josh Harrison, We've had some current UC athletes like
Mason Fletcher. Taped one a fewdays ago with soon to be olympian a
net at Chicawoke who has an incrediblestory to tell as she goes to Paris.
So it's been great so far.I've really enjoyed taping them and hopefully

(01:31:16):
people got to kick out of thefirst one with Steve Logan. It's pretty
cool how college athletics departments are evolvingin that space because they've always played it
pretty Most of them have always playedit pretty safe in that space. Not
that this is like risky or anything, but it's good to see some evolution
there because there are a lot ofstories to highlight that not everybody can get

(01:31:41):
to. Nobody knows those stories betterthan the folks inside the Athletic Department.
Yeah, and the opportunity to dothem face to face. You know a
lot of podcasts out there, manyof them are great, but they don't
necessarily have the ability to get thesepeople in front of cameras in a studio
and a well lit, good lookingenvironment. We have that opportunity, and

(01:32:03):
at least so far, the planis to do them all in person,
So the ones that we've recorded sofar have been done that way. Maybe
down the road will consider doing someremotely. But it's been great so far,
like I said, and I'm prettysure the next one comes out next
week, although I'm not sure whichepisode is due to be released next week.
The personal experience I have is ifyou're going to if you want to

(01:32:25):
do them all in person, don'thire a staff that all lives out of
town. Makes a little tougher.That does make it a very challenge.
I've got him in Indie, atleast that it's not an issue. I've
got him in Indie, I've gothim in Athens. They're all over the
place. So it's great stuff,and Steve is an awesome guest. In
getting some of those stories from him, it was a really good first episode

(01:32:46):
getting ready. It's hard to believemedia days is upon us next week,
the bear Cat's pick to finish fourteenthin the Big Twelve. And you know,
I know some people were pretty upsetabout it, Dan, but my
take on this is pretty simple.Go in, make them respect you.
It's what Cincinnati has done throughout thehistory of all these conference changes and all

(01:33:08):
the movement and the things that Cincinnatihas been a part of. The Only
way you stop getting voted fourteenth isto go out and win and change people's
force people's perceptions to change. Yeah, no question about it. And I've
kind of been scooping up a lotof the preseason college football magazines in recent
days and doing more and more readingabout the Big Twelve. And when you

(01:33:31):
look at the league, there's solittle separation from top to bottom that being
picked fourteenth really isn't much different frombeing picked fifth or sixth. I mean,
nobody knows the difference between the middleof the pack and what's perceived to
be the bottom of the pack.And when you look at Cincinnati's schedule,
I think it's very favorable. Theyonly face one of the teams picked to

(01:33:54):
finish in the top five, SoI think there's a real opportunity for UC
to take huge strides this year,hopefully have a winning record, hopefully go
to a bowl game, and kindof get the momentum rolling back in the
right direction. And honestly, that'swhat I expect to happen. It's not
just what I'm hoping to happen,it's what I expect to happen. Brendan
Soorsby is going to be a bigpart of that. Everybody believes if Cincinnati

(01:34:15):
is going to get back on thatwinning path. You have seen more of
him than most through spring practice.What has been your early impression of Brendan
Soorsby. I was really impressed earlyin the spring, to the point where
I was like, Wow, howis this guy even available to UC?
And then as spring practice went onand the defense adjusted to the new system,

(01:34:40):
he wasn't quite as impressive, althoughI thought he was still very impressive.
It's certainly a big upgrade from theproduction they got last year out of
Emery Jones. So, you know, as I said, I think it's
a big step forward. I thinkhe is almost certainly going to be the
starting quarterback of barring something happening inat training camp. So I think they're

(01:35:01):
going to get better of production outof that position, and with the running
game they have coming back and theoffensive line that they have coming back,
intact, they don't have to havea Heisman caliber quarterback. If they get
good play from that position, theoffense should be good. Yeah. And
defensively, a lot of it comesdown to making sure they got the right
players added to this roster out ofthe portal because the defense needed a lot

(01:35:26):
of help. They did not havea good year last year, as was
the case with most every position group. But I think the key for them
is going to be Tyson Vite andthis system that he brings in, this
three safety system that has been verygood at Iowa State. It's probably going
to take a little bit of tweakingbecause the Big twelve is a change in

(01:35:46):
It is not you know, fivewide air raid all the time now.
In fact, it might be thebest rushing conference in the nation given the
backs and the returning yardage and theproduction that you see returning. But what
does your overall take early on TysonVite and this new look three three five
defense. It's really interesting to mebecause the three three five came into being

(01:36:12):
because of the passing game, surein the Big Twelve and around college football,
but like any other defense, itevolved to the point where Iowa State
was one of the better teams inthe country. It's stopping the run,
not just stopping the pass. Sothe Big Twelve kind of has an even
mix of teams that are great atrunning and great at passing. Your defense
has to be able to stop both. Obviously, I feel a lot better

(01:36:36):
about it if Dante Corleone were availablein Week one. We don't know if
that's going to be the case ornot. I do think he will play
at some point this year, butnone of us can project exactly when there's
going to be until we know moreabout his blood cloud going forward. But
I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll get solidplay out of a Jalen Hunt in his

(01:37:00):
absence. Jalen had a great spring. They've added some defensive linemen since spring
ball in the portal, so we'llget to know those guys when they start
practicing at camphire Ground. So hopefullythey'll be able to kind of, you
know, hold the ford up frontuntil Dante's able to play. Bearcutt's basketball.
I happened to bump into you atworkouts earlier this week. What are

(01:37:24):
you what's your early summer impression ofthe roster that Wes Miller has assembled.
That he's got twelve really good players. And right now, in this era
of college basketball, I think alot of fans are obsessed with who you
add in the portal as opposed towho you have coming back. You know,

(01:37:44):
years ago, the focus was alwayson returning players. How many returning
starters do you have, how muchexperience do you have? Now nobody really
seems to pay much attention to that. And I thought at the end of
last year year that there were fiveplayers that I thought it was important to
try to retain Jizzle Day Day Seemos, Dan Skillings and Disease. And I

(01:38:11):
kind of said to myself and tosome others, you know, in this
day and age, if they couldhold on to four of those guys,
that would probably be a win inmy opinion. And they managed to hold
on to all five and then addedsome great players including a McDonald's All American
and Dylan Mitchell and Tyler Betsy andConnor Hickman who averaged fourteen and a half

(01:38:31):
points a game. You know,the list, so to me, that's
huge. And early last year,what was the biggest cause of some of
their problems. I thought it wasjust kind of figuring out what work there
was. Yeah, there were somany new players. Wes was still trying
to figure out matchups. They wereplaying the two big guys together for a
long time before deciding to kind ofget away from that. Well, now

(01:38:56):
you've got a solid core of fiveguys that played together the other all of
last year. You're adding in newguys, which is a lot easier than
trying to totally build lineups from scratch. So I think they'll hit the ground
running this year much better than theydid last year. And it certainly looks
like an NCAA tournament's team to me. The hard part is you could be

(01:39:17):
an NCAA tournament team in this league, you might not have the resume to
get in. Like it's a difficultleague. The schedule matrix was released.
What do you think looking at thematrix? Kansas and Arizona at home,
Houston and Iowa stayed on the road, You get Baylor home and away.
I thought it was really balanced interms of if you're a Cincinnati fan,

(01:39:41):
you've got an opportunity for a littlebit of everything in there, but got
to get to ten. Got toget to ten. Yeah, it's brutal.
I mean, if you just lookat the home games, don't even
think about the road games, youwould think that that was the list of
like the toughest games on a team'soverall schedule, and it would be tougher
than just about any other team inthe country. It's unbelievably difficult. But

(01:40:04):
that's the way the Big twelve isnow. There are benefits there. You
don't have to worry about having enoughquality games on your resume. You're going
to get them in league play alone. But you've got to take care of
business. But I think Wes ishe's obviously been building gradually to this point
and now I think he's got ateam that not only has a chance to
go to the tournament, but hasa chance to have a significant run.

(01:40:27):
Bengals, real quick, before welet you out of here, what is
the fix? What is the movefor lou Anaarumo? Because I think offensively
they've got a chance to be obviouslyreally really good with the talent in house.
Can they get this defense back tomiddle of the pack or a little
bit better to be right in thatrange where they were going to the super

(01:40:50):
Bowl in the AFC Championship game.Absolutely, you know, my feeling about
the defense I think is a littlebit different from some up I think people
have focused on the safeties and obviously, you know, it's going to be
important for Gino Stone to play welland for bond Bell to bring back,
you know, the elements that helpedthem have such success while he was here

(01:41:13):
previously. But my biggest concern isactually the cornerback position. Cam Taylor Britt
was excellent but injured, so it'syou know, it's not a huge sample
size. DJ Turner started off welland then kind of tapered off in his
rookie year. That's not all thatunusual, but he's going to have to
sustain it longer than he has.Ken Dax Hill be good at outside corner

(01:41:36):
I hope, but we don't know. They've got the draft pick this year
that you know, may have toplay a role at some point. So
that to me is the biggest questionmark on the defense, and that's a
strength of lose is being able tocoach those guys, so along with Charles
Burke, so we'll see if thatunit is as good as it needs to

(01:41:59):
be because you've got to be goodat corner in the NFL. And finally,
before I let you go, ifyou had to pick one of the
young guys on offense, the skillguys to have a breakout twenty twenty four,
Joshavaz Chase Brown down the list,Burton, who would be your guy
that you kind of put a starby and say, I think this guy
is primed to take a jump.Well, I'll say Burton because I think

(01:42:25):
the opportunity is going to be there. I saw he'd looked the great and
all the things that he was ableto do in the mini camps and the
OTAs. Now, he wasn't beingcovered most of the time in those drills,
but he's a first round talent.He's got one of the best quarterbacks
in the NFL throwing in the ball, and he's not going to be double
teamed with Jamar Chase Tee Higgins onthe field. So I think Jermain Burton

(01:42:48):
has an opportunity to have a bigrookie year. Do you think having t
J. Huschminzada as a mentor kindof hanging over him keeps him kind of
dialed in and focused a little bitmore. You know, I did a
podcast with the two of them,and TJ really, I think has done
some great work with Jermaine Burton becausehe's honest with him. That's one thing

(01:43:11):
about TJ. When he was aBengal, you know, he always was
honest to the point of being blunt. And he basically said to Jermaine,
listen, this is your reputation.Whether you believe it or not, the
rest of the world does. Soif you want to change people's opinion of
you, thinking that you're temperamental orimmature, whatever term you want to use,

(01:43:33):
then it's up to you to changethat perception. And Jermaine appreciated it.
I think he agrees with it,and we've seen no sign whatsoever in
the limited time that he's been abangle of him being a problem in any
possible way. You know, onevery little thing about Jermaine Burton that made
an impression on me is the factthat he would come out early, about

(01:43:57):
fifteen minutes early every time they practice. He would do some drills with Troy
Walters, the wide receivers coach,and then as soon as Burrow and the
other quarterbacks came out to just beginthrowing a ball around and getting warmed up.
Before the team would do its teamstretch, Burton would make a bee
line to Joe Burrow and make surethat he caught every one of his warm

(01:44:18):
up tosses. Now, is thata big deal? Probably not, but
it's smart. You know, you'rejust building that connection, you're building that
trust. And he initiated it.It wasn't Joe saying, hey, Jermaine,
come over here and you know,let's play catch. It was always
Jermaine making that effort, saying basically, I'm going to be the guy that

(01:44:40):
catches every pass he throws when he'swarming up at the beginning of the day,
and I thought that, you know, it was a really cool thing
to see. You can find himat dan Underscore Hoard on Twitter. I
don't call it that other letter forpersonal reasons. Where can they find the
podcast on UC feeds. It's theLet's Rain podcast, so it's a video

(01:45:03):
cast as well. You'll find thaton the Go Bearcats YouTube site, type
and go Bearcats at a YouTube searchbar and you'll get to Let's Rain podcast,
and then you know all the otherplaces where podcasts are found. If
you want the audio version, Dan, I appreciate it. It was great
seeing you this week. It's goodto see you back in town. Off

(01:45:24):
of the vacation grind and you takesome you take elaborate vacations. Your vacations
sound stressful, but it's good tobe back. Gressful sometimes expensive, but
not stress and active. Quitnd wasthe case this year, and it was
good. All right. I appreciateit, Dan. We will talk soon.
Thanks ma'am. You bet, Chad. Thanks. There you go,

(01:45:45):
the great Dan Horde joining us hereas we wind things down on the fifth
of July. Let's take a breakmore right after this. Since not EASYESPN
fifteen thirty, phone lines are openCincinnati, the Moegar Show will touch and

(01:46:06):
go action. We'll be back toclose things out. I just want to
clarify we're not on tomorrow. Idon't know why that promo said we are.
They don't know what day. Thepromos don't know what day it is.
Either tomorrow is Saturday. They areconfused. We don't have a show
tomorrow. I hope not. I'mnot coming in. I'm not gonna be

(01:46:27):
here. Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.See it's down the stretch. We come

(01:46:50):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Chad Brendle finishingoff from Owegar, who is enjoying nobody
telling you nobody plans vacations better thanOeggar. He I mean he already.
I think he has like, whatfive six weeks of vacation Austin, I

(01:47:10):
have no idea and he turns itinto like three months. He's a master.
You say he's a master of likethe interview or what'd you say?
He was the master of last weekhandling callers. Yes, I've never seen
anyone better at phone calls. Healso is the master at scheduling vacations.
Oh, I've never seen anyone betterat scheduling vacations. I would love to

(01:47:30):
see, like, you know,I don't know between him and Dan Horde,
the way that they schedule their lives, like from January one through December
thirty. First, man, he'sgotta be insane. Well, Dan,
some of those weeks like you haveyou see basketball on Friday, you see
football on Saturday and the Bengals onSunday. I know, none of the
games in the same city. It'scrazy. I would love to see like

(01:47:54):
I would love like a film crewto follow Dan around like during the during
the Winter Dance the Best Man.Yeah, sorry, I think I'm developing
there. It is the hiccups.I knew it was coming. I had
earlier today I had. I didthat exact same thing. I had to
turn the mic off and sneeze.So I was trying to fight it.

(01:48:15):
I could feel the hiccup coming.I was like, man, if I
can, can I how long?And it didn't. It didn't hold off.
Talk about being on an island whenI'm producing my own show. Yeah,
just you have to mute like youare in charge of you are the
master of your own destiny. Atthat point, were you around for Forrest
Fair Mall. I don't have tothink. I don't think you were.
I may have been around, butnot, I mean not here like you

(01:48:36):
weren't in Cincinnati. I probably Iused to do in another radio life.
I worked in promotions as I wasclimbing my way up the ladder to my
multimedia empire that that is now,uh you know prominent. Uh. We
would do it remote at Metropolis,which was a nightclub in the Forest Fair

(01:48:56):
Mall. And that ick part thatthey and that commercial yep, yep,
you'd have to go home and scrubyourself like two o'clock in the morning after
you got them from that place.It's not great. Speaking of which,
you see the White Party happened lastnight. I was gonna bring that up.
Yeah. So Paul Skeen's is singlenow right, No, no,
no, I don't believe. Ibelieve he's still very happily in a relationship

(01:49:19):
with with Livvy Dunn, who waswith Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase and Odell
Beckham. It was a fun littleLSU picture. It was the whole crew
together. It was Yeah, thosethree didn't add as much to that picture
as she did. I've heard thatthat party you can't like bring cell phones.

(01:49:39):
No, somebody takes pictures of you. Right, yeah, it's it's
the complete I wonder do they haveto sign NDAs I'm guessing they probably do.
I bet that thing is freaking nuts. I heard a couple of years
ago that he invited Portnoy that ownsbarstool to the park just Dave, and

(01:50:00):
Dave was like, well, Ineed plus three because I've got three people
with me. And they were likeno, like this is the White Party,
like you can come or you can'tcome, Like but but they cannot
come with you. Yeah, Ibet that's uh Michael Rubin, the guy
who runs that runs Fanatics and yeah, throws that Party's right. Every I

(01:50:28):
don't know, every photo I seeof him, it looks like he desperately
needs help, Like he looks likehe is under the influence of something something.
Every single photo I've ever seen ofMichael Rubin, he looks like justin
Timberlake's DWI photo. I'm not kidding, Like he looks like he needs help.
I worry about that guy. Imean, he's he's throwing the best

(01:50:49):
party in the world. Good forhim. Yeah, reds Tonight seven to
ten, First Pitch Spires versus Olsen, Saturday excuse me, four ten,
Hunter Green versus the always formidable TVDthat's a four ten, and then Sunday
one Graham Ashcraft against what is thisguy's name, Tarik Scooble. Scooble,

(01:51:14):
Yeah, that's him. Tarik Scooblewin two out of three, Austin win
two out of three. Just WinBaby, Just Win Baby, Happy Birthday,
Al Davis yesterday, Just win baby, Happy Birthday America. Yes Since
ninety ESPN fifteen thirty m h Thisreport is sponsored by Staples. Story.

(01:53:18):
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